Farmer's Market Meal!

Hey Ya'll,
It's officially Spring and in Texas and that means more vendors at the Farmer's Market. Yay!! However, I live in Round Rock and am often too lazy to drive down into Austin for the larger markets so for me there still were not very many vendors up this past Saturday. Boo! But I did manage to procure some nice products even if there were only 7 tables up and 3 of them had some of the same products. But there is always a lovely new gems whenever I visit the market and this week it was the Central Texas Olive Ranch. Who knew we had olive orchards in Central Texas? I knew we had grape and wine vineyards, but olives? Why did I not know this? You should have seen my internal happy dance when I saw fresh pressed, beautifully fruity, slight peppery finishing olive oil in cute little bottoms for a reasonable price. I picked up 2 dozen of my favorite farm fresh eggs from Edamie Ranch. A pound of fresh pork pan sausage from 6J Ranch, which by the way was absolutely delicious. There is handmade soap and bags of baby mustard, spinach, and salad greens, unfortunately I can't remember the name of the farm that they came from, but I will update once I find it. Oh and some of the sweetest most tender fresh cracked pecans from Georgetown Pecan Company.

So last night I was tired from my nice long walk (yay JT 20/20 for getting me through an extra mile) and super hungry. But I didn't want to leave the house and have to struggle through a menu trying to pick a meal that didn't have mass produced factory farmed meat (my new commitment to myself) and I wanted to eat within minutes. With evening traffic it would take at least 20 minutes to get anywhere worth eating. So I started mentally combing through the contents of my fridge. I thought "You have some spinach in there that needs to be eaten before it starts to wilt. You just bought some beautiful tomatoes that a begging to be eaten with a sprinkle of salt. Those eggs in there haven't been cracked open yet. Go see what you can come up with." So I got off my bum and managed to turn out a lovely savory Binner as my daughter likes to call breakfast for dinner. Pan fried sausage from the ranch, sauteed garlic spinach with black beans over hot rice, salted tomatoes, and a fried egg to top it all off. I don't think my child has been so silent during a meal in weeks. I even stuffed the leftover spinach and black bean mix into corn tortillas and packed them for the kiddo's lunch today. This meal went over so well I didn't even get any bedtime complaints when it was bath time. 

Did any of you come across some good farmer's market finds lately? What are you looking forward to this season? Personally I can't wait until the berries and plentiful, looking forward to staring down at red stained fingers during my down dog. 

Namaste Ya'll

Re-Strategize

Hey Ya'll,
I went to see my allergist today and offered myself up to be poked and prodded in the name of medical diagnosis. Well, not quite. It was more in the name of knowing my enemy (i.e. allergic triggers) for my own self-serving purposes. I learned that I am reactive to pretty much all grasses... Hmm, that explains the sick feeling I had after I took those two shots of wheat grass at the beginning of the year. I thought my stomach was going to slosh right on up and out. *blech* I also have a little battle with Fall and Spring trees, that explains my current responses during this week's high Oak pollen count. Surprisingly enough I seem to have built up a tolerance to some of the most common allergens that are found in my area. I guess living in the general vicinity for most of my life has helped with those triggers.

I did get a chance to discuss my eczema concerns and my elimination diet to identify my triggers. I think I really chose the right doctor to see because he actually acknowledged the fact that food can have an affect of the body beyond the sensationalized urgent/severe reactions. He did say that because I have a general idea of what may be the culprit that I did not necessarily have to go through such a highly restrictive elimination diet, but that the foods I do choose to eliminate I should do for a bit longer than originally planned. So I will be adding back the foods that I am comfortable with and keeping gluten and dairy at bay for a total of 4 weeks. I am almost certain that my skin problems are coming from one (or both) of these foods. The mission has merely been adjusted rather than aborted. I will be eating gluten and dairy free meals for another 3 weeks (this week was my first) and then I will add one for a week and evaluate my reactions. Then I will eliminate it again for a week. After that week I will add the other food for a week and evaluate my reactions. By the time I finish with my evaluations I will be returning to the doctor to discuss my progress and findings. Which is really nice, because it makes me feel as though he actually cares about how I am doing. So far my skin is really beginning to clear up. For the last month, no matter what I used to wash or moisturize, I just could not get the patches to clear up. But after literally 5 days of my elimination diet I am finally seeing some relief. There is less itching and the dry patches are beginning to smooth over and slowly feel normal again. *Praises Lifted High*

All I can hope is that this keeps improving and I can identify which food has the more negative effect on my body. But here is what I have been eating lately:

Cold baked sweet potato that I seasoned with Garam Marsala and seared in the pan until hot through the middle.

Cinnamon, coconut milk rice pudding sweetened with dates, bananas, and raisins.

"Cabbage Roll Casserole" layered the bottom of the dish with a small broken up head of cabbage. Layered a brown rice ground turkey mixture over the cabbage. Then layered Brussels sprouts on top. All seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder and roasted at 400 F for 20 minutes until the cabbage was tender. 

The cabbage roll casserole and spiced sweet potato was dinner two nights ago.

Hmm, I think I really am going to have to embrace a gluten-free menu around here, mostly because I have the sneaking suspicion that gluten is my true nemesis here. *Le Sigh* Oh well, I am sure that nothing but good can come from me purposely limiting my gluten consumption. Especially since so much tends to be processed beyond nutritional recognition. Good thing I already released the processed foods for Lent. Do any of you have favorite gluten and dairy free meals?

Namaste Ya'll

Allergies? Maybe. We Shall See.

Hey Ya'll,
So last week I mentioned a potential allergy to the meal replacement shakes that I was taking last month. Well, I decided to attempt an elimination diet to try to identify any negative reactions to specific foods. This diet is rather intense, but it is only for a short period of time (2-4 weeks) so no long term deficiency are to be expected from this. Because this diet is so restrictive I am going to be either very creative with my meals or very repetitive. This list I found in an article explaining Elimination diets, and because I agreed with much of what was said I chose this technique. The far right column is the exclude list and the middle column is the include list (my title line shifted for some reason)

Foods to include	Foods to exclude
Fruits	Almost all fresh fruit	Citrus fruits (orange, grapefruit, lemon, lime, etc)
Vegetables	Almost all fresh raw, steamed, sautéed, or roasted vegetables	Tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes (sweet potato and yams are okay)
Starch	Rice*, buckwheat*	Wheat, corn, barley, spelt, kamut, rye, oats, all gluten-containing products
Legumes		Soybeans, tofu, tempeh, soy milk, all beans, peas, lentils
Nuts and seeds		All seeds and nuts
Meat and fish	Fish, turkey, lamb, wild game	Beef, chicken, pork, cold cuts, bacon, hotdogs, canned meat, sausage, shellfish, meat substitutes made from soy
Dairy products and milk substitutes	Unsweetened rice milk*, almond milk, coconut milk	Milk, cheese, cottage cheese, cream, yogurt, butter, ice cream, non-dairy creamers, eggs
Fats	Cold-expeller pressed olive oil, flaxseed oil, coconut oil	Margarine, butter, processed and hydrogenated oils, mayonnaise, spreads
Beverages	Drink plenty of fresh water, herbal teas (e.g. rooibos, peppermint, etc.)	Alcohol, caffeine (coffee, black tea, green tea, soda)
Spices and condiments	Sea salt, fresh pepper, fresh herbs and spices (i.e. garlic, cumin, dill, ginger, oregano, parsley, rosemary, thyme, turmeric)	Chocolate, ketchup, mustard, relish, chutney, soy sauce, barbecue sauce, vinegar
Sweeteners	Stevia (if needed)	White or brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, desserts

Since I not only have to feed myself, but my family as well, I am going to have to be creative more often than not. So I say, challenge accepted. I forgot to take a pic of my lunch yesterday or my breakfast shakes but I do have what was for dinner yesterday and today. (My lunch today was leftovers from dinner last night)

Roasted turkey breast with wild rice cooked in mushroom broth and roasted broccoli with carrots
Dinner last night and leftovers for lunch

Rice noodles with tuna and roasted veggies (mushrooms, peppers, carrots, celery, asparagus, scallions,  garlic) in a mushroom broth with fish sauce & red pepper flakes. Dinner tonight (leftovers for lunch tomorrow)

Today is only day 2 of the elimination but the primary difference I have noticed is my digestion. Of course eating more veggies and less meat, dairy, and gluten allows things to move more freely. That's always a plus. I'm hoping to see some significant changes in my skin soon. That way when I'm testing my excluded foods one at a time if I have an eczema flair up I will be able to identify the food that aggravate my condition. We shall soon see. Well I'm off to complete my yoga for the night, have to keep the 108 day challenge going strong!

Namaste Ya'll, Peace to You

Feeling Better...Finally

Hey Ya'll,
So I am finally feeling more like myself these days. For almost the entire month of February I was in this terrible sore throat, achy ear, hoarse voice, blah-feeling haze. I'm thinking more and more that Western medicine is best for surgical needs or extremely innovative devices/therapies and that all of those everyday ailments and physical adjustments should be treated more holistically. (not that I didn't think this before) The doctors had no suggestions once it was determined that I did not have strep throat. "Just stay hydrated" that's easy to say when you are not the one in near tears trying to swallow your own saliva. I was never even asked if my diet had recently changed or if we got any new pets in the home. "Just, have you been in contact with anyone who has been ill? Do you usually suffer from allergies in this manner?" When the answer to both questions is "No" it was as if they were at a loss. I had to ask for an allergy referral on my own because that never even crossed either of the two different doctor's minds.
Fortunately for my exposure to the information I am receiving at IIN I have been thinking more outside the box. Which says a lot because I have never really been one for conventional thoughts anyway. But a few weeks ago food allergies and sensitivities was the focus of the work module and a lot of things made sense and really stuck with me. Well, towards the middle of January I decided to purchase another order of the Achieve shake blends from Zrii and come to find out they have changed the Achieve formula. It now contains Milk and Soy, which it previously did not. After doing "really well" and taking the shakes consistently twice a day for a couple of weeks my symptoms began. But I didn't really put two and two together until earlier this week and trying to figure out why I have been feeling so horrible for so long. Because I am rarely ever sick and when I am I recover fairly quickly, but I just could not shake whatever this was. I think I may have had a delayed allergic reaction to the new formula. I have made an appointment with an allergy specialist but I am really going for diagnostic reasons more so than treatment. I plan to have a better idea of my environmental triggers and maybe have some light shed on my food related triggers. I'm only hoping that there aren't too many because I would be SO sad to have to cut out an enormous chunk of my grocery list or something. But even after my appointment I am planning to conduct an elimination experiment on myself by omitting foods that are most commonly known to trigger allergic reactions and then one by one introduce each food to record my body's reaction to it. Hmm....I think that might make for a good blog series here. Stay tuned for that.

On another note, I joined a 108 Day Yoga challenge with a yoga forum on www.myfitnesspal.com. It began March 1st and we all have our own goals, but the constant is that for 108 consecutive days we practice at least one of the limbs of yoga. Meditation, asana, whatever your goal is to work on during that time. My commitment was to practice yoga each day for at least 20 minutes, to focus on eating more whole foods (yay for Lent), to allow myself to hear The Creator's voice and guide me back to the path he has carved out for me. At the end of this 108 day challenge I hope to have a calmer heart, a clearer head about my life, and a die hard yoga habit. I am excited and proud of this journey and so far I have managed to touch my mat each day. Be it morning or night I take the time to love myself and hear My Creator.
So here's to feeling better, finding allergy triggers, and developing habits that open up my life and body.
Namaste Ya'll    

Those Things You Don't Think About...

Hey Ya'll,
So last week I chose what my fast for Lent was going to be and I put it out into the Universe. Well, the day I wrote my blog I was feeling slightly under the weather later that night I was full on sick. It's amazing all the products you want to use when you don't feel well just to cut down your prep time and make things as simple as possible for yourself. In my case I am the only cook in the home and send my daughter to school with a homemade lunch everyday. Well being sick and still having to go to work I could barely think straight let alone concoct complete meals for everyone in the house. I survived until the weekend and then everything crumbed around me. My daughter and husband were eating take out pretty much all week and I was eating soup from wherever I could get it until about Wednesday this week when I finally had the energy to go to the grocery store long enough to pick up some fruit and ingredients for some chicken soup. I made sure to turn on the crockpot and make the biggest batch of soup I could fit in there; that way even after eating all the solids I can use the remaining stock for other recipes. After my fever broke I stuck to my no processed foods much better. When you can barely see straight you're not exactly thinking "I really shouldn't eat this canned soup right now" you're more likely thinking "Please God let the soup go down with little pain and stay down long enough for me to begin to feel at least a little better."
Fortunately, the Creator I serve is forgiving and understanding so I know today is like a new day in this fast for me. Now all I need is some help cleaning up the mess that has accumulated at home and next week will be 10 times better than the past 9 days. Actually March is right around the corner, I think I will just gather the family to do some basic cleaning and then during spring break we might hire someone to do all the deep cleaning this year. We all have far too many things going on in our lives at the moment and I would much rather go do something fun with my family that torture everyone into deep cleaning the freezer or cleaning the base boards. What I am learning lately is, it's okay to not do/be everything for/to everyone. Sometimes in order to fit some of the fun things in between all of the important stuff we have to be willing to let go of and delegate (or outsource) some of the "should do" stuff.

What responsibility would you be willing to pass on to someone else so that you could enjoy life just a little more?
Namaste Ya'll

40 Days and 40 Nights

Prayer. Meditation. Fasting. Repentance. Forgiveness. Focus. Intention
For me this is what the Christian observance of Lent is all about. I know that a lot of people (even many Christians) do not observe this time and that it is often times seen as a strictly Catholic holiday, but I was raised a Baptist in the South and for as long as I can remember I have observed Lent. Even now when I have no affiliation to any church in particular (mostly because I am no happy with what is available around me) I still choose to observe. I feel that fasting during this time is like a full essence cleanse. So many people are quick to cleanse their livers, kidneys, and colons but they forget that their minds and overall spirits need to be focused on and realigned from time to time as well. And I mean this for everyone, regardless of your faith (or lack there of) we all need a point where we can just let go of the things that bind us to our Earthy selves and turn our attention inward.

With that said I would like to share my Lent experience here for 2013. This year I decided to relinquish processed foods. Of course on the surface this seems simple, right? No packaged cookies or sodas and that's that, right? Well, we've grown to lean so much on foods that are not really food anymore that we fail to fully adhere to the concept of what a processed food is. Think about it: dried pasta, canned foods, cereal, ice cream, marinades, frozen meals, boxed anything, all of this we use for convenience sake without thought to what is in it or what it takes to really make it. Now, I will be doing this with in reason; I mean I work full time, tote a kid across town for gymnastics, have philanthropy obligations, and a budget to stick to. I plan to allow pre-made dairy/dairy-like items such as plain yogurt and Almond milk. There will be lots of rice and grains of varying kinds. Foods that have been dried for me like seaweed and beans are also permitted. Milled flour and rolled oats are fine, but to deter myself from overly processed gluten products I will not be consuming dried pasta or shelf stable bread. If I want pasta it will need to be made fresh from scratch in my kitchen, the same goes for breads. This will of course bleed into my eating out patterns, which I believe will not be too difficult since I live in the wonderfully progressive culinary town of Austin.
I actually tested it out this past weekend when my husband surprised me with reservations to the Italian restaurant North.

Fresh Pesto Strozzapreti with Scallops

I was super excited because they make all of their pasta dishes from scratch. So the whole dish was simple, fresh, and amazingly delicious. I added scallops to it just because they were calling my name softly, sweetly, tenderly. And I am so glad that I did because they were sweet, salty, tender, seared perfection on a plate. They tasted as if they had been flown in that morning; which is terrible for their carbon footprint, but was wonderful on my palate. When it comes to food, I rarely find myself disappointed that I live where I do and lovely finds like this is one of the reasons. Though more often than not these finds tend to be located in much more unexpected places. 

Well today, being Ash Wednesday marks the official start of my fast and so far things have been simple. Fortunately for me I like to cook, but what will this look like 20 days in when I need to go grocery shopping, we don't get paid for another 5 days and I'm exhausted after a full day's work, working out, and wrangling kid puppy and hubby? What I do intend to do is share the new creations that I take part in so that I may satisfy my cravings that are so often made with convenience packaged foods. Maybe a few prayers and revelations will be shared here as well. We shall see what will remain sacred and what shown to me as needing to be shared with you here. 

Peace and Namaste Ya'll

What am I doing?

Hey Ya'll,
So I took a little time during the holiday season to make an attempt at figuring out what it is that I want to do with this Health Coach certification that I will have once I graduate IIN this year. And what I came up with is....I don't know. I'm serious, I think there are just SO many options to choose from and so many directions to take my career in that I am at a loss right now. What I decided to do is continue to just focus on using this education for my own improvement. And believe me there are so many Primary foods in my life that are unbalanced that I should be paying myself to go through a full 6-month program. But instead I'm paying IIN to guide me through my very own year long program. And right now I'm fine with that. I'm fine with saying that this program really is for me. It is for me to relearn how to agree to take care of me.

I did sort of hope to be able to do something along the lines of really guiding people through how food can be their medicine. Amazingly enough there is a new television show on the Cooking Channel that is touching on this very concept. This show originated in the UK (as most of the good health aware shows do, if not then they are from Canada) and just began to air in the USA this month. It's called The Food Hospital and features a Registered Dietitian, and General Physician, and a Consulting Surgeon who meet people with life altering ailments and help them work through the worst of it through changes in their diet and lifestyle. I have only seen one episode so far, but the episode I saw seemed to focus more on the generalizations of how foods can change very specific ailments, but not always a clear mapping out of how to compile these foods to make life normal for the patient. I am hoping that the show evolves more to show the US audience exactly what is meant by a "strict additive free diet", for example. Unfortunately this country has become so far removed from whole foods that many people no longer understand what might constitute an additive. I can absolutely see myself as part of a team like this....but for what demographic? I need a target market to focus on so that I can be as well versed in their needs as possible and give them the best assistance that I am capable of giving.

I really and truly believe that I have been placed on this earth to help heal God's children. But I think right now God is trying to get me to heal myself first and then he will reveal to me which of his children he has for me to help and heal. So one day at a time for me, fasting and praying periodically. I think this year's Lent will be eternally transforming and I welcome the changes with open arms. Now if I could just shake these allergy fevers and scratchy throat I can get back to my regularly scheduled workouts. Jillian Michael's is waiting for me Yay and Boo at the same time :-)
Namaste Ya'll