Pearly Vine

We just had a wonderful family vacation.  And I could have made healthier choices but opted for indulgence.  In the moment indulgence is divine - but the aftermath not as fun.  I feel overstuffed, overcrowded, and out of sorts.  But when one is in New Orleans there are many yummy temptations and I tended to fall for everyone.  However we are back home and back on the healthfull track!!! Routines, familiar ground, and cozy comforts are within easy reach!  Our first matter of business was to have healthy produce at the ready which also meant produce of the week!  We spent the afternoon shopping after my son and I had a sleep in morning do to our vacation colds - BOO!  One of our quick purchases of today was pearl tomatoes on the vine from Trader Joe's. (love this place!!!)  For supper my husband baked a beautiful salmon, with roasted brussel sprouts (my fave - honest to goodness one of the best finds of our new produce of the week - definitely a staple around here!!!) and dirty rice.  I am not the biggest fan of dirty rice.  I enjoy it but feel it really doesn't satisfy me as an entree and rarely can think of a good meal where it can play side dish.  Tonight's dinner worked.  And to sweeten up dirty rice which texturally can be a little heavy and "dark" tasting.  I chose to just dice up the tomatoes real quick and threw one into my rice and delicious.  It added a sweetness and a bright note to the heavy side dish.  This is a great find for me.  Because I have an odd palate when it comes to tomatoes.  I like tomato based sauces but not a fan of just the tomato (unless of course it is Bob the Tomato from Veggie Tales in that instance - HUGE FAN!!!) .  I find a lot of tomatoes to be sour, sometimes bitter.  I like them as thin slices on a burger or the sweet little bombs in a salad.  But salsa, spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, and of course ketchup - delicious!  There are just few tomatoes though that taste yummy out of the gate for me.  These pearl tomatoes on the vine were a great note to the supper.  They added a touch of sweetness, a dash of sour, and just lifted the heavy side dish. 

Also it is nice to add a fruit/vegetable to the mix without too much fuss.  That's when it becomes difficult to broaden our tastes.  If the healthy alternative costs too much, requires too much effort, or just tastes nasty we let the excuses and the negativity turn us off and choose the familiar junk food because its cheap, easy, and we have convinced ourself tasty (which if you turn off the tv, close your eyes and really focus on the choices we eat - you will be shocked how little you like most of those comfort choices.  I have been - (but still am guily of reaching for these items out of simple familiarity)!
However I try to focus on the positive.  I may stall out.  I sometimes even take three steps backward.  But I remind myself every moment I can do better.  If I lose my footing and trail three steps - I need to try to push myself forward at least four steps and take no less than three.  Little by little as the Little Engine that could proved I think I can I think I can eventually will turn into I did it -  I did it!!!

So lets crush these tomatoes and improve our health together.  Don't let the vines tangle you but carry you closer to your goals.  May your HealthFULL journey be full of pearls of wisdom, precious gems, and the occasional irritant that turns beautiful with a little extra effort. 'Til we meet again. . .

A Fruit and a Root

I haven't posted our new produce but we have still been sampling a nutritious variety of yummy treats.  I tried a real exotic fruit last week - an apple.  Stop the crazy train, right?  :)  Yes I have had an apple a time or two in my life but not this variety called Lady Alice apples.  It sounded intriguing - it does have a royal title which must mean its impressive, right?  I thought so.   I really like Golden Delicious apples with its bright yellow skin and not as crisp flesh and a nice mild flavor - a tad sweet, very little tart, and comforting, especially with some peanut butter.  I mentioned all this because the Lady Alice apple shares a few similarities. For instance, if you see a Lady Alice apple it looks like a Golden but with a warm pink blush.  And the size just fits the palm of my hand.  The peel feels firm but not like armor (nor a candle - but sadly I have tried an apple or two that couldn't boast the same :( .  I enjoyed this variety and kept the snack real simple.  I cut it up and ate it with almond butter.  For years I have listened to some family members and friends really talk up the Honeycrisp variety.  This is a good stand - in.  I find some Honeycrisp apples to be quite large - I want a snack not a whole pie from one fruit.  Also some of the apples are REALLY sweet and when I find something REALLY sweet - thats almost scary!  So sweet you pucker your lips kind of sweet.  I also have found near the end of their season that Honeycrisp tends to be near flavorless, almost blah.  What's great about a Lady Alice apple is they take awhile to brown - you can enjoy your whole snack and it still be the white crispy slice you cut thirty minutes prior.  Also this is the perfect season for the Lady Alice to make her royal appearance; where most apples are in season during fall Lad Alice is perfectly right and ripe for Spring.  Easy go to snack at hopefully your grocer's.  I also leaned towards almond butter as peanut butter would compete against the apple's own sweetness.  Yummy!

Now unto the root.  Roots in the produce aisle look scary with their gnarliness and dirty exterior but when peeled and prepared they are so tender and delicious.  So this week we tackled the *pound piano* celery root!  These roots can be quite large and in charge.  But a great addition to a roast.  At least that's how we prepared it and loved it!  I am not a huge celery fan.  But its not really the flavor I mind - its the strings and texture.  Raw celery not a fan! But roasted or sauteed celery - quite enjoyable.  One string or snap and I'm done with it.   So celery root quite a nice find.  We had planned a roast for Monday in the crockpot.  Filling meal without too much hassle.  Monday around here we both had to get up early and work all day.  Who wants to mess with dishes after a long day?  So we were going to prep the veggies Sunday night and in the morning would just toss in the roast and turn the knob.  Simple, right?  Sort of.  We both hit that evening lull where you are just ready for bed.  And cutting vegetables sounded like such a chore.  But in all honesty ten minutes from gathering - rough chop and quick clean-up.  We quartered a couple of potatoes, chunked a big onion, and tackled the celery root.  It looks hard to deal with it.  But really a quick rinse and the peel is not tough at all.  Because the surface area tends to be good size you don't have to worry about nooks and crannies like a sunchoke or the tough exterior of the turban squash (I still get tense about that ordeal!!!) . Quick peel and you can immediately smell the celery aroma.  Its flesh has tinges a spring green that peek through the peel but a creamy white inside (closely resembling a potato).  I did read at www.eattheseasons.com mentioned you could eat it raw - but suggested slicing thin matchsticks and possibly blanching it quickly for a creamier texture. My hubby cut the root into cubes and we were ready for the roast.  I really liked the flavor it lended to the other vegetables and the meat.  It had such a comforting flavor - almost cinnamon like - tish sweet but more a warming spice - think warm apple cider on a chilly day.  It has been two days since we made our tasty roast but I just had yummy leftovers and the flavors only deepened.  And for any other diabetics or those seeking low carb - root vegetable but not loaded with starch (at least according to wikipedia and http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/carbcounts/a/celeriac.htm .  Great way to stretch mashed potatoes or make a creamy soup. 

Thinking spring around here but feel like I was eating autumnish :)  Its beautiful weather and we are four days away from our  Strides for Autism walk Saturday, April 14, 2012. We still would love donations to meat our $500.00 goal.  We are past the half-way point - your donation could help us meet or even surpass the goal!!! Please visit https://scautism.org/strides/team/3/ .

May your HealthFULL Journey keep you grounded to your roots but motivate you to always reach for the highest fruit :)  'Til we meet again. . .

Are you who you think you are?

Are you who you think you are?  Cliches and general statements claim no one knows you better than you know yourself.  But that isn't true for everyone.  And sometimes I wonder if that sentiment is true for anyone.  We aren't aware of other's perceptions and rarely are we as transparent as we think.  We get in silly arguments that blow into full wage wars because we believe those closest to us should know what we meant or what we thought when really none of our actions have fully disclosed our needs or our wants.  Or worse our words and our actions told different stories. 

Do you ask for something but mean something completely different?  Perhaps you ask children to do more around the house.  They do more around the house but you are frustrated because you had specific chores in mind they didn't touch.  Maybe you ask your significant other for more loving touches but you tend to shrug off their advances.  You ask work for more responsibility - you meant promotion they give you grunt work.  We tend to ask in generalities but desire specifics.  Either we don't know what we want or we don't know how to ask for what we want.  Either way we could improve our position by knowing who we are.

We tend to not know our own strengths or weaknesses; at least all of them.  We tend to quit because we are scared of the end - we fear pain, hurt, success, failure, sometimes we just fear "the end".  So we quit, we drop out, we grasp for excuses to share and crave rationalizations that comfort us why we couldn't possibly go all the way.  Oh I could do never do a marathon.  Whew I get worn out walking in my living room.  What? I couldn't speak in front of hundreds of people - I get tongue tied in front of a small group of five people I know.  I couldn't draw to save my life.  I could never be a parent - too much responsibility.  Its fine if you choose not to do something because it is not a desire of yours.  But don't be scared to challenge the warrior, the mother, the athlete, the poet, the champion in your heart.  They are dying to strut their stuff.  Because when push comes to shove you could complete that marathon; perhaps it is in honor of a charity who is sponsoring your best friend. You could speak in front of a thousand people because you are sharing the gospel of Jesus.  Maybe you become an artist because you sketched your baby's first nap.  Its amazing what we can do because the stakes change and become personal.  Possibly we know that greatness is as close as our fingertips and that we are only a step away from knowing ourselves and that is why we tend to push people away.  Its becoming quite a habit in today's world.

Do you like compliments?  You might say you do, but it seems the truer the compliment the quicker we are to deflect it.  Someone compliments you for your speech; we may reply its an important topic.  Someone compliments your cooking perhaps you share the accolades with a spouse - something along the lines of "my husband is the true chef I am just the assistant.  Someone compliments your intelligence or beauty and we pass on the praises to our sibling - oh you haven't met my brother/sister they are the smart/beautiful one.  Here our compliments to our face and we still don't accept our strengths or talents at face value.  And our weaknesses are just as hard to swallow.  Raise your hand if you have ever been completely honest at a job interview or on a dating profile.  Name your greatest weakness.  We all go for the positive spin.  Curvy women you know you mark the voluptuous curves before the bloated jellyfish box.  Or for work purposes - I tend to be obsessed with details.  Forget to mention that you run tardy by ten minutes every day or that you like to gossip with co-workers.  But then maybe you don't realize you have flaws because you didn't really know you have strengths. 

I write all this because without knowing yourself : How do you live YOUR life?  This HealthFULL Journey is really helping me to pinpoint specific wants, needs, and patterns I possess.  And with the help of my handy dandy 12 resolutions for the 12 months of 2012 I am holding a magnifying glass on all aspects of my life.  One of the most recent items that spurned this blog.  A big grocery shopping trip my husband and I recently shared.  The revelation after $450.00 worth of groceries (it was bargain shopping as everything was 50% off so we spent just over $200.00 and our pantries are filled and some of these items went in donation).  But after this huge shopping excursion we realized I shop for a non-existent member of our household.  This person obviously loves cereal, yogurt, soup, beans, pasta, spices, and nuts.  If I go shopping by myself I tend to stray from our list badly.  I will ultimately pick up these six items and I honestly can't remember ever in our marriage of us being out of these items.  I put these items in our cart as if I am on auto-pilot. 

Let's investigate the list shall we:  Cereal - I love cereal.  The sugary kind, the hot kind, the healthy adult kind.  I enjoy cereal.  Now ask me how often I eat cereal.  Hmmmm....since October I have not had a single bowl.  Yup that would be the truth.  I sometimes use it as a crunch factor in yogurt or with fruit - we are talking 2 tbsps max at a time and occasionally a 1/2 cup here or there for cooking purposes.  My husband never eats it and my son eats one specific kind.  But right now we have the total of 3 unopened containers, one opened box (our son's) and two boxes with three different kinds mixed together separately in their own bags.  So if you're counting that equals ten different cereals. 

Yogurt - oh I love yogurt.  I grew up eating yogurt.  But since the attacks have increased I have suspicions they may be linked to dairy (which literally is a nightmare for me - both an attack and the loss of dairy).  Also I tend to buy many yogurts fully knowing it has a limited life span before the expiration date and I don't try dairy after the expiration date.  One bad episode with an expired date and you get a little cautious. But I like variety so I'll pick up ten yogurts thinking I have just under a month.  I won't eat them all.  I hope I will eat a couple of them before they find their way to the trash.  When I want something sweet they usually aren't enough to satisfy the craving or they're too heavy/much sounding when I just need a bite.

Soup - I so rarely eat soup from a can.  I'll use broth for a meal every now and then.  But I like to have them on hand just in case I get in a cooking frenzy and am in need of four broths.  We tend to open a package of broth or stock and then maybe use half and once again find its way to the garbage.  We are trying to be more conscious and use items within several meals to cut down waste.  But I still way overbuy soups in anticipation to feed our family a full meal for less than $3.00.  Good dream but not really our reality all too often.

Beans in my mind equal a healthy diet plus the general public states beans are cheap to buy.  So in my cart they go to make my family healthier while maintaining a line of budget.  This however means they need to actually be utilized into our meals.  And the thought of soaking beans is exhausting.  I think like many people I get the impression I have to physically stand over the soaking beans for eight hours or delay our meal for eight hours.  But in reality we just need to throw them in a pot of water (no cooking required at this stage) when we go to sleep and throw them in the crock pot in the morning.  Or throw them in a bowl of water before we head to work.  Ready to cook as soon as we get home.  But the step of soaking them exhausts my mind and there the beautiful different color beans sit in my pantry in their lovely bags.  I also overbuy canned beans because sometimes the draining them and rinsing them exhausts my mentality as well.  Because then I'll convince myself that canned beans aren't as healthy as dried beans and if I don't have the time to soak my beans I don't deserve to sample the tasty beans.  Yes people I seriously think in these circles sometimes :)

Pasta is my cruel way of teasing myself.  It is one of my five favorite dishes of all time - between comfort, ease, variety, and flavor.  I adore pasta; the different shapes, the different grains; the satisfaction of covering the noodles with tons of different toppings.  But alas with diabetes pasta is rarely my friend and I tend to scoff at their serving size.  But yet I buy it because I always am in doubt if we have enough in our pantry when I really know I shouldn't be eating that much of it so even having one package is plenty. 

Spices - I am starting to flex my culinary skills and I don't like when my pantry is missing a recommended ingredient.  I get frustrated when I can't try out a new recipe as I am out of or never possessed a certain spice; fully believing the whole recipe hinges on that one particular spice.  And those we tend to like but rarely use I like to buy back-ups just in case we are low (as you see two tumeric, two thyme, two pepper blends, two cayennes, and three sets of food coloring).  I must fancy myself quite the chef and baker which according to my pantry I am not.

And finally the nuts.  I actually eat quite a bit of nuts.  Lower in carbs, high in fat - mostly good fate, and an excellent source of protein.  These quell my snacking tendencies and cravings.  I can purchase sweet varieties and salty and even spicy.  Therefore, I panic at the thought of running out.  So when we see them in the store the cans literally jump into my cart as I peruse the aisle - just in case.

I admit all this because I finally have my eyes open to some self-awareness.  I challenge you to take a true look in the mirror, checkbook, pantry, closet, and/or calendar.  Are you who you think you are?

"Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes', and your 'No,' 'No'; . . . " Matthew 5:37

May your HealthFULL Journey be a true reflection of the person you were, the person who you want to be, and most imporantly the person you are. 'Til we meet again. . .  

Couscous is all the rage!

Most weeks I have shared about either a new fruit or vegetable. However this week I am sharing about a new grain we tried and prepared. Couscous! Now in my quick research through wikipedia.org and one of our cookbooks entitled Vegetarian; couscous is a lengthy process to prepare. Or I should say once was time-consuming to prepare as there was a lengthy steaming requirement before the grain could be consumed. However, the couscous most of us will find in our supermarkets requires very little preparation time. Couscous appears to have a grainy texture, but is actually a pasta. I think of it as a pasta crumb. The size of couscous is very small. You can prepare couscous as part of your main entree or as a dessert as several culture prefer. Some choose to use it as the main ingredient or because of its blandness couscous can help "calm" a spicy dish. We ate a yummy veggie chili on this gorgeous autumn evening and included couscous as recommended by the recipe. A little couscous goes a long way. The small bites included a lot of chewy texture. It was a fun challenge to try to eat just one bit of couscous at a time. It reminded me of either crumbs made of pasta which I mentioned or similiar to a nibble of old-fashioned dumplings. The chewiness that quickly picks up the flavor of the entire dish. It will be fun to see what other dishes we can add this little punch of texture into the future. As you explore your HealthFULL Journey may you find little surprises that enhance the whole experience. I continue to try to Fully Understand Life by Living, I encourage for you to do the same. 'Til we meet again. . .

Do you have a Leek?

Well if not you should find yourself one or two or three!!! They are super yummy! If you guessed that Leeks are the new veggie (or fruit) of the week, you would be correct. We went grocery shopping today and kept a look-out while perusing the produce. What veggie would be the rookie of the week? When we spotted the leeks they looked perfect. Now perfect might make it sound all dramatic, but I am kind of picky when it comes to produce. I promise you that you don't want to get me started on ripe/overripe bananas. I have heard a lot about leeks (and I think vaguely I might have sampled one at some point to say I have tried them, but it did not leave a true impression.) So we bought the leeks for less than three dollars and you get three healthy size stalks. If you have never met with a leek face-to-face they resemble the love child of a green onion and a celery stalk. Leeks are hardy looking. The height of celery, with the width of a big carrot, and the "look" of a green/spring onion. When you cut into the stalk of green you create the prettiest rings. There is a multitude of various green shades. My husband chopped these gorgeous stalks down to create a scrumptious leek - mushroom casserole (layered with a little butter , milk, and bread crumbs). The leeks tastes like a subtle onion. Sometimes an onion can overpower the meal's taste, but the leek's flavor melts into the dish and finishes strong. Most of the dishes I have heard about incorporating leeks are either soups or a potato dish. There is something so comforting about the leek, when you combing the mild flavor, the delicate coloring, and the strong shape. If you are having a bad day or feel a bug coming upon your household look for your friendly leek to save the day! This new " tasty discovery" on my HealthFULL journey will hopefully become an old friend as we replace the bad habits with some good ones. May your travels carry you to a destination full of Hope, Happiness, and Good Health.