Kohlrabies

And the winner is the one and only player...Denise! Hooray! I'll have to find out if she like these before I buy her some!

You pronounce this kohl (just like the store) rabi (sounds like the name Robby, not the foaming at the mouth animal disease) Kohlrabi is an above ground vegetable from the cabbage family and resembles a turnip. They grow well in a hot or cold climate.

The farmer I bought these from told me to cut off the leaves (they are useable too, however I didn't this time) and then peel it and slice it, and eat it raw. She said her family eats it like chips and dips it into ranch dressing or hummus. They can also be cooked. I followed her advice and ate them raw.

So here is my review of Kohlrabi:
It was a little radish like. However it was very mild in taste and the crunch was wonderful! Definitely something good to eat when you want crunchy! As I was eating this I was dipping it into a vinaigrette dressing and I decided it would be really good if you let it soak in a vinaigrette.


















A recipe I found online said to:
Peal and cut the Kohlrabi into 1/4 " pieces
Cook in salt in salt water until tender
Pour a white cream sauce over the Kohlrabi
Add Blue or Gorgonzola cheese on top




(too cheesy for me, but I may try this sometime for Matt and Sophia)


So here is breakfast today! I LOVE breakfast food!
Oatmeal with these mix-ins:
chia seeds
cinnamon
strawberries
almond butter
pecans

I also had hazelnut coffee with sucanat and a little creamer. I decided today that once this can of coffee is gone I am going to try really hard not to buy anymore, and try to drink green tea instead...we'll see!

Hope you all have a great Monday!

~A

Who wants to play along?

Hello blog friends! I am really excited that you all are checking out my blog and maybe even joining along on your own journey! I think there is a lot of power in surrounding yourself with like minded people and sharing ideas with each other. Maybe we could even start a little dinner group once a month @ different restaurants??? Thoughts???

Yesterday was a fun day of Farmer's Markets. We hit up two, cause that's how we roll! I started the day with a nice "Cherry Bomb" smoothie.

Here are all of my goods from the markets! The white container is my new talc-free lavender powder from Natural Independence, it is local and handmade. No chemicals and no artificial fragrance, just pure ingredients and essential oil! The other goods I got are parsley, kale, peaches, beets, & a mystery vegetable!

Who wants to guess what it is? The winner gets a free bundle of them on me!

Of course, I also had a green juice at the market then we walked down to the circle and I stopped and got an unsweetened green tea @ Starbucks. I really wished I had my stevia. Starbucks didn't have any, so when I got home I loaded a bunch of packets into my purse for future outings! (thanks for the idea Mom)

Dinner was a loaded salad with romaine lettuce, mini sweet peppers, onions, cucumbers, edamame, & raisins with Mary's Gone Crackers.

I also rebounded on my little trampoline for about 35 minutes. I am really lovin' this! At first I didn't know if I should wear shoes or not. I googled it and found that you can do it either with or without shoes. The first day I wore tennis shoes and my feet were a little sore the next day, so every time since then I have done it barefoot and I think I prefer it this way. I love the time of just having on my music and making a fool of myself, and let me tell you I sweat like crazy while jumping. Way more than when I go running believe it or not (may have something to do with my turtle pace when running)

Hope everyone is enjoying Father's Day!

Peace, love, mystery veggies, and of course DADS!

~A

Fasting Friday

Kris Carr is one of my favorites! I am so inspired by her, she a thirty something former actress who was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer nearly 8 years ago and there were no treatments the doctors could do for her, so she has treated herself with whole foods, and many other interesting practices. Kris is a big believer in the power of juicing. One day a week she gives her digestive system a break by juicing all day.

So yesterday, I decided to try it. This certainly isn't for everyone, and I wasn't sure I could do it but I have been researching and learning a lot about it so I wanted to try. Matt wasn't here today which made it a lot easier to not watch someone else eating. Sophia doesn't make a difference on this because I am not tempted by the food she eats.

I started the day with a "Green Monster" with

spinach

chia seeds

water

frozen banana

frozen cherries

Amazing grass

Then around noon I had a fresh juice with

celery

cucumber

apple

lemon

kale

spinach

~This is when I wanted to just forget it and go to my favorite Mexican Joint, but I stayed strong I had another Ultimate Greens Juice (the same one above)

Then I did another workout rebounding! By the way I LOVE doing this!

After working out, I fixed myself a "Cherry Bomb" and Matt a Green Monster!

I felt incredible after juicing all day, I felt so lite! I think I may try this one day a week from now on. I definitely won't do Friday's again, but am thinking maybe Tuesdays or Wednesdays would be good. It will be challenging once school starts again, but I love the way it made me feel so I am going to plan on doing it through the rest of the summer and then re-assess in the fall.

By the way, I highlighted Matt's name in red throughout this post because he I love him, he is fine, & he does a lot of nice things for me! Janet Jackson reference here, from the song "What have you done for me Lately"

Make Juice no War! (Kris Carr says this and I love it)

~A

Where is your local Farmer's Market?

My cousin asked me where I was finding out about where the Farmer's Markets are. You can find farmer's markets in your area by checking out your Local Food Guide or your state's agricultural department. Here are the links for Indiana:

http://www.in.gov/apps/ISDA_FarmersMarket/destination.aspx

http://www.in.gov/icw/files/food_guide.pdfh

Happy Hunting!

~A

You dropped a bomb on me...baby!

So I got an idea for a new "Green Monster" off of another blog and it is AWESOME, and for those of you who are a bit afraid of the "Green" good news! It's brown, as in chocolate brown! The name of this drink is "Cherry Bomb" and I am hooked! I changed it a bit from the blog I found it on. This all goes into the blender:



1 cup water
1 frozen banana
1 cup frozen cherries
1 scoop chocolate protein powder
1 scoop chia seeds (optional)
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 scoop of chocolate Amazing Grass
a splash of vanilla






And here you have it, Cherry Bomb!



















So inside the cup is what the UPS man brought me, My new glass Dharma Straws! I like them because they are glass not plastic so they won't leach plastic chemicals into my drinks, and because they are eco friendly. I LOVE drinking through straws, they make me do a better job of getting my water in!



Lunch was a big gianormous salad that I made!



Dinner was a veggie burger.



Then, we were off to spend time with good friends and sip wine!!!
~A

Sleepy Head & Sprouted Bread

I have been so lazy and sleepy the last couple days, hence the no posts!

My day started out with Ezekiel sprouted bread w/ almond butter, blueberry jam, & chia seeds.

I also had a cup of hazelnut coffee with creamer, and sucanat (sweetner)

~I use the sprouted bread because it is flour less, wheat free, and gluten free making it much higher in nutrients and easier for your body to digest.

Lunch was out at my new fave Sandellas. Today I got the black bean and rice bowl but wasn't real impressed. Should of stuck to the Greek Salad, it rocks!

Tonight we went to the Stadium Village Farmer's Market.

For you Hoosiers, it's on Meridian across from Shapiro's. Here are the goods we got:

Cucumbers from Stouts Melody Farms

A Grassy Knoll (mango, banana, wheatgrass, hemp protein powder) from Natural Born Juicers this ended up being my dinner.

Sophia got these marshmallows from 240 sweet.

And Matt got an amazing pretzel and I didn't catch the name of the vendor, because we were all stuffing our faces. I'll get it next time because they are amazing!

And this my friends is the booth I am running too first next week! We ran out of cash and couldn't get any tonight, but this is both vegan and non-vegan treats! Yumola!

That's it for today! Another stormy night! Tomorrow I will show you what the UPS man brought me today! I am so excited!

Peace, love, and Farmer's Markets!

~A

Let's Go Shopping

Good evening everyone! I hope everyone has had a nice "muggy" Saturday!

I spent the day volunteering for Farm Fresh Delivery @ PBS kid's Day at the Park, which brings me to the topic of SHOPPING for groceries. I try to include in my posts where you can find some of the items that may be new to your household. Here are the places I shop and what I like about each place.

Farm Fresh Delivery- a year round to your door delivery of local organic produce and natural groceries. I get this bi-weekly and absolutely love it! You can also get local organic meats, eggs, & several other items. I also LOVE the excitement of my 3 year old when our bin arrives! The fact that she is connecting excitement with fruits & veggies has got to be instilling a good healthy food relationship for her. That makes me happy!

Kroger- This is where I do most of my shopping. I love that they have all their organic items together in one place rather than searching the whole store. This makes shopping a lot faster!

Meijer- I love that Meijer has their own brand of USDA certified organic items! I also love their organic produce. The tricky thing is you have to look for the brown organic tag, all of the organic is mixed in with the regular items.

~My two FAVORITE stores are Whole Foods and Trader Joe's but they are 45 minutes from my house, so I don't get to go very often.

~I also want to tell you about a great online store that my friend Denise told me about called vitacost and that is where I get a lot of our soaps, shampoos, baby wipes, vitamins, etc. They have a ton of things on this website at a discounted rate. I love using the organic section because you can get a lot of items you might get at a drugstore like CVS, but without all the harsh chemicals.

My Eats Today- I was pretty rushed today so didn't get to take many pictures of food today.

Breakfast- A whole grain waffle with almond butter and a sliced banana and a green juice with kale, spinach, lemon, apple, cucumber, and celery

Snack- Lara bar and edamame

Lunch- was out went to Chili's. I got a house salad with avocado and chips-n-salsa

Dinner- a bowl of kashi cereal

Something to comment on- Where do you like to grocery shop?

Geek fact from my book assortment- The best way to grocery shop in a supermarket or health food store is to focus your attention on the periphery. That's where the fresh food is!

~Kris Carr, from the book Crazy, Sexy, Cancer

Happy Shopping,

~A