Dinner Party for 3!

Hey everyone! I'm happy to say my dinner party was a success! It was so nice to see my friend and her fiance and it was really fun to cook for everyone! I decided to do a decadent yet still a little healthy lasagna for dinner and a light, raw dessert that still tasted sweet and delicious!

I used gluten free brown rice lasagna noodles, tofutti better than ricotta, Daiya mozzarella, some marinara, spinach, broccoli and zucchini.

I actually thought it looked really pretty before I baked it so I took a few photos of it ;) I hate using foil pans but my bro and sister in law don't have much in terms of cookware and I already had to transport so much so I just grabbed one down the block from the house.

Check out all of the green in there! It always looks more vibrant before it's cooked, ha!

I served the lasagna with this beautiful salad. It had greens, strawberries, pecans and cucumber. We topped it with some balsamic vinaigrette. Yum!

My plate. The lasagna fell apart in the oven. It was fine though it still tasted good and everyone seemed to like it. I was impressed by the ricotta, it tasted pretty good! The veggies were really good, still a bit crisp which was nice. I'd say it was pretty successful! The salad was nice and fresh and was a good way to balance out the richness of the lasagna :)

For dessert I made a (Mostly) Raw Cherry Berry Crisp! I just took raw cherries and strawberries and topped it with a mostly raw crisp I made. I used oat flour making it mostly raw since I'm sure they steam the oats before grinding them but I wanted to keep the oat flavor you find in most crumbles. Otherwise, it is completely raw! It went over well!

Raw Cherry Berry Crisp

Ingredients:

2 cups pitted sweet cherries

1 cup strawberries, sliced

For Crisp:

1 cup oat flour

3/4 cup raw walnuts, chopped

1/3 cup agave

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp liquid coconut butter

Directions:

1. Combine ingredients for the crisp and mix until it is a crumbly dough. Put dough into dehydrator and dehydrate at 104 degrees until dry, about 20-24 hours.

2. Mix fruit together and evenly distribute between bowls (I had some fruit leftover which I had for breakfast!).

3. Top with dried crisp topping and enjoy!

We had a great time until Tyler, my brother's dog, has a bit of a meltdown. He's incredibly skittish and heard a firework and started trembling and panting and wouldn't stop. I figured out he wanted to go upstairs and lay in the bed snuggled up with me and wouldn't you know it, as soon as we called it a night and came upstairs he stopped panting and trembling. It makes me feel horrible that he'll be home all day while I'm at work :(

This was the beginning before the meltdown when he was sitting in his carrier. He does this often when he misses his mommy and daddy. He's ok now though, it was just sad to watch!

Other than the puppy meltdown, I'd say the night was a success! It was so nice to see my friends and catch up. Now it's back to reality and I have to work a wedding in the blazing heat today. Hopefully the day goes quick!

Have a great Sunday everyone! Enjoy the rest of your weekend :)

Crazy Sexy Diet Cleanse Take 2: Day 6

Hey friends! Hope all has been well with you! I'm feeling so much better. I have much more energy, less muscle soreness and fatigue, and no headaches. My training session was really good too so I think I'm definitely starting to feel the benefits of this cleanse!

I also had a chance to get to Whole Foods to stock up a bit on some yummy foods so I photographed my haul too! Today is also an Instagram edition because I was in a major rush to get out of the house this morning so I photographed my breakfast, lunch, snack and workout beverage on my phone and figured I'd keep it consistent. I also just used the same effect on all of them (Lomo-fi if you are wondering ;]).

Check out the haul and the grub! Lots of photos today :)

Produce: broccoli, huge ass container of spinach, cauliflower, carrots, sweet potato, avocado.

2 Pineapple Vita Cocos, almond milk, organic strawberries (forgot to put them in the produce pic! they looked too good to pass up), Vega Recovery Accelerator (figured I'd give it a shot if I'm eventually going to be working out twice a day), millet (in the container), Braggs Liquid Aminos (worth a try!), stuffed grape leaves.

Breakfast was the same smoothie as yesterday.

Lunch was most of the salad that I didn't get to yesterday :X

Pre workout snack was a VaVaBar. So good!

During my workout I had a Peach & Mango Vita Coco. Not a huge fan of this flavor, I'll stick to Pineapple.

And this, my friends, is THE BEST MEAL I'VE EVER HAD. I'm not even kidding you. It puts Chipotle to shame and it was the easiest thing I've ever put together. I was inspired by Sophie's Homemade Chipotle Bowl and decided to make my own version. I was STARVING by the time I got home from grocery shopping so I need a fast, filling, protein packed meal and this was perfect. I just heated 1/2 cup of quinoa with 1/2 cup of organic black beans on the stove and topped with organic medium salsa and 1/2 of an avocado that was mashed and seasoned with black pepper and garlic. I took the photo and could hardly wait to mix it all up and dig in. So delicious! The salsa is the perfect seasoning. I wish I would have taken a photo on my regular camera but my tummy was calling the shots but I have a feeling this will be a staple meal and I will have plenty more opportunities!

I hope that you have all had a great day! I'm finally settled in my pjs and relaxing. I have work for a few hours tomorrow and Saturday and a wedding on Sunday but I'll have Monday off. Can't wait!

Have a great night!

Crazy Sexy Diet Cleanse Take 2: Day 4

Hey everyone! I'm so happy to report that I woke up today feeling much better. I have more energy, feel less cloudy, I'm more alert and am in a better mood. My shoulders are still sore but maybe down the road they'll start to feel better? Last night was really rough, it took forever to fall asleep even though I was exhausted. I never got my appetite back after feeling sick at the gym so I never ended up eating my Buddha Bowl but managed to get down a Vega Protein Bar instead. Day Three of the cleanse is where you hit the wall according to Kris Carr and there you have it! I can't believe I hit it that hard but I guess I had more toxins to get rid of than I thought.

I've been doing  everything I can do to be as healthy as possible. I dug out my Vitamin B complex and Vitamin D supplements and will be taking those daily. I also took a little extra Vitamin C since that is supposed to help seasonal allergies. Even though I was sore from yesterday (my trainer mangled my legs!) I still did my 45 minutes on the rebounder. For the record, it is incredibly boring but I'm glad I did it.

I'm also eating some great food today! Check it!

I woke up pretty late this morning so I got a late start on my meals. I drank half of this smoothie before my workout and half after. It has frozen banana and blueberries, almond milk, Vanilla Vega Shake & Go Powder, and spinach. Brendan Brazier says blueberries and bananas are good for post workout recovery so it was perfect! I wanted to get some calories in before since I had eaten so little after my workout last night. I love the photo too. The reflection of the ridges on the lid make it look all wavy :)

For lunch I had a big spinach salad (later drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette)...

...and the other half of my zucchini boat. It was so good and I love how it makes the house smell like pizza! I had to blot a little bit because the Daiya got a bit greasy but it was still good.

My afternoon snack will be a Orange Coconut VaVaBar. Yum!

For dinner I'll eat last night's Buddha Bowl at room temp (no microwave folks!). I'm looking forward to this meal!

I'm glad that I'm starting to feel better. It was making me anxious to be feeling so poorly which doesn't help! Hopefully I'll feel better every day! 

Hope you all have a great day!

Crazy Sexy Diet Cleanse Take 2: Day 3

Hey everyone! I think I'm hitting my stride here with this cleanse. I took some time to plan last night and I have my meals planned through Wednesday which definitely helps. I made another batch of VaVaBars and some quinoa for the week and I feel like I'm ready to go. The next step is to start a shopping list for my next trip to Whole Foods :)

Basically today is more of the same. I woke up and my entire body hurt, I keep getting headaches on and off throughout the day, I'm exhausted and I literally look like I got punched in the face. I look like I have two black eyes, it is crazy! I researched foods to help fight inflammation and found a bunch of links including this and this. I feel like I already eat these foods and began to get frustrated again. My next step is to see if I can get allergy testing done. Turns out these symptoms are often overlooked symptoms of food allergies, and I wonder if I've been eating foods that have been causing me to feel like crap for years. I don't really know how to go about doing this but I'll figure it out.

I've been trying to increase my exercise as well. I did 30 minutes of cardio and then my 45 minute training session. I had a tough time during my session and then right before the very last stretch I felt really dizzy and nauseous and like I was going to pass out. It was horrible.

That aside, at least I had some really good meals today. I'm really glad I decided to try the cleanse again. It's a lot easier now that I don't have to deal with the caffeine withdrawals :X I'm so glad I never went back to coffee, it is one of the best things I've done for myself! Anyway, here's the grub!

My goal of greens for breakfast was accomplished this morning :) As I mentioned, I had planned my meals last night and by coincidence I planned the same smoothie that Maud had posted over at Food Feud! I made mine a bit differently but it was the same idea. I was happy to read the post and see that it had gone over well and I was definitely looking forward to breakfast this morning! I made mine with a frozen banana, 4 fresh strawberries, 3/4 cup almond milk, Vega Choc-a-lot Shake & Go powder and lots of spinach. So delicious.

Late morning I enjoyed the other half of my mango from yesterday's breakfast.

For lunch I had lots and lots of green! A big S&M salad with lots of spinach, dulse, hemp seeds and avocado. So delicious. This is a nutrition powerhouse and Brendan Brazier talks about the benefits of all of the ingredients in Thrive. I felt so virtuous eating this salad!

For snack I made Mexican Chocolate Chia Pudding! I halved the recipe in Crazy Sexy Diet when I made it over the weekend and it still made a ton. Like I said it was a bit sweet so for my snack today I used 1/3 cup of the pudding and mixed it with 1/2 tsp of cocoa powder! It made it rich and chocolatey, cut the sweetness and combined perfectly with the cinnamon already in it. So good!

I drank a Pineapple Vita Coco Coconut Water when I got home from my workout to try and restore my electrolytes and get my blood sugar up.

For dinner I made my version of a Buddha Bowl from CSD. I could have sworn I bought broccoli but didn't see any in the fridge so I used the rest of my roasted cauliflower. There is also chickpeas, carrots and sun dried tomatoes and it is seasoned with garlic, pepper and I sprinkled the top with nooch. I also used quinoa instead of rice to get in some extra protein. I haven't eaten it yet because I'm still not feeling great after my workout.

I'm happy with my meals today. I achieved my goals that I set yesterday, was full all day and enjoyed every meal (that I've eaten so far). I really need to figure out what's going on because feeling sick is really exhausting.

Goals for tomorrow: 45-60 minute run on rebounder.

Hump Day Eats

Hey everyone! It's another gloomy day here in NY. I think I hear rain which kind of sucks. Can't bring myself to look out the window yet even though I have to leave in a half hour. Oh well, I guess it'll be a surprise?

Anyway, I got all of my errands done yesterday. Earrings successfully switched out, lots of fun crafting stuff from Michael's (the canvases were on sale, I got 4 for $8!) AND I perused a fun health food specialty store. It happens to be next to the tattoo shop I go to and I've been in there before so I figured I'd go peruse. Well they have made some major changes and it is awesome! They have tons of cool stuff, lots of gluten free and raw foods AND a cafe attached! Fresh juices and smoothies and organic eats. It's not strictly veg but it is super vegan friendly. In fact, I grabbed a menu and figured I'd scan it for you just to show you why I'm so stoked :)

If you click on it you should be able to read it! The cafe and store have great stuff but it is a bit pricey so I didn't really partake in anything just yet, but when I hopefully get a little more work over the summer I'm going to splurge on a few fun treats!

Anyway, lets move on to today's eats. Today is a really good representation of the pantry challenge because I used a lot of pantry items I'm trying to finish up AND the scraps of my produce. I REALLY need to go grocery shopping, hopefully tomorrow evening. Check it out!

For breakfast I had a bowl of warming oats and added some walnuts, raisins and coconut. Cinnamon too, as always :) It was sooooooo good!

Midmorning snack will be an unpictured orange.

Lunch is a chopped salad. Spinach, cucumber, carrot, half an ear of not so great corn (found out too late), sun dried tomatoes and roasted chickpeas. Mmmm.

Afternoon snack is going to be a Lemon Coconut Hemp Seed Bite and probably some coconut water.

Dinner is going to be some Quinoa Edamame salad and some yummy pickles! Look at the little baby one :) I halved the recipe because I feel like a cup of quinoa is a lot. 

This should definitely keep me going on my long day! I need to write up a grocery list too, I'll have to sneak that in :) I hope you are all having a good week and Happy Hump Day! It's easy peasy after today.

I am not sure if I'll be able to post tomorrow because I'll be rushed in the morning because of my 7:30 AM MRI appointment but maybe I'll be able to share a grocery haul if I can get there. If not I'll see you Friday!

A Pretty Great Food Day!

Hey everyone! As you can see recently, I've been focusing on eating more often, with the goal of keeping my metabolism revved up throughout the day. It also balances hunger, eliminates cravings (at least for me) and keeps me energized. I highly recommend eating this way. Plus, you get to eat a wider variety of food every day! Who doesn't love that!

I started off my morning with an early workout on my own at the gym. I did 30 minutes on the arc trainer (I wanted to try intervals on the treadmill but my legs were like lead) and then followed it with this arm workout:

I only did 2 sets because my shoulders were at failure and I couldn't lift my arms. I then realized that I'm clearly in the middle of a massive flare up and I should take my anti inflammatory meds. I don't like to but sometimes you just have to suck it up and do what you have to do to feel better. I can't believe I didn't realize it was just flared up and not necessarily permanently worse. I can be pretty dense sometimes :)

Anyway, after the arm circuit (wish I was on the beach!) I did some ab exercises too. It felt like a great, well rounded workout.

Then I got to grubbin ;) Check out my Tuesday meals. Some are packed for work, but you know the deal for Tuesdays.

For my post workout breakfast I needed a big protein boost so I made a protein shake with Unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze, Chocolate Vega Performance Protein Powder, 1/2 banana and ice.

Late morning I had the other half of my banana with some all natural peanut butter, raisins, cinnamon and a cup of the amazing Orange Carrot tea I had tried a month or two ago and the coffee house. Finally got a tea ball strainer thingy ;)

I won't lie to you, this lunch was pretty stellar. I was craving pizza so I decided to do it up my way ;) GF brown rice tortilla crisped up then topped with some sauce, steamed zucchini and spinach. I popped it back in the oven to heat it through then topped it off with some garlic powder and nooch. Who needs cheese?!

My afternoon snack is going to be kind of random. I need to go to the store desperately but probably won't be able to get there until Friday afternoon so I'll be throwing meals together the next few days. Anyway, for snack I'm finally going to try So Delicious Greek Style yogurt (chocolate flavor) and the other half of my carrot from...

My gorgeous salad for dinner! Greens, carrots, cucumber, grape tomatoes, chickpeas and some avocado on top. Dressed with balsamic vinaigrette. This is going to be awesome!

I hope you all have a great day! I'll be home after nine, looking forward to relaxing after work. So far the anti inflammatory med seems to be taking away some discomfort I've been having so that is good. I may ask my trainer to skip the boxing/kickboxing (I know, shocking right?) on Thursday and maybe I'll just focus on cardio and lower body this week. Once I get through the flare up I'll be ok so I'm glad I figured it out.

Catch up with you later :)

Monday Fun Day

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great Monday! It is gorgeous here today, a little brisk but the sun is shining. Gotta love a little vitamin D boost :)

Today was my last double session for a while. It went well, was tough as usual but felt pretty good! He must have a sixth sense or something because he had me do a little bit of jogging on the treadmill today ;) We just alternated 2 minutes of walking and 2 minutes of jogging for a bit because I was already 25 minutes of pre session cardio down and 45 minutes into my session but it felt pretty good. Maybe I just went back into running too quickly the last time I tried it and I should just start with intervals and work my way up. I am happy that he made me start up again and get into it slowly because I'm confident that I can work my way back up again.

I ate some pretty awesome food today. Check it!

For breakfast I had a Blueberry Muffin Smoothie. Mmmm.

Late morning snack was some cantaloupe and pineapple. The cantaloupe was a bit disappointing but the pineapple made up for it!

A big beautiful salad for lunch. This one had greens, carrots, cucumber, grape tomatoes, and some leftover grilled portabello mushrooms. Instead of dressing I topped my salad with a big ol' scoop of hummus. It was soooooo good!

For a pre workout snack I had some seaweed sheets (omg I'm addicted to these!!) and...

some homemade trail mix with cashews, apricots and dried apples. Perfect energy boost for my workout!

This dinner was pretty much the star of the day. I dumped some spaghetti squash, lightly steamed zucchini, spinach and sauce in a saucepan and heated it. I added extra black pepper (which added some nice heat), garlic and some nooch. Such a phenomenal dish, and so easy!

That's all for tonight. I'm going to spend the nice resting and watching The Voice :) Typical Monday. I plan on going to the gym early tomorrow to get a good workout in on my own. I don't know what I'm going to do yet because I have to see how I feel after tonight's session but I would like to start with HIIT (high intensity interval training) on the treadmill but I'll see how my legs feel.

I hope you all have a great night! :)

Almost There!

Hey everyone! Hope you have all been doing well! I've been super busy working a whole lot so things have been pretty much the same. I went in for my training session after work and found out I'd be training with someone else today. We did mostly weights which isn't really the kind of workout I like to do. I definitely got a good workout, but it just isn't the kind of workout I enjoy so I was a little bummed. My shoulder was really fatigued as well so that was a little rough.

Anyway, now that I got through the longest days of my week, I just have tomorrow and Saturday and I'll be free on Sunday. I really should try and get a massage then. I'm looking forward to relaxing for sure!

I was running low on groceries so luckily I got to Whole Foods tonight. I am a little confused on the whole acai situation. Am I supposed to get juice? Is that the most popular way to get it. I am trying to figure out the smoothie and that is the only element I need to get.

Cherry Chocolate Smoothie

Another AMAZING sandwich. Same as last time except this one has spinach instead of salad greens.

Dinner was a Whole Foods salad. Check out that moody lighting, ha!

Hope you are all well! Sorry I'm really tired so I'm gonna cut it short but I'll be back tomorrow hopefully with something interesting ;)

Busy Tuesday!

Hey everyone! I'm going to have to try and make this quick because I have a long day ahead of me. I didn't want to wait until later because there is a possibility I may actually have to work later than 9 because we have a late shoot so the likelihood of me wanting to post then will be slim to none :)

Just got all my meals together for this long day so check em out!

I mentioned a week or two ago that I've been craving cold cereal like crazy because it has been so long since I've had it. I've had a hard time finding an interesting gluten free cereal that isn't horrible for you so you can image my surprise and delight to be scanning the cereal shelf at Trader Joe's and finding this big gluten free stamp on a box of Puffins!! I love Puffins!

So for breakfast I had a bowl of Puffins gluten free Multigrain cereal with banana and unsweetened almond milk.

For lunch I made this gorgeous sandwich on a gluten free tortilla! It has hummus, greens, carrot, cucumber and sun dried tomatoes.

My intention for dinner is to eat this salad with stuffed grape leaves. However, I realized that we have appointments booked from 5pm until we close so that may not be a possibility. If I don't get to it today I'll eat it for one of my meals tomorrow. I also made the following...

An awesome homemade trail mix! This will be easy to snack on between clients, is nutritious and energizing. This one has raw almonds, raw cashews, dried apple rings and a few dried apricots. Yum!

I hope you all have a great day! Time for me to finish getting ready :) Hopefully I'll be home before 10 and I'll be looking forward to unwinding by catching up on your blogs!

A Beautiful Day and Some Raw Food

Hey everyone! Happy weekend! Can you tell I'm happy about it? The weather has been so beautiful this week and I'm glad I've finally had a chance to enjoy it. I was in the kitchen prepping a new (for me) raw dish and had the windows open and enjoyed the fresh air and perfect temperature. I'm definitely a 75 degree girl.

I started off my day by going to work then after I got home I prepped my raw lasagna! You'll see what that looks like in a minute. After I finished that (and it took a while) I relaxed for a bit, charged up my phone (which doubles as my iPod at the gym) and headed over to get a workout in. I have been trying to psyche myself up to start running again over the past few weeks and I decided today was finally the day. I am easing my way back into it by jogging as a warm up then finishing my cardio on the arc trainer. My goal was to start at a mile and take it from there. I did my mile warm up and it pretty much sucked. I don't know why running is so hard for me but it is. I'm just going to have to try and stick with it I guess.

Anyway, here is what I ate today!

For breakfast I had a Blueberry Muffin Smoothie. So good every time!

Late morning snack was an orange.

For lunch I made an S&M salad. This one is completely raw because I used the dulse granules like the menu calls for (instead of the toasted nori I had been using until I got the dulse).

Before my workout I had a banana.

Post workout I had a quick protein shake.

For dinner I had some raw lasagna! I decided to give it a go this afternoon. I used zucchini as my "noodles" which I soaked in a mixture of purified water, sea salt and a little olive oil. I made the "cheese" recipe from Ani Phyo's Kitchen Essentials and the Prana Marinara sauce from Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Diet. I used cashews as my nut of choice for the cheese. I liked the way it came out except I found that 1/4 cup of lemon juice was A LOT. I found there to be almost a sweetness to the cheese which was a little strange. Next time I make it I'll cut the lemon juice down and add more garlic to make it more savory. The sauce was really lovely. I got rid of the bell pepper because we all know how I feel about them and added extra tomato and sun dried tomato. When combined all together I enjoyed the dish but the flavor was really strong. I can definitely only eat a little at a time. I had tons of cheese and sauce left over so I combined them together in the food processor and the result was a thick dip that smells EXACTLY like pizza!!! I'm going to have to figure out what to do with that!

Not too bad for my first shot but definitely room for improvement. I'm going to try my best to get to that raw restaurant tomorrow. It is about 30 minutes from my house so I'll have to see how the day goes and if I'll have time. I hope so!

Today happened to be a 100% raw day. It wasn't my intention but I'm proud of it. I'm definitely not going to be all raw all the time but I'm finding the 80% a lot easier to hit.

Hope you all have a great Friday night and a wonderful weekend!!