I love soup. I could literally eat it every meal, all year round. In fact, when I was pregnant with Jones, I craved it all.the.time. I had some sort of soup at every meal for MONTHS. (Until I ordered a gag inducing soup at a Mexican restaurant and then didn't eat soup for months...) Anyways, when I saw that the Friday Five topic from Cynthia, Courtney, and Mar was Favorite Fall Foods, I yelled "SOUP" and started cheering. Ok, maybe I just thought to myself, "oh, I have some favorite soups". Whatever. Same thing. [Tweet "Yummy + healthy soups to get you through the winter. #fitfluential #healthychoices #crockpot"] … [Read more...]
Egg, nut, and dairy free Halloween cupcakes
October is sugar month in our house. Between a mid-October birthday (how am I the mom of a TEEN now??) and a Halloween birthday (yes, Shoo was born ON Halloween) and Halloween itself, it seems like I am always baking in this house during October. Sadly, I'm not the best baker in the world. Add in the food allergies in our house and October used to be a bit stressful for me. Luckily, when the kids were little, I found (and tweaked) a couple of recipes and they've become our standard recipes for Halloween baked goods. Chocolate Cupcakes Growing up, we used to eat what we called Wacky Cake. I think it was called that because a) it has no eggs in it and b) you mix it in the pan if you are making a cake. I use it for cupcakes … [Read more...]
Oldies but Goodies
Today, Lindsay over at the Lean Green Bean is hosting a "Pin It" Party. I figured I'd join in and share some of my older posts with you all. In the spirit of Friday Five with Mar, Cynthia, and Courtney, here are five of my favorite pinnable posts. You can click on the picture or the link below the picture to get to the original post. Why I can't quit the half marathon... One of my favorite winter soups - Turkey Sweet Potato My favorite breakfast - Crustless Quiche How we've managed to stay married (and fit) for almost 20 years. And then there was the time I made my own marshmallows so I could make healthier rice crispy treats! Want to join in? Check out The Lean Green Bean for the scoop and join the link up! … [Read more...]
WIAW: Blue Apron Review
A friend of mine recently gave me a free trial of Blue Apron. Blue Apron is one of a number of delivery services that have popped up that provide you with recipes and all of the ingredients that you need to cook them. In this case, you get three meals, all selected by Blue Apron. The only choice you have is whether you want that week's meal, if you want meat/fish or vegetarian, and how many servings you want. If you are paying for the service, it is $9.99 per person per meal. Most important conclusion: the food was fresh and all of the recipes tasted good. Of the three, one was good but I wouldn't want again, one was good and I'd be happy to eat it occasionally, and one was good enough that I actually plan to use the recipe card … [Read more...]
Eat all the things Wednesday
Really, it was eat.all.the.things Tuesday, but the sentiment is the same. It was just one of those days when all I wanted to do was eat. The day started with an early breakfast, so lunch was eaten at about 11:15. I headed out for a run (that I really didn't want to do, but I have some crazy days later this week) around 1:15. I came back from my 4 mile run absolutely ravenous. What? It's not like I ran that far. Or that I ran on an empty stomach. But I just wanted to eat and eat and eat... Did I eat more calories than I burned? Absolutely. Would I call it a binge? No. The weird part is that it felt like hunger, rather than "oh, I'm eating because I'm bored or I'm sad or I'm stressed..." I did end up drinking quite a bit of … [Read more...]
Cleaning up my diet
40 miles a week is a magical number for me. Magical, I tell you. It instantly transforms me into a person who just can't eat enough. Admittedly, this is not good magic. Remember how I wrote about being "Rungry and Hangry" and trying to stop the evening snacking? Well, so far, so good using the plans I came up with. The key thing from a physical standpoint is increased protein and healthy fats. While my body is constantly craving carbs, I am keeping it mostly happy with meat. I just have to make sure I have easy access to protein meals and snacks so that I'm not stuffing my face with any easy snack I can get my hands on. This is not to say I'm eating low carb. I'm just eating more sweet potatoes, quinoa, and vegetables instead of … [Read more...]
WIAW + slow cooker recipe
Every year, I suffer through Virginia's summers. 90+ degrees with matching humidity = pretty much all of July and August + some of June and September. In exchange, Virginia usually delivers me a reasonably cold winter with not a lot of snow. Sometimes Virginia does not live up to her end of the bargain. Sometimes we get FEET of snow. Sometimes we have wicked cold weather. While we haven't had feet of snow this year, we've had a fair amount and we've had crazy cold weather. This week (after a Monday where the highs nearly hit 60!), we have both. Bring on the treadmill and the comfort food! I did 4.7 miles on the 'mill yesterday and will do around 6 today. Who knows when I'll feel safe running outside again. (Snow removal … [Read more...]
Thanksgiving prep and WIAW
Every other year I host Thanksgiving. It's usually just us and one other family, but somehow I always end up with a stupidly big turkey. Since I have the smallest oven available in a first world country, I cook the turkey on Wednesday and then heat it in the crockpot the next day. Last time I hosted, the turkey nearly won. This time, I'm prepared: I bought a fresh turkey and I'm putting it in the oven shortly. I've also pared back our meal plans to only include the things that "make" Thanksgiving for all of us, so I have a reasonable number of things to put together. I'll likely bake the pie and crisp today as well. The kids are home with me and the weather sucks, so having the oven on all day won't be a bad … [Read more...]
The Joy of running + WIAW
Lately, all of my running has been done for one reason: to train for this crazy ass goal of five half marathons in five days. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about my goal and a lot of my runs have been enjoyable, but they all have a goal: to build my mileage high enough that I can run 65.5 miles in one week and not get hurt. Not very exciting, huh? I'm just plodding along for a really.long.time. every day. In fact, running has become the thing I schedule everything else around. When a run is going to take up more than an hour every day (and often more like 2.5-3 if you consider the getting dressed and ready, running, eating, showering time), it plays a major role in the daily planning. If I'm not running, I fill my day to the brim … [Read more...]
WIAW: Tiptoeing towards Paleo
After I fell completely off the Paleo wagon, it became apparent that a drastic change wasn't going to work for me. Maybe if I wasn't running major mileage, I could handle the lack of energy. Maybe if it wasn't winter and I wasn't already dealing with grey and cold, I could handle the crabbiness that occurred. But I can't. Not right now. So, instead, I'm moving slowly towards a paleo lifestyle. I know I'll never be 100% for more than a few weeks. Why? Two words: beer and cheese. Anyways, I've been debating the best way to start. I thought about cutting out wheat, or legumes, or most grains, but in the end, I decided that rather than cut out any one food, for now I'll work on decreasing them all. Here are some of my successes and … [Read more...]
August NatureBox Review + Recipe
I was so excited to get home from vacation and find my NatureBox waiting for me. I love getting things in the mail and I love snacks, so NatureBox is a win/win for me. How do you eat your NatureBox? One entire item at a time or do you open everything and try it first? Note that every.single.bag below has been opened. Once again, I was not disappointed. In fact, one of the items just screamed "Create a Recipe!" at me. Which one do you think that was? Mexican Mango - I love dried mango. One of the things I loved best about this was how very thin it was. So yummy. Maui Onion Crunch - Almond slivers with a slight onion flavor. Oh.my. I love almonds and these had fantastic flavor. There were a lot of spices and crumbs … [Read more...]
Attune health(ier) rice crispy treats
I recently had the opportunity to try out some of the Attune Erewhon cereals. Attune professes to be "simple ingredients. simply made." All of their products are made in the U.S. Most are organic, non-GMO, whole grain cereals and many are gluten free. I was excited to try them out. I was sent three boxes: Corn Flakes, Crispy Brown Rice, and Cocoa Crispy Brown Rice. I'm not really a cereal eater, but Shoo has been really enjoying the corn flakes. Me? I'll admit there have been a few bowls of cocoa crispy cereal with vanilla coconut milk as a dessert. (YUM!) But none of us really eats plain rice crispy cereal. What to do? Duh, make rice crispy treats. Have you looked at the ingredients for store bought marshmallows? … [Read more...]
