Author: heather

Uncategorized

Primal Carrot Cake Pancakes

heather

I’ve been experimenting with different breakfast foods this weekend – thought I should break out of the eggs, bacon, sauteed veggies breakfast rut.  Yesterday I made a Berry Crumble from page  5 of Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals.  Here is a photo:

The Berry Crumble is made up of a base of blueberries heated up with vanilla and a topping of walnuts, pecans, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and butter.  You broil the concoction for about 3 minutes and then revel in the deliciousness.  Berries and nuts don’t sound very filling, but one serving of this filled me right up. I did top it with Greek yogurt too – super creamy and delicious.  Tim even added some to his oatmeal yesterday and today.  I will definitely make this again.

There are soooo many good primal recipe sites that I question the necessity of buying primal cookbooks.  However, I’ve really liked almost all of the recipes I’ve made from Mark’s book and have found the instructions to be more comprehensive and accurate than the recipes I’ve found on blogs.  I would definitely recommend this cookbook.  So far I’ve made these recipes from it and loved them: Steak with Romesco Sauce, Turnip Hashbrowns, Jalapeno Egg Salad, Broccoli with Almond Dressing,and Pork Chops with Shredded Brussel Sprouts.  I didn’t like the Tahini Chicken Salad though.  My chicken turned out rubbery, but I think that was my fault and not a fault of the recipe.

Today’s recipe I just found on the internet:  http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1926340.

It’s very simple, although I did dirty a lot of dishes.  The recipe creator instructs you to “pour” about 1/4 of the batter into the pan and fry until a few bubbles appear.

Well, my batter was thick as paste, and there was no pouring to be had.

I scooped it out with a 1/4 measuring cup, plopped it on a hot, oiled skillet, and then mashed it down with a rubber scraper.  They actually cooked up really well.

The recipe recommended topping them with warmed up cream cheese or mascarpone.  I imagine that would be delicious, but I had neither of those things, so I settled for ghee, maple syrup, and black berries for toppings.  It was super delicious – just the perfect amount of sweetness and nuttiness.  I highly recommend this recipe and cannot wait to eat the leftovers for breakfast tomorrow.

So, happy Sunday to you1  Hope you get to get out and enjoy the sunshine today!

Cooking/Recipes

One Success, One Failure

heather

Last night I made a super delicious recipe: Easy Breakfast Scramble.  It’s from one of my favorite recipe/paleo blogs, Paleomg.  Get it??  Get it??  Anyway, the writer makes the most delicious foods and tons of paleo desserts.  Every one I’ve tried has been very tasty.

But back to the scramble. As you can see from the recipe, it’s very simple and basic.  The only odd ingredient (at least for my kitchen) was the Herbs De Provence.  I had never heard of it. I was wary that it was similar to the “peace and love” that I was missing for my last recipe.  Come to find out, Herbs De Provence is a mix of several different herbs native to Provence.  I found some substitution sites, however, so I ended up tossing together some marjoram, basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, etc.  It was quite the motley crew of spices, but the scramble turned out very tasty non-the-less.  I ate it with some Cholula and 1/2 an avocado.  It did make a ton, though, so my only concern at this point is eating it all before it gets old.

Tonight was another story.  I tried another primal recipe, Flank Steak Italiano.  This recipe was a huge disappointment. The meat turned out almost inedible – very tough and chewy.  I’m not sure why besides the fact that it’s a grass-fed flank steak, so it’s predisposed to be tough and chewy.  It was an expensive mistake though – what with the cost of the grass fed meat, the wine, 2 onions, garlic, lemon, etc.  Plus I had to prepare the marinade before work, stink up the kitchen with cut-up red onions, etc.  I probably did something wrong for it to end up so poorly, but I don’t know what.  At least the accompanying salad was good (spinach, radishes, carrots, celery, mushrooms, broccoli, cucumbers – tasty!).

But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?  As I told Tim, only rib-eyes for us going forward.  I’ve been burned by flank steak one too many times.

UPDATE:  I was thinking about this more last night and realized that part of my problem with the flank steak was that the marinade had wine in it.  After the meat is done marinating, you dump the marinade in a pan and heat it up.  I HATE the smell of wine cooking.  It has this unsettling sweet smell.  Shudder.  Note to self – no more cooking with wine!

Health & Fitness, Product Reviews, Uncategorized

Buying a new car, stupid mascara, and intermittent fasting

heather

I probably should break up all these topics into separate posts.  But, well, I’m lazy for starters.  Secondly, I really don’t have enough to say about any one of these topics to justify a whole post.  Thirdly, I just really want to post this all together.  So there.

So, topic #1 – buying a new car.

Tim and I have never purchased a brand-new car.  We’ve toyed with the idea but always erred on the side of fiscal responsibility and bought used. Well, our Civic has 145K+ miles on it, and it’s starting to experience some mechanical issues.  And then there’s the Escort.  The Escort has been with us for a long time, over a decade.  We’ve put over 100k miles on it, and it shows.  She’s rusty, she’s loud, she’s dented.  But she’s ours, and she’s totally paid for. But, Tim is at risk of getting asphyxiated whilst driving her, due to the aforementioned rust and exhaust issues.  So, it’s probably time to let her go.

We test drove a few cars – Honda Fit (too teen-agey), Honda CRV (too ubiquitous), and then we hit the Subaru lot.  We drove the Outback, Forester, Legacy and the Impreza.  We loved them all, especially the Impreza.  It’s an awesome little car for the money.

For the money.  Hmm.  The Impreza is “cheap” at $21,000 +, but oh my goodness.  TWENTY-THOUSAND DOLLARS!!  That is so much money.  And then today, I researched insurance.  It would cost us $500 more dollars per year just to INSURE the thing.  For some reason, the Impreza is more expensive to insure than the Outback even though the Outback is a more expensive vehicle.  I bet it’s because the Impreza looks and feels sportier and thus more dangerous.

So while my impractical, consumer-oriented side really, really, really wants a brand new,  cute little Impreza, my practical side is thinking, “I think the Civic will get us by for a while yet, and save us $400 per month in the process.”

Why oh why must I love expensive things?

Speaking of which, you know what non-expensive thing I do NOT love?  Cover Girl Natural Luxe mascara.  It is so lame.  It actually STRAIGHTENS my eye lashes.  AND it’s clumpy.  And the brush is huge.  I have again reverted to my old standby – Maybelline Define-A-Lash.  It doesn’t give a ton of body, but it defines every lash (as promised) and leaves my painstakingly curled lashes curly.

So, on to the last topic of conversation, intermittent fasting (or IF).  In case you are unfamiliar with what IFing is, it’s periodically fasting.  It’s supposed to be good for  you – help you get in tune with your body, lose weight, improve overall health and longevity, etc.  Well, today I fasted until lunch time.  Not eating until lunch time wasn’t a big deal.  Sure, I was hungry, but I wasn’t passing out or anything.  But AFTER I ate, wow.  I was super snacky.  I couldn’t STOP eating once I started.  And now it’s a Monday night at 4:58 and I’m drinking wine and eating chocolate.  Hmm… I don’t doubt that fasting is good for you.  I just think I shouldn’t discount the mental effects – I know I skipped breakfast so my brain thinks it’s OK to eat whatever I want when the fast is over.  Hopefully the more I do this, the more  I will see the good effects instead of the bad ones.

So, that’s all that’s on my mind for tonight.  Have a pleasant evening!

Product Reviews

Old Navy – How I Love and Despise Thee

heather

Every once in a while I’ll go into Old Navy and just be overwhelmed by how much stuff I like and how cheap it is.  Of course, I say and mean cheap – not inexpensive.  Their stuff doesn’t last long, but typically I get tired of my clothes before they wear out, so that’s not a big deal.

Then sometimes I walk in and am overwhelmed by the fact that they have nothing in my size (no longs?? only XS and XXL??) and their quality sucks.  All their jeans only wear well once.  There’s no telling how much they will stretch AND shrink.

Currently I’m in a spell where I like their stuff a lot, but, not in the mood to deal with the sizing issues or the horrible, hot flourescent lighting, I ordered online.  The package arrived today.  I got some long Dreamer jeans, which were too long (although regulars are too short – argh) and too high-waisted, some shorts which were too short and too baby-puke colored, and two amazing t-shirts for $4.40 (Womens Tri-Blend V-Neck T’s).  These have an excellent drape, are nice and long, and very soft.  I got grey and black and love them both.  Hopefully they won’t lose too much length in the wash.

I also got another dress (toldja I’m only wearing dresses from now on – especially since all jeans ever made are stupid, and I hate them). It’s a Women’s Floral -Chiffon Keyhole Dress in Blue Oracle.  It is very feminine and pretty.  When I went to Old Navy tonight to return the jeans & shorts (you can order online and return in the store, which is super awesome), I noticed that the very same dress was $9 cheaper in the store!  I went to pick one up, intending to later return my expensive one, only to note that the size gremlin had struck again-only XXL left.  Oh well.  It made me feel better for paying more for it online.  Any time I wait for sales at Old Navy, my size is always gone.  I just have to ante up.

So, to summarize, Old Navy both sucks and is awesome.  If you are looking for some cheap summer duds (that will probably only last the summer), check them out.

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Double-edged sword

heather

We went out for supper tonight at 11th Street Precinct.  I got their famous tenderloin – no bun of course, with coleslaw instead of fries, along with a Coors Light.  While it tasted good, my stomach immediately felt off.  This is the problem with becoming primal – you make such tasty, delicious food at home that eating out is a let down!  It’s rare to eat something at a restaurant that tastes as good as what you  make at home.

Look at these fantastic recipes I made this week:

Avocado Boats These things were super delicious.  Essentially you make chicken salad with bacon, red onion, grape tomatoes, mayo (I used full fat Hellmans because last time I made homemade with olive oil it turned out a little janky.  I need to try it with avocado oil), garlic, salt and pepper.  The recipe also called for “2 Tbs. Peace and Love.”  That confused me.  I thought maybe it was a spice mix I hadn’t heard of, so I Googled it to no avail.  Eventually, by going back to the the recipe site, I realized that “peace and love” are in all her recipes.  They are but FIGURATIVE  ingredients.  I added a bunch of love but no peace, and it still turned out good.  Then you make guacamole, scoop it into the avocado shells, and cover it with the chicken salad.  The guacamole instructions in the recipe were a little sparse, so I used this tried and true recipe, and it turned out fantastic.  I scooped the leftover guac and chicken salad into a small container, covered it with plastic wrap, smooshing out all the air and then ate the leftovers 2 days later. They still tasted fantastic.  Next time I might leave out the avocado shell part – the presentation is pretty, but inconvenient.  I got guac everywhere, trying to scoop out the last delicious tidbits.

From the week we had lots of leftover meat – hamburger, pork chops, chicken, so I made this Chipotle Slaw to add the meat smörgåsbord.  It was, to quote the annoying movie star/secret agent chick on Archer, AMAZING!  It was very simple – cabbage, chipotle pepper, lime, apple cider vinegar, honey, cilantro and salt.  I topped mine with some avocado and grape tomatoes and ate it with a cold leftover grass-fed hamburger.  It was so tasty.

So, now you begin to understand my difficulty.  We are spoiled from too much good food at home to appreciate eating out.  Of course, eating at home is way better for you and less expensive, but eating out used to be so much fun.  You get to go out and see and be seen and mingle and socialize.  I guess we’re going to have to widen our comfort zone and start bringing people into our house and make them eat our delicious food.  And we’ll make them play cards with us.

Uncategorized

Primal-ish

heather

I am starting my 3rd or 4th cycle of the 21-Day challenge. When it finishes, I just start over at the beginning.  It gives me some structure, which I sorely need.  I’ve been doing pretty good on the plan so far.  I feel good, have good energy levels, I’ve lost weight.  Losing weight is both a good thing and a  bad thing.  It’s good because I’m healthier. It’s bad because I have to spend money on new clothes.  And boy have I!  I’ve recently rediscovered dresses.  I bought this hot little number at Old Navy last week.  When I tried it on for Tim, he said I looked like a hot Mexican cleaning lady, which I think is a good thing.  I wore it out today for the first time and was amazed at how cool and refreshing it is!  I may never wear shorts again.  In fact, I ordered another dress from Old Navy today.  This will be the summer of the dress.  Shorts be damned.

Back to the whole primal thing.  I’ve been sloppy this week.  Tim’s been on Spring Break this week, so we’ve gotten out of our regular routine and habits.  I’ve been eating more and worse food (buns! bagels! popcorn!) and drinking more beer.  I’m not sweating it too much, however.  I know I can and will get back on track when Tim’s schedule gets back to normal.  I feel so much better when I eat strictly primal, that I’m not too tempted to fall off the wagon permanently.

To keep myself from overindulging in non-primal sweets (hello Whitey’s Moose Tracks malts!), I made Caramel Pecan bars from this recipe.  I have to say, they didn’t turn out half bad.  You can see a photo of one in my Instagram feed to the right.  Tim even professed to like them and said that no one would guess they were “primal.”

With a food processor they were not difficult to make; although, I did dirty a tremendous amount of dishes.  Also, the “caramel” sauce on top is really made of ground up dates, mixed with vanilla and a few other ingredients.  I have bad luck putting dates in the food processor.  I assume they are supposed to get all chopped up into tiny pieces, but whenever I do it, they get chopped into medium size pieces that form a huge clump above the spinning blade.  I scrape the chunks back down to the bottom, turn on the processor again, only to have them spun above the blade again a few seconds later.  I don’t know what I am doing wrong.  Maybe I need to chop them up into smaller pieces before putting them in the blender.  I soaked the dates in water for an hour like the recipe stated and everything.    Oh well, they still turned out pretty tasty.  I may have actually overcooked the base. The recipe said to cook it for 20-25 minutes.  I cooked it for 20 minutes, at which point it was already a little overcooked.

So that’s been my week in a nutshell – eating, exercising, shopping, cooking.  Good times.

Health & Fitness

Really off the wagon

heather

So…what I meant to do tonight:  come home from work, go for a jog, make some grass-fed steak with steamed broccoli, watch some TV, do some reading, go to bed, etc., etc., etc.

What I actually did tonight?  Went out for beers with some friends, purchased and ate $3 burger basket and fries (with bun – eek!), stopped at HyVee and bought (and then subsequently ate) a Whitey’s Moose Tracks malt, and then satiated my salt tooth with some pistachios.

And now I am sitting on the couch, watching X-Files, waiting for the inevitable stomachache.  The headache has already started.

I blame my fall off the wagon on a picture of delicious Mexican food posted by a friend of mine on Instagram.  The cheesy deliciousness could not be resisted. It could only be satisfied by ingesting copious amounts of wheat, sugar, and dairy.

Ah, alas, tomorrow is another day.  I will be good tomorrow, I swears.

Uncategorized

Iowa Master Conservationist

heather

Have I mentioned yet that I am taking a class to become a Master Conservationist?  It’s offered through the Iowa State University Extension Center.  It’s a program that lasts from February – October.  We attend 10 classes which cover biodiversity, woodlands, water quality, wetlands, sustainable agriculture, etc.  Some classes are held in the Nahant Marsh training center.  Other classes will be held out in the wild! I’m really looking forward to those.

Our first class was Tuesday night.  It was a full-house too.  The attendees run the gamut from Biology students working part-time at Nahant Marsh to retirees trying to turn their acreages back into Iowa prairies.  It’s an interesting bunch of people.  The instructors seem great too – very well educated on the subject matter and with a knack for interesting stories and good humor.

I learned a lot of interesting stuff, just in that first night.

  • Members of different species cannot mate and have viable offspring.  For example, if a horse and donkey mate, they produce a mule, and almost always the mule is sterile.
  • Our current time has the highest rate of species extinction.  Way to go, Humans!
  • Main causes of extinction: habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution, population (the human population has grown from 1 billion in the 1800s to 7 billion in 2012!!!), over-harvesting (which has caused the extinction of plants like Ginseng).
  • Fire and bison kept Iowa as 85% prairie (and prevented it from becoming forested).
  • Within 140 years of white people moving into Iowa, the diverse prairie was almost completely replaced with row crops, destroying the habitats of several animals.
  • Iowa used to be where Costa Rica is now.
  • Sandstone in Iowa is found in the location of ancient lakes.  Limestone is found in the location of ancient coral reefs.
  • Glaciers used to block the Mississippi and reroute it.  At one time it formed a huge pool over by Plainview, IA.  That huge valley used to be the home of the mighty Mississippi.

Good books to read, if you are interested in this kind of stuff: Iowa’s National Heritage, A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, The Emerald Horizon by Cornelia Mutel, The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson.  I have a feeling that these books will depress the hell out of me, but I’m going to read them anyway.

And that was the first night in a nutshell.  I think this will be a super interesting program.

Uncategorized

Zentangle – Day One

heather

The Mammacita and I took our first Zentangle class at the Figge today.  Mom has been interested in Zentangle for awhile, and she got me interested in it as well.  What is Zentangle, you ask?  Well, despite what the teacher said, it’s essentially structured doodling.  You take a 3.5 inch square of nice paper, draw a dot in each corner, connect the dots with rather “floaty” line (no straight connections).  Then you draw a dot in the middle of each line and draw a swoopy Z between the lines.  This separates your square into 4 sections.  In each section you design a different “tangle” which is basically a pattern that can range from dots, to lines, to branches, to grids, etc.  There are probably literally hundreds of different predesigned patterns, and of course you can always design your own.

Here are the tiles Mom and I created yesterday:

Mom’s, of course, are better.  Hers are the ones on the right – beautiful balance of light and dark and excellent shading!  But the first rule of Zentangle, is “There are no mistakes.”

Despite being a very simple idea, it’s actually pretty fun to do.  A while back Mom got a huge kit of Zentangle books and markers (Micron pens in all shapes, sizes, and colors), so she split her hoard with me.  I woke up thinking about creating some “tangles” today.  I have to say, it’s pretty addictive.

The woman who organized the class, Pat Bereskin, mentioned that she might organize a group of people who want to meet regularly and do Zentangles together.  I think that would be really fun.

I have a hard time explaining the allure.  I think it’s a combination of several factors.  For people like me, who have a hard time creating art not based on a picture, the art form gives you a template to work with – just enough structure to provide comfort, but enough flexibility to let your creativity shine through.  Also, the small size makes it manageable.  It’s hard to find an hour or two to work on a 25″ square watercolor painting, but finding 15 or 30 minutes to do a tile or at least one section of a tile is completely doable.

I think it would be fun to make time to do a tangle a day.  I think it would be a good way to flip your brain to the Left Side for a while, and it would end up being almost a visual diary of your life.  I might do that…

The creators of Zentangle (who, Mom and I decided, should have really been Tim, based on the artwork he showed us), offer a Zentangle Certified Teacher program.  Of course, like all things branded as Zentangle, it is quite expensive (around $800).  But it sounds like a good time. 🙂  Plus, our 3-hour class yesterday cost $45.00.  I bet around $30 for each student went to the instructor.  There were at least 30 people there – so that’s $900 she made in 3 hours.  Plus, she had the official Zentangle supplies there for sale.  And they are NOT cheap.  The paper they use for the tiles IS beautiful, but wow – it’s like $ 0.55/tile.  So what I’m saying, is that in a couple of classes, you could recoup your expenses.  Maybe you could write the class off as a business expense too.  Hmmm….

Anyway, I didn’t spring for any of the pricey Zentangle stuff at the class.  Instead I pulled out my huge stack of partially used sketchbooks and cut up some 3.5″ tiles.  Using the scissors to cut them up was annoying, so I found a paper cutter on eBay for $9.99!  The shipping is $15, but that still seems pretty cheap.  I’ve been wanting one anyway – to cut up ATCs (Artist Trading Cards).  I’m really going to need to convert a room in our basement to a studio.  I’m accumulating too much art junk.  The Computer Room can no longer contain it.

If you are interested in learning more about Zentangle, here are  a few links for you to check out:

Official Zentangle Site:  http://www.zentangle.com/

Neat company that sells cool pens, paper and Zentangle junk & stuff:  http://www.paperinkarts.com/zentangle.html

Uncategorized

Arts/Crafts Projects

heather

I have not been a total lazy bum lately.  Actually, my productivity will probably continue to go up, as Tim and I recently finished watching Lost on Netflix.  That a was a huge time-suck, but what else are you supposed to do in the dead of winter in the middle of the Midwest?

Anyway, I’ve worked on a couple of projects lately.  The first one I started a few weeks ago.  My brother took this amazing picture of his dog, Jojo, staring straight into the sun.  You could see the sun shining through his eyes.  So beautiful.  I tried to capture it with watercolor, but it didn’t quite pan out.  Here is take 1:

I like how light his eyes are and how the front of his face (the side facing the sun) is pretty bright.  However, I didn’t get the slope of his forehead right (Jojo is part Pit, part Boxer), and his juicy jowls were underdeveloped.  I also wanted to blacken the background some more with another coat of Lamp Light guache.

I think I just made it worse.  Here is take 2:

I ended up darkening the face too much and accidentally took the light out his eyes.  Oh well, live and learn, right?  I should try the whole painting over again, but that’s just so frustrating to me.  I have a zillion (almost literally) pictures of JJ to work from, so maybe I should just try one of those.

I’ve found, however, that I paint and draw things better that I am intimately familiar with.  When I am sketching or painting, I can almost feel the curve of the eye or the ear in my fingers if I’ve touched it enough in real life.  We are visiting Jojo (and my bros) this July, so maybe I’ll have to give Jojo a good, thorough head scratch, and then try my hand at painting him again.

In between takes 1 and 2, I worked on something much less frustrating.  Tim got me a Sony e-Reader, but I had no cover for it.  Tim suggested crocheting one. I decided to take him up on his suggestion and made this over the course of 2 Bones episodes:

It took 3 tries to get the coozie to be the exact right size (not too tight, not too loose), but the final effect is kinda pretty.  The coozie is unsealed at the top, so I cannot use it upside down (until I figure out how to make some sort of clasp, at least), but at least it keeps the Lucent hair off.  I just stitched a chain with a combo of Peruvian Print and Heather Grey and then did double crochets off that chain, working up until the coozie was tall enough to cover the e-Reader.  Not too shabby.  Maybe I’ll try selling these on my Etsy site. I haven’t sold one thing on it so far; maybe this is my meal ticket.

So that’s what I’ve been up to.  Mammacita and I are taking a Zentangle class on Saturday.  That promises to be fun!  I will post pix from the day afterward. I’m sure Mom’s stuff will be amazing 🙂