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Random bits about honey

heather

As I mentioned last week, my last Conservation class was about honey.  Well, ostensibly, it was about sustainable agriculture.  But, it was really about honey.  Honey, I found out, is super interesting!  I cannot do the presentation justice, but here are a few interesting tidbits from Bill Crandall’s presentation.

  • Honey made from different flowers tastes different.
  • Most areas of the country like lighter honey, but our area prefers the taste of darker honey.
  • Bumble bee hives have 200 bees at their peak, and the queen overwinters in a compost pile.  She is the big bee you see in the spring.  She has to go out and gather her own food until the other bees get older.
  • A honeybee hive can be made up of 50 to 60 THOUSAND bees.
  • A bumble bee hive only has 4-5 days of honey for food; a honey bee hive can store enough honey for the whole winter.
  • If a plant suffers from a lack of pollination (which is accomplished by bees), the fruit can be lopsided, and the seeds will not be fully developed.
  • California needs 2.1 million hives for 1 month to fertilize the almond fields.  The bees get trucked in from Florida and Mexico for the month.
  • The trucks carrying the bees have to keep moving or the bees will suffocate.
  • The hives get moved 4-5 times/year to the different flowering monocultures (green deserts) around the country.  The movement is stressful on the bees.  This is ANOTHER reason why monocultures are so bad for our environment.  They are not sustainable.
  • Africanized bees have not yet figured out how to survive our winters.  They can take over a hive in the summer, however, because an africanized queen bee will emerge 4 hours earlier than a regular queen bee, and she will kill the other queen larvae.
  • The disapperance of hedge rows has been detrimental to the bee populuations.  This is where the bees used to live.
  • Honey bees are not indigenous to the US, but bumble bees are.
  • A queen lives 2-3 years, a drone lives 1.5 months, and a worker bee lives until she has 500 miles on her wings.
  • Bees stay warm in the winter by using their shiver muscles.  The move from the inside to the outstide of the hive, rotating around, so all the bees stay warm.  However, if it’s super cold, the bees will not move to a new area of the hive and can starve from lack of food.

It was a great presentation.  Bill treated us all with the cutest little bottle of honey (see pic in my Instagram feed on the right).  Very interesting stuff!

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Um…5 Day Sugar Detox?

heather

So, I’m off the no sugar wagon.  The 77 degree sunny day on Saturday was just too much for me.  I was forced by the utter delightfulness of the day to have a couple of hard ciders with my hubby and friend Michael.  That was the beginning of the end.  I also ate corn chips with our Macho Nachos.  And I ate 2 bites of Tim’s Half Baked Ben & Jerrys.  Whoever thought of putting brownie chunks and cookie dough together in ice cream was a genius.

Why did I fall of the wagon, you ask?  Well, honestly it’s due to lack of self control.  But the excuses I tell myself are that 1) I don’t want to lose any more weight.  My teeth already look too big for my head.  I read you can lose 1-10 lbs in the 21 days.  2) It’s TOO HARD!  When we went out to eat, I had to hyper analyze everything.  It was just not fun.  3) I was planning on starting Crossfit this week, and I was concerned about my energy levels on no sugar.  But I reneged on that as well. I only slept about 4 hours last night, and I just didn’t have the energy to not only work out tonight, but to go to a new place by myself with no inkling of what to expect.  That takes a lot of emotional strength on my part, and I just didn’t have it tonight.  But now that I’ve missed this week, I can’t start up again until mid-November, due to trips and junk.  Oh well.  I think the weather will stay good enough over the next 2 months for me to exercise outside, and I can keep doing my body-weight exercises here at home.

So those are my excuses.  I did actually reap some benefits, however.  I’ve kicked my dark chocolate chip evening snack habit!  You have to celebrate the small wins, you know.

I also am lagging in posting my weekly recipes!  Here are the ones I’ve made over the past week or so.

Easy Crockpot Breakfast Pie: I baked this in our Nesco Roaster, and it turned out really tasty!!  I had the heat too high at first, so the edges got scorched, but I was able to salvage most of the insides, and it turned out quite good.  It tasted like a creamy quiche, which was odd since there was no cream or cheese in it.  We ate this for supper and then for breakfast for a couple of days.

Shakshuka (Eggs Poached in Spicy Tomato Sauce):  This recipe was also super tasty.  I made it with a mix of fresh tomatoes and canned tomatoes.   I used serrano peppers from the Farmers Market instead of jalapeno peppers.  They weren’t too too spicy, but when I chopped them up, they aerated the whole kitchen with their spiciness!  Tim and I almost couldn’t breathe!  We ate the leftovers with leftover pork chops.  Muy delicioso.

Garlic Pulled Pork:  I made this on Sunday, and it was super easy and super tasty.  The only thing I would change is I would not put fresh garlic into the meat.  The garlic rub is enough.  Stuffing garlic cloves into the meat just gives certain bites ultra intense garlic flavor.

Moroccan Burgers and Moraccan Beet Salad:  I was going to make this for supper Saturday night for my parents, but Tim dissuaded me.  He eyed the 2 teaspoons of cumin called for in the recipe and was wary.  He thinks cumin smells like feet.  We also noted the inclusion of 2 T of cilantro.   My dad dislikes cilantro, of all things.  He’ll eat almost anything else.  Just no cilantro.  So we made Macho Nachos instead, and they were delicious.  I made these burgers and the beet salad on Sunday night instead.  I used 1 lb of ground pork and 1 lb of ground beef.  At first, the burgers seemed a little bland, but when I ate the leftovers, I thought they were really flavorful.  Tim prefers just a regular hamburger, and I have to say, I think I do too.  Plus, these burgers are VERY, um, aromatic?  When I ate one for lunch at work, my coworker was like, “OMG.  What are you eating??”  And it wasn’t said in a good way.

We ate the beet salad tonight.  Tim liked it, but I thought it was just ok.  I have a running rivalry with beets.  They never turn out well for me.  I had to simmer these beets to cook them, and I didn’t watch the pot closely enough.  When I did chance to look at it, it had squirted blood red beet juice all over our white stove and light grey walls.  Stupid beets.  I guess I just really don’t like the flavor of beets.  I’m probably going to toss this recipe.

So there.  I’ve caught you up.  It’s now Tuesday night at 7:52PM, and I’m ready to go to bed.  Between the sleepless night last night and the shorter days, Hlo is tired and grumpy and depressed.  But tomorrow will be a better day!!  Sunny and 77.  Really can’t beat that.  Timmy Tee and I are running together after work, so that will give me something to look forward to.

Good night!

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Sugar Detox Day 3

heather

Pollen count: 4.9 out of 12

Allergy symptoms: My nose was running like a banshee this morning!  Is it because of the sugar and corn tortillas yesterday?  It is because the detox has no effect on my allergies, so my allergies are worse because I’m not taking Allegra?  Who knows??  It’s only day 3.  I gotta give it more time.

General feelings: I didn’t get hungry today, but my stomach was a little upset/bloated after lunch.  I sauteed veggies in ghee and mixed them up with sardines.  I don’t know if it was too much oil, or if the ghee didn’t set well with me (I don’t really like the taste…), but I felt a little nauseous for awhile after lunch.  Maybe it’s candida die off??

I ran 3.5 miles after work today, and it was a struggle.  My energy was not good, and my knees were hurting.  I don’t know if it’s due to the detox (candida die off can cause joint pain) or because I’m exercising at night now instead of the morning, and I am soooo a morning person!

So today was a struggle.  I felt a little mopey at work today too.  It’s quiet at the office because many people are out, so that’s a part of it.  Maybe got a case of the no-sugar blues too!  Hopefully tomorrow will be better!

Health & Fitness, Uncategorized

Sugar Detox Day 1

heather

Starting weights and measures:  Weight 129.6.  Bust 34.  Waist 28.25.  Hips 38.5

Pollen count: 5 out of 12

Allergy symptoms:  Head fog today.  No good!

General feelings:  I didn’t crave sugar until after supper.  For snacks I ate 1/2 a green apple and some almonds.  I bought two huge bags of pistachios at Walgreens.  They are calling to me even though I ate a massive amount of food for supper.

I’ve been snapping cracking and popping all over today.  My joints are super loud.  I think all the sugar from the past week has settled into them and crystallized.  It will be interesting to see how this diet affects the achy joints.

Hardest part to date:  NO GUM!  I chew gum constantly.  This sucks.

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Good recipes from the past couple of weeks

heather

I forgot/ran out of time to post the recipes I made last week, and this week was kind of a bust as far as cooking at home goes (massive case of the lazies), so I’m combining two weeks into one post.  Woo!  Look at me!  I crazy!!

Summer Squash Breakfast Bowl – This recipe was suuuuuuuper tasty.  The cauliflower rice actually turned out – for the first time EVER!!  The title is a  little misleading – it’s not necessarily a breakfast meal.  I made it for supper and then ate it for lunch for two more days.  I also didn’t add the eggs because the dish had enough junk in it already.  It was a little spicy, so I think knext time I would cut down on the 3 T of hot sauce (Julie likes spicy food!!).    I also am not a fan of garlic powder; I prefer fresh garlic, so next time I would sub that out too.  I had no bacon fat, so I used coconut oil.  It turned out fantastic.

Heavenly Paleo Meatloaf – This is the second time I’ve made this recipe, and it turned out very tasty both times.  This recipe makes 2 loaves of meatloaf, so I freeze one, and we eat one.  It’s very easy to make, and it’s delicious with baked sweet potatoes.  I like to eat the leftovers sauteed with eggs and veggies.

Honey BBQ Marinade – I had one of my master of conservation classes yesterday, and we had the pleasure of listening to Bill Crandall from Crandall Farms.  He gave a very interesting talk about bees (more on that in a separate post), and he also donated a couple of boxes of honey (and gave us the cutest tiny bottle of honey – check out the pic in my Instagram feed link on the right); the proceeds of which go to Nahant Marsh.  So I bought a pint, of course.  It had a recipe tied to it for Honey BBQ Marinade.  You can find it on page 2 of this pdf.  I had a package of drumsticks defrosted in the fridge, so I gave the recipe the old college try tonight.  I had to cook the chicken for about 15 minutes longer than the recipe said, but I did have 3 lbs of chicken instead of 2.  I was confused that the recipe calls for a “pinch salt/pepper” but also 1/4 tbsp black pepper.  Why a pinch + 1/4 tablespoon?  And that’s a lot of pepper!!  Anyway, the chicken turned out good, but with 1/2 a cup of honey, it’s pretty sweet for my palate.  I’m starting the 21 Day Sugar Detox in a few weeks; however, so I’m front loading a bunch of sugar consumption.  I’m trying to make my first few days of the detox as miserable as possible.

And that’s about it for planned meals.  Outside of that, it’s been Habaneros, Chipotle, HyVee Chinese, Front Street, and random scramblings of eggs, hamburger and veggies.  This week is not boding well either, as it’s 7:52PM, and I have yet to do any meal planning.  I do have pork chops and ground buffalo defrosting in the fridge, so as long as we have some veggies to sautee, we’ll have some fairly balanced and delicious meals this week.

Take care y’all, and I’ll catch you on the flip side.  Whatever the hell that means.

Cooking/Recipes, Uncategorized

Week 4 of Meal Planning

heather

So….here is another week of meals!

Leftover Sweet Potato Fries – As I mentioned in my last post, Tim added some tomatoes to the leftover chili, to help cut the spices.  While the chili tasted super good, it did NOT agree with the hlo belly!  My digestion was a little effed for like 3 days.  Evidently I cannot handle multiple tablespoons of hot spices in my food.  Lesson learned.

Balsamic Glazed Drumsticks with Turnip and Rutabega Fries (pg 159 of Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals) – These drumsticks were AWESOME!!  They were super easy, and they tasted like teriyaki chicken.  My only regret is that I bought a package of 5 drumsticks.  Next time I will buy a pack of 8 at least, so we’ll have some of these for leftovers.  Mark Sisson has the BEST recipes.  He puts a lot of pictures in his recipes, which is great for showing you how the food should look, but not so great for printing out a nice, concise recipe.  But I’ll take them however he wants to present them.  The fries were good too, I thought.  You basically cut the turnips and rutabegas into fry shape, microwave them for 8 minutes, and then bake them until they get crispy.  I chopped them up and sauteed them with other veggies for breakfast the next morning.  Super tasty.

Best Ever Chicken Wings -I’m not sure if I can agree with the name.  I mean, these were good, but they are not the “best ever.”  I think it boils down to, I just don’t really like sesame oil.  These were good, and we ate them all, but next time I might try to use a different oil.

Beef Brats – I picked up beef brats from Geest Farms at the Farmers Market weekend before last.  These were SUPER TASTY.  Would definitely buy, cook, and eat them again.

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Lazy Hlo

heather

Holy cow, it’s been an age since I’ve written anything.  Why have I been so remiss in my writing?  Who knows?  Vacation?  Laziness?  Busy-ness?  Lack of anything interesting to say?  Probably mostly the latter to tell you the truth.

Well, I’m writing tonight despite not having anything interesting to say.  It’s time to get back on the wagon and start writing again. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and now it’s time to formulate some of those thoughts into words.  Well, not right now, but over the next couple of weeks.  Right now I’m just saying hi to my blog and then I’m going to go for a walk.

I’ll give a quick update, at least, on life in general.  I’m still doing the primal/paleo thing.  Still seeing great results.  I’m down to a size 4 and weigh 128.1, a weight I’ve not seen since I was perhaps 6?  I feel really good.  I’m struggling with allergies a little still.  I think that’s because I drink alcohol more than I should, and I don’t drink WHAT I should when I DO drink.  If I reigned that in, I’d probably feel better.  But, we’re going on vacation Wednesday, so the dial-in will have to wait until August.  Anyway, I’m feeling good.  I have some abs now and some arm and leg muscles.  I found awesome running shorts I love.  I’ve been running more regularly, probably because I love the shorts so much.  I’ve been getting up at 5AM and running, in point of fact.  It’s too hot to run any other time.  I’ve also finally started doing squats and lunges.  My ass is going to be to die for by the end of the summer, I swears.  What else, what else???  We took a trip to the beach for 4 days.  It was an awesome vacation of biking, jogging, reading, and staring at the beach, wondering how I can change my life so I can stare at the beach more.  We’re offsetting the relaxing vacation with an NYC vacation.  We’re Amtraking it.  Pray for no delays and break downs.

Work is work and is fine.

I haven’t been doing any art outside of a pencil drawing of Tim that looks like my uncle Jerry.

I’ve sold a few coozies on Etsy.  I’ve made like a whopping $40 bucks which has all gone towards rebuilding my wardrobe as most of my clothes aren’t fitting these days.

I did my first Codeacademy lesson in JavaScript tonight.  I’m going to be writing web pages in no time.  Not.  But I do have the itch to learn something new.  Coding?  Maybe?  We’ll see how patient I am and if I can reign in my frenetic mind for a few minutes each day to learn something.

Been reading a good book – Stumbling on Happiness.  It’s all about how we don’t really know what’s going to make us happy in the future because we are currently in the present and see everything through the present filter instead of the non-existent future filter.  God help us all.

Watched a cool Ted talk tonight. Here are the highlights – Level up your life every day.  Live life deliberately.  Collect experiences not stuff.  At least it made me not watch TV at all this evening.

So how’s that for a stream of consciousness post?  The next one will be more coherent, I swear.

Take care and have a pleasant, deliberate evening.

Health & Fitness, Uncategorized

Vacation from Paleo

heather

We returned from Ocracoke late last night. The drive home was wrought with annoyances and delays, but it did have two positive results.  1.  I think I might be able to convince Tim to fly next time we want to go someplace 1000+ miles away.  2.  We discovered another vacation destination – the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.  Who wants to be our DD??

Since we were on vacation, subject to the whims and offerings of the local restuarants and grocery stores, I decided to relax a bit on my diet while in Ocracoke.  Well, actually, I relaxed it a lot.  As I mentioned in the previous post, whiskey was hard to find on Ocracoke, but you can’t not drink on vacation, so I beered it up.  I also ate hushpuppies, onions rings, chicken strips, clam chowder, fried clams, pizza, amazing tacos, bagel with lox and cream cheese, cream in my coffee, etc. etc. etc.   Keep in mind I ingested all this while wearing a bikini for 6-8 hours a day.  Not a good combo.  I was positive I would weigh 7 lbs more on my return to Iowa.  Maybe it was the steady homeward-bound diet of prunes, apricots, and walnuts, but I actually only gained 3 lbs.  I guess all the biking and swimming and running on the island mitigated some of the effects of the bad diet.

I did notice other ramifications, however.  My general appetite has increased, and my appetite for sweets has skyrocketed.  I want CANDY, and I want it now, and I want A LOT of it!!

Hopefully a week of getting back on track will curb the cravings.  I got off to a good start this morning by making us eggs fried in ghee and sauteed red & green peppers with onions and garlic, garnished with 1/2 an avocado.  After my morning 3 mile walk, I snacked on beef jerky and a date.  I kinda fell off the wagon for lunch though.  Tim’s birthday was yesterday, and since we were on the road for 22 hours, we didn’t have a chance to do much for it.  So today we got a late lunch at Granite City.  You can’t go to GC and NOT get beer, so I got a beer.  A huge beer.  I’m a member of the mug club, so the huge beer was only $3.50.  We’ve been members for a year, so we got a coupon for a free appetizer, so we split the boneless chicken wings (with ranch).  My supper was actually pretty paleo – the Napa Valley Burger with no bun and a side of deeeeelicious steamed broccoli.  I figure we are technically still on vacation since we haven’t gone back to work yet, so I can still cheat.

It’s supposed to be wicked hot this week, so exercising will be a challenge.  Right now, my goal is to wake up at 5AM and jog.  Tim says he’ll do it with me, so we’ll see.  I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night, so who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow.

Tim and I are going on another trip in a few weeks – this one to visit my bros in NYC.  I think eating well will be easier there than on the island of Ocracoke.  Plus, I’m sure we’re going to be doing a ton of walking, biking, and hiking, so things shouldn’t get too OOC.

I’m kind of looking forward to August, when our schedule will normalize.

Take care, and have a wonderful evening!

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Ocracoke, NC — The good, the bad, the ugly

heather

Tim and I have been on vacation since last Saturday.  We drove from Davenport to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  We’ve been on Ocracoke Island since Monday.

A few comments about Ocracoke.  The beach is super beautiful.  Super beautiful.  Up until this point, I thought Nantucket was the prettiest beach, but I’ve changed my mind.  Ocracoke is the best.  And part of what makes it the best is the people here.  The people in Nantucket are too rich.  This is a more blue-collar kind of place – lots of families and retired folk.

What’s also nice is that Ocracoke is tiny.  You can bike the whole village in about 30 minutes.  No restaurant is more than a 15-30 minute walk away.  The town is clean and pretty pristine.  Biking/walking/golf-carting is encouraged.  It’s an easy place to stay active.

If you are looking for lots of night life and crazy parties, I don’t think Ocracoke would be your place, but for people like Tim and me, it’s perfect.  We’re early risers (especially here, where one whole side of our hotel suite is windows, so our room is bright with sunshine at 5;30AM), and early sleepers.  Ocracoke suits us.

Hmm… what else do we like…  Dogs are allowed on the beach here, which is awesome (sorry Lucent!).  There are funny surfer dudes working at this great local coffee shop.  Yesterday one said to a customer, “I’m slighly bipolar, but in the good way.”

What don’t we like?  Well, two main things.  1.  It’s SUPER hard to find a place that serves whiskey.  According to our server at a local restuarant, serving hard liquor just recently became legal in the county.  Beer and wine are the order of the day.  We finally found a place last night that serves whiskey.  My single whiskey and soda cost EIGHT DOLLARS.  No good.

Number 2 – the mosquitoes on this island are a thing of legend.  Actually, I think they are a problem all along the Outer Banks, due to the marshes that line the ocean.  We tried to do a marsh hike on Pea Island on the way down here, but the mosquitoes were literally trying to eat Tim alive.  For some reason, they really love him.  I’ve been hit maybe 2 or 3 times, but Tim has been bitten dozens of times.  We have to spray him head-to-toe with bug spray any time we leave the house.  They are insane.  We ran yesterday along Highway 12, and they were tailing him as he ran.  Crazy.  They are so intense that I don’t know if we would vacation here again.  We planned on doing some hikes while we are here, but changed our tune after the Pea Island experience.

All-in-all, it’s been a fantastic trip – lots of beach time, lots of biking, lots of walking, lots of relaxing.  Tomorrow we head out to visit my cousin on the mainland, and then it’s back to Iowa for us.  At least we have a trip in July to look forward to; otherwise, I would be mucho depressed.

I am looking forward to getting home for one big reason, though.  I’ve been eating totally non-paleo this trip – lots of tasty fried food and carbs.  My shorts are getting tight, and my energy is waning.  I can’t wait to start eating my avocado and eggs and veggies and grass-fed meat again. I need to CLEANSE.

In a nutshell, Ocracoke = good times

Health & Fitness, Uncategorized

A Primal Primer

heather

I’ve had a couple of friends who are interested in this whole primal/paleo thing.  So I thought I would write a quick post about how to get started, based on my 5 months of experience.  Here are my favorite books, sites, and primal/paleo products.

Good books

  • The Primal Blueprint 21 Day Total Body Transformation – This is the first book I read, and it was a great, simple introduction to the primal lifestyle.  The author, Mark Sisson, doesn’t just talk about how to change your diet.  He talks about how to re-approach your life – get outside more, disconnect from technology, play, focus on the present, etc.  He also lays out a 21-day plan to help you get on the primal path.  I keep promising to send this book to my brothers, but I just can’t let it go.
  • The Paleo Solution:  The Original Human Diet – I just finished this book by Robb Wolf last week.  It’s a more technical, in-depth book on paleo.  If you want to understand the science behind why the paleo diet works, this is the book to read.  Robb also provides meal plans for 30 days and a pretty detailed weight lifting section.  It’s also a pretty funny read.

Blogs:

  • www.marksdailyapple.com – Mark Sisson’s blog – chock full of health information and good recipes.
  • www.robbwolf.com – Robb Wolf’s blog – also chock full of great information and resources.

Recipe Blogs:

Ingredients

Here is a list of the stuff I always like to have in the fridge or freezer:

  • Grass-fed ground hamburger (from our Farmer’s Market.  If you don’t have a local producer, you can buy it online from US Wellness Meats)
  • Frozen wild-caught salmon (from Target)
  • Canned tuna or sardines
  • Fresh veggies – spinach, kale, avocado, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, peppers
  • Frozen fruit – excellent defrosted with some coconut milk drizzled over them
  • Pastured eggs
  • Thai Kitchen Coconut Milk
  • Nuts – Macademia nuts supposedly have the best omega 3 profile, but I find them a little rich.  I eat a lot of pistachios, almonds and walnuts.
  • Gerolsteiner Mineral water – good source of magnesium.
  • Avocado oil
  • Coconut oil – I LOVE this stuff.  I put it in my coffee and cook with it all the time, and it’s the bees knees.
  • Dark chocolate – I love the Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate Chips.  They don’t have a great cocoa content, but they are perfect for snacking.
  • Carlson Super D Omega 3 Cod Liver Oil
  • Magnesium Lactate

Keep all this stuff on hand, and you’ll have everything you need to make a tasty primal meal.

So, that’s an introduction in a nutshell!  Hopefully you found it somewhat helpful.