Hooray! I’m a size 2! Unless it’s 2001. Then I’m a size 8.

Okay so I’m not sure if you’re aware of the fact that it’s been almost two years since I started my weight loss journey.  If you are, hooray!  You’re ahead of the curve!  If you aren’t, then check out my story here.  A while ago I undertook the arduous task of cleaning out my closet and my dresser drawers.    Oh the agony of having to get rid of clothes that are too big.  Pretty much all of the slacks and jeans I bought before kiddo #3 no longer fit.  It kind of makes me sad because I had some awesome suits.  Gone are the men’s shirts too because I hated having to buy L and XL women’s shirts.  There is a downside to this story.  I was very eager to get back in to all of my Victoria’s Secret bras.  My lovely 34C bras.  After kiddo #4, I was a 38 C.  *sadness*  Yes I did NOT like big boobs.  What sucks is that I had just bought a bunch of 38C bras a few weeks before I started my Beachbody journey.  Nothing like throwing money away.  Anyways let’s get back to my 34C bras.  Well none of them fit either.  ULTIMATE SADNESS!!  I went and had myself fitted and I am back to my PRE-PREGNANCY 34B boobs.  Of course then I found out that Victoria’s Secret has discontinued their Body by Victoria line of bras.  CURSES!!

Back to cleaning out my closet and all.  Well I remembered that I had a tub of pre-kiddo #3 pants in the basement.  How pre-kiddo #3?  I bought most of these jeans back in 2001 when I was 24 years old and had just lost the baby weight from kiddo #2.  So I head downstairs, retrieve said tub, lug it upstairs, dust it off, and pull out some jeans that haven’t seen the light of day since 2006.  I start going through.  “Oh no!” I thought.  They were all size 8′s and size 9′s!  I couldn’t believe it.  I decided to try them on anyways.   Guess what?  They fit.  They fit perfectly.  This left me confused.  The size 8 jeans and slacks I bought 7 years ago are too big.  I mean WAY too big.  They fall right off of me.  The other week I tried on a size 3 in juniors and they fit and I just bought another pair of size 2 jeans last week.

Seems like the clothing industry really does mess with the way sizes run. So am I a size 2 or a size 8? I guess 10+ years ago I was an 8 and that translates in to a 2 this decade.  Does that mean I’ll be wearing a size 14 in the girls department someday?

Sweet Potato Bread

During our first year here in Ohio, we experimented growing sweet potatoes. Actually what happened is I bought a sweet potato plant, stuck it in the garden, it overtook a large portion of said garden, and then we dug up a TON of sweet potatoes. That was 2011. Just last week I FINALLY used up the last of the sweet potato puree I made and froze back in 11/11 according to the bag.

This is just a small amount of our harvest.

I decided I wanted to make some sweet potato bread and muffins. I don't know why. I just wanted some homemade sweet bread goodness! Plus who doesn't want to make something that uses cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar? As you can imagine my house smelled heavenly while these babies were baking.

So to christen my new blog I'm going to share the recipe I used. Please note that I skipped the first two steps because I already had my sweet potato puree.

Sweet Potato Bread
Makes 3 mini loaves or 24 muffins

¾ cup Butter, softened
2¼ cups Firmly packed Brown Sugar
1½ cups Sweet potato Puree
2 Eggs
2½ cups Flour
¾ tsp Salt
¾ tsp Ground Nutmeg
¾ tsp Ground Ginger
1½ tsp Baking soda
1 tbsp Ground Cinnamon
3/8 tsp ground cloves
½ cup Water

1. Scrub one large sweet potato, peel and cut into 2-inch long pieces, place in a small saucepan, and
cover with water. You can also use canned sweet potatoes.

2. Cook 25 minutes and puree in a food processor or mash with a potato masher.

3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

4. Butter and flour bread pan or line muffin tin with muffin papers.

5.With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy; stir in sweet potato puree
and egg.

6. Sift together flour, salt, nutmeg, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon and cloves. Stir half of the dry
ingredients into creamed mixture; stir in water, then stir in remaining dry ingredients.

7. Bake until dry on top and a skewer inserted in center comes out clean. Muffins take around 25 minutes to bake, bread will take 45 minutes, depending on the oven and pan size.Serve warm

Then sit back and enjoy! All four of my kids LOVE these muffins and that is bigger than a two thumbs
up rating. ;)

Nothing better than a warm muffin and cup of hot coffee on a cool autumn morning!

Pan Roasted Chicken With Lemon Garlic Green Beans

Another dinner, another new recipe!  This time I decided to try Real Simple’s Pan Roasted Chicken with Lemon Garlic Green Beans. So far I have not been disappointed by the recipes I have found on the Real Simple website and their Month of Dinners menu plan is one of my favorite features. I was very pleased with the simplicity of this recipe and how it came out. I was nervous at first because the reviews were pretty divided. The chicken came out very moist, the veggies were nice and tender, and overall the dish was very flavorful. I loved the way the green beans turned out and would make them as a standalone side dish. I did have to make some modifications based on what I had on hand and the recipe is as follows:

Pan Roasted Chicken with Lemon Garlic Green Beans
Serves 4

Ingredients
6 tablespoons olive oil
1 lemon, juiced
1 large orange, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 pound trimmed green beans
8 small red potatoes, quartered
4 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces (I used 2 breasts and 4 legs)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. Coat a large baking dish or cast-iron skillet with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Arrange the orange slices in a single layer in the bottom of the dish or skillet.
3. In a large bowl, combine the remaining oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper; add the green beans and toss to coat. Using a slotted spoon or tongs, remove the green beans and arrange them on top of the orange slices.
4. Add the potatoes to the same olive-oil mixture and toss to coat. Using a slotted spoon or tongs, arrange the potatoes along the inside edge of the dish or skillet on top of the green beans.
5. Place the chicken in the same bowl with the olive-oil mixture and coat thoroughly. Place the chicken, skin-side up, in the dish or skillet. Pour any of the remaining olive-oil mixture over the chicken. Sprinkle with additional salt and pepper.
6. Roast for 1 hour or until chicken is cooked thoroughly. Remove the chicken from the dish or skillet. Place the beans and potatoes back in oven for 10 minutes more or until the potatoes are tender. Place a chicken breast on each of 4 serving plates; divide the green beans and potatoes equally. Serve warm.

I am a horrible food photographer and my photo did not come out well at all so here is a photo from the Real Simple website. Surprisingly enough, my dish did look a lot like this!

Homemade Carrot Cake : My Go-To Birthday Cake for 50% of my kids

My journey in to watching what my kids ate, reading labels, and “going crazy over food” as my teenager likes to put it began two years ago after my oldest son was diagnosed with Asperger’s.  I will admit that when I first started dabbling in “clean eating” I truly thought all that entailed was avoiding artificial dyes, flavors, and preservatives and making everything from scratch.  Over the last two years I have come to learn that “clean eating” means so much more than that – avoiding not only artificial dyes, flavors, and preservatives, but also unnecessary filler additives like carrageenan.  I think one of the best clean eating rules I have read went like this:


When reading the ingredient label, if you don’t know what an ingredient is, or if you have never heard of it, there is a good chance that it is a chemical or processed ingredient.

I’ll admit that it is really hard sometimes. I tossed out things like Hamburger Helper a long time ago and there are crazy hectic nights when I wish I had some of those time saving dinners until I realize all the crap they are filled with.

Back to the originally purpose of this post: CARROT CAKE! When it came time for birthdays, I wanted to make a carrot cake from scratch. I sat down and thought back to all the carrot cakes I had ever had and what I loved about each one. Then I went to the computer and tried to find a recipe that incorporated all of those things: a moist cake filled with carrots, pineapple, and raisins, with lots of spices, and a cream cheese frosting. Yes. I love me some cream cheese! Well I couldn’t find one recipe that incorporated it all. So then I started just combining elements from various recipes and came up with this one.

Is it clean? Cleaner than a box of Betty Crocker! Is it paleo? Heavens to Betsy not even close.  As of now I try and use as many organic ingredients as possible.  This cake is not sugar free, it’s not grain free, it’s not dairy free… But it is like heaven in your mouth!

Homemade Carrot Cake : My Go-To Birthday Cake
Yields: 9-inch two-layer round cake
Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground ginger
Sift and mix all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the following:
1 3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup applesauce
3 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
Form a well in the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients. Then add,
2 cups shredded carrot
1/2 cup golden raisins (soaked in pineapple juice)
8 oz crushed pineapple.
Divide the mixture between two 9 inch cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean. Let cool and frost.

FROSTING
3 packages cream cheese, softened
1 stick + 3 TBS unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp orange extract
1 3/4 cup powdered sugar

Beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add in the extracts. Slowly add in the powdered sugar.

Slow Cooker Shredded Honey BBQ Chicken

One of my favorite things to do is figure out what to make for dinner when I have no idea what I want to make.  I pick a few random ingredients and/or requirements (“quick”), toss them in a search engine, and hit ENTER.

The other day I think I searched for +quick +chicken and crockpot.  Pretty generic this time I’ll admit.  It did give me a recipe that sounded promising and I ended up altering just a bit.  Overall it was a hit and what that means is that 75% of the kids ate it and liked it.

Slow Cooker Shredded Honey BBQ Chicken

1.5lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3/4 cup honey
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 1/2 TBSP tomato paste
1/4 cup water
1 1/4 tsp black pepper
1 TBSP oil
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 TBSP ground ginger


Directions
1. Place chicken in the slow cooker
2. Combine remaining ingredients in a small bowl, whisk until blended, and pour over chicken.
3. Cook 6 hours on low.
4. Shred chicken with two forks, mix thoroughly with the sauce, and cook 20 minutes more.
I would have taken a photo but I was too hungry to get my camera. I had just spent over an hour in a car with a dead battery.

Avocado Oil Makes My Face Taste Good

I originally bought some organic avocado oil for my face. Then I discovered it makes a great salad dressing when mixed with some white balsamic vinegar. So the avocado oil has been nixed from my facial cleanser and relegated back to the kitchen to make me some pie. So why was I buying avocado oil for my face you ask?  I decided to stop using facial cleansers and moisturizers in favor of the Oil Cleansing Method.  Yeah that’s a crunchy thing.  Basically you use just regular, preferably organic and cold pressed, oils.  Your primary oil will be Castor Oil.  Your secondary oil(s) are determined by what your skin’s needs are.  For example I used the aforementioned Avocado Oil because it is suppose to be good for “aging” skin.  You can google “oil cleansing method recipes” and find what you’re looking for.  One of my favorite references is Crunchy Betty.

My current recipe is as follows:
1 part Castor Oil + 1 part Macadamia Nut Oil (rich in Omega 7) + 1 part Hazelnut Oil (acne-prone skin)

I also add in a little Tamanu Oil which is a bit more pricey but it smells HEAVENLY.

So how does this method work?  Well you shake, shake, shake your oils, apply to your face and massage in.  The oils spread very well so a little bit goes a long way.  Massage your mixture in good and then get a hot washcloth and steam your face for about 10 seconds.  I run hot water from the faucet and just get the washcloth hot (ring it out) and apply it to my face.  I repeat that process about 2-3 more times.  I wipe any remaining oil from my face.  While it is still damp, I put a little Kukui Nut oil  on and also dab some Argan oil around my eyes.  My Hawaiian ancestors supposedly anointed themselves with kukui nut oil and it goes on smoothly and is absorbed quickly. Perfect moisturizer! Argan oil is recommended for aging skin – especially around the eyes.  It’s pretty darn expensive but my aunt ended up sending me some.

Voila! I have my Day 1 photos but the laptop that was holding them died this morning so I have no Before/After shots.  My teenager was intrigued and asked me to whip up some OCM potion for her.  I just did half Castor oil and half Hazelnut Oil.  She has very bad acne and has been on several prescriptions for it.  I might have to take her Before photo.  I will say that she is AMAZED at how soft and smooth her skins feels.

So what are you waiting for?  Give it a go.

Inspiration please strike!

Just a quick test.  I’m not sure what to write.  I’ve been trying to write a post for the last few days but inspiration has not struck.  Should I write about me in general?  Should I write about my fitness journey?  Something nerdy perhaps?  How about some of my crunchy ways?  Recipes?  Life story?  My fish?  My dog? The freaky skeleton hand I just bought?  How about a book?  I’m just not sure!  Maybe I should post a few posts and then start looking for other cool, crunchy, nerdy, fitness blogs to follow?  Decisions!

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