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A Nourishing Way to Begin Your Day

Sometimes all you need is a break from routine. I’m not talking a break from ritual here – I mean the routine that you’ve fallen into and have maybe wondered about getting out of. The routine that keeps you feeling tired and maybe a little bit bored.

A few years ago I wrote about how once the weather began to cool down, my body seemed to switch over from smoothies to oatmeal for my first nourishment of the day.

This year, I never really made that switch. Sometimes I would make oatmeal, but smoothies were still the default, especially on days when I would be running out the door to get Chloe to school and myself to yoga. I could make a smoothie, start drinking it at home, put the rest in a mason jar and be out the door.

A few days ago she wanted peaches in her yogurt and all we had were frozen peaches. I heated some up in a pot and a new warmer breakfast idea popped into my head.

I like starting the day with fruit because it’s easy to digest, so I feel like I’m giving my body a gentle start to the day. I recently took a workshop on Ayurveda and was reminded of something that seems to make sense to me – cold foods and drinks put out our digestive fire, making it more difficult for our stomachs to digest the food we feed ourselves.

I start each day with warm lemon water (that’s ritual) and then for a while have been making smoothies every day as the ‘easy way out’ of thinking about breakfast (that’s routine).

After helping Chloe with her breakfast, I got to work making mine.

Warm Fruit Salad (a perfect alternative to a smoothie):

1 tablespoon coconut cream
1 tablespoon raw local honey
Approx 2-3 cups of fruit – I used a banana, 4 large strawberries, 1/2 cup pineapple, 1/2 cup frozen peaches, 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 cup gluten free (or not) quick cook oats
Cinnamon to taste
1 tablespoon chia seeds
1/3 cup sliced almonds

On medium heat, add coconut cream to a saucepan and let it begin to soften
Add frozen fruit so it can begin to thaw
Add remaining fruit, honey, cinnamon, oats, and stir together
Heat on medium heat until thoroughly warmed and flavors meld together (5-10 minutes)
Take off heat and mix in chia seeds and sliced almonds

Enjoy!

If you try it, I’d love to know what you think, so please come back and leave a comment here.

Oatmeal sometimes leaves me feeling heavy and tired, so by adding just a small amount of oats, this is a rounded and filling meal without being too heavy – a perfect way to start the day! The other thing I love about this recipe is that it’s got everything I usually have in a smoothie (plus oats) so I’m getting all the same delicious foods and I get to chew them and really experience the flavors coming together and alive.

With Love,

Creating Ease with the BlendTec Blender

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With deep gratitude, I received a BlendTec WideJar and Twister blender to review. I am always looking for new ways to make healthy eating simple and I have loved all that I’ve created with my BlendTec.

It can feel overwhelming sometimes to walk into the kitchen and feel like you can come up with a healthy meal in a short and stress free time. My BlendTec has helped make that easier than ever, and I’m happy to share some of my favorite food creations with you!

I make smoothies almost every morning, and with the juice button, they have never been smoother before now. I’ve used other high power blenders before but they sometimes left chunks of fruit that would appear in my glass and that hasn’t happened with the BlendTec.

The buttons are so easy to navigate and my 4 year old often helps out with making smoothies. It’s great to get her involved and experimenting. I let her add what she wants to her smoothies because it gives her the chance to learn a lesson I certainly have – sometimes fewer ingredients work better than adding in everything you can think of!

The BlendTec Twister has been our favorite for making ice cream. I’ll put a couple of frozen bananas in there (cut into smaller pieces) along with chia seeds, almond butter, and some raw cacao powder and in under a minute we’ve got a creamy and delicious healthy ice cream. I grew up making banana ice cream in my mom’s Champion Juicer, so it’s wonderful to share this tradition with my daughter now.

I also use the Twister for dips.

I’ve been making a cashew yogurt (inspired by Persephone Brown), which is the perfect accompaniment to fresh fruit and granola. I take a cup of cashews, juice of a lemon, cinnamon and water to reach the right consistency and blend them together. This has been perfect to take along for camping trips as an easy breakfast.

Most recently I made an amazing avocado dip, it was so creamy and smooth and I ended up making tortilla chips to have with it but I honestly could have eaten it right off the spoon! I blended an avocado, lemon juice, paprika and sea salt. It didn’t need it, but a little bit of flax oil would be a great addition for some healthy omega-3s.

A BlendTec can feel like a big investment, and there’s no doubt that it is, but it’s one that you can see in action everyday.

If you want to learn more and start bringing ease to your kitchen follow one of the links in this blog to see what great options BlendTec has to offer!

If you have any questions about the BlendTec or the recipes I shared above, please leave a comment below!

Peace, Love, and Wellness,

Note: I received a BlendTec WideJar and Twister blender in exchange for writing a review and a few blog posts for their site and the links in this blog are affiliate links (that means if you’re as excited to try the BlendTec as I was, you’ll be helping support my business while getting to enjoy a BlendTec). All ideas and opinions in this blog are mine.

When emotional eating is a good thing (and a recipe for how to do it right!)

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Yesterday was a bit of a rough day for me. I had a quick bite of leftovers before a call with a prospective client (brown rice noodle stir fry, yum!), but since I’d eaten most of it for dinner the night before, there wasn’t much in the way of leftovers.

A couple of hours later I found myself craving something that I haven’t had since freshman year of college – Cinnabon. Before you run out and grab one, I want to share what I ate instead of a Cinnabon.

Here’s the thing about emotions – especially when we are dealing with difficult situations – it’s the perfect opportunity to fall back into our old habits and think it can be done in a guilt-free way.

The problem with that thinking is this:

– you end up feeling guilty anyway

– you feel physically unwell if what you ate does not serve your body

– you continue to spiral in a bad mood because you didn’t give yourself a way out

I want to share with you how I let my emotional eating guide me in a positive direction, and I’m going to share the recipe for what I ate too!

So I found myself in my kitchen, taking a bite of the fruit leather Chloe and I had made the night before, wondering what it was I really wanted. The fruit leather wasn’t bad, it was strawberries, pineapple, banana, and chia seeds, but I knew even before I started to eat it that it wasn’t what I wanted. “I have those salad greens,” I thought to myself, and I started to convince myself that I didn’t want a salad either.

Then I was struck by inspiration.

I tossed the baby salad greens into a big white bowl, added some sprouted sunflower and pumpkin seeds, sliced some avocado, forked on some sauerkraut, and then I created an awesome new dressing to pour on top:

Approximately 1 tbs each of sauerkraut brine, olive oil and hummus, mixed together with a fork until the hummus is all mixed in (admittedly, I used more brine and olive oil than that but had a lot of dressing at the bottom of the bowl).

For good measure, I added a dollop of hummus to the side of the bowl, and I sat down to an amazing, filling, and nourishing meal.

So how did I get my brain to go from Cinnabon to Salad?

– I didn’t have a Cinnabon in my kitchen (that’s important – stock your kitchen with what nourishes you)

– With my kitchen well-stocked, I was able to allow my body to have healthy choices to contemplate

– I didn’t over think it, I just let myself create, taste, and enjoy

When you can learn to trust yourself, you can start to differentiate between the cravings that don’t serve you (Cinnabon) and those that do (greens, kraut, healthy fats), and that can put you on the fast track to a better mood.

The salad broke me free from my bad mood just in time to go to the playground with my daughter. I couldn’t ask for more.

I’d love to hear what foods your body craves (both the good ones and the not so good ones). Share with us in the comments below!

Recap of the recipe:

For the salad:

Salad greens of your choice (baby greens are delicious and tender and recommended)

1 avocado

2 tbs sprouted sunflower seeds

2 tbs sprouted pumpkin seeds

1 tbc hummus

1 large forkful of raw sauerkraut

For the dressing:

1 – 2 tbs olive oil

1 – 2 tbs sauerkraut brine

1 tbs hummus

squeeze of lemon juice

Assembly:

Place greens in a bowl, add sliced avocado, seeds, kraut and hummus, top with dressing and enjoy.

Peace, Love, and Wellness,

Healthy Homemade Granola

Quick and Easy Green Smoothie

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Sometimes you need a reminder that healthy habits can begin quite simply.

It doesn’t need to be about spending confusing hours in the kitchen, experimenting with ingredients you’ve never heard of.

To make it really work for you and start you on the journey to learning what works best for your body, you start with the healthy foods that you know you love.

Here’s one of my favorite ways to boost my energy mid-afternoon, when we tend to get tired and reach for those vending machine sugary snacks.

While the last smoothie recipe I shared with you is awesome in it’s own ways, you can see the difference between the green powder and the fresh greens, and believe me, you can taste it too!

Have you tried green smoothies before? If you have, tell me what you love about them. If you haven’t, are you ready to do something easy and nourishing for yourself today?

Smoothie made in a Vitamix. Learn more and order yours today.

Peace, Love, and Wellness,

Food Fridays: Healthy Breakfast Simplified

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I woke up this morning and headed into the kitchen with the intention of making tea, and instead found myself making homemade muesli.

(The tea happened a bit later)

I recently fell into a breakfast rut, tired of some of my favorites. I used to keep a bag of Bob’s Red Mill muesli in my pantry, but I took it out of the rotation when I tired of it.

I’m glad I did because it led me to realize how simple it is to make my own (and much more cost effective).

Muesli is flexible – you can add what you like or your body is craving, and you can eat it cold (either with milk or yogurt) or warm.

It also makes the perfect on-the-go mason jar meal.

Xandra’s 5 Minute Breakfast Muesli:

2 cups rolled oats

1/4 cup wheat germ

1 tsp (or to taste) cinnamon

1/3 cup pumpkin seeds

1/3 cup sunflower seeds

1/3 cup sliced almonds

2 tbs coconut flakes

2 tbs chia seeds

1 cup unsweetened raisins

Combine ingredients in a bowl, and serve over yogurt, in milk, or warmed on the stovetop with milk.

Store remaining muesli in a glass storage container.

What’s your favorite way to simplify breakfast? Let me know in the comments below!

Peace, Love, and Wellness,