Month: January 2018

What We Ate Wednesday 1/31/18

I’m back again with more meal inspiration for you. There are some repeats here from previous weeks and some brand new dishes. Some are so brand new that I haven’t written them up for you just yet – but I will – just as soon as they’re perfected!

Meal #1: Nut-Crusted Chicken, Simple Cole Slaw (minus the sweetener) and roasted squash and carrots. This chicken is AMAZING! Yes, it’s a little time-consuming, but it’s worth it. I promise. Just keep the rest of the meal simple. In this case, I made the slaw earlier in the day and the veggies roasted while I worked on the chicken. I have a video of this chicken prep as well if that’s helpful to you.

Meal #2: Smothered Pork Chops (similar to this recipe from Nom Nom Paleo), Instant Pot Applesauce and Broccoli

Meal #3: I went out with some friends and my family ate leftovers. For my dinner out, I chose a Mediterranean restaurant and enjoyed a grilled chicken kebab and roasted vegetables. Food blogger fail: I did not photograph my dinner. What can I say? I was hungry, so I ate it. 🙂

Meal #4: Beef and Vegetable Soup, with the addition of potatoes for a little more oomph! This is a super simple recipe, but amazingly filling and delicious. The only trick here is that you must have good quality, rich, homemade broth. You can find the recipe in my book.

Meal #5: Cauliflower Soup with Sausage This is a new recipe that I will write up for you soon.

Meal #6: Out to dinner again! We went for a long hike in a neighboring town so had the opportunity to try a new restaurant. Let’s just say this neighboring town leans a little more liberal than my town and as a result, there were a lot more gluten free options! We chose a place called Grub, where I devoured a bunless burger with onions and bacon, salad and roasted potatoes on the side. I didn’t have any of my homemade dressing with me, so I just used mayonnaise. I know that’s not totally Whole30 Compliant due to the oils used in the mayo, but I figured it was better than a sugary dressing.

Meal #7: Grilled Sirloin Steak with Roasted Butternut Squash and Thai Cabbage Salad Another new recipe, shared by a friend. My whole family loved this – except my son, who considered it sacrilege to put salad (and sauce!!!) on top of perfectly good steak. Of course, I made some changes from the original so once I get it typed up, I’ll send it out.

That’s it for What We Ate Wednesday, Week 3. Come back next week for more cooking and eating inspiration. If you didn’t notice, soup seems to be the name of the game these days!

Whole30 Compliant Super Bowl Party Fare

Let’s just get this out of the way now, shall we: it would be ideal if you could enjoy some greasy, crispy, cheesy, salty goodness, all washed down with your favorite beverage and followed up with something creamy and sweet while you watch the Super Bowl. But, what if this special day happens to fall in the middle (or maybe the end) of your Whole30 or 21 Day Sugar Detox? What are you going to do? The way I see it, you have two choices:

  1. Throw in the towel and call it good enough.
  2. Hold firm and finish your detox with your head held high.

There really is no middle ground. On these detox/elimination-type protocols, there is no half-way. So I’m not here to tell you how to fudge your way through a special occasion that, let’s face it, is really all about the food. I’m here to give you fully compliant food ideas that will get you to the finish line feeling strong and proud.

I did write a little book a year ago called Your Paleo Holiday and it contains a whole chapter on Super Bowl goodies. There you can find the following recipes:

  • Meatballs
  • Teriyaki Chicken Wings
  • Buffalo/Hot Wings
  • Ranch Dip
  • Bacon and Cheese Dip
  • Plantain Chips – the perfect dipper!

The New Year’s Eve Chapter contains five more appetizers and a punch recipe. So that’s always an option. You can download the book right now from this website, Amazon or iTunes.

But I have tons of recipes on the blog that would work really well for your Super Bowl gathering. And they’re all free for the taking!

Heavenly Eggs

Everybody loves deviled eggs, whether they admit it or not. Make these with the baconnaise instead of the regular mayonnaise and you will be a hero. 

 

 

 

Fresh fruit is always a good option! Put out a bowl of whole fruit or cut it up into a nice fruit salad. You could even get fancy and garnish the salad with some large, toasted coconut flakes. Trust me, your guests will be thrilled to have a light, refreshing option.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meatballs are always a crowd pleaser. I know you can buy these at all the big box stores and just heat them up in some sort of sauce, but why not go the extra mile and make them from scratch with the best ingredients possible?

 

 

 

 

 

Teriyaki Wings and Buffalo Wings – The method is the same for both types of wings, but the sauces are different (the buffalo wing recipe is in my book). We’re split in my house as to which one of these is better. Why don’t you make both and let your friends decide? To make the hot wing sauce compliant, be sure to use ghee rather than butter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plenty of fresh veggies served with your favorite dip is a fast and easy idea. My ranch dip recipe, pictured here, is available in my book, but I have a delicious avocado lime dip/dressing recipe right here on the blog (second picture below). Just like with the fruit, the crisp, freshness of the veggies will be a real gift to your guests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pigs in Blankets – my kids beg for these. Yes, they’re paleo and technically Whole30 compliant, but they aren’t exactly health food, so I usually just make them for Christmas Eve. But because I’m making them all “suffer through” this Whole30 Super Bowl, I’m making these as a concession.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shrimp Cocktail – just classic, boiled shrimp with a tangy sauce. (I have a great sauce recipe in the New Year’s Eve chapter of my book.) Be sure to make your own sauce to keep it compliant. You’ll need to start with fresh horseradish root. Ignore the cheese in this picture, it’s from a previous Christmas Eve party. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oven Fried Okra makes a light and crispy treat that everyone can just pick up with their fingers and pop into their mouths. So good! Everyone will think they’re eating some delicious fried goodness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Along the same lines as the oven fried okra, we have Oven Fried Squash. I realize this isn’t traditional party food, but these are super yummy dipped in the tomato sauce from the meatballs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pineapple Mango Salsa – delicious to just eat with a spoon, but that might be a little weird at a party, so serve it with some baked or fried plantain chips. The only problem with this recipe: your guests might never leave. A bonus with this recipe: it’s even better a couple days after you make it, so making it ahead of time makes game day easier. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s one bonus recipe, at the suggestion of my son: Butternut Squash Soup.

In case you don’t also have a thirteen year old boy in your house, I’ll tell you that that is a rousing endorsement of this recipe if ever there was one. Super Bowl Sunday is this kid’s favorite eating day of the year. And who can blame him when the menu usually consists of chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, sausage balls, meatballs and a few veggies thrown in for good measure? Oh yeah, don’t forget the super special treat of Zevia Cola.

If these aren’t enough ideas for you, check out this Super Bowl Round-up Post from last year. Lots of folks like to play up the “Soup” part of Super Bowl and have a soup/stew/chili party. Well, I have lots of those recipes for you too. Just type soup in the search bar. And if that’s still not enough, consider purchasing my book, which is full of party-ready recipes.

Wouldn’t you be thrilled to go to someone’s house and be served these foods? Yes, yes you would. Would you feel deprived? No, no you would not.

Winter 2018 Stitch Fix Review

It’s Stitch Fix time again!

I ordered a Fix to arrive mid-January to coincide with my birthday. I told my stylist that I didn’t need or want anything specific. I requested “cozy, comfortable and affordable.”

If you want to skip my opinions and the details of this Fix, just jump to the bottom of the post for the explanation of how Stitch Fix works and what it costs. 

When your Fix ships, you have the opportunity to log into your account and get a sneak peek of what is coming your way. Because I love surprises, I never peek. I always think about peeking, but in the end I never do. Because I want to be surprised.

Besides wanting to be surprised, this is why I don’t peek: when my Fix arrived, I anxiously opened the box with super high expectations of something magical inside. But I was bummed by what I saw. The colors didn’t thrill me, the fabrics didn’t thrill me and then I looked at each item up close and I was really disappointed. If I had previewed my Fix online, I would have missed out on the happy anticipation of my box arriving. That’s half the fun.

I was so disappointed in fact, that I was going to call corporate and tell them my stylist had lost her mind or paid absolutely no attention to my profile at all. She clearly must think 1. It is fall and 2. I live in the tropics. If you think those two things are totally in conflict with one another, you’d be right. And hopefully realize why I was so baffled by this Fix.

She sent me two sleeveless items, one ugly sweater, one gauzy scarf with fall color flowers and one dress that looked way too small. I was totally confused. My Fix looked like a whole bunch of leftovers smooshed together for someone Stitch Fix clearly thought must just have money to burn. Hello. That is not me.

So I tried everything on very quickly, thought, “hmmm….” Then set it all aside and decided to wait a couple days until I had time to try everything on the way I would actually wear it.

Lo and behold, after a more concentrated try-on session, I liked everything. I didn’t LOVE everything, but I liked everything.

A important tip: I always try everything on and decide what I like and don’t like before I look at the invoice because I don’t want my opinions to be swayed by the price tag. So having not looked at the prices yet, I decided that each of these items truly did have some potential.

You can read all these details below, but I find that if I intend to keep at least two items, it’s usually more beneficial to keep everything and receive the 25% discount. That’s what happened in this case. Once I tried everything on and really scrutinized how each piece would work with the rest of my wardrobe and then looked at the invoice, it became clear that it made the most sense for me to keep everything. I went from hating everything to keeping everything. You can see all the pictures below and tell me if you think I made a mistake.

The two dresses were my favorites and they were also the most expensive items. So rather than paying full price for those two and sending back the inexpensive items, and once I realized that I could get enough wear out of each piece, keeping them all seemed the best solution.

Why do I share these Fixes? Because whenever I wear something I’ve received in a Stitch Fix, I get lots of compliments. I don’t understand how it happens, but out of every single item I’ve ever received from Stitch Fix, I think only one item did not fit well (this does not mean I like everything). They have this magical way of sending clothes that fit me just right. Even when I think they aren’t the best fit at first glance, once I try them on, with proper undergarments and accessories, I’m amazed. Really, truly.

So when people compliment one of my Stitch Fix items and I tell them it’s from Stitch Fix, they almost always say, “I’d like to talk to you more about that. I’m considering ordering one myself.” That’s why I’m sharing my own honest experiences.

I have gotten some real stinker fixes over the past year and a half and only one home run where I truly loved every single item. Most of the time, the Fixes are like this one: full of items I wouldn’t pick out for myself, but in the end I really like and end up wearing a lot.

I’ve already addressed fit and how they miraculously know how to pick clothes that fit me well. The other main concern I hear from people is the quality. The items I’ve received have all been of very good quality. I don’t have any complaints in that department.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

My January/Spring/Fall fix included two dresses, one top, one sweater and one scarf. When I request my Fix be particularly budget-friendly, they always include an accessory because that’s an easy way to keep the price down. Frankly, I love this because I am terrible at buying accessories for myself. Please send me all the accessories I need because I do not want to have to pick them out myself!

In no particular order:

41 Hawthron Evander Dress in Navy, size small, $68

Straight out of the box, this was my favorite piece of this Fix. BUT, it’s a spring dress. I mean, am I crazy? Doesn’t this dress look like spring to you? Just for kicks, I thought, “I’ll put on tights, boots and a sweater and see how it looks.” And guess what? I liked it. I even wore it out to dinner for my birthday. Maybe other people were thinking, “That crazy lady is wearing a spring dress and it’s 25 degrees out.” But I was happy and comfortable in it and that’s all that matters.

You can see in the top picture, I showed the dress how I would wear it in the actual spring or summer time. (Although, hopefully with a little less white arms and legs!)

The second picture shows the dress in all its sleeveless glory, minus the sweater and belt. And last, but not least, as I would actually wear this dress as long as it’s cold out.

It’s actually very comfortable and a nice quality. This dress is fully lined, doesn’t feel flimsy and isn’t see through. I also liked the little cutout at the neckline.

Up next, Mix by 41 Hawthorn Arava Knit Dress, size small, $58

This dress reminded me so much of an old dress I used to love, but no longer have because it was corduroy and totally unforgiving or flexible. At 44, I need forgiving and flexible clothing. As you can see from the top photo, this dress has pockets, it’s stretchy and has a nicely placed seemed waistline that fits me perfectly.

Just add tights, boots, sweater and a necklace and it’s a very easy outfit for church or going out to dinner. It’s also lined, which I love. The description from my stylist tried to convince me this is a Bohemian style and print, but I wouldn’t call it that at all. The print is a small, geometric pattern of navy, dark orange and light blue. I did have to study pretty hard and put on my reading glasses to determine that the background color was navy, rather than black, so I think you could easily wear black accessories and be just fine.

Next is the other sleeveless number: Status Ottawa Cutout Detail Blouse, size small, $38

This top had me thoroughly confused. It is lightweight and did I mention – sleeveless! But my stylist said it would look nice with the sweater she also sent so I gave it a try.

It has a nice little design element of a cutout/slit just below the neckline. Squint and you might be able to see it.

As my husband was out of town when it was time to take these pictures, I had my daughter fill in as photographer. To say she is critical or opinionated about my clothing is an understatement. For someone who wears ripped leggings and tee-shirts everyday, she sure is bold with her opinions of other people’s clothing. Anyway, she really liked this shirt.

I did as my stylist instructed and layered it with the sweater she sent along.

I think it looks ok this way. This sweater is extremely soft and a pretty color, but totally not a flattering style on me.

I forgot to show the blouse from the back, but you can see from where it hangs underneath the sweater that it is the hi-low style, being a shorter hem in the front and longer in the back.

I guess I should tell you about the cozy sweater:

This is the En Creme Zainab Button Down Cardigan, size small, color Beige, $48

I would never, ever pick this sweater off the rack. As I said above, the cut is just not something I go for. My stylist suggested I wear this with both of the dresses she sent. Um, no. This is a chunky, boyfriend style sweater and it looked totally inappropriate with the feminine patterns and cuts of the dresses, But as a layer over the blouse for a warmer day or something long-sleeved as in the picture below, it was ok. I can certainly see myself grabbing this to wear around the house on a chilly day. A day when I’m staying inside and don’t mind if I look a little frumpy.

Last, but not least: The Accessory Collective, Beverly Floral Print Scarf in Burnt Orange, $28

I like this scarf for a couple of reasons:

  1. The colors are very pretty. Again, very much a fall palette, but fall is my favorite season, so why not wear it’s lovely colors all year round?
  2. It is not bulky. I do not have a long neck, but I love scarves. Those two things are not good companions. I wear scarves anyway just because I like them and they are an easy way to accessorize without too much thought, but I do often end up feeling strangled. This one was lightweight enough that I could probably wear it all day. Or at least a couple hours.

Thus ends my Winter Stitch Fix of 2018.

Conclusions:

  • Total cost for all five pieces is $160 plus tax. That’s reasonable for the quality, fit and the fact that I didn’t spend anytime or effort going to an actual store to pick these things out. Invaluable to me!
  • My best tips: Give everything a chance. Don’t rush to judgement. Don’t peek at your Fix online. Don’t look at the prices until you’ve already decided how you feel about each item. Assess your Fix when you have time to go through your closet and think about how you would/could wear each item.

Should you give Stitch Fix a try? I think yes. If you want to know all of my reasons for using Stitch Fix, you can read my first review and explanation here. 

All of those reasons I stated in that first article and review still stand. Yes, it costs more than what I would typically spend on myself, but the time savings and variety are worth it to me. I am slowly curating my closet to contain less junk and more quality pieces. As I am headed back into the professional world soon with my Functional Medicine Health Coaching business, I think I will only get more wear out of these types of items.

Here are all the details on Stitch Fix, how it works, what it costs, and what you need to do to get your own Fix:

  1. Go to StitchFix.com and fill out a free style profile. The questions are pretty detailed, but the point here is to figure out your style and sizes and get you clothes and accessories you’ll love.
  2. When you’re ready to give it a try, schedule your first fix (you’ll see how to do this on the website – their site is really user friendly).
    1. You choose when you want your fix and if you want one every month, every two months, once a year or just this once.
  3. You pay a $20 styling fee to receive your fix. You’ll be assigned a personal stylist who will hand-pick five items for you based on your style preferences.
  4. Your fix is shipped according to the schedule you requested.
  5. You receive your fix, try everything on in your own home, take three days to decide what you want to keep and what you want to return.
  6. Then check out online, choosing what to keep and what to send back and leaving feedback for each item. The more feedback you leave, the better your fixes will be. So say the experts.
  7. If you buy ANYTHING, they waive the $20 styling fee. If you buy all five items, you receive a 25% discount off of everything. That’s right – they waive the $20 styling fee and you get 25% off.
    1. Here’s what I’ve observed through my research: lots of people buy all five items for the discount and then join various Facebook groups for selling or trading. I haven’t done that yet, but I might.
  8. Shipping is free both ways – receiving and returning!
  9. Schedule your next fix!

If you’re interested in giving Stitch Fix a try, please use my referral link. If you order a Fix, they will give me a little shopping credit, which I very much appreciate.

Hopefully, I’ll have a Spring Fix review for you in a couple months. Who knows though, maybe it will be all wool sweaters and corduroy! But I’ll show you, nonetheless.

In the mean time, keep checking back for more delicious Paleo recipes.

What We Ate Wednesday

Can someone please send me a trophy because I am now writing the What We Ate Wednesday post for the second week in a row. That makes two – count ’em – two posts toward my new goal of getting this out to you every week.

All kidding aside, I sincerely hope this is helpful. For the next couple of weeks, you’ll be seeing all Whole30 approved meals because I’m doing another Whole30 right now. (Sometimes we have to state the obvious.) There will be some new recipes thrown in, but it will look very similar to my meal plans from the fall.

Let’s get right to it:

Meal #1: Yeah, we had gyros again. I have to make a recipe multiple times before I get it just right. So if you read these posts regularly, you’ll figure out what new recipes I’m working on. A sneak preview, if you will!

On this particular night, we had gyros with tzatziki sauce, roasted sweet potatoes and sautéed squash and peppers. The video of this dinner prep is up on YouTube. 

Meal #2: Grilled Cod with Pineapple Mango Salsa and lots of broccoli on the side. This is actually a picture from another time because I forgot to photograph this particular dinner. Broccoli is not my favorite vegetable, but I eat it because I know I should. So to make it more palatable, I sauteed it with a lot of bacon fat and a little coconut oil and at the very end of cooking, I poured in a couple tablespoons of coconut aminos. It was pretty good. For broccoli.

Meal #3: Carnitas in the Instant Pot, Cole Slaw (minus the sugar) and Fried PlantainsThis is one of my favorite meals and one of the few I deem worth of my precious histamine supplements so that I can it the leftovers.

Meal #4: Beef and Vegetable Soup. This is just a good, old basic soup recipe. I detoured from the original by adding some potatoes for extra oomph, which my family, and my sugar-detoxing body, really enjoyed. The recipe is in the New Year Chapter of my book, Your Paleo Holiday.

Meals 5 and 6 were leftovers. I ate the carnitas meal once and made a big salad the other time my family at the leftovers.

Next week’s meals are already off to a great start with Beef Stroganoff, so be sure to come back next week.

What We Ate Wednesday

I’m holding fast to my New Year’s Resolution to publish a weekly What We Ate post…for the first week anyway! I hope you can find some inspiration below. Please notice that most of our meals are very simple. I only go to great lengths to create something new or fancy once a week – at most. And also please notice, I have not styled these photos. This is straight up dinner. It is healthy, nutritious and delicious…not necessarily beautiful.

First up: Instant Pot Whole Roasted Chicken served with the veggies cooked along with the chicken, roasted potatoes and squash. For the potatoes and squash, I heated a large, rimmed baking sheet with about 2 Tablespoons of bacon fat in a 425 degree oven. Once the oil melted, I added the potatoes and the squash, tossed them in the oil and sprinkled with an herb blend containing dill, shallots, salt and pepper. I roasted the whole lot for about 25 minutes, flipping a couple times so all sides were browned. **Roasting brings out the best in vegetables. If you haven’t tried it, try it. With any vegetable!**

Meal #2 consisted of Gyro meat (recipe coming soon) with Tzatziki sauce, spanakopita (in my book) and stir fried peppers and squash. 

My birthday dinner! We went out to a nice, local place that has a pretty large gluten free menu. I chose the London Broil with mushroom sauce, french fries and cole slaw. I know french fries aren’t very fancy, but whenever I can get fries made out of real potatoes, fried in a dedicated gluten free frier, I’m there! And it was my birthday. I ate every single one. 

Dinner Number Three: Cod, simply pan fried in cast iron with a little avocado oil, salt and pepper, pan fried okra, same as the cod, but with bacon fat instead of avocado oil and oven roasted sweet potatoes. The method for the potatoes is exactly the same as linked in the sweet potato fry recipe, but the potatoes are cut into chunks rather than sticks.

Dinner Four: Carnitas in the Instant Pot, Cole Slaw (this recipe, but with no sweetener and extra pepper) and Fried Plantains. It’s no secret this is one of my favorite meals. The fact that it is Whole 30 compliant is all the better. We ate this meal on Day 2 of my Whole 30 when I was craving something really delicious and comforting. This totally filled the bill!

Extra meals from the week that I did not photograph:

  • Pizza made simply with a gluten free crust mix served with a big salad, birthday cake
  • Tomato soup and grilled cheese on gluten free bread, birthday cake
  • More birthday cake…are you noticing a theme?

Nobody’s perfect. 🙂

I overdid it a little leading up to this Whole 30, but it was my birthday. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I hope all your meals this week are delicious! (And maybe contain a little less cake than mine.)

What’s up with Our Paleo Family

Hey everyone! I wanted to write up a quick update on what my family is doing and where we’re headed in the new year. I promise, I”ll try to be brief. I love reading regular old “day in the life” stuff from the bloggers I follow so I hope you’ll tolerate something besides recipes for a few minutes.

I hope your holidays were peaceful and joy-filled in many ways. If they were not, my prayer is that you will find those things in 2018.

As we ease our way into the new year, here’s what’s happening around here:

  • I’ll be doing another Whole 30 beginning January 15th. We have birthdays in the family in early January, including my own, so I never start a new eating plan January 1. Plus, that just seems like too much pressure to me. Starting mid-month is more my speed. As always, I’ll be chronicling how the month goes here on the blog so you can follow along and find inspiration for your own Whole 30, elimination diet or other eating plan. I have lots of resources for you, like these meal plans (this is just one example), so just look around. As always, I’d love for you to join me. Comment if you want to Whole 30 together!
  • Blog posting schedule for the year….um….last year about this time I announced that I would be posting something crazy like five days a week, dishing about everything from the latest scientific research to new recipes. You know what they say about the best laid plans. I believe my ambitious posting schedule lasted about one week. The plan for this year, at least the beginning part, is for a What We Ate Wednesday post where I will give a quick and dirty round-up of my family’s meals over the past week. My hope is that this will help when dinner amnesia sets in and you need some inspiration. I am not saying that all my dinners will be something you should model, but they’ll give you ideas.

As a little sneak peak, here’s what we’ve eaten the past few days:

Pot Roast
Cherry Pie – for my dad’s birthday – this one’s still a work in progress
Pan fried cod and okra, roasted sweet potatoes – super simple meal!
Turkey Stroganoff Meatballs

Other than that one post which I will attempt to publish regularly, I’m making no promises. As I create new recipes that are worthy of publishing, I will get them out to you. The blogging will just have to take a bit of a back seat for a while because….

  • I’m going back to school! Beginning February 1, I will be a student at the Functional Medicine Health Coaching Academy. This is a program run in conjunction with the Institute for Functional Medicine and combines functional medicine training and health coach training. I don’t know what life will look like after I finish the program next year, but that is in God’s hands. This is where I am right now. Until I figure out how much time my studies will take, I have to put the blog in the lower priority category.
  • AND…in case you didn’t read this post, I have another new part-time gig as a Beautycounter consultant. Beautycounter is the brand I have trusted for my skin care for a few years now and I’ve recently decided to join the company as a consultant for a couple reasons:
    1. It’s another way for me to spread the message that there is a better way to treat our bodies. We can put better food on the inside and we can put better products on the outside. I fully believe that Beautycounter’s skincare and makeup lines are superior in terms of the ingredients and performance.
    2. My hobbies (this blog, my further education) are expensive. I need to help the finances of my family and this is one way I thought I could do that and still stay at home with my kids.
  • And speaking of kids…my number one priority has to remain my job of wife and mom (and homeschooling mom too). My family is at the top of my list so they come before the blog, school and Beautycounter, or any other business I fall into.

Where you can find me in the coming months:

I will still be here on the blog as often as I can.

I am over on YouTube pretty regularly as well. Honestly, that’s a lot easier for me than blogging because I just cook dinner like I normally would, but I basically talk to myself through the process, which is somewhat therapeutic. My husband does all the hard work on the back end.

It appears lots of folks received Instant Pots for Christmas because all those videos have been receiving A LOT of views. If you’re interested in whether or not you should jump on the Instant Pot bandwagon or just want to see the craziness of my cooking routine, check out some of the videos.

You can sign up for my newsletter (through that little popup window with the lovely donut picture). I send out a sort of summary email just once a month. It’s a good way to keep from littering up your inbox and yet still checking in. If nothing else, it’s a reminder to you to pop on over to the blog and see what’s new. Hopefully, each month there will be at least something new!

The blog is still my home base, even though I seem to have a much wider reach over on YouTube right now. Maybe people are starting to have less tolerance for reading and just want to watch all their instruction? I don’t know. It’s baffling to me why anyone would watch my videos, but they are! All that so say, the blog isn’t going anywhere. It’s the place I feel I can ramble about whatever is on my mind so I’ll always point you back here if you have a question. I am going on year three with this thing and I have put up a lot of content. Lots of recipes, lots of science-y stuff, lots of personal experiences.

Yes, yes, I have all the social media accounts too (you can find the links right on my homepage), but honestly, I just don’t have the time to be consistent over there. When I post a new recipe, I usually mention it on Facebook and I will very rarely remember to post it to Instagram. You certainly can follow me through social media, but again, the blog is home base.

I think that’s about it. I told you I’d try my best to keep it brief.

If you have any questions about my schooling, health coaching, functional medicine, Beautycounter or anything else, well, maybe not astrophysics, but anything in my realm, just leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to respond in a timely manner.

I hope you’re already off to a great start in 2018!