Just a few home remedies

Happy Saturday morning!

Hope you're all having a great weekend so far. Mine has been lovely. I had planned to do an Insanity workout yesterday, but a 9.5-hour work day on Thursday without any real break left my poor feet seriously sore. Needless to say, Insanity wasn't going to happen, so I went to a yoga class instead. I'm planning a series of low-impact workouts this week, like spinning, Pilates and yoga, to give my body a chance to recuperate.

Speaking of work, I have a home remedy to share with you guys. My nails have been falling apart lately. Literally, falling apart. I spend a lot of time at work doing dishes, not because I'm the only one who will do them, but because I actually love doing them. Playing in the soapy water reminds me of bathtime as a little kid, and it's a chance to think and have some semblance of alone time during a busy work day. Yes, I could wear dish gloves, but they slow me down and suck all the fun out of playing in the bubbles. Anyway....my hands have been in rough shape from all the harsh detergent/sanitizer/hot water. Here are the recipes for the homemade hand scrub and cuticle cream I've been relying on:

Scrub:
1/2 C brown sugar or raw sugar
1/2 C coconut oil

Looks nasty, smells nasty, works like a charm. I use it on my hands every few nights, followed my the cuticle cream and a thick moisturizer before bed, and it leaves them super soft. I've used it as a body scrub, too. 

Cuticle cream:

1 T Shea butter

Few drops lavendar oil

Few drops geranium oil

Few drops cedarwood oil

1 t coconut oil

As far as the thick moisturizer is concerned, the best one I've found is Aveeno Eczema Therapy. It's not greasy at all (my biggest hand cream pet peeve) and it seems to work for a while - not just until the next time I wash my hands. It's a personal preference, though. I know a lot of people love the look ma, new hands lotion from Bath & Body Works - I might look into that one when my Aveeno runs out. 

Now, let's move on to an edible home remedy. I've been waking up with a stuffy nose lately, so this morning I decided to give my own Vitamin C Smoothie recipe a whirl. You can find a bunch of recipes like this online, but this one is my own combination of vitamin C-rich fruits and a lemon, ginger and turmeric wellness shot I've been obsessed with lately. 

Ingredients:

1 C mixed berries

1/2 C pineapple

3 clementines 

Juice from 1/2 a lemon

1 Thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled

1/2 t turmeric

1/2 t cayenne pepper

Enough coconut water to cover all the ingredients in the blender. 

Blend on high.

It was actually pretty tasty! It was pleasantly spicy from the ginger and cayenne, and the sweetness of the pineapple and berries balanced it nicely. I'll definitely make it again. 

So there you have it! Some natural, homemade remedies for ya. 

We're planning some errands for the day, and we may or may not go out to dinner tonight. It's restaurant week and my hubby made reservations at a Spanish restaurant, but we have so much food here, I'm wondering if we should stay in. I planned three meals for last week, but the 9x13 pan of baked ziti I made on Monday somehow ended up lasting us ALL WEEK. 

Have a great weekend!

xo

Enchis & labels

Good morning all! 

I'm blogging before the sun is up, for a change. I started a slightly different work schedule this week - I'll be working from 10 to 5 or 6, depending on how busy we are around that time. I'd like to be able to better supervise/help the night crew, and staying later in the day is the best way to do it. Bonus - getting morning workouts in will be easier, and once I start classes, I'll have time to study in the morning, when I'm the most productive and alert. I've never worked full time and gone to school before, but I imagine trying to study after a long day at work isn't very effective.

I've got an enchilada recipe to share! Partly so you guys can make it if you'd like, and partly so I don't forget what went into it.

-1 whole zucchini
-1 can chipotle peppers in adobo (can be omitted - they were pretty spicy)
-1/2 lb mushrooms
-2 cloves of garlic
-Olive oil for sauteeing
-4 stalks kale, shredded
-1 package of corn tortillas (I think it was about 12)
-2 8 oz cans of enchilada sauce (I used the Frontera brand, and it was exactly two baggies)
-Shredded cheese (I used the Trader Joe's equivalent of fancy blend)
-1 C shredded pre-cooked chicken (also optional)

-Slice zucchini, mushrooms and kale and saute in garlicky olive oil over medium heat until soft. To shred the kale, strip the leaves off the "bone", roll into a tight ball and slice very finely with a heavy chef's knife.

-When veggies are soft, add chipotle peppers and heat until warm. Add shredded chicken. Turn off heat.

-Empty one pouch/can of enchi sauce into a 9x13 pan. Dip each corn tortilla into sauce, covering both sides, and fill each tortilla with veggie mix. Place each tortilla into the pan, nestled side by side.

-When all the tortillas are filled, pour the remaining enchi sauce over the top and cover with as much or as little shredded cheese as you'd like.

-Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or so - check on them after 15. Cheese should be bubbly and browning.

The only pic I have is of the leftover meal I ate the next day:

Next to more garlicky kale. Had to use that stuff up. 

My husband went crazy for them - I think his exact words were: "How does a girl who grew up in the suburbs in Massachusetts know how to make enchiladas like this?" <-- high praise from someone who grew up in New Mexico. I would have preferred them without the chicken, but my husband was happy to eat the pieces I picked out. 

Incidentally, I love that you can add kale to anything and suddenly it sounds healthy. Bacon-wrapped hot dogs on a bed of steamed kale? Healthy!!

Since we're on the subject of eating chicken, I thought I'd share a thought I've had, especially in the light of some recent resolutions. I work at a restaurant that serves all vegetarian food, and we've recently had an influx of resolutioners who want to become vegetarians in the new year.

I love the vegetarian diet, but I wish that instead of resolving to become a vegetarian (or vegan), people would simply resolve to eat less meat. Sometimes I think that when people label themselves, they set themselves up to fail. I can't tell you how many times I've heard things along the lines of: "I tried being vegan, but I could never give up putting milk in my coffee", or "I was a vegetarian for two years, but then I ate some chicken".

This person thought of herself as a vegetarian, and when she ate the piece of chicken, she broke that label. In her mind, she was no longer a vegetarian, and she could go back to eating meat all the time. If she had resolved to eat less meat, she wouldn't have been destroying any label by eating some chicken. She could have avoided the "fallen off the wagon" thing. I've lived by the "eat less meat" model for five years or so, and I think it's been quite successful. I almost never eat meat, but I've never felt like it was off limits.

I think if you eat a mostly vegan diet but have milk in your coffee, you're doing great. If you eat chicken once every two years, you're also doing great. No need to get extreme about it, you know?

Anyway, I'm off to work. I'm trying to get into a blogging routine, so you should hear from me again on Thursday.

xo

Resolutions

Once again, it took me a while to get back into blog mode after my vacation. But here I am. Hi world!

As much as I love the holidays, I'm happy to be back in a routine. I keep telling myself that spring is right around the corner now, but sadly, the weather isn't playing along.

(that 3 kills me!)

I know it's worse in other parts of the country, but I was counting on a milder winter now that I'm living in Maryland. How can a state that gets so miserably hot in the summer also get this cold?? Shouldn't it be one or the other?

My husband and I had planned to hit up the gym early this morning, but we didn't even make it to the car in the bitter cold before I was begging him to work out at home with me instead. We did rounds of single leg deadlifts, single leg squats, bicep curls to shoulder presses and turkish get-ups, followed by 20 minutes of tabata training. It was the best workout I've gotten in a while, and since no one else was in the workout room, I got to play music out of my new speakers and dance around in between sets. 

Anyway..

I've been thinking about resolutions lately. I usually don't make any, because January 1st never felt like the start of a new year to me - September did, because that's when I always started a new school year. This year, it felt like a bigger deal, and I ended up making quite a few resolutions. They're small, so hopefully I won't abandon them all come February:

-Transition to natural cleaning products (you already knew about this one)

-Eat more fermented foods and drinks 

-Get four workouts in per week, minimum. This one has been so hard! I used to live for my workouts, but the truth is, with a full time job, they just seem to fall to the side. I'm trying to change that. 

-Read one book per month. I've been reading, like, one page of my book every few days. And it's Kitchen Confidential - a book I've already read several times. PATHETIC. I need to change that. 

-Count to 10 before I react. At work, and at home. 

-Plan meals for the week every Saturday. I've been slacking in this department. 

-Cut down on the amount of plastic I use. I'm trying to transition to adult water glasses instead of the plastic cups I love so much. 

Speaking of cleaning, I made a cleaning schedule to kick off the new year. I searched and searched for a good one on Pinterest, but none of them were exactly right - most of them included tasks that don't apply to me, like cleaning the garage and mowing the lawn. So I made my own:

It takes me about 2 hours to clean the entire apartment from top to bottom, and I always save it for Friday. I thought it would be great to break it down into smaller tasks to do throughout the week. Turns out, I'm not really a fan of the new system. My husband said it best: "If you assign a cleaning task to every day of the week, you're cleaning all week." Not only did I not feel like cleaning after long days at work, but I ended up doing a big clean on Friday anyway. Oh well. I gave it a shot. Maybe it's a better system for cleaning a house. 

I'm off to dinner with my husband and his family. His parents are visiting, and they requested Ethiopian food. Fine by me :)

What are your resolutions for the new year? 

xo