quick and easy
Last week a friend held a Christmas party for all us moms and babies. Holy moly did she put out a spread – probably 15 different hor d’oeuvres and desserts! She had 2 Christmas trees up and decorated, her baby in a holiday onesie, and Christmas stockings filled with gifts for not just the babies but for all us moms, too. Including homemade soap.
It was so sweet, and we had a lot of fun.
But I suspect my lovely friend is not the only among us who is doing, doing, doing this holiday season! (And not sleeping much.)
So, I have to ask.
Is there a way to bring some simplicity in your holidays? Are there some things you don’t have to do? Tasks you could cross off the to-do list? Ideals you can let go of? Emotions you can release? (Oooh I snuck that last one in there. But yeah, the holiday season can bring up a lot of emotions that one might try and subdue with a plate full of brie.)
A lot of people let go of eating healthy food during the holidays.
That’s not the kind of letting go I’m really encouraging. A few straight weeks of eating anything and anything does not pay off in the long run, trust me.
But what if you could eat healthy without cooking a darn thing? Because I know you’re busy. I’m talking about the snack you have before a holiday party. The dinner you grab before heading out for last minute shopping. I know we all will eat some special holiday goodies – and we should! – but you don’t have to make every meal an indulgence.
Here are some quick, no-cook ideas.
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December 21st, 2011 | quick and easy, winter | 8 Comments »
Meals like this are sometimes called “Garbage Plates” or “Garbage Salads.” It makes me cringe though – I just can’t call organic veggies and grass-fed steak “garbage.”
Maybe a Kitchen Sink Salad? Even that sounds like it should go down the disposal.
Nah, let’s just call this an un-recipe. A formula for making the most out of the food in your fridge and getting dinner on the table fast.
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December 2nd, 2011 | baby, quick and easy, winter | 9 Comments »
1. Make a BLT for dinner
Yeah, sounds like crap diner food but check this bad boy out, and remember – bacon fat is naturally occurring and the kind of fat your body needs. Canola oil reused 80 times for restaurant french fries is not.
A Healthier BLT
2 slices whole grain bread
3 pieces bacon (mine comes from a local farm with excellent animal raising practices)
1 handful arugula
1-2 slices tomato
1 smear of mayo
Optional: 1 slice organic cheese
Cook a whole pound of bacon and keep leftovers in the fridge. That makes life easier too. Assemble your sandwich and enjoy, guilt free.
2. Ditch the Seventh Generation products that suck
Sorry, I want to save the earth and all, but first I have to save my sanity. I gave those Seventh Generation trashbags a fair shake and they were horribly leaky, needed to be doubled, still leaked…ugh! The dishwasher detergent? Left gross residue all over my dishes. I know, I know, I’ll probably go to hell for saying this, but if it’s not working, don’t torture yourself by sticking to ideals. Buy the Cascade or the Hefty bags and be done with it. Use the energy you just saved for some other, more agreeable arrangement with Mother Earth.
3. Hang out with people who make you feel good
Yes, this makes your life easier. I promise. The more I surround myself with lovely, positive people, the better I feel and the smoother everything becomes. It is simply easier to avoid people who make you feel like garbage, if at all possible. Like I need to tell you that?
4. Move forward
Take a lesson from my new crawler. He could only go backwards for a few weeks, leaving him half stuck under the furniture and mad. Now that he can motor forward, life is good. Are you insisting on rehashing the past? On drowning yourself in what should have been, what could have been? Stop. Move forward. What’s next? (In Danny’s case, usually an electrical outlet I haven’t yet babyproofed.)
5. Breathe
You’ve made it this far in life. You must be doing something right. I bet you’re going to be ok. So breathe, will ya? In this moment, you are safe, you have a decent internet connection and you have excellent taste in blogs. So relax, inhale, exhale. Repeat.
November 29th, 2011 | happiness, quick and easy, recipe | 8 Comments »
This past weekend we ate out a lot. There’s a feeling of victory if we successfully get to a restaurant – almost as if doing so automatically equals fun and relaxation. It says, “We might be new parents but, see, we still live in the real world!”
Funny thing is we probably eat out more now than we ever did, pre-baby. Friday was sushi for lunch and happy hour chicken fingers. Saturday was over-the-counter empanadas for lunch and full on Mexican dinner. Sunday was crepes for brunch. Oy.
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August 23rd, 2011 | beans, happiness, quick and easy, recipe, vegan, vegetarian | 4 Comments »
About 3 years ago I tried an all raw food diet, earning me weird looks from co-workers and a completely tuned-up, revamped digestive system. I had lots of energy and thought it was super cool to sprout, chop and dehydrate living foods into delicious meals. (Feel free to go back and browse some of the raw food posts that came out of that time, like this recipe.)
But ever since that raw food experiment, my husband has refused to eat zucchini or yellow squash. Chalk it up to a much too garlicky raw “fettucine alfredo” that used vegetable peeler strips of squash as noodles. He hated it. I didn’t love that particular dish either. But the man refuses to eat zucchini or yellow squash to this day.
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August 9th, 2011 | quick and easy, raw foods, recipe, summer, vegan, vegetarian | 9 Comments »
It’s that awesome time of the summer when we are inundated with tomatoes and corn – and by “we” I mean people who have a summer CSA. I’m psyched about ours. Every other week I carry Danny in the baby carrier thingamajig to the yoga studio on our corner, pick up our 2 big bags of veggies, fruit and eggs… and pretty much look like a pack mule walking back down the street.
But hey, the food is great.
And if your produce comes from the supermarket, surely you’ve noticed tomatoes and corn on sale! Let’s hear it for seasonal veggies, huh?
So, I was gazing out the kitchen window the other day, thinking about how when we first moved here, pre-baby, I *thought* we’d be hosting BBQs in our backyard all summer. With our new entourage of friends that we’d somehow meet in this new city? While we kicked back and drank beers and grilled burgers, not a naptime care in the world?
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August 4th, 2011 | Farmers Market, quick and easy, recipe, summer | 9 Comments »
Thanks for the outpouring of support since my post about postpartum depression. I feel like we can all really make a difference by being more open about hard times. So thank you for all the comments, suggestions, and most of all for sharing it with women in your life. I’m feeling better and better!
So, we all know there’s no going wrong with your little black dress. Right? Dress it up, dress it down, make it worth the $350 you spent on it at Banana Republic, or the $29.99 at Marshall’s, whatever.
Well there’s one way to go wrong I guess. By not having one! Duh. I don’t. I have a navy blue dress that comes pretty close. I wonder if that still fits? It’s not exactly nursing-friendly with that zipper in the back. Um. I also have a black wrap dress but the strap got accidentally sucked into the vacuum cleaner once and is kind of shredded. Oops.
Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree with a fashion analogy. Says the girl wearing a nursing tank 2 sizes too big.
Here’s what I really want to talk about:
Salmon.
Because salmon was my little black dress this week. It fit perfectly.
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July 27th, 2011 | fashion, quick and easy | 7 Comments »
Here’s what I wore today: jean shorts, a t-shirt and a ponytail.
Here’s what I wore yesterday: the same thing.
It’s sort of a new trend called “Put on whatever you can grab the fastest and it doesn’t matter if it’s dirty.” This is…really strange. I’m the kind of girl who can spend 10 minutes on mascara alone, given the chance.
But am I that girl anymore?
The other day I met a friend for lunch downtown and put on a dash of makeup while Danny finished his tiny nap. (I also wore earrings – strategically, they were not grab-able hoops) Taking Danny to lunch is actually fairly easy because he adores new settings and new people. Knock on wood, he never throws a fit in a restaurant or in public in general. A true extrovert.
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July 6th, 2011 | baby, happiness, quick and easy, recipe, vegan, vegetarian | 6 Comments »
I been eatin’ a lot of Joe Joes. Know what those are? They’re the Trader Joe’s version of Oreos. Oh man.
My husband started buying them…I started eating them…it’s totally a way I’ve been self medicating between the baby crying and not sleeping, etc. Nice health coach, right? Yeah, way to set an example, Michelle.
I can see exactly what I’m doing though:
I am so stressed/I feel so crazed/I feel so confused…here this nice cookie makes me feel sweet!
Note: I am not recommending this approach. In fact by publicly admitting it I am hoping I will get a grip myself.
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June 22nd, 2011 | happiness, quick and easy, raw foods, recipe, stress relief, Sugar | 10 Comments »
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I’m sure that anyone who has seen me lately walking down the street would not guess that I am a health coach. Or a coach of any kind. My hair is either slicked back in a wet ponytail or air dried into a mass of curls. My eyes speak of my son’s new “wake ever hour” night routine. My legs might be shaved, but don’t look too closely please.
There are times in everyone’s life where self care takes a backseat. I suppose in college I didn’t do much to take care of myself, period. When I worked long, hard, annoying hours in my previous career, self care amounted to a coffee shop run. So now it’s baby stuff. Whatever. We’ve all been there.
The main thing that has kept me from absolutely crumbling during this time is insisting on eating real food. It isn’t always sexy. It’s sometimes just eggs and frozen spinach hastily defrosted in the pan, possibly still with ice chips as I fork it in. But it’s real, and it’s nourishing, and it’s why I can look at my family and fairly confidently say, “Thank goodness, we may be tired but we are healthy.”
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June 13th, 2011 | baby, happiness, quick and easy, self care | 7 Comments »
