Another Great Couple- Peanut Butter and Marshmallow

Good Lawdy this was good! I smooshed 2 halved marshmallows between some cinnamon-raisin Ezekial Bread with a smear of peanut butter, then I pan fried it in a generous pat of butter. Wonderful!

Flaxseed Gel

I bought a pound of flaxseed a while ago, intending to use it in my diet. I did use it a little, ground up as a binder in vegan recipes, or stirred into my oatmeal, but I usually forget about it. I've seen mention of flaxseed gel for hair on various hair blogs and after watching a youtube video tutorial yesterday, I decided to finally make my own. It was very easy, just boil 1/4 cup with 2 cups of water, then strain and let cool. So I applied this gel generously to my hair and got some popping curls! I am so excited to have another all natural home-made product to add to my beauty arsenal, AWESOMENESS!

Sweet Summer!

There are a few things that make the sweltering summer heat not only bearable but welcome in my opinion. One of those things is cold watermelon and it just so happened to be my breakfast this morning... this is the less common yellow meat variety, juicy and sweet!
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Hair day!

Sunday, when I went to the beach I had my hair loose and free and paid no mind to the salt water and wind. I washed it when I got home, applied conditioner and wet bunned it... without detangling. Last night I lightly washed my hair and applied a henna treatment overnight... again without detangling. This morning after dunking my hennaed head into a bucket of water twice to remove most of the paste, I washed and rinsed my hair, applied a deep conditioning treatment and sat under the hooded dryer for about 30 minutes. I then attempted to rinse out the deep treatment in the shower, it was too thick and oily to be rinsed away without shampoo, but since that would be the 4th time shampooing in 3 days I just rinsed best I could and stepped out. At this point it became clear that I was in for one hellacious detangling session. As I raked my hand through my hair it felt as though locs were already forming. I didn't have much detangling leave-in conditioner so I watered down what I did have so I would have enough to distribute throughout my whole head, which effectively watered down the detangling power of it. I was too lazy to finger detangle thoroughly and used my detangling comb for most of the job. I noticed quite a few broken hairs on my palms- not cool. I two strand twisted each detangled section, ending up with 8 greasy twists. I guess I will make another batch of leave-in conditioner and then wash my hair a little later today, then prep for a twist-out. I'll come back and post a pic of the final outcome...

ETA: I didn't rewash my hair, I re-two strand twisted my hair after it air-dried.

A time to buy!

I enjoy shopping... however I am incredibly indecisive at times. Especially with online shopping because it feels much more final to me and the items aren't tangible before purchase. None the less, online shopping has become more and more prevalent in my purchasing experience due to the fact that I live in a super small town and getting some items locally is either impossible or prohibitively inconvenient.



I have filled and emptied my online shopping cart more times than makes sense and now I realize it would be better to wait until payday so I can pay down my credit card before making any additional purchases...

I am going to limit my purchases to these 3 items: citric acid, emulsifying wax, shea butter

Hopefully, I will not be strayed between now and then...

A Day at the Beach!

Back from a day at the beach, it was intense! I had a blast and really enjoyed watching Manny frolick in the water and shovel sand with his cousins.

1 Chicken- 3 Ways

Since the other members of my family like meat and kind of want it on the regular, I have to figure out a way to get them off my back. I bought a frozen whole chicken, thawed it out, ripped it apart with my bare hands, flinging salmonella rich chicken juice all over the kitchen walls and clean dishes in the other sink, as well as on my face and body and possibly in my slightly ajar mouth (ajar from the sheer effort, my concentration face). The whole event was peppered with me shrieking hysterically at my husband to get the baby out of the kitchen and growling exorcist style at him for daring to attempt to wash a plum in the same sink I was wrestling with the chicken in.



I got almost as much out of this chicken as I could. I could have made some faux foie gras from the innards but I'm pretty sure no one, not even the dogs, would have appreciated it. I baked the legs, wings, and back at 350, after sprinkling with some Cajun seasoning. I grilled one chicken breast, seasoned with salt and pepper. I ground one breast and 2 thighs in the food processor, seasoned lightly, formed in 1/2 inch balls, rolled around in Panko crumbs, and fried until golden...my version of chicken nuggets.



My husband had the 2 wings and 1 leg for dinner with some veggies. The chicken breast will be served to him for lunch in a salad. The back and remaining wing will be served in another dinner to him with more veggies and couscous. So that is 3 meat laden meals. That should get me off the hook for at least 2-3 days.



The chicken nuggets are for the baby. He seems to like meat a lot. He ate 5 or 6 nuggets, which is a good bit for him. I made about 2 dozen. Possibly I will freeze some for future use in bento boxes.



I'm glad its over and this whole ordeal just re-confirmed why I hate food prep when it involves meat. Nagging from my husband be damned, it will be a while before I do it again. I am posting a picture below, not because I am proud, but because I think the image perfectly conveys the level of throw-it-togetherness I approached this task with...

RAW chocolate smoothie

Whenever I am totally bored with preparing food, which is sadly pretty often, one thing that always perks me up is experimenting with vegan and raw recipes or even coming up with my own. I'm not religious enough to commit to either of these lifestyle choices 100% of the time, but I flirt with the idea often enough to get my husband all up in arms.



Typically, I make fresh coconut milk 1-2 times a week. I'm not sure why I do it so often because usually I am trying to figure out ways to use it before it goes bad. Today was no exception to that routine. On top of that I had a bag of raw cocoa nibs and some medjool dates that had been sitting in my cupboard ignored for longer than I care to think about.



Usually, if I have a breakfast smoothie it consists of fresh coconut milk and frozen bananas and possibly whatever other fruit I may have on hand, but I used the last of my frozen bananas 2 days ago and also I have a raging sinus infection that has been marked with violent enough sneezing sessions that I believe I actually threw my neck out during one of them, if that is even possible... The bananas come into play in that they seem to make me more snotty, so yeah I won't be re-upping on them.



So I decided to soak the dates, grind the nibs finely, and whir it up in my blender. Also, I want to note that I used 1.5 cups of the cream (the stuff that separates to the top) of the coconut milk, in hopes that it would make the smoothie thicker. I used 2 heaping tablespoons of the nibs, and about 7 pieces of dates with the pit removed.


After whirring in my blender, I finally accepted the fact that the nibs powder wasn't going to dissolve completely and while the taste of the smoothie was great the texture was grainy. I immediately added this experience to the list of reasons justifying the purchase of a $400 blender, ya'll know which one I'm talking about. No really though, I must figure out a way to make this recipe work and still maintain its RAW-ness. I'll update when I do.

Bento Box- 2nd attempt

Manny is off to Nanny's house today and I decided to send him with another lunch. I made efforts to improve on the first bento box lunch which was mostly fruit, no veggies, and heavy on heavily processed pre-packaged snack items. This time I included a homemade eggroll, sweet potatoe patty, some fresh blueberries, broccoli florets, and a small piece of a Luna nutrition bar. I really just included the nutrition bar to take up some space on the side and also because he seems to like them. He always eats mine! He loves fruit as well and since I have plenty of blueberries on hand, I figured it wouldn't hurt to include those as well. I can't wait to hear how he liked it!

Bento Boxes

So if you haven't heard of Bento Boxes before, it is basically a portable meal that is proportioned and packaged/presented creatively. Since discovering this style of meal prep, I have taken a renewed interest in presenting my 19 month old with solid food. He isn't terribly interested in eating solids when I am around, but when I am not around he eats well from what I hear. The other day I dropped him at his great-grandmothers with a Bento Box lunch and she said he LOVED it. My heart smiled and I immediately began thinking of ways to improve these meals. The first one I made wasn't all that balanced and had quite a bit of processed food and no vegetables. Either way, it was a step in the right direction!

Garden Update!

My banana trees died and even though I spent about $30 on them with shipping I just don't feel like sending them back. Many of my herbs didn't even germinate. Chamomile seeds germinated into cotyledons that died from lack of water I suppose. Radishes, beets, and carrots are coming up niceley, along with a row of spinach. Me and grandma made four rows and planted purple hull peas, some cucumber plants, tomatoe plants, and mustard greens. Anyway, just wanted to go ahead and log that into my journal...

Spring Gardening 2010!

Yeah baby! Spring is in full swing and I actually got off my ass enough to build a raised garden bed (well actually, Jarvas did a lot of it) and do a whole mess of other things to get my container garden ready for planting. Sowing the seeds was the easy part, now all I have to do is wait... Anyway here are some pics of my work. Hopefully everything will grow in and look beatiful in a couple of months. I planted lots of herbs, 3 kinds of tomatoe, 3 kinds of lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots, and radishes. Later I hope to plant some pole beans, we will see...

Garden Update

I started my seedlings in egg crates a couple weeks ago and had them germinating on top of the fridge under a fluorescent light. They came up quick and grew well for almost a week, then they wilted and died... so sad. I put so much effort into it and I'm not terribly sure where I went wrong. Possibly, I shouldn't have started the seeds in a compost mix that I baked to sterilize it? I am going to start seedlings in pots outside in about a week. Hopefully that works, I really don't know how many set backs my optimism can take before curling up to die...

Buh Bye Holiday Season!

Well, the holidays are over and now I'm looking forward to Spring because I can't wait to get my garden started! Last summer's was a bust, and the spring garden I only planted lettuce and greens, which was fine but it took a lot of work to get what I got and I wasn't a bit satisfied with the way the yard/garden looked. Weeds everywhere! I couldn't possibly spend the 4-5 hours/week working out there. I need something super low maintenance after the initial installion. So, my plan for this year is to nix the yard garden and do raised garden beds. I am not entirely sure how high I am going to raise them but I think it would be really cool if they were around 2 ft tall that way I could sit on a stool or chair and work in them. I am not sure what kind of structure I can build that will still be shallow enough and strong enough to hold a good bit of sod. I am thinking maybe I can stack a burlap lined crate on top of some cinderblocks? That seems cheap enough and also easy to take apart if I change my mind about location later. We will see. In addition to that project, I also want to work on landscaping the backyard a little better. Several trees need to be cut down and my grandpa says he will take care of it some time this year. Also, I am planning on adding an avocado and lemon tree to the "orchard" as well as some banana plants to help the already existing banana plants bear fruit, I need to find out what the deal is with the existing plants...

I really want to extend my grandparents patio to fit the picnic table and barbecue grill so that it will be more comfortable for entertaining out there. We will see....

Training britches!

Well I made my first pair and I nixed the wool part because I don't need them to be waterproof, anyway here is a pic of the first pair I made, they are plenty cute and plenty functional, they just take a while to dry because I put 8 layers in the wet zone, Also the workmanship is a little shabby, I need to practice and find a better method of attaching the waist and legbands...