My Kitchen Style

Anyone that knows me, knows that I am not a baking kind of gal. I'm intimidated at the thought of baking anything that requires eggs, milk, and some type of vanilla extract. The other day my friend mentioned Conrnstach to thicken something, having no idea what it was used for I nodded my head pretending I knew it what it was used for.... :)

On the other hand I work really hard at cooking healthy meals for our family. We don't eat a lot of processed foods and I use as many wholesome ingredients as possible. I love to cook with fresh garlic, herbs, grains, etc. Unfortunately most of this food doesn't go on sale at Publix regularly so it's easy for it to get expensive. I still coupon at Publix for basic things but I'm really picky at what I coupon for (Specially after seeing the movie Food Inc. and In-greed-ients).

Thankfully I've found a lot of grains are sold in amazon at a much cheaper price than anywhere else. The produce is the most expensive part of our grocery bill, but that is something I just have to deal with for the time being. After it's all said and done it's pretty manageable and it can be done on a budget

Here are a few of the meals we have regularly...


Quinoa with sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, and parsley

Quinoa with tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and lime juice (Not pictured)

Whole grain pasta with mushrooms, and olive oil

Fish with brown rice (not pictured)

Here are my favorite finds which go on sale regularly

Marzetti's all natural dressing (Any Publix)

Love that there's no high fructose corn syrup or any other synthetic ingredients. This is normally $3.69 at Publix per bottle, but this past week it was on sale 2 for $2, and I had a $1.25 off coupon. So the dressing came to $.75 cents!!

Mueller's Organic Chicken (Select Publix stores)

Not all Publix stores carry this chicken. This is one of the few things I buy organic, and I think it is SO worth it! The chicken always tastes soft even if I overcook it a little bit. It often goes on sale for $3.99 per lb, otherwise it's $5.99 per lb

Earth's Best Organic Chicken Nuggets

Best tasting chicken ever. I steal it from my son when he's not looking. Enough said.

We don't buy organic produce because of the cost. We usually don't buy organic meat or milk either, but whenever I can- I do buy organic chicken and eggs.

I'm not dead set on only eating whole ingredients. There are plenty of times when we eat out or days when we don't eat healthy at all. I just wanted to share what we usually have at our house and what I strive for most of the time :)

Will post next Monday on my favorite amazon finds.

Quinoa

I first tried Quinoa during a visit to my dear mentor Paula in North Carolina two falls ago. She is so good and creative at cooking healthy, I literally just wanted to hang out around her kitchen and soak up her knowledge. I'm pretty sure I took pics of her entire pantry and freezer with my iphone for ideas- ha!

I tried Quinoa back at home figuring Steve probably wouldn't like it. After all he is a man's man and loves to eat his meat! (insert low voice over here). But much to my surprise he has loved this recipe. By now we have a few others but this one continues to be his favorite.

Quinoa Salad

• 2 cups quinoa
• 3 water
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 onions, minced
• 1 tomato minced
• 3 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves, minced
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• juice of 2-3 limes
• 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
• 2 clove garlic, pressed

1. Place Quinoa and water in large pot until boil. Once it boils turn it down to low for 15 minutes.
2. Cut the tomatoes and onions in squares. Mix it with the rest of the ingredients in separate bowl. 
3. Once the Quinoa is done, just add to the bowl and voila! Ready

Health benefits of Quinoa:

1 Quinoa is a grain, but also one of the most protein-rich foods we can eat containing all 9 amino acids

2. Quinoa contains almost twice as much fiber as most other grains. 

3. Quinoa contains Iron. 

4. Quinoa contains lysine. Lysine is mainly essential for tissue growth and repair.

5. Quinoa is rich in magnesium. Magnesium helps to relax blood vessels and thereby to alleviate migraines. 

6. Quinoa is high in Riboflavin (B2). B2 improves energy metabolism within brain and muscle cells and is known to help create proper energy production in cells.

7. Quinoa has a high content of manganese. 

* From http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-4994/7-Benefits-of-Quinoa-The-Supergrain-of-the-Future.html

Quinoa is considered a Superfood and it is glutten-free. I order it from Amazon and it is less than half the cost of Publix and Target. And it's delivered right to my door!

At Publix you can find a 1lb bag for about $9

Amazon's cost ranges from $15 to $17 for a 4lb bag. That comes to about $.78 per serving (plus the cost of the herbs and veggies) but it's still pretty inexpensive!

Here's the Quinoa I order monthly:

http://www.amazon.com/Earthly-Delights-Organic-Premium-Percent/dp/B0036FB6FY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350526520&sr=8-1&keywords=quinoa+earthly+choice


Would absolutely love some more recipes on Quinoa. I have a couple of more I will try to post over the next few weeks. Enjoy!

Sewing Perks

Last Christmas Steve got me a sewing/embroidery machine which I am so thankful for. My mom was an excellent seamstress and I only hope to be half as good as her!! She even started her own company in designing and making boutique dresses from scratch until we moved to Florida from Caracas, Venezuela. Although I have not been able to dive much into any big projects (like making curtains, laptop covers, etc) I have been using it a lot for small adjustments to my clothes. That's really what I use it for most of the time.

This was a maternity shirt I ordered from target (7 months pregnant)

Only pic I could find of this shirt- 8 months pregnant

And last week I adjusted it down to a tank top- and it now fits perfectly!

Needed a little ironing

I'll be using the leftover fabric for small embroidery projects and save me a few bucks... :)

 

Last Christmas I bought this non-maternity shirt at target a size up since I was a few months pregnant. Here I wore it at four months and I wore it all the way up until about 6 months

Christmas pic-

 Now I've adjusted it down for fall and it fits again!!

And lastly- the beige cover I'm wearing was maternity too and I adjusted it down. I need to work on it some more, but for now it does the trick!

So there it is- I'm asked so often what I use my sewing machine for and it's hard to explain. The embroidery part of it is a lot more fun and creative, and I'm excited to be working on some cute onesies this fall! :)

Getting Back Into Shape



When I was first pregnant with Andrew I spent a lot of time worrying about how I would get back into shape after delivery. If I remember correctly I started setting aside money monthly to hire a personal trainer to help me get back in shape post-partum.

39 weeks pregnant with Andrew

 



I think around 8 weeks post-partum

After losing Andrew I realized that getting back in shape was really NOT that important in the big scheme of things. I couldn't believe all the time I had spent worrying about how I would get back into shape. On the contrary, I remember one particular time while checking out at Publix, really wishing for my belly or some sort of proof that I had been pregnant just a few months earlier. But instead I walked around as if nothing had ever happened.

Now I think getting back into shape after having a child is a very good thing. It's good for our health, our marriage relationships, and in keeping up with our active toddlers, for our confidence, and the list goes on and on. But somewhere along the way it's easy to lose perspective and give it too much of a priority. 

After giving birth to Jack I was not in the same rush to get my pre-baby shape back. I remember a wise mentor telling me at the time that I needed to redefine my idea of ‘Working Out’. While in the past a workout may have looked like running a few miles and then doing weights for 45 minutes (while working up a good sweat) now with a newborn it would look like just going for a walk outside the neighborhood to get some sun for vitamin D.

 

38 weeks pregnant with Jack

 

6 weeks postpartum with Jack

 

After giving birth to Jack I started doing yoga- I took classes in South Tampa and started this awesome DVD ‘Yoga for Stress Relief’ (Best purchase I've ever made!). It helped me a lot with my sore back and neck, which had gotten worse from the weight of carrying a baby around.

When Jack was around 6 months old I started working out at the gym in my workplace and that worked well for me. I still wasn’t  quite able to go back to my 'sweaty' pre-baby workouts, but they were good enough to keep me in shape.

After giving birth to PalmerI have taken things very slow to give my body a chance to heal well. With this being my third c-section in less than 4 years, and after seeing the complications that can happen from doing too much too soon. Steve felt the same way and so for the first 6 weeks I didn't venture out with the kiddos on my own just so I wouldn't have to lift too much weight. Yes a little a lot extreme, but again we wanted to give my body time to heal.

39 weeks pregnant with Palmer

5 months post-partum

I am feeling ready to get back into shape, and it is just hard with two kiddos. Palmer is still not sleeping through the night, so I rarely get up early in the mornings before he awakes. By the evening I am just too tired to workout and usually end up catching up on emails.  So I've had to get really creative here...

Some mornings I got out for a jog with Palmer (Thankfully the weather is getting cooler!!)

Other times I rent cheesy workout DVD’s from the library (They are actually pretty good AND entertaining).

I love my one Jillian DVD (and plan on trying her Yoga DVD with my friend Laura soon)

And this one is my favorite- on the days when I don’t have time to workout, I do these 10 minute ‘core’ workouts by Tiffany Rothe. They are SO fun! Saw her being interviewed on tv and just loved her.

Tiffany Rothe (Internet picture)

When I’ve done her videos Jack will join in and shake and bounce around too- He is quite the hoot!! And if I can manage to do this and make silly faces at Palmer he often laughs at me too. I just hope Steve never, ever finds me doing these workouts because he would fall on the floor on how ridiculous we look.

How have your workouts changed since having children? Let me know if there are any good tips or good DVD recommendations. I am slowly figuring out how to work out with two (still so very out of shape) and it has been quite the challenge without a gym to go to.