This year has been a year of self discovery. And sharing about this adventure is LONG overdue. It all began with a “Why not?” And an unexpected friendship after such a long time searching for a friend that would do the things I’d been dreaming …
I love fresh baked goodness. Especially when it’s sweet and tangy. I love that these muffins don’t require a lot of sugar and still taste delicious. Plus homemade always seems to taste better than the boxed mixes, maybe it’s because you get to put the …
This is definitely not a healthy recipe, but if you’ve been following me long, you know I’ve got a sweet tooth. If I’ve learned anything about my sweet tooth, it’s that if I deprive 100% it turns into a binge monster. What better to enjoy a sweet than in celebration of birthdays? August has some of my favorite people’s birthdays! And since I’ve recently found my love for Chex Muddy Buddies again. #sogood I decided to try my hand at making some “Birthday Cake” inspired buddies. After I mentally made my own recipe in my head I found some other recipes online too, be sure to check them out too. The fun part of cooking is the experiment process. These are on the really sweet side so a little bit definitely goes a long way. 🤔 May work well in a mix with pretzels and peanuts. #sweetandsavory ??? Maybe next August I’ll try them out like that. Or October, for one of my other favorite people’s birthday month.
The ingredient that makes these Buddies would have to be the Biscoffs Cookie Butter. I tried it some time ago and have had to tell myself no to purchasing it because I could eat the whole jar in a week. So delicious! I wish I could describe the flavor and do it justice. It’s usually by the peanut butter, my other guilty pleasure. Birds of a feather right?
Ok, enough blabbering right? Give you the recipe!
🎈🎉Birthday Buddies 🎂🎁
Ingredients
9 cups Rice Chex
1 cup White Chocolate Chips
1/2 cup Biscoffs Cookie Butter
1/3 cup Margarine
1 tsp Imitation Vanilla (Extract gives a weird consistency)
1 cup Powdered Sugar (may need more)
Sprinkles to your liking!
The How To:
1. Measure Chex into a large bowl and set aside. Measure powdered sugar into a gallon size ziploc bag and set aside.
2. Add white chocolate chips, Biscoffs cookie butter and margarine into a microwave safe bowl. Microwave in high for 30-60 seconds. Stir and heat again if necessary to make it all melty and delicious. Add in the vanilla.
3. Pour over the Chex cereal and stir until evenly coated.
4. Put gooey Chex mixture into the ziploc bag with the powdered sugar and shake it until it’s all covered. Add in your sprinkle choice and shake it up again to distribute all that sparkle and birthday pizazz.
5. Serve them up in a big bowl to share, or portion them out in little ziploc baggies and throw them in the freezer to pull out as a treat once in a while!
Happy Birthday to all you August babies. Hope you enjoy your month, and that your loved ones spoil you like you deserve!
Special shout out to my first born, Damien. I love you beautiful son. ❤️
Exercise is life up in here. If I miss my workout, I tend to be grumpy, less patient, and if I miss it repetitively I tend to get a little depressed. There’s no secret that I’m a sweaty beast when I work out, my kids …
Week 3 of Me This week didn’t go 100% as planned but allowing flexibility in my routine has become important. It’s easy for me to become “obsessed” about not missing a workout. But I know that becoming obsessed over my workout results in a lack …
I don’t think I could ever get too much soup, it’s one of those things I could eat every day during the cold winter months. I’ve learned so much about the different benefits of eating beans and cabbage, garlic and onions, peas and lentils, and so many other souper soup ingredients. Even leeks, which I had never heard of until last year… I was seriously the girl who only ate salad, or broccoli and a few other veggies in between. Branching out and trying new things has really made cooking interesting, fun and tasty! Plus I just feel good.
I am pretty sure I was suffering from leaky gut before I opted to do “Microbiome Bootcamp” in September. If you’ve never heard of leaky gut, or gut health, please take a listen to this {{podcast}} by Chalene Johnson, it’s actually a 2 part series but so much good information. Of course I self diagnosed myself, after not only listening to this podcast but reading a few books on gut health, and realizing I had an upset stomach almost every night! After deciding I was sick and tired of feeling, sick and tired, I committed to following the meal plan in the book “The Microbiome Diet,” by Raphael Kellman, M.D., and it did the trick. It’s basically a process of elimination, and then focusing on eating really good foods for the bacteria in your guts. I realized that my system is sensitive to gluten and soy. If I keep the amount of those two foods to a minimum, my stomach is happy. If I eat too many, my system reacts sort of like a food allergy does, a little bit will makes you uncomfortable but a lot will result in a full on reaction. But really the whole plan is about balancing the good bacteria in your gut.
When I found the White Bean and Cabbage Soup recipe on Facebook, all I could think was gut health! Leeks and carrots are a couple of the gut health superfoods that Dr. Kellman talks about in his book. I decided to tweak the original recipe a bit because black pepper can be a system irritant, and I didn’t have a few of the original ingredients. I think it worked out rather nicely.
Heat up a large soup pot over medium low heat. Add the leeks with a splash of water and a shake or two of salt.
Stir in the carrot, red pepper flakes, cumin, and celery seeds, cook everything together for about 5 minutes until the leeks have softened.
Add the shredded cabbage, bay leaves, dill and thyme, (add optional black pepper here) give it a stir and cook together another 5 minutes or so until the cabbage has softened. Cooking with a lid on the pan will help steam the cabbage and soften it up faster.
Pour in the tomatoes and vegetable broth and bring to a simmer. Let the soup simmer covered for another 15 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings with more Himalayan salt and the apple cider vinegar.
Add the navy beans to the cabbage soup. Cook a few more minutes until just warmed through.
Serve hot, garnished with the fresh parsley and chives. The garnishes gave the soup extra flavor. Try adding more beans, or even cooked quinoa for a heartier dish.
Enjoy hot now, and reheated tomorrow for extra flavor absorption into the cabbage and beans!
I changed the order of ingredients from the original recipe to the order of use. Do you think it’s more helpful to leave canned ingredients, spices, and produce grouped together or to have them in order of use? I’d love your feedback. <3
Week 2 of Me: I’m learning to love pushing myself past my own expectations again. Boot camp at the gym was such a driving force before because I wanted to compete with whoever it was next to meet busting out push ups too. Having signed …
Procrastinator is my middle name, disorganized is my second middle name… Ever since I finished my first Spartan Race I wanted more from fitness, like to be able to help people with their fitness goals. Two years later I decided I wanted to be come …
Yup, it’s that time again. Goal setting, new commitments, lifestyle changes. Hooray!!!Go big or go home right?!? Nope. Let me tell you why… (Unless you are that one in a million.)
Change is even harder when you try to pile on 20 changes in one week. Think back to when you were a baby, okay so you probably don’t remember that far back, how about the last baby you spent time with? When they were learning to walk they didn’t just stand up and start running right? They held on to the table, steadied themselves and then let go. Then they decided it was time to take a step, maybe two, and then it progressed to three or four or more. While I would love to see you all successfully master your health goals right away, I know that small steps are more successful. Start at the bottom and continue to build up that foundation. The New Year, is just that, a YEAR, that means you’ve got 12 months to master those good habits. Let’s focus on mastering one thing at a time.
What is your goal? Lose weight? Give it a number. Be stronger? Give it something attainable, full push up, pull up, squat 100 pounds. Be healthier? Eat a veggie with every meal, cut out soda, exercise 3 times a week. See what I’m getting at here? If you’re wanting to be successful you need something to work towards, you need something that will give you a sense of completion or accomplishment. Saying you want to be healthier or lose weight leaves a lot of wiggle room. One more thing, let’s be realistic. Don’t be afraid to set a small goal to start, it will help you build up the confidence needed to push further and grow confidence in yourself.
Why did you choose this goal? I want you to dig deep and decide what it is about this goal that makes you want to complete it. Why do you want to lose 15 lbs, did your doctor say it was necessary for your health? Are you unhappy in your skin? Do you want to be a healthy example for your kids? Only you can figure out your why and whether it is going to drive you to succeed. Write that why on a sticky note and put it on your refrigerator, put it on your bathroom mirror, remember it when you don’t want to do the things you know will make you meet the goal you set.
Now, give it a deadline. “I will lose 15 lbs by the end of March, I will master the pull up by June,” you get my drift? Having a deadline can help give you a sense of urgency, knowing I have to meet a goal by that date gives me a little extra drive. My focus is more intentional if I know there is an end date.
Now that you’ve got that deadline, break it down. To lose 15 pounds, I’ll need to lose 5 lbs a month. How am I going to do that? What has or hasn’t worked for you before? If it didn’t work, don’t do it again, if you’re needing some ideas on how to meet those specific goals, don’t be afraid to reach out. Want to quit your 5 soda a day habit, try breaking it down weekly. Week 1, I will cut back to 4 sodas a day, week 2 it will be only 3. Or spread it out a little longer. Quitting a bad habit can sometimes cause withdrawals and it may be painful to quit cold turkey. Don’t be afraid to try new things, remember if it seems too good to be true, chances are it is. There’s no magical pill for weight loss or getting rich quick for that matter. (No matter what the infomercials tell you.)
I mentioned baby steps before, and I mean it. If you have lived on the couch and haven’t been to the gym since your high school gym class, haven’t had a vegetable since your mom made you eat one and drink coffee as your method of hydration, don’t try to make all those changes at once. Yes, some people can make those changes, with the power of God, I believe, but big changes are stressful. If you’re going to quote Philippians 4:13, I pray you are really relying on him to help you through it. Otherwise, one step at a time. I wouldn’t expect to go run a marathon with zero training, don’t expect to change over night either. The clock isn’t going to strike midnight tonight and you’ll be miraculously changed, I don’t know if I can emphasize enough, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
There will be bumps, just like that baby, you might fall after a few steps. That baby isn’t going to give up, and you shouldn’t either. I recommend reevaluating every month. What is working? What isn’t? Are you on schedule to meet your goal? If yes, awesome! If not, awesome! Keep your eye on the prize and remember that tomorrow is a new day. You can do anything you put your mind to, you just have to want it bad enough.
Last year, I made myself a pretty little vision board that had all sorts of goals on it for the year. I’ve realized that having so many goals made me lose focus of the bigger goals I had, I spread myself too thin. ↓↓↓ My theme for the year is “Learn it, Apply it.” I will be setting monthly goals and breaking them down by category. Health, Spiritual, Work, and Relationships.
January Goals:
Health- Microbiome Bootcamp do over. DIY workout program, 6 days a week.
Spiritual- Read 2 chapters of the New Testament daily and daily devotions with the family.
Work- Get on a schedule! This will be a learning process as I will be working from home. Take certification test.
Relationships- Quality time with each of my family members, individually, once a week. Quality time with a friend once a month.
Congratulations on committing to your best year yet. <3
My family loves burger night. Have you ever had the Morning Star Farms Roasted Garlic and Quinoa burger patties? Those are my favorite pre-made burgers. I try to avoid soy where I can because my body doesn’t seem to like it much. I’m so glad …