food for thought

Tomorrow my summer is over. Back to the grind, which means that tonight I'm thinking of lunches to get ready for the week and getting my coffee set up to be ready and waiting for me in the morning.

As much as I love summer, I'm ready for the school year to begin. I thrive when I'm busy and feeling purposeful. But I also get easily overwhelmed and stressed out. I'm hoping that I can avoid that this year. I've moved schools and hope that I'll have more time to focus on teaching and less extra duties that kind of wore me out.

Here are a few things I've been loving in this last bit of summer...

food for thought 

I'm not going Paleo 100% (a lifestyle with lots of veggies and protein), but kind of with the whole no wheat thing, so I've been searching for a good paleo blog to give me ideas for wheat free meals. I stumbled upon nom nom paleo and am in love!

One of the books I thoroughly devoured this summer was Room, by Emma Donoghue. It's the story of a mother and son who are trapped in a room, and the mother makes life very interesting for the young boy by turning everything into games and riddles. The most striking aspect of the story is the fact that the young boy is the narrator. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I could not put it down.

Another favorite, and an author I am currently obsessed with, was Wild, by Cheryl Strayed. This one is a heartbreaking memoir that made me want to lace up my hiking boots and go out for hours. I cannot tell you how much I admire her courage and spirit and at the same time how much she just baffles me. I loved her writing style so very much that I picked up her book, Tiny Beautiful Things, a compilation of advice columns she wrote as Dear Sugar. It was another simply fabulous read. Very well worth your time, though you can read all the advice online too!

This video was suggested by a friend for being inspiring and heart warming.  It doesn't disappoint, get out your tissues.

Have I posted about this lunch roundup before? I know it's for kids, but I like the ideas (sans wheat of course, 14 days and still going!)

have you heard of a leptocephalus? I'm entranced by this thing.

Enjoy!
-m

food for thought

strolling through central park

Just last week I returned from a 12 day trip to the East Coast. I had a blast and devoured delicious food and amazing American history. I am now feeling all that fairly processed food I consumed while on the trip. Yikes. My body is not happy.

getting on the metro in DC

Part of the trip was a sponsored teacher education thing where I had very little control over what we were served (but I did help myself to the biscuits and gravy at the breakfast buffet, twice! I was in Virginia! How could I resist?) and the other part was just for fun. I leave on Friday for a 10 day trip up north. We are staying in a little condo with a kitchen and I plan to be a lot more on top of my food choices while we are away. I'm even bringing my immersion blender so I can make a quick green smoothie every morning to go with my eggs. 

green smoothie and yogurt parfait from yola in DC, one of my favorite places we ate on the trip. seriously. delicious.

How do you cope with making good food choices while away from home? How do you spot the real food and stay away from the processed food that calls our names? (I feel I deserve an award for staying away from the fried dough on the street carts of Boston, every time we passed by I wanted to try a bit so badly.. but I refrained. And had a crab roll instead. Cest la vie!) 

"a cure for the refractory"- behave or you will be tarred and feathered!

We didn't have much wifi on the trip, so I'm catching up on some internet browsing and feeling share-y! (totally a word) 


food for thought 


this bathroom visit enhancer is a bit interesting

I listened to as many of the Real Food Summit presenters as I could in the limited time I had, and I loved it. I plan on reading some of the presenters books and checking out their blogs/sites often! The list of presenters is at the end of the website linked above.

the summit made me rethink my dedication to unprocessed, real foods and how I've been slipping a lot lately. It's so easy to fall into familiar patterns of eating, especially ones that rely on convenience foods, it's way harder to take control and make the good food choices. I'm going to think about how to rededicate myself and what that looks like for me, since everyone's journey is so unique. I found this photo to sum up my feelings on it perfectly:

I just picked up this book, Wheat Belly, and we will see where that leads. I know my body doesn't respond well to wheat and sugar (does anyone? I get grouchy, bloated and hungry for more and I kinda think that's not unusual for us humans. Why do we keep eating it then? That's the question), I might just have to cut those bad boys out of my life. Seems drastic, but I think my health is worth it, don't you?

On a lighter note, I've been sitting by my computer, trying a bunch of pinterest hair tutorials and failing miserably. It's quite comical.

Speaking of comical:

organic witches!

Hope your summer is going well!

Enjoy!
-m

food for thought

My cooking has been sporadic lately. Lots of goat cheese omelets and chili. Also, I keep falling asleep before 8:00.

It must be the end of the school year! 5 more teaching days. Lots of things to do. I used to think that the end of the year must be so relaxing for teachers, but it never lets up. Luckily for me, my students are behaving well (knock on wood) and having fun with the projects we have been working on.

I find myself at home, wanting to watch pointless tv and read goofy stuff online. Here's a mixup of things that have caught my attention this week.


Food for Thought: 

I teach in a portable classroom and this company is doing interesting things with old ones! I don't know if I'd want to live in one, but they look pretty nifty and who doesn't love recycling?

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the paleo diet, I'm not totally sold on it but I like it's basic premis and try to limit my grains, sugar and dairy- but I'd be much more interested if they did more research studies about it. This is a sign that they might be headed in the right direction, just maybe.

I went through a health documentary phase a few months ago and watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. Good one, very inspiring, and then I went out and bought a juicer and have been drinking homemade veggie juice twice a day. I love it. The filmakers website has the movie as well as hundreds of juice recipes! I used them as a guide in the beginning, so very helpful.

Speaking of documentaries, here is the one that started my fascination with them. Hungry for Change is a great documentary, but they don't make it easy to watch.. I keep hoping it will show up on netflix! Maybe go halfsies on the dvd with some friends and watch it together? They had it for free online a few months ago and I was lucky enough to see it.. I just loved it. The focus on healthy, unprocessed food and accepting and loving ourselves was just exactly what I try to extoll. Try. They hit the nail on the head. A friend of mine has their recipe book and I have had a few things from it, holy moly it has been good!

My family adores Disneyland, and it's been a few years since I've been visited. This time lapse video of Disneyland captures a lot of the chaos and delight of the place. Kinda makes me miss it. Kinda.


Enjoy!
-m

Food for thought

I feel like saying "What a week!" but that seems a bit dramatic seeing as how I took yesterday off to celebrate a certain someone's 30th birthday. We spent the day running seaside (me) and mountain biking (him), napping on the beach and watching the dog chase countless birds through the sandy shore (and flopping comically into deeper than she predicted waves and puddles).

Maybe I should say, I'm a bit physically tired. I've run almost 12 miles in the last three days, which is more than usual by Thursday. And Monday's yoga class completely obliterated my muscles, in a good way. My legs and my poor feet just need a day to sit and relax, and I'm planning on doing just that for a good portion of my Saturday.

For now, as I dream of my lazy Saturday, my hearty shepherd's pie is in the oven and I'm busy perusing the internet. I thought this might be just the perfect time to share some of my favorite things, links and otherwise. 

1. I sincerely enjoy chopping mushrooms. I don't always love them in a dish, but preparing them is one of my favorite things. These shitake mushrooms were a pain to stem, but a joy to slice. They are firm and fresh feeling and way more fun than chopping chocolate. Bleh.

2. My apple corer/chopper has a new use- potato slicer! This works wonders and I just slice that weird core piece into two pieces and voila, homemade fries are done and ready to be baked! Or today, I peeled some potatoes and then ran them through the apple corer/chopper and then quickly chopped them for boiling. I love finding things like this to make my prep work easier!

I'm much more likely to cook wholesome foods if I can make the prep work more enjoyable and easier too. (But, as a note, don't be like me and chop your potatoes a day or two in advance and put them in a plastic baggie, yuck! I thought I was being so clever, but alas, I was not. Just chop before use or put them in a bowl with some water, they oxidize quite oddly- meaning- they turn a nasty brown color all over).

3. Speaking of saving time, I have been googling tips for storing my iphone headphoes for what feels like eternity, but has in fact only been a year or so. I get so frustrated trying to get them out of my bag all wound up around my sunglasses and pens. I have found a few ideas, but nothing I love as much as this one! I can't wait to give a try.

4. While I'm on the subject of iphones, (look at me segwaying like a pro! what what. Pro segway-er right here) I'm so very enthralled with this company's iphone cases. I want want want them all, especially their movie ones. This one is my all time favorite, I'm trying to convince myself to spend $35 dollars on it.. and not having much luck. Maybe next month!

5. Combining both the iphone stuff and the photos above comes my latest love, the app Snapseed. I got it for free a while back during one of those crazy 'get it while you can!' things and  I love it. It's such fun for editing pictures I take on my phone. I'm considering using it for other fun photo editing on my laptop as well. We shall see!

Enjoy the rest of the week!
-m

food for thought

My name is Megan and last week I burnt caramel.

I burnt it, it smelled just like burnt sugar, but the optimistic side of me went right on ahead and poured that burnt, smoldering caramel onto the shortbread that was going to be part of the delectable caramel bars. Oops. You know what I learned, if it smells burnt. It's burnt. Leave it be or toss it out or make some caramel brittle. That would have been a good choice.

The next night, I made those caramel bars all over again to much more success, but in the process I found a few caramel recipes I really wanted to share and a few other delightful, interesting things as well.

food for thought

When I was making my caramel, I combined the caramel recipe I used for caramel apples with this fleur de Sel caramel recipe- I just really wanted to avoid the corn syrup step.

These salted caramel bars by What's Gaby Cooking were my inspiration for the caramel bars I ended up making- I used her shortbread recipe and I really loved the combination. I'll be sharing the whole process soon!

I taught preschool a while back, for quite a few years, and was a nanny for small children- so temper tantrums used be a big part of my daily life. This article on What's Behind a Temper Tantrum makes me feel a little bit better about my strategy for dealing with them- leave them be, make sure they are safe and so is everyone around them (they can really throw stuff in those tantrums!) but just let them get it out. I really enjoyed reading about the vocalizations the kids made during, the idea of studying this fascinates me. I would never, ever want to spend hours analyzing those screams and skirmishes but I'm glad someone else did!

I used to read the comics daily in our local news paper, and while I still receive the paper on the weekends (it seems so relaxing to me, paper and coffee and early-ish morning light) I still find ways to get my comics fix, here is one of them and here is another one (and a personal fav).

Enjoy!
-m

food for thought

I forget how much I love the internet sometimes. This week I have spent so much time on my computer for work reasons, that I have been avoiding it when I get home. Which means that I'm missing out on one of my favorite sources of entertainment! I think part of it is that I feel so worn out when I get home, I don't want to see the messages I make for myself behind my laptop... I just want to nap!

Luckily, I had some free time tonight and my eyes weren't aching and I didn't feel so lazy. Here are a few of the things I found most time worthy and a few things I cannot wait to try myself.

Food for Thought

I'm trying to figure something out. I made artichokes for dinner, should I save the water I cooked them in or throw it out? It's so gorgeous and green. This thing says yes, this thing says no. I haven't made up my mind yet.

I'm such a grammar nerd. That's why this makes me laugh so hard, grammar jokes!

I received a bunch of dill in my CSA box and I'm not the biggest fan of dill, sorry dill, but I'm sooo going to try this dill monkey bread type thing with the whole wheat bread dough that I have in the fridge! I'll keep you posted.

If I was crafty, I'd make these felt bows. They seem perfect for the holidays, either as a gift wrap accessory or as lovely decor.

Also, I'm completely obsessed with The Sing Off and particulary, the group Pentatonix. If you don't watch this show, you are really missing out. I adore this group. I'd buy their cd today. Watch them rock one of my favorite songs, then go to you tube and watch every other performance and be amazed. Amazed.

Enjoy!
-m

food for thought

It's Tuesday. It feels like it should be Friday. I feel like I've already taught five days this week. Some new concepts have been... tough. It's days like this that I come home and just want to fart around on food blogs and the interwebs in general. I just want to ponder someone else's existence. I want to wonder why they made that dish, why they wrote that comic panel or why they typed that piece. I don't want to think about integers (come on. pretend you remember what they are) or Ancient Sumerian culture.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a good share-er. I like the shared experiences and ideas. I think it's one reason why I love book clubs and why I prefer to give experiences as gifts as opposed to things. There is something about that connection between people when they share something that is just magical. A pencil, a book, a trip of a lifetime, a good meal or something interesting they read recently.

With that in mind, here are some of the things that are making me feel contemplative today. Click away, check them out, read a bit or don't. I won't ever know. Then, we can chat about it, here or elsewhere and be amazingly connected. Ahh, human interaction.

Food for Thought 

Pumpkin Cornbread. I made this with chili a while back, and substituted whole wheat and raw sugar for the flour and sugar. I thought it was amazing and it forced me to buy molasses, which I am now trying to put into everything I cook. 

See what I mean about quotes? Everyone loves them.

I'm completely infatuated with this 'book club' idea, can I be in it even though I do not fit the age range? I'm pleased as punch that it exists.

Do you love your spice rack or spice organizational system? I need a new one. Maybe this beaker one, which I totally adore and fits very will with my color scheme. Where do people come up with these ideas? I'm in awe!


Enjoy!
-m