Recent Happenings and a "SOUP"erfood Recipe

Good afternoon!  Hope you are having a great week so far...almost halfway there!  It has been a busy week around here, but luckily we were well-rested after a low-key and relaxing weekend.  I got lots of to-dos taken care of, including recovering Wendy and Oliver's pet steps in a cute chevron fabric.  (The carpet that they came with was falling off, so it just had to be done.)  Wendy is very pleased with the new look.

The weather was nicer-than-average, and on Saturday I had the best run I've had in at least 6 months.  It was a great feeling, and now I'm starting to get the itch to sign up for some kind of race in the spring.  To celebrate, I made these pomegranate mimosas:

Delicious!

I also bought a ton of veggies at the grocery store, only to realize that, between Jay's work schedule and a couple of social obligations, we are only both going to be at home for dinner one night this week.  In an effort to not let things go to waste, I put together a creamy, dairy-free broccoli "superfood" soup last night.  It was inspired by a recipe I saw recently in a Humane Society e-mail.  The soup was tasty and about as healthy as it gets!

Broccoli Superfood Soup
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large leek (the white part only), chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 large sweet potato, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 teaspoon thyme

2-3 cups broccoli florets
4 cups vegetable broth

3 tablespoons nutritional yeast

Fresh ground pepper, to taste

Salt, to taste

1. Finely chop the broccoli and, if you have time, wait half an hour (see video below).

2. Using a bit of olive oil, saute the leeks, onion, and garlic in a large saucepan over medium heat for approximately 2 minutes.  

3. Add in sweet potato and saute for a few more minutes.  If the ingredients begin sticking to the pan, pour in 1-2 tablespoons of water.

3. Add the thyme and cook for another minute, then add the broccoli and vegetable broth. Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium. Continue to cook the mixture, covered, until broccoli and sweet potatoes are tender (about 10-15 minutes).

4. Add nutritional yeast and carefully puree the soup using an immersion blender.

5. Season with salt and lots of fresh ground pepper.  Of course, I also added a little Sriracha to mine. 

So what makes this soup so healthy?  Check out these great resources:

Broccoli:  Breast Cancer Survival Vegetable video
Garlic, onion, and leeks: #1 Anti-cancer Vegetable video

Sweet potato: The 7 Hottest Anti-Aging Superfoods to Eat in 2014 article

Nutritional yeast: Preserving Immune Function in Athletes With Nutritional Yeast

Why the pre-chopping and half-hour waiting period? Sometimes the Enzyme Myth Is True video

Can you tell I am a big fan of NutritionFacts.org?  The guy is SUCH a nerd, but he provides the best research-based info on the web.  

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Guest Post by Jay {Part I} - How to Make Your Own Sparkling Water

I have been wanting to write a guest post for some time now, and since today is the last day of my winter break, it’s probably now or never! Because this may turn into a long post, I will break it up into two parts - part one being on how to make sparkling water from home, and part two on the quality of the water going into the keg.

PART 1:

This may sound like a lame gift, but I gave Laura her own sparkling water system for Christmas. It is kind of like a Soda Stream on steroids. I simply added another home brew kegging system to our current kegerator. You can purchase all this equipment online and convert any refrigerator or freezer.  (If you are interested in building your own kegerator, you can find instructions here.)

My kegerator resides in the garage.  Here is what it looks like:


Laura has been putting lemon-lime water in the keg, although you can use just about any fruit or vegetable to flavor the water. Not only is this habit delicious, it's also a very good way to keep your antioxidant levels up. Here is a great video by nutritionfacts.org that explains why this is important:

I like to think of the recommended daily allowance for antioxidants as a steady amount flowing in the bloodstream, rather than a giant bucket that needs to be filled up just once per day.

Making lemon-lime sparkling water is simple!

Step 1: Add lemon and/or lime juice to your keg. We used roughly one cup of fresh squeezed lemon and lime juice for a 5 gallon ball lock keg. A great trick for getting more juice from the lemon or lime is to microwave it for about 15 seconds before squeezing.

You could also use other fresh fruits or juices to flavor the water.  We plan to experiment with pomegranate juice, berries, and more.

Step 2: Fill up the 5 gallon keg with water and cool it to 32 degrees (or as close to it as possible).  You can use ice or just put the keg in the kegerator for a while to cool. Leave a little bit of room at the top for carbonating and shaking purposes.

Step 3: Pressurize the keg to 30 psi and shake for about 5 minutes. This will carbonate the water. 

Step 4: Reduce the pressure to 12 psi and serve!

Cheers!

Jay

Back to the Gym (Plus an Upper/Lower Body Combo Workout)

This past weekend, I went back to the gym for the first time since having surgery on December 16th.  I forgot how busy it gets after the start of the year.  Clearly I am not the only one trying to get back in the swing of things!

I was surprised at how strong I felt after taking three weeks off from any sort of exercise (aside from walking).  I didn't attempt any moves that were too overly intense, but it was still a pretty tough workout, all things considered.  I'm still feeling it after a couple of days.  It probably doesn't help that I started back to work yesterday with a brand new group of 150 seventh graders.  I am exhausted!

The workout I put together focused mainly on cardio combined with arm and leg exercises.  I didn't want to attempt too many ab moves just yet, since that area is still a bit weak.

This workout could be easily tailored to any ability level.  Just up the intensity of the cardio and increase your weights for more of a challenge, or vice versa.  Hope you enjoy!  

Some Recent Healthy Eats

I hope 2014 is off to a great start for all of you!  I'm not too big on resolutions, but after the holidays I've been eager to get back to healthy eating and exercising.  We've finally gotten back in the cooking groove around here, and it feels great.

One recipe source I have been referencing a lot lately is a book called No Meat Athlete by Matt Frazier.

It is full of great plant-based recipes that are genuinely easy and really tasty.  The ingredients are specifically chosen to provide athletes (and I use that term loosely) with the nutrition they need to live a healthy, active lifestyle without animal products.  Jay is currently reading the book and plans to try out one of the half-marathon training plans for his next race.  As of now, I have mainly just read through the recipe section, but I can't wait to read the rest of the book cover-to-cover once Jay is done with it.

We tried a couple recipes from the book this past week, and they were both fantastic.

White Bean Coconut Curry

Super Quick Red Lentils and Rice

On New Years day, I was determined to incorporate some black eyed peas into one of our meals for good luck, so I made a quick "Hoppin' John" salad for lunch. I sauteed green peppers, onions, black eyed peas, and hot sauce, and served it over a spinach salad with a lemon juice/sea salt dressing, cilantro, and some sprouts. Sort of random, but it tasted great.

Another night, we cooked up a superfood packed dinner of wild-caught salmon, risotto, sauteed kale, and sweet potato with coconut oil.  I marinated the salmon in a mixture of olive oil, Dijon mustard, honey, and minced ginger (another superfood!) and baked it for 15 minutes at 400.  So good!

I also made my favorite Eggplant Parmesan recipe on Friday and served it over spaghetti squash instead of pasta.  It was a great way to squeeze in even more veggies than usual.  

At some point I got hit with a major chocolate craving, so I tried out these Black Bean Brownies from "Chocolate Covered Katie."

I pretty much followed the recipe exactly (although I had to extend the cooking time a bit), so I will just let you refer to the link above if you want to try them out.  The only thing I did differently was add in a tablespoon of instant coffee to give the brownies a little kick.  These were SO good and did not taste anything like beans.  (Apparently I have a thing for making bean-y desserts.  I still love the Pumpkin Banana Bean Bars from Forks Over Knives.)

I hope this post inspired you to make some healthy meals in the upcoming week!  Stay warm out there!

DIY Laundry Soap Gifts

I've been loving the homemade laundry soap that I've been using, so much so that my mom and I decided to make gifts out of it for Christmas!  (I know this post is quite belated, but I didn't want to risk any of the recipients seeing their gifts ahead of time.)  We figured the soap would make unique and useful presents, since laundry is something that unfortunately we all must do.

We started off with 24 1-liter Ball jars, 5 boxes of Borax, 5 boxes of washing soda, and 10 bars of Fels Naptha soap (to which we later added two more).  It was quite the operation.  

We made two batches at a time, using a food processor to grate the soap and then shaking up all the ingredients in a big plastic bucket.  (You can see the exact recipe here.)

We then carefully transferred the soap into the jars.  It took a total of approximately 12 batches to fill them all up.

To finish up the project, we tied some cute tags (borrowed and printed out from this website) to each jar with some natural jute string and signed our names plus the batch number.

It was a long afternoon of soap making, but I was really happy with the end result.  The gifts have been a big hit with all of our family and friends.  I felt like it was a fun alternative to all the typical baked goods and candies that are so common around the holidays.

Laundry soap could make a fun gift at other times of year, too.  I think it would make a really cute housewarming present, among other things.  Anything to make this never-ending chore a bit more enjoyable!