A week late, but I end it with Curtis Stone, well, sort of...

SOOOOO it's been a week since I've posted. I'm so sorry. I ate properly combined it was just a crazy busy week and by the time I thought to post, it was 10:30pm and all I wanted to do was go to BED!

But tonight is my last night of my 30 day cleanse. YIPPEEE! It takes a lot of mental energy to do one of these bad boys, and I really think my body likes 140 LBS. So I'm just going to enjoy myself at this stage. If and when it's time to go lower I will. I may not. I'm quite happy where I'm at. :)

Unfortunately this hotness can't join you for this meal, but I PROMISE the food is amazing!

I want to share tonight's dinner. A few years ago there was this amazing show called Take Home Chef, with Curtis Stone. Yes, that gorgeous Aussie. Oh, how I loved that show and dreamed that I would get chosen at the grocery store...in Post Falls, Idaho. Haha, my dream never came true, but his meals truly deliver and tonight's Stir Fry has been a family hit for years!

I decided to put in chicken, but not eat any with mine and have mine with rice. SOOOOO filling and yummy.

Curtis Stone Stir Fry

3 tbsp oil (I used coconut tonight and very good)
1 small onion chopped or sliced
2 large garlic cloves minced
1 tbsp finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 lb chicken or New York or Filet Mignon steak
1 large carrot peeled and thinly sliced
6 oz green beans
Broccoli to taste
mushrooms to taste
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sweet Chinese rice wine (Mirin) don't worry the alcohol cooks out
1 tbsp oyster sauce or fish sauce
1 cup bean sprouts-yummy but if you don't have 'em not totally necessary
1tsp toasted sesame oil

Place a large wok over a high heat. Once the wok is very hot, add 1 tbsp of oil and sworl the wok to coat with the oil. Add 1/2 of the onion, garlic and ginger to the hot wok, then immediately add 1/2 of the meat.

Stir fry for about 2 minutes or until the meat is semi-cooked to medium-rare doneness. Immediately transfer the meat mixture to a baking sheet and set aside.

Return the wok to high heat and repeat this process with 1 tbsp of oil, the onion, garlic, ginger, and meat. Working in two batches will allow the meat to sear properly and transferring the meat mixture to a baking sheet prevents it from overcooking.

Return the empty wok to high heat and add the remaining 1 tbsp of oil, and the veggies. Stir fry for about 3 minutes or until the veggies soften slightly.

Add the rice wine, soy sauce, water and oyster sauce and continue to stir fry for a further 4 minutes or until the veggies are crisp tender and the sauce reduces slightly.

Add the bean sprouts and stir fry 1 minute longer. Return the meat mixture to the wok. Stir fry for 2 minutes or until the meat is heated through and cooked.

Stir in the sesame oil and remove from the heat. Divide amongst 4 plates and serve with rice if you so choose!

Enjoy!!!

Sunday Night Salsa

Tonight we decided to do a Sunday Night Salsa night with a few of my local cousins.

We did this with our neighbors in Post Falls a few years ago and it was so fun! We really loved doing it and miss the Holdings and Bastedos! Great families!

Tonight was a blast and believe it or not, it was properly combined.

We made homemade salsa and guacamole with chips. There were a few sweet treats too!

It was yummy! I might have had a cookie, or two but they were yummy and I don't regret either of them :) haha

I forgot to take pictures, sorry.

But awwww tomorrow, what to eat????

I'll have to look in the morning. Might be really easy and simple, maybe a bit complicated, we will see!

By the way, I've been running three days a week this last week and it felt great. Working out is actually harder for me than making/finding properly combined meals. Fitting it in the morning is tricky some days. After how great I felt after last weeks consistent working out I plan to fit it in this week and hopefully see some great results with great eating :)
xoxo

The fruit doesn't fall too far from the tree. And that apple's name is Jace!

My little Jace.

5 going on 15.

Loves a party, I have NO idea where he learned that from...Oh yah, both his mother AND father love a party with lots of friends and fun! :)

He had a boy pajama party tonight with the highest number at 12 and now at 9:30pm, there are 3 little friends over. He has been dying to have a party since July, constantly asking.

So I finally gave in for tonight.

Little boys and big boys for that matter are so gross! I just caught two of them smelling each others bums after they farted! EWWWWWW!!!!! It was so nasty!

So many more of these days to come in my future. Oh my!

Tonight I made my own salad creation.

I tore up a head of romaine lettuce, added some shredded raw cheese, kimchi, half a lemon juiced, and a packet of stevia. It was really good, the kimchi was strong, maybe not so much next time! :)

Then I made detoxinista's chicken soup. It was awesome!

The kids were even saying to each other how yummy it was! Go here for the recipe!

 

AND!!!! What is even more awesome and would have probably been more if I hadn't had my three days of "badness"...

I LOST ANOTHER LB!

So a total of 5lbs so far. :)

I'm happy :) 

Type A? Type B?

I use to think I was a Type B personality.

I no longer think this. I am definitely a Type A.

Today was a really good day.

Dinner was yummy and satisfying.

I even left the house and did some, AH, Christmas shopping!

And believe it or not, I plan to put up my Christmas tree VERY soon! Yes, I AM ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE CHRISTMAS!

I also tried Sprouts tonight...and guess what? I LOVED that place too! Lots of love going on tonight.

Dinner was Lime Halibut with my fav cabbage salad. If you don't have the recipes and would like them, message me and I'll get 'em to you. Much faster and easier! I've posted the Lime Halibut on Paula Deen day forever ago.

And then cause I needed a little more tonight after grocery shopping at Sprouts and running around like a mad women, I bought me a Synergy Kombucha Bilberry flava', amazing, and a box of Glutino crackers, pretty good.

I wanted to include this picture because I love this little girl lots. Notice her two doggies she carries around, her sippy, her Hello Kitty pillowcase thanks to Grandma Hinckley, and the checkered blanket was from Grandma Nadine when she was born. Oh, and then her regular bedding. She's such a cute little fart. It's moments like this I want to squeeze her and love on her, but I really enjoy her sleeping. REALLY enjoy it. :)

xoxo

A deep breath

So today we took family pictures, Jordan's anniversary present to me, which I loved. I just scheduled it at a retarded time that was at the end of two and half of the busiest weeks I've had in a LONG time.

I am now breathing deeper and feeling much more relaxed and calm tonight.

His cousin Suzy took them today at a place in Lehi called the Nook and Cranny. It was cute and had some great "photo" areas.  I loved how sweet my kids were and did their best with having to constantly be happy and smiling!

I cannot wait to see them!

So tonight was a bit crazy with the pictures at 5ish, bribery shopping at Target for a toy, and getting home to feed three hungry bears before starting and eating our dinner.

I took a "flesh" route tonight and it did not dissapoint.

half a lemon juiced, tomato, cheese, and a packet of stevia sprinkled over

We started with my favorite Raw cheese Romaine salad. So easy and amazingly delicious.

I then cooked up three eggs, which I partly shared with Kenzie and Sean, runny and delicious eggs...just the way I like 'em!

Then I made detoxinista's Pizza veggies. I absolutely love this recipe. If you are looking for a great dish to try, this one CANNOT go wrong! I love it and just use raw unpasteurized cows cheese instead of the goat she suggests. Go here for the recipe.

Halloween treats!

I might have had a few candies tonight! But after eating them I didn't feel so great and plus there aren't any more of the kind I like!

Plus tonights dinner was just ok, so I really don't have any thing to share.

It's been so busy. Doing what? At times I wonder. I'm not sure why three kids has me so crazy.

Could it be starting the food business? Volunteering? Running around trying to find the perfect outfit combination for my family for family pictures tomorrow?

I think it is a combination of all three.

I'm totally pooped.

Oh yah, and today was Halloween. That kept me pretty busy today.

Happy Halloween!

It's a full bar of chocolate kind of night!

So I am almost to two weeks on this "cleanse" and I have felt pretty good symptoms wise, which I am so grateful for.

Today was a busy non stop kind of day!

I finally sat down and ate my dinner at 7:45pm.

It was good and quick cause I was so hungry!

I made a spinach salad, with a tomato and lots of kimchi, dressed with coconut aminos and apple cider vinegar.

I ate my sushi, again, it's Tuesday! So I need easy and reliable food :)

And finishing it off with a full bar of chocolate, much needed and wanted after a LONG day!

xoxo

Kimchi kind of night

Well, apparantly Jordan can eat everything that is spicy, except, KIMCHI!

He spit it out tonight.

I liked it but he didn't. I'm thinking this recipe is hitting the waste bin even though I like it. Cause I ain't making any more food than I already am right NOW! :)

If you are of the Kimchi preference this recipe is good, but not for a beginner. If you've been eating raw and/or clean for at least a few months to a year, you'll dig this dish, otherwise, unfortunately, I think it might not satisfy those taste buds.

So I started the meal with the same salad as last night. Yum! While I was becoming Popeye, I cooked my "bread", red pepper and onion in a 400 degree oven for 25+ minutes. (I lost track of time between checking the oven to see if they were cooked/burning and playing with the kiddos.) The smell was amazing!

I sliced a sweet potato into 4 thin pieces. These were going to be the "bread" of my Kimchi sandwich. Next I sliced my red pepper, and chopped my yellow onion. I sprinkled all of this with sea salt and slid into that pipping hot oven!

My veggies roasting away...

Then I took out my jar of spicy Kimchi I bought at the grocery store...a great source of probiotics, a-naturale!

I layered on one slice of sweet potato red pepper, onions and healthy dose of kimchi. I made two sandwiches and I ATE BOTH OF THEM! Yummy! I had kimchi juices running down my arm...

If you are up for a food challenge, take this dish on!


And Jordan has become a little picky I say!!! But I still love him :)

xoxo

Sunday Sunday

Another Sunday has come and gone.

Tonight only Kenzie and I enjoyed dinner. Jordan and the boys didn't like the soup, so they had eggs.

I loved the soup! SOOOOO I'm posting it and you can decide whether or not you are going to make it! :)

My pre-dinner salad, an asian sesame dressing. All natural ingredients. It was all I could mentally pull together.

I drizzled Flax Oil over the soup...INCREDIBLE! Read the recipe to see the benefits of Flax oil and flax in general.

I am so tired tonight. I am heading to bed. I hope you try it!

xoxo

Makin' bread

No I am not Molly Mormon, but I so love the taste and ingredient list of my homemade bread. This is also NOT detox friendly, but my alternative to buying my kids Dave's Killer bread at $4 a loaf, ouch! We go through it way too fast!

So I have this friend in Post Falls.

Her name is Shawn.

She is a wicked amazing homemaker.

I might idolize her.

One day I phoned her up and said hey what are you doing? I might run over and see you for a bit.

She said yes come on over, I am making bread and we can have some for lunch.

(She said that at like 11am)

I said,

      "Shawn, you make bread like I make chicken nuggets. How is it so easy for you to just WHIP up some bread, cause my recipe seriously takes me like 3 hours!"

So y'all, I timed my bread from mixing to out o' the oven. Guess what! One hour. Seriously! And it's not the kind of over the stove cooking for one hour. It's the kind of make it, let it rise, shape it, let it rise, bake it, and take it of the oven and DEVOUR!

This recipes makes three loaves. The first one doesn't make it past the 30 minute mark. One sits on our counter to eat, and the other goes into the freezer.

Alright, so here it is. I had to check with her tonight to make sure it wasn't a family secret. It isn't.

So here you GO!

Shawn's Homemade Wheat Bread

4 Cups HOT water
2 heaping TBSP yeast (I only use SAF yeast, I keep it in a container in the fridge so it stays good)
1 TBSP Salt (I prefer Kosher salt)
1/2 cup brown sugar (you can use any alternative sugar source here, just make sure it is =to=)
1/2 cup oil (whichever you prefer, Shawn suggests canola oil)

Mix above ingredients.

Add 4 cups of whole wheat flour. Mix until creamy then add:

6 cups of white flour (I use unbleached, un-enriched flour. You can also add more of the whole wheat flour, it does make it more dense, but you decide which you like better!)

Add 2 cups of white flour at a time until dough starts to pull away from the bowl.

Put in a large greased bowl, cover with saran wrap and let it rise (10 to 15 minutes)

Take out shape into three balls on your counter, making sure those balls are the same size, or thereabout. Use a little flour and knead 'em just a bit and then roll them up like wrapping paper and you'll get what kind a looks like a huge hotdog bun with a slit. Put those babies in your greased pans, slit down and cover 'em with the saran wrap you used to cover your greased bowl. Let 'em rise. 5 to 10 minutes. Make sure you've got a smokin' hot oven at 350 degrees, slam those babies in that oven and bake for 30 minutes! Tonight I took them out about 5 minutes early.

I also slice these babies with my electric knife before bagging. No body likes to cut their bread when they HUNGRY!

Enjoy! I will applaud you if you don't eat half the loaf straight out of the oven with butter and honey!

Where have I been?

Well, the last three dinners have been anything but properly combined. Between stress and Halloween festivities, I now sit at my computer hesitant to post anything from the past three days.

SO I'M NOT! Bwaahaahaa!

This has been a hard week just all around and so tomorrow, I'm back on the horse and juicing till dinner which I'm super excited about.

I tried to make a chili tonight for the church Halloween party. Total bust. So another night bites the dust. Here are our pictures from the night! Enjoy!

Awwww Happy Sumo and his wife and children.

I fiercely love them even though I go crazy because of them!

I love this little peanut!

Power Ranger boy, power ranger boy...he is taking his Karate really seriously.

We also are so grateful to get Nadine's old record player. It's huge and it was tricky to find a spot in this house for it but we love it! And you should hear Christmas music played on it! It is truly magical.

I also started making the kids homemade whole wheat bread. If you want a super easy bread recipe that's as easy as making chicken nuggets in the oven, message me and I'll send it on over! Yummy and super easy!!!

Tomorrow I will have a new recipe to share! :)

YUM YUM

Night night!

Does God work in your life?

Can I share something personal?

Yesterday, a lot came crashing down on me. I felt completely overwhelmed. I was tired, stressed, and feeling a lot of anxiety.

Between my kids, starting our food business, and just trying to stay on top of life and a household, I was and still am a bit burned out.

Jordan came home last night I just started crying. I quickly asked him for a blessing between the tears because I said I just can't do it ALL anymore. I'm failing in everything and I just need "something". When I don't know where to turn anymore, a blessing is something I always look forward to. (For those of you not LDS-Mormon, we believe that God has given righteous and worthy males the ability to act in God's name, giving blessings and such, it's more involved than that, but that's the gist of it) I desperately needed a blessing of comfort and peace, aside from what I was getting in my prayers and through my scriptures. I have too many plates I'm spinning and they are starting to crash around me. I didn't know a month and a half ago when I signed up to do all this I'd be trying to put a food business together.

The blessing gave me a lot peace and comfort, specifically telling me to enjoy my days and find something in each one that could bring me happiness. (My kids stress me out, and I find at times I am not enjoying them, I'm hurrying them on to the next part of the day)

So this morning, as I'm hurrying around the house putting  away laundry, getting kids dressed, unloading the dishwasher, loading the dishwasher, starting another load of laundry, finding a show for Sean to watch, changing Kenzie's poopy bum, my phone rings. I don't recognize the number, but with all the people I'm calling about our food product, I answer NO matter what the number is in case I NEED to talk to them!

Well, it's my visiting teacher. She says "Hi Natalie, Keri and I are coming over on Monday and we are doing something for you, we will fold laundry, wash your cabinets, run an errand, whatever it is we are doing it, so you better have something for us to do."

Do you know how hard it is to talk NORMAL to someone when you are almost in tears. I immediatley think to myself, how in the WORLD did she know I needed someone to come and lift my heavy burden. (Any extra time right now is spent on phone calls to copackers or working on recipes, so as you can image, my house is a disaster!)

I think to myself, Jordan. He is in BIG trouble for telling my visiting teachers I'm stressed out to the max and a mess. So I'm not totally paying attention to what she is saying cause I am still trying not to cry and a little upset at my hubby for telling on me...

So I tell her I'll find something for her and Keri to do on Monday and I hang up.

Ring, ring, ring. "Jordan! did you say something to Kelly Dykes? Did you tell her I needed help?"

Of course his answer is no. And I just start crying once again.

It was like a flashing red bulb was going off in my head...God is aware of YOU. When you ask for My help, I will help you! It was such a faith builder. It isn't everyday I so openly see God working in my life. I feel his Spirit but I haven't had anything like this is a while. I am so grateful that Kelly followed her prompting and called me. How often have I pushed aside a nudging and not done what the Spirit has told me to do.

I felt great calmness come upon me and thanked my Heavenly Father for prompting her and reminding me who is really in charge. I like to think it's me, but it ain't!

So now that I've cried for the hundredth time today while writing this. I am going to tell you all about my exciting dinner! Yummy, yummy, yummy!

I started my meal with a DELICIOUS romaine salad with shredded raw, unpasturized cow's cheese (I just can't seem to do the Goat cheese anymore since visiting the farm with the Kindergartners. Did you know the cheese smells and tastes just like the animals do at the farm? Well now you DO!) So I'm loving that cheese...oh my so good! I included a tomato and my dressing was half a lemon juiced and not quite a packet of stevia.

That is a tomato seed on her chin. She eats all my tomatoes if I don't get to them fast enough!

I love her buck teeth, sooooo funny to me for some reason!

The salad...YUM!

Dinner was a Thai soup that I got from my girl Sara who is doing this cleanse too! To stay in the flesh category I added shrimp tonight. I also made quinoa for Jordan and the kids, but they forgot about it and ate theirs with toasted whole wheat bread with butter that they dipped in their soup. YUMMY! I love Asian food so much! It is sooooo good! I hope you try it and enjoy it! Go here for the recipe. I did coconut oil instead of vegetable oil. I used veggie broth instead of chicken, and did two cans of coconut milk instead of three, and it turned out amazing! So creamy, warm, and soothing! BTW coconut anything, milk, oil, butter, or shreds is neutral, meaning you can eat it with anything. So dive into some coconut soon. Your hair, nails, and skin will thank you for giving them such an amazing fat source to use to replenish your beauty!

Next time I think I will go without the mushrooms and the shrimp. The soup tasted so good on it's own!

xoxo Nat

Hungry for Change? The solution is literally in your hands.

Are you sick of being overweight?

Are you tired of being tired?

I want to share something from the book Hungry for Change.

Alejandro Junger, M.D. states the following:

          "The body has two ways of defending itself against these toxins. One is to produce mucus to coate these lipophilic, or fat-loving, chemicals so that they buffer the irritation. The second is when the body can't dissolve these chemicals, it responds by retaining or generating more fat."


Then the authors go on to say

         ""What this means, according to Jon Gabriel, is the body won't let you get rid of this excess fat because it needs these fat deposits to protect against chemicals. "As long as you're taking in more toxins than you're eliminating," he says, "your body won't let you burn fat, because burning fat will release more toxins into your body, putting strain on your liver and other organs. Before your body will let you lose weight, you have to eliminate the toxins from your body. So you have to address the fact that you're being assaulted with toxins before your body will start to let go of weight.""

This is why you can eat a certain number of calories, exercise like crazy and NOT lose one pound or stay the same.

Have I said how amazing this process is? Yes, I love cleansing. It can be tough, but once you commit and mentally know, no going back it is very enjoyable and thankfully my symptoms have been very mild this go round. I have eaten berries and some avacado some days before 3:00pm, but you know what!? Since last Wedensday I am down 4LBS! So I'm very happy about that. But remember folks, I am doing the WHOLE part to this cleansing thing, meaning liquids and juices and the E word, ENEMAS!

Tonight, again I had sushi, I am sorry for the "not so exciting" on that end of things but I will be delivering 3, yes 3 new recipes over the next 5 days, so hold on to your panties! Things are going to get VERY exciting! :)

I had a spinach salad with a tomato to start things off and then did my sushi rolls. Yummy, easy and predictable, which I need on Tuesdays, cause Jordan gets home close to 9pm!

I don't like green eggs and ham!

SOOOOOO I think I've made my omelet too much cause I was just not into it tonight.  It is super yummy I just can't eat eggs right now!

Here is the recipe in case you'd like it. The salad I had before, was really not great, so I ain't postin' that either!

But the most exciting thing that came today was my NEW Natalia Rose and Doris Choi cookbook

Go and buy the book!!!!! It's FULL of amazing recipes that I can't wait to try.

 My rebounding is going great and I'm actually surprised at how out of breath I am and sweating! Love it!


 Also, I finished an amazing book last night by the people that did the documentary Food Matters and Hungry for Change. I hope you will take the time to watch such films. I hope you will look out for books and literature that inform YOU about your health and what YOU need to do. Don't take my word for all of this, do your own research and see if what I am saying doesn't ring true.

Do you drool green?

So, my daughter is a pretty hard core rawist. She loves tomatoes, cucumbers, and my juices. I even try to feed her bad food sometimes, and I'm not kidding she totally turns her nose up to it! Can you believe it!? She's 18 months and that is just incredible to me!

Takes her first bite of cucumber...

She chews...(and she is a spitting image of her father, I only give life, nothing else to my children)

Commences drool sequence...

This is one girl who literally drools over her vegetables!

Since doing this cleanse I've learned I can be VERY satisfied with the simplest of foods and meals. Even on my last 30 day cleanse I felt like I had to have a big salad and then a big main course. Not any more (thankfully, cause that was a lot of freakin' work!)

So tonight I stayed in the grains/avocado category! So yummy! Both of tonight's foods came from Hungry For Change's cook book, which I LOVE by the way!

I also tried their Buckwheat Sesame Crackers, which were very good dipped in the extra dressing from the salad above!

Curry-ious about my dinner?

Tonight I made a detox friendly curry and it did not disappoint.

While at the store I saw these delicious looking strawberries and they did not disapoint. So yes I ate the whole 1 LB of strawberries myself.

Then I went on with dinner.

I did the simple lemon and stevia packet dressing with romaine and a tomato, yummy, but make sure you put on enough stevia. There was a complaint that it was a bit too tart...

Then I adapted my Massaman curry recipe to work for being on a detox. OOOOhhhhh my so good!

It really looks like "rice"

So first and foremost I love rice and I love rice with almost anything. So when I am not detoxing, I will typcially have rice with my massaman curry. So for the rest of the family they did get their black rice with the meal, but I decided to try cauliflower rice and it was actually pretty good. Now would I replace my rice with cauliflower rice forever? NO, I will not but for now it was a great substitute. Go here for detoxinista's direction on how to make cauliflower rice. You can also try her curry but I love my curry and will not depart from it cause I love it!

My cauliflower rice

My real peanut butter used in place of a store bought oily peanut butter

Dinner cooking away

I realized half way through stuffing my face I better take a picture!

Massaman Curry Original (substitutions in red)

2 tbsp vegetable oil                                                      2tbsp coconut oil
3tbsp massaman curry paste
1 tsp ground ginger
1 1/4 pd chicken cubed                                                Omit
3 tbsp brown sugar                                                       Use 10 to 15 drops of liquid stevia
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp tomato paste or tamarind paste
1/3 cup peanut butter
3 cups peeled cubed potatoes                                      Omit
1 (13.5oz) can coconut milk
3tbsp fresh lime juice

Heat oil. Add curry paste and ginger. Cook and stir for 2 min. Stir in chicken and cook. Stir in brown sugar, fish sauce, tamaring paste, peanut butter, pototaes, and coconut milk. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to med. Low, cover, and simmer for about 20 min. Add lime juice coook additional 5 min.

Serve over jasmine rice. ENJOY!

I add chopped carrots, cauliflower, mushrooms, and peanuts, which I think make it super yummy. You might want to double sauce making ingredients if you want it runnier and more soup like. Massaman is more of a soupy curry.

 I hope you LOVE the above recipe, it is one of our families favorites! 

Also, I apologize for the lateness of my post. I met with our logo/brand designer and it was LATE when I got home and I didn't have it in me to do this post!

xoxo