Have you ever looked at those pretty purple vegetables? As modern Americans we aren’t used to cooking eggplants, I don’t know when it moved out of our regular diet but it somehow did. I mean I LOVE vegetables and I don’t cook eggplant all the time. It gets weird and squishy and slimy sometimes and I just don’t care for that texture… conveniently I’m the main cook in our house so I get to cook the eggplant the way I like it. I like it crispy and fried in olive oil and rosemary. As I often admit, I cold-swiped the recipe from my sister. Her artist soul comes up with some incredible recipes BUT you’ve got to watch her cook. She will come up with creative tastiness but the lady doesn’t measure and half the time doesn’t pay much attention to what she puts in the food. Yet she’s an incredible cook.
I learned about her eggplant chips years ago and unlike most recipes I haven’t changed much. In summary you thinly slice eggplant, fry it with olive oil and some fresh rosemary. That’s it. There are two ways to cook this; on a grill or in a pan. When we started making these we didn’t have money for fancy tools and all of us lived in apartments with no balcony much less a grill. If you have a grill it’s a great way to cook the eggplant because it’s less to clean but you’ve got to slice the eggplant a wee bit thicker. Think ¼ in versus as thin as you can possibly make it.
For meal planning purposes one large eggplant is great for the vegetable option of my dinner. I often will call it the ‘appetizer’. It does take longer to cook and does require some prep time. If you want a vegetable based meal try making them into a sandwich with fresh mozzarella and basil on a hoagie type roll. Back when I could eat delicious bread I LHURVED these sandwiches. As a dedicated carnivore I didn’t miss meat when I ate this tasty treat. All the words are done! here’s the recipe
Eggplant Chips
Liz Lund
Delicious way to eat eggplant without the squishy slimy texture
1 frying pan I like cast iron but most anything would work.
1 spatula make sure it's thin so you can skooch it under the eggplant
1 basting brush Mine's silicone so it can go in the dishwasher but a fiber one would work well too
1 sharp knife or mandolin Mandolin is easier but be careful to not to cut yourself!
Ingredients
1eggplant
1/4cupolive oil
2large sprigsrosemary
1tbspsalt
Instructions
finely chop the rosemary and put it in the olive oil. You can mince it with kitchen scissors in the olive oil if you'd like. It's easy and makes the olive oil taste more like rosemary.
Thinly slice the eggplant. If cooking in a pan slice it super fine. If grilling go for a little thicker. The super thin ones will burn on the grill.
Heat the pan to medium heat put a glug of cooking oil on the pan and add the eggplant slices to the pan. Brush the rosemary olive oil onto the eggplant, let it soak in then turn the slice over and brush the other side with rosemary olive oil.
Fry the eggplant till it's medium brown on both sides and slightly crispy. Immediately salt them when you take them off the frying pan. Salt these puppies like they're potato chips. Trust me it's better this way.
Eat them immediately and feel good about eating your vegetables for the day.
As summer screams into the Pacific NorthWest I have to think about how to continue feeding my family and me healthy foods in the middle of summer travel and hosting guests. If you know me you know that my family is all over the country. We are dispersed from Washington State to Arizona, some middle states and then East Coast states. If you’ve been to the PNW you know when everyone wants to visit… hint– it’s not December or February… It’s June-October. This means that we travel to see family in the area over the summer and host them as much as possible. This also means I cook A LOT! And for large numbers of people with dietary restrictions. Soft foods, not soft foods, no beef, all the beef, gluten free or all the gluten etc… How do I manage that? Planning.
I have a friend, Megan Sumrell (https://www.megansumrell.com/) who teaches planning. She says that there is freedom in planning and at first I thought “lady I love you but you’re full of shit” but then I tried the planning thing. She. Is. Right. I’m not talking a hard and fast plan with every activity scheduled to the minute. I am however, talking about a basic plan of what you can quickly and easily cook for a large group of people based on the activities of the day. For example: On Saturday I will have my parents staying at my house, my in-laws in a near-by hotel, three dance recital shows and swim lessons. I know that Saturday will must be a quick easy meal but I will be home in the middle of the day to make bread and either pre-cook food or pass on the plan to my dad or hubs. Both are great cooks so I have it easy. This means I have to plan the food accordingly. I’m not going to make them Coq-Au-Vin because that requires a silly amount of cooking time. I may however cook/prep smashed potatoes, pesto salmon and a salad. I can make the salad in the morning, pesto salmon is ridiculously easy and everyone loves it and smashed potatoes can be made in advance and just heated up at the end. Booom DONE. Stress is relieved, family eats healthy and we can spend time hanging not cooking.
My other trick? Ready for it… I don’t serve lunch to guests and rarely serve breakfast. I cook food for the kids, offer to make more for any guests and call it good. The majority of my guests can cook and as adults their needs are different than the kids. My kids need to eat regularly and require snacks. All guests of mine know that the fridge is theirs, snacks are free game and they make themselves at home. This means that I sometimes cook breakfast for the whole clan and sometimes I don’t. It’s pretty easy to add four extra eggs to a scramble, pour more cereal etc. If I’m making sandwiches I just make an extra one of what we have or offer leftovers. Does this make me a bad host? I don’t think so but if it does too bad. I ADORE my family and friends and will cheerfully fix them their favorite treat meals for dinner. But I can’t do it all and I do require sleep. So I found my limits and it works for us. This gives me a few extra minutes to breathe and do glamorous things like quickly clean the main bathroom. Because let’s face it life over here is full of glamour… ? No? Well we at least eat well and have fun.
Here’s to you hosting with minimal stress and more fun this summer!
About 16 years ago my hubs and I went to Greece for a friend’s wedding and it was AWESOME. I love to travel but I also love to eat my way around the world and since this was before I was gluten free or before I knew I couldn’t eat ALL THE CHEESE… I ate all of it. We went to this tiny hole in the wall restaurant off the meat market and had this incredible chicken and side salad. It was fresh, delicious and full of goodness… then when we came home and ordered a greek salad with greek chicken ooof… all the disappointment. The chicken wasn’t awesome and the salad was mostly lettuce. Random opinion here, but did you know that in many European countries they are more likely to eat seasonally and have lots of veggies? Especially in the Mediterranean countries. In my opinion of course. All this is my long winded way of saying I had to recreate this food. And so I did.
Who likes this meal? Almost everyone likes this meal at my house. The only complainers have been the smaller members of my family and they don’t like… gasp… olives with pits. Or even more horror they said that tomatoes corrupted the salad… they lied. Tomatoes make it better also feta cheese worked as a bribe. Hubs brilliantly added feta cheese to 8yr old’s salad then the 8 yr old said it was brilliant… Actually he ate the salad and then saved the feta cheese for his treat. I didn’t argue because the ate all the food.
I’ve included this in my easy recipe list because chicken is pretty standard, boneless chicken breasts defrost fairly quickly, and you can grab good tasty fresh bread on the way home from work. I like to make my own bread but that isn’t everyone’s jam. It’d be even better if I could EAT the bread I make but that’s a story for another day.
As you’re planning out the week of food this is a great meal for leftovers. The salad keeps well as does the chicken. In fact all the salad is now in lunches for today and I have to either make more or go without salad for my lunch. The chicken can easily be used as is or moved into a chicken salad or quesadilla or as a topper for a green salad or… whatever you want.
As always I’d love for any feedback or pictures of you trying this recipe. Much love and enjoy eating ALL THE FOOD! also greek food is delicious.
Kim and Jer Inspired Greek Chicken and Salad
A healthy and Fast Chicken dinner with tasty veggies
1 frying pan heavy bottomed is best but can be done on something else
1 sharp knife
1 cutting board
Ingredients
Salad
1 large or 3 smallAvocados
1/4medium red onion
1cupmixed olivesI get these at the deli. Try to get the freshest you can find… they have more flavor that way.
1/2cupwhole fat feta cheese
1cuptomatoes chopped upget the best you can find, I found great looking grape tomatoes for the pictures and it was perfect but I've used lots of different kinds. Flavor will matter more than type.
1cucumber chopped into chunks
Chicken
4chicken breastsEither cut these into pieces or bust out your mallet (heavy pan works too) and smash that chicken to even thickness.
1 tbsp italian seasoningit's ok to guess here!
1tbspgarlic powder
1tbspdried oregano
1/2tspdried rosemary
1tspred wine vinegar
1tspwhite wine vinegar or rice wine vinegarwhat is important here is the lighter flavor. You want the red wine vinegar flavor to be dominant but not overpowering.
2tbspolive oilyou'll taste this so get the best you can
Instructions
Order of Operations
You know you want to know what order to cook this in! It makes things faster and more efficient. Make the salad first, it’s best if it marinates in theflavors for a bit. It’s fine to marinateovernight or to marinate for 15-20 minutes. If you marinate it overnight the avocado will likely be slightly brownbut will taste just fine. Then prep thechicken. Finally cook the chicken. If you’re doing one batch of chicken (2-3chicken breasts) it’ll go pretty quick. If you’re like me where you cook 2-3lbs of meat at a time it’ll cook inabout 15-20min.
Making the Salad of Yum
Gather your ingredients and a bowl. I like to use the serving bowl to make the salad because then it's one less thing to wash.
Peel the cucumber and slice off the tips. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and then cut the strip in half again. You'll now have four long strips of cucumber. Line 'em up and whack at them with a knife… just kidding! chop them into similarly sized pieces thing 1/2 in thick. Dump them in the bowl.
Cut your avocado in half and remove the pit. Lightly, so that you don't pierce the skin, cut through the avocado and make a grid. You're basically cutting the avocado into bite sized pieces the lazy man's way. Now get a largeish spoon and scoop out the avocado meat into the salad bowl.
grab your tomatoes and chop em up into bite sized pieces. This is personal preferece really. In Greece they had large chunks I like to have smaller chunks so I can fit all the flavors in one bite.
Peel and chop your red onion into small pieces. Think minced but don't stress about it if you have a few larger chunks. Sometimes I leave these in a small bowl because the smaller pickier eaters in my family don't care for onion. Or you could chop them really small and make everyone eat it 🙂
Dump feta cheese into the bow. Measure with your soul.
Dump in the olives
Pour in the oil and vinegars and stir. If you want you can add in salt and pepper but I usually leave it out.
Set the bowl aside until you're ready to eat. It can be overnight or on the table. Either is fine but if the avocados sit overnight they will look slightly brown. They will taste awesome but look different.
Make the Chicken…mmmm chicken
Cut the chicken breasts into pieces of even thickness or smash them into even thickness. This prevents overcooking that super thin tip and undercooking the thick meaty part. Put them in a bowl.
Pour olive oil and herbs onto the chicken and stir it up. Let it sit as long as you want. Ideally it should sit for 20 minutes realistically it depends on when the beasts get hungry and you get off work.
Pre-heat a heavy bottomed pan. Once the pan is hot add in a glug of cooking oil (avocado preferred) and then add in the chicken. Cook until the chicken shows no pink. This can vary depending on the piece of chicken. It should be firm to the touch and if you cut it open no pink.
Once the chicken is cooked set it on a plate and keep going until all your chicken is cooked.
Notes
This can easily be done with bone in chicken and using a grill to cook. I used chicken breasts because they’re cheaper and a pan because sometimes I don’t feel like grilling. Also not everyone has a grill… most people have a pan.We like to eat this with a good hearty bread to dip in the salad juices.
In talking with a friend of mine that I’ve known for a loooooong time I realized I’ve been teaching people to cook for quite some time. I know I’ve always liked eating and enjoy easy food so here is one of my first recipes. It’s super easy! I promise. The key ingredients… tomatoes and whatever random veggie you can toss in a stirfry that the family will eat. Oh and pasta. It’s easy to have this be a vegetarian or meaty meal. If you want meat add some meat… I’ve literally chopped leftover chicken into pieces and declared it done. As a low carb option (aka me… ) I add more protein or do zucchini noodles. I know I could do spaghetti squash but honestly I don’t like that kind of squash so I don’t eat it often.
4-5large tomatoes cut into 1/2 in pieces. Don't de-seed em. You want the juice! You can easily use the equivalent amount of tomatoes. If you want it to look fancy get mixed cherry tomatoes, chop them in half and mince basil and sprinkle that in.
3clovesgarlic chopped/diced/minced whatever you want just not the whole clovemeasure with your soul
1 zuchinnigreen beans, sugar snap peas, fresh peas, peppers all work here. go for about a cup of veg.
1handful fresh basilyeah I know not a real measurement but hey just chop up some basil and declare victory. you've got this. If you add too much no one will complain that it's too much fresh delicious basil.
2tspsdried basil if you don't have fresh basil use this!
1 1/2tsp oregano dried
1/3cuponion dicedI dice my husband prefers smaller bits but guess what.. I'm cooking here so bwahahaha diced it is.
2chicken breastschop these up into bite sized pieces
1lbpastaor more
Instructions
Chop all the foods. Keep the meat separate, garlic separate and tomatoes separate. The tomatoes should go in a bowl as we want their juice and if you leave them on the cutting board the juice will run off and you'll have to clean the counters again. It's always easier to prep the food first. Yes you will use a pile of bowls but it takes the stress out of cooking. Or you can pile them into different sections of a large cutting board and declare yourself a rebel (except those tomatoes.. don't do it, learn from my mistakes). You'd be a fewer dishes to wash rebel though so you'd have that.
set pot of water on to boil
Preheat your sauté pan to medium high. Add in a glug of cooking oil to the hot pan. I prefer avocado because it doesn't have a strong flavor. If you want to add a bit of olive oil for flavor it's ok to do so at the end. Olive oil has a lower smoke point so it's not great for sautéing. Dump chicken bits into pan and toss in 1/2 the dried spices. Now cook till chicken is done stirring every 30ish seconds or so. Done means no pink in the middle. Depending on the size of your chicken bits this could take about 5 min. Smaller will cook faster. If you're not sure cut it open and check :). Dump the chicken into a clean bowl (I like to use a bowl that we will later use for eating… cause dishes suck). Set bowl aside.
Keep that fire going! ok but really put the pan back on the fire add another glug of avocado oil to the hot pan. Dump in your nicely chopped veggies (except garlic). Cook them till they're el dente… or mostly done but not squishy. Cause who can get 5 year olds to eat squishy veggies? I don't know but I lack that cooking voodoo.
Once the veggies have been cooking for about 5 minutes add in the chopped garlic. Stir it in and let it cook for a minute. Now add in the TOMATOES! all the juices and stuff… get it all in the pan. You'll notice that the pan will have extra sauce in it… that's good. That's the goal. Cause this stuff will be your sauce 🙂 Here's where you can get creative. You could add in extra basil, fresh or dried. Add in a dash of wine? yum. the booze will cook off so don't stress about that. You could add in a bit of balsamic vinegar (think small glug or 1 teaspoon). Or just call it good and only add in what I listed. If your sauce isn't feeling saucy enough add in 1/4 c. water.
If your water is boiling by now add the pasta and cook according to the package instructions.
Once your pasta is drained put it into the pan with your sauce. Stir in the chicken to heat. Mix it all together. Add salt and pepper to taste and voila dinner! Now eat and tell me what you think please!
Ooof this one is hard and complicated… sorta. Likely more hard than complicated to be honest. In my opinion its really a matter of switching the mindset. You want more health and energy so you eat more veggies and whole foods. If I say it that way I find it easier to opt for more healthy foods and fewer unhealthy choices. If we model it for our kids and move through this together it can be really powerful. It’s not a diet so much as trying to feel our best so we can do our best. Is it reasonable to expect a 5 yr old to choose to eat broccoli if there is candy to be had… yeah no but that leads me to strategy number one.
When you are eating healthy from the early stages of life and are suddenly introduced to processed food you can see the difference in how you feel. If you’re eating processed food for your entire life it can be way harder to see any immediate difference in how you feel. There are all kinds of strategies to help kids eat healthier but my all-time favorite is to remove the junk. If it’s not there.. they (and I- cause potato chips and reeces peanut butter cups are my downfall) won’t eat it. They may complain – I complain in my head—but I can’t eat potato chips if I don’t have them. And instead of being the ‘mean mom/dad’ you just say I’m sorry honey we don’t have that but we do have a delicious apple or cheese stick or whatever alternative you want to offer.
Second favorite strategy… teach them to cook. I remember reading some study saying that kids are more likely to eat food they help prepare. In my ultra small sample size study this is super accurate. Also we make a big deal of saying thanks for cooking this meal when we sit down to eat so the kiddo gets to hear “thanks for making dinner” from everyone! It feels good emotionally and they generally eat more.
Third favorite strategy… find the foods they like and curate meals around their favorites gradually expanding the options. This is likely to happen organically because we often choose meals that we think the kids will like. This is no guarantee that they’ll like the food but it does increase the chances. Last month my five year old loooooved hot wings night. She has one drop of hot sauce in her dip and then eats tons of grilled chicken winglets… Last night? Yeah it was a fail. She announced, “Mommy, I don’t want to eat with my hands” and then was full verry quickly. It’s a quandary, we knew she wasn’t full but I’m not going to offer food from the fridge if she didn’t eat what was offered. I probably should have though! I’m the person who refuses to cook more than one meal but I do try to have parts of each meal that I know the kids will eat. Does this always work? Of course it doesn’t! they’re teeny versions of our stubborn selves but as I’ve said before I go for good over perfection. If I waited for perfection I’d be stressed all the time and it’d still never happen.
Final strategy, do your best and then declare victory. In listening to the podcast from my naturopath https://sarahmarshallnd.com/podcast I was reminded that in order to heal we need to love ourselves. Loving ourselves means that we have to do the right thing for our bodies and that means healthy food. If we treat the sugar things like a special treat we can shift from normal to treat in one’s mind and that can make all the difference.
I have heard that when you start making these choices you may not see a difference immediately. It’s when we eat clean food for a month or two and then binge on the things that we notice the difference. I didn’t realize how much my arthritic pain disappeared until I splurged on sugar one day. Holy moly the next few days were ROUGH. Everything ached. Was it worth it? Yeah it totally was! But it highlighted the cost for me when I make the choice to splurge on sugar. If you’re used to eating a piece of candy each day you’ll likely not notice a difference. So if your kids often eat processed food you likely won’t notice a difference by cutting out one bag of cheetoes…. But if you do it gradually it can make a big difference. I learned from my dr. that food sensitivities can cause depression.. I wonder how many of us depressed people are trigged, unknowingly, by food sensitivities. We know processed food causes issues so cutting it out as much as possible is really good for our overall well-being. I know it helps my kiddo’s food sensitivity issues and ADD. Maybe it could help yours too!
My weekly meal planning this week was weak. Why you may ask? Cause I really didn’t feel like it. Did I still do it.. yeah mostly but I wasn’t motivated to do any complicated meals. Here’s what it looked like at my house Sunday… “hey, anyone got requests for dinner?”…. crickets. One lone voice said, “maybe pesto chicken mom”. Hubs said nothing comes to mind (he never complains about my food so he’s easy). I waited for the other two to ask for their favorites… steak and rice (5 yr old) and pesto salmon (8 yr old) but they were busy making random stuff out of duplos so no pesto salmon this week!
What does this rambling tell you? It means I’m so far from perfect that I’m not even in the same realm. Also, that even when I don’t have a plan I have a plan! I knew we had some vegetables in the fridge that needed to be consumed but that we were out of the usual proteins. So I just said, it’ll be a protein and vegetable and carb kind of meal plan. This means… basic meat, some kind of roasted vegetable and some kind of carb. Either homemade bread or potatoes or rice. All of which was decided on the fly. Is this ideal? Yah no, but I was tired and didn’t feel like more so this is good enough. So tonight, we are having easy roasted pork tenderloin, airfryer asparagus and roasted potatoes with garlic and rosemary. All of which will be prepared in 15 ish minutes and we will have some leftovers for lunches tomorrow. Victory!
Tomorrow? Likely to be air fryer whole chicken, roasted cauliflower and fresh bread. I’ll work it from there.
Do you love asparagus? I like it in general, but since I like most green foods I’m not always the best measure of tasty goodness. You know who is a great yardstick for tasty foods…. a 5 year old. And let me just say she likes these too. It’s a super simple recipe and makes for a fast tasty side to your dinner. Just don’t expect leftovers for lunch the next day.
Some recipe side notes for you. First this recipe can easily be doubled. I routinely cook two bunches of asparagus. If you double it make sure you stir the asparagus so it cooks evenly. Second while this can be eaten as a leftover it isn’t crispy on day two. Tasty yes, crispy nope. Third this goes well with any meat main course. If you have questions hit me up! liz.lund.eats@lizgeiger
Air Fryer If you don't have an air fryer but your oven does convection that can work too.
Ingredients
bunchAsparagus
Spices
1tspgarlic powdermeasure with your soul!
1tbsp/glugolive oilQuality matters here
1 tspsalt
Instructions
Preparation
Take an asparagus spear and firmly grip the stem end and gently move it back and forth until it snaps. It will automatically snap to remove the woody ends. If you're feeling lazy (as I often am) take your sharp knife and whack off an inch off the ends. This means you could get some woody bits in your side dish but also is faster. On a side note snapping ends off asparagus is a great task for little hands.
Dump the asparagus into a pan. I like a 9×12 glass roasting pan. A bowl won't work great for this as the good stuff will go to the bottom and the asparagus spears will sit on top.
Pour a glug of olive oil onto the asparagus and dump the seasonings on top. Mix it all together.
Cooking it
Bust out the air fryer and turn it to 375 for 5 min to preheat a bit. Put your asparagus in a single layer on the sheet or basket. My air fryer has room for two cooking sheets and so I use them but rotate the sheets 1/2 way through cooking.
Notes
This recipe is easily doubled. If you’re allergic to garlic try onion or other seasoning for a switcheroo in flavors.
I pack my kids lunch… every day. Is it always amazing? Yeah no. Is it pretty? not that either. I couldn’t care less if it’s pretty but I do care if my kids eat healthy food. Besides they will likely play hockey with the lunch boxes/bags anyways. Here’s my theory, I love that we offer free lunches to many kids but the food that we are feeding the kids in schools is terrifyingly low quality. It’s not that expensive for me to make a bit extra dinner so I can send them with brain food. I pack them some carbs, lots of protein, veggies and some fruit. It varies per kid because they’re sometimes picky but it’s a routine at this point so it’s easier to plan. Here are my thoughts below. I’ll cover, how to pack the lunch, when to pack it and what to pack in it. Or at least I’ll tell you what I think about how to do it… you do what is right for you and yours.
How to pack it…
You need a container to fill with goodness…. I invested in a couple of fun lunch boxes/bags. I tried to stay away from things that are dated… aka I don’t buy frozen lunch bags… because I want these kids to use the crap out of them for years to come. I tried the bento boxes but as my kid aged up I couldn’t stuff enough food into it. My favorite container so far is either the Costco lunch box or a neoprene bag. I then pack the lunch in tupperwares so that the energetic whiz kids can sit on the bag and not squish the food (you know they will) …. I also found these super cool car ice packs. You may ask why I love them and I can tell you it’s not the car shape. It’s because they’re thin. You can slide those puppies into a fully stuffed bag and it’ll do the job but not take up much space. Now for hot foods there’s a trick. Get a soup thermos, preheat it with hot water. Now you just have to heat the food up in your microwave or stovetop if you don’t have a microwave and the food will stay warm for hours.
When to pack the food stuffs
The short answer is… whenever works for you! I pack the kids lunches in the morning. I pull out all the stuffs I need and assembly line that food. My husband often packs his lunch at night, I’m just not that good. It’s doable though… if you have access to a microwave or time to compile the food. Mayonnaise sitting on bread overnight in the fridge makes for a nasty soggy mess… That being said you could definitely plan and pack the fruit or veggies at night. My kids can’t get access to a microwave and let’s face it they wouldn’t have time to use it anyways. I pre-peel and pre-cut food to make it faster and they still can’t finish sometimes.
What do you pack for lunch?
I’m pretty low carb but kids are growing and they need carbs right? Well mostly sorta yeah kinda. Hard to know what that means? Of course it is hard to know because the answer is complicated and is its own series of blog posts by people who have degrees in this kind of thing. Here’s the my take after reading a bunch of those articles. The kids need way more protein than people think and way less sugar than we often give them. Sugar crashes are painful for everyone involved. I swear my kids cry and it’s physically painful for me sometimes… sugar crashes are guaranteed crying jags at my house. Higher protein and low sugar can really set them up for success. I absolutely have sent my kids with mac and cheese from a box, partially microwaved lentils (too much and they turn to lentil mush) and pb&js. I’m aiming for doing well overall not constant perfection. I do add sugary sauces to the food sometimes because let’s face it barbecue sauce is tasty and the kids love it. I do however, try to pick bbq sauces without high fructose corn syrup, with recognizable ingredients and I add less sauce than many people… cause sugar. For example today I cut up some leftover chicken breast heated it up and added bbq sauce. He will eat all of the food and be happy. Win! In summary, pack a protein, vegetables and fruit. If your kids (like mine) are in public school precut the proteins, veggies and peel the fruits if needed. The kids simply don’t have time to do that and still get the necessary calories into the little bodies.
Have fun! Eat well and let me know what you think!
I’m a stay at home mom who’s had a ton of physical issues and dietary restrictions. I’ve spent the last 10 years figuring out how to feed myself, my husband and now three kids and we all require different foods! whew, it’s a thing. First and foremost I’m a partner, family person and mom after that? I’m a foodie, artist, athlete and general sarcastic goofball.
We can start with my background: I worked for the federal government for about 8 years, helped start a few start up companies, studied art in college with almost a double major in political science and am at heart a huge nerd. I love learning things but find international relations and prehistoric art particularly fascinating. I also have had a lot of injuries, discovered I’m gluten intolerant and developed some other super fun medical issues. For a while there my body thought it’d be fun to grow bone spurs… wheeeee that was miserable. When I was younger I went with the ‘no pain no gain’ theory in exercise… I gained a lot before I figured out that I was causing a lot of damage. Since becoming wiser I’ve had back surgery (age 25), acl replacement (age 29), meniscus repair (34), another meniscus repair (45), left and right shoulder re-separation (45 and 46). Other than that my joints are super fine. Without the sarcasm, it’s been a challenge and there have been tears and triumphs as I navigate my reality. I remain hopeful that I can be pain free someday but I’m not there yet.
Since realizing that I’d had bone spurs grow in both shoulders and having a third surgery in my left knee I embarked on a ‘what the hell is happening campaign’. After about a year of working with an amazing naturoath (Dr. Sarah Marshall) we’ve gotten my systematic inflammation down and I’m on the road to healing. It turns out that in this path I’ve reinforced some of my healthy eating habits and have decided to share what I know with you. So here goes. Welcome to food for all. Ok maybe not all but seriously most.
