Have you ever found yourself standing in the grocery store, wanting to pull out your hair?! Feeling
overwhelmed and lacking in anything remotely resembling free time? What will I make for dinner?
How can I get my kids to eat vegetables tonight? If I pulverize them and make them into
meatballs, will they notice? Well, believe it or not, these are real issues that affect all parents. You
are not alone!
And for those of you living on your own, whether you are empty nesters or without children, and
trying very hard to focus on your health– maybe you’ve made your annual News Years resolution
and once again you are finding yourself in despair as your ‘healthy changes’ to do list goes out the
window and your chronic pain and symptoms continue or get worse. You are also not alone!
In fact, there is a very large community around you that can offer ideas and strategies to simplify
your kitchen and your life. These ideas can be found through one-on-one help and through an
endless digital resource. You just need to know where to look!
Through this Food Blog I will offer lots of great information (in its simplest form!) to help make
your life easier AND HEALTHIER! This information will be by way of recipes that I have found to
be simple and fun for you and the whole family as well as great reads in the form of books and
online and lots of strategies that you can implement in your own life and home to help create a
simple path to health.
If you have the time, I welcome your wish list for future Food Blog topics where I can offer ideas
and simple strategies specific to one of your own real-life stressors relating to health and wellness
for you and your family. I look forward to the dialogue! CONTACT ME
Some light reading…
I have always found that different food lifestyles fit different people but there are definitely some essentials that
are common threads of health for all of us. Some of you may be familiar with the term ‘Paleo’. It has gotten a lot of attention in the past couple
of years as a new healthy diet trend. Paleo really means eating like our paleolithic ancestors ate, essentially natural meats, plentiful veggies and
fruits, and nuts and seeds as well as ample healthy fats. In this fantastic and very fun book, Danielle Walker offers many celebratory dishes that reflect this food
style and avoid grain, legumes, dairy and sugar. It is a well-known fact that adopting an anti-inflammatory lifestyle can help reduce pain and illness. ‘Eating Paleo’ is a great option
for meeting this criteria of reducing inflammatory foods. This wonderful and simply laid out book is a great way to start!
Something Delicious: Dilly Beans!
For many parents, the process of packing school lunches
can be tiresome at times as we try to think up of creative
ways to get veggies into our kids’ mouths. Here is a fun
and yummy recipe for dressing up those green beans and
it makes a great addition to a healthy lunch!
Ingredients:
Green beans– enough to fill a
mason jar, washed and trimmed
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cup water
1 TBS sea salt
1/2 tsp dill seed
1/2 tsp celery seed
1/4 tsp whole pepper
3-4 sprigs of fresh dill
1 clove of fresh garlic
optional: 1/2 tsp of mustard seeds
Directions:
Start by heating up a sauce pan with vinegar, water
and salt– bring to boil and then remove from heat to
slightly cool.
Add dill seed, celery seed, whole pepper, fresh dill and
garlic (and optional mustard seed) to bottom of clean
mason jar.
Add green beans to mason jar (arranged like pencils in
a box).
Pour slightly cooled liquid over beans until liquid
reaches to 1/2 inch from top of jar.
Cover jar and place in fridge for 48 hours and enjoy!