Go-Go-Go-Granola

We all live in a super busy world where conveniece is all on the top of our priority list. Which unfortunately leads to one poor food choice after another. But with just the slightest bit of effort this downhill snowball affect can be reversed. 

Who often walks down the cereal isle- takes a look at the granola and thinks "Ooooh that looks healthy?"... You're not alone in this thinking, however 9 times out 10 you're thinking is innacurate. Have you ever read the ingredients list? Granola is one of those mythical health foods, or as I like to call them "unhealthy, health foods." Most store bought granola has extremely high levels of processed sugar, it's typically in the top 3 on the ingredients list. We want high fiber, low sugar. Well, shoot...how do we fix this dilemma? 

MAKE YOUR OWN!

Take control of what you're putting into your body by spending a little time at the beginning of your week preparing your snacks and meals. I promise it is simple, and in my opinion tastes way better! Most of these ingredients I have on hand at all times anyways, and the possibilities and add-ins are endless. Feel free to experiment with substitutions you might have in your pantry. This recipe makes a lot, and has a couple week long shelf life if kept in airtight container. It's easy to bag up and bring with you to snack on by itself, to eat with some milk, or topped on some greek yogurt. My kids love it too!

Ingredients:

4 cups of rolled oats

1 cup of almonds

1/2 cup of pumpkin seeds

1/4 cup of flax seeds

1/2 cup of chopped pecans

1 TBSP of cinnamon

1/4 cup of unsweetend apple sauce

1/4 cup of coconut oil

1/2 cup of honey

1 TSP of vanilla

1 cup of dried fruit of choice (I used half craisins, half dried blueberries)

Directions:

Combine first 6 dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine the next 4 wet ingredients. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and toss until evenly coated. Pour granola onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and put it into a preheated 350 degree oven. Bake for 30-40 minutes, tossing every 10 minutes. Once the granola is golden brown and no longer super sticky (as shown in the picture below), pull out and allow to cool.

 Then toss in your dry fruit of choice, and either store or devour.  
Have I mentioned that your house will smell DELICIOUS?! Oh yeah, just a small added bonus to making your own!

Granola is an excellent source of fiber, keeping you satiated for longer periods of time, which makes it an excellent choice for breakfast and snacks.  And this recipe also has all the health benefits that come from eating healthy natural sugars from honey, and healthy natural fats from coconut oil, nuts, and seeds...making it a perfectly clean source of sustainable energy. We are going hiking tomorrow in Snow Canyon, and you better believe I'll be bagging up my granola and snacking on it throughout the day to keep me trecking! 

A healthy fruit snack alternative!

I was in a mood yesterday. I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. I was in a "I want to play in the kitchen all day" type of mood. So that is exactly what I did! It started when I got home from my 2 hour cardio gym sesh. My case of mangoes from Saturday's basket were ripening much quicker than we were eating them, so I started racking my brain. I could always peel, slice, and freeze them for smoothies later but where is the fun in that? I wanted something, and I wanted it now. I happened to look at the weather- 106 degrees all week. Do you know what that means? That means it is perfect weather for naturally drying fruit leather outdoors. SCORE! MANGO FRUIT LEATHER IT IS! I much prefer fruit leather to any kind of processed sugary fruit snack, in fact, I kind of boycotted fruit snacks and refuse to buy them for my children. I know, I'm a mean mean mother, but it's for the best interest of my children. When they are in the house, if my children had a say so, it would be the only snack they consume all day everyday, and it's a melt down if I refuse their demands...so it's better if I avoid that all together. But homemade natural fruit leather, sweetend with just a touch of raw local honey...there is no harm in that!


Ingredients:
4 cups of mangoes
1/4 cup of water
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1-2 tablespoons of honey
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
2 teaspoons of cinnamon


Directions:
-Peel, slice, and core mangoes until you have 4 cups of diced fruit (I used about 7 mangoes to acheive this).
-Put fruit and water in saucepan over medium heat. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often, until fruit begins to soften and you can mash it with a fork.
-Add lemon juice and honey. Taste and adjust proportions as needed, the amount of sweetness needed often depends on the ripeness of your fruit. Allow to cook together for another couple minutes until flavors are well blended and mangoes are soft and mashed.
-Stir in cinnamon and nutmeg. Then take an emersion blender and puree until smooth. If you don't have an emersion blender you can pour ingredients into a regular blender and blend until smooth.

-Line a baking sheet with microwave safe siran wrap, and evenly spread puree over entire cookie sheet. -Cover with cheesecloth and place outside early in the morning and allow to dry all day. 8-10 hours. I didn't put mine outside until about 10am so come 9 when the sun began to set I brought mine inside, removed the cheese cloth and stuck it in my oven at the lowest temperature setting with the door propped open for another hour. It turned out perfect. For those who don't live in the desert with extremely dry summer temperatures, you can cook it indoors for 8-10 hours (perhaps overnight) in your oven at it's lowest temperature setting. My oven will only go as low as 170 so I prop my door open slightly with metal spatula.

-Once it's done allow it to cool, then cut through the plastic and fruit leather into strips, roll them up, and store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator until you are ready to eat them. They will store safely for about a week. However, ours usually don't last more than 24 hours!

You can experiment with different types of fruit, the amount of lemon juice and honey might need to be adjusted slightly- taste test for accuracy. And cinnamon and nutmeg doesn't go well with all fruits so exne those ingredients when necessary.

Remember how I said I was in a mood, well as if delicious mango fruit leather wasn't enough, I experimented with dinner and made a sweet and spicy mango glazed chicken. This very well might be my new chicken recipe- stay tuned for that recipe!

And for all my fun nutritional facts about mangoes check out my previous post on mangoes here!

POWER! In less than an hour!

I live in a pretty tight niche community. Okay...who am I kidding... honestly, I live in one of those teeny tiny towns where everyone knows everything about everyone; which I always thought was a "as-seen-in-movies" bad thing but I'm finding that not to be the case. The people here are great. So our neighbors held a welcome party for the new neighbors that moved in on our street. Our participating dish was a salad-but a salad can go SO many ways. I went the simple, but successful route with a chopped salad. Romain lettuce, onions, red peppers, cucumbers, cauliflower, feta cheese, craisins, and pecans. Dressed with a mixture of creamy poppyseed dressing and balsamic vinegar. I kept the dressing on the side so that any leftovers would keep. Last nights dinner was also today's lunch. It was just as good today as it was last night. Salads like this are great to prep ahead of time in bulk and eaten for 3-4 days. They will keep as long as your lettuce and veggies are rinsed and fully dried before putting away into air tight containers for your week. Bottle your dressing choices seperate, and viola- easy, quick, healthy, on-the-go meal.

Now for a workout: Saturday's I usually have a little more flexibility in my schedule for my workouts so they are generally endurance days. I still had a sore lower body from the previous day's workout so I decided on a power total body workout using the medicine ball. Now this workout, because it emphasizes the power phase of training it is not well suited for the beginner. Power training helps increase your dynamic flexibility, range of motion, and explosiveness which essentially results in the building of more muscle mass. It is important though, to have trained in stability, strength, and endurance exercises before embarking on advanced power level workouts. Power workouts burn a TON of calories which is always a plus too! If you are a beginner you can take on or two of these exercises and apply them in your less impact strength training but I wouldn't advise doing an entire power circuit, unless you're wanting to induce injury.

So I started with a stretch followed by a 1 mile run. I started my run at an easy 6 mph pace then increasing a few notches every quarter mile up until a 7.5 mph pace. Feel free to adapt that warm up to better suite your abilities (slow it down if that's too quick, or pick it up even faster at the end if you want more of a challenge), it works very well for me- takes my muscles smoothly from cold to warm.

Next I grabbed a 15 pound medicine ball, if this is your first time experimenting with power techniques and the medicine ball, perhaps consider starting with an 8 or 10 pounder.

• 15 squat to wall ball toss
• Start in a deep squat (toes forawrd, butt out, abs engaged, thighs parallel with the floor) with medicine ball held at your chest. As you come up out of the squat use the power in your legs and shoulders to toss the ball as high up onto the wall as possible, then proceed to catch the ball and absorb it back to chest level, and going immediately back into squat position. 
• 10 pushups on med ball (5 on each side)

• 
  
• 20 step up torso twist with med ball (10 each foot)
• Hold medicine ball at chest. Use a 6-inch to 1 ft step, step onto the platform your right foot planted. Balance on your right foot and raise your left knee towards your chest while simulatiously contracting & rotating your core bringing your right elbow to your elevated left knee. Step your left foot back down to the floor, followed by your right, then switch sides stepping up with your left foot, and raising the right knee. 
• 30  Oblique twists with med ball (15 each side)

• 30 second plank with toes on med ball
• 20 standing torso rotations with med ball

• 2 minute run on treadmill or elliptical (if you're at home jump rope)
• 2 minute rest

Circuit through again for a total of 3-4 sets- increasing your resistance and speed each set on the treadmill or elliptical. This circuit should only take about 30 minutes and briefly targets most muscle groups.

I spent another 10 minutes practicing sprint intervals on the treadmill (sprint for 1 min, walk for 30 sec), followed by a nice easy 30 minute cool down on the elliptical.


Eat right, stay active, don't quit. You will succeed.

Coconut oil, the cure-all!

I have a lot of my readers ask me about coconut oil. What is it? Where can I buy it? Why is it so great? So here I am to hopefully answer some of your questions. Coconut oil is obviously a natural oil derived from coconuts. Shocker, I know. I  have actually seen it available more and more in regular grocery stores so check your local grocer particularly the health foods isle if they have one, if not check where the other oils & baking goods are located. If they don't have it look up the closest health food store and get it there. I try to buy the organic virgin unrefined kind when available because it's the purest form of Coconut oil. Now to answer the BIG question...What makes it so great? This might take a while.

Okay, let's clear the air right now. Coconut oil used to have a bad rep because of it's high saturated fat content... it is made of about 90% saturated fat- "but Nikki won't that stop my heart?"...DON'T FREAK YET. NOT ALL SATURATED FAT IS CREATED EQUAL. Let me explain.

The fat found in coconut oil is made 50% of a rare miracle type fat called lauric acid. Lauric acid is a compound that promotes healing and health in incredible ways- when digested the body turns it into monolaurin. Monolaurin has antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-fungal, antiviral, antibacterial properties. That's a mouthful. Basically, that is saying that it is a superfood that boosts your immune system and heals your body in multiple ways. 

Here are a few ways to use and benefit from it.

• Coconut oil can be used as hair care- apply after bath by massaging it into your scalp. This helps repair damaged hair because of the oils essential proteins. It also heals dry scalp, protects against lice, and moisturizes and conditions. 
• It can be used topically as skin care- it naturally moisturizes skin, it greatly reduces premature aging because of it's antioxidant power, and is great for healing several skin conditions including eczema. It can even be used to heal open wounds and infections by forming a chemical layer that protects it from dust, fungi, bacteria, viruses, ect. Ryleigh recently had a knarly cold and a couple days into it she started complaining that her ear hurt- I dropped a couple drops of coconut oil into her ear and had her lay there for a couple minutes so that it could be absorbed. She never complained of it hurting again. This same cold ended up stopping up her sinuses creating a cold in her eyes- they were excessively draining and puffy. A couple days into it I started cleaning her eyes with coconut oil on a q-tip several times a day... 24 hours later she no longer had matted closed eyes after a long nights sleep. I'm telling you it is magical and I swear by the stuff. That's just the magic it works externally.
• Interiorly it works very much the same way. When digested and the lauric acid turns into monolaurin, it then has the ability to fight and protect against bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, ect. It can sooth and heal ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, and other indigestion while also improving the bodies ability to absorb other important minerals and vitamins that benefit the body and boosts immunity. Vitamin K, E, and Iron are found abundantly in coconut oil as well.

Okay, so it's magical but it's still saturated fat and can stop up my heart, yes? NO! Coconut oil is also nature's richest form of medium-chain fatty acids...which basically means it is more easily digested than the long-chain fatty acids found in other vegetable and seed oils. The long-chain fatty acids predominately end up as stored fat, because they are more difficult for your body to break down. Since coconut oil is loaded with the medium-chain fatty acids they are easily broken down and burned immediately by the liver and used as energy, essentially boosting your metabolism and helping your body burn fat as energy instead of storing it. So it IS good for you and promotes weight loss and a healthy heart.

I'm secretly (or not-so-secretly) a homeopath at heart. I try to avoid medicating when possible. I prefer natural remedies when possible. Pardon my religious insert but I believe God put these things on this earth for our use and benefit and we should utilize them as often as we can instead of putting man-made chemical substances in our bodies that can create not-so-natural adverse affects. I am grateful for modern medicine as well as it is very necessary for some, but it shouldn't be so heavily relied upon when there are simpler, safer, solutions available. 

Hopefully, now, you have a little better understanding of why coconut oil is a staple in my home. I use it for culinary purposes because of it's versatility and deliciousness, as well as for medicinal and nutritional purposes. 

Also as an athlete it's immediate clean form of energy makes it an excellent part of a pre-workout meal. Toss a little in your oatmeal, or spread a little on your toast, or cook your eggs in it, or try a few of my previously posted recipes here or here or here...you'll be glad you did!

World traveler.

WOW! Life has been some kind of crazy. Not that that's an excuse for abandoning all my readers. I owe you guys big time, and plan on making it up to you somehow now that I'm back! So where did I go? What happened? I would have you know, that I did NOT fall off the face of the earth (even though today I feel & look like I took a pretty rough fall- I'll explain later). My husband is doing summer sales for security in Indianapolis, when my son finished school we planned on flying out there and staying with him. We pit stopped for two weeks out in Florida on our way to Indy. Which was a blast but it left little time for blogging. Or cooking seeing as I wasn't in my own kitchen. I thought life would slow down once I hit Indy but in fact it was as if vacation extended itself. It was one activity after another, visiting new places daily, making new friends, play dates, service projects, parades, museums, work dinners, oh  and swimming- yes, a lot of swimming. It was a straight up party- the kids and I were loving it all. BUT, sometimes we are faced with unexpected trials and it's time for a reality check. Cost of living was getting too high, too quick. For those of you who really know me, understand my inability to make decisions- I'm kind of a go with the flow, carefree type of soul. So when it came down to trying to decide what to do, where to go, how to solve this dilemma, I was stumped. It took a straight up spread sheet on our mirror with a dry erase marker listing all of the pros and cons to multiple options to come up with a solution. It saves us a very large chunk of money if the kids and I kick it in Utah again while Adam works the rest of the summer in Indy without us. Talk about a hard choice to make. Man, oh, man that was tough. SO the kids and I (and my saving grace- Tash) drove cross country 24 hours in 2 days to get home, arriving in good ole Southern Utah last night. Hence, why I look and feel like a train wreck. ISN'T LIFE FUN?!?! It was an adventure, the entire experience, and it was worth every second. Isn't life all about the struggles, and over coming those trials to grow and develop? Your health development is no different. It's not always easy to make the jump, to kick the old habits, and develop a completely new lifestyle, but in the end knowing that you were strong enough to overcome, and grow, and develop is so incredibly rewarding. Endurance leads to ultimate success in all aspects of life.

While I was in Indy, I was super stoked to have a kitchen again, as you can imagine after 2 weeks of Florida vacation. I had been dying to experiment with Zucchini "pizza". I had gotten a little basil plant from the local farmers that I needed to trim and use and this was the perfect recipe. So we made a pizza night, play date out of it with a few of our new found friends. Tash loves Zucchini as much as I do so it was the perfect opportunity to try it. SUCCESS! Have I mentioned how simple it was?! Yeah, super simple!

Ingredients: 

3 washed Zucchinis

1 cup mozzarella cheese- grated

4 fresh basil leaves-chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1-2 roma tomatoes-sliced

2 garlic cloves-sliced or minced

onions thinly sliced to taste (optional)

Directions:

Half zucchini length-wise. Evenly rub them down with the olive oil. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese (1 c of cheese is very tentative- feel free to add more if you're a cheese lover like me, or reduce the amount if you're not a fan). Top with your tomatoes, onion slices,garlic, basil, & onions. Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes. So good and simple. The topping possibilities are endless. Get crazy with it. Add tomato paste under the cheese, switch up the types of cheese, add more veggies like spinach or mushrooms, whatever gets those taste buds watering. 

Now for the fun facts about Zucchini! This is my favorite part. 1 cup of zucchini only has 36 calories, perfect for those on a low calorie diet because it also contains 10% of suggested daily amount of dietary fiber that regulates digestion and curbs appetite. This dietary fiber along with Vitamin A and C found in Zucchini also reduces cholesterol. The Vitamin A & C along with folate found in squash acts as powerful antioxidants which fights oxidative stress that can lead to several types of cancers. Now moving on to the essential minerals that zucchini contains. Copper (again, along with vitamin A & C) act as a natural anti-inflammatory. 1 cup of zucchini also contains almost 20% of the regulated daily amount of Magnesium which has several benefits including the prevention of heart attacks, the lowering of blood pressure, assisting in the production of sex hormones and the metabolizing of proteins and carbohydrates. It also promotes healthy skin because it is essential in the production of the amino acid that allows collagen to form.