Fresh Cherry Drink

This is the recipe adapted from the Cherry Soup recipe created by Ullenka the Fruit Queen on Instagram. this is the perfect recipe to create while cherries are in season. My version can be described as warm and cozy and lends itself to a cool night with a campfire or to cooler fall months. If you are skilled at canning you can totally just can this. I, however, am not so while I did put my beverage into mason jars and tops that have been sterilized, I put them in the refrigerator to use during the week. I don’t care for it cold but suspect creating it without the cinnamon or nutmeg might remedy that. The rest I put in containers and in the freezer where it should keep for a few months, no problem

You know I am a huge fan of creating your own experience and this is no exception. Play around with your favorite flavors and create your own version. This is mine:

About 3lbs of cherries (you can pit them if you have the patience. I don’t!)

Distilled or Spring Water

One large orange or Two Small

A chunk of peeled fresh ginger

1/2 lemon

2 teaspoons of almond extract

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Dash of nutmeg

Sweetner (I used 1/2 honey 1/2 unrefined sugar but agave or Stevia will work if that’s your preference)

I put everything in a soup pot and made sure the water came about an inch over the cherries.

Bring it to just the boiling point (not a heavy boil) cover and then put the top on and let keep it at a soft boil for about 20. If you don’t have the top on you will loose a lot of liquid. If it just simmers you won’t get the full flavor.

I just kept tasting it until it got to the flavor I liked. I did take out the lemon 1/2 through the process because I didn’t want any more lemon flavor than it was by that time.

When I put it in jars I did put the cherries in with it to keep getting whatever flavor from them might be left but honestly they really have no real taste by then but you could still eat them if you preferred.

Ullenka made hers as a soup to eat with a spoon. I would rather put even broth in a mug and drink instead of the spoon thing. For me to like it as a soup I would have to add something like coconuts, mandarin orange slices, maybe even a nut of some sort. In other words, I would need more texture for me to consider it a soup.

And that’s it!

Sorry if you want more detail then that but I totally serious that anyone can do this and make it their own version! If you try it let me know!! I want to know if you changed it or made it as is! Also check out Ullenka on her Instagram, she does amazing things with fruit!

Creating Your Rhythm

Today is Monday and, though I hate to sound like an Instagram cliché ,this day is haaarrrddd!

I’m a fan of noticing your personal rhythm. I’m no psychologist but am in tune with things enough to know everyone has one. A few years ago I noticed my week is really from Thursday to Sunday and my weekends are Monday thru Wednesday. I’m most in tune, focused, and goal orientated Thurs-Sun. I tend to be prone to self care, low key work, and even putting things off Mon-Wed.

Can you guess which was taken on a weekend and which one is today, Monday?

I believe it’s from having a chronic illness (fibromaylgia). I build my energy and focus on my health the first 3 days of the week so I can be as fully engaged in the weekend when the family is together. Our family time is important. Of course these days we spend most of our time home together but pre-covid, we would take day trips or long weekends. We do still do so some volunteer work, worship together, and try to get some outside time. In any event, by the time Monday rolls around I’m exhausted. It takes me 3 days to recover, then I start all over.

This is what I mean by living “creatively.” We all do it, even if we don’t realize it or if we call it something different. We all adapt. My adapting my week to my health is creating a schedule that works for me, curating my life so I am as effect and happy as possible!

Recipe - White Chocolate Peanut Butter Quinoa Drops

I’ve been trying to get down with quinoa for about 4 years now and I just never was able to make it at home in a way I liked. Between the total lack of flavor and it being a bit watery, it always fell flat. Well there’s nothing like dietary peer pressure to keep you going! A friend of mine has quinoa at least 3 times a week and raves about it constantly so I’ve had an eye open for a really good recipe to try.

Enter Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook “It’s All Good.” I’m not really sure how I feel about her but I am a Goop follower. Love her or hate her I’d say the info she brings up and suggests is worth a look. I feel it only takes some self awareness and common sense to know what parts of Goop to leave on the shelf. That being said, I have always found her cookbooks and recipes to be legit as far as taste, and easy to execute. So when I found her cookbook on sale, I grabbed it without hesitation. And am I glad I did because it included one sentence that changed my life in regards to quinoa. “Place a dry towel between the pot and the lid and let the quinoa sit for at least 5 minutes.” That’s it! It’s that simple! And my quinoa is perfect! So perfect in fact I challenged my friend to creating new recipes using this chameleon grain.

This is my first creation, Quinoa Drops. They’re perfect marble sized and refrigerated. I now keep a bowl of them in the fridge. I made these with Peanut Butter & Co’s White Chocolatey Wonderful but any nut butter will do. Though I don’t know how many, these must be packed with protein and antioxidants. Even a yes for you Keto krazies out there!

The other thing that makes them amazing is it’s a recipe with just a little of this and a little of that. No measuring required!

Ingredients

About 2 cups of quinoa

About 1 1/2 cups of nut butter

About 1/4 cup of dark chocolate chips

About 1 teaspoon of Himalayan pink sea salt or favorite sea salt

Assemble

Put quinoa in a bowl and mix with the chocolate chips and salt.
Make a well in the middle of the mix. Add the nut butter in the well. With a spoon turn and pat the quinoa, slowly mixing with the nut butter. You want the quinoa to stick as well as possible without all the nut butter showing through.
Once it’s mixed well refrigerate for about 20 minutes. Once chilled, use a spoon to pick up about a teaspoon of the mixture and roll into a ball using your clean hands.
Place on a piece of parchment or on a plate and chill once again. Keep refrigerated and eat when ready.

Can also be frozen.

Makes approximately 12 drops.

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I Speak Because I Know

This was me a month and a half ago. Wearing a 24 hour heart monitor because my resting heart rate was fluctuating between 114 and 120 bpm.

When you tell the doctor you’ve had heart palpitations for over 10 years, you get a look that makes you want to explain that you aren’t complacent your life is just really complicated.

Over the past decade I would go to the ER I had dizziness or shortness of breath, get and EKG and be sent home with a cardiologist name that I would never follow up with.

Family members fighting cancer, an unexpected pregnancy, then an infant, teenagers with teenage drama, deaths in the family, all happening simultaneously really doesn’t lend itself to focusing on your own health.

Until I woke up feeling like my heart was beating out of chest. Apple watch clocked me at 120bpm at 7am. I had kids to drop off at school and errands to run. So went to urgent care when I could fit it in hoping to get a quick EKG. What I got instead was reprimanded was told to go straight to the hospital.

Long story short. My heart beats, pumps, and looks fine. One month, an echocardiogram, an ultrasound, a sleep study and one methocolate challenge later and I find I have sleep apnea, and asthma, and have developed a sensitivity to caffeine. So far treating the above has found me improved at my last follow up.

Three things kept me ignoring the tightness in my chest and heart palpatations.

1. Being overwhelmed with other things.

2. Thinking it was because I was getting older and am a little heavier. I worked out more instead saying I was having a problem out loud. I really didn’t want to even tell my husband, it seemed admission of a failure.

3. Having Fibromyalgia I have some pain and related symptoms most days. I assumed some of the pain was related to that, which meant there was no point in spending the time on checking it to just find out nothing can really be done.

We live for them, let’s make sure we continue living for them.

Moral of my story… Don’t survive all life has to throw at you only to be taken down by a health issue that you could’ve taken care of if you had got it checked out. Dying from uncontrolled asthma is not how I’m going out!

Take my advice and schedule appointments to have any concerns, even small ones, addressed with your doctor. It seems like the easiest thing to neglect on your to do list since it’s for you, but don’t do it. Treat yourself like a friend you love, and make sure you are taking care of your health!

Face My Weight

So I never talk about weight on the gram, on Facebook, never here in my blog… but, here I go.

The reality is I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been.

Through to my early twenties I never had a weight issue. At 5’3” I’ve always had an athletic build but maintained 129lbs, to 135lbs even after my first child. I went through my aerobic step phase and had a true six pack. I dated a jock and we worked out together. Blah, blah, blah, right? Who cares? The reality is right this minute, at 45, still 5’3” I weigh more than I have my whole life.

Is there a reason? Three more children? Nope, because I’ve always been able to get under control at least within two years after birth; it’s four years since giving birth to my youngest. Is it fibromyalgia? My fibromyalgia does make it harder to loose weight due to two factors: low serotonin, and FMS related edema. That’s not it though. The reality is, it’s stress. It is so much stress, at times I feel like I’m drowning. That’s the reality.

The effect my husband’s brain cancer has had is indescribable. A toddler in the mist of this and a teenage daughter? Need I say more? Add to it, aging parents - my mom with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. Loosing my grandson… the list goes on. I’ll spare you rest of the details. I know there are many that can relate. Just tell me why I can’t be the women who can’t eat? Who gets emaciated from the stress? And it’s not the eating, in fact I’m not a big eater. I have, in full disclosure however, gotten away from being 85% clean.

The first workout is always the hardest!

So here I am. Fat and still stressed. I’m now at a weight I feel unhealthy and uncomfortable. The self care advocate who takes care of everyone now needs to, “heal thyself.”

I have a plan. I have to do it. Consider this a manifesto. The goal? To go back to eating at least 80% / 20%, and my weight and my stress with movement.

Going Back To Basics

Made this sauce to go over angel hair pasta. Basically my regular sauce with butternut squash (and a bit of fresh spinach I had left in the fridge. My 4 year old asked for seconds, so it’s kid approved!

My daughter has severe food allergies. Included in the list of allergens is corn. We’re talking, true anaphylaxis complete with blue lips, itching throat, and a rash on the face that looks like a chemical burn and lasts 2 weeks! This severe skin reaction not only itches but is extremely painful. Even though we are thorough in our label reading she’s had two episodes in the past year. The big surprise? The culprit has been multivitamins! Most vitamins, even gluten free ones, have some form of corn by product or derivatives, especially Vitamin C and the gelatin like capsules many medicines and vitamins come in.

Of course whole foods have always been best. I’ve always tried to include vegetables in every dinner but now with the supplement issue, my daughter has no other option but to eat her vitamins from the source! 

Solution? It’s one we’ll all benefit from. More veggies and fruits in EVERYTHING! I’ve strayed from my 80/20 rule but I’m tightening things up around here! At least 80% whole, clean, food. There are no cons to that!