Coconut oil hair treatment

We decided to not have any plans this weekend, and since he was busy with his own thing, I decided to pamper myself a little. I saw on the Rachael Ray show how they did a homemade hair treatment, so I looked online to get more information, and then found out you can put melted coconut oil into your hair, put a shower cap on, or saran wrap, and sleep with it to really get it working into your hair and scalp, so that's what I did on Friday night. I did a double boiler (pot of boiling water with a large bowl sitting on top of the pot, add in 4 tbsp of coconut oil, less if your hair is short, and let it melt). Once melted, they say you can use a basting brush, but I just used my hands, I dunked my hand in there then rubbed my hands together and then put it in my hair and kept working it in. I massaged my scalp, and then since my hair is so long it was harder to the the cap on my head but finally managed. They showed to clip your hair but I didn't want a clip in my hair to sleep with. I put a towel on my pillow in case, and went to bed. The next day, my hair was nice and greasy looking and jumped into the shower and washed it out. I had to shampoo my hair twice to really get the oil out. I straightened my hair and this is the end result

Might not see much of a difference but my hair feels so soft!!  I would for sure do this again. They say you can also just have it in your hair for a half hour or longer as well, but the best results is having it in over night. I also read how you can add in some honey with the coconut oil, and on the show I watched, they did coconut oil, honey and an egg. Not sure if I'll try with the egg, but I think I will try coconut oil and honey for about an hour and wash out to see. My hair has been feeling pretty dry and frizzy, probably because I straighten it quite often in the winter, but with this treatment I think it will really help, and it's not expensive or hard to do. I also tend to use hair spray, and thanks to a friend of mine, I got a homemade recipe with water, sugar and vodka. I read online that you don't need the vodka, just 1 cup water and 4 tsp of sugar. Bring water to a boil, add in the sugar and stir to let it dissolve, then let it cool down and add to a spray bottle. I just made some, so it's cooling down now, and will give it a try, and with no vodka in there, it won't dry out my hair. This is so much healthier and cheaper then buying hair spray.

I also of course got into the kitchen, and made a beef stew for supper last night. What I love about stews is that you can add so many vegetables. Here's my combination

I have onion, celery, carrots, turnips, sweet potatoes and garlic. I coated my beef chunks with spelt flour, salt and pepper and some oregano and basil. I browned all the meat in batches, and then removed it from the pot, then created a rue of grape seed oil and some spelt flour with the spices, and then added in a good tbsp of tomato paste, and whisked that, then added in beef stock, then my vegetables and added the meat back in and let it cook for about 2.5 hours. I cooked it in my cast iron pot, and it turned out delicious!

I also did some baking

I made very healthy peanut butter cookies, then I also made some not so healthy chocolate chip cookies.

Today I plan to try out this oatmeal and blueberry bake for a nice healthy breakfast during the week, and I also want to try a fish cake found in the 100 days of real food cookbook. This morning I watched Jamie Oliver's show called Jamie's super food that plays today at noon on the food network. I didn't get the chance to watch last week's show so I watched it this morning and he made this amazing looking breakfast that I would love to try out. You can find the recipe here.

I love his twist on making french toast, instead of eggs and milk, he did eggs and banana, and the bread pocket of fruit, yum!  Well it's time for some lunch, I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Organization and in the kitchen

So on my last post I talked about how I would be organizing, well that got done. I made some room on my book case and put my new books that I got. Then I got busy with the two cabinets I have in my kitchen. I got a cookie jar set along with other dishes that goes with this set that my mom made and made room to display them nicely, along with placing my cookbooks upright instead of laying down so it's easier to take them out when needed and here's the end result.

I may have a lot of cookbooks, which a few of them are on my bookcase, but I love cookbooks to get ideas and to try new recipes. I've also been watching cooking shows, I'm really loving Saturday and Sunday mornings. I find for a while the food network was becoming more about competitions and games, not so much about cooking shows, which is what I really love to watch, and now they have a really great line up of shows on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Over the holidays they also had other amazing holiday shows and one of them that I watched was Jamie's Festive feast and he cooked up something that looked delicious, so I had to try it!

Doesn't look like his, but it was delicious!!  So much flavor!!  It's called Keralan Fish Curry. I didn't follow the recipe exactly though, I forgot to buy some red chilies so I used chili flakes, and I didn't have fresh coriander leaves, so I used dry, and I didn't add in fenugreek, I didn't have any on hand and same with curry leaves, so I used powder, but it still turned out really good! A perfect recipe for an endometriosis diet, and a must try!

Yesterday I stopped in at Chapters, I didn't buy anything but it was nice to check out books and just walk around for a while. I did find a cookbook to use up your spirilizer, I did scan it for my wish list using my app, but I didn't buy it just yet, I'll have a closer look at it to be sure before I do buy it. I then did groceries, and when I got home I made a quinoa, lentil and vegetable salad.

I cooked up 1/4 cup of quinoa with a nice big handful of red lentils in a pot with some vegetable stock, while that cooked I chopped up a lot of vegetables. I added in a diced zucchini and cucumber, thinly sliced red onion and red cabbage, then chopped up broccoli and yellow pepper. For my dressing, in a bowl I mashed up half an avocado, juice of 1/4 lemon, some red wine vinegar (2 tbsp), honey (1 tbsp) and some olive oil (4 tbsp), then some salt, pepper and some dill. Mixed everything together and put it in the fridge to let the flavors combine. So with left overs of the fish curry and the salad, I will have amazing lunches this week. For a snack, I decided to make the Chocolate Banana bread muffins again from Tone it up website.

I did end up with 12 muffins, not just 3 =)  I ate one, and the rest will be for snacks during the week. I also want to share what I made for breakfast yesterday morning. I unfortunately didn't take a picture of it, but it was easy and delicious. I toasted up some healthy bread, spread some avocado on each, then I made a sandwich by adding a cooked egg and slices of tomatoes, and of course adding a bit of salt and some pepper. A girl I work with got me hooked on toast with avocado, salt and pepper, it's so creamy and delicious!  It would also be good with just adding sliced tomatoes or cucumbers.
 
I've had a really great weekend, and for the rest of my day, I'll probably relax with my book, I still have a few cooking shows to watch, and a few magazines to read. Knowing me I can't sit still for to long, so I'll probably do a few things in between. I have a steak marinating right now for a our supper, I will enjoy some with a wonderful salad, and for my hubby I'll also add some roasted potatoes for him. I am of course not eating as much meat, but I will have some from time to time because I do enjoy it. I also do love potatoes, but I'm trying to keep things more light, so since I'm having steak, I'll just have a healthy salad with it. Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

So much snow!!

We've been pretty lucky with mild weather and no snow, but starting at some point in the night, it started to snow and hasn't stopped!  I got my workout in this morning, took me about an hour to do our driveway.

I did start my morning with a stretch workout for 15 minutes, which got me ready for all that snow. It was a lot of work. I relaxed and had some lunch after, then got busy in the kitchen.

I haven't made much since before Christmas, since we went to Sudbury for a week, so we got back yesterday, wanting to get home before all the snow came down. Now we have this week at home to get things done and relax.

In order to avoid driving out in this weather, I also got a head start with doing groceries once we were back home from Sudbury. Glad I did because our street still hasn't been plowed. I got so many vegetables, some fruit, and a few other things we needed. I saw an episode of the Pioneer Woman on the food network, and she made this spaghetti and veggie salad, and it looked delicious! Therefore I got a pot of water boiling and cooked up this new pasta I wanted to try, it's a spelt flour spaghetti. Then got busy with a lot of chopping. I sliced up half a purple cabbage, halved and sliced two small cucumbers, seeded and sliced a red and yellow pepper, sliced up some kale, and thanks to a gift my dad got me I was able to julienne 2 carrots. He got me this set of carrot peelers, one is just a regular carrot peeler and the other was a bit bigger and it julienne's, works really well! Then I also sliced up a red onion and minced up some parley and added those to a very large bowl. I put the spelt spaghetti in the bowl as well and the dressing was: 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/3 cup of low sodium soy sauce, 1/3 cup of white wine vinegar, 2 tbsp of sesame oil, mined ginger and 2 cloves of garlic and 3 tbsp of honey. I added a bit of pepper as well and tossed everything together.

You can definitely use whatever vegetables you want. She added oyster sauce in hers, but I didn't have any on hand so I just put a bit more white wine vinegar instead. It's now in the fridge and will get eaten for supper. I will be cooking up some scallops that I bought yesterday. I plan to make an orange (zest and juice), soy sauce and some honey for the marinade.

Our week in Sudbury was great, got to see a lot of family. Which would have been nice to stay longer to see more family and friends, since we haven't seen them all, but it is kind of nice being home and not having to drive with all that snow. I did get more books for Christmas, as well as things for the kitchen, so I plan to unpack those and put them away. I'm out of room on my book case, but I have some shelves with pictures and my medals (running) and stuff so I think I will put those elsewhere so I have more room for books. I also got the cookie jar set that my mom made, so I want to make room for those, and they will be very handy to have. I know I won't have any trouble in filling those up.

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas!  Happy New Year!!

Christmas baking!

It's that time of year already!  I absolutely love Christmas! I love giving gifts and of course receiving gifts   =)  Thursday night my hubby went to a work Christmas party so I got busy at home. I did some cleaning and then decorated the house. My dad ended up giving me the Christmas tree that my mom made out of ceramic, I love this tree, it's so beautiful and brings back a lot of great memories. She did an amazing job, and it's a great way for me to have some sort of tree since I can't have a real or fake tree because knowing my kitty she would be right in it or tearing it down. It really didn't take her long  for her to start chewing away at the ribbon I had after a gift, so now those are put away so she can't get at them.

Last weekend my dad and I did our Christmas shopping but didn't get everyone, so got a few more people yesterday, now the only thing missing is the gifts I ordered online, which I hope to get very soon. So the next thing I really wanted to do was some Christmas baking. I didn't go to crazy, but I ended up making some Funfetti Cookies, which you can get the recipe here, and I also made an oh henry bar, it's my mom's recipe and she made it every year, which made me so happy!  My brother made it one year, so this year I decided to make it, and both recipes turned out perfect and so delicious!

These are not healthy, and there is way to much for just my hubby and I, so we will each bring some to work to share with everyone, and we have some here for us as well. Next weekend will be another busy weekend, we are celebrating with my dad, brother, sister in law, nieces and nephews at my dad's house. My dad will make a turkey with potatoes and vegetables, my brother will bring dessert, and I'll be bringing some deviled eggs, and vegetables and dip, and I plan to make a gravy as well. Then Saturday we are going to our friends' place and we are doing a pot luck style party, so I'll be bringing a potato salad, and I'll be going there earlier to help her set up, while my hubby plays hockey. Really looking forward to next weekend!



Not sure if I'll have time to put up another post until the New year since this time of year does become very busy, therefore in case I don't, I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and Happy New year!
                     
          

Running and baking

This week I had time to get the house cleaning and groceries done during the week, and on Friday since I worked an hour later on Thursday I got to leave early on Friday, which gave me time to get busy in the kitchen. I started by baking a banana bread, I again used spelt flour and coconut sugar for the recipe. I also decided to try a new recipe I saw on TV when I was watching the Pioneer woman, and you can find the recipe here.

I did use buckwheat flour and coconut sugar instead of what they call for in the recipe, I wanted to make it healthier and it turned out pretty good. Then the rest of the night I got to relax. Yesterday my hubby played hockey and scored the first goal and they also won the game 5-3, and we celebrated after. A friend of mine sent a message on facebook to see who was interested in joining her for a morning run today, so I replied and met up with her at 9:00 am this morning. It was cool this morning and there was a wind but the first half we were against the wind so heading back was a lot easier. We did walk a few times but we did 5 km!  Felt great to be out there running!

I am still going to the gym, but I haven't been outside much to run and it's so much better to run outside. Especially with nature surrounding us.

Now I'm going to relax the rest of the day, other then cooking supper later. I'll be making a jambalaya for supper. I am still doing good with not eating much meat, staying away from dairy and eating very little wheat, but I've been craving jambalaya so I'll enjoy that for supper and get back on track after. I did have my phone on me so my step counter counted every step and I'm already at 10,312 steps =) 

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!!!

Halloween weekend

This past weekend I ended up having more free time. Friday night we did go to a friend's place for dinner, but Saturday and Sunday I had no plans at all, so I got busy in the kitchen. I started with taking out my Joyous Health cookbook. I made the Goji berry glory muffins but I didn't have any shredded coconut on hand, so I just didn't add that in, but followed the rest of the recipe, and they turned out really good! I also decided to try a new recipe and made the double chocolate gluten-free cookies. Those turned really good as well.

I got a lot of house cleaning and laundry done as well, and since my hubby was gone to his hockey game I made a pumpkin chili from the Thug cookbook. Yes it's vegetarian, and it was so good!!

I decided to make it in my cast iron pot that I bought a few weeks ago in Watertown. Glad I finally got to use it and I'm really loving it. I do have some left over chili for my lunches this week.

The rest of the weekend, I got to relax. I got caught up on some of my shows, and watched a few movies. As for the trick or treaters, I didn't give any candies out this year. I thought I would be going to my hubby's hockey game, which we wouldn't have been home on time to pass out candy, but then Saturday morning I decided to stay home to have time to get everything done so then I can relax.

Yesterday's supper, I tried another new recipe from a new cookbook, that my niece ended up getting for me since she saw it was on sale, the cookbook is French, but my sister in law told me how there's a lot of great recipes in it.

They all raved on how good this tomato sauce was, sauce bolognaise, so I had to give it a try, and made it for supper on Sunday. It was in my slow cooker all day and made the house smell so good! The recipe was so simple as well, just needed some firm tofu, which for some reason I couldn't find any at all, so I didn't add that in, but the rest I did, I added a pound of ground Italian hot sausage, it called for a pound of ground beef but I used bison, then they say to add in a bunch of vegetables, so I added in carrots, celery, yellow pepper, onion, garlic, and mushrooms, then added in 2 cans of crushed tomatoes, 1 small can of tomato paste, and they say you can add Italian or herb de Provence seasoning so I added the herb de Provence, and of course a bit of salt and some pepper.

It was really good!! I'll for sure be making this again at some point. We do have some left over, so I'll be giving it to my hubby for his lunches, so I can be meat free again, and some will also be going in my freezer to have another time.

So far I'm doing great with the endometriosis diet. My breakfasts have been smoothies, snacks are the muffins and cookies I made, supper and lunches have been salmon, shrimp, vegetables, sweet potatoes, and left over pumpkin chili.

Banana Caramel Sticky buns

It's been another busy weekend. Friday night we went to my hubby's uncle's house for supper. Got to see their new kitchen as well and I would love a kitchen like theirs!  Yesterday the house cleaning and laundry got done, and then I made Banana Caramel Sticky buns. I have made these many times and they are so good!

Here's the recipe:

1 large very ripe banana, mashed
6 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup melted ghee or coconut oil
1/2 cup honey or maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup coconut flour
1/4 tsp salt

Topping:
1 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
1/4 cup ghee or coconut oil
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp coconut flour

Preheat oven at 350F. Mix all ingredients for buns with a wire whisk. Evenly pour into a well greased 12 cup muffin pan. ** Do not use paper muffin liners**
Mix all ingredients for topping with a fork and crumble topping on buns
Bake for 20-25 minutes until cooked through. Cool for about 2 minutes, then run a knife around each bun to loosen from pan. Immediately remove from muffin tin to a wire rack to finish cooling. You may need to scrape the topping back onto the buns as you remove them, but the topping will set up as they cool.

Once those where ready we were off to my hubby's hockey game, although I didn't stay. My friend dropped off her hubby and his brother, and I hopped in with her and we went to her place to get busy in the kitchen. We started with getting the sauce ready for our supper. We made a tomato and pesto sauce and had that with some spaghetti. Then once the sauce was on the stove top on low, we got dessert ready. From the chocolate covered Katie cookbook we made the lemon and chocolate donuts. They were both delicious!! They were also very easy to make and they were baked not fried.

They were a big hit!!  Still some left over as well so they will be great to snack on this week. Today I also go into the kitchen again and prepared two recipes from the Thug kitchen cookbook, and they both turned out great. First one is a roasted beet and quinoa salad.

I made this for a few lunches this week. Then I prepared the roasted potato salad with fresh herbs

We will have this for supper tonight. I did take out london broils to cook up with the salad, and I'm thinking to roast some carrots to go along with it. I have cut back on meat a lot, but really in the mood for some tonight.

Weekend has gone by really fast, but looking forward to sharing those muffins with co-workers, I double the recipe so I can bring some to work. There's a lot of the potato salad so I'm sure there will be some left over, and also from the Thug kitchen I want to make the 5-spice fried rice with sweet potatoes for supper sometime this week. With the donuts, muffins, and delicious meals, it's going to be a good week I'm sure.