Lily the Wonder Dog

Ellie Posing

Trying to get Ellie to pose in front of the Christmas tree with her new sweater.

 Is that a camera in your hands?

Are we going to go for that walk?

Salt & Vinegar Kale Chips

It's Sunday morning and I thought I'd share my weekly routine of making Kale chips for the week.  I am making a Salt & Vinegar version this week, it's super simple and way healthier than store bought chips.  There are no ingredients that I cannot pronounce and everything is a natural product.  This was one of the first items I made when thinking about eating more plants since it seemed like a good way to incorporate Kale in our diets.  Since the first taste, I've likely made these chips 2-3 times a month.  They are so good.

The ingredients are:
- 1 head of Kale (any variety will do, though curly is best)
- 1/2 cup of soaked (2hrs) Cashews or Sunflower seeds (no need to soak the Sunflower seeds)
- 1 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1/2 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- a little bit of water to liquefy the mixture paste

You will also need a food processor and a food dehydrator.  You can bypass the dehydrator and use your oven, but you will have to frequently check to make sure you aren't cooking your chips.

  Step 1: tear your Kale into chips and rinse them in the salad spinner

 Step 2: Assemble the remaining ingredients

 Step 3: Process the Cashews and blend in the remaining ingredients

 Step 4: Get messy and spread the Cashew mixture over the Kale and thoroughly coat all the Kale chips

Step 5: Dehydrate and wait 6 - 8 hours (the hardest part)

Step 6: Eat lots!

Thrive

For a few years now, we have been purchasing a product from Vega: Whole Health Food Optimizer (WHFO), formulated by a fromer Ironman Pro Triathlete and uber vegan athlete Brendan Brazier. 

We both noticed that we feel great throughout the day when WHFO is used for breakfast smoothies, or post workout drinks.  It did take a little getting used to since it is a all-vegan sourced smoothie and it has light cleansing properties from all the greens in the mix.  It really wasn't until I stopped taking it that I noticed I started to feel like my body wasn't recovering from workouts the same and I was starting to eat more throughout the day.  Needless to say we started using the product again, only this time the Vega brand has added more products to the shelves such as:

- Shake N Go (easy to mix protein drink)

- Vega Sport (multiple options for before, during and post workouts) (Thanks Daphne for getting us onto this one)

There are also several other products from Vega and their parent company Sequel Naturals that we have used.  

In July we decided to purchase Brendan's Books; Thrive Diet and Whole Foods to Thrive.  These books combined with a fellow blogger (an in-law) who had recently experimented with a Vegan diet was the tipping point for us to change our diet.

It was a little challenging at first to go from eating meat at least once a day to consuming no meat, eggs, dairy, cheese, yogurt.  However, we had thoroughly researched this diet and allowed ourselves a gradual transition to eliminate these foods from our household.   A couple of weeks into the diet and it became easier, and a month later it was much easier to find these new foods in the supermarket.  Our supermarket purchases moved away from the meat, dairy and eggs and towards more vegetables, dark leafy greens (kale and chard), fruits, grains, sprouts, beans, and some odd sounding foods (nutritional yeast).

We both have our challenges with eating this way and so far my biggest hurdle to overcome is my love of Hawkins Cheezies (which are now on the banned list).  Tammy had a tougher time with the transition and is now nearly vegan (once or twice a week she will prepare something with cheese or meat) but works to remain conscious of her food sources.

We are now 6 months in and we both feel stronger, lighter, sleep better and feel more connected with nature than before.  Since we don't eat at fast food locations, eating out is also relatively easy.  From the beginning we agreed that if we are invited over to someones home for dinner we don't expect anyone to cater to our diet needs and will eat what was prepared for us.  So far, this is working pretty good.

The R word

Redesign!  It's coming.