Theirs, Mine, and Ours

Before I even jump into today’s post, I want to express my sincerest thanks for all of your comments on the vlog that I posted Friday. I cannot even tell you how hesitant I was to share it, and then how much I dreaded my decision in the few hours after. Where you all called me “cute” I saw myself as “flighty.” Where you said that I seemed so “relaxed” and “real” I thought rather that I was “rambling” (as I appropriately indicated in my post title for the day). I still think that most of you were just being nice, but all the same I appreciate you taking the time to watch it. I have no idea when I will make another or IF I can even gather up the courage to make another, but I’m glad I bit the bullet and did a second one (my first was all the way back in October 2012, more than a year ago!).

Also, another note before sharing some delicious food pictures with you all, I’m going to be blunt and admit that I have no idea how much time I will be able to spend blogging this semester. Right now in fact I should be reading for one of my classes but that will come in due time and staying up just a little bit later is definitely worth it.

At the start of 2014 I had all of these big plans for Eating 4 Balance including finally getting a self-hosted site, upgrading to a new theme, working on more professional pictures/recipes. Yada yada yada. Oh, and being more faithful with comments too. I know that January is not even half way over yet, but can I just say MAJOR FAIL? Sorry everyone. I’m going to do my best. It’s not really an option for me to quit entirely or take a break because blogging IS MY BREAK. Really, reading blogs and blogging is my relief from college life and classes. Take that away and you have a Madison ten times more strung out and scattered than you saw in my video (I think beginning to refer to myself in third person may be a sign that the craziness has already begun? Is there no hope of turning back?!!! 😉 ).

With those hundreds of words put out there, this WIAW will be probably less wordy and more picture-heavy than normal.

I called this post “Yours, Mine and Ours” to represent the variety of food that I made over the holidays and am about to unload on you. There are some pictures of food that I made for my parents and/or brother (theirs), some food that I made for myself (mine*), and the food that I made for both (ours).

*Although as noted on Friday, I have basically backed off of trying to add anything new. Simple is the name of the game once more as I try to go back to how I felt before the holidays. Meat and veggies here I come… Already feeling much better though thankfully!

THEIRS

Gluten-free buckwheat pancakes inspired by Gluten-Free Goddess

Homemade macaroni and cheese

Whole wheat pasta, organic cheese and milk

Pumpkin oatmeal with granola and almond butter

Oatmeal with pears, almond butter and maple cinnamon pecans

Quiche inspired by Meghan

Made with an almond flour crust, eggs, milk, cheese, seasonings, onions, squash and broccoli

Puppy chow for my brother’s New Year’s Eve party

MINE

Gluten-free and vegan biscuits

Oh so moist, flavorful and crumbly!

Homemade ice cream with goat’s milk and stevia

Gluten-free, vegan, and sugar-free pancakes

Sweet gluten-free and vegan pancakes made with potatoes

Potato pancakes topped with New York maple syrup

Whole Foods salad bar: red quinoa, grilled chicken and cucumber slices

Chocolate pudding: cocoa powder, pumpkin puree, tapioca starch, water, stevia and frozen blueberries… yum!

Goat’s milk yogurt with stevia and frozen blueberries

OURS

Alright, so we didn’t actually share THAT much food-wise over vacation

Paleo pumpkin chocolate chip cake with a chocolate frosting (I just ate some of the frosting. It was amazing and tasted like a rich chocolate pudding.)

I do have plans to share some of these recipes eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later! 🙂

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Questions for you:

• Can you guess what inspired the title of this post?
• Do you make food that is just for someone else, yourself, or even both?
• What is your favorite food to make? Obviously mine is pancakes!

Food for the…

I was very tempted not to post today but since Wednesday was the only day that I blogged so far this week I decided I had better put something up. Also, I kind of already had this all planned out ahead of time (I love when that happens!) so it wouldn’t take as long as usual. For the past week I’ve been carrying around a notebook with me and when I get the rare free moment before class I’ll jot down some blog posts ideas or notes. For Wednesday’s I actually had the entire intro written out by hand before typing it up. I would really recommend this for those, like me, who get spurts of inspiration on the go, promise yourself that you won’t forget your aha moment, and then when it comes down to finally write… nothing but blank space and musical crickets in that noggin of yours up there.

Before I get into all of the articles, links, pictures, etc. that I want to share, I suppose that I should probably explain briefly why I didn’t want to post today. Quite simply I just don’t feel well. Even though I haven’t mentioned it for awhile, my stomach and allergies are still battling with me full-force. Not a day goes by where I can go without stomach pain (or a number of other problems), not want to scream over my boring bowl of vegetables and meat, or feel like things will never get better.

I’ve been thinking lately about what I would do if we really did undergo a zombie apocalypse like so many have been gunning for. Most likely my companions would abandon me after a day or two of not being able to keep up. My reasoning behind this statement is  that my body would be rejecting the canned/boxed foods that I would be forced to eat and I would be no help.

“Give me the box of funfetti cake mix, a bottle of water and a fork, and let me die in blissful stomach-wrenching indulgence!”

You see, I had to be practical here. When I eat “normal” food I am literally incapacitated to the point where I cannot function at even 50% so the most likely scenario is that those who I was trying to escape the grips of zombies with would have to leave me so that they had a chance of survival. But if I had to die, I would want to at least die eating cake batter with a fork straight from the box.

We’ve got to think of all of the possibilities here folks. I would also take a jar of nut butter if deemed necessary.

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And with those images left fresh in your brain, I’m moving onto some of the recent things that I’ve found interesting on the web:

FOOD FOR THE MIND

Whose Responsibility is It? — from Long Drive Journey

The Air Diet — from Healthy Helper

Looks Can Be Deceiving — also from Healthy Helper

This is Not a Joke — from Picky Runner

The Comparison Trap with Blogging — from The Big Man’s World

Keep Calm… and Rest — from Running with Spoons

Journaling: Yes or No? — from Jessie Loves to Run

Here’s the Deal — from Gluten-Free Girl

The Shrinking Woman — from Kath Eats Real Food

FOOD FOR THE BELLY

Pumpkin Pie Greek Yogurt Dip — from Nibbles and Noshes

Apple Gouda Quiche — from Clean Eats Fast Feets

Bean Balls and Spaghetti Squash Noodles — from The Little Honey Bee

Simple Chorizo Butternut Squash Hash — from PaleOMG

Pumpkin Pie STUFT Paleo N’Oats — from STUFT Mama

Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie — from Peachy Palate

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles — from The Healthy Maven

Cranberry Streusel Cheesecake Bars — from Peas and Crayons

Everything Puppy Chow — from Me (Arman, this is fueled by your Instagram comment 😉 )

FOOD FOR THE EYES

The Brown Eye Blue Eye Experiment — from Jane Elliott

Maleficent Trailer — from Disney

Divergent Trailer — from Summit Entertainment

Hilariously Awesome Dance 3 — from Carroll Senior Powderpuff Cheerleaders

What’s New on Netflix this Month — from Vulture

New Catching Fire Clip — from HG Fansite

FOOD FOR THE SOUL

Happy Birthday! — Slices of Sarah Pie

Congratulations on First Place! — from Peanut Butter Lover

Awesome Figure Competition — from Sprint 2 the Table

Ironman Finisher (and amazing recap) — from Meals and Miles

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Questions for you:

What is your weekly Food for the… Mind, Belly, Eyes, and Soul?

What are you thoughts on some of these articles? A couple of them are pretty thought-provoking and controversial. I have mixed feelings on a few and would love to hear your input!

What food would you want to be left behind with in the event of a zombie apocalypse? (Yep… if you skipped the first part of this post you missed a doozy!)

Life Update

Alright. Time for an update on what’s going on in my life right now! It’s been almost a week since I talked about me at all 🙂

Courtesy of Meghan at Clean Eats Fast Feets.

• Last Thursday I attended a band concert. It was outside on the grass lawn of my old high school. My brother and a lot of my friends were in the concert, and it was also the last performance of my old band director before he retired. As a surprise about 80 alumni members came back to play one final song with him. I hadn’t picked up my clarinet in almost a year, but I was amazed out how easy it was to play again.

A lot of people showed up for the band concert! This photo doesn’t do it justice.

• After the concert about 20 of us drove into Wendy’s for a little celebration. Of course I didn’t get any food; however that just gave me the excuse to talk even more 😉 I hadn’t realized how much I missed all of my friends. College just can’t compare.

This is something my friends and I would totally say. Sarcasm at its finest.

• On Saturday I did a ton of packing and then my parents and brother drove up with me to my apartment for the summer. We packed up two cars (one mine and one theirs) and drove 3 + hours. On the way we encountered a train (again) and had to wait awhile.

You can’t see it in this picture, but there was some pretty awesome-looking graffiti painted on some of the train cars.

• That afternoon we unpacked all of my things from the cars and went out to do a little shopping/eating. Since it was so late they all spent the night as well.

• On Sunday after lunch they headed home and I was left to explore the apartment a bit more on my own!

This is the only picture of my apartment that you’ll see for awhile. It looks positively PLAIN right now.

• Monday was the first day of my internship. This week I have been working 8:30AM-5:30PM everyday. However, I actually leave at 7:45AM and don’t get back until around 6:05PM because the traffic is so congested (it should only take 11 minutes to travel to and from the office).
• A few thoughts on my internship so far:

 

1. There are a total of ten interns. 9 male. 1 female. Guess who the 1 female is?…. 😦

2. Our days are divided up into customer service training as well as training on the tax software that we are going to be supporting. Other times we are learning about the call system that we will be using to log our communication with customers, and sometimes we are sent to our individual cubicles to work on practice exercises.

3. As I mentioned on Wednesday, I am just mentally drained. Other than my lunch break everyday, it’s basically non-stop thinking.

4. It’s actually all really interesting stuff and I think I might (just might! 🙂 ) actually enjoy working in customer support this summer. It kind of seems… fun?

• I almost forgot to mention, but also last week on Friday I went to see my gastroenterologist again. She asked more questions and I gave more answers. Then she prescribed a bunch of tests! At first I was pretty excited because more tests mean the possibility finally for a diagnosis and a solution.

In case you don’t know what a hospital table looks like… Funny story: when the doctor had me lay down on the table we realized that there was no way to extend the bottom so basically I had to keep my legs lifted the whole time because I was too long! Haha.

• Then when I went to get my blood drawn the nurse encountered a little difficulty (like always). I think she collapsed the vessel in my arm because it started burning and she didn’t get much out. Time to call in the professionals! A woman named “Rosa” came over and within 30 seconds had stabbed me and began shoving the needle around. Now, there may have been a few tears and weary glances at my mom, but at least she got the blood flowing!

 

• And gave me a special pink bandage with smiley faces. The woman who collapsed my vessel just gave me a boring old tan one…

Excuse my unphotogenic arms that look more like a leg than an arm in this picture!

Does anyone else just love bandaids?

• I also have to do a lot of various stool tests (I hate typing that word but there’s nothing better to call it!) to test me for infections, inflammation, parasites, etc. One of these tests is also supposed to measure my ability to absorb fat, but I’m not sure that one’s ever going to get done because I have to eat 100 grams of fat for 6 days straight! Currently I don’t eat much fat at all– the only fat I get is from dark chicken meat. Any skin, fat in broth, oils, nuts, or what have you basically kills my stomach and sends me straight to the bathroom for days on end. So ya… No thanks!

Oh! And here is a lovely picture of the bruise that formed on my arm from the collapsed vein… Can you kind of see it? Unfortunately it looks more like a strange stain than a bruise.

• There are some other tests that they are running too, but I’m not able to do those until later this summer when I have off on July 5th. As for the rest of the tests, I’ll let you know what I find out when I get the results. Hopefully sooner rather than later!

Who else takes awkward pictures in doctor’s offices?

• Tomorrow is Friday thank goodness!

I’m going to quickly insert some pictures so this post isn’t quite so text-heavy and BORING. Then I’m going to find a nice little book to read before I head off to bed. Besides being Friday, it’s also the day that I get to head home for the weekend since I have three days off due to Memorial Day!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Oh, and a little preview for a new recipe that I have to share. Dairy-Free Chili Chips and Cheese (with Vegan substitutions!)

Does this really need a caption?

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Are you going to do anything special to celebrate Memorial Day? I’m planning on going to a band parade on Monday depending on the weather!

Do you like going to the hospital?

Are there many train tracks where you live?

What are your plans for the weekend?

Bust a Move Cause It’s Friday

I’m usually not one to name posts based on song titles (except for this one), however I guess Alex is rubbing off on me 🙂

This song has been playing on my computer for the last few minutes:

We had an impromptu music session in my Great Ideas class today. Instead of discussing Sherlock Holmes and pragmatic reasoning one of the girls pulled “Bust Your Windows” up on her laptop and I was introduced to Jazmine Sullivan. It’s no Cascadia, but I can see why my teacher got a little excited. It’s a pretty good beat to dance to. *Shakes hips*

*Or not?*

Friday is usually just a big jumble of everything, and today will be no different.

First up, a few posts that I’ve been loving this week:

Junk Your Bathroom Challenge by The Polivka Family- Do you know what the ingredients are in your everyday bathroom products?

10 Uses for Coconut Oil That You Haven’t Tried Yet by Empowered Sustenance- I’ve been using it as a makeup remover forever!

Milk Aspartame FDA Petition by NaturalNews.com- Ya, you read that right. The dairy industry wants the FDA to allow aspartame and sucralose (Splenda) to be included in regular dairy products without having to include it in the ingredients list.

The Allergy Buster by New York Times- Hope for those with severe food allergies.

A few food pins that look to die for:

Almond Butter Pancakes

Pumpkin Ice Cream

The Two Minute Paleo Blueberry Muffin

One lovely “I can still dream” food pin:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Pie

A few funny pins that I literally died laughing at:

Happy Belated Pi Day!

Britney Spears Humor-

Creepiest Cat Ever-

Pins That Make Me Feel Like I’m Not Alone in the World:

All of the time-

Sadly yes-

Haha. Maybe?-

 

 

And finally, a recipe that’s been a week in coming:

Paleo Girl Scout Tagalongs

Cookie Recipe adapted from L. Michelle and Chocolate Recipe adapted from Chocolate-Covered Katie

Servings: Approximately 9 cookies

Grain/Gluten/Wheat-Free, Vegetarian, Dairy-Free, Nut-Free Option, GAPS/Paleo Friendly

Ingredients:

• 1 cup nut/seed flour (I used mostly almond flour)*
• 1 egg*
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1/8 tsp sea salt
• 9 tsp (or 3 tbsp) of nut/seed butter*
• 1/4 cup cocoa 
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 2 tbsp honey

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Combine well the first four ingredients- flour, egg, honey and salt.

3. Measure out heaping tablespoons of the dough and roll into balls. Distribute evenly on parchment paper and flatten with fingertips.

4. Bake the cookies for 10-14 minutes (I baked them for 14 minutes, but oven temps vary) until they are firm.

5. Put one teaspoon of nut/seed butter onto each cookie. Spread out to cover the entire top. Place in freezer to cool.

6. Meanwhile, put the cocoa powder, coconut oil, and honey into a food processor and blend until smooth.

7. Remove the cookies from the freezer after about 10 minutes.

8. Using a spoon, drizzle the chocolate mixture onto the tops of the cookies. 

9. Freeze until hardened and enjoy!

Notes: For a non-Paleo version, I would recommend peanut butter. For Paleo, I used cashew butter with much success, but any other nut butter like almond would work well too. For those with nut allergies, use sunflour in the cookies and sunbutter for the topping. For those with egg allergies, Chocolate-Covered Katie has an awesome vegan Tagalong recipe. 

Also to note, for a true authentic Tagalong cookie, I would double the ingredients for the chocolate mixture and coat both sides of the cookie. None of my family had ever had a Tagalong before, so I didn’t know that’s how they went 😉

Recipe shared at: Thank Goodness It’s Monday, Fat Tuesday, Wheat Free Wednesday, 

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And now, I leave you to bust a move cause it’s Friday!

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What are some posts or pins that you have been loving this week?

What are your plans for the weekend?

What song have you been “busting a move to” recently?