WOW Your Cooking

Healthy eating is something that I have worked to get better at over the years. And it's something I really enjoy learning about and improving on! I recently attended a seminar called WOW Your Cooking. (WOW for Word of Wisdom, which in the Latter Day Saint faith, is a commandment to take care of your body, eat healthy, and abstain from harmful substances). The seminar was given by a woman who suffered from severe multiple sclerosis and found herself wondering why the promises given in the Word of Wisdom were not being realized in her life. She had frequent episodes of paralysis and struggled to raise her family. At one point she was paralyzed from the neck down and doctors found over 70 legions on her brain.

Upon more careful study of the Word of Wisdom she thought maybe she could do a better job of living this principle of the gospel. After a commitment to do her best and working towards that goal for 7 years, doctors informed her that she no longer had MS. She was cured! I know this kind of miracle doesn't happen for everyone but I do know that God blesses us when we sincerely do our best to follow His commandments. 

During the seminar she taught us about incorporating a large variety of healthy grains and vegetables. She gave us information on chia, amaranth, barley, quinoa, and teff and brought samples of meals she had prepared with these grains. She also taught us about a unique way to incorporate a large variety of vegetables, especially those that we don't eat very often (which for me is a lot of them). She calls it veggie blending. I tried it and love it! First you buy a large variety of fresh vegetables, wash and cut them. Then you put a little of each in a large food processor and chop of them up fine. Put the chopped veggie blend in freezer bags, freeze what you won't use soon, and put the rest of the fridge to use in your meals for the week. This veggie blend can be added to anything, casseroles, stir fry, spaghetti sauce, any thing and everything. Add the blend right before you serve it so the veggies are as close to raw as possible. It is amazing! 

This is my first attempt at veggie blending. I spent about $12 on vegetables and bought spinach, kale, carrots, beets, asparagus, butternut squash, and broccoli. 

A little bit of each in the processor.

It made 10 bags which will last me awhile because I only use half a bag for each meal. 

Yum! 

Here is one of the meals I used the veggie blend in. Lettuce wraps with brown rice, quinoa, ground turkey, veggie blend, and home made teriyaki sauce. An amazing recipe that I got at this seminar! Love it! 

I used quinoa and the veggie blend in my recipe for southwest egg rolls. We had it with refried beans and rotel tomato dip and salad. 

My favorite way to eat chia is in green smoothies. So far the best one I've made is with spinach, kale, pineapple, and frozen mango. 

Some of the other meals I've used/want to use these different grains and the veggie blend in are:

taco salad

lasagna

home made chili

spaghetti 

enchiladas

taco rice

hawiian haystacks

chicken tamale casserole

fried rice

thai noodles

I'm excited to try them in all my meals! 

I'm always up for more meals ideas so if anyone else feels like posting their ideas too, please do!!!!! One of my old roommates has a great recipe blog I use all the time if you want to check that out: http://peterspickins.blogspot.com

PS: If you want more information on this let me know! I am going to try to attend another one of her seminars soon and I'd love to take people with me if you live close. 

West Happenings

Susie is still growing. She is getting so much better at standing. Paul and I have really tried to work with her because she is a little behind. She is now 14 months!!! Can you believe it!? 4 more months till nursery. :)

Susanna likes to pull herself up and stand on everything. She is even starting to do a little climbing so I have to watch her close. She walks along the edge of things like the couch and chairs and pushes her waker around the carpet, too. We'll see how much longer it takes her to walk on her own.

I can tell she understands so much of what I say to her. It's pretty fun! She is getting better at talking although her words are still hard to differentiate. She is really good at "dog" and "mama" and we think she says dadda, amen, and hi.

Susie like to give high fives, wave hello and goodbye, and is getting pretty good at blowing kisses. Sometimes she will give me kisses when I ask her and it's my favorite. She isn't much of a performer though. She likes to do cute things when she likes to do them, not when everyone is asking and waiting for a performance!

She loves the little boy that comes over to play. His name is Sam. He still doesn't feel quite the same way about her. Susie likes to throw his toy cars and he really doesn't like it when she cries. But the 3 of us sure have fun together and I'm grateful everyday that I can stay home with Susanna and still bring in a little income with preschool and babysitting.

Susie got a little sick this week. She threw up in the middle of the night one night and wouldn't sleep the remainder of the night. She was pretty snuggly for about two days and then she got better. (Susie is a pretty good snuggler anyway, which I LOVE because so am I!) Here she is hanging out on dad's lap.

Paul is excited for the end of this quarter. It's been a rough one. Finals are the third week in May and then he has a whole week off! After that he starts his first rotation and will be working in a compounding pharmacy for 4 weeks. Then what I'm looking forward to most.... the whole month of July off! Woo!

One of my birthday presents from Paul was Disney on Ice. We went last Saturday and it was the coolest. I love anything Disney so this was really fun. One of our friends babysat Susie so we got to go just the two of us. Very magical!

(I tried to take pictures of us but it was too dark!)

As of late

What we've been up to as of late!

I went to the Mesa temple pageant with the young women. It was really great.

We switched Susanna to a forward facing car seat. It's fun looking back and seeing that smile. (I took this picture in the passenger seat, don't worry).

Very focused

I had a birthday! It was a good one, too. Paul made me breakfast for each meal of the day.. it's my favorite meal after all. We had hash browns, and french toast, and scrambled eggs. He made a chocolate cake with home made frosting and all (he only needed a little help :) ). I got Beauty and the Beast and Disney on Ice tickets for my birthday along with a few other things from family and friends.

Another great birthday treat was my little brother's visit. Logan came down to Phoenix for his Spring Break.

At the zoo

At Midwestern

We had so much fun, Susie was exhausted!

At the park

We took turns jumping off the swings.

Logan's jump was much more impressive.

Paul on the monkey bars.

I have a cousin who works at an indoor shooting range. He was able to get us a great discount. Logan took a girl out in our ward so we doubled. It was a lot of fun!

Happy Easter!

I made this gorgeous cake myself!

Susanna and Paul had a little Easter egg hunt this morning.