Caution: Zombies Ahead

October 23rd, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Fitness - (14 Comments)

We survived!

We Did It

Literally, anyway.

Our day started in the car where we enjoyed breakfast in the form of pumpkin oats and lunch in the form of hummus, veggies,

Breakfast in the Car And Lunch

pita chips and my favorite portable protein; hard boiled eggs.

Pita Chips Portable Protein

Five hours later, we finally made it to Zombie Land

Caution Zombies Ahead

in time for our 4 o’clock wave start.

Start

We decided we were all fast enough to be Entrees. (vs. Fast appetizers or Slow desserts.)

Entree

Fat is Your Friend

September 1st, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Healthy Habits - (4 Comments)

I just read a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine from June of this year concerning the changes in diet and lifestyle and long-term weight gain in women and men.

More than 120,000 healthy men and women were observed over the course of 20 years.  Their change in weight was evaluated at 4 year intervals.

The results of the study showed that within each 4-year period, study participants gained an average of just over 3 pounds.  (Ever notice how easily your weight can creep up over the years?)  With a 3 pounds gain being the average – a 4 lb weight loss at one end of the spectrum and 12 lb weight gain at the other end.

How to Eat More Vegetables

August 30th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Healthy Habits - (7 Comments)

Once upon a time I always ate processed, snacky type foods like Kashi crackers, pretzels or frozen, baked french fries as my “side” at lunch.  While those are certainly better than some foods and are of course OK once in a while – one of the best habits I ever created for myself was learning to automatically put vegetables on my plate instead.

A pile of steamed veggies, vegetable sticks, a side salad – I don’t even miss crackers or pretzels anymore and don’t feel like I’m depriving myself either.

Lunch Time Law

August 24th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Lunch - (2 Comments)

An amusement park excursion was on the docket for today. And like most day trips, a packed lunch was the first order of business on the agenda.

It is at this juncture that I would like to present our midday meal + snacks for inspection:

Lunch Time Evidence

Exhibit A: Carrot sticks

Exhibit B: Homegrown grape tomatoes and green pepper slices

Exhibit C: Standard kid packed-lunch fare = two sunbutter and jelly sandwiches on Ezekiel bread, cut into quarters

Exhibit D: Bare bean butt hummus (2 cans, 22 minutes! I’m improving!)

Cucumber Water

April 26th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Vegetable Lovin' - (10 Comments)

Once upon a time, (in March) a couple of little gals traveled two and a half hours north to hit up the city of Toronto for a long weekend.

Mezmerized

One of the many kid-friendly tourist stops we made on our trip was the Royal Ontario Museum – a totally cool place where the kids made amazing discoveries in the gift shop and I made amazing discoveries in the cafeteria.

You see, it was in the cafeteria of the Royal Ontario Museum that I stole the most fantastic idea ever:

Cucumber Slices

Cucumber Water.

I’ve written casually about my favorite way to make Brussels sprouts before, but now I feel that this vegetable dish deserves an official post of its own because:

1.  I make them all the time and have therefore seriously improved my method

2.  I want to flesh out each step that goes into preparing Brussels sprouts in this manner

3.  Cooking vegetables can be highly meditative – as I will now demonstrate

OK.  Before we get started, let’s take a couple of deep, cleansing breaths.  In through your nose… out through your mouth. Yes, that’s it.  Very good.

A Time for Fish

November 3rd, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (14 Comments)

Earlier this week we met up with some of our unschooling, nature loving friends for a salmon run adventure.

We were the first to arrive,

Salmon Run

so we figured out how to keep ourselves entertained as we waited for our friends to join us.

tongue

Smile

One by one a colorful gang of kids showed up,

Fall Day

and then the creek walking and fish stalking began.

Colorful Friends

SVA

Right around this time every year, the salmon make their way back up the creeks and streams in this area to spawn,

gazPACH!!o! Gazuntite.

August 17th, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Vegetable Lovin' - (5 Comments)

Don’t be fooled. Gazpacho is not cold, raw soup. That’s a lie. Gazpacho is a vegetable slurpee.

‘Round these parts, tomatoes are in abundance right now. If you too have been looking at the slew of tomatoes on your counter thinking “what the FREAK am I going to do with all of those?!” every time you walk by them – then a tomato garlic cucumber pepper smoothie is for you.

I mean, gazpacho. Gazpacho is for you.

Tomatoes

A dear reader named Kenzie left a comment the other day asking me to do a post about how I make my salads and what I put in them. Turns out I just so happen to have “Big Giant Salad” on the dinner menu tonight! Here’s how I make a salad that will knock your (and maybe even someone else’s!) socks off.

Step 1: Start with a beautiful head of lettuce. Something OTHER than iceberg for crying out loud please. Red leaf is typically my head of choice, but green leaf or romaine work nicely.  Don’t be afraid to throw in spinach, arugula, dandelion or other mixed field greens too if you’ve got ’em.

Strawberry Shortcuts

June 13th, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Healthy Habits - (14 Comments)

In my continual quest to show my brood that food doesn’t grow on grocery store shelves, in conjunction with my desire to save money on produce whilst flying under the child labor law radar, we went strawberry picking this week.

Strawberry Sign

I’m trying to get you to believe that I’m this do-awesome-stuff-feed-my-kids-right-awesomely-incredible homeschooling mom, but really it was about getting the hell out of the house for a few hours and finding something different to do that wasn’t going to end with me paying a bunch of late fees to the library.

Child Labor