Month: July 2013

Cooking Adventures: Curried zucchini with kidney beans, pole beans and garlic; vegan

Aynaria 4 Comments

A few days ago, I cooked about four cups of dried kidney beans.  Some of it was made into the red kidney beans with brown rice dish, and the rest was packed away into my Pyrex glass storage containers and put into our deep freezer for a later time.

 

Kidney beans, zucchini_1
Curried zucchini with kidney beans, pole beans and garlic.

 

This morning I decided to cook some of the kidney beans, but I realized there weren’t too much left, What to do?

Kidney beans, zucchini_2
This is delicious! Next time, I’ll add some sweet bell peppers and perhaps some habanero…

 

No worries, to the leftover kidney beans, I added pole beans, zucchini and garlic… fresh from the garden! We haven’t pulled up our onions from the garden (yet) so I used store bought onions. I added some seasonings like curry, cumin, and cayenne.

What happened to all those kidney beans?

So why didn’t I have many kidneys left? Last evening, my ten-year old daughter had prepared her very own meal with some of the kidney beans. She ate her meal and offered me some, which I politely refused since I wasn’t hungry. I will try some today. Bottom line, she was proud of her dish that she made it without my help. It smelled delicious. I’m looking forward to trying it later today.

What do you eat when your “cleansing”?

Occasionally, I’ll have people ask me what foods I eat when I’m on a cleanse. I really don’t deviate unless I’m juicing everything. I simply eat what I always eat, which is whole foods with minimal processed foods. I guess you could say,  the “extra cleansing” aspect is the herbs that I use in addition to my healthy eating lifestyle.

Being a vegetarian/vegan doesn’t automatically mean you’re healthy…

You don’t have to be vegetarian or vegan to eat healthy. Truth be told, I’ve encountered a lot of vegetarians/vegans who made extremely unhealthy choices. The key is making healthy food choices, regardless of your eating preferences.

Adventures in knitting: Teeny tiny knitting needles; Hiya Hiya Steel Sharp 9″ fixed circular knitting needle

Aynaria 1 Comment

I love knitting with  tiny needles, I’m not talking about the width- which is size 0, I mean the actual needle length.

Hiya Hiya Steel Sharp 9" fixed circular knitting needle
Hiya Hiya Steel Sharp 9″ fixed circular knitting needle

 

Too give you an idea at how small some of my Hiya Hiya Steel Sharp 9″ fixed circular knitting needles are, I snapped a picture, see, aren’t they tiny? The actual needle is less than 2″. These knitting needles are so tiny that if you were some distance away, it doesn’t look like I have anything in my hands.

 

Hiya Hiya Steel Sharp 9 knitting circular needles_2

 

Look at it compared to my 5″ Hiya Hiya sharp needle, huge difference right? Initially I purchased my 9″ Hiya Hiya needles to make socks/mittens, but to be perfectly honest, I much prefer knitting two at a time (when it comes to things such at that) and so the tiny 9″ needles have been set aside for other projects, such as tiny circular outfits for dolls and perhaps NICU babies?

Last week, I knit an outfit with my size 0 Hiya Hiya Steel Sharp 9″ fixed circular knitting needles and this week, I made a doll hat with my size 0 size 0 Hiya Hiya Steel Sharp 60″ fixed circular knitting needles. I couldn’t knit the hat with the 9″ knitting needles, since the hat would have been much too big for the doll that was receiving the knitted hat.

 

Red Kidney beans with brown rice and vegetables; vegan

Aynaria 1 Comment

My daughter loves bean dishes and so yesterday I made her a simple dish with red kidney beans, brown rice, vegetables from our garden, spices and a a splash or two of balsamic vinegar.

Red Kidney beans with veggies and balsamic vinegar_2

 

And while I thought I’d have plenty left over to turn into a chilly. This is all that remains. No worries, since I cook a lot of dry beans at one time and store what I don’t use for later, I’ll just grab some recently frozen beans from the freezer and make my chili today.

 

In other news…

I’ve received an award

About a week ago, could be longer, I received an award from Curls & Q. My post response is still in draft mode. I thought I’d be able to release it last weekend, but that didn’t happen. I should (hopefully) be finished it this weekend.

Cleansing update; Lost some weight even though I wasn’t trying

I lost four pounds on my cleanse. I’m not overweight, so wasn’t trying to lose anything. I haven’t modified my diet, so that’s not the reason for the weight loss. Depending on the cleanse, sometimes you might shed a few pounds,  since you’re eliminating stored crap. 😉 Seriously, who wants that to stay inside of them, not me! Within the next few weeks, I’m hoping to write about what I do when I embark on a cleanse. To be perfectly honest, it’s not much different than what I normally do since I do eat healthy…

  • Eat plenty of fresh vegetables and fruits; I consume mainly whole foods
  • Eat healthy snacks
  • Only consume healthy fats
  • No vegetarian/vegan “fake” meats
  •  Very little processed food
  • No deep fried foods
  • Water is usually my drink of choice
  • Drink vegetable/fruit juices and smoothies

But on occasion, I do add some extra components, such as herbs and increase in enemas, to flush out unnecessary crap. 😉

Next month, I’ll be doing a series of colonic. It’s been a while since I’ve done them, perhaps eight years? The good news is because of their increasing popularity I’m seeing more of them in Maryland. In fact, the closest one (now) is only 15 minutes away, that’s much better than 40 minutes. Before I do anything that affects my body, I do a lot of research. Some concepts, that I practice in my normal routine (herbs, enema, juicing, etc.,) is not new to me since they’ve been a part of my lifestyle since I was a child. With my insatiable desire to research anything that interests me, I stay occupied keeping on top of things.

 

Cooking adventures: Nori rolls stuffed with black bean & veggies; vegan

Aynaria 2 Comments

This past Monday, I received the nori sheets that I’d ordered.

It was a surprise for my daughter. She loves nori! My daughter immediately started snacking on a plain sheet of nori.

Vegan-Nori-rolls_1
Nori stuffed with black bean and vegetables

 

And I made stuffed nori rolls.

Vegan - Black beans and vegetables_2
Vegan: Black Bean and Vegetables

 

I used the leftover stir fried black bean and veggies as the filling. It turned out very nice. I think next time, I’ll add sliced sweet peppers and grated carrots.

Believe Big: Mugs for Cancer Patients; update

Aynaria 2 Comments

If you read my recent post, you’ll know that this past weekend, my daughter, her friend and I painted mugs for cancer patients.

I was thrilled to see that Amazing Glaze posted the mugs that the group from our Lutheran Church had made. These mugs will be given to Believe Big, who will then distribute them to cancer patients..

Believe Mugs
Mugs painted for cancer patients

We had a great time, looking forward to going back and making gift items for loved ones.

Adventures in Cleansing; Staying healthy… naturally

Aynaria 2 Comments
whole psyllium husk
whole psyllium husk

Taking herbs, clay, enemas, vinegar and many other natural remedies have seem to always been part of my life.

My mother used many within our household. It’s a bit interesting, since now she rarely uses any of them.  Whereas I, on the other hand, have picked up where she left off. Because of me,  my father has become interested in natural alternatives again. He’s familiar with them much before he married my mom.  His mom (my grandmother) used them religiously in their household.

My grandmother was a short Black/Irish/Indian lady, even tinier than me. I’m guessing she was perhaps 4’10” since I could look down on her from my lofty height of 5″.

Over the years, I’ve chatted with  one of my favorite blog buddies (Jennifer) about this topic and others via email and occasionally blog postings. Today, I told her I’d start  writing about my cleansing experiences and in some cases my skepticism about certain treatments here at Celebrate Life.

wonder-comics-1947 - Repulsive

Since a few topics/results might be repulsive to some (I find it fascinating) I’ll be sure to hide that part of the posts behind a more tag.

For the past several years, I’ve taken numerous courses in alternative therapy. Natural healing, like aromatherapy has always fascinated me. Anything I’m interested in I’ll research thoroughly.

Food adventures: Healthy Snacks; raisins and ginger with raw; walnuts, sunflower and pumpkin seeds

Aynaria 2 Comments

Recently, I was asked what type of snacks we eat in our household. I know we’re different from some in that we don’t eat a lot of the empty calorie snack foods that flood the market.

For myself, it makes no sense putting something in my body that’s just going to be registered as “empty calories” with the lovely benefit of adding other negatives that my body most likely doesn’t need.

Healthy Snack sunflower, pumpkin, walnuts, raisins, and ginger
Healthy Snack: raisins and ginger with raw; walnuts, sunflower and pumpkin seeds

 

A few moments ago, I  combined all these ingredients to make a simple but delicious and healthy snack for my daughter. She loves it. I wonder if she’ll share with her mom? 😉