Category Archives: grocery haul

Raw Grocery Haul and Some Presents

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Hey guys! Here I am with my first 80/10/10 grocery haul. This one isn’t huge because I have some frozen fruit and some fruit left in my fridge. I have a feeling I’m going to run out before the end of the week but I think it’ll take a little time to get the hang of how much to buy, how to rotate and keep as much fresh as possible. With all that said, check out what I got!

Ok so veggies first: 3 heads of romaine, green onion, 2 large cucumbers, 8 tomatoes, and a container of sun-dried tomatoes ($1.80!!). I was intending on getting zucchini and yellow squash as well but they didn’t have any (wtf?!) so I’ll grab some later in the week or next week.

2 bunches of bananas, dates ($4.99 for that big container of DELILAH(!!) dates!), 5 pink lady apples (to join a few I already have), and 4 peaches for a treat. I also have 3 pears and…

the piece de resistance…

A CASE OF 16 CHAMPAGNE MANGOES!!!! The best part of this lovely purchase? I got it for $7.99. That’s right, 16 mangoes for 8 bucks. I won’t lie, I was a little smug when I saw that Whole Foods was selling a single Champagne Mango for $1.79. Lesson of the week. Shop at the Asian Market as much as possible! That’s where I got the inexpensive mangoes, sun-dried tomatoes and dates. Yup.

So I decided that I wanted to buy myself some gifts to make this transition easier on myself :) I went to Kohl’s after Whole Foods and not surprisingly they had nothing that I was looking for. I wanted to get two of the three things from Kohl’s because I inherited a gift card from my mom since she doesn’t shop there. So I came home and ordered these two things online (photos taken from the Kohl’s website):

This is a 3-in-1 Vegetable Peeler. I wanted this one because it has a Julienne Peeler which is a great way to make zucchini noodles without a spiralizer. It kind of worked out perfectly since the store didn’t even have zucchini so I don’t have to worry about waiting for shipping.

I also got a 5-inch Ceramic Knife for chopping all of my beautiful produce! I’ve heard that ceramic knives are really great for a bunch of reasons including it’s sharpness, durability, hardness, weight (they are lightweight) and it doesn’t give your food a metallic taste. I can’t wait to start chopping with this. I should have it by next week :)

I only paid $20 out of pocket for these things which is really good. The last present I’m going to buy myself is a big salad bowl (bamboo or wood). I want to do this at the store though since I’m pretty picky and I want to be able to see the size so I’ll be getting to Bed Bath & Beyond (my favorite store ever) soon to check it out!

And before I go… yesterday my family spent Father’s Day together so you know I have to show you some adorable Delilah pics!

Chowing down on some yummy corn!!

She is so funny. She’s only two and a half and she’s incredibly smart and incredibly funny :) And of course she has the most beautiful face ever! Love this kid :)

And that’s all I’ve got for today. I’ll be back tomorrow to show you what a day of 80/10/10 looks like! I hope you all have a great Monday :)

Monday Grocery Haul and Prep Day

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Hey everyone! Hope you are all well and had a great weekend! It seems like Monday posts have turned into grocery hauls and prep! Today is no different except that I’m throwing my meals in as well :) I accomplished so much today and I’m really glad I did because I know now that this Monday prep makes all the difference in meal planning for the week.

So let’s check out the grocery haul first!

First up is the (all organic) produce! Broccoli, THREE bunches of swiss chard (I’m not making the same mistake as last week, lol!), shiitake mushrooms, honeycrisp apples, tomatoes, cauliflower and carrots.

Macro sushi, GoodBelly (LOVING this stuff!), veggie chips, chocolate covered cacao nibs (I figured it was a good way to indulge my chocolate cravings), brown rice tortillas and unsweetened organic peanut butter. Did you know it’s IMPOSSIBLE to find any tortilla chips without corn and/or wheat? So annoying so I guess if necessary I’ll just have to make my own.

After Whole Foods one very important thing was left on my list since I couldn’t find any at WFs. It drives me crazy that they change what they carry all the time but it worked out in my favor. Trader Joe’s isn’t too far out of the way so I made a super quick trip there and got…

Dolmas!!! Of course! I grabbed two because I know myself haha. I also picked up a back of roasted plantain chips. These things are AMAZING. Oh and TJs dolmas are almost half price of WFs. Just sayin.

After Trader Joe’s I came home, ate breakfast then started prepping for the week. I’ll show you breakfast in a bit but here’s what I made:

I don’t make the same mistake twice so I made a HUGE batch of Sauteed Chard. Three bunches of chard huge. Came out just as delicious as the last time and it’ll last me the week!

Another big ass batch of Cheesy Cauliflower Mash! Can’t go wrong with this delicious stuff!

I also made a big batch of my first attempt at gluten free lo mein ;) I used the buckwheat ramen noodles I bought last week along with onions, broccoli and shiitake mushrooms. I used the same seasonings as the greens and I think it came out good? The noodles are a little sticky and gummy but otherwise it should be ok. I’ll need a find a more sturdy noodle but the two servings I made for this week will be tasty with these ramen :)

So I have a great start for meals for this week and had some great meals today! For the rest of this incredibly long post I’ll be showing you those :)

For breakfast I had some of the Farmer’s Market granola with almond milk and strawberries. The strawberries were so delicious. I really don’t want to say this but I wish I could say the same about the granola. I feel so bad saying it but I think she used salted nuts and/or seeds so the granola was really salty. All I could taste was salt. I didn’t even finish the third of a cup that I had in the bowl and I don’t know if I’ll be eating it again. Which is kind of a huge waste because it was really expensive.

Lunch was my delicious Macro Sushi. So good. Haven’t had this for so long but I guess WFs started carrying it again. Maybe that’s what replaced the stuffed grape leaves lol.

Speaking of stuffed grape leaves… ;) An afternoon snack of stuffed grape leaves, veggie chips and hummus. Delicious.

For dinner I made 1/2 cup of gluten free pasta with cauliflower mash and greens. So freaking good.

And that’s finally the end of the post, ha! This one ended up being super long but I just had so much to show you! I hope you all are having a good Monday and I should be back tomorrow with more meals!

Have a great night!

Grocery Haul & Prep

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Hey everyone. Thank you all so much for your kind words over the past few days. It means a lot and I really appreciate it. But now I’m back and moving forward so I have a beautiful grocery haul to show you and some prep I did to make it easier to grab some beautiful healthy meals in the upcoming week. All of the produce I got is organic (so I don’t have to write organic in front of everything lol).

Swiss chard, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, garlic, cucumber and tomatoes.

Bananas, strawberries, grapes (inspired by Ingrid), carrots and pink lady apples.

I decided to give Ezekiel bread another try and have grown to love it so it’s the only kind of bread I eat anymore. Needed another loaf because I knew I’d be finishing the one I had with some of the prep I did (you’ll see that in a minute). I also decided to take the GoodBelly 12 Day Challenge. I’m coming off of that 10 day cycle of antibiotics and I’m still feeling pretty run down so I figured it was the perfect time to get those probiotics in me. GoodBelly sends you some coupons to help you prepare for the challenge and will send you more after. The Tropical Orange flavor was the only gluten free one they had in the store so I grabbed two of those to get my through the first 8 days of the challenge. I’ll be starting that tomorrow.

Some Daiya Cheddar, ketchup, coconut oil cooking spray, buckwheat ramen (all of the buckwheat soba had wheat in it as well) and some mochi.

After I got home and put everything away I did about 3 hours worth of prep work for the week (which includes all of the cleaning I had to do in between everything). Here’s what I made:

 This is the Sauteed Chard from Crazy Sexy Kitchen. Can’t go wrong with some beautiful swiss chard sauteed with onion and garlic with lots of nooch. It cooked down so much though I’m going to make sure to add lots more chard the next time I make it. The flavor is absolutely delicious though.

A big batch of Cheesy Cauliflower Mash. This will make a lot of great meals during the week.

Some French Toast using Ezekiel sprouted grain bread. The recipe still needs some tweaking but I will make sure to post it when it’s perfect. This batch is still pretty damn tasty though.

Finally, I made Gabby’s Shredded Brussels Sprout Salad. Well I got it started at least. She says it is best after it marinates in the dressing for a while so I made it today to give it time to soak in those flavors. I’ll add in the pear when I’m ready to serve so I can chop it fresh. Doesn’t it look pretty.

So that’s what I’ve done so far today. I was at Whole Foods at the crack of dawn and cooking by 9:30 am. I got a lot done though which is great and will make it so easy to make great, healthy choices during the week.

Shen, this pic is for you. I know you wanted a pic of Delilah so I did one better and got the cutest pic ever of her holding Tyler. She’s getting so big, it’s crazy!

Alright, that’s all for this epic post. I’m planning on getting back to posting on a fairly regular basis now and I’m planning on focusing on getting back to eating a gluten free, clean diet. I think this week’s haul will definitely help me do that.  Hope you are all well and have a great day.

 

Grocery Haul & Some Prep

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Hey everyone! Hope you all had a nice weekend and a Happy Mother’s Day! A belated Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mommies out there (to human and fur babies!). I had a nice day with my mom, sister in law and niece. Exhausting but nice ;)

After the festivities I decided to make a run to Whole Foods (in the evening… I never go in the evening lol). I remembered I have an appointment with my Rheumatologist in the morning at the most inconvenient time so I figured I’d get it out of the way so I don’t have to drive far in the opposite direction of my other errands after.

I grabbed some great stuff! Hopefully my goals of fresh, clean eating will be reflected in this haul ;)

Some yummy veggies! A HUGE container of spring mix for lots of salads, frozen organic broccoli and peas and carrots, tomatoes and a giant organic english cucumber. You’ll see what the frozen veggies are for in a minute ;)

Pretty fruit! A cute little organic seedless watermelon, cherries (!!!!), bananas, bosc pears, mangos and peaches. I went with the intention of getting lots of strawberries but they had not one container of strawberries!! Apparently it’s a big Mother’s Day ingredient because they were cleaned out! I rationalized the ridiculous price of the cherries by saying it’s probably the same I’d spend on 2 containers of strawberries.

Just a quick funny story from Whole Foods too! I walked in and was picking out my cherries (picking out produce is a process for me… I’ve very picky lol) and a guy walked up to me and was like I’m so sorry can I ask you a question? So I said yes of course and he points over to the greens area of the produce which was a few feet away and asked me which of them was parsley. He said the sign says parsley but I don’t know which it is. Lol! It was kind of precious so I grabbed some parsley for him and he said “thank you so much, my mom asked me to get parsley and I have no idea what it is.” It was really funny and it definitely made me chuckle. If I had to guess his age I’d guess maybe low to mid twenties?

So anyway, today I started off my day with an appointment with my Rheumatologist. Same old, taking blood (11 vials!!) and checking everything out. After that I ran some errands then came home to prep some food for the week!

I started off by making a huge batch of un-fried rice!

Isn’t it pretty?! This is going to last me a while. Which is great because I’m planning on trying to get back into my gym routine which leaves even less time for me to prep. It’s part of the reason why I plan on eating low maintenance meals of fruits and salads, etc.

Close up of my rice. There’s brown rice, my frozen peas and carrots, shiitake mushrooms and four chopped up green onions. I seasoned it very simply with a sprinkle of gluten free tamari and some garlic.

After I made my rice I cut up my watermelon, got my cherries all washed and then made:

this GIANT salad for tomorrow’s dinner! I have work then I’m going to the gym after so to deal with making a salad and dressing after taking a shower is the last thing I want to do. Instead I put the salad together today and will blend up my dressing fresh tomorrow before I eat it :) This one contains tons of my spring mix, some romaine, carrot and cucumber. I’m really trying to focus on eating a ton of greens!

So that’s all I’ve got for you today! I’m going to head off to the gym in a little bit. My goal is to do an hour of cardio. Totally doable. I find that getting my butt out the door is the hardest part. Going to make a new playlist to listen to, maybe that will help :)

Hope you all had a great Monday!

Kaeng Raeng Cleanse Grocery Haul

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Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing well and had a great week so far! I forgot to update you all but my tooth never healed and actually got much worse so I ended up having to schedule the root canal which actually just happened. I can’t feel half of my face typing this, lol. It actually is perfect timing as I received my Kaeng Raeng Cleanse in the mail yesterday and I’m planning on starting it this weekend! In order to prepare I went to Whole Foods this morning before the dentist so I wouldn’t have to attempt to speak to anyone with a numb face ;)

So before I get into the haul just a little info about the cleanse. It consists of three smoothies a day that include a mix that they send. You can just use the contents of the packet or you can blend in fruit, greens, etc. You can supplement the smoothies with raw fruits and veggies so you get to chew as well as sip which is pretty great for a cleanse. I’m supposed to be careful about chewing on the one side since I have a temporary filling so the sipping and chewing mostly soft fruit and veggies will definitely be easy.

Anyway, here is my beautiful haul that I’m excited about!

Before I even walked into the store I was excited to see boxes of clementines sitting right out front! These are such a great snack so I grabbed a box :)

Lots of organic berries to snack on and add to my smoothies! Two containers of strawberries and some blackberries.

5 organic Pink Lady apples, 4 organic mangoes (2/$4!!) and some frozen peaches for smoothie additions.

Giant container of baby spinach, lots of carrots (may be the only thing I really have to be careful chewing) and a cucumber.

Isn’t it a great haul! I love looking at all of the colors :)

Here’s some stuff from the past few days too:

Here’s an amazing smoothie I made the other day. All I used was frozen strawberries, frozen pineapple and one and a half bananas. I blended with a half cup of water and it was so thick and creamy! Plus I love this mug ;)

That was a snap of the weather on Tuesday. It was warm, sunny and beautiful. My ideal weather is about 70 degrees and sunny so it was warm but not unbearable (not a fan of 90+ degrees!). It was such a nice day and I couldn’t believe how quickly it warmed up like that!

So that’s it for now! I’m back in my PJs laying around watching Role Models (which randomly happened to be on) waiting for the novacaine to wear off. I hope you are all doing well and I’ll be back soon to update you!

*Edited to add – OMG the novacaine just wore off and holy shit! It hurts! I don’t remember it feeling like this ha! Maybe that means I need to treat myself to some ice cream for dinner tonight ;) Which means I’d have to go get it. Does gluttony or laziness prevail? We shall see.

Grocery Haul and Prep Day

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Hey everyone! Look at that, it only took 3 days for me to post again. Getting better, right? ;) I’ve got lots of pictures for you today since I spent all morning grocery shopping then immediately cooking some of the haul to try and pull myself out of the lazy trend I’ve been following. I think it should work out well.

First, check out the haul:

Broccoli, bananas, spring mix, carrots, eggplant, cauliflower, cucumber and zucchini.

Some dolmas, trail mix (recommended by Maud!) and two individual packets of Sacha Inchi seeds. I’ve seen the large bags before but I love buying single serving stuff because it is a great grab and go snack. I was so excited to see the individual servings, I’d never seen them before!

Immediately after unpacking I started prepping some food to make easy meals during the week. My oven got a workout today ;)

First up I made a batch of my Gluten Free Carrot Spice Muffins. I used a larger muffin tin to make a nice sized muffin like you’d get at a bakery so it only made 5. Which is fine because these are a once in a while treat… most are in the freezer right now.

I plugged it in to a calorie counting app and it says that with 5 servings, each muffin has 330 calories. I feel like that’s a great number in comparison to the calories you’d normally find in a bakery muffin. They have no sugar, are sweetened with maple syrup and banana and have plenty of healthy fruit, veggies and nuts to fill you up. And they taste amazing.

Up next was a big batch or roasted veggies: zucchini, eggplant and mushrooms.

I plan on adding these veggies to salads, MAYBE pasta (as I’ve mentioned before I’m not a huge pasta eater but once in a while it’s good), as a side with dolmas and raw veggies, etc.

Finally, I made a big batch of roasted cauliflower. Can’t go wrong with a big batch of this in the fridge :)

Also, as a mini update, I hit pads with my trainer last Friday for the first time in probably 4-6 months. He had come up with these advanced combo drills and decided to use me as a guinea pig to see if they were doable/teachable. I was so excited because it was like I never stopped. I picked it up really quickly and he seemed really happy about it. It was really nice to know that what I feared was not my reality and that I didn’t forget everything that I had learned in 4 and a half years of boxing/kickboxing training. I’m so excited to get back in there again!

That’s about it for today. I’m going to do my best to post more often and get back to posting meals. Hopefully this prep will help me keep up with my healthy, clean meals this week which will hopefully help me feel better. Have a great day everyone!

Grocery Haul

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Hey everyone! Hope you are all staying warm and dry. It warmed up here for a minute and it’s back to being freezing with random snow. It’s actually snowing now.. or like a wintery mix kind of thing. Very strange lately!

I actually took this picture last Saturday when it randomly started snowing like crazy. It is what I see when I go to the studio door and look left lol. I thought it looked kind of cool :)

So anyway, today I woke up and made a very early trip to the grocery store. However, I decided to go to forego Whole Foods this week and make a trip to Fairway instead. Partially because it’s closer and partially because I thought a change of scenery would be nice. I love Whole Foods but I thought I’d change it up this week :)

Some half sour pickles, frozen pineapple chunks (I’ve been craving a Good Morning, Sunshine Smoothie like crazy!), broccoli, sliced shiitake mushrooms, a head of garlic (hidden) and some zucchinis.

Fresh almond butter, maple sugar (first place I’ve seen it, had to get it!), brown rice pasta, Ezekiel Bread (thought I’d give it a try to see how my body reacts to it), stuffed grape leaves (!!! been a while!) and some brown rice tortillas.

I went to my dentist today and he told me that he doesn’t feel I need a root canal just yet. He said that the cavity was deep and there is a pinpoint sized exposure of the nerve, but since I’m not in pain except for once in a while when I bite down the wrong way he thinks that it will heal up on it’s own. He said that it has only been a week and it may still just be irritated so that is pretty great news!

If you haven’t already done so, check out the Vegan Delish Giveaway I’m hosting! You have until Wednesday to enter :)

That’s all for today! I’ll be back tomorrow with some food. You better believe it’ll include some stuffed grape leaves and pickles ;)

Have a great night my friends!

Weekend Wrap Up

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Hello my friends! Thank you all so much for your kind and supportive comments on my last post. It always means so much to me :) I feel better now that I’m supplementing my raw veggies with some cooked grains and veggies and I added fruit back which has been great for my soul. That first orange was pretty magical, ha!

Anyway, there is no major theme for this post, just a little bit of everything. Let’s check out some stuff.

First up is a small grocery haul. Got some carrots, bananas, maple syrup (the only sweetener I’ll be using), gf low sodium tamari, unsweetened vanilla almond milk, brown rice cakes, kale and sweet potatoes.

A salad I forgot to show you in my raw haze. A raw taco salad with romaine, guac, tomato and raw walnut taco “meat.” It was good!

Been drinking lots of yummy spearmint tea. It is my absolute favorite. Switching it off with herbal teas so not to deal with too much caffeine. Always in my favorite mug :)

I received the newest issue of Marmalade Umlaut in the mail!! Read it the day I received it and absolutely loved it! Maud is so incredibly talented, thank you so much for sending it Maud!

And my favorite part of this weekend so far has been babysitting this handsome fellow! Definitely enjoyed the cuddles from this sweet pup.

And that’s it for now. I’m planning on showing you a full day of eats tomorrow. There will be a liquid lunch since I’ll be getting a cavity filled but I have a good one planned.

Hope you’ve all had a great weekend! Enjoy your night!

Mini Haul and A Plan

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Hey everyone! I know it’s been a while but I’m still around I promise. I have a few little side projects going on (small writing jobs, a small party favor job, blah blah) so I’ve been a bit busy. I’m kind of in a transition phase in terms of diet and after speaking with my trainer I decided to make a few changes to the plan. More on that later :)

First, here’s a small haul from Whole Foods this morning.

2 bunches of kale (never thought that would be the norm!), cauliflower, cucumbers, almonds, celery, avocados and zucchini.

And here’s a delicious meal I made the other day and had to share:

Extreme close up of my tofu scramble (tofu, spinach, black pepper, garlic powder and the last 1/8 cup of cheddar Daiya – I had no tofutti so I used the daiya and it was good!) and some roasted sweet potato fries. So good.

Ok, so I started training again once a week a few weeks ago. Wouldn’t you know it, my trainer has decided to start researching for me!! I thought it was so nice of him to take the time to do that. He brought me a lot of interesting information and we discussed diet changes. I had mentioned that I was planning on cutting out the sugar and he suggested that I do a 100% raw diet. No grains, no added sugars (but keep fruit)… basically fresh fruits, veggies, nuts, and seeds. I’ve decided to bring the two together and try a 100% raw diet with no grains and with limited fruit. I’m thinking about starting with just limiting to a low glycemic granny smith in my morning green juice with the option of a small piece of lower glycemic fruit for a morning snack (if necessary and only a few times a week, but I’m going to try and just stick with the apple in the juice). He said that he thinks a month of eating like this will help me control a lot of my symptoms.

I’m going to be working on transitioning into the raw diet within the next week or two. I’m still trying to get rid of some food I have in the house that I don’t want to waste and will need some time to prepare (the time and preparation is the hardest part of the raw diet) but I’m looking forward to seeing how it works! Be prepared for lots of large salads and kale, ha!

Anyway, hope you are all doing well! I lost two hours of my day today getting caught up in the Weather Channel and have some work to catch up on ;) Have a great night!

Grocery Haul and Illness

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Hey guys. This is going to be a quick one because I’m home sick today :( I think I have some sort of sinus infection. Been getting bad headaches and my face is actually tender to the touch so I’m just trying to knock it out today. Haven’t posted in a while so I wanted to show you a little something so here is a grocery haul.

Produce: Sweet potatoes, baby spinach, bananas, oranges, carrots, granny smith apples and scallions.

Groceries: Daiya Cheddar, dates, gf oat flour, cacao powder, cashew milk (I’ve been dying to try this stuff), Good Belly shots with probiotics, black rice noodles (for soba like dishes), dry roasted peanuts and gluten free tortillas.

That’s all I have. As a side note, this will be the last time you’ll see a lot of these items in my grocery haul. I’m just about ready to try the Anti Candida diet again which means I’ll be cutting ALL sugars (including fruit and starchy veggies), soy, certain nuts, etc. I plan on sticking pretty closely to this list of Foods To Eat and this list of Foods to Avoid. I anticipate this being a challenge but I’m ready for it. I’m just very tired of being sick so hopefully this will be a key to feeling better.

OK I need to stop looking at the computer so have a great day!