November Favorites 2015 | Healthy Food, Natural Deodorant, and More!

November has come to an end so that means it's time for monthly favorites! As always, I'm sharing my favorite seasonal foods, as well as a new coffee I tried, a natural deodorant, and a cool piece of jewelry.

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ITEMS MENTIONED (contains affiliate links)

Pomegranate Kale salad Kasandrinos Extra Virgin Olive Oil Apple cider Counter Culture natural sundried coffee Primal Pit Paste natural deodorant light and regular Infinity ring

Craft show vlog

Sarah Moran is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Recovering from a Halloween Candy Binge

For a lot of people, Halloween can come with a candy binge. So how do you get back on track after a Halloween candy binge while still staying healthy, physically and mentally. Here are a few things to think about.

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October Favorites 2015 | Healthy Food, Fun App, and More!

October is coming to and end and that means it's time to talk monthly favorites! This month I'm sharing my favorite healthy foods, an app I've been spending way too much time on, and more!

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6 Natural Remedies to Relieve Cold Symptoms

No one likes being sick and everyone wishes they could get over their cold faster. While you can't shorten the length of a cold once you get it, there are a few natural remedies you can use to relieve your symptoms and feel better.

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Caramel Apples without Corn Syrup

Caramel apples are a fun fall dessert, but most recipes use corn syrup or other weird ingredients. Not this one! You can make caramel apples only using real, whole food ingredients and they taste amazing! Here's how.

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Caramel Apples

Ingredients

6 medium apples

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup Sucanat or other unrefined cane sugar

1/2 cup honey

4 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Toppings such a crushed nuts or coconut (optional)

Special Equipment

Food/candy thermometer

Wooden sticks for handles

Directions

1. In a medium sized sauce pan combine heavy cream, Sucanat, honey, and butter.
2. Heat over medium heat, stirring frequently until all ingredients are dissolved.
3. Once ingredients are dissolved, cook caramel, stirring constantly, until the it reaches 245°F.
4. Remove caramel from heat, add vanilla extract, and stir to incorporate.
5. Line a baking sheet with parchment, a silicone baking mat, or aluminum foil. Prepare apples by inserting sticks into stem ends and placing on lined baking sheet.
6. Dip and roll apple in caramel until evenly coated. Once apple is coated, remove it from caramel and allow excess to drip back  into the pot.
7. Place coated apple on baking sheet to cool. Repeat with remaining apples.
8. Roll caramel coated apples in toppings, if desired. Place tray of finished apples in refrigerator to finish cooling.

Trick-or-Treating and Raising Healthy Kids

With Halloween comes Trick-or-Treating, but what do you do if you're a health conscious parent trying to raise healthy kids? Should you let your kids trick-or-treat? Ban it all together? Pay them for their candy? Here's my advice.

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How to Make Pumpkin Puree

Fall means pumpkin everything! If you're a pumpkin fan, why not make your own pumpkin puree at home? It's simple, easy, and you can use it the same way as you would the stuff from the can.

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Pumpkin Puree

Ingredients

1 or more whole pumpkins

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Remove stem from pumpkin and cut pumpkin in half.
3. Removes seeds and pulp from pumpkin with a spoon, ice cream scoop, your hands, etc. Set seeds aside to clean and roast later.
4. Slice pumpkin into smaller sections for roasting. If using a small pumpkin, slice into quarters.
5. Place pumpkin sections skin-side down on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 40 minutes or until done. Depending on how thick your pumpkin is, it might take a little longer. You'll know the pumpkin is done when you can easily pierce the pumpkin flesh with a fork.
6. Remove pumpkin from the oven and allow to cool.
7. Once cooled, removed pumpkin flesh from the skin with a spoon (or your hands) and place in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth.

Make Your House Smell Like Fall!

If you love all of the warm, cozy spices we use in the fall, you probably wish you could make your whole house smell like them. You totally can and all you need are a few simple ingredients that you probably already have!

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8 Tips to Prevent a Cold Naturally

Cold and flu season is coming up and no one wants to get sick. While there's no sure fire way to keep illness at bay, there are several things you can do to give yourself the best chance at fighting these viruses and not getting sick. Here are my 8 tips to prevent a cold naturally.

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August Farmers Market Haul!

 

One of my favorite places is the farmers market, especially during the transition from one season to the next. There are so many delicious fruits and veggies to choose from! Here's everything I got on my most recent farmers market trip in late August.

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Why Eat Seasonally?

One aspect of healthy eating that a lot of people miss is eating seasonally. Eating seasonally means eating the foods that are in season in your local area. Following a seasonal pattern with your meals has several benefits, including better nutrition and more money in your pocket. Plus, it's the best way to not get bored with your meals.

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Fall CSA Week 10

This is the last Fall CSA box! Here's everything I got. Items are listed below, starting at the top and moving left to right.

1. Lacinato kale
2. Arugula
3. Napa cabbage
4. Cauliflower
5. Sweet potatoes
6. Baby sweet potatoes
7. Decorative corn
8. Dried hot peppers
9. Globe radishes

The peppers and large sweet potatoes went away to be eaten another time. We snacked on the radishes and the decorative corn got a place propped up in our kitchen.

The first meal is (you guessed it) eggs! You know I love me some eggs and we couldn't NOT have them in the final week. I used the kale for a yummy salad and roasted the baby sweet potatoes.

This meal is what happens when I don't plan well. We were supposed to have homemade pizza, but then I realized that we didn't have any cheese. So what did I do instead? Homemade breadsticks. That plus an arugula salad and marinara sauce for dipping was dinner. My hubby thought it was awesome.

For this last one, I broke down a chicken into parts and marinated it in a combination of tamari, garlic, ginger, honey, and water, and baked it in the oven. I cooked down the marinade to kill any nasties and used that as the sauce for the cabbage. Roasted baby sweet potatoes (from a previous CSA box) completed the meal.

And that's it for the 2014 CSA season! I hope these posts gave you a little peek at what dinner looks like at my house and some ideas for your seasonal produce. Here's to all of those yummy veggies!

Fall CSA Week 9

Here's everything I got in my box! All items are listed below, starting at the top and moving left to right.

1. Sweet potatoes
2. Savoy cabbage
3. Salad mix
4. Turnips
5. Watermelon radishes
6. Baby sweet potatoes
7. Cauliflower
8. Parsley

The sweet potatoes went into storage (we've got quite the pile at this point) and we pickled the cauliflower. It might sound weird but pickled cauliflower is one of my favorite things. : D

We ate the salad mix with some chopped apple and pulled pork I made in the slow cooker. It was delicious and made for a super easy dinner because the slow cooker did all of the work for me.

We also had one of our favs: egg biscuits. For the vegetable I sauteed the turnip greens.

The turnips and watermelon radishes went into the roasted vegetable mix for Thanksgiving dinner. We all agreed that the food this year was the best we've ever done. It just seems to keep getting better each time.

I used the leftover turkey bones to make some broth which made the perfect base for cabbage soup. In addition to the giant head of savoy cabbage, I threw in a few potatoes and some leftover chicken we had in the fridge.

Fall CSA Week 10

Coke Selling Milk?!?

Coke has announced a new product in it's lineup: milk. This new milk, called Fairlife, is filtered to have more protein, more calcium, and less sugar. But is it really necessary? [x_video type="16:9, 5:3, 5:4, 4:3, 3:2" m4v="" ogv="" poster="" hide_controls="" autoplay="" embed='' no_container="true"]

How to seed a pomegranate

Garden Keeper's Pie

November Favorites 2014 | Healthy Food, Nail Polish, and a Movie!

November has come to an end, which means it's time for my monthly favorites! I'm sharing all of my favorite healthy foods, nail polish, and movie from the month of November. [x_video type="16:9, 5:3, 5:4, 4:3, 3:2" m4v="" ogv="" poster="" hide_controls="" autoplay="" embed='' no_container="true"]

Fall CSA Week 8

Here's everything I got in my box! Items are listed below, starting at the top and moving left to right.

1. Mixed field greens
2. Arugula
3. Spring raab
4. Sunshine winter squash
5. Sweet potatoes
6. Cabbage
7. Italian Corno di Torro sweet peppers
8. Jalapenos

The jalapenos went into homemade hot sauce and the sunshine winter squash went into storage for another day.

The cabbage went into some homemade sauerkraut. I made a whole video on that, if you're interested.

I roasted some of the sweet potatoes and served the arugula as salad with some scrambled eggs. Simple and delicious.

For pizza night I used a sweet pepper as the pizza topping and had the mixed field greens as salad with a tahini dressing.

This one can be added to the evidence that I'm seriously bad at taking pictures of soup. This is a peanut sweet potato soup I made that was quite tasty. The only CSA item in this one was (you guessed it) the sweet potatoes.

Eggs on the menu again! This time fried, with roasted sweet potatoes and sauteed spring raab.

I promise we didn't actually have pizza twice in one week (although I wouldn't mind it if we did). This was a straggler meal that I used to eat up the rest of those peppers about a week later. I lightly cooked them so they didn't loose all of their crunch.

Fall CSA Week 9

Fall CSA Week 7

Here's everything I got in my box! Items are listed below, starting at the top and moving left to right.

1. Kale
2. Arugula
3. Dried black eyed peas
4. Yellow roc d'or beans
5. Broccoli
6. Eggplant
7. Sweet potatoes
8. Jalapenos
9. Turnips

I reserved the peppers for homemade hot sauce and shelled the black eyed peas to save for later.

I used the kale to make a salad with tahini dressing and roasted some of the sweet potatoes. With a fried egg, it was perfect.

Ok, this picture didn't turn out the best. I guess I need to work on my soup photography skills. The roc d'or beans, homemade chicken stock, and some leftover chicken all went into the pot, along with some onion and garlic. Yum!

Pizza night should look familiar if you've been checking back each week for these posts. This week, the salad was arugula with a homemade vinaigrette.

Lots of the veggies went into this meal. I roasted the eggplant, turnips, and broccoli and sauteed the turnip greens. We had fried eggs again, which some people might not like, but I love eggs so I'm fine with it. :D

Fall CSA Week 8

Are People Who Cook Healthier?

A recent study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health looked at whether people who cook meals at home are healthier than those who eat out or buy ready-to-eat food products. Here's the breakdown of what they found. [x_video type="16:9, 5:3, 5:4, 4:3, 3:2" m4v="" ogv="" poster="" hide_controls="" autoplay="" embed='' no_container="true"]

Are people who cook healthier?

Making gravy from scratch

Perennial Plate Victory Garden series on PBS

Fall CSA Week 6

I have to say, this week, we had some seriously delicious meals. Here's everything I got in my box! All items are listed below, starting at the the top and moving left to right.

1. Salad mix
2. Assorted cooking greens
3. Yellow roc d'or beans
4. Red and green bell peppers
5. Fingerling potatoes
6. Garlic chives
7. French breakfast radishes
8. Baby sweet potatoes
9. Sweet potatoes

The radishes were eaten on their own for a snacky snack.

I roasted the fingerling potatoes and tossed them with the garlic chives. Along with that we had grass-fed burgers and the salad mix.

All of the bell peppers went into a frittata and then I sauteed the bagged greens as our side. This was a great quick meal.

I roasted the beans because that's delicious and made a honey-mustard roasted chicken with some sweet potato fries. This was so so yummy, even if it does look a little boring color-wise.

The remaining sweet potatoes and baby sweet potatoes all went into storage for the future. We've got quite the sweet potato pile accumulating.

Controversial Milk Ads + Thanksgiving Recipes

The people over at Got Milk are running some radio ads that I just can't get behind. Also in this Real Food Roundup, I'm sharing a couple recipes that would be perfect for your Thanksgiving meal. [x_video type="16:9, 5:3, 5:4, 4:3, 3:2" m4v="" ogv="" poster="" hide_controls="" autoplay="" embed='' no_container="true"]

Got Milk Radio Ads

Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad with Bacon, Meyer Lemon, and Tart Dried Cherries

Pomegranate Cider Spritzer