Vegetarian Buffalo "Wings"

You don't even miss the chicken!

I'd like to start off by saying that I'm not Vegetarian (or Vegan for that matter), but I do like veggies and I don't mind skipping meat most of the time. My buddy, Lauren, once decided she wanted to try being Vegan for a month and I joined her. It was not easy, but I learned a lot of fun recipes and I only really REALLY missed cheese. Real cheese. I tried the Vegan stuff and it was just slimy and not the right consistency. Maybe it's evolved since the last time I tried it...but OH the real stuff is so good.

Anyway, I found this recipe on Pinterest (where else?) and it originally comes from PETA. The only adaptation we made was to use fat free milk instead of water or soy milk...for no particular reason.

Cauliflower Buffalo Wings

1 cup fat free milk
1 cup flour (any kind will work—even gluten-free!)
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 head of cauliflower, chopped into golf ball sized pieces
1 cup buffalo or hot sauce (sounds like a lot, but you'll need it)
1 Tbsp. olive oil

Instructions:
-Preheat oven to 450*F.
- Combine the milk, flour and garlic powder in a bowl and stir until well combined.
- Coat the cauliflower pieces with the flour mixture and place in a shallow baking dish. Bake for 18 minutes.
- While the cauliflower is baking, combine your buffalo sauce and olive oil in a small bowl.
- Pour the hot sauce mixture over the baked cauliflower and continue baking for an additional 5-8 minutes.
- Serve with ranch dressing and celery sticks. Yum!

Makes 4 servings (we could barely finish half a serving!)

So filling!

I think this recipe is awesome! We just ate half of what is on the plate and are incredibly satisfied. The buffalo sauce was great and you can't even tell you're not eating chicken. Maybe next time we will try another sauce just to change it up. I am hoping that these will be good as leftovers because we have a LOT left. And I don't even miss cheese right now. :)

Three Years and 50 lbs Ago

So much closer to my goal weight!

Once upon a time, there lived a girl who just loved food. LOVED it. It was no secret, because all her life, she was chubby...or according to the evil medical terminology - obese. Yea. At 204 lbs and 5'7", I was obese. The top left picture is the one that finally opened my eyes.

That was back in 2009, when I was living in Croatia and eating all of the goodies my family bestowed upon me. It was also after college, where I gained about 40 lbs over the course of 4 years. It just creeped up on me somehow. I don't even remember it getting so bad. That picture showed me and I knew I had to make a change.

I was depressed at the time since I just graduated and everyone was dying to hire me. Except they weren't. I didn't have a real job for a whole year. So I decided to work on myself instead. Over the course of several months, I managed to lose 25 lbs and felt good. I had done it by completing the Couch to 5K program and began running 5Ks for {fun}. And I hated running. So much so, that I would force myself out of bed in the morning before I could even see and before my brain knew what was happening...and just start running. The hardest part is getting started.

Find friends to encourage you!

Once I was on track, I made friends who also liked running (I still hated it until about 1 year after starting) and started doing races with them. I won't pretend exercising is fun. It's hard. It hurts and I've wanted to cry a lot. But I've learned that you have good days and AWFUL days. If you can work through the rough days, you'll be so proud of yourself.

I had a terrible day yesterday at boot camp. Lap 1 (out of 6): I got a cramp and wanted to fall over and call it quits. Instead, I walked for a bit until the cramp went away and pushed through the rest of the work out. My time sucked. But I FINISHED. And I felt good about it.

The most I've ever run: 10 miles

My goal this year is to run a Half Marathon. I signed up for one yesterday, the RunGirl 13.1 on December 9th in Houston. I'm both excited and terrified. When I ran the 10 mile race in Austin a few months ago, I had not trained. Not because I thought I could do it without training, but time just flew and the race started before I knew it. I WAS doing boot camp several times a week, so my endurance was pretty decent. My time for the race was 1:48. It felt great! I will definitely train for the Half Marathon and have already found some friends interested in signing up with me!



Stay Active!

 I love my family, but our genes are what I call fat genes. I know that I have to be careful what I eat and I have to exercise more because I'm more apt to gain weight. It's just fact. I can either sit on the couch and be fat or get off my butt and move! I signed up for kickball, I play softball now and I go to boot camp about 3 times a week. On top of that, I started cycling recently and I hope the change of pace will help me break through my weight plateau.

22.5 Mile bike ride on the 4th of July

I won't tell you that I only eat salads and work out every minute I'm awake. That's silly. I eat mostly fruits, veggies and lean meat...but occasionally I cheat. If I know I will cheat (like on the 4th of July), I will try to work out extra to make up for it. It may not be a proven method, but I'm still the girl that loves food. A LOT.



Work out buddy

My boyfriend has helped a lot with this entire process. He's there at boot camp, sweating and cursing our trainer under his breath while STILL providing motivational and encouraging words to me. I'm not kidding about crying at boot camp. I've come close so many times. I've punched my trainer (jokingly...mostly) and told him I hate him. We have a love/hate thing going on. I love him when I'm not there and my pants are falling down (dropped 6 pants sizes by the way!), but I hate him when he tells me to do 50 box jump burpees. So, it helps to have my boyfriend there as a buffer, telling me I'm doing great. He's kind of awesome.

So, here I am, some 50+ lbs lighter and happy with the progress. I'm still not done, and the progress has slowed down lately, but I'm not giving up. If anyone is reading this and needs motivation, I am rooting for you! Don't give up! Cry if you need to, but keep going. Sweat is just your fat crying, right? ;)

 

 





Ticket Stub Shadowbox

Pinterest was the source of this great DIY! I found a pin for Foursided, a company that sells these great shadowboxes, but instead of purchasing one, I wanted to see if I could do it myself. I think it turned out pretty sweet!

This was a ridiculously easy project that took about an hour, maybe less. I bought the shadowbox from Michael's on sale for $12. I had the background paper already and designed and printed out the {admit one} label on regular paper.

Step by step:

1. Take off back of shadowbox and cut a slot at the top. I had originally wanted to cut a slot in the top of the box like the ones from Foursided, but my box was plastic and it would have cracked. The boyfriend cleverly suggested this alternative. :)

2. Cut paper to dimensions needed to cover the entire back of the shadowbox.

3. Secure paper with hot glue and be sure to overlap the slot opening with the paper for a seamless look.

4. Reattach the back to the rest of the shadowbox and remove the stray hot glue strands.

5. Fill with your ticket stubs and enjoy!

Overall a very easy project and a great way to keep all those ticket stubs and memories of fun times!

love birds painting

<3 birds

I finally got around to tackling this project! Luckily, my boyfriend agreed to help me with it and I think we made a great team. I saw a similar painting a few months ago on the internet and knew I wanted to attempt it. I'd gone to some painting classes, but I wanted to try this without the aide of an instructor. I got the canvas from a garage sale for 50 cents. It had a painting already on it, but I figured if the person was selling it, she wasn't too attached.

I used Acrylic paint from Michael's and a foam brush for most of the painting in order to cover the canvas. I didn't really have a set plan or pattern, I just mixed colors I liked and went to town.

This was my first finished product for the background. My boyfriend {correctly} suggested I make it lighter so that the birds would show more (the light part in the picture above is the flash). I added white and basically hated what it looked like after I was done. Hated it. I actually gave up and went to bed because I thought I ruined it.

So it sat for about a week, lonely and forgotten, until I finally decided to try again. My boyfriend helped and I actually like how it turned out the third time the most!

adding the black line with a thin brush

We added black to the edges and dabbed away some of the paint from the middle with a wet paper towel. Weird, but it worked! We added the black line and the birds for the final product!

Here is a computer edited version of our painting IF we had gone with more blue.

I think both look awesome, but overall, I'm very happy with the painting. Can't wait to do more!

Amazing! Curried Sweet Potato Soup

Eating healthy doesn't have to be boring or bland. I found a recipe yesterday for what seemed like a really simple soup with few ingredients. I like simple. Sadly, I can't locate the original recipe, but once I do, I'll add the link here to that site!

Ingredients

* 1 large onion (chopped)
* 2 sweet potatoes (cubed)
* 1 apple (we used Fuji, cubed)
* 1 tbsp olive oil
* Pinch of Salt
* 2 tsp Curry Powder
* 3-4 cups of broth (we used Better Than Broth Chicken)

That's it! First, you need to heat up the oil in a large pot (nonstick is best). Sauté the onion until lightly browning. Add the sweet potatoes and apple with the salt and curry powder. Cook until you see that some of the sweet potatoes and apple scorch on the bottom of the pot and stir often.

sweet potato love

Don't worry if the pot seems dry, as soon as you see some scorching, add the 3-4 cups of broth and bring to a boil. We used about 3 because I wanted a thicker soup. Cover and reduce heat. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are soft. I chopped them into small pieces, so they cooked quickly. Once the potatoes are soft, puree the soup.

hand blender works best

If you don't have a hand blender, you can transfer everything from the pot to a blender. You can puree as much or as little as you want. I like a fairly smooth soup.

time to eat!

I should've waited for my boyfriend before digging in, but I had a taste and WOW. The flavor of this soup is so amazing. I had a bowl right away. And then another. I wanted more, but decided it would be just as good tomorrow. Can't wait for lunch tomorrow!

yummy-goodness

Etsy Shop!

After hearing from various people that I really should open an Etsy shop, I finally did! I made several flower clips today that could be used for headbands, as baby props, on shirts or bags and even flip flops!

just a few that I made today

I made this as requested by a friend for her photo shoots and I hope she likes them! They were fairly easy to make, but quite time consuming because I had to cut out about a million circles in satin, tulle and cotton. I managed to get strings of hot glue EVERYWHERE. Am I the only one that has this issue?

my favorite one

These were a lot of fun to make and I still have a lot of fabric, so hopefully things will pick up at my Etsy Shop! I attached alligator clips to the backs of the flowers so that they can be easily added to almost anything.

alligator clip

These are the only things in my Etsy Shop right now, but I'm hoping to add duvets, pillow cases and jewelry items soon! If you or anyone you know has ideas or things they need, I would love to make it for them. Just let me know!

fun colors!

Your feedback is always welcome! :)

Window Herb Garden. Love.



It's so nice to have herbs in my kitchen!


I, like many of you, have officially become a slave to Pinterest. I try not to, but I end up spending at least an hour every day looking at the amazing DIY projects people are doing, new recipes to try and funny pictures to bring a smile to my face. I have repinned so many DIY projects that it will take me the rest of the year to get around to all of them...except by then, the list will have just grown larger!

A few weeks ago, I came across this beauty:



Greenhouse Window - Martha Stewart



I knew I HAD to do this with my own kitchen window, but traded the glass shelves for easier-to-work-with and far less expensive wood. I embarked on my mission by first buying some window film online so that I could get as much light as possible through the window without worrying that my neighbors (or potential thieves) could see into my townhouse. I decided to go with the Etched Leaf Window Film from Amazon (free shipping!) and I'm glad I did because I love it! It was really easy to apply and it lets so much light in.



My window - before (nice view, eh?)


I picked up some wood from Home Depot and had them cut the pieces to fit my window. I also bought some moulding to serve as the "ledges" to hold up the shelves. I spray painted everything white for a crisp look. After screwing in the ledges to the sides of the window walls, all that was left was to pu the shelves on top. Of course, after the first shelf went in, I noticed that it wasn't quite level, despite my checking the level of the ledges. Turns out my house is lopsided. Something to do with the ground being clay here in Texas, causing foundation issues. Good to know!

I had to reattach the ledges to be level with the window, which seems strange, but it's more pleasing to the eye. I decided to leave them loose rather than attaching them, so that if I needed to remove them to clean the window, it would be easy.



Almost done!


I wanted a little valance at the top of the window for a finished look, so I sewed this one up in just a few minutes with some leftover fabric. Cute, right?

I guess now's a good time to mention that I completely failed at documenting the items needed for this project/cost. I think it was around $75 for everything, including the herbs/planters, which is not bad!

I bought several different pots for the herbs for variety. They were all about $5 each at Marshalls and TJMaxx (LOVE those stores!). The last step was planting the herbs and placing them on the shelves.

Herbs at your fingertips!

I love the way this turned out and I've already gotten a lot of use of the fresh herbs. One DIY project down, about 3 million to go!