All posts tagged: featured

Gluten-Free Strawberry Pancakes with Vegan Whipped Cream

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MORNINGS ARE THE WORST. And if you don’t agree with me, I do not even understand what kind of super-powered human being you are. Does your heart pump pure caffeine into your veins? Are you the product of a crazy scientific experience? I DON’T GET IT. Mornings are the literal worst. I pretty much feel punched in the face the second my eyes slowly, very begrudgingly peel open. My first thought is usually, NOOOOO! Or just like a moan of agony. My husband is one of those (disgustingly) disciplined people who wake up everyday at 5:30am, and therefore by proxy, my fat cat and I are forced to wake up at the same time. UGH. WHY, GOD. Even though my body might be awake, my mind doesn’t operate until at bare minimum around noon. Brunch is basically God’s gift to all the people who stoutly reject mornings. Let all those early bird’s catch all the worms they want; I choose pancakes and mimosas. I love hosting brunch parties, because it’s such a perfect way to …

Eat Your Way to Youthful Skin

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We live in a society that’s pretty obsessed with beauty—outer beauty that is. The makeup industry is a multi-billion dollar corporation, and the average medicine cabinet is overflowing with lotions and potions and concoctions promising to make up more beautiful. More youthful. More desirable. Beauty is a business, and booming one at that. Somewhere along the way though, health and beauty became two very separate entities. The ingredients in these “anti-aging” and “beautifying” products often cause way more harm than good. Recently, I went to my dermatologist for the good old Let There Be No Skin Cancer checkup (all good in the hood; all those years of drenching myself in SPF and assiduously hiding under an umbrella at the beach like a stowaway vampire have finally paid off). I had just run out of the nighttime essential oils I use, so I asked about moisturizers and an anti-aging cream. She gave me two products and sent me on my merry way. Both creams cost around $200 (JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL) and what’s worse, when I looked …

Nutrient-Dense Delicious Pho Recipe

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The only good things about winter are snowboarding, snow, hot chocolate and soup. In no particular order. Everything else is just meh. Ok, ok, those aren’t the only good things. Some people hate on winter (like the Starks a la Game of Thrones…I’m still weeping over Ned Stark. Oh, and Rob Stark. And Catelyn Stark…basically, all the Starks and the long list of characters which fell prey to the GOT bloodbath), but I actually love all the seasons. I’m a hippie at heart, and each season brings with it some amazing outdoor playtime. D.C. winters are pretty mild (now that I’ve written that, the weather gods are probably going to send a raging snowpocalypse on the DMV area), but my husband Samuel and I get our fill of winter, because we usually go skiing at least two or three times a month to some of the surrounding resorts in-between our trips to Colorado. We love the snow so much, we would build an igloo and camp out if we could. I’m probably going to be featuring non-stop …

Smoothie Fail: Is Your Drink Making You Gain Weight?

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Smoothie drinks, smoothie bowls…they’re all the rage now. It seems like almost everyone I know is throwing their not-so-healthy, sugary yogurts in the trash in favor of the smoothie trend. Smoothies are a great way to get a huge amount of nutrients with minimum effort. Everything about this seems awesome…right? So why are people worrying that their oh so healthy smoothie might be the culprit behind their weight gain? Is it even possible to gain weight from something so healthy?! The terrible answer is yes, but don’t freak out! I’ll break down why your smoothie or shake might be sabotaging your weight goals and what you can do about it! So let’s get down to business. My milkshake does bring all the boys to the yard, only it doesn’t have milk or sugar. It does have all the nutrients my body desperately needs and then some, but it’s easy to ruin a good thing if we fall into these traps: PORTION CONTROL Unfortunately too much of a good thing can be high calorie. ARGH! MUST …

Velvety Smooth, Vegan Roasted Tomato Bisque

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While I might enjoy marching to the beat of my own drum on any given day of the week, I will go SO BASIC B*TCH all over fall. Pumpkin everything, spices galore, cozy sweaters, scented candles….give me all the basic stuff! I think fall is such a beautiful time of the year, and there are a million and one little things about it that remind us to celebrate the simple things in life. And one of those simple things that I love on an obsessive level: soups. Oh, there will be soup, make no mistake about it! A new recipe I played around with this past weekend is this roasted tomato soup recipe that is SO YUM-O! I’ve always loved tomato soup, but I despair over the dairy-free recipes. They’re often extremely acidic and lack the rich, creamy comfort of a big ol’ bowl of not-so-healthy tomato soup. But you can’t keep a vegetarian/mostly vegan down! Let’s the recipe experiments commence! After a few test runs, consulting the oracle (aka Pinterest), and mixing in various ingredients, …

Natural Cleaner for Yoga Mats + Gym Equipment

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Just when you thought it was safe to watch documentaries, you come across The Human Experiment and life is over as you knew it. Nightmares for DAYS, people. Damn it, Netflix, why do you do me like that? The basic synopsis of The Human Experiment is that we’re all going to die. Well, ok, more specifically, we are experiencing a chemical overload via the things we use daily, ranging from food to products. Households cleaning items are rarely tested for long term effects on animals, and what data we do is not looking good. After watching that documentary my first instinct was to pack up, pulling a Walden, and getting my Henry David Thoreau-self outta here! But here’s the thing: I absolutely refuse to live my life in fear of all of the non-holistic things that go bump in the night. There’s a big difference between making smart, well-informed changes that positively impact your life verses being controlled by information that terrifies you. The point of educating ourselves about natural alternatives is to simplify, empower and protect our …

Delicious + Healthy Sweet Potato Tots

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Gimme some tots! My love for sweet potatoes extends far back to the days when I was a wee lass and my mom could fool me into thinking a sweet potatoes weren’t healthy; in fact, they’re so ridiculously good for you, that sweet potatoes deserve a farmer’s market medal of excellence. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t exist, but I think we should make this a legitimate thing. DC Farmer’s Markets: Imma coming at ya, faux medal in hand! Just what makes sweet potatoes such a winner in the health halls of fame? Well, as you might have seen in my spicy rosemary sweet potato fries recipe, sweet potatoes are an excellent source of vitamin A (in the form of beta-carotene). They’re also an amazing source of vitamin C, manganese, copper, pantothenic acid, and vitamin B6. Additionally, they are a good source of potassium, dietary fiber, niacin, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, and phosphorus. This is one vegetable you do want to splurge on and get organic, because many of the important nutrients are found in the skin. Organic …

Chili-Lime Shrimp Tacos + Mango Salsa

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I’m starting to panic, because mango season is coming to a close. Therefore, I am virtually living on mangoes so I can cherish each and every last second with one of my favorite foods. If someone asked me if I wanted to eat ice cream or a mango, I would say, “Um, duh! A mango!” and then I’d probably eat both, because I have a bit of a problem with gluttony. Since I’m on basically an Atkins diet, only the meat is replaced with mangoes, it goes without saying that I’ve been finding all kinds of ways to sneak them into my weekly menu. One way you can never go wrong is in a freakishly delicious salsa. I do eat vegetarian/vegan oh, say 97% of the time, but this week Tex-Mex Tuesday did feature some goddamn deliciously seasoned chili-lime shrimp for my husband and guests; I piled greens and salsa on mine and chowed down! The spice rub on the shrimp played so well with the sweet mango, that it was basically an Olympic dream …

Japanese Ramen Noodle Soup

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Despite my southern upbringing (with a dash of east coast flare), true comfort food to me isn’t the traditional heavy American fare most of us have come to know and love. Maybe it’s the result of my world-wide travels and love of all cultures and people, but nothing beats Asian cuisine for me when it comes to terms of comfort. Give me a big bowl of noodle soup, a book, and a rainy day, and I shall give you the definition of bliss. And if you throw some baby animals in the mix to cuddle, I’ll probably die of happiness. One of my personal loves in learning about other cultures and people. It’s what motivated me to be a globe trotter, and I count my travels as my richest investment. Both my husband and I have a particular respect for Asian culture, which is incredibly diverse and varied from across the Asian continent. It’s as much an unfortunate mistake to lump all the cultures together as it is to group all Asian cuisine in the same …

Review of the Dharma Wheel

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Yoga falls into that rare exercise category of “no equipment needed.” Other than a mat, all that’s needed is you, yourself, and your open heart. Maybe it’s our complex day to day lives that push us towards making everything more complicated than it needs to be, but sometimes yoga just seems…too simple. Surely I need more gadgets, gizmos a plenty, and at bare minimum some whozits and whatzits galore. (AND YES. I so just referenced The Little Mermaid, thank you fellow nerds and red haired children alike for knowing that.) Back to the point at hand: yoga. I find myself looking for ways to “add on” to my yoga practice. Aren’t there props that I need? Shouldn’t I be investing in more training apps that I may or may not use? I really will do a handstand better if I buy super expensive pants…right? Part of me still feels disbelief at how simple yoga is, and yet how transfiguring it’s proven to be for millions of people, including myself. Now, when I see the random belles …