Cupcake Cutie

Just sorting through some pics from a few weeks ago. This one is pre-haircut, at a wrestling tournament where the school was selling cupcakes. Too cute not to post.

Caulifower Pizza Crust

Oh, the beautiful cauliflower.

I am more and more smitten with this wonder food. My love for it expounded exponentially when I discovered it can be used to make pizza crust. My friend Anna sent me a link to a cauliflower pizza crust recipe on Eat. Drink. Smile, saying she saw it and thought of me. I love that people think of me when cauliflower they see. At any rate, of course I had to try it right away!

I chopped up my cauliflower into smallish chunks and threw them in the Ninja.

I then pulsed the raw chunks in my Ninja (you could use any food processor) so that it was "riced". That means as near to the consistency of rice as you can get it. You can actually microwave riced cauliflower and use it in place of rice in stir fries or whatnot.

Mine was more like couscous than rice.

I threw the riced cauliflower in the microwave and mixed my cheese, oregano, salt, garlic, and eggs, then added the cooked, riced cauliflower and mixed some more.

I didn't have any spray oil but I greased my pan with coconut oil, then patted out my crusts. I made a double recipe, which is why there are two.

It sort of reminded me of a hash brown.

Here's what they look like after they cooked. Mine were a little burnt onto the pan. My oven seems to cook hot, and I must admit new pans are long overdue, so I would definitely blame my equipment and not any alteration to the directions.

The only way I really varied from the directions was that because my crust was a little burnt I was wary of putting it back in the broiler to melt the cheese because I figure that would just burn them on worse. Instead, I carefully scraped the crusts off the pan and onto plates, applied my toppings, and stuck them in the microwave. Broiling would have given me a nicer browning on the cheese, but the microwave worked well enough. The above pizza was topped with pesto sauce and goat cheese.

This one was simple tomato sauce (I read several labels making sure there was no sugar or chemicals thrown in!) and a high-quality mozzarella cheese.

For someone who hasn't had a slice of pizza since September it was awesome. Even the husband and kids (who dined on "normal" pizza but each had some tastes of mine) thought it wasn't bad. I will definitely be trying this again, and hopefully they will be a little prettier next time. It was surprising how little you can taste the cauliflower. It really is a wonder food!

What Fresh Hell

It's been a hellish 24 hours. My sister was admitted to the emergency room yesterday with stroke-like symptoms. She wasn't feeling well and then was having trouble with verbal expression and numbness in extremities, among other things. I spent a rough night, trying to keep busy, up and pacing and trying to lose myself in tv, waiting for news, texting and talking with my mom, sister, and best friend, and crying to my husband. I finally fell asleep, and shortly after I woke this morning I got the glorious news that she was back to her old self. I spent today trying to busy myself as I waited for a diagnosis and prognosis. From what I gather, the best medical guess right now is that it was a freak massive migraine that mimicked stroke symptoms. She is being released to the care of her primary physician and being sent home from the hospital. I cannot begin to express how glad I am that she's okay.

It's funny, I was a machine all day, but the minute I heard she was going to be fine I sat down to take a deep breath, suddenly felt ill and hot, and sure enough I have a 102 degree fever.

Super Soul Sunday

As some of you may recall, I stopped drinking the Oprah kool-aid for a while because I just wasn't impressed with a lot of the OWN programming.

Her new Super Soul Sunday show has got me back on board. I first tuned in last week to see her interview with Dr. Jill Botle Taylor, a neuroanatomist who had a stroke that changed her life and her entire thought process and outlook. It was a pretty inspiring story, so I set my DVR to tape each week.

This week, amongst other guests, Oprah spoke with Dr. Wayne Dyer. I have blogged in the past about how much Dr. Dyer's philosophies resonate with me. I watched the interview on the edge of my seat, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, having a-ha moments one after another and feeling like Wayne Dyer can somehow see inside my head, inside my soul, and speak straight to my heart. Oprah joked at the end of the interview that she could talk to him all day, and that maybe someday they should do "a day with Wayne Dyer" and boy, I wish she would.

I took a peek at the topic for next week, and was excited to see that she will be speaking with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and another personal favorite of mine.

Super Soul Sunday airs on the OWN network Sundays at 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. ET/PT.

276.6

I'm at 33.4 (thirty three point four) pounds lost.

I was thinking about the little milestones I have reached so far and how reaching them helps keep me motivated, so I decided to keep a virtual list of milestones so I can cross them off as I reach them and focus on the next one- because a goal that's a few pounds away is much easier to concentrate on than one that's over a hundred pounds away. I did a little math, looked a few things up, and came up with the list that you should now see in the sidebar to the right. In creating the list, I spent some time studying BMI charts and I realized that somewhere around 278, sometime in the last week or so, my BMI went below 40 which means I am no longer considered "morbidly obese"- I'm just regular ole obese!

The Story

I love this song.




I love it, I love it, I love it. It is exactly how I feel about my husband. Every word is perfect, every line reminds me of us. I definitely have lots of stories from my pre-Richard wild days, I broke a lot of rules (still do every now and again), I was beyond flat broke when I met him and he made me feel like a million bucks, I have never been able to keep a straight face and be serious when trying to profess my romantic love, my head is often a mess, and nobody knows me, gets me, or tolerates me like Richard. He even claims to love my crazy, so clearly I was made for him. I know it's cheesy, but this song makes me weep.

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you
I climbed across the mountain tops
Swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules
But baby I broke them all for you
Because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do
I was made for you
You see the smile that's on my mouth
It's hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know my head is a mess
No, they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what
I've been through like you do
And I was made for you...
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you

Chicken Nuggets

I am always on the lookout for new paleo/primal recipes to keep things interesting, and I especially love kid-friendly recipes. I tried the chicken nugget recipe from Maria's Nutritious and Delicious Journal and it was a big hit with everyone. It uses almond flour instead of the traditional wheat, and it was easy and delicious!