This Week On Instagram... a Teaser!

Hey everyone! Soooooo I barely posted last week... sorry about that! And today's post will be quick too but trust me, it's worth it. My allergies have flared up big time so I'm feeling a bit yucky but I braved the environment and my severe allergies to go check out my first Gold Coast Mansion! I'm not going to give any details... just three teaser pictures to hold you over until my post on Saturday. Hopefully they will intrigue you enough to bring you back on Saturday!!

No explanations, just awesomeness ;)

I lens flared the heck out of that last pic. I'm just saying. 

The only information that I'll give you is that I have a personal history with this town and it's very close to my heart. I'll also tell you that only one photo is of the actual mansion property. The rest is just amazing architecture in the town. I can't wait to tell you more about it and share more photos this weekend!

I hope you all had a good week and a Happy Easter. See you Wednesday!

Show & Tell Sunday: Earnest Eats Hot & Fit Cereal

Hey everyone! I'm back for a Show & Tell Sunday post. Today I have a review on a product that I bought a while back called Earnest Eats Hot & Fit Cereal. The cute little individual serving cups caught my eye in Whole Foods so I stopped to check them out. I don't even typically go down the cereal aisle since I rarely eat cereal but I'm glad I passed by! They had the individual serving cups which are fantastic for a meal on the go. And I love that they actually have a lid on them rather than just a peel back top for easy transport. They come in three different flavors: American Blend (cranberry and almond), Mayan Blend (cocoa, pepita and cashew) and Asian Blend (mango and green tea). I purchased one each of the American Blend and the Mayan Blend. Today's review is of the Mayan Blend flavor.

This is the sturdy lid I was talking about. It boasts a vegan label along with the nutritious grain blend that makes up the cereal. It's hard to pass up a hot cereal that has ingredients like these!

Here is the front of the container. It's a really cute container and I'm sure you can see why it caught my eye.

It works like an instant oatmeal. You fill the container with boiling water up to the fill line on the outside of the container (my only complaint: I wish the fill line was inside so it is easier to line up), stir and wait until it thickens up. If you are like me you'll use almond milk instead of water for a delicious, rich flavor ;) It almost tasted like hot cocoa with grains in it!

Here is my final bowl! I topped mine with banana and shredded coconut because why not? The cereal took a few minutes to thicken but ended up being really creamy and warming. The chocolate flavor is so rich and there is a really nice nutty flavor from the grains, the seeds and the cashews. It's such a nice alternative to plain oatmeal. This is a very hearty meal (especially with the toppings) and would be perfect for a cozy breakfast on a brisk morning.

Here is a closer look. Sorry my pictures are so terrible, I took them with my phone and this new tablecloth is driving me crazy. Anyway, I really enjoyed this meal and this product and I'm looking forward to trying the American Blend. I definitely recommend trying this cereal if you enjoy hot cereal and are interested in branching out.

Earnest Eats has other products as well that I have tried including energy bars and granola bars/planks. I used to enjoy bringing them with me when I worked weddings because they were really delicious and packed a nutritional punch in a compact serving. They are perfect snacks to bring with you on the go.

As with all of my reviews, the opinions in this post are my own and solely based on how I felt about the product. I purchased the products myself and I have never had contact with the company. 

So there you have it! Tomorrow I'll be celebrating the first night of Passover so I'll have to hold off on trying the other blend until the week after. I hope you have all had a good week and are enjoying the beautiful weekend. I'll see you tomorrow with some Instagram pictures!

Throwback Thursday: Almond Coconut Oatmeal Cookies!

Hey everyone! Happy Thursday! I'm here with another throwback recipe. This is one of my favorites and I was reminded of it a few days ago reading Shen's blog. I think I may have to make a batch of these after Passover ends because it has been too long!

Anyway, here is the recipe! I used this recipe as my start point and made a bunch of changes to create this new cookie! Enjoy!

Gluten Free Almond Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 cup gf oat flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup Alter Eco Mascobado Sugar*

1/4 cup white sugar (or coconut sugar!)

2 tbsp maple syrup or coconut nectar

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce, drained on a paper towel

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

1 1/2 cups gf rolled oats

3/4 cups sliced almonds

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

*Instead of regular brown sugar I used Alter Eco’s Mascobado sugar that was sent to me to review. This was my secret for this recipe. It added a beautiful hint of caramel that was so perfect. I really love this sugar, definitely give it a try if you can find it! If not, feel free to use regular brown sugar..

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Combine flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in a small bowl. Set aside.

3. Mix the sugars, syrup, applesauce, coconut oil and extracts in a medium bowl. Add the dry ingredients and mix well.

4. Add oats, almonds and coconut. Fold mix ins into batter until combined then let sit for a few minutes.

5. Drop cookies on baking sheet (I used a small ice cream scoop to portion my cookies). Bake cookies 10-11 minutes until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes on tray then transfer to cooling rack. Enjoy!!

*Feel free to add in some chocolate chips as well, especially if you love the Almond Joy flavor combo of coconut, almond and chocolate!

These cookies are seriously amazing. I really love the almond extract in it too. I may add a little almond flour next time too 

That's all for tonight! I hope you all have a great Friday!

What I Ate Wednesday

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I did a What I Ate Wednesday post so over the past week I made the conscious effort to photograph as much as possible. I didn't get a ton of pics but definitely enough to give you an idea of what I've been eating :)

I know it seems silly to take a picture of water but I've been focusing on hydration over the past couple of weeks. I drink a couple of these large mason jars filled with water every day. I love my glass straw :)

As the weather has been warming up I've been enjoying some smoothies lately as well. I got this one from Fairway (the store with the awesome pickle barrels and huge olive collection that I discussed here) while I was out and I'm typically a little weary of this since a lot of places tend to use syrupy fruit. This place had everything laid out for me to see and it was all fresh fruit and greens. This one is mango, pineapple, strawberry and spinach (passed on the agave she was going to add). Fresh produce blended with ice, you definitely can't beat it. 

I've busted out the juicer as well. This super green concoction contains one large cucumber, some romaine leaves, a few handfuls of spinach, some green apple and the juice of one whole lemon. It was really good! And I love the immediate boost of energy I get when I drink it. Oh and the cup is an adorable plastic-y (BPA free) mason jar type container that my mom got me. So cute!

I made myself a large fruit salad with several oranges, apples and some strawberries. Munched on this over the course of 3 days. It was so good and having it prepared and ready to go really helped my laziness ;)

This is a very thick bowl of Mayim Bialik's Tomato Soup with Israeli Couscous! Her pictures look way better than mine but oh well ;) This is a very delicious soup out of her cookbook Mayim's Vegan Table. The book is a really great collection of simple vegan recipes for family friendly meals. I love that she includes veganized versions of popular Jewish recipes too! I was pretty excited about that since there are some recipes from my childhood that I do miss and now I can make them again!

If you are interested in the recipe for this soup PETA actually has it posted here! Try it, it's delicious!

I had to make this last picture even larger so you can see the gloriousness of it. Last Saturday I went out for dinner at Wild Fig with my oldest (we've been friends for 15 years!) and dearest friends and her awesome husband. They live in Massachusetts so I don't get to see them often and when I do get to see them I am so happy. We went for Mediterranean food and had the most delicious meal with lovely company. For appetizers we ordered hummus and stuffed grape leaves. These were served with the most delicious, warm, fresh flatbread. Their hummus is by far my favorite of any hummus I've ever had. I wish I could bring home a gallon of it. On the bottom of the picture was my red lentil soup and it was amazing as well. Such a perfect meal and I was STUFFED when we left. It was such a good night :) I'm planning on going to visit them sometime in the spring as well and I can't wait! Oh and sorry about the horrible pictures, I took them with my phone in horrible lighting.

So this is some of what I've been eating! I'm going to try my best to continue to photograph what I can of my meals :) See you tomorrow with a Throwback Thursday Recipe!

This Week On Instagram & Patch Test Results

Hey everyone! Happy (?) Monday! I hope the start of your week was kind to you. I'm back today with some pictures I posted on Instagram over the past week :) Trying to get back in the groove of my new posting schedule and I think I should be on track for this week!

Here's what I've been up to!

I finally had the time to sit down and attempt to do the water marble technique on my nails! It didn't come out too bad for my first real try! It is very subtle because I chose dark colors but I love how it came out. I'll try again with more springy colors next week and show you how it comes out :)

I also had the time to try to achieve some heatless curls using my new Flexi Rods. I used two different sizes and wasn't 100% thrilled with how it came out. My hair got BIG. Like Lady Marmalade big. Ridiculous big. It calmed down a little bit eventually but I think next time I'm going to try to do them all with the large size Flexi Rods and see what happens. And sadly that gray hair at the top of the picture is here to stay :( More on that in a minute.

I just saw this sign at an abandoned gas station near my house and thought it was kind of awesome.

I normally capture sunset pictures but as I wasn't sleeping all that much the past week I was able to get this amazing sunrise picture! It almost looks like fire! Love it.

Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous day and I couldn't in good conscience sit in my house all day. I don't like going to Whole Foods any time after 9:30 am because that's when all of the self absorbed, entitled jerks in my area converge upon the store but decided to risk my sanity and take a trip at around 4:30 in the afternoon. It was a mistake in the sense that the store was a disaster and people were leaving their carts all over making it virtually impossible to pass. On the plus side I got to take a nice drive with a gorgeous blue sky above me and the spring air coming in through my open window. So beautiful.

For some reason I've been feeling really girly lately (see above hair and nail attempts) so I decided to go to my local beauty supply store (we used to have an Ulta but sadly not anymore) and pick up a few things. I grabbed a few bottles of nail polish for a cute springtime water marble, some clips to help tame my crazy hair when I attempt to style it, some empty travel pill cases that will be perfect for holding DIY crayon lipstick (which I discussed in yesterday's post) and of course cotton balls... because we all need cotton balls. Yeah, so between yesterday and today I decided that I really am curious about this crayon lipstick and really need to try it ;) Who knows, if it comes out well I may do a little giveaway. We shall see!

OK so I finally am finished with my allergist adventures and have two confirmed allergies to add to my extensive list of environmental allergies: P-Phenylenediamine (PPD) & GOLD! GOLD?! OK, so the PPD allergy was actually the reason I went in there. It is the ingredient in hair dye (it is in pretty much every single dark hair dye out there... including black henna, wtf?) that I reacted to several months back. Upon further research when I got home, I basically need to stay away from hair dye (except the one brand that supposedly doesn't have it in there but I've heard that people still react to it), and need to inform my doctors and dentist about the allergy because it can cross react with certain local anesthesias. It can also be found in black rubber, sunscreen, and for some reason a lot of websites I went to said to stay away from orange peel? I don't completely understand that one except it may just be naturally occurring in orange peel so I guess no more orange zest and I either need someone to peel oranges for me or I need to wear gloves. That's crazy.

The other allergy that popped up was to Gold. I find that amusing because apparently it is rare to be allergic to pure gold. Most people that are allergic to their gold jewelry are actually allergic to the nickel that they mix with the gold. Nickel is the most common metal allergy and I'm not allergic to it. I don't know why but I'm amused by that but I am.

As of now those are the only two confirmed allergies. The other one we were watching was for a textile dye (also dark colors) but while it turned red it didn't have any other characteristics of a full reaction. I have to watch for one more as well which could also be starting to show a delayed reaction. This one is for Chromate but for the most part I don't come into contact with most of the common sources (no thanks leather!). I think the only things I would have to be careful of is tattoo ink and some cosmetics.

I did skin testing today for some food allergies like tomato, potato, eggplant, corn, and soy and they all came out negative. Yay!

OK this turned into a very long post but that's what I've got for you today! I hope you all had a great Monday and I'll be back on Wednesday with a What I Ate Wednesday post! See you then!

Show & Tell Sunday: The Pinterest Edition!

Hey everyone! Sorry I've been MIA this week. Truthfully I've just been really uncomfortable due to the allergy patch testing I had to do. I've definitely got some allergies going on and because I was showing evidence of a delayed reaction on Friday I have to go back again tomorrow. That will be my fourth visit to the allergist in 8 days. Oy. I will give you the full results tomorrow after I go in. I'm ready for this to be over so I can take care of the horrible itchiness I'm dealing with.

So for today's Show & Tell Sunday post I'm going to take a break from the reviews and show you some of the things I've been pinning on Pinterest lately. I've gotten back into the Pinterest groove and am really excited about some of the things I found and can't wait to try them! Let's check out some of the pins!

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How cute are these DIY Scrabble Coasters?! I love that you can customize them and it's really creative and adorable. I have to figure out where to get the scrabble pieces so I can make these because they are just too cute.

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I am so excited to try this Easy Vegetable Chowder. Assuming I'm not allergic to corn (which I'm testing tomorrow) I will definitely be looking forward to trying this recipe with fresh, sweet corn. Yum!

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I DEFINITELY want to make this gorgeous Roasted Vegetable Orzo Salad. I will probably make it with quinoa or Israeli couscous but it is such a beautiful, easy meal. Pair with with a fresh green salad and it's a perfect spring meal.

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Raw Carrot Pecan Milk?!?! Say what?! This sounds absolutely incredible and I definitely want to try this gorgeous recipe from Deliciously Holistic: Healing Foods Recipes and Lifestyle Tips to Help Increase Your Energy and Immunity by Shelley Alexander. I don't have the book yet but found the recipe posted and it made me really want to get the book. There is no Kindle version yet but hopefully they will make it available soon! 

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This is one I've been most curious about. I've heard of making your own lipstick out of two ingredients: Crayons and Coconut Oil. I'm weary about the idea of using crayons on my lips but every single video and article I've watched/read about this says that it is a completely non-toxic, safe way to make and wear lipstick. Crayons are non-toxic, are made of paraffin (which is what is in lipstick anyway I guess?) and food grade coloring... which makes sense as they are for children and children LOVE eating crayons. I love the idea of making my own chemical free lipstick and personalizing and experimenting with colors. I guess I'll be thinking about it a little more and who knows, maybe I'll end up doing it and I'll post what I come up with!

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I love Lululemon workout gear but it is so damn expensive. Kiava makes really cute workout clothes at a more reasonable price... it's still pricey but it's more reasonable than Lululemon. I'd love to try out some gear eventually :)

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I can't wait to try this gorgeous Roasted Garlic and Tomato Soup! The coolest part? It's thickened with Chickpeas! I feel like that is kind of genius. Again, once I make sure I'm not allergic to tomatoes I'm going to make this beautiful soup.

And on the sweet side...

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If you are a sucker for the Samoa Girl Scout Cookie flavor combo of chocolate, caramel and toasted coconut this sweet treat is right up your alley. These are Paleo Samoa Miracle Tarts and they look incredible. These are vegan, gluten free and refined sugar free. Definitely can't wait to make these.

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Finally, these are Coconut Lime Frosty Cups! I love tropical flavors and lime is a favorite of mine. Lime combined with coconut is a lovely, light, bright flavor combination perfect for a summer treat. These chilled treats will be really beautiful and refreshing dessert or snack on a hot summer day. Definitely will keep these in mind for BBQs and picnics :)

So that's all I have for you today! I hope you liked my Pinterest roundup and I will definitely post as I try all of these recipes and projects out. What have you guys been liking on Pinterest?

I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend! I should have more posts up next week since I will hopefully be more comfortable and less itchy ;) Have a great Sunday!

This Week On Instagram!

Hey everyone! So I'm a day late on this post but I guess a day late is better than not posting at all right? I'm mostly a day late because 3 of these 5 pictures were taken and posted today :X Sometimes the inspiration strikes a day late? Anyway, here's what I've been seeing this week.

So I woke up yesterday and was getting ready for my Allergist appointment (more on that in a minute) and had no idea what was waiting for me outside until I got in the shower and looked out the window... and it was SNOWING!!!! WTF?! I don't remember hearing anything about snow at all in the weather forecasts.

It wasn't just snowing, it was snowing REALLY hard. And it was windy. Luckily it only lasted for a few hours (maybe 3 or 4?) and then naturally it went up to 50 degrees and was bright and sunny a few hours later. Because why wouldn't it be like that?

Pulled over on the way to the allergist. I swear every time I'm supposed to go to the allergist it snows! The last time I was supposed to go for Patch Testing there was a crazy snow storm and I had to cancel!

I saw these decals on the car in front of me and I had to take a picture of it! I'm not into Star Trek but I love it when people let their nerd flags fly. My friend is a big Star Trek fan too so I had to send him the pic :)

Another sunset pic! Can you tell that I love sunsets? Especially beautiful ones like we were treated to tonight.

And saving the best for last, it's my sweet Tyler! I went to see my niece after work today and watch her for an hour and that means I get to see my nephew as well ;) I couldn't get him to look at me but I love this picture.

So as a little update (and as I mentioned earlier in the post), I went to the Allergist yesterday to have some patch testing done. If you don't know what that is basically I have these patches taped to my skin that contain diluted amounts of chemicals, preservatives, metals, etc. I decided to have this done for two reasons. First, because of the reaction I had after dying my hair the last time and second, because my skin has been out of control lately. I get rashes and it's very weird... especially the one on my throat. Not feeling that so I'm trying to figure out if it is because of allergies. It would make sense considering I seem to be allergic to everything nowadays.

Anyway, the patches stay on for 48 hours and then they are removed and the area is observed. Then it is observed again 48 hours after that because some allergies may have a delayed reaction. All I can tell you is that I'm definitely allergic to something because there is one strip of patches that is DRIVING ME CRAZY!!! OMG I'm so itchy! I can't wait to get these taken off because if it's not an allergy then this hypoallergenic tape must be irritating the heck out of me. In either case I can't stand it. If you've ever had skin testing done (with a positive result) imagine that itchiness being constant for 48 hours. Or I guess more like 36 hours because it really started today.

Anyway, that's all I've got for you today! I hope that you've all had a great start to your week. Tomorrow I'm getting these things taken off and then I work late so I'm not sure if I'll be able to get a post up tomorrow but I'll try! Hope you all have a great day!