Taking Time to Reflect on What's Important

 I came to write this post today excited. 

"I haven't written in my blog in years!" I thought to myself. "So much has happened! I got a full-time job, got married, had two kids, quit my full-time job to start two businesses, and much more."

As it turns out, I have written since some of those things. And I have a TON of draft posts written as well. 

They were quite interesting to read.

Well... I'm back. 

I imagine I am the only one that will read this, or maybe my future kiddos one day. And that's just fine.

I still like my blog title about sporadic documentation. Because I NEED documentation in my life. Is everyone's memory this bad? Am I just too mentally taxed? I expect that the answer is "mostly," and "unequivocally yes."

My husband had his 5th yearly colonoscopy today. We found over over 5 years ago he has Lynch Syndrome and will need yearly colonoscopy because of his high genetic risk of cancer, including colon cancer.

He is sleeping on the couch now with our dog. 

I'm taking a moment to sip my coffee, look out at the melting snow before I finally shower and get our kiddos from daycare.

Our daughter is 4 and goes to Kindergarten next fall. We have Mandarin and Spanish immersion programs to apply to (it's a lottery system) in our public school. Is this real life? I'm not sure what I'm most surprised about, having a Kindergartener, or having free access to language immersion programs, one of which we can walk to.

One thing is clear, though this year has been tough on us, major family injury and hospitalization, significant mental health difficulties among family, starting two businesses, we are truly lucky and grateful. 

This pandemic is a B****, I think we can all agree. but it's done one thing fairly well, reminded me of what matters. Actually I think this started to occur before the pandemic for me. We were pregnant between our kiddos and had a miscarriage. That loss reminded me that life is too short.

I've been pursuing my dream of doing meaningful work. I have a therapy business where I see clients via teletherapy and an education business where I have a podcast and an online program. It's all super fun and I wouldn't change a thing.

I'm excited to continue to learn and grow in 2022, work smarter, not harder and figure out ways to scale the business to create meaningful work for myself and others and help more women jump out of the diet culture BS towards empowered and meaningful changes in their lives.

With that, off to shower and maybe order some Thai food. Who knows, maybe I'll write again before 5 years passes by. :)

Lentil Dal

I really can't take credit for making this meal. My friend basically did it, and I chopped a few things. She has made this one quite a bit, so just kind of did her thing. I like this recipe, although its a little harder to make since I don't have all the spices at home right now (like Tumeric, etc). But its nice because we froze 2 serving portions and you can just microwave them once you want to eat. We put the rice and the mixture in microwave save containers. 

http://ohsheglows.com/2015/10/12/golden-red-lentil-dal-with-cilantro-speckled-basmati/

Update: I made this meal and it was very tasty. I even cooked it from frozen once and it was very good. I added a little water before microwaving which helped.

Cheese and Spinach Stuffed Shells

This recipe looks great, was very simple and I can't wait to try it.

It just involves boiling the pasta shells (al dente, since they will be baked again later) and stuffing them with a mixture of ricotta cheese, parmesan, mozzarella, salt, pepper, cooked spinach, fresh basil, and egg). Then you lay some sauce in a pan, put the shells in and put sauce and mozzarella over it. Done!

https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/stuffed-peppers/63e29e18-903e-467c-aec5-fba4ce3a138f

Update: This meal was delicious. It said heat at 350 for 20-30 minutes but I ended up needing to do 30-40 to get it fully heated through.

Stuffed Peppers

We also made stuffed peppers yesterday. Super pumped about these.

This involved browning lean ground beef (we used beef from my friend's family's farm... awesome) and sauteeing that with garlic and onion, then adding pasta sauce. We put the mozzarella cheese in the mixture instead of one top to avoid having it burn later. Rice was mixed in. My friend used several spices, although I'm not 100% sure what all she used. You could definitely mix this up, or use turkey, chicken, etc instead.

The raw peppers are used to hold the filling, and everything was covered in saran wrap and tin foil before freezing. We put labels on that remind you of the following directions to bake:
 - Put in fridge overnight to defrost
 - Remove plastic and re-cover with foil
 - Bake at 350-375 for 40-50 minutes, until peppers are cooked

https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/stuffed-peppers/63e29e18-903e-467c-aec5-fba4ce3a138f

Lactation Cookies

Yesterday I went over to a friend's house and made 4 different freezer recipes! I'm feeling much more prepared now. I will give an overview of what we did in the next several posts.

First up, lactation cookies! These have brewer's yeast which can help with milk supply, apparently. And they are delicious. We made a double batch of this recipe, but didn't include the fenugreek capsules because apparently there is some indication according to my friend that they aren't safe for pregnancy, so we just avoided.

We baked the cookies, and then froze them. We also added dried cherries, YUM. The only other substitution we made was using butter in place of coconut oil. 

http://www.dessertnowdinnerlater.com/lactation-cookies-recipe/

Update: These cookies were awesome and I ate them way quicker than I'd like to admit. I often just ate them right out of the freezer. 

Taco Bake

What I like about this taco bake, is that the recipe I based it off of had specific baking instructions from frozen. I imagine you could change it up, and do different meat or veggie combinations, as well as different rice and cheeses. I'll let you guys know what I did.

Ingredients: 
 - 1 package lean ground turkey
 - taco seasoning (1 packet), although I used the rest of the taco seasoning we had, and then added some cumin
 - 1/2 red onion
 - can corn
 - can black beans
 - large can of diced tomatoes
 - mozzarella cheese
 - cooked rice (I just microwaved a bag of 90 second Spanish style rice since its what we had), but ideally you would make at least 2 cups of cooked rice so it covers the bottom of the pan. Next time I'll probably do 2 cups of brown rice.

Directions:
 - spray 9 x 13 pan
 - put cooked rice into the bottom of the pan
 - brown the meat, then add in onions (could also add other veggies, or do another type of meat)
 - add corn, beans and tomatoes, until mixture is warmed, then turn off heat
 - once mixture is cooled, pour mixture over rice, then top with shredded cheese
 - cover in tinfoil and label

When ready to make:
1) take out and put into fridge overnight
2) Bake at 350 covered with tinfoil for 45 minutes
3) Uncover and bake until the top is "nice and brown" (according to recipe)

Again, I'll update this post once I make this and confirm its good, but I'm hopeful!

Enchilada Casserole

This enchilada casserole looked super good to me. The recipe isn't technically a freezer meal based on the Pinterest post, and I edited some things, so we shall see. But it looks pretty good so I'm hopeful it will taste just as good.

Ingredients:
 - 24 corn tortillas
 - two cans of enchilada sauce
 - a 9 x 13 baking pan
 - can of black beans
 - can of corn (could also use frozen, I'd imagine and just de-thaw with running water) 
 - chopped red and green bell pepper
 - shredded cheese (I used Mexican cheese, and mozzarella on top, mostly to use up the rest of the Mexican cheese I had)

I sprayed the pan with Pam cooking spray, then layered the corn tortillas on the bottom (can be overlapping), then I put a layer of enchilada sauce, peppers, corn, and beans, and covered with shredded cheese. 

You then repeat that same thing again (tortillas, sauce, veggies, cheese), then put a final tortilla layer on top with the sauce and shredded cheese.

This means that each time you layer cheese and sauce, do about 1/3 of what you have. And when you layer the veggies split it in half.

I didn't really measure any of this, but the breakdown seemed to work. 

I then covered with tinfoil and labeled it with the name, date made, and my best guess for instructions. I wrote on the tinfoil the instructions that are similar to the other Taco Bake I made today (see post to following), which said:

1) put in fridge overnight to partially de-thaw
2) Bake covered at 375 for 45-55 mins

I plan to check in with this bad boy often to make sure it doesn't burn. I will let update this post once I actually make it to see if it turns out!!