Lime green tea smoovie

I am always trying to find recipes to make things I do not like, tasty. 

There are very few teas I like and green tea is not one of them.

So when I saw this recipe for a Lime Green Tea Drink, I hoped.

When I made this drink, all I could think of was a word we repeated a bazillion times this Christmas.

Thomas and I flew into Portland where our friends Sarah and Craig picked us up. 

From there we went to Crater Lake and then the Redwoods. (I will post those pics soon!)
Before we left Craig's little nieces and nephews made a pretend smoothie stand.

Instead of smoothies, they kept saying smoovie. So we then randomly said smoovie the entire trip.

So this is my green tea lime "smoovie" recipe for you.

Or Green Tea Lime Cooler as the recipe calls it.

Printable version

1 green tea bag
juice from 1/2 lime
1/2 to 1 teaspoon agave nectar
handful of ice

 

So I did my duty. And immediately got a head ache.

 My conclusion, caffeine gives me a head ache. 

So much for green tea being another way I am healthy.

Thank goodness chocolate does not have as much caffeine as green tea or coffee.

I might have to die then.

Anyway... Resolution 6 of 52; check.

Simplified Intentional Life

I know I made my first new years resolution about 52 pinterest items this year, but I have done more then just make a new years resolution that will be joyous and fun. I have actually thought about my past couple of years. Weird. I know.

When our new normal because 2 civilians, our life has kinda started over. I mean, what did it mean for us to be together constantly instead of having that once a year break for a year? Well, for us the first year was a year of unemployment, which coincided with my final year of school. Then last year it was a year of us both working full time and me starting a business. Because I never stop.

So this year I am trying to come to a screeching halt. Well as much as I will allow myself to. Other then work, community group, book club and my 9th grade girls bible study I have no other commitments. So instead of packing every evening with something I am required to be at, I am trying to take it a week or 2 at a time.

I am attempting to simplify my life. And be intentional.

My friend and community group leader Larry often talks about intentionality. And it is finally hitting close to home for me. So what am I being intentional about? It is the little things that most people make new years resolutions about.
1) Reading my bible more
2) Exercising
3) Flossing my teeth more
4) Cooking more new meals
5) Using reusable bags
6) Spending quality time with people
And in all of these things, there are no goals. Just simplify, intentional, slower pace in life.

In addition to being intentional about all of those things and more, I am trying to cut down all the stuff Thomas and I have. We are doing that 2 ways.
1) Cooking down the food in our cupboards
2) Minimizing the stuff in our house.

This is fun and at the same time hard. In cooking down our cupboards, we are trying to only buy veggies and nuts, but none of the other basics until we scale down on our freezer and pantry. I think we were ready for Armageddon. We have SO much food. And it is interesting to try and make the meals off of pinterest from the foods I have in my cupboard.

As for minimizing our stuff, we are room by room, going through our house and not only cleaning from top to bottom, but getting rid of the stuff we have not used in ages, that we really don't need.

And my take so far? It is refreshing. Not stressful. Refreshing. We will see what happens when we make it through the house, the cupboards, and this year of living intentionally.

Chocolate chocolate chip cookies

I realized, I have never made chocolate cookies. Chocolate chip, yes. 

Chocolate brownies, yes (although not from scratch, another future pinterest make)

So when i saw this recipe I thought I would give it a try. 

http://www.annies-eats.com/2011/01/14/giant-double-chocolate-cookies/

 This woman makes GIANT cookies, so I did not. Mine were only about an inch in diameter.

Giant Double Chocolate Cookies

Yield: 12 very large cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) cold, unsalted butter, cubed
1¼ cup sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup dark cocoa powder
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. coarse salt
1 tsp. baking powder
2½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar.  Beat together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.  Blend in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed.  Mix in the cocoa powder until well blended.  Add the flour, salt and baking powder to the bowl and mix on low speed just until incorporated.  Fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula.  Transfer the dough to a work surface and knead briefly by hand to be sure the ingredients are well combined.

Divide the dough into 4 ounce portions (or divide into 12 equal pieces).  Roll each portion of dough into a ball and flatten just slightly into a disc.  Place on the prepared baking sheets, a few inches apart.  Bake 16-20 minutes.  Let cool on the baking sheets 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

So what I did differently was not make GIANT cookies. I split them into 1" balls and then flattened them.

It made about 2 dozen and they were not overwhelming.

 

Also I  think I baked them for too long. It is hard to tell when they were done.

But 20 minutes for the little ones was too much.

They definitely feel undone, but then they firm up when they cool.

So try 15 minutes first, but maybe even 10-12 would work.

 

Delicious! Resolution 5 of 52; check.

Homemade Beef Jerky

As of Dec 25, 2012 Thomas and I no longer have commissary privileges. 

We were so blessed to be able to shop there for 2 years after Thomas' service 

because he was stop-lossed.

 But now we are real civilians buying food at ridiculous prices! Good grief!

So we decided that when we switched over, we would take the plunge and go straight organic.

So we went over to Tacoma Boys because I had heard some great news....

At the end of the aisles they place all of their slightly blemished fruit for discount prices.

Sweet!

So  we headed over there to check it out and I also picked up some beef to try out a beef jerky recipe.

The recipe I found is thanks to Bodyofamother blog, but I used different meat.

Beef Jerky

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb lean top round sirloin beef roast, a little frozen still. (trim off the fat) - I used Bistro Tenders and mine was not frozen and still worked great
• 2 tbsp water
• 1/2 tsp of minced garlic
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1/4 C. Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

1. Cut your roast into thin slices

2. Mix together all ingredients into a large bowl 

3. Place your beef slices in the bowl and cover and let marinate OVERNIGHT in the fridge. 

4. Place slices on baking sheet and roast at 175 degrees for 3 hrs.

5. Turn meat and continue to bake for 1-2 more hours until the meat is dry and flexible. (if it breaks, it baked for to long). Thomas took it out after 1 hr and 15 minutes.

6. Eat. Put remaining jerky in airtight container and in the fridge.

I mixed all the ingredients together and then added the pre sliced beef.

Stuck it in the fridge over night.

Then i  baked it for 3 hrs, flipped it and baked it for 1 hr and 15 minutes.

My pieces were a little smaller so it didn't take as long.

This lasted 48 hours in my house. And it was a little too spicy for us, but we still loved it! 

And we did refrigerate it, but we hope to vacuum seal some for camping trips in the future.

I did try a teriyaki recipe, but if you know of a good one, please pass it on!

Resolution 4 of 52; check.

De-seeding a Pomegranate

As is my life, I always start out strong on any goal I set, because I am excitable. It's true. So I started out strong this weekend. After the almond milk and granola bar success and failure last week, I was on a roll! So I tackled a few more items this weekend.

So I started out simply by de-seeding a pomegranate. So i followed this link....

http://www.blendtec.com/blog/2012/10/12/how-to-deseed-a-pomegranate/

It always makes me laugh though, because when I try things they never come out as 

simple and beautiful as they do in the instructions. 

They instruct you to cut the pomegranate in half....check.

Next is to whack the back of one of the halves with the back of your spoon.... fail. 

I whacked, and whacked, and nothing happened.

But maybe it was because the poor pomegranate took a road trip.

 From WA to CA to OR to CA to OR and then back to WA again.

Dang. Poor little guy.

This must have been its way to get back at me.

So I took a spoon and gutted it like an avocado. 

But I did follow the instructions and let all the seeds fall into water.

Only my water turned red unlike the beautiful picture blendtec posts.

And the floaties didn't float so I had to pull the seeds off. But they came off easily.

But it worked. So here are my seeds. No worse for the wear from their big road trip.

Resolution 3 of 52; check.

Morning Stretching

In honor of the New Year, I feel the need to share about a work out that I love. Thomas and I have been getting up daily to do the third routine in this DVD.

 

The 10 Minute Solution Pilates DVD, has been use and abused. For the past year and a half we have been stretching every morning (yes at 4:15 am) to the Pilates for Flexibility routine lead by Lara Hudson.

I love it. Now there have been weeks that we get out of routine, but we always go back. The simple reason, we both feel a million times better when we stretch for 10 minutes every morning. It is so stinking easy! I can now, almost do it in my sleep and at 4 am, there are often times my eyes don't really open till about 5 minutes into the routine.

I can swear by it because over Thanksgiving my mother-in-law did the routine with me
and immediately bought it. 

For those of you who want something easy, something that will not make you break a sweat, something that only takes 10 minutes, but will keep you more flexible and doing something active? Get this! It also has 4 other 10 minute routines on it. Really any 10 minute Solution DVD or anything by Lara Hudson is great. I have others, but this is the one I come back to almost every morning. 

And while I am at it, if anyone ever wanted to come over a few times a week to do yoga or pilates with me ( I have tons of videos) I would love it!

Thing 1 and Thing 2 Twin Costumes

A few months late, but I am finally catching up on some old blogs I had started.

 

A friend of mine showed me a picture of the costumes she wanted to buy for her twins for Halloween. 

It was definitely appropriate that they would be Thing 1 and Thing 2.

 Being as I do not knit, I texted my friend who does and asked her to make a few hats.

She was awesome and was able to whip them right up. You can see all the other cute things she has at her etsy shop Skeinsoflove.

So the next step was the awesome red suits. My friend invested in adorable onsies that would fit her little ones. And I went about making the patches for the front. 

I attempted to download the fonts and make up a power point. After a few hours invested in that, I found this download from another blog (follow down to the bottom for the printables). Dang not being that smart in the first place. 

 

 Just a few mess ups later and I had a perfect Thing 1 and Thing 2 patch with velcro on the back.

I sewed velcro with big stitches on the front of the onsies (so my friend could un-stitch them and use them later) and the costume was complete!

 

Matchy, matchy, twinsie pants.

 

My first homemade Halloween costumes.

Merry Christmas 2012

Thomas and Mica 2012 Year
• Jan – Mica visited friends and family in San Diego.
• Feb – Skied for the first time together. Mica’s Mom & sister Clara visit us.
• Mar – Both started acupuncture. Mica switched programs to KC-46 Tanker.
• Apr – Traveled to Ireland to visit Katie Milburn and explore. 5th Anniversary!
• May – Mica started Calia’s Cottage her craft business (link below in blog)
• Jun – Water rafting! Mica’s sister Alyssa, hubby, & kid came to live for 2 mons.
• Jul – Mica’s 1st craft fair. 2nd Annual Community Group camping trip.
• Aug – 2nd craft fair in Proctor District. Camping and Quinault Rain Forest.
• Sep – Mica started ballet lessons. Thomas attempted homemade apple beer.
• Oct – Visited T’s Grandpa in ND, Mica drove from CA to MS w/Alyssa and Kai.
• Nov – Thomas’s family visited for Thanksgiving.
• Dec – Visiting Mica’s family in So Cal for Christmas.
Mica’s blog @ longsleevesinashortpersonworld.blogspot.com/

Merry Christmas everyone!

Almond Milk and Meal

Since I had today off, I figured I would start off my resolution full force. So I made some granola bars. Only they don't stick together. Fail. This is my 3rd round of home made granola bars and I keep failing. Anyone have a fail proof recipe? I desperately need one.

So I continued on. Almond milk it is! I adapted this recipe.

1 cup of raw almonds
8 cups of water

So I soaked the almonds in 4 cups of water for 6 hours and then drained them. I put the almonds in my food processed with 4 cups of water. Bad idea.


So I switched to my blender. I blended it for about a minute.



Then I poured it it all into the almond milk bag in a pitcher. (I got it on amazon for $8)


I squeezed it out and poured the milk into a re-sealable jar.






I have been told it lasts 4-6 days. We shall see. I also have been told that cheese cloth works in place of an almond bag, but not as well.

And with the left over almond bits I made almond meal. I emptied out the bag onto a cookie sheet and then baked it for 2 hours at 150 degrees to dry it out.

Not sure if I will use it as almond meal or if I will make it into almond flour with our handy dandy grain grinder we received for Christmas. Decisions, decisions.

So resolution 1 and 2 of 52 check.