Fridge Salad | EASY HEALTHY MEALS | Advice from a nutrition school drop out.

A few weeks ago I stumbled onto this recipe over at Eat Yourself Skinny. It's a detox salad that's super delicious and easy to throw together because you basically just toss everything into the food processor and it's done. Since then this salad has started a chain reaction of food processor salads in our house.

Food processor fridge salad. It's brilliant! Each time we run out of a salad - they last us about 3 days - I just process up another one. I've been using a lot of varied combinations (purple cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, peppers, black beans, chickpeas) but mostly all with dry-er ingredients.

Then when I'm ready to have a salad, I slice up half an avocado, maybe some cucumber, cut up some cilantro, and mix it into a bowl of my dry salad mix. Top with feta or goat cheese and drizzle on my favourite dressing of the week. It's seriously efficient.. and you can jazz the salads up so easily and tailor it to suit your tastes. Add some sliced chicken breast and you've got yourself an entree. I also love cranberries and fruit in my salads... and cheese.

Bonus use for the salad: Mix it into a smoothie and you have a serious health booster. Try adding some frozen berries, a banana, a scoop of protein powder, some water and/or almond/soy milk and about a cup of salad into a blender. My salad had chickpeas - added protein boost - very filling.

What's your favourite salad fixin's? How often do you squeeze a salad into your diet?...

Cheers,

Ashley

...

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Rosemarie's Health Potion | LEMON GARLIC HONEY

I met this absolutely lovely lady on Friday while working on the Love Fort St John project just north-west of town. Her name was Rosemarie Philips and she owns a certified organic cattle/horse ranch on 320 acres, near Charlie Lake BC. I went out in the morning and she took me on a tour of her home, a huge cozy self-sustained log cabin. Then she took me around the yard to see the chickens and rooster, with her three blue heeler dogs running wildly around us. Then we jumped on the quad and went out to see the horses and cattle and the beautiful trails.

It was definitely a favourite Love FSJ session so far! I got some awesome photos that I will eventually be able to share, some time closer to the end of April. After our quad ride Rosemarie put on the coffee and we sat down around her red tiled kitchen bar for a visit. She starts telling me about this homemade health potion she takes on a daily basis, while pouring us our coffee in her handmade pottery mugs (she's also a potter!) and mixing it with milk and honey.

She pulls a mason jar from her fridge and two spoons out of the drawer. I'm told I might have a little garlic breath after, but it's an incredibly healthy concoction and worth the strong taste - just don't really chew it, just down it.

So I take my spoonful, and was actually pleasantly surprised at the taste! Definitely strong and garlicky, but it had a tangy sweetness that made the scoop a little smoother. Rosemarie tells me the simple ingredients and how-tos, and I decided to give it a try at home.

The recipe is so simple and the preparation is super quick, the longest part is just peeling the garlic.

Combine the following in a blender and mix

• 5 lemons (peel and all)
• three heads of garlic (peeled)
• about a cup of honey

After mixing up our own jar of potion, I went to google for some research on the benefits of this mixture and here's what I found...

Benefits of Rosemarie's Potion

• strengthens immunity
• fights chest infections, cough & congestion
• high in iodine, useful in treating hyperthyroid conditions
• extremely high in vitamin c
• effective in treating cardiovascular disease
• anti-fungal and anti-bacterial
• cancer fighting
• regulates blood sugar
• aids in digestion
• blood purifier
• contains antioxidants
• good source of energy

This little health potion is full of many essential vitamins and minerals, some of which are harder to come by in our daily diets. A spoonful once a day of this tasty medley is sure to have a positive effect on your health.

Vitamins and Minerals

• vitamin C
• fibre
• potassium 
• vitamin b6
• manganese 
• copper
• phosphorus 
• vitamin b1
• selenium 
• calcium
• iron

We'll see how our family is feeling after several weeks of adding this supplement into our diets. It might come just in time for cold season as our weather starts to turn warm and fluctuate. I'll keep this post updated on how long our mixture lasts in the fridge. I'd guesstimate a couple weeks, but we'll see what happens.

Do you have any health potions you take on a regular basis? Going to give this one a try? Leave a comment and make my day! xxoo

- A

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VISION BOARDS // how to make them BEAUTIFUL and AFFECTIVE // self sunday's

my biggest problem with my vision board, is that it had no vision. it was just a bunch of pictures and magazine clippings that i thought were pretty or looked nice and complemented the other photos.

after reading the book The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)by hal elrond, and discovering during the chapter on visualization, that i needed to get a clearer picture of exactly what i wanted in my life, and put THAT up on that board, not just what looked nice on the wall.

now i needed to find photos that would represent my dream life. i started flipping through all the magazines in my house, then i flipped through the ones in my moms, and i did find a few good cut outs, but nothing really specific, and specific was essentials to using the board affectively.

so how can i find photos specific to my unique plans for my life, while still maintaining a nice flow to the board and staying visually appealing on the wall?.. pinterest.

i got to searching through my pinterest boards and browsing the keywords for what i wanted our house to look like or where i hope for it to be placed geographically. i collected some photos of a green house and a big veggie patch, with mountains in the background of course. and then after saving a bunch onto my camera roll (i'm doing this from my iPad by the way) i then imported them into a photo collage creating app (i used picaboo) and once again saved them onto my camera roll.

then when i went to have some photos printed for a client, i uploaded these photo collages to the set as well and had them printed in 8x6s. once i had them home i cut them up and placed them up on to my vision board - after giving the board a clean sweep and taking down a bunch of random clutter.

the result is a perfect (getting there!) picture of what i hope my life to look like! there's still more to add, but it's a fantastic start. so now when i do my miracle mornings at 5:00am, i can sit in my comfy office chair, relax and visualize for 10 or 15 minutes, enjoy my tea and stare at the photos displayed on the board, and just day dream myself into them.

SELF sunday's is a post series devoted to healthy lifestyle, mind body nourishment, and self development, composed of words written without limitations and paired with my sunday morning coffee.

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SELF sunday's 001 // treating vitiligo naturally

i recently came across a website selling an e-book claiming to hold all the information i needed in order to treat my vitiligo naturally from home. the website itself looked a little suspect, not a great interface and looked a little "as seen on TV". but the video introduction and the author (michael dawson)'s story did leave me with a good impression, and the price of the book wasn't outrageous, so i decided to give it a try.

if you know me or you've been following me for a while, you probably know that i really don't care that much about my vitiligo and prior to finding this e-book, had no intentions of trying to cure the disorder or look for treatment options. i've been down that road many times before as a kid, and had given up hope long ago of ever getting rid of the rare skin disorder.

but being a genetic chronic disorder, i know that i've passed it on to sawyer and will inevitably pass it on to any future children i have. whether or not they will actually show any signs of vitiligo is pretty hard to predict, but they will be carriers. and especially if i have any girls (mostly only the women in my family have it) and i have the chance to learn how to cure it for my kids sake, then it seems like something i'd want to be informed about.. so after reading the short e-book (the natural vitiligo treatment system), learning some interesting things that i hadn't known before, and taking some notes on my chosen treatment option and treatment diet, i'm armed and ready to give it a try. there's nothing crazy to start incorporating into my life, there's not even any huge diet changes required, just some discipline when it comes to my sweet tooth and a few key items found at the health food store. 

everything on the "eat lots of" list are things i already love to eat and eat plenty of, so that makes things really easy! the "cut back/totally avoid" list is a little more difficult. since sawyer was born i've had a nasty love affair with chocolate, but luckily i'm safely assuming that chocolate and ice cream pertains to sugary milk chocolate and not healthy antioxidant rich dark chocolate. so while i do have to completely cut out junk food chocolate, i'm still planning on enjoying the dark stuff.

i'm a little sad that spicy foods are considered a no-no. i cook a lot of indian style dinners using a plethora of healthy fragrant and colourful spices, often turning out deliciously spicy, BUT of course these things can be adjusted to taste. dan will be pleased, he's never been a big fan of burn your mouth spicy foods.

i'm a huge supporter for having a supplement regime. my daily morning dose of vitamins and minerals include the following:
- dha complete
- immunity defense
- women's complete one-a-day
- calcium & magnesium
- vitamin c

and now i'm welcoming some new vitamin friends into my pill boxes:
- vitamin e
- b complex
- b12 (x2 daily)
- folic acid (x2 daily)
- ginkgo biloba (3x daily)

it might seem like a lot if you're not used to taking vitamins daily, but once you start it's pretty easy to create the habit as long as you're keeping your pill boxes or bottles where you're going to see them everyday.

my skin is naturally quite fair and during the cooler months of the year you can barely see any of the non-pigmented patches on my body. but as the weather gets warmer and i get my butt outside for some much needed vitamin d and sunshine, my normal skin tans naturally and the white patches appear more visibly. 

part of the treatment is a topical application of a mixture of red clay powder and ginger juice applied to the de-pigmented patches and left on for 15 - 20 minutes daily. because my vit is spread across my body so widely, i thought i'd choose a few different areas to start with and see what kind of results i could get. the places that bother me the most (also the areas that burn the worst) are the tops of my feet, the backs of my knees, my hands and my forearms, so i'll start with those.

and lastly, the second topical application which is part of the treatment plan is coconut oil in the morning and at night. which is so great, because i already love using coconut oil on my skin!

so we'll see what happens! after some time has gone by i'll be posting some progress reports and hopefully with some luck and a little self control (no pastries?) i'll have some before and after photos to share with some noticeable results.

wish me luck!

. . .

SELF sunday's is a post series devoted to healthy lifestyle, mind body nourishment, and self healing & development, composed of words written without limitations and paired with my sunday morning coffee.

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the conscious cleanse . day twelve / thirteen

DAY TWELVE & THIRTEEN

i'm so pleased to report that things are back on track cleanse speaking. i could actually see adopting a slightly more relaxed version of this diet after the fourteen days are up. i just don't think i could live without cheese...

i've never put much for fruit in my salads other than the occasional mandarin orange or a few grapes, but i seriously went all out on this one. not only was there raspberries, mangos and kiwis, but there was even mashed raspberries in the vinaigrette. on top of all this, i added avocado, wild rice, and a plethora of kale and spinach. the dressing was an avocado and walnut oil mixture, with apple cider vinegar. i also sprinkled in some sea salt, cracked black pepper, and a dash of coconut palm sugar.

i find making salads take feeerrever, so when i throw them together i always toss a few more into some glass jars to eat later on. they stay super fresh if you stack the layers properly, and they're the perfect grab and go cleanse snack throughout the day.

normally we would have ate last nights supper inside of a wrap, but instead we ate it straight from the pot and called it a taco bowl, or burrito bowl, basically a bowl full of rice, beans, tomatoes, extra lean ground beef, onions, avocado and some mexican style spices.

i'll tell ya another thing, i'm truly starting to prefer warm lemon water over cold, something i never thought possible. apparently it's way better for your digestive system too, so that's neat. my mornings feel so detoxifying and healthy when i'm starting with a glass of my warm water and then finishing with a green smoothie a little later on. it's an awesome way to wake up.

i've never been much of a food blogger, at least not this daily stuff. i'm more of a once in a while recipe type person when it comes to ol' blog, and only if it's a reeeeally good dish. but i do think that this cleanse, and the actual documentation of this cleanse, has improved my cooking. dan will vouch for me. i swear i've improved in the kitchen in just these last couple weeks, so i'm pretty pumped to continue on with this style of eating. dan and i both feel leaner and healthier. we've been staying really active even throughout the shitty weather we've been having. we took sawyer on this majorly muddy hike through the community forest today, took the stroller four by fouring, not sure it's actually meant for that, but it held up pretty good!

only a couple more days left on the cleanse! looking forward to a strong finish... and some cheese.

xoxo
- ash

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the conscious cleanse . day ten & eleven

DAY TEN / ELEVEN

aaalright, confession time. i've had a rough couple days trying to get back on track here, but then it occured to me last night: hey, i'm seeing result, why give up now? so i've determined to get back on track, starting of course with a slightly over almond milked green smoothie.

i won't go into the gory details of the my failings, but i will tell you there might have been a hot dog involved at my mother in laws... i just kinda forgot i was on a cleanse. and it wasn't all bad, we did have a healthy green salad with tomatoes, cucumber, avocado and a home made dressing, so that's gotta count for something. but i really don't have any excuse for gorging myself on cupcakes last night. ahhhh i confess... 

last night my amazing friend miranda, her sister, her mother and i all got together at the lone wolf golf course for a mother/daughter tea party session!  we borrowed a cart and drove down to this little coolie off the 9th hole, where there's this great old wooden staircase and an old aged wooden bridge crossing a little stream. well anyways, we had a 2 tier cupcake stand set up on the table, littered with these adorable little red velvet and s'more mini cupcakes... how could i resist?? i bought them myself i might as well get the pleasure of eating a few right!

but no sense in crying over spilt milk, what's done is done and today is a new day. i've actually been keeping it together when it comes to dinner. on day ten i made vegetable and chickpea stirfry with a stuffed yellow pepper (dan had perogies, what a guy.) the pepper was stuffed with a mixture of sockeye salmon, kale, avocado, quinoa and rice, with a balsamic sauce. and then dinner last night was amazingly healthy and tasty as well.

we made a chicken and vegetable stir fry with black beans and basil pesto, paired with a lovely jar of lemon water of course. so you see, things aren't all bad. and i've even been avoiding coffee fairly well. dan keeps giving me shit for not drinking coffee with him because we end up wasting half a pot of perculated coffee, which really is a shame, but i just keep telling him to make less: problem solved. hah

xoxo

- ash

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the conscious cleanse catchup day

DAY SEVEN, EIGHT & NINE

i drove to GP monday morning to see my bestie: juice, and the family. she recently lost her gram - an amazingly beautiful person, and so i was looking forward to our visit even more, to have a couple girly mom days together to get her mind off things and just relax for a couple days.

i knew i wasn't going to be able to stick to my cleanse, but i wanted to do the best i could - and i use that term very loosely. i kept up with my water, we went on a walk everyday, we had healthy lunches and dinners, i stuck to the plan fairly well... if you don't count the monsoon coolers and pink rum lemonades.

not only is juice my lovely best friend, but she is also my hair stylist. we have this great deal where we trade hair for photos, and on tuesday we were lucky enough to get all three kids down for a nap at the same time and bought us enough time to dye and tone my hair all before the first one woke up. bonus! and then on one of our walks we snapped some photos of the girls along the way, and then more in the backyard. will post those soon!

but i'm pretty much back to the cleanse today, made a raw cashew cream of broccoli soup after i got home from the city. it was delicious, but i couldn't help but be reminded of baby food while i was eating it. and then later for a quick dinner before my yoga class, i sautéed some asparagus, yellow pepper and almonds in avocado oil with himalayan salt and cracked pepper.

we'll be completely back to the normal cleanse starting tomorrow for sure, and i can get caught up in the daily reading! and be sure to check out my instagram page about 11:00am for the announcement of the loop giveaway! more info tomorrow ;)

xox
- ash

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the conscious cleanse . day six

DAY SIX

As I continue creating new healthy dishes each night, I find that I'm getting a little more creative and possibly a little more talented in the kitchen. Dan gave tonight's dinner a five star rating! He's still raving about it even as I type this from my iPhone in bed.

 

We made Greek chicken and veggie kabobs and a mixed greens balsamic salad. It was so good I nearly forgot to get a picture of it before it was all ate! I marinated the chicken in this delicious Greek and basil pesto mixture for a few hours:

Marinade:

- 1 1/2 tbs basil pesto (I used classico)

- 3 tbs olive oil

- 2 tbs white wine vinegar

- 1 tsp dijon mustard

- sea salt and pepper

- garlic salt

- pinch of oregano

- onion salt

- squeeze of lemon

I used asparagus, tomatoes, red peppers and a couple carrots for the kabob veggies. And the greens salad had cucumber, tomato, almonds, kiwis, chickpeas and leftover quinoa/rice/lentil mixture. 

 For dessert I made this coconut flour brownie dish that was super healthy, sprinkled with hemp hearts and cashews, sweetened with honey, I'm bringing two big slices with me on my road trip tomorrow.

Could definitely get used to eating this way! Sawyer also approved. I'm going to do my best the next two days to stick to the cleanse as much as possible while I visit my bestie Juice and her little family in the city. She's going to do my hair and I'm going to do some lifestyle photos for her and the girls! Six forty-five am will come early when it's 2:26 am... I think I'll have to cheat a bit once I get on the road, there's no way I can make that 2 hour drive without my coffee.

xoxo

 - ash

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the conscious cleanse . day five

DAY FIVE

i had an incredibly productive morning today, i was able to knockoff my warm water and lemon elixir, my yoga practice, my green smoothie, i got organized on my reminders app, AND i even had time to clean the house, all before a hungover dan was even outta bed. hah. while some of us were coming home at 11 last night, others were out attending secret fighter after parties! too funny! 

so sawyer and i shared our green smoothie this morning. it had kiwi, a bunch of fresh pineapple, a bunch of spinach, and a sprinkle of tropical mixed frozen fruit. then threw in some hemp hearts, chia seeds, a handful of ice, and a small glass of purified water.

even though i wasn't feeling a hangover like dan, i WAS starting to feel my headache come back by the early afternoon. we were heading to montanas for lunch and mandy was meeting us there to sign some house selling papers - because, surprise! we sold the house! tentatively, i should say, as they might not have signed their papers yet. but we will know soon! got our asking price too, pretty happy about that!

i was able to stick to my cleanse while we were out to lunch. i had this mixed greens salad, with a balsamic dressing, some kind of fruit, like a cranberry or something, pecans, and grilled chicken. it was very good! i even resisted the temptation to eat the other half of sawyer's garlic bread. yes!

dinner was late, because the buyers wanted to come by and take another peek at the house at 5:30. so we leave by 5:20, come home at 6:10 and see no vehicles so we pull in. mandy texts us, says they're running late and are just leaving now... $%&#. so we don't end up getting back in the house till some time after 7, sawyer fell asleep in the carseat so he had a hard time falling asleep tonight. it was just annoying, you know?

so we finally get home and danny takes sawyer down for bath time, and i make us our supper. tonight was a dish inspired by "british curry" from the fresh restaurant cookbook! it was a mixture of broccoli, cauliflower, diced apple, craisins (no raisins), a few beans, organic curry powder, a sprinkle of garam masala, paprika and cracked pepper, a generous dash of sea salt, and a quick drizzle of braggs (no soy) soy sauce.

and then of course there's this yummy salmon fillet with a few sliced lemons to top it all off. truth be told, i actually barely ate even half of my salmon. i don't know if it was just because my stomach has shrunk, or maybe my appetite is off because of this sinus issue that has come back with full throttle. i actually ended up taking dayquil last night before the fights, i knew i wouldn't be able to do my best at yoga with dillon if i was all congested. but the "cold" has certainly remerged. i may look happy here, but that is one congested head.

so the detox symptoms certainly suck. i had a salt bath tonight and i can't tell if it's made me feel worse, or what... but i'm just trusting this is all part of the process.. i've got tons of pressure behind my eyes and in my head. pressure in my ears, in my nasal cavity, one might say i'm under pressure! but the bath definitely made me feel kinda funny, really weak, really sleepy, haha. here's the recipe i used:

- 1/4 cup epsom salt (mine was eucalyptus)

- 1/4 cup baking soda

- 1/4 cup sea salt

- 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

- 5 drops of tea tree oil

- 5 drops of eucalyptus oil

but anyways, typing on the ol' big screen is not helping the pressure behind my eyes haha. so i think i'll tie this one up here. i'll see you back here for more tomorrow!

or stick around and read about past days here:

four . three . two . one

xoxo

- ash

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