In 2008, I started putting a water bottle on my nightstand which helped me develop the habit of drinking water when I first wake up in the morning. It’s great because it was a tiny change that helps me stay hydrated as I’m lazy and don’t even have to get up to do something healthy…lol!
It really is refreshing to wake up and start the day with H20.
Welcome to the 5th life of Noshtopia.{insert
Steph giggling a bit} I giggle because those of you who were with me in the Back in Skinny Jeans days know that I have revived this blog so many times like it was a cat with nine lives. Have a seat as I tell you about the latest revival.
As you can see, I
made some Extreme Makeover like changes around the house because well mainly, as I said in a Social Media Club panel I was on, "Your blog will evolve as you evolve." I've been evolving quite a bit since leaving SF and Silicon Valley this Fall and moving to my new home in Phoenix, Arizona.
What happened to my online voice?
Since I retired Back in Skinny Jeans in June 2009, here's what I've been doing:
While working on the book and getting grounded in a new
city, there is one thing, one BIG thing, which I have noticed in my web
presence, and that is my voice disappeared…almost entirely.
Yes, I blog, tweet,
and Facebook, but I stopped writing deeper posts where I pontificated about life.
I stopped sharing details of my life like I used to on BISJ. My tweets and blog
posts are still helpful and giving, but they don’t have as much of the
“Stephanie” in them as they used to. I also pulled back on the amount of
comments and online conversations I used to have with others in the
blogosphere.
What are people missing?
I can’t tell you how many emails, DMs, and Facebook messages
I get saying, “I really miss Back in Skinny Jeans.” It occurred to me that what
they are really missing is my voice. People miss me sharing that voice that
helped others on their own self journey to better health and happier lives by
sharing my own.
So, why did I pull back? That is a whole other blog post,
but I will share later on because it is a fascinating tale in self-realization
and coming to terms with web fame.
{insert Justin Timberlake} I’m bringing Stephie back
Today, I will tell you that I’m bringing that voice back
slowly but surely and I think it’s will be exciting at least if not refreshing
to have “me” back online again. So, here’s some of the plan for now:
The business person in me dictated that type of blog format
and honestly, although it has been good in many ways, that strategy has made me
feel uptight about sharing my personal life and personal point of view on
things. Why? Because, the business person in me thinks, “What big corporation
wants to buy a blog built on someone’s personal life?” A blog like Tree Hugger
could sell to Discovery because it’s a blog focused on a specific topic, Green,
versus a blog based on a specific person like The Pioneer Woman whose whole blog is about her
life as a woman, wife, and mother living on a ranch. I want to try being just me in the blog.
So, the
theme is now, “Connect Deliciously” which is where I am at in my own life, and reflects my beliefs about connecting online, with oneself, and with humans in real life. I'm getting better at leaving the screen, and meeting people the old-fashioned way… in person. I will
write my posts as if we are eating or having a latte or a happy hour cocktail
like what I do in my everyday life. I will still share recipes and food ideas
and tips, but I will also bring back some of the things I did in BISJ that were
popular like “Skinny Tips”, the healthy living tips related to mind, body,
spirit, and Tiny Changes Tuesday. Here, I will call them “Tiny Acts of Change” and
share on Tue and Thu.I’ll also share my tips on social media and making a
living as a lifestyle blogger because people are always fascinated by how one
can make a living or a difference in the world through blogging and tweeting. I'm also good at translating Geek speak into Oprah speak, "How can social media help you live your best life" or to add a Steph spin, "How can social media help you live your most authentic life."
That’s it for now. As usual, please share any comments,
suggestions, or thoughts you have. I love to hear all feedback. Again, welcome
to my personal blog! I’m looking forward to what noshy adventures lay ahead 🙂
Note about the picture: At my local Whole Foods, they had a table of these small bunches of various organic greens for $1.99 a bunch. There was chard, kale, mustard, and dandelion. What is cool is that I can buy a small bunch for under $2 and know that I will eat the whole thing versus having to get a normally large bunch and end up not eating it all because it’s too much.
Because I have fun playing the guessing game, based purely upon my observations shopping, cooking, eating, and reading blogs/sites , here are 5 food trends I see for 2010:
Addressing food allergies: There will be a rise in food products and dishes at restaurants that cater to those with food allergies and intolerances because more and more people are discovering they have reactions to certain foods like dairy, egg, wheat, nuts, and seafood. From the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, here are some quick facts about food allergies like, “Food allergy occurs in 6 to 8 percent of children 4 years of age or under, and in 3.7 percent of adults.”
In the blogging community, there are growing numbers of blogs focused on food allergies and intolerances. One of the biggest niches is gluten-free blogs. Noshtopia is not one food allergy focused blog but the theme is a prevalent one because I have allergies to dairy, eggs, almonds, and certain beans.
Cooking for mixed eating households: Mom is vegan, kid has Celiac disease, and Dad eats meatloaf and potatoes. In the modern family, not everyone eats the same and people are busier than ever. Cooking for a scenario like this one can be a challenge. I see more recipes addressing how to start off with a basic dish and then adjusting or adding to appeal to all or as many family members as possible. For example for the family above, a gluten free pasta served with tomato basil sauce, will work for mom and kid. Adding meatballs on top will appeal to dad.
Food packaged in smaller portions: I have noticed in certain grocery stores particularly in areas where there are more singles and DINKs (double income, no kids), food packaged for a single to two person serving. Given that people are waiting longer to get married, divorce and single-parent families are on the rise, smaller portion packaged foods would also be appealing to these smaller households. And there are those who just want to eat smaller portions for example like those who are watching their weight, but still want to enjoy a smaller portion of a favorite food like a piece of cake versus a whole cake.
As a single person myself, I can attest to the fact that I won’t buy things like a whole box of cookies, but if it’s packaged in say a quantity of 2-3, I will buy it. The smaller packaging is great for stores too because like in deli foods, they can take end pieces cut them into smaller pieces and sell them. There is less waste.
Cheaper organic foods: Local farmer’s markets and organic co-ops can offer cheaper deals for fresh organic produce. Bigger food store chains are importing organic produce from other countries where cost is cheaper. Yes, there’s debate on organic standards because not all countries have the same guidelines, but let’s say for argument’s sake those standards can be better unified and monitored in time.
Whole Foods 365 brand also offers organic products at cheaper costs compared to some national brands mainly because Whole Foods can get better deals because they can buy in much bigger bulk thus extending the savings to their customer. For example, a bottle of organic ketchup at Whole Foods is around $1.99 where a bottle of Safeway’s O organic ketchup can run around $2.69.
Goji Berry will go mainstream in the US: At most given times there is some power food that is trendy. Recently, there was Acai Berry. Goji Berry is appearing more and more in foods like cereal, food bars, and drinks in health stores or chains like Whole Foods whose shoppers tend to be more early adopters. Goji Berry is being touted for all its health benefits particularly its antioxidant beefiness, and I see it being the next popular super fruit in the mainstream in places like health-marketed cereal like Special K, waffles, cookies, bagels, and energy/health drinks like Gatorade or Fruit infused waters.
In fact, I have no doubt some manufacturer right now is working on or has out already a bottled Goji Berry infused water that will be marketed as, “Stay youthful and hydrated with the ant-aging properties of Goji Berry, a secret only previously known in the Himalayan mountains.” Sounds like some magical elixir doesn’t it?
So these are the food trends I see, what about you? What are your thoughts on food trends for 2010?
One tablespoon of granulated sugar is about 12.5 grams. One gram of sugar is about 4 calories, so that’s about 50 calories per tablespoon. To use an everyday example, there’s 50 calories in 2.5 of those little brown packets of Sugar in the Raw you see at Starbucks.
In one week, cutting back on just one tablespoon of sugar per day adds up to 87.5 grams of sugar and 350 calories.
If you weighed around 155lbs, it would take about 30 minutes to burn 350 calories running at a 10 minute/mile pace (6.0 on your typical treadmill.) Cutting back on the sugar seems real easy now!
One of my kitchen gadgets I cannot live without is my 1.5-cup food processor. What I love most about this cute little processor is that it takes up very little room and takes 30-seconds to clean. Again, back to the lazy thing, I really don’t like cleaning 5-cup blenders and 12-cup food processors because mentally, it always makes me feel like cleaning them is doing a chore. The mini-me is effortless to clean and one of the things I love to make in it are smoothies.
I like thicker smoothies. Mine though are sometimes too thick and have a consistency closer to drinkable pudding, kinda like this very simple one I made the other day which was simply organic blueberries, half a banana, chopped walnuts, and rice milk. Fire up the mini-me and this smoothie makes for a great afternoon sweet snack packed with some MUFAs.
One of the tiny acts of change we can do as a community to help those working to aid Haiti in recovery is by simply spreading the word on our blogs and social media accounts.
Since, we’re all about health here at Noshtopia, I’m spreading the word for Doctors Without Borders. Click on the image above or this link, and it will direct you to the Doctors Without Borders website where you can get more information about buttons to put on your blog or website, as well as activity happening on Twitter and Facebook.
Anything you can do, even if it’s a tiny act, will help!
Since I can’t do mayo because of the egg allergy, here is how I make tuna salad. This version really tastes almost the same as using mayo and relish, so I don’t even feel I’m missing out on anything. In fact, I think this version tastes better.
Just mix everything up in a bowl, and chill for 20 minutes before eating. To add a hint of flavor, I only use about 2 dashes of garlic powder not salt because the tuna is salted already. Too much of the garlic powder changes everything.
I say 2-3 tbsp because it depends on how “wet” I want my tuna salad. I tend to like the salad on the dry side because it’s also less calories. Compared to like a Kraft regular Mayo, Brianna’s has 80 calories/tbsp and 7g of fat. Kraft mayo has 90 calories/tbsp and 10g of fat.
To me, Brianna’s Poppyseed dressing is a gift from heaven because it has a thickness similar to mayo, and it’s on the sweet side. It’s not trying to be a mayo substitute, it’s just another option, and I love it!
One down, one to go! Today at Whole Foods Raintree, I found a vegan blueberry muffin. Now, we just need to find vegan banana nut. woo-hoo! I’ve been here in Phoenix 4 months now, and I still joke about how vegan banana nut or vegan blueberry muffins just don’t exist here. One day, I got fed up and just baked some vegan banana nut muffins on my own.
Ive been looking for months for vegan muffins of any flavor. Blogged about it. Tweeted about it. Facebooked about it. I’ve asked every single person I’ve met since moving here if they’ve seen any vegan muffins…anywhere in Phoenix or the outlining areas. Nada, zilch, until today!
Back in the Bay Area, you can walk into any Whole Foods and find oodles of vegan muffins. I figure asking for vegan banana nut or blueberry wasn’t asking much here in Phoenix. Oh I was wrong.
If I were a pastry chef, restauranteur, or cafe owner here in Phoenix, I would so be selling vegan muffins because there is a WIDE open market. No competition. Of course, the muffins have to be just plain good first and vegan second.
One of my favorite vegan dishes at my local Whole Foods deli counter is this Corn and Arugula salad. I can easily eat this whole container in one sitting, it’s so darn yummy.
The ingredients are really simple and I have no doubt it would be a pinch to make at home. Next time I buy corn, I’m gonna try and make it. The ingredients include:
They use very little vinegar in this. If anything, the dominate flavor would be the red onion which gives the salad a nice punch.
The idea of paying $9 for a pint of gelato seems absolutely
ridiculous to me, but I saw this Organics Nectars brand cashew nut milk raw agave gelato and
bought one because I was dying of curiosity. This isn’t some regular
icy treat as it is:
All I kept thinking was that it had better be that good
because with $9 I could buy two pints of rice or soy ice cream.
Fortunately, I was surprised how good this ice cream was. In fact, it
exceeded my expectation so yeah it was worth the $9 especially for
those of us who can’t have regular ice cream due to a cow milk allergy
or intolerance.
The nutritional perks compared to cow milk based gelato
I was surprised to see too that with this cashew nut milk gelato you get a nice break on the calories and fat. As a quick example for a 1/2 cup serving, compared to Ciao Bella Mint Chip Gelato which has 230 caories, 22g of sugar and 13g of fat, the Organic Nectars Mint Chip has 160 calories, 14g of sugars and 9g of fat.
Trying not one but two flavors
In the picture above is the Mint Chip with some walnuts I threw in,
as I love nuts in ice cream. I also tried the Chocolate Hazelnut and
wow both flavors are fantastic. In fact, unless you’re an ice cream connoisseur, you might not even be able to tell the difference between
this cashew nut milk based gelato from your typical cow milk based gelato.
Having tried coconut, hemp, rice, and soy milk based ice creams, I have to say that I like the cashew nut milk the best mainly because of two things: texture and taste. The frozen cashew milk is heavy almost exactly like frozen cow milk, and the slight nutty taste blends in better with ice cream flavors as opposed to the other non-dairy milks where you can taste the coconut, the hemp, and so forth.
I’m definitely going to try the other Organic Nectars raw agave gelatos like Pistachio and Vanilla Fudge because I thought it was that good.
Taco Bell wants us to “Think Outside the Butt” with their new Drive-Thru Diet featuring Christine who lost 54lbs and is now biniki-ready after eating tacos and burritos.
*Serious eye roll*
Over at the Back in Skinny Jeans Facebook fanpage, I share my two cents on this Taco Bell “diet”.
Note: You must be logged in to Facebook to see the post.
Hope all of you are enjoying food, festivities, and loved ones! Tis the season for gratitude.
Thank you for your readership. It is a wonderful gift 🙂
Apparently, vegan banana nut muffins do not exist in
Phoenix, until now. Let me share with you why this matters…at least to me. But
first, behold, I’ve made some mini vegan banana nut muffin bites, perfect for a
healthier holiday office party treat.
One of the foods I would get often at the Whole Foods bakery
when I lived in the SF bay Area were vegan banana nut muffins. Here’s a picture
of said muffins. Those vegan banana nut muffins are heavenly goodness because
they don’t taste “vegan.” You can’t tell the difference, the muffins are just
simply good! I’m not vegan, but I can eat these muffins because they are egg
and dairy-free….me with the food allergies.
I mention the “vegan”
tasting thing mainly because many people have preconceptions of what vegan
tastes like and it usually swirls around things like grassy, bran-ish, or “something’s
missing.” To me, the hallmark attribute of any excellent food is that it has
wonderful taste and a pleasurable texture. If you can nail those two things,
the ingredients are less important, vegan or not. People just want to have a
fabulous food experience.
Not even Whole Foods
has the vegan banana nut muffin
When I loved to Phoenix a few months ago, I went to all 5
Whole Foods in the area and all the other natural food stores I could find, and
not one had a vegan banana nut muffin, not even frozen ones. In fact, compared
to the Bay Area the vegan selections are very small in Phoenix. There’s plenty
of gluten-free offerings, but little in vegan choices.
Not to be discouraged, I then went in search on Yelp, blogs,
and food sites as well as tweeting , hitting up local foodies, and asking every
human being I’ve met in Phoenix where I could find any
place that sold vegan banana nut muffins. Amazingly, vegan banana nut muffins do
not exist ANYWHERE here. It is the weirdest thing especially since banana nut
is a popular flavor. It’s not like I’m trying to find an Acai berry macadamia
vegan muffin.
Phoenix metro is the 5th largest city in the US
and not one place makes a vegan banana nut muffin. I’m absolutely astonished! So,
for my final post for Viva paper towels, they are sponsoring this post and my
quest to bring a vegan banana nut muffin to Phoenix.
Here, I made some, and we
can now say the vegan banana nut muffin exists in Phoenix, and is no longer a
unicorn. Can you smell the delicious aroma right out of the oven? Thanks Viva! For some fun,
fork-free recipes including videos and snappy entertaining ideas, check out the
VIVA® Diva Café. And even cooler, today, someone will get the opportunity to win a $50 Gift Card to buy whatever you want courtesy of Viva. That's just so cool of them! More on how to win at the end of the post.
but mine has one secret ingredient that I didn’t see anyone else use. It’s
different, and I think added to the moistness of the muffin. Moist is a key
texture thing for me in muffins as I dislike dry muffins. Many dairy and
egg-free muffins I’ve had tend to be on the drier side. But not here!
Ingredients* (makes
about 3 dozen mini muffins)
*Notes: For my
batch, I used 2 cups of the 100% Whole Wheat flour, and they were good but they
did have a slight bran-like taste to them which is fine for the health nuts but
if you’re trying to impress to non-vegans or non-health nuts for the first
time, I’d go the half & half route (1/2 all purpose & half whole
wheat). I also use as much organic ingredients as possible because I like it.
You don’t have to.
Let’s get cooking!
Let the muffins cool for about 10-15 minutes before noshing.
Enjoy!
—————-
Since it's the holiday season, I think one of the best gift's is gratitude, feeling grateful for the abundance we have like health, love, and friends. So, to enter to win the $50 Gift Card from Viva, in comments share one thing you are grateful for.
You have until midnight 12/22 MST to leave a comment. After that, I will close the comments. The winner will be picked randomly. I need a valid email address to notify you if you win. Not to worry, in my privacy policy I clearly state we're cool, and I never give out emails to 3rd parties.
U.S. residents only. Sorry, international noshers. Next time.
————————
UPDATE: The winner of the $50 Gift Card: Congratulations to Mendie!
Thank you again to Viva Paper Towels for sponsoring the giveaway.