The Healthy Everythingtarian

In this 21st century of busy schedules, advancing technology (ahem, social media anyone?) and a go, go, go attitude, there isn’t always enough time to do all the things we want.

In an ideal world, I would like to wash my hair more than twice this week.

And perhaps finish The Queen, which I’ve had on Netflix for more than two months but have yet to watch.

I would also like to catch up on So You Think You Can Dance. Since Alex got booted after perhaps the best routine ever, I’ve been seriously lagging behind.

But that is not here nor there.

I promise, I am getting to the point. My point being, if you do one thing this week, please take 15 minutes to go out and buy these…

Blue Diamond Oven Roasted Butter Toffee Almonds (!!!)

Seriously, they’re good enough to be DESSERT. For a dessert maven like myself, that’s a bold statement.

A bold statement I proudly stand by.

Almonds, sugar, brown sugar, corn maltodextrin, natural flavor (butter toffee), sea salt and rebiana (stevia extract) have never tasted so good.

Heck, I don’t even care what corn maltodextrin is.

They are so delicious, I promise you won’t either.

You may care if you won my Kroeger Herbs giveaway, and for one lucky person, I am happy to say I was able to make your dream come true this Labor Day Weekend.

That would be…

Sami Says:
September 1st, 2010 at 10:13 am edit

Thanks for the giveaway, holly! I’d like to try the Healthy Gut, too because it says on the site that it helps with digestion. Sometimes I have serious issues with that!

Send me your mailing address, and I’ll make sure Kroeger Herbs gets your winner’s pack out right away!

Now excuse me, I need skip my shower to go buy more butter toffee almonds.

I’m currently out.

…if I am actually as much of a crazy-scheduled busy body as I think I am or if I am just being a 25-year-old baby who can’t handle the demands of real, adult life.

…if I am just a person who perspires profusely at 6am or if yoga indeed brings out the sweat in me.

…why people like Cheryl from America’s Nutrition are so nice as to send me this FABULOUS PurAthletics yoga towel to help with said bodily function issue. The best part? It’s a full-length towel, which means extra surface area to sop up all that hard-earned perspiration.

…why Cheryl from America’s Nutrition is EXTRA nice as to also send me this salad shaker chiller to review for the blog as well. Trust me, I am nowhere near as cool as I should be to receive such kindness.

…why didn’t anybody think of this sooner? It’s got a special compartment for your dressing (that’s turnable and releases the dressing into the shaker), spacious room to accommodate a ginormous junk salad, a freezer ring to keep everything cool and it clickety-clacks all together!

…why I can’t go a single meal without spilling on myself. Twenty-five years and still going strong…

…how such good-for-you ingredients can taste so dang good for you. Then I realize in the beginning of mankind, before the invention of KFC Double Down Sandwiches, Candwiches and one Fast Food Nation suped up on processed faux-food, real food was good because it was well…real.

1 cup mixed greens
1/4 cup diced heirloom tomato
1/2 cucumber, sliced
1 grated carrot
sprinkle of nutritional yeast
crumbled Garden Herb Sunshine Burger
drizzle of Lemon Basil Pesto Vinaigrette

…how I can come back to Earth in my second life as a Russian ballerina.

…if I tried really, really hard, could I be a vegan again? With recipes like Vegan Yum Yum’s Rainbow Rice and vegan-friendly friends like Kristie, I am sure I could do much better than my two-month stint several years ago when I lived in the middle of Nowheresville, WI with access to zippo vegan eats.

…why beer can’t be a food group.

…when some crazy intelligent college nerd is going to invent me a machine that single-handedly does my dishes for me. Oh wait! That’s called a dishwasher, and I’m too poor to own one.

…if there is anything better in life than devouring warm chocolate chip cookies + coconut milk vanilla bean ice cream after dinner while rehashing college drinking stories and hanging out with good people.

…if spilling on yourself at lunch really happened if you can’t see the stain on your white blouse in a point n’ shoot camera shot from 10 feet away (ya know…like if a tree falls in the forest but no one hears it, does it really make a sound?). Ponder that.

…why there can’t just be more hours in the day. I mean, is it too much to ask if the Earth’s axis, laws of outer space and time can all shift just for me? I think not. Then I could lurk all the links in cyberspace I want with those extra precious couple of hours…

• 2 People, 2 Dogs, 1 Apartment
• Healthy Living Blogs
• Madison Beer Blog (written by my friend + coworker Cecely!)
• Nature Made’s Cholest-Off Challenge
• Say Yes! Change Things
• Whale Tongue (written by my BFF’s fiancee, the aspiring filmmaker Maxx!)

Finish this sentence, “Sometimes I wonder…”

The most common question family + friends ask me is, “Holly, what the hell is nooch?”

Before you drop your healthy foodie jaw in utter shock, let me just say I can’t blame my loved ones for being scared of this vegan protein wonder.

Case in point: hooch, mooch, pooch, cooch (yeah, I said it) and nooch.

For starters, it’s just not in good rhyming company.

That’s okay however, because “nooch” is really just a pet name for what is more commonly known as nutritional yeast. Yes, I said yeast. Grown and cultured on enriched purified cane and beet molasses, this yellowish-hued yeast is then harvested, washed, dried and packaged.

When finished, it looks a little something like this…

You can get it in flakes (seen above) or a powder that looks oddly identical to cornmeal.

It’s vegan. It packs roughly eight grams of protein in two heaping tablespoons. It’s nutty, cheesy and yummy. And I love it. Not to mention, I can get hoards of it for cheap in the bulk bins of my local co-op.

Other health benefits of nutritional yeast?

• It’s a complete protein (meaning it has all the essential amino acids for human dietary needs)
• Good source of fiber
• Rich in the B-complex vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin + pyridoxine)
• Naturally low in fat + sodium

You’re probably saying to yourself, “Well Miss Everythingtarian, that’s just fabulous and all. But how do I actually USE this supposed wonder ingredient when cooking?”

Like this.

Sprinkled over a veggie egg scramble…

As an extra cheesy layer of flavor on homemade English muffin pizzas…

In a batch of noochified hummus…

Atop a ginormous junk salad…

Other ways of enjoying the nooch: Mae’s Pizza Cheese, mixed with marinara sauce (hello vegan cheesy marinara!), Cheezy Kale Chips, sprinkled on popcorn, used in place of parmesan cheese…the proverbial foodie sky is the limit on this one.

Have I convinced you to go buy some yet?

Huh?

Have I?

So, tell me…

Are you a fan of the nooch? What are some of YOUR favorite ways to eat it?

********

Off to pack before moving my lil’ sissy to college – see y’all in the Rocky Mountain State!

I love when I wake up on Mondays and actually look forward to going to work.

Now, if only that happened more often.

I don’t hate my job whatsoever, but work is just…well, work.

After a relaxing weekend home with the fam, my brain was in anything but work mode this morning. I blame the fact that when I poured milk into my coffee, it was curdled. I about vommed right then and there. Actually, just the thought of it makes me want to vom right now.

Luckily, two slices of PB+B toast sprinkled with apple pie spice helped me recover.

Well, almost…

You see, I bought unsalted peanut butter at the grocery store this weekend. Do you know how important salt is to a gloriously delicious tasting peanut butter? Or any nut butter for that matter. Peanut butter without salt is like Lindsay Lohan without the drama; watching The Price is Right with Drew Carey; drinking beer without fried cheese curds; and having to see Matthew McConoughay – gasp! – with his shirt on.

It’s just ain’t right.

Salted is where it’s at.

Over the weekend, I received the most lovely package of goodies from Coco at Opera Girl Cooks…

Homemade Double Coconut Granola (!!!)

She also sent me some other fun goodies, which shall make their blog debut soon. However, I was giddy with excitement when I finally got to try some of this today in a good ol’ fashioned yog mess today.

6 oz. container Fage 0% plain Greek yog
1/4 cup OGC Double Coconut Granola
1/2 cup blueberries
1 T low sugar raspberry jelly

AH-MAY-ZING.

This weekend at home, I also discovered a new product: Baked Lentil Chips! I obviously bought them on my parent’s dime and proceeded to bring them home without sharing (albeit a handful or two)…

That would be 22 chips for 110 calories, 4 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber.

But how did they taste? Delightful! I could have used more sea salt action, but overall, I would most definitely buy them again. Then, I would channel my inner hippie and dunk them in hummus.

LOTS of hummus.

When I told you I the blogging gods were watching over me and my paltry bank account, I wasn’t lying. This is the first of three product review to come on the blog this week. In conjunction with My BlogSpark, Romano’s Macaroni Grill sent me one of their new frozen meals for free to review for the blog: Grilled Chicken Florentine.

I immediately gave this meal a thumbs up because it features farfalle (bowtie) pasta, my favorite.

However, the nutritionals were a little more dicey…

The amount of saturated fat and sodium kind of skeeve me out. The rest of it isn’t so bad, but those two stats weighed heavily on my Everythingtarian soul as I cooked this pasta up.

Luckily, they sent me a GINORMOUS white plate + metal tongs, which helped ease the blow of the saturated fat + sodium content…

Seriously, this thing is huge.

And yes, TWSS.

I couldn’t resist.

To add a veggie-packed punch to the pasta, I served it on a bed of organic baby spinach…

…took the obligatory blog photos…

…and dominated it.

Final verdict? Although I admittedly wouldn’t spend my own money buying this meal, I will admit it was quite tasty and pretty fresh. The chicken was not fake tasting at all and the cream sauce was thick without being too heavy. I give it one thumb up, one thumb down.

And before I forget, today was a monumental day in my life.

You see, my homegirl Sofia featured a certain t-shirt on her fabulous blog not too long ago. I immediate fell in love with its powerful message. Before I knew it, several e-mail exchanges later, Sofia offered to send me a different one I may happen to love even more than the first.

In three words, it precisely sums up one of my life’s mottos…

‘Chos before Hoes.

And yes, that t-shirt would be referring to nachos.

Recognize.

P.S. I may have hopped on the bandwagon and joined Twitter: follow me here!

Inspiration is a funny thing.

You never find it when you’re actually looking for it. Or praying for it, in my case.

It’s kinda like those rare moments when I go to the mall with a wad of cash I’ve saved up for months to spend. I NEVER find anything cute. However, when I’m strapped for the Benjamins, Anthropologie always manages to be having the most amazing sale ever. Why oh why God must you do that to me?

Even worse, it’s like men. When I go out looking for Mr. Tall-dark-and-handsome-with-an-amazing-sense-of-humor-and-blue-eyes-to-boot, I’m more likely to find a Jackie Chan wannabe kung fu instructor who jumps up in the middle of a busy bar to teach me self-defense moves.

True story.

Plus, who needs self defense when you have the power to nag a potential kidnapper to death?

Not me.

In other words, what I’m trying to say is that I’ve been uninspired lately.

Since getting back from vacay with Susan, I’ve spent 95% of my time doing three things: sleeping, working and eating. Throw in a couple workouts and some hours spent reading novels in bed, and you’ve got my life in a nutshell this past week.

Breakfast have consisted of bowls of cereal, PB+B toast and the occasional yog mess…

1 cup Fage 0% plain Greek yog
3/4 cup strawberries
1 crumbled Strawberry Coconut Oatmeal Cookie
handful Optimum Banana Nut Cereal
dollop of peanut butter

My daily snacks have been courtesy of a new find I discovered grocery shopping this past weekend visiting Mama + Daddy Everythingtarian…

OMG…these things are AH-MAY-ZING! Sugared up with stevia (our fave natural sweetener), I’ve been popping these almonds like they’re candy, which they practically are.

Lunches have been quintessentially random but have always contained lots of greens, carbage and a lil’ something sweet…

And dinner has almost always involved one of these buns…

This is the second package of three I received from Nature’s Pride (in conjunction with Foodbuzz), and I am not going to lie: every once in awhile, nothing tastes better than empty white carbohydrates.

In case you didn’t catch it from the above picture, six of those eight buns are already gone from the package. Exactly six of those eight buns have also been eaten slathered with peanut butter + jelly.

So good.

Like so, so good. Sometimes I forget how good PB+J on plain ol’ white bread is.

Tonight however, I thought I would change it up. How’s about some asparagus (sauteed in EVOO + garlic) alongside a toasted bun, yellow mustard + Sunshine Breakfast Burger?

Plus, one camera shy Spotted Cow beer. Quite frankly, after I ran 3 miles in the stifling heat, nothing sounded better than downing this meal with a crisp, cool Wisconsin brew.

There you have it: the first full day of eats I’ve documented in awhile.

In case you were one of the several people who commented + e-mailed me to see if I was okay after not blogging for 3 days, I am indeed okay. I’ve just been taking a breather from technology and blogs to enjoy the simple things and relax, something I am admittedly bad at.

So, until next time…

Have you bought your copy of the 55 Knives cookbook yet?

Did you recite your new mantra 10 times in front of the mirror yet? Walk the walk!

Have you wished Brandi a very happy birthday?