30 Day Health Challenge

Oliver the Olive Tree in the background

In an effort to be healthier, Ryan and I have started a 30 day challenge for ourselves: Walking with Romeo or some form of exercise every night (biking, jog/walking since I cannot jog further than a block...one day I will!), and no meat, dairy or alcohol. 

Appreciating the little things 

It has been really nice making the effort to get outside more often and it helps us remember to appreciate flowers, good smells like fresh ocean air and cut grass (our dog taught us that), interesting features in the landscape, etc. The exercise certainly doesn't hurt either! It's so easy to sit on the couch and put something on Netflix or rent a movie at Redbox (we don't have cable but somehow find ways to watch more tv than we'd like). After a long day at work or constant work on the house, you feel like you deserve the break but your body deserves the exercise! You owe it to your self to be as healthy as you can and push yourself off the comfy couch.

As for the diet part of our challenge: cutting out meat isn't as hard as you'd think but the dairy and alcohol thing is difficult! We have been allowing slight amounts of dairy into our diets (I think there is dairy in tikka masala sauce and I had cream in my coffee at the coffee shop) but we haven't been buying cheese, half and half (for coffee), yogurt or ice cream...all of which we enjoy but eat too much of. We switched out milk for almond milk a few years ago, so at least that is an easy transition but to make the other transitions easier, there are a few tricks I have up my sleeve like: blood orange flavored San Pellegrino...not quite a glass of red but it feels like a treat.

So far our menu items have consisted of veggie fried rice, lentil soup, Boca burgers, oatmeal, and a not so healthy but meat-free meal: Ramen noodles with an egg, onion, peas, sesame seed oil and sesame seeds. So good but not especially good for you so we won't buy any more Ramen! 

Tonight was our new favorite: Veggie and Chickpea Tikka Masala. We LOVE this recipe so I thought I'd share it with you. First, chop half an onion, 1 million garlic cloves (or however many you enjoy, ours is more like 6), 2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery, 6 sweet basil leaves (chopped), a pinch of oregano, a pinch of black pepper and sea salt, and a few sprinkles of red pepper flakes (very scientific measurements). 

This is the Tikka Masala sauce we used...cheat cooking :)

Cook these ingredients in a mixture of 2 tablespoons of coconut oil and 2 of olive oil (rough measurements, you want to coat the bottom of the pan) over medium heat for about 5 minutes and then add two cans of drained chickpeas. Cook another 3 minutes and add a 10 oz bag of frozen broccoli. Add jar of tikka masala sauce, then add a bit of water to the jar to get all the stuff coating the inside (it's a thick sauce) and add this to the pan. 

Cover and simmer over medium low until broccoli unthaws and is hot. Serve over basmati rice, top with fresh tomato and VOILA! You're a chef. We cooked 2 cups of dry basmati rice and we have enough leftovers for lunch for at least 2 days for both of us, maybe the whole week...I'll update when we finish it off!

Serve with Aranciata Rossa San Pellegrino if you're feeling fancy and enjoy outside in the mosquito cloud of your front yard. Citronella incense, candles and bug spray will provide slight protection but the bug bites are worth the tranquil dinner al fresco :)

Home and Life Improvement Adventures

We are such old farts. Our days have been consumed by "working in the yard" and "trips to the Home Depot". It's pathetic. We should be hang gliding through volcanoes for Pete's (and our own) sake! I must say though, there is something very satisfying about taking something and transforming it into something completely different and (I think) better. For instance, our latest projects are:

-installing gutters on our 1960's home. Well, some dudes from Home Depot will be installing them. I'll be watching from the comfort of my air conditioned living room. For some reason, many of the homes built in our area during this time were not built with gutters. What a terrible idea. The amount of rain that torpedoes down from the roof to our lawn is unacceptable. If I wanted a moat it would be perfect but, silly me, I'd like a regular yard that doesn't threaten to throw my house off it's foundation in a water slide of disaster.

Holy crap, we're landscapers!

-creating an Ocean Friendly Garden(OFG) out of our yard which currently consists of random grass, weeds (which are kinda pretty when they flower), and a handful of palm trees. Lucky for us, Lindley's Nursery is just a few miles away and they sent a lovely plant expert out to create a landscape plan for us for a nominal fee. We really needed their help....it's so overwhelming. Now we have an idea of what we can do to make our yard low maintenance and friendly to the oceans and the environment. We have already planted Oliver, the olive tree pictured above, some bulbines and Texas sage. All of which are drought resistant, can handle the high winds at the beach and aren't total wusses when it comes to living in salty soil. When Oliver is fully grown, he'll be kind of a bad ass. Google it.

-building a boardwalk path from the gravel parking area to our front door so that you don't have to walk through the grass or all the way over to the driveway which is like at least 3 feet away. Mostly it looks cool and beachy and we really, really wanted it. Sound logic.

Next up? A dry river bed to reduce runoff (a key element of an OFG), mulch or rock to put around plants, more plants, rain barrels for the gutters and converting our sprinkler irrigation to a drip system. All of this will take some time though because who knew how frickn expensive things would be?! A million dollars for gutters, 2 billion gazillion dollars for wood and 3 kajillion dollars for olive trees, rocks and screws. Good lord.

In other, good money news: we are on track to pay off our monster student loans in 3 years!! Woohoo!!! This means sticking to our budget but I know we can do it. Even though I want to spend all our money on gutters and olive trees....I will be strong! We are even going to try to eat a completely vegetarian and diary free diet for the next 30 days to save money and be healthier. We already don't eat a ton of meat but cutting out cheese is going to be just awful. Lentils and chickpeas, let's do this! Does anyone have any delicious vegetarian/dairy free recipes they'd like to share? I need all the help I can get :)

Adventure with Ryan and Kyle: Silver Glen Springs

Here is video from our recent trip to Silver Glen Springs is in the Ocala National Forest. Our friend Kyle brought us out there on his boat from Astor and through Lake George. The skies were dark with thunderstorms but we went anyway and after 20 minutes in the rain, it turned out to be a gorgeous day.

Silver Glen Springs from Kyle Wenzel on Vimeo.

I couldn't take credit for this bit of adventuring....the most adventure I got out of this trip was screaming in agony as the cold water touched my belly button during my tip toe walk to the shore from our boat. Kyle's girlfriend, Lauren, and I had a delightful relaxation period on the boat while the boys explored underwater caves without air tanks. Safety first!

The water is crystal clear but it is 72 degrees year round and there is gross algae spongy stuff on the bottom so bring your water socks!  Silver Glen Springs is about an hour drive from Orlando. Perfect for a day trip :)

Ryan looks like a lobster