30/30 Veggie Challenge

I'm taking the March veggie challenge to try 30 different vegetables in 30 days before the end of March.  I'm currently working under my company's team, but I encourage you to join as an individual. Visit Recipe for Success Foundation to learn more and sign up.  #VegOut2019

Curried Chickpea Salad

Yum,  I tried this out and it was great.  My kids and DH loved it too.

http://www.simple-veganista.com/2014/01/curried-chickpea-salad.html

What I ate today -breakfast

I am trying to get back my discipline before Ramadan,  just one week away.  So I'm going to play, "What I ate today". Because I  know if others could see I would be embarrassed most days before today. 

First off - Breakfast
We have a bowl with one banana and about a half cup of strawberries.

Fully Raw Kristina's 21 Day Raw Challenge

Fully Raw Kristina's 21 Day Raw Challenge

I have signed up for the 21-day-challenge set up by FullyRawKristina, one of 3 lovely ladies that I follow on YouTube daily.  I have been attempting to go Fully raw since June 2014.  I have had ups and downs, but have become even more determined to stick with it.  This challenge is only meant help replace at least one meal a day with a fully raw meal, but can also be used to add new recipes to your fully raw diet.  

Well I will be one of the ones adding these recommendations to my fully raw day.  My goal is to eat all 3 meals and snacks as fully raw. Again using Kristina's fully raw daily list as ideas for breakfast, lunch, dinner or (in the case of today's recipe) dessert. :)  I'm so very excited to join the rawvolution. If you wanna check out Kristina or my other two favorite raw foodies click the links below to check out their websites/youtube channels:

Kristina:

YouTube - FullyRawKristina

Website -  Fully Raw

Rawvana aka Yovana Mendoza

YouTube English - Rawvana

YouTube Espanol - Rawvana Espanol

WebSite - RawVana Web

Megan Elizabeth

YouTube - Easy To Be Raw

WebSite - M E Web

Editors note: I so totally forgot a rockin Raw Food inspiration Ms. Laura Miller with Tastemade Raw.Vegan.Not Gross and her personal channel Laura Miller.  Also check out her website/Blog at SideSaddleKitchen. 

Raw Food Day 2

Raw Food, Who knew?

Ok, So I've decided to start slow, replacing one to two meals or all 2 if I'm feeling it.  I commited myself last June to going fully raw cold turkey.  Which worked at first, then I fell off into old habits (being a vegetarian not to bad).  So I've been toying around with new recipes and watching some inspirational videos and so I'm back at it.  This time I'm going to ease my way into it.  At some point I will do @Rawvana's 7 day reset to Reset my body and mind then make out my meal plans with raw meals and not look back.

So far today:
 I've had a bowl of fruit (mango, strawberries and blackberries) for breakfast.  With a side of lime & strawberry infused (32oz) water.

Lunch:
 I'm looking at a salad mixed greens (romaine, chard, & kale), mini bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and italian dressing.

Dinner:
 I'm thinking Spaghetti squash (especially since DH already tried cutting into it SMH).

Wish me good health

Check these people out:
Rawvana
FullyRawKristina
Raw.Vegan.Not Gross

Ramadan Half way point

Alhamdulilah, Allah has made it easy on my husband and I that we have successfully made it through to the half way point of Ramadan.  This Ramadan and all others are a blessing and we are so thankful we have made it this far and for our little family.

My daughters have grown by leaps and bounds in their faith and I am so very proud of them.  My son mashaAllah was praised Saturday at the Masjid for praying so well at the ripe old age of 2.  I would like to thank Allah and my husband for being the best teachers.  Allah for teaching my husband who is in turn teaching my son.  My daughters are coming into their own in this deen and mashaAllah it is amazing to watch.

I pray: May Allah continue to make it easy on all of us fasting muslims that we may be able to complete the remainder of the fast, Insha'Allah.

Slacker

WOW I'm such a slacker, I am promising to do better.

I will try to keep up with my diet postings.  Especially since I've made the decision to go FULLY RAW. Yes I said it Fully Raw.  I bawked at my husband when he originally brought this up last year, but after the first 2 weeks I had lost 5 lbs and it was fun.  However at this stage in my journey I have been exercising, but in logging my foods I've noticed I'm no where near the health wagon even though I'm a vegetarian I'm eating entirely TOO much processed foods.

This being said I declare today the start of my raw journey.  I'm going to start with Kristina's 21 day challenge.

Outley Fundraiser

Help my Dearest daughter Africa raise funds for her school please go to her page Africa Q. and browse the wide selection of gifts, magazines, COOKIE DOUGH, and wrapping paper.  So you get cool stuff and so will she.

Meal time

My first home meal: Jamaican red pea soup

New inspiration

I found this website yesterday.  A woman on one of The Bump.coms message boards posted this picture

for Apple dumplings and the picture was linked to this website The Pioneer Woman.  And OMG I'm in love.  Being from the country myself and having my Nana (May God have mercy on her) being born in the early 1900's was a GREAT from scratch cooker.  I never really took to much interest in making the things myself just eating them, but being married with 2 kids and one on the way and my husband being so into making stuff ourselves because it's healthier (i.e. we know for real what's going in it) and cheaper than buying out for someone to make the same thing.  I've come up a little in my home cooking prowess and have slowly (much to my husbands dismay) began to try to branch out my cooking skills.

I think this website has definitely lit a small fire under me.  Again being from the country and knowing what real home country cooking tastes like I am in love and I pray God makes it easy on me to take some of these recipes and run with them.  I hope my family approves and I hope I do the Pioneer woman and my Nana proud.

Stay tuned for my hits and misses.

Insanely Easy Vegetarian Chili

I have done it again.  Below is a recipe I tried out last night because well the whole family has been under the weather and I heard on the weather that it was going to get cold so I thought some night warm hearty chili would do the trick. 

We didn't have everything on the ingredients list but it still turned out pretty tasty.  DH ate 3 full bowls, Khalifah had a nice sized baby bowl and Africa even ate it without to many complaints ;). I used fresh corn and kidney beans instead of canned.  We didn't have mushrooms.  I subbed tomatoes for ketchup chili powder for cayenne (only 1 tsp not the recommended tbsp) and Coriander for cumin.  Oh and I threw in about 1/4 tsp of salt for taste. Insanely Easy Vegetarian Chili

Rated: Submitted By: Tia Photo By: Extra Foamy Prep Time: 25 Minutes Cook Time: 30 Minutes Ready In: 55 Minutes Servings: 8

"This recipe is a great alternative to traditional chili. It combines onions, carrots, celery, red and green bell pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes and corn."

INGREDIENTS:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 cup chopped onions 3/4 cup chopped carrots 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 cup chopped green bell pepper 1 cup chopped red bell pepper 3/4 cup chopped celery 1 tablespoon chili powder

1 1/2 cups chopped fresh mushrooms 1 (28 ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes with liquid, chopped 1 (19 ounce) can kidney beans with liquid 1 (11 ounce) can whole kernel corn, undrained 1 tablespoon ground cumin 1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Saute onions, carrots, and garlic until tender. Stir in green pepper, red pepper, celery, and chili powder. Cook until vegetables are tender, about 6 minutes.
2.	Stir in mushrooms, and cook 4 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, kidney beans, and corn. Season with cumin, oregano, and basil. Bring to a boil, and reduce heat to medium. Cover, and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2011 Allrecipes.com

Printed from Allrecipes.com 10/28/2011

Tootless

Well we had a dentist appointment for both of our daughters Saturday. All went well. The oldest has both of her bottom teeth that are on their way to falling out. If you looked at the x-ray you it looked like she was a shark with an extra row of teeth waiting to come out after a good hunt. I asked her if they were wiggly and she said no :) yeah uh huh I took a look at them when we got home and any more wiggly they would have been out on the floor LOL. Too cute.

Now on to the baby. She is so precious with her toothless smile. I love her to death. DH is worried she is to old to not have teeth. I'm not as worried yet because Africa started late around 11 months cutting teeth. Well Dentist examined the baby to her horror thinking she was being attacked and nothing. Not a tooth in sight or feel.

So one little princess is on her way to toothless town the other is making herself comfortable there :)

However:

She may be toothless, but that doesn't stop her from eating :) Gotta love 'em.

Tofu Fries n Ketchup

I have succeeded once again. I have made the above from scratch. Well not the tofu I bought that, but all is homemade. Even the ketchup. About 2 weeks ago I found a recipe for tofu fries and it looked pretty good. Even the recommendation from the authors non tofu eating 7 y/o caught my attention so I decided to make them when we had all the right stuff. Well today was that day. unfortunately we were short on ketchup so since I'm already cooking why not make Ketchup too. I found a pretty good recipe that had the same stuff as we had in the house (ie. not a pound of tomatoes).

And here's the finished product:

And the whole family liked it. All the way down to the baby. Alhamdulilah.

Honorary Nigerian today

Today at Family Halaqa we had stew and hard us I looked up a recipe for the stew because darn it I wanted some more.

While thinking about what to cook for dinner and looking in the pantry and not wanting anything that was there, plus the prep would have taken to long.  So tonight I am an honorary Nigerian as I've not only made stew, but fo fo to go with it ;)

Alhadulilah