100 Days Cookbook!

If you've followed this blog for awhile, you know that I LOVE 100 Days of Real Food.

I've used or recreated quite a few of Lisa's recipes over the past year or so. We have experimented a lot in the past year+ on a diet that works best for me (for losing weight) and the kids (to get them to eat, gain weight, and not have any reactions). It's been an interesting journey that has led us down the vegan road for a bit, gluten free for awhile, but what I've found that what has worked best for us is just focusing on REAL food. No processed junk, no artificial flavor and colors, just good, homemade foods. We make everything from scratch these days, from bread, to chicken broth, and sweet treats (the kids favorite). A lot of recipes we have found online, even in the healthy eating categories, use a ton of artificial ingredients (canned soups, processed breadcrumbs, etc). So we've ditched it all and I'm not sure we could have done it without all the great advise and recipes from 100 Days of Real Food!

When I heard about her new cookbook, I was beyond excited! New recipes, lots of tips, meal planning, I couldn't wait! Then I heard she was looking for Cookbook Ambassadors...umm...yes, please! And I was beyond excited that I was one of the people she chose to send a copy of her book for a sneak peak! Eeeeek!

It was like Christmas day when the book arrived and I admit, I've gone a little crazy since receiving it, reading it, re-reading it, and of course, cooking. I'm so happy that I am able to share with all of you lovely readers a sneak peak of one of her cookbook recipes!

I couldn't share it without trying it out first, so of course, I had to make some for ourselves. And, let me tell you, you will not be disappointed! To quote Amelia: "Mommy, this bread...it has raisins in it! It's SOOO GOOD!"

And even better news, this is just 1 of 100 amazing recipes! Some of them are old classics, like her crock pot chicken, but a lot of new fun things I'm excited to try! I have a lot of the ingredients on hand for her summer dinner meal plan and I'm excited to spend the next week trying new recipes from her book every day!

My favorite part of her blog and her new book, all of the recipes are simple! You don't need a ton of specialty ingredients from the health food store that you've never heard of, you don't need to be an expert chef, ANYONE can make great food, from whole foods and simple ingredients! The recipe are also VERY kid friendly! It's food the whole family can enjoy and even has helped encourage my kids to try new vegetables.

So if you haven't ordered a copy of Lisa's new cookbook yet, you need to! Get to it! I promise you will not be disappointed! Happy Cooking!






Disclaimer: I was sent a copy 100 Days Of Real Food Cookbook free of charge to review and share. All opinions are entirely my own though! I was no paid to rave about this book, it just comes so natural.

Engine 2 Week 2 + Shopping with 3

Well, things have been interesting over here for week 2 of the Engine 2 Challenge. Plus, confession, I cheated.

Rip's Sweet Potato Bowl with kidney beans and pineapple, because sometimes you have to work with what you have ;)

We went to a Grand Opening event at a new Dave and Buster's. Our friend hooked us up with tickets for a night of free food, drinks and fun, and I just couldn't say no! Tom and I don't go on date nights very often, because, ya know, we have 3 kids under 3, so we took advantage and I just had a good time and didn't really think about food. I will say, my stomach felt AWFUL the next day and I was anxious to go grocery shopping and get back on track for my 3rd week.

Other than that, and some oil on Valentine's Day in my vegan cake balls, I'd say I was 98% vegan with my same slip ups with some dairy. Overall, though, it wasn't bad at all. I had a hankering for some eggs one morning but I fought the urge.

A lot of people have asked how my diet will go when this challenge is over and I will say, I hope to keep it up. I do love the shopping lists and meal plans from the challenge, but I know Happy Herbivore does meal plans that are Engine 2 approved so we might consider going down that route and see what happens. I might allow an occasional local, cage free egg in my diet or a piece of free range chicken or beef, but I'm hoping to stay mostly vegan and making that our new normal.

I am still allowing the kids to have meat but it's limited to a few times a week. They eat our diet and an occasional nitrate free hot dog or chicken nugget has slipped in their meals. They also eat a lot of yobaby yogurt so I haven't taken that away. Since I know fat is important in their diets, I'll probably let that stay for awhile longer. As they get older we'll adjust to them eating more of what we're eating and not sneaking in the kid food as often.

I've also had a lot of questions about grocery shopping and how I do it with 3 kids. Well, that is a very interesting question. I do take all 3 shopping quite often, but it has become rarer and rarer as Ben has gotten older. When he was tiny, I could wrap him up, throw the twins in a cart and be on my way. Now I have Amelia wanting to "help", Jackson becoming obsessed with some animal fruit snack thing he saw a few aisles back and baby Ben practically dying to jump out of the cart. Soooo...grocery trips have become quite strategic.

Favorite places to shop with all 3 by myself: Sam's Club, Target, the commissary.

Last favorite place to shop with all 3 by myself: Sprouts, Von's (equivalent to Giant, Giant Eagle, Kroger, Publix, run of the mill grocery store)

Best places to take 1 or 2 kids with me: Whole Foods (kiddie shopping cart keeps them entertained for days), Trader Joe's (small store so it's usually a quick trip)

I make almost weekly trips to the commissary and trader joe's and since becoming vegan, Whole Foods for a few specialty items. I go to Sam's Club every few weeks. Von's is my emergency stop for things I forget since it's practically next door to us and a quick walk.

So how do I usually make it work? For the commissary trips, I try to make sure the hubby is available to come with me. It's right across the street from his office so he can usually find a few minutes to come over and help me wrangle while I grab groceries and we run through the place in a mad dash to get in and out as quickly as possible. It's definitely where we find the cheapest groceries so we get the majority of our groceries there. I go randomly throughout the week to Trader Joe's. They have some of the kids favorite snacks (and mine too) and a few specialty items and veggies that aren't at the commissary but are cheaper than Whole Foods so that's my #2. I will plan a trip either in the evening or weekend to go to Whole Foods by myself or with just 1 or 2 kids because it usually takes me awhile to find some random things that I'm not used to buying just yet and it's hard to do with too many little hands trying to help me. Sam's I'll go to anytime, doesn't matter if I have all the kids with me or not. It's so kid friendly, has plenty of room for me to let them run around a bit and nice big shopping carts for all the kids and all of our groceries.

So parents of 1 going to 2, or 2 going to 3, my biggest tip is to not be scared. Get used to grocery shopping with extra hands while the baby is still little. This will help you juggle them as the baby gets more mobile and the olders get more "helpful". Obviously, meal planning and making fewer grocery trips saves you the most time, money, and sanity so I really don't go shopping anymore without a plan and a list. Being prepared makes your trip much less stressful.

As far as online shopping and delivery, I'm just not that into it. I actually like to go to the store, check prices, look for coupons, see all the variety of items out there so I can compare ingredients and costs. It takes up more time doing all of that online than it does to get all kids packed up, in the car, and go shopping with them. I know a lot of people are really into it and if you knew exactly what you wanted and could figure out how to get the best deals doing it that way, then go for it, but I just find that it's way too time consuming and I'd rather just go do the shopping myself.

Well, happy eating this week friends!

• If you missed my first week on the Engine 2 challenge, you can check it out here.
• Don't forget we have our March for Babies Yankee Candle fundraiser going on until Saturday! Get your orders in NOW! 40% of sales will go towards Team Pepka Twins and the March of Dimes! Thanks for helping us reach our goal!

Enginer 2 28-day-challenge: Week 1

So I have officially been "vegan" and doing the Engine 2 diet for 1 week and I thought I'd check in with you all and tell you how it's been going!

Overall, I'd say that things haven't been too bad. We ate a whole food diet before starting this so making all of our meals and making things from scratch didn't cause a problem at all. Instead of cooking meat, we just made beans and rice and a lot more veggies.

My biggest challenge hasn't been going vegetarian, but going vegan and 100% oil free has been trickier than I thought it would be. A lot more things have dairy and oil in the then I realized. I made some pasta with veggies and was going to add a pesto I had in the pantry but it had oil in it. I could have easily made my own oil free, but I was also trying to use things we already had in the house to use them up before they went bad and to keep the grocery bill under control so I let a few things slide. The pesto also had parmesan cheese in it so it was an all around fail, but it was expiring in March so we ate it. I also had tahini I needed to use up in the frig, which I know has oil in it, but it's vegan so it's not THAT bad right? I really like tahini as a dressing and in our homemade hummus so I'm a little sad to say goodbye. I'm hoping over the next week or 2 to get better at finding completely vegan, oil free ingredients. I also had to alter the meals a bit because I didn't want to use a lot of soy. Instead of liquid aminos (which are soy based), I used coconut, and instead of tofu we used potatoes or just whipped up a different meal all together with the grains/veggies/beans we had in the pantry.

Sugar was also a big challenge since I enjoy a sweet treat far more often then I probably should. I tried to stick with just a few chocolate chips (also not vegan) to get through my craving, but there was a yogurtland trip that I'm going to blame entirely on a friend....you know who you are. And confession: while they do have a dairy free froyo and lots of fresh fruit, I didn't choose either. Whoops.

My weight/health/overall feeling has been about the same. I started doing T25 also this week so I noticed a little weight gain but I think it's from doing more muscle building activities instead of my usual elliptical during nap time routine. I've really enjoyed how sore the T25 workouts have made me and I'm hoping that the vegan/workout regime will hopefully produce some good results and get rid of these last 25ishlbs I'm needing to lose. Obviously, only a few days in I'm not looking like the people in the workout ads just yet ;) I've have had good energy, haven't been overly hungry and been eating a lot of veggies so I'm really motivated to keep going with the challenge and improve on some of my slip ups next week!

Favorite meal: Mac not cheese and I added peas for the kids.

Least favorite meal: beans, brown rice, veggies. Boring. I tried to spice it up with the coconut aminos but it was just a bland dish. We'll have to work on that.
Are the kids vegan? No, they haven't even been 100% vegetarian. They have eaten chicken (I made a whole chicken one night...also from the froyo friend, she's been a bad influence on my veganism haha), cheese and yogurt. Things I've cut out of their diets have been pork, red meat, eggs and extra cheese/sugar/treats. I am planning on making them mostly vegetarian, but they haven't adjusted well to the rice/beans/veggies for dinner and haven't been eating really well. If they weren't so stinking skinny I probably wouldn't care, but we have enough time keeping weight on them (Amelia especially) so my first concern is just getting her to eat something that's not a cookie. I'm hoping as the rice and beans becomes more common, they'll get more used to it and eat better.

and for your vegan enjoyment, I thought I'd share one of our whip it up recipes from the week!

Baked Ginger Almost-Engine 2-worthy Spring Rolls

1 tsp fresh ginger, minced (I used a garlic press actually and it worked great)
1 tsp garlic, minced
2 cups cabbage, finely chopped
1/2 cup carrots, shredded
1/2 cup red cabbed, finely chopped (you can also buy a cole slaw salad mix and just skip the shredding and chopping of cabbage)
1 tbsp coconut aminos
2-3tbsp low sodium vegetable broth
1 package spring roll wraps
1 tsp olive oil (you can skip if you're hard core Engine 2)
optional add ins: tofu, ground veggie mix (usually in the tofu section), tempeh

In a sauce pan combine the ginger, garlic, cabbages, carrots, ginger, and tofu/tempeh/ground veggie mix, vegetable broth and sauté until soft. Mix in the coconut aminos. Place small amount of cooked veggie mixture diagonally across spring roll wrap and wrap up. Fill as many roll wraps as you can and place them all on a baking sheet. Lightly brush with olive oil and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, until outside is crispy.