So, it's December the best month of the year other than my birthday!! It has been such a busy month too with all of the holiday events that go on in Tampa that I can find something to do locally almost every Thursday through Sunday of the month. You guys have seen my holiday tree, this is my brothers Yorkie Shaddy and I love to grab him during the holidays for a cute shot or two.
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| A foggy winter morning |
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| The first and only moon setting visible from my balcony all year! |
I started out going HAM for Christmas which is my usual mood in December. I have spent many Christmas' basically broke while in college, in various diatribes with my family, and I was trying to make the best out of about nothing. The only thing I wanted this year is to have a "normal" Christmas, meaning, no altercations with my family and spending time with my husband and finally having my gold dream tree.
FITNESS: Well, this month was finally the month that I added more days of yoga to my workout regimine. Paired with stress, I lost 10 pounds in 3 weeks (this was not planned). With the weightloss aside, I am happy that I got back into my bendy yoga flow. I only work out for 10 minutes a day and I always feel so much better after having done it. And with that being noticed, it does look like I need to lose about 5 more pounds, but I am glad that at least I avoided my usual holiday bloat this year.
As far as my diet, as a Celiac my stomach lining has ultimately been damaged due to my own body creating antibodies (when gluten is present) that attack my stomach lining, which affects the way my food digests.
It's never going to repair itself or get better, the only thing I can do is abstain from eating gluten. When I get upset, usually a stomach ache follows which is followed by more poor digestion, a lack of appetite, and poor absorption of nutrients.
I usually abstain from eating a lot of meat and I usually get most of my protein from nuts, beans, grains, greek yogurt, broths, and eggs; and that has been my diet for years. Don't get me wrong though, I do love to eat meat, but in all honesty I don't eat a lot of it because it's hard to digest. I actually did a little research to see if this type of diet is defined since I technically can not say I am a vegetarian and low and behold there is a term/ definition for it: flexitarian. So, that is basically a Flexible - Vegetarian: eating within 9 to 18 ounces of meat a week, you can find more info on that here.
I am confident I have made it the last 2 to 3 months with absolutely no gluten and that matters a lot as far as digestion goes which can also attest to me losing weight.
An old saying by Mary Kay is "If you do something for 3 weeks straight you officially have formed a habit" and it's been one month that I have been doing yoga about 4 days a week; I really hope I continue on this path because it is the healthiest path. Looking at myself in the mirror I see that I lost weight, my husband noticed it also, but I can see that I have work to do still and my goal for 2018 remains the same, I need to get my arms and back stronger because I still can't do an unsupported headstand. My goal for 2017 was to do a headstand, but my arms are still too weak so I will press on!
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| Janu Garudasana |
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| Urdhva Hastasana in Ushtrasana |
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| Sukhasana - Easy pose |
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| Pada Arda Gomukhasana in Ado Mukha Shvanasana |
HAULS: This month I bought way too much from Adore Me. They had so many great sales from Black Friday all the way through Christmas. I don't think I have ever owned so many bra and panty sets ever in my life and I use to be a Victoria's Secret addict maxing out at buying and getting 70 pairs of panties in one month! I am not going to deny I love a great sale esecially when you can combine coupons. So every set you see here was on sale and I used additional coupon codes.
The same goes for Bath and Body Works, if you are a shopaholic that is in recovery do not go here. I am shsaking my head at the 30 + candles I bought plus air freshners and body sprays I got. But most of it was free or at least practically free. The body sprays and lotions were bogo and I got a free gift of two items. The candles were 22.50 to 24.50 and after the sale on Candle day and my coupons I got my candles for under 6.50$ Air freshners and plug ins were all free.
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| candle day annual sale |
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| candle day annual sale |
IN THE CITY: This month again was almost all new restaurants which is always exciting, Going to new restaurants really inspire me as a cook at home to spice things up and try new things.
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| The Birchwood - St. Petersburg |
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| University of Tampa- Henry B. Plant Museum/Tampa Hotel |
This was a really fun evening that I shared in a outfit post however, these photos I did not post. I got to pose with all the different Christmas trees which subsequently upped my holiday tree count to almost 20.
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| University of Tampa- Henry B. Plant Museum/Tampa Hotel Victorian stroll |
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| Channelside tree lighting |
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| American Social 1st Annual Tree Lighting on Harbour Island- Tampa |
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| Eddie V's Prime Seafood |
CANDLE REVIEWS:
Oh what fun: Made with candied apples, crisp pears, and oranges. This candle has a very light scent, so far I almost can not even tell it's burning which is a bit disappointing.
Tis the season: Made with rich apple, sweet cinnamon, and cedarwood. This candle was my favorite out of the bunch and I went back and bought a second one on candle day. The scent is pretty similar to all of the other candles, but I liked the way the scent dispersed into the air and lingered.
Baby it's cold outside: This candle was completely overwhelming to the senses. It did not matter the length of time I burned this candle it just overpowered the whole room to the point where I would get a dizziness and a headache.
Most wonderful time: Made with fresh balsam, eucalyptus, fir branches, and cedarwood. This candle had a nice scent. I am starting to notice that a lot of these "holiday" candles all smell the same and just have different names and jars. I literally can burn one and put it out and then burn a different one and they all just seem to meld together.
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| wine club |
ALL GLUTEN FREE MEALS PREPARED BY MYSELF, RECIPES AVAILABLE APON REQUEST
This year has been such a fun year in cooking! I got my Sous Vide, my cast iron, and most importantly my motivation. I pushed myself to try new meals and think outside the box and it just makes me so excited to show the healthy gluten free meals that I have cooked. Just because something is gluten free it doesn't mean it's nasty (I have heard people say this so many times). We must remember a lot of food is naturally gluten free. The only time things become sketchy is when you have baked breads and deserts because not all gluten free baked goods are that good. I have taken so many photos of food that I cooked I have back-logged myself into 2018. I hope you guys really enjoy them!
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| Roaster chicken with yukon gold potatoes and veggie kabobs |
Chicken marsala meatballs with egg noodles meal prep
I in general have never liked chicken marsala, but I decided to try it one last time because all of the times I had it I had not made it myself. I have to admit I was blown away on how great this tasted and I can't wait to make it again. This is a Skinnytaste recipe that I modified to be gluten free and to my flavor palette. This made exactly four servings and it did not reheat as well as I would have liked the next day, but I have some more changes that I will make next time so that the sauce stays saucy and not too thick.
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| Chicken marsala meatballs with egg noodles (everything is gluten free as usual). |
GREEN CURRY PREP
This was my first time making a curry paste from scratch. I thought we had green curry paste, but we only had red and it turns out I had everything I needed except fish sauce so I proceeded to use the blender to make my very own green curry paste!
Some of these recipes I have made so many times, for instance, this one is great with a spoon of peanut butter (but we did not have any). I feel like what was old is new again in my cast iron. The results are completely different than when I cooked in my other cast iron or steel pans. This one turned out great! You may notice that shredded chicken in the bowl, that is the chicken from my cast iron roaster chicken. We did not finish it (usually the breasts are the last to go) so I shredded it up and used it in my green curry.
Next, we had some extra zucchini that I didn't want to go out of date so I decided to make healthy "zoodles" instead of jasmine rice for this meal.
This was a simple meal that started out from items I had in my fridge that needed to be consumed before they went out of date. This time I wanted to do thicker cut "zoodles" with a knife instead of using my spiralizer. I wasn't planning on making a parmesan Bechamel sauce, but all I had was low fat milk, cheese, and butter so this was a better option. This was also my first time making a Bechamel sauce.
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| Shrimp in a bachemel sauce with zoodles |
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| Shrimp fried rice |
This is one of my favorite soups to make and it is so easy! I like to freeze my kale since it expires quite fast and on this night I wasn't feeling well and there are always some items I always have in the pantry/fridge: beans, chicken, broth and greens. It took almost no time to make and is full of protein. Hubby eats more meat than I do so as you can see that is his plate on the left that looks all juicy, mine is on the right.
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| Kale and white bean soup with pulled chicken |
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| New Year's good luck meal: black eyed peas, kale, pulled chicken and rice. |
I usually keep breakfast pretty simple since during the week I am the only one that eats breakfast. I love eggs a lot because I need the protein since I don't eat a lot of meat and it's always gluten free; and I love that you can do so much with them. Since I am not really a morning person I rarely take breakfast photos unless I am cooking at 3am (yes, I do that). One of my favorite meals is the fried omelette. I remember being little and after hurricane Andrew hit we had no electricity for days and my dad had some of those little canisters and he made me a fried egg and I was so happy for that. I usually make fried egg omelettes if I don't have a particular preference.
This was my first time cooking a fried egg omelette in my new Ledge cast iron (I used the small skillet) and it turned out sooooo great! It was soft and fluffy and nothing stuck to the pan. It may look a little odd because I have two eggs, cheese, and ham all in this little pan, but I promise it's great!
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