Cry me a river of tomato tart

These are the days when eggplants, cucumbers, and okra fill the fridge; literally overflowing, jumping out, begging to be made into something healthy, flavorful, and interesting. Babba ganoush? check.

Or, if you've had a particularly humiliating work out at the gym (Cardio Strength class, anyone?) you  come home and drown your sorrows in something delicious and only vaguely disguised as healthy: Herbed Ricotta and Heirloom Tomato Tart in a phyllo crust. 

Since you have to brush the individual sheets of phyllo with oil before cooking, you lose a lot of the "healthy" aspects to this dish. After a workout that nearly brought me to tears reminding me of how hard I'd worked in the past, and how all that work was now a distant memory, I wanted something comforting. The phyllo was store bought and I roasted the tomatoes while sauteing leeks for the herbed ricotta. I basically followed David Lebovitz's directions, but topped the ricotta with roasted tomatoes and just the slightest layer of shredded mozzarella.

Afterward, I guiltily added up the Weight Watchers points and realized it wasn't awfully bad for me. Even though I left halfway through the class (I couldn't hang, I was the weakest link!) a brilliant twitter friend (thank you Emily!!) reminded me to put it all in perspective: 

Action vs In Action

I'm full of questions these days with not much content for blog writing. In November I hurt my shoulder when I switched to 3 days of strength training a week. The shoulder pain lasted for well over a month, and in that month plus I became workout lazy.

Well 8 months later, I'm kicking myself in the pants and getting back to it. All of that work before? Down the drain and my weight is just shy of where I was before. In all honesty I thought blogging about this aspect of life would help me maintain personal accountability. I don't really think it did, but I have had great conversations about health with readers, conversations that wouldn't have happened had I said nothing.

So here's the deal: I'm back on Weight Watchers and I'm going to the local Y. Here's the question: Is this content you're interested in or something that makes your eyes glaze over? If it's interesting, how much information is interesting and how much is too much?

Want to read recipes and talk about food? Would you rather laugh at my pain (I went to Zumba yesterday, there's a lot of fodder for laughing there) or should I just stick to gardening and art?

Do you feel my pain or feel painfully bored when this topic comes up? Want to join in the fun and make the process a group effort? Want the whole issue to just go away? Spill the beans, people!

Against the grain

Let's continue the talk about coming home from vacation and having the energy to maintain cleaning mode, shall we?


I've started a 30 day grain detox...yep, internal cleaning. I'm on day 3 after a vacation packed with sugary, wheat-filled delights. I've been a bit crabby, not unlike the agitation that comes along with quitting smoking. Fun times, right? You should all wish Charlie well through this, it might suck up all the extra patience he's ever had!

Homegrown cow and black eyed peas as well as simmered

and mashed figs (our own) with applesauce.

The Matthews Fitness Together is doing a 30-day Paleo Challenge. I thought about going full force and taking part in the challenge, but after 10 years as a vegan I've decided deep down I don't have the personal fire it would take to stick with this particular way of eating. I mulled over the challenge and the part that stuck out most to me was eliminating cane sugar and grains (see numbers 9 and 10). Eliminating cane sugar eliminates a bunch of nasty processed non-foods, and eliminating grains (fingers crossed) will help me get creative and add more veggies to my day.

I'm also hoping it will jump start the all-too-stubborn weight loss effort that stalled out about a year (A YEAR!!) ago. Wish me luck. Anyone else out there off the grains? Any tips for a newbie?

Vacation, all I ever wanted

Pardon the disappearance,we made it to the beach and had a lovely vacation. In fact, we came back so well rested we spent the past couple days doing some intense cleaning including, but not limited to: the refrigerator and steam cleaning all the rugs in the house.

Cleaning is not a normal pre-vacation activity, but I knew I'd be much happier coming home to a clean house than a messy one. Then spending a week in a house without stacks of papers and clutter made it hard to come home to a clean yet cluttered space.

With clean spaces all around and a well rested body and spirit, I'm finally ready to really tackle a few personal goals: really digging into Beautiful You, a book introduced to me by Amber Karnes. I meant to do the book club but didn't get my book until too late and excuses and more excuses.

Now I feel ready. What about you? Do you feel as beautiful as you actually are?

You say good bye...

Today is my last post as the Petals and Pedals guest post series on Modish. Jena is flourishing with Miss Modish PR and Modish will soon emphasize that aspect of her multi-faceted life. It's so exciting to see friends find their path in such an organic fashion, you can see the success in their future!

I'm planning to take the extra time each week to further Wolfie & the Sneak and really dig into some work that reflects our experiences and beliefs. I also feel like I missed the boat on some of my own marketing initiatives, and hope to back pedal a bit to make the name Wolfie & the Sneak synonymous with our original designs. You know, settle on a logo...I can do it for other people, seems I should be able to do it for our own series of creations.

This might sound a bit cryptic, but as I learn and read more and more about owning your originality, I feel like "establishment" keeps popping up, and I need to focus on that a bit!

What? you didn't need to see that?

Plus it's time for some serious ME time, as in I'm serious about getting myself in tip top shape to be a good and present mommy. As in many practices, taking care of others requires you take care of yourself first, right?

Am I making sense or just babbling?  Anyway, go visit me at Modish and wish Miss Jena the best!