Summer

Apparently I am not the greatest blogger in the summer. Kara has been carrying the weight, despite being busy transitioning into a new job and planning oh you know, just her WEDDING! I am so excited to watch her marry the love of her life this weekend and spend a little girl time celebrating. In the meantime, I wanted to update you all on some fun things we did this summer now that the weather seems to think it is time for fall.

Swim lessons. You may think it is crazy to have an 11 month old do swim lessons but I grew up in the pool so I have been counting the days until I could take Robbie to swim lessons since pretty much I found out I was pregnant. We did them at the city pool that also happens to be about 8 blocks from my office so I was able to walk there every day at lunch and do the lessons with him. Watching him go underwater for the first time was so scary but after he recovered from the initial shock, he loved it! I have noticed that I am a lot more comfortable with Robbie around water and in the bath tub now that we have done these lessons. I would highly recommend it for all of your little ones!

The lessons of course inspired us to get a little kiddie pool for the backyard. It has entertained us on many a hot afternoons. Buyer beware, prices can vary a lot on these. Some places had them for sale for $40 + dollars but we eventually found this one at Kmart for only $19. Lesson learned, shop around.

Robbie turned one this summer. If you haven’t already, check out my recipe for a dairy and egg free chocolate birthday cake. As you can see, Robbie wasn’t too excited about it but my friends humored me and said it was delicious! 🙂

This summer my husband and I also celebrated our third wedding anniversary! We decided to do something as a family and found this great deal at one of our favorite places to spend our childhoods. Fairmont Hotsprings was running a stay one night, get the second 50% off special so we thought it would be perfect. The deal only ran Monday-Thursdays so I took a couple of vacation days and we took a long weekend to just getaway and enjoy our little family. It was so much fun and Trav even got me a massage. Hint guys: a massage is NEVER a bad gift.

We even got a little adult time after the little guy went to bed.

Such a beautiful view!

Another huge milestone of this summer was Robbie starting daycare. I could (and still might) do an entire blog post on this. Finding the right daycare for our little guy felt like the hardest decision I have ever made in my life. If you just Google, “daycare in X city” you will likely come back with a search result of 50-100 places (or more depending on where you live). Where to even begin? I have talked a little bit before about how not many of my friends here have kids, yet, so it was hard to even weed out the good from the bad. Fortunately, our neighborhood is full of kids so I started asking around and chatting with some of the other parents. One of the moms has a friend who just started an in home daycare and we absolutely love her. She has a son who is only 6 days younger than Robbie and it is so fun to watch them play together. There are only 3 kids and it is the perfect transition from an in home nanny, to daddy all summer, to daycare. I am still sort of in shock of how hard this has been for me, though. Despite the fact that I love the place we have chosen and I am positive he is in amazing hands, every single day is still hard for me. I hate dropping him off. He still cries each time and it just breaks my heart as I drive away to work. My husband described it as guilt. For some reason, even though we know all of the positive things that will come from him being more socialized (not to mention the fact that we have to work) but still. I am just left with this nagging feeling that I am abandoning him or something. I hope this is a feeling that fades or at least becomes overshadowed by the positives. Below is a picture of my first day dropping him off. It is a tradition in my family to take a first day of school photo so I am hoping to keep that alive with my new little family.

 

Thank you all for your patience with my slacking. I cannot wait to post updates on the wedding weekend! Have a great Wednesday everybody!!

-XO, Sio

Egg and Dairy Free Birthday Cake!

I mentioned in a past post that we found out a couple of months ago that Robbie is allergic to both eggs and dairy products. We are definitely hoping (hoping helps, right?) that he will grow out of these allergies but, in the meantime, I didn’t want this to stop him from enjoying birthday cake for his first birthday. This recipe was super easy and I honestly cannot believe how well it turned out!

(Remember, I am new to baking so bear with my explanations of the process 🙂 )

Ingredients:

1.5 cups of flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup oil
1 cup cold water

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients in to a large bowl.

Mix until there are no lumps and add to a 9 x 9, greased, cake pan.

Robbie got to try his first taste of chocolate batter 🙂

Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Robbie and I had fun watching it bake in the oven ❤

I was able to find a couple of dairy and egg free homemade recipes for frosting but while at the store I found that the Pillsbury Vanilla frosting is dairy and egg free so I thought that I would leave the frosting up to the professionals.

Because I am not a professional, this is what my finished product looks like:

I am proud, nonetheless. And because I did such a bad job of transferring the cake to the plate, I got to taste some of the cake and it is delicious! If any of you or your kids have similar allergies, give this recipe a try!

I hope you all had a great weekend. Tomorrow I will have a special post dedicated to my little guy. ONE YEAR! Crazy.

-XO, Sio

 

 

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sometimes all it takes to turn your day around is a phone date with one of your best girl friends. My friend Katie is one of those friends that when you hang up the phone after a long conversation, you just feel better about life. Last night, while we were talking, she mentioned that she was making a healthy version of chocolate chip cookies so I asked her to share since the banana bread was such a hit! 🙂

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 ½ c. dark brown sugar—loosely packed
• 1 c. Canola (or other healthy) cooking oil
• 1 tsp. Vanilla extract
• 1 ½ c. old fashioned oats
• 1 c whole wheat flour
• 1 cup white unbleached flour
• ½ c. wheat germ
• 1 c.  chocolate chips

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Beat eggs with a whisk and then add and whisk the oil and vanilla.
• Add in the dark brown sugar and add and mix, with a spoon, the old fashioned oats, whole wheat flour, unbleached flour, wheat germ, and chocolate chips.

• Drop by tablespoons onto greased baking sheets.
• Bake for 15-18 minutes (depending on how soft you like your cookies) and then ENJOY!

Thank you so much for sharing, Katie! We should definitely make these on one of your trips to Bozeman this summer 🙂

-XO, Sio

 

Homemade Healthy(ish) Banana Bread

If I had a nickel for every time I said I was going to make banana bread out of my aged bananas…I’d have a lot of nickels. This Father’s Day motivated me for some reason and I decided to give it a shot. I found a somewhat healthy recipe and then made some adjustments of my own and it didn’t turn out half bad!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1/8 cup of butter
• 1/4 cup of nonfat plain yogurt
• 3/4 cup of brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9×5- inch loaf pan.
• Combine flour and baking soda in a large bowl.
• In a separate bowl, beat butter, yogurt, and brown sugar with an electric mixer (I just used a whisk) until light and fluffy. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color. Add room-temperature eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into butter mixture before adding the next. Stir in mashed bananas until well blended.
• Pour banana mixture into the flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Transfer batter into prepared loaf pan.
• Bake until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean, about 60-65 minutes.
• Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.

Happy baking!

-XO, Sio

Sunday Morning Breakfast

Sammi G’s Muesli Breakfast

Ingredients: 1 banana, 1 peach, muesli (Sammi G used MuesliFusion Pure Morning Zen Gluten Free), almond milk, and honey.

(The MuesliFusion Pure Morning Zen is high in fiber, packed with protein, Kosher, and contains almonds, flax seeds, raisins, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, and gluten free oats).

Preparation: Slice up the banana and peach, and place into bowl. Top with muesli. Add warm almond milk and honey.

Enjoy!

-KRD

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I made taco salad this evening for my fiancé and I. Taco salad is great because it requires only a few ingredients and is very easy to prepare!

Ingredients:

Lean ground turkey (I use 99% lean), taco seasoning, lettuce, tomato, green pepper, and salsa (I use Trader Joe’s Cowboy Caviar).

**Always feel free to add or supplement ingredients!

Preparation:

I browned the turkey meat and drained the pan. I then added 3/4 cup of water to the pan and seasoned the meat. I simmered the meat for another few minutes while I prepared the salad fixings. When the meat was ready, I put all the ingredients in a bowl, added the Cowboy Caviar, and voila! Super duper healthy taco salad.

Who’s hungry?

-KRD

Asparagus Pasta with Fried Egg

The healthylifehappywifeblog is THRILLED to once again feature master chef Sammi G! Sam found the recipe for Asparagus Pasta with Fried Egg in Self Magazine and is kind enough to share the recipe (and pictures) with us! (Thank you Sam, it looks incredible)!

Ingredients:
Asparagus, whole-wheat bow tie pasta, 1 can of white beans, olive oil, fresh basil, salt, pepper, one egg.

Directions:

In a large pan over medium-heat, sauté 1 cup roughly chopped asparagus in 2 tsp olive oil until just tender, 5 minutes. Add 1 1/4 cups of cooked pasta, 1/3 cup of canned white beans, rinsed and drained, 2 tsp. chopped fresh basil, salt and pepper; cook until heated through, about 1 minute. Top with a fried egg cooked in 1 tsp olive oil.

Have a happy and healthy night!

-KRD

Hard-Boiled Eggs

With Easter right around the corner, I’m sure families all over the world are boiling eggs in anticipation of decorating them! I personally LOVE hard-boiled eggs. My mom always made them for me when I was growing up, but not until a few years ago did I realize just how easy they are to make! Plus they are full of protein and other nutrients, including Vitamin A, Calcium, and Iron. According to Nutrition Data, one large egg has 77 calories, 6 grams of protein, and 212 mg of cholesterol (71% of your daily value). (So if you’re watching your cholesterol intake, only eat the egg white, like I do)!

To make the perfect hard-boiled egg, I followed Martha Stewart’s directions:

1. Place eggs in a large saucepan. Cover them with cool water by 1 inch. Slowly bring water to a boil over medium heat; when the water has reached a boil, cover and remove from heat. Let sit 12 minutes.

 

2. Transfer eggs to a colander and place under cool running water to stop the cooking. Eggs can be peeled and served immediately.

Eggs are ready! Time to eat! Or decorate. 🙂

-KRD

Peanut Butter Lover

Do you love peanut butter? Do you love chocolate? I know I do, but hate the extra calories. Plus, I can never limit myself to just one serving.

Luckily, I can now rely on PB2 to satisfy my peanut butter and chocolate cravings with NO guilt!

 

PB2 is a powdered form of peanut butter-basically, all of the oil is squeezed out of the peanut, and what remains is a peanut powder (with 85% fewer calories than regular peanut butter)! You mix the powder with a small amount of water and voilå…creamy peanut butter or creamy chocolate (peanuts + cocoa powder)!

I usually eat PB2 out of a mug with a spoon or spread it on fruit, but you can use PB2 any way you want! PB2 is sold at GNC, Target, Whole Foods, and online, and runs about $5 per jar. I highly recommend trying it, but I warn you-it’s addictive! 🙂

-KRD

Plated

Last night the fiancé and I watched Shark Tank on ABC (craaazy Friday night) and learned about new businesses trying to break into the market.

One business that caught my eye was Plated. Plated offers 7 chef-designed recipes that are featured on a menu each week. The consumer purchases at least 4 plates, and soon after ordering, the ingredients are delivered to your door along with step-by-step instructions.

Part of the reason I don’t cook often is because I dread traveling to the grocery store to find the 20+ ingredients! Plated is definitely an interesting concept and something I’d be willing to try in the future.

When I visited the Plated website, I saw they are offering a Shark Tank special: The first 500 people can receive 4 free plates (just pay shipping and handling). Intrigued? Go check it out!

Have a happy and healthy day! -KRD