Taking a Break from the DIY

We spent most of July working on the house, which was totally exhausting. Let's just say we've had a few days where neither of us wanted to do much of anything. But, if you know the two of us, you'll know we also find nature relaxing. Since we haven't had much time for a real vacation, we've been exploring the awesome hiking in Ithaca, as well as the fun summer activities here in town. As a bonus, Amit's weekday off is Wednesday, so we've been loving the fact that we get three whole days to explore together! (And Wednesdays make for some very quiet hiking, it's so nice to be able to avoid all the tourists.)

With three state parks all within 15 minutes, 

we've been getting a lot of good hikes in.

This was at Treman State Park.

We spent our Friday nights in July at Cornell, 

listening to the free concerts.

And eating some awesome ice cream.

During the week, we go for our nightly walk along the inlet.

Emma loves it!

The last time Ron and Mom were in town,

we took a little time out to do some shopping.

Mom and I are going to do some fun decorating with these!

We took this photo on our first hike in Taughannock State Park.

We had a big storm last week, 

and this was the same waterfall two days after the rain.

Unbelievable!

And this was the Upper Falls in Treman this past Wednesday.

We couldn't hike along the gorge because of the damage.

And what do we do on our Saturday mornings?

We go to the Farmer's Market, of course!

Well, after buying our eggs, meat and veggies for the week,

we sit next to the water and enjoy some fantastic breakfast burritos!
(And a little sparkling, fresh orange juice with a shot of beet juice.)

  

We're having a great time here in Ithaca and keep finding awesome new places to go! It's been great to have so much to do when we don't feel like painting trim.

A Primal Anniversary (and some delicious projects)

Last Tuesday we celebrated our Primal Anniversary. It's hard to believe that it's been a year since I went "primal," it's totally a part of who I am now. Over the past year, I have found so many resources and I feel like there's still so much more for me to learn. Luckily, I'm still hungry for more! Amit and I have really enjoyed finding new recipes to add to our repertoire. I think I'm finally starting to rub off on him too - my favorite dentist is doing his Grand Rounds presentation on Ancestral Diets and the benefit on oral health!

In honor of our growth over this past year, here is a sampling of what we've been up to in the kitchen! Though it's just starting to warm up, we've been grilling for a while now. Real men (and dogs) grill when it's cold.

I'm glad I stay on this side of the glass.

Salmon and Brussels Sprouts

Smoky Mexican Tortilla-Less Soup

Venison with peppers and onions.

We've mastered the kale chip.

I found this recipe for mint chocolate chip ice cream, which was a total success! We still love walking to our Abbott's for frozen custard, but we don't feel as guilty about eating our homemade coconut milk ice cream.

So delicious and so good for you...
thanks to the added spinach (for the green color)!

Amit is more of a chocolate guy, so I adapted the recipe and created my own for chocolate chocolate chip ice cream. 

It's ridiculously easy - 1 can of coconut milk, 2 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and about 2-4 tablespoons of honey (sweetening to taste, I make mine less sweet). 

I put all of that in the blender, mix it up, and then add it to our ice cream maker. 

We stir in the chocolate chips (and Amit adds toffee pieces) before we let it firm up in the freezer.

This is becoming a regular treat in our house...

Too bad Amit won't let me add spinach to this one...yet.

Our Kombucha experiment continues...
It's almost time to taste this batch.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Hello, Scoby!

We really have gotten more in touch with our natural side since beginning this primal journey. I make my own lotion bars, we drink herbal teas, and now we're moving to a place where we'll really be able to get in touch with our simple, primal selves. 

I have some lofty goals for our second year of living Primally - begin composting, start a garden, and maybe even friend some farmers who raise local, pastured meat. We'll see what the year will have in store for us, but I know that Ithaca will be the perfect community to support my natural living adventure! 

I Love My Dehydrator!

Right now I'm finally taking a minute to blog after enjoying a sunny day outside. Finally we had a beautiful, warm (aka 40s-50s) weekend to do lots of great hiking! I apologize for the lack of posts, our lives are very uneventful at the moment, especially as we're preparing for our move. 

Since I haven't posted any new food pictures recently, I figured I should share one of our crazy new adventures, cooking with my dehyrator. I couldn't really come up with any good Christmas present ideas, so Ron and Mom were nice enough to be willing to get me an Excalibur Dehydrator so Amit and I could continue our primal cooking adventures. So far we've made sweet potato and beet chips and we're working towards mastering the art of making our own jerky!

Our sweet potato chips!

Beet chips

Look at us making our own jerky!

Our second attempt turned out a little better than the first.

Can't wait to try and hopefully master it the third time!

As for other Primal foodie ventures, we have just started to rehydrate our very first Scoby. We drink kombucha every day and wanted to begin brewing our own batches. It takes about a month to rehydrate the Scoby, so right now we're still waiting to see if it worked. We're definitely keeping our fingers crossed that this project works!

You can barely see the Scoby at the bottom of the jar.

We've actually been cooking fiends recently and have been playing with a ton of new recipes, so I'll be sure to post details about those soon. Spring is in the air and we are getting excited for new hikes and our favorite Farmer's Markets!

Our Latest Primal Recipes

Apologies for the lack of posts! Between school assignments, student teaching, and my quick weekend visits to NY, time has gone by way too quickly! (And I've been slacking on my blogging!) I'm back in Mass now, busy with school and student teaching. It's so great being back in the classroom! I've already been busy with assignments, and I have my first faculty observation tomorrow (eek!). It's hard to believe that we've already been in school for three weeks! Now I only have to survive three more months before I'm back in NY for good. I have a feeling that with all the work I need to do, it will fly by! Now that I've talked about the work I'm supposed to be doing right now, I'll get back to my blogging break.

Aside from our occasional "cheat" treats, I'm primal and still going strong. Amit's been mostly primal, though he can't quite give up the beer, burgers, and wings. My favorite part of being primal has been finding new recipes to experiment with! Cooking together is one of our favorite things to do, and we definitely miss being together in the kitchen every night.

Here are some of our favorite new recipes. Some aren't totally primal, but we tweak it to make it work!

Taco Salad

So easy and we don't even miss the tortillas!

A really easy veggie bake.

And a burger made of  local, grass-fed beef!

Zucchini Lasagna

It wasn't too bad, but I wasn't impressed.

Think I'll just skip the whole lasagna thing. 

Too much work!

Our absolute favorite new recipe - 

Cheesesteak Stuffed Peppers.

AMAZING!

I'm trying to get creative and eat more vegetables.
Brussels sprouts with cranberry-pistachio pesto works for me!

For my sweet tooth - 

Fruit with whipped or plain cream.

Oh, and the occasional piece of dark chocolate.

Hopefully I made you good and hungry! In addition to the cooking and schoolwork, we've been doing some hiking, but haven't taken many pictures. Next weekend, Amit is headed back to MA and we're planning to head up to Keene to do some hiking. I promise, I will take pictures then!

Rochester Eats

We've manged to find some fantastic places to eat in Rochester, so we were so excited to have someone to share them with! Ron and Mom's visit was the perfect excuse to go to our favorite restaurants. Some of the meals were even primal!

We live right down the street from The Beale and on Friday nights they have a fantastic fish fry. Ron is known for loving a good fish fry, so we took them to the other location downtown for dinner.

We ordered the fried pickles and 

mud bugs (crawfish tails) for an appetizer.

They were great!

Our fish!

(And Amit's pulled pork)

On Saturday, during our tour of some Seneca Lake wineries, we stopped by the Garlic Fest at Fox Run Vineyards.

Garlic Italian Sausage and Garlic Fries.

It was delicious!

If that didn't make us full enough, we dragged Mom and Ron to our favorite Rochester restaurant - Dinosaur BBQ! 

My Big A** Pork Plate!

A delicious dessert - 

Raspberry and Sweet Potato Pecan Pie!

  

We headed to the Erie Canal for lunch after church on Sunday. We had great view of the canal and some excellent Greek food! It was a great end to our weekend!

The perfect Sunday lunch!

All this writing about food is making me hungry again. Guess we need someone else to visit us!

Culinary Adventures

We have decided to get a little more adventurous in the kitchen over the last few weeks... Pinterest has been a HUGE source of inspiration and our favorite Food Network show is back with a new season, so the possibilities are endless! Cue the drool...

We tried a copy cat recipe from this site; the salsas were pretty good, but we were disappointed in the chicken. Luckily, we found a barbacoa recipe on Boston.com, so we'll be trying that one next week! I think the best recipe we've tried was this recipe for Lemon Cilantro Quinoa and Chickpea Salad. It makes a ton of food and worked as my lunch all week. Yum! Amit loved the Baked Pesto Chicken that I made Friday night. We added some homemade garlic bread, and it was perfect!

Hungry yet?

Now on to even better food! (Hard to believe, right??) We LOVE watching The Sandwich King on Food Network. He makes amazing sandwiches, is a true Chicagoan, and throws homemade Giardiniera on everything. Awesome! We tried his recipe for meatloaf sandwiches and they were amazing! His meatloaf was unreal, it is now my go-to meatloaf recipe.

Delicious!

Next on our list is his recipe for Italian Beef! I'm hoping and prayin' that it is almost as good as the real thing... That would be awesome! 

New Year, New Recipes

Wow, it's hard to believe it's January 2012 already! I'm hoping this month goes by quickly, since January 30th is Match Day. We've narrowed our choices to Burlington, VT (the Match) and Bangor, ME (February interview). Yikes!! We're starting to get a little crazy/nervous/excited around here. I've been doing lots of praying for calmness and peace until we know what is happening. I hate the waiting part. I'm too much of a control freak. Oh, and I've been cooking/browsing Pinterest. I figure what better way is there to take my mind off the next few weeks of waiting than by trying some new recipes!

BTW - Mom, make sure you sign onto Pinterest so you can steal these!

Thai Chicken Pizza

It was so good!

Thai Cucumber Salad
It was delicious!

We also got some of our favorites, to take a break from all that cooking.
Not Your Average Joe's Buffalo Chicken Pizza
and a Blueberry Pancake cupcake from Treat.

We also made some energy bites, found here. They're really good, but we'll tweak the recipe a bit next time. So stay tuned for that amazing recipe, among many others!  Hope you aren't salivating too much after reading this... Our menu this week includes enchiladas, more Thai chicken pizza, tacos, and whatever else I can come up with!

November Bits

Here are some quick bits and pieces from the second half of November. Or should I say, bites? We have a teeth/mouth theme for most of these pictures...

I got to go visit my favorite dentist again!

My teeth are nice and clean, though he complained about the coffee staining. So I asked, was it in the front or just the back teeth? Only the back. Looks like using a straw is working out just fine, so I'm going to keep on drinking that coffee. Lucky for me, I know his favorite patient (Seth) drinks coffee, so technically Amit can't yell at me.

I made and framed a project found on Pinterest!

Idea found here.

I only used green and blue and I love it even more than my inspiration. I think I'll try to make another one by weaving green and red to make a Christmas plaid. Stay tuned for my holiday Pinspiration projects!

Yum... Thanksgiving leftovers turned into a casserole.

Quick, easy, and delicious!

And just to prove that dental health isn't just for humans,

here is proof that we brush Emma's teeth.

Well, Dr. Patel does. Mrs. Patel just stands back and enjoys the show.

Now it's time to go back to my lesson plans, though I would rather be doing this...