Cooking ahead

Hello beautiful people!

I’d like to share how I cook ahead for a couple of days. I plan a few meals that would have the same main ingredient than add to that main ingredient to make different meals. It cuts a lot of cooking and prepping time and dinner is ready in 30 minutes or less. In this case I used stew meat. This particular meat I buy at Aldi it barely has any fat on it and when cooked its so tender. I buy two packages.

Sunday night prep

1 large or 2 small vidalia onions
2-3 cloves of freshly minced garlic
1 large carrot sliced
handful of fresh parsley diced

Sauté on olive oil, add washed and dried meat (I dice it even smaller if the cubes are big).
Season with you favorite seasoning I just used salt and pepper.
Once you brown the meat lower the temperature to the lowest, cover and let it simmer in its own juices for 30-45 minutes 🙂

Cool it to room temp and put in fridge to use for next day.

Day 1
Brussels Potatoes Soup
Use 1/4 of your meat for this, because its a soup you do not need that much.
2 cups of washed Brussels
2 large potatoes peeled and cut into big cubes
Warm up your meat then add Brussels and potatoes. Add 2 cups of organic vegetable stock and 1 cup of water. Salt, pepper, paprika, more parsley if you would like, you can add any other vegetable you like (sometimes I add peas and freshly diced tomatoes). Bring to boil then lower temp to lowest and let look for 30 minutes.

Day 2

Beef Stew
Warm up the beef on medium temp.
Finely dice one tomatoes and add to meat and simmer on low.
Add one tablespoon of flour and stir then add 1 cups of vegetable broth. Season with paprika, salt and pepper. Simmer on low for 15 minutes.I serve this with rice or Quinoa pasta.

  
  
Enjoy! 

Maya

Bouncing back to normal after vacation

Hello beautiful people! Mi gente!

We just came back from a wonderful family vacation. We spent a week in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. We stayed in the beautiful Grand Riviera Princess. The weather was mostly perfect except a few days of short showers and the last day it was raining all day.

For many people, a vacation is like a trip into space, at least for me it is. 🙂 The blastoff takes place once you book your vacation and days of careful planning. Then a few days of serenity and peace are followed by a harrowing re-entry to the real world. But with a bit of planning, you may find that you actually did get some rest on vacation and you are ready to resume your regular life again. (As I mentioned before I plan everything lol)

(Some pictures from our vacation, our oldest child is spending the summer in Europe with our family)

I am a morning person and while on vacation especially when I am well rested my body just wakes up early. Every morning I would wake at 6:30 to 7:00 am. It was perfect for morning runs on the beach. This gives me time to my self while my boys sleep in 🙂 Its just a nice and early morning breather.

My one and only rule is to leave your self at least one rest day post vacation. This day allows you to rest from travel and restock your house with groceries, even do some laundry maybe. If you are a drinker and plan on drinking on vacation I would cut it very short or completely the last day of vacation and hydrate with a lot of water that will detox your body at least a little and give you more energy. As soon as we got home the next day I got laundry out of the way. I find it if it’s hanging around it is only adding more on my to do list and God knows those of us that have to go back to work have already a lot to catch up on and adjust back to, having heaps of laundry when you come back from work simply sucks. On that off day I also meal prepped and even cooked some food for the few days ahead. I try to have nothing to do when I get home from work that first week, other than relax, get back into my workout routine and play with the kiddos.

 If you have been eating more than you usually do or consuming alcohol I would recommend a detox. There are plenty of recipes out there you can look up on Pinterest but my favorite one is lemon water (with a lot of lemon slices) through out the day, I even add matcha, and detox tea at night.

I hope everyone is enjoying the summer so far and have vacations or staycations planned ahead to just take a few days to kick back and relax. If you are not traveling anywhere do some research there are plenty of things around your town to do and I am sure some are free too just like here in HOT HOT Gerogia.

Everyday is Mother’s Day

Hello beautiful people! 

I don’t know if I mentioned before but some of you may know that I am originally from Europe. I moved to USA 17 years ago. Back home we did not have Mother’s Day, we had International Women’s day which falls on March 8th. So when I learned of another day to celebrate the beautiful and amazing women in our lives I was excited to celebrate my mom and spoil her with gifts, however no matter what gift I bough her it could not reward her for her endless love and support. I did not understand that until I became a mother myself. 

We love them and sometimes, we become them. Whether she carried you inside of her for nine months or if she put her life aside and adopted you and you became her life most people can identify a person who they can be thankful for on this holiday. These women work hard, especially these days where most women are employed and stay at home moms are so rare. Wether you are a stay at home  Mom or a working Mom I know you are wonderful and hard working. I know you fill your roll with so much love and you are so selfless. I know that you put your kids first no matter what, I know that you are tired but you rarely complain, I know that no matter what you would do it all over again for their smile and a hug. Being a Mom is a lot of work but it’s worth it. 

My mom is my best friend, she is my hero, my cheerleader, and my rock, and if that was not enough God blessed me with another wonderful mother figure and that is my mother in law. I wish nothing but the best for them, and hope that one day I can be as half as good as them and that my children appreciate as much as I appreciate them.

  

And those of you without your Mom’s on this day I know it sucks. I can’t even imagine the pain. Celebrate her and most importantly, remember that even in the darkest days of life you still have her in your heart. 

Mothering has been the richest experience of my life, and we should celebrate our families everyday not just on this day. I want to thank my husband for supporting me and helping me be the best mom that I can to our boys, and for keeping me sane with this mom has a “moment” 😂😂. 

Fitbit Charge HR Review

So I finally bought a Fitbit Charge HR. I have been waiting for the release of the HR one because heart rate monitor is important to me, however when I went to pick it up everyone was sold out!!!! If you only knew what l went through to get this little gadget lol. So far I love it. I have had it for a week and I will definitely tell you it motivates me and makes me realize how much I am moving through out the day. I wear the fitbit to bed as well because it tracks your sleeping patterns. When I wake in the morning it will already show like 250-350 calories burned. I have heard people say “how am I burning calories when I am sleeping”? The calorie value that you see on your fitbit when you wake up in the morning is your estimated calorie burn for the day so far. People do not realize that you still burn calories even if you are sedentary or sleeping. It is estimated  on your age, gender, height, weight and heart rate.

It measures my steps walked throughout the day, mileage, work out and active minutes (active minutes is when your heart rate is in moderate-to-intense activity).  Since I have a mostly desk job it motivates me to get up more and even walk around my little office, or do jumping jacks. Also I have been walking up and down the stairs on my break or lunch so that I can meet my personal goal for the day (which you can set in your app). It made me realize that sometimes I get home and it was a busy day at work and I think that I am exhausted and did enough for the day physically but then I look at it and I barely moved from my desk. So I have been increasing my cardio even if I only have time for only 2 miles I will do a quick HIIT workout and lift some weights to keep my heart rate up.

You can log your food, your water and best part you can buddy up with other people and motivate each other and see each other’s numbers and goals.

If you need motivation and you are a visual person I strongly recommend this little gadget. My company participates in a Humana Vitality program where I can link my fitbit to and I earn points and eventually prizes or gift cards for being active. Check if your company has a similar thing.