crease-free twistband [paisley]

Twistband: the crease-free hair tie

I recently subscribed to Birchbox and I love it! [Bridesmaids, if you have figured out this is me, don't get your own subscription yet :)]  I've only received one box so far and one of the many things inside is this Twistband that Birchbox has been pushing.  I first thought it was pretty lame: a hair tie, really??  I thought maybe I could do my hair some cool new way with it, but no, it's just a normal hair tie.  So why is it so cool that it requires me to write this post (i.e. my first product post in a while)?  No creases.  At all. 

Case #1:  If you are anything like me, you throw your hair back at work.  I tend to twist my hair around my finger when really focused, so a pulled-back hair is my way of keeping up the professional front.  Plus twisting your hair isn't good for your hair either.  Now, I can let my hair down after work without any creases!  Hello pretty-haired happy hour!

Case #2:  I have long hair and don't like to sleep with it down because it mats to my face or gets tangly (lovely description of the mess that my fiance gets to wake up to).  My hair has a decent curl to it, so I shower at night and let the curls form with a touch of product and air drying.  I regularly pull my hair back while sleeping and am forced into a pony tail all the next day due to the awful creases.  Now, I can go to bed with my semi-dry hair pulled back and can wake up with crease-less curls.

The site advertises that they look good on your wrist when not in use, however that is not a look I can typically pull off as a twenty-something professional.  The Twistband stands up to a moderate workout, but it might not hold a ponytail for a long bouncy run--I've yet to give it that test and will update this post if it proves to be a reliable running buddy.

Twistbands are a bit expensive at $2 a pop or $10 for 6.  For some like me, that's a small price to pay for a hair tie that doesn't leave creases and doesn't pull out your hair. 

full disclosure: I am so not getting paid for this Twistband endorsement.  It's just that cool!  The Birchbox link does get me referral points, but that is not the focus nor the motive for this post.

Tweet

feel-good morning smoothie [porter]

Feel-good morning smoothie

There are precisely three reasons why I drink this smoothie: 1) I am on a mission to actually meet the recommended daily intake of 5 servings of fruits and vegetables 2) A good friend of mine picked up "juicing" (like with a juicer, not steroids :) ) and reported that she no longer felt tired in the afternoons, could easily go until lunch without being hungry, and no longer felt like a slave to coffee 3) A family friend who is a cancer survivor swears by a similar version of this smoothie.

I make this smoothie usually 2-3 mornings per week and I honestly do feel good.  I feel good about my eating habits.  I feel good that this is the type of food that feeds my body well and therefore gives me more energy for longer.  I feel good that a body that gets the right nutrients enables a healthy immune system.  However, I have zero plans to give up coffee--it tastes so good and has lots of antioxidants--but I no longer crave caffeine and sometimes opt for decaf.

Getting in the habit to buy the ingredients for this smoothie on a regular basis was the hard part.  Not being a fan of letting food go to waste, I had to learn how to buy the right amounts, and, to choosing to buy larger portions to be more economical, I worked into our routine other uses for the same ingredients.

Ingredients:
makes 2 smoothies
1 c apple juice
2 generous handfuls of spinach or kale
1 carrot, chopped or 1 handful baby carrots
1 banana
1 c frozen fruit
1/2 c Greek yogurt
1 squeeze honey
1 lime, juice only

The how to:
In a blender combine juice, spinach and/or kale, and carrot.  Blend until the carrot is chopped well.  Add banana and frozen fruit.  Blend until smooth (may have to use pulse function if you have one).  Add yogurt, honey and lime.  Blend until the yogurt is well incorporated (same color through whole smoothie).  Pour and enjoy!

Side notes:
I use apple juice, but feel free to try other juices.  I will say that I don't like this smoothie as much with orange juice.  Kale is the more antioxidant-packed leaf, but it is more bitter than spinach so I suggest starting with spinach and changing the mix to include kale to your liking.  Spinach is only a 20 cent difference between a small and a large container at my grocer, so I tend to get the large spinach and have it around for salads, too.  I don't get kale very often because we don't have meals that use it often enough to justify the large container.  Again, I hate for food to go bad and I like to meal plan economically!  Our grocer carries carrots that are cut for stir fry for the same price as baby carrots so we get the stir-fry cut bag, well, so we can use them in stir fry, too (see where I'm going with this :) ).  I use fresh banana, but if we have bananas that are about to go bad, I'll cut them up, freeze them on a cookie tray, then put them in Tupperware in the freezer (freezing first on a cookie tray means they are less likely to stick together and you can portion it out later).  Pick any frozen fruit to your liking, but know that mango will give it a grittier texture.  We like blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and peaches.  Recently we started using flavored Greek yogurt (honey and blueberry), so I've been leaving out the raw honey.  I might go back to plain Greek yogurt because the flavored one has a lot of sugar.  I especially like to drink these with a straw.

Phew that was a lot of side note!  Even fiance loves this smoothie and it holds him over to a late lunch on the weekends after dog training class--that's impressive.  Try it this week I tell you!  It's good!

Tweet

creamy cilantro-lime dressing [porter]

Creamy cilantro-lime dressing on taco salad

Fiance and I have taco night on a regular rotation.  We brown up some ground turkey with diced onions, simmer it in a layer of pre-made taco seasoning, and slap it in to a warm tortilla with fresh diced onion, cilantro, a dollop of plain Greek yogurt, and grated cheddar cheese.  We always have leftovers and changing it up a little to not have the same meal twice in a row, we threw most of the same ingredients on top of a bed of lettuce (plus chopped carrots and tortilla chips, less Greek yogurt).  Typically this bed of lettuce would be mixed greens, but spinach is all we had (there's always spinach in the fridge for our smoothies).  Wanting to hedge the non-traditional spinach factor, I experimented for a killer dressing.  Fiance commented, "bottle this one up and I'll have it over and over again."

The Ingredients:

dresses 2 large salads

1 lime, juice only (about 1 T)

1/8 c cilantro, leaves only

2 T light miracle whip

2 T olive oil

1 dash onion powder
pepper to taste

The how to:
In a food processor, first process the lime juice and cilantro together.  You may have to stop processing and scrape down the sides once or twice to get the cilantro evenly chopped.  Next, add the miracle whip, olive oil, onion powder and pepper to the cilantro-lime mixture and process until smooth.  If you would like a thinner dressing, add more oil to preference.

Side notes:
I strongly suggest fresh lime juice for this dressing as it brings the right amount of sour kick and provides vitamin C.  Lime juice from those squeeze bottles will do the trick if that's all that's on hand, but you may have to add a touch more to get the same taste.  Light Miracle Whip is my "mayonnaise" of choice so it's always around, but feel free to try with regular mayonnaise or plain Greek yogurt (will not provide the same tangy taste, so may need a small pinch of salt and extra lime to compensate).

Tweet