The Best Chopped Kale Salad, Ever.

 

Chopped Kale Salad

Get your motors running. This Chopped Kale Salad is the best salad to date.

A while back, a trip to Mad Greens introduced me to the wonders of a well-made chopped kale salad. I asked the staff how they made this delicious salad every morning and he listed off a handful of simple, healthy ingredients but I still didn’t know the portions. Enter the internet. I researched the salad online. Went to do some in the field research at True Food Kitchen, a restaurant rumored to carry another pleasing chopped Kale salad.

What I have for you here is a blended recipe of both the Mad Greens Chopped Kale Salad and the True Food Kitchen version.

This simple chopped Kale salad can be modified several ways. You can use Parmesan cheese or opt for the nutrient packed nutritional yeast (which surprisingly tastes like cheese and packs a mighty 7 grams of protein per serving). The original recipe calls for pecan halves, although I’ve always used shredded almonds because it was what I had in the house. So, what I’m saying is start with this recipe then as you get comfortable with the interchangeable parts, switch em out!

The Best Chopped/Shredded Kale Salad, Ever. 

They key to this salad is the finely shopped or shredded Kale. I like to put destemmed bunches of Kale into my blender or food processor and pulse it until it’s nice and small, tiny shreds. It’s important to have dry Kale when doing this to avoid a gross mixture mess. The salad is perfectly paired with a lemon-garlic dressing and for me, an almond “Parmesan” topping. As I mentioned, to make this diary free, I substitute the Parmesan for nutritional yeast.

This salad keeps in the fridge for a few days, and that’s only if I can actually KEEP it in the fridge. Regardless of how much I make, this salad disappears within a day or two. This salad will take about 20-30 minutes to prep and depending on how large your servings are, can serve as few as 4 people, or 2 people for 5 servings.

Ingredients:

FOR THE SALAD AND DRESSING:

• 2 medium bunches destemmed kale, finely chopped (8 to 9 cups chopped). Use a high-powered blender to cut back on chop time. It took a lot of trial and error for me to realize the blender worked as good as my hands chopping, and reduced prep time by half.
• 2-3 large garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 3 to 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 
• 2 handfuls dried sweetened cranberries, for garnish

FOR THE ALMOND “PARMESAN”:

• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• Few dashes of fine sea salt

Directions:

1. Remove the stems from the kale and discard. Finely chop the kale leaves.
2. For the Almond “Parmesan: In the food processor, add the almonds and process until the almonds are the size of crumbly peas. Now add in the nutritional yeast, oil, and salt and process again until it has a coarse crumb texture. Be sure not to over process
3. For the dressing: In a mini food processor, process the garlic until minced. Now add the lemon, oil, salt, and pepper and process until joined. Adjust to taste, if desired. Pour the dressing onto the salad and mix it into the kale with your hands or toss with spoons.
4. Sprinkle the Almond Parmesan all over the salad. Toss on the dried cranberries to taste ( I like a lot of cranberries so I add around a cup when I double this recipe. You can always add more once you’ve sampled the finished product). Place the salad, covered, in the fridge to cool and allow the flavors to mix together. You can eat it after about 30 minutes, or if you’re against waiting, eating it right away is perfectly fine, too! As I mentioned, this salad doesn’t last in my house. I leave it in the large mixing bowl, cover it, and place it in the fridge. It’s eaten at almost every meal for the 2 days that is lasts. After a few days you can start to see the salad losing some of its freshness. Thus all the more incentive to eat it up quickly.

 

Blackberry Lavender Scones

Blackberry Lavender Scones

As I type, I’m bubbling with excitement over the delicious scones that bake in the other room. The unmistakable scent of lavender wafting through the house.

I’ve been on a cut, or “diet” for several weeks. I hate the word diet. Why? Because of the feelings almost everyone feels when they hear the work, including me. It promises restriction, restraint, and a sense that you’re missing out on certain foods. That in order to lose weight and look good, you have to kick to the curb anything aside from chicken breast and cous cous. My intentions are to swing in the opposite direction of how I’ve been eating as of late, as I’ve been pretty indulgent (chips, candy, cookies, wine and lots of it). In swinging hard the opposite way, I’ll see the results I want: to lean out while still retaining muscle and strength. In the fitness world, we call this cutting up.  Somewhere during the process, I’ll find my middle ground – neither restrictive or over indulgent.

So after several weeks of very tight food management and reawakening my awareness around food and what I’m putting into my body and how it impacts my body, moods and athletic performance, I decided it was time to reward myself with some (HEALTHY) baked goods. BlackBerry Lavender Walnut Scones.

Let’s get to it. Grab your aprons and turn on some tunes, you’re in for a treat with these delectable delights.

1. Preheat oven to 425. Line cooking sheet with parchment or foil.
2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, sugars and salt. Cut the oil into the flour using your hands until it all looks a little grainy and there are no large chunks left. Stir in the delightful lavender.
3. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the almond milk and vanilla. Mix it together until it is almost all the way combined but stop just before you overkill it and make it a perfectly joined mixture. Good! Fold in berries and walnuts. Again, don’t over mix.
4. Scoop out dough into 1/3 cup measurements and drop ’em onto the baking sheet. Brush with almond milk, and if you really want to tickle your fancy, a pinch of white sugar on top (I opt out of the extra sugar). Bake until a little golden around the bottom, about 12 minutes with a max of 15.
5. Remove from oven and experience some self-control, damn it, and only eat a few. Or say fuck it and eat em’ all. Makes about 12-15 depending on how you measure out your servings.

You’ll need: 

2 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

3 tablespoons white sugar

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup refine coconut oil

2 teaspoons dried lavender

1 1/4 cups plain almond milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup fresh berries (black berries, blue berries, whatever berry your heart delights)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Macros (based on 14 servings)

What makes these healthy, in my opinion, is the source of your carbohydrates, fats, and calories. The major sources of fat are coconut oil and walnuts. Walnuts have omega-3s, powerful free-radical fighting antioxidants, and for some men, a healthy diet of walnuts can enhance prostate health (Who knew?). A majority of the calories from carbohydrates in the scones are from the whole wheat flour. Whole wheat has a bit of an edge because it has the outer layer of the wheat, or bran, and that’s where all the good stuff is: dietary fiber, B vitamins, and antioxidants. Not to mention minerals such as zinc, iron, and magnesium (which helps relieve muscle soreness!)

So, without further ado, here are the macros based on 14 servings

140 Calories

5 g Fat

6 g Sugar

21 g Carbs

3 g Fiber

4 g Protein

Bon appetit!

 

 

 

 

Anti-Inflammatory Smoothie – Soothe Your Sore Muscles

Workout out hard today? Sore muscles? Sip yourself into relief. The ingredients in this smoothie help reduce inflammation and relieve the discomfort of sore muscles.

1 cup (155 g) pitted cherries

1 cup (155g) frozen blueberries

1 tbsp (15 g) GINGER

2 oranges

1 cup (237mL) water (coconut water to further tickle your fancy)

• Toss all ingredients into a high-powered blender
• Blend until creamy
• Pour into your favorite mason jar or mug and enjoy!

Science Says What We Already Know:Meditation Is Good For Your Brain

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-12491/how-meditation-changes-your-brain-frequency.html

Science is showing the health benefits of mindfulness. What is everyone waiting for, now is the time to incorporate meditation into your life!

Here’s an article explaining the activity of our brainwaves and how they benefit from mindful stillness, or meditation.

Want even more? Incorporate this simple but powerful breathing technique into your daily pre-meditation ritual, or do it anytime throughout your day to welcome in a deeper sense of presence and wellbeing.

Stay connected to your breath, stay connected to your truth.

Living the life that cries to be lived from the depth of our being frees up our energy and vitality. We benefit and everyone around us benefits.

Namaste

Dr. Wayne Dyer on Attracting Love (Hint:It Starts With You)

How To Attract A Loving Relationship
attract love through intention-

You must be that which you desire. There’s no point whatsoever in an unloving man or woman bemoaning their inability to find a partner. They’re doomed to endless frustration because they don’t recognize the perfect match when it appears. That loving person could be right there, now, and their resistance doesn’t allow them to see it. The unloving person continues to blame bad luck or a series of external factors for their not having a loving relationship.

How To Attract Love To Your Life

Love can only be attracted by and returned by love. The best advice I can give for attracting and maintaining spiritual partnerships, is to be what it is that you are seeking. Most relationships that fail to sustain themselves are based on one or both of the partners feeling as if their freedom has been compromised in some way. Spiritual partnerships, however, are never about making another person feel inferior or ignored in any way. The term spiritual partnership simply means that the energy holding the two of you together is in close harmony with the Source energy of intention.

Using Intention To Attract The Relationship You Want

This means that an allowing philosophy flows through the partnership, and you need never fear that your freedom to fulfill your own inner knowing about your purpose is questioned. It’s as if each person has whispered silently to the other, You are Source energy in a physical body, and the better you feel, the more of this loving, kind, beautiful, receptive, abundant, expanding, and creative energy is flowing through you. I respect this Source energy, and I share it with you as well. When either of us feels downhearted, there’s less of this energy of intention flowing. We must always remember that nothing is disallowed by the universal mind. Whatever is not allowing us to be happy is being disallowed by us. I’m committed to staying in this energy field of intention and watching myself whenever I slip. It’s that very Source that brought us together, and I’ll work to stay in harmony with it.

Affirm That Love is On Its Way

Mystically speaking, there’s no difference between you and another person. A weird concept, perhaps, but valid. This explains why you can’t hurt another person without hurting yourself, nor can you help another person without helping yourself. You share the same Source energy with everyone, and consequently, you must begin to think and act in a way that reflects your awareness of this principle. When you feel the need to have the right person show up, begin to change your inner dialogue to reflect this awareness. Rather than saying, “I wish this person would show up because I need to get out of this rut” activate a thought that reflects your connection, such as: I know the right person will be arriving in divine order at precisely the perfect time.

Loving Yourself First

If a friendship or partnership requires the submission of your higher original nature and dignity, it’s simply wrong. When you truly know what it is to love, as you’re loved by your Source, you won’t experience the kind of pain you did in the past when your love was unnoticed or rejected. It will, instead, be similar to how a friend described her experience of choosing to leave a relationship: “My heart was broken, but it felt like it was stuck in the open position. I felt love flowing toward this person who couldn’t love me the way I wanted to be loved, even as I left that relationship to seek the love I felt inside of me. It was strange to feel the pain of my broken heart. And at the same time feel its openness. I kept thinking, My heart’s broken, but it’s broken open. I shifted to an entirely new level of loving and being loved. The relationship I’d dreamed of having manifested 18 months later!”

You are love. You emanated from pure love. You’re connected to this Source of love at all times. Think this way, feel this way, and you’ll soon act this way. And all that you think, feel, and do will be reciprocated in exactly the same fashion. Believe it or not, this principle of the right person showing up has been in place forever. It’s only your ego that’s kept you from seeing it clearly.

BElieve it. BE it. Achieve it. 

Related articles

• Dr. Wayne Dyer: Dating, Desire and Attracting Love (polishdatingblog.wordpress.com)
• A Message from Wayne: Stress Begone! – from Wayne Dyer (jhaines6.wordpress.com)

How to Manifest Anything You Want

Intention + Attention = Manifestation

Manifesting. What is it really? Is it believing in something and then willing it to come true? Is it some wishy-washy talk about mystical powers or something unbelievable or something too abstract to be understood?

Are you only getting a small amount of success in your business? Are you waiting for things to come your way? Do you have life, career, relationship goals?

Let me break it down for you.

Manifesting is an awesome way to really TAKE your life into your hands. Even if you are a super go getting person, if you can open your mind a little, you acquire the experience of what you want to feel then- being, living, and believing in that experience, and then allowing that experience to come into form.

I’ve found myself on an impromptu trip to Las Vegas, thank you manifesting 101. In addition, many great things have recently come into my life.

Manifesting is creative. Using your presence and your higher power energy, and using that energy to co-create. The energy of believing is one of the keys to manifesting. We are co-creating with the UNI-Verse. There are no things as coincidences. You play an active role and yet a passive role in helping things come into your life.

“Miracles occur naturally, and when they are not occurring, something has gone wrong.” A Course in Miracles

The effortless action, that you were thinking about something, and then it just shows up, that is how life is supposed to be. Our negative thoughts, our anxieties, our future projecting, we get in the way of the flow of our own lives. All our projecting of negative energy affects our energy and prevents those things from coming our way.

Here are the keys to manifesting.

1- Clarity. First step is to get very, very clear. Be clear on what you desire (I want/am a successful yoga student and becoming a successful yoga teacher, I desire to get ___ Job promotion, etc) otherwise you can call in some FUNKY and super confusing stuff. You have to have clarity. You get clear in what you want, then release the blocks and disbelief which are holding you back.

2- Be clear of Limiting Beliefs. Become clear as to what you don’t believe, and the limiting beliefs which may be blocking you from BELIEVING what you want. By becoming clear in step 1, it allows you to see the limiting beliefs holding you back from obtaining your desires. (IE- I am not a good writer, I will never be a published author, I will never be a successful yoga teacher, I will never experience a loving partnership, etc.) Recognizing the self-limiting beliefs and then CLEANING THEM UP. (I AM a great writer. I am a successful yoga student learning how to be a successful yoga teacher, I am a loving partner and desire a loving partnership with X specific qualities.) I would start telling myself and believing these things WAY before it was ‘real’ in the sense of it taking actual form in my physical life.

**Recognize it is a story you are telling yourself* Those limiting beliefs are holding you back. When you RECOGNIZE that the internal story you have told yourself isn’t true, you can forgive yourself and release the false beliefs, which sometimes may be the simple step in allowing yourself to open up for the manifestation to take form in your life.

3- Be in the presence, the energy, in the knowing that you are ready to receive your manifestation. You have healed limiting beliefs, you are active, engaged and aware. Getting into the know. KNOW THE UNIVERSE HAS YOUR BACK.

When you are in the zone, the know, you have released the disbelief and you start to acquire what it feels like to be in that manifestation. I FELT like a successful yoga student and teacher, (even when I wasn’t there yet). I FELT and believed I was a successful and great writer (even before I was close to having anything publishable).

What can you do on a daily basis if you have a lack of money, resources,etc.?

You can not let your OUTSIDE world dictate your internal world. If you have low income and can not afford to do the teacher training right now (real life situations/scenarios) you can not let the OUTSIDE world dictate what is going on internally. You are not allowing yourself to co-create.  It will be a manifestation mishap “I’m having this experience “I want to be a successful yoga teacher/student, I want to be a published author” and then allowing outside shit to affect your thoughts “I’m never going to be published, I don’t have that money and can’t do it. I don’t have enough”

Your internal condition will support the external. You, in you, have to support yourself. You have to believe in your abundance and self worth in order to really allow that manifestation to come into your life.

Hold the energy and let the outside world meet the energy inside you.

4- Patience! Stay in the know.

You can be in the knowing, you can be trying this and thinking “it isn’t coming”

Most important step is patience

“Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait and wait without anxiety” Gabrielle Bernstein

Presence of certainty “That man is on the way. I am abundant and loving and know I am love. ” If you can allow, be patient, and be in the know. When you are not patient, you control, manipulate, and block the natural energy from flowing toward you, which is the energy you use to ATTRACT those things into your life. So if you are putting out some funky energy, you get funk back.

Manifesting is possible. I learned a TON about this from Gabrielle Bernstein who uses A Course in Miracles as her spiritual text and her guide in manifesting.

Hey, go co-create your lives.

Related articles

• Intention: How our Internal Energy creates our reality (whether we know or not). (ehinla.com)
• Intention, attention and manifestation (shivshankardaily.wordpress.com)