3-5 Servings a Day

I'm trying to be really health conscience lately. Not only to lose weight, but because the more I read about certain "power foods" the more impressed I am. For example, I started adding flax seed meal to Jim and my morning smoothie because not only is it rich in omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids, it has been linked to fight cancer. Specifically colon cancer and breast cancer. I can hardly tell the flax seed meal is in my smoothie, and I enjoy the extra little crunch it adds.

In my journey to become more healthy, I've pursed through Jessica Seinfeld's book. Deceptively Delicious. If you're not familiar, the idea behind the book is hiding veggie purees in food. She came up with the concept because she had picky eaters in her family, and she needed to find a way to get her kids to eat their veggies. You hide the puree in food similar in color. For example pureed carrots or squash would go well with mac 'n cheese since it's already orange.
Now, I don't really have a problem eating my veggies, but I know I probably don't eat 3 to 5 servings a day. I usually have fruit with breakfast and lunch, and do the veggie thing at dinner. So, I thought following Jessica's advice would benefit me and my family. So, yesterday while Tralee was napping, I steamed and pureed spinach, cauliflower (my least favorite veggie), and carrots. I added 1 cup of the cauliflower puree to our mashed potatoes at dinner. I couldn't even tell the difference! I still had a side of steamed spinach as well. My mom was concerned I wouldn't offer veggies to Tralee, and only hide them in other foods. Not the case, I'm still doing veggies, but I'm also pumping up my family's veggie consumption by adding the purees to foods we enjoy. I'll add the cauliflower puree to scrambled eggs. For dinner tonight I'm making taco soup. I'm going to add carrot puree and spinach puree to that and see how it turns out. I'm excited about the prospect! I'm also going to try brownies with carrot and spinach purees, and Italian Meatloaf made with ground turkey and carrot puree. We'll see how they all turn out! Here are the fruits of my labor from yesterdary. Each bag is 1/2 cup.
Here's Tralee enjoying some mashed potatoes with cauliflower puree. She had already eaten dinner, this was her second helping of potatoes. What a hungry girl! I had to help her eat, or this would have taken forever. She likes to do things herself, but she hasn't quite mastered the spoon yet, as you can see.

After dinner I bathed Tralee, then I went to the Y to work out. I had a nice work-out. I felt the burn!! Jim got Tralee to bed while I was gone. So nice!

Now to play catch up:

Last Sunday we changed Tralee out of her church clothes, and a few minutes later she was chasing Corky around with her church dress. It seemed as though Tralee wanted Corky to play dress-up. We couldn't resist, so we helped Tralee by putting Corky in Tralee's dress. Tralee was quite thrilled, but Corky was TICKED OFF!! It was pretty funny.

That's all for now.