Roasted Eggplant & Pinto Bean over Coconut Almond Brown Rice

It's not easy trying to figure out what to do with eggplant. It seems sometimes items can become limited with what we could do with eggplant. So I created a yummy recipe that seems to go well nicely. It's my Chickpea and Roasted Eggplant over Almond Coconut Brown Rice.  It gives you a sweet taste, with a yummy a satisfying meal that is complete with protein and fiber.

Pinto Beans & Roasted Eggplant Over Almond Coconut Brown Rice

Ingredients

1 cup long grain brown rice
1 cup water
1 cup of vanilla almond milk
2 TSB of Edward & Sons, Organic Shredded Coconut, Unsweetened 
1 Medium Eggplant
1 16oz Can of Organic Pinto Beans

First cut and cube the eggplant and place it on a baking pan to roast @350 degrees for 40 minutes. While eggplant is roasting; place the rice, almond milk, coconut and water in a small pot and bring to boil. Once at a bowl lower the flame to medium and cover for 30-40 minutes, while stirring  the mixture about every ten minutes. Once the eggplant is done, combine with the pinto beans and place on top of rice mixture.

Why do we pay for bar ?

It today world nutritional bars are something that are quick to grab for energy on in our fast past world. We may have them as a meal replacement, snack, post-work meal or for many other reason. The problem with most the bars out there is they are loaded with ingredients we can't pronounce and are more like a candy bar then anything. Then you may say there are a lot of health bars, sure we have a lot of bars that are NON-GMO, Organic and has ingredients that you can read. The only problem with these bars is that they are super expensive. So I asked myself when I look at the ingredients why don't I just make these myself. So after searching different recipes I created my own recipe to come and make my own bars that are supper yummy and supper health.

The Healthy Munch Bar 

1 cup of packed dates ( I like Medjool dates)

1.5 cups of rolled oats (not quick oats ) can use rice puff cereal as well  

1/4 cup Almond butter

1/4 cup honey or brown rice syrup 

3 Tablespoon of Hemp Seeds

1/4 cup Pumpkin Seeds

3 Tablespoon of Un-sweeten Coconut

1/2 cup of mix nuts chopped 

1. remove all pits for the dates if you have to,  then place in food process and blend until the dates come     together to form a ball. 

2.  mix all dry ingredients together in a bowl and add the dates into 

3. Take peanut butter and honey and melt together. When peanut butter and honey is melted pour of            dry ingredients and date mixture 

4.  Mix together until all ingredients form together 

5.  place into an 8x8 pan and spread out evenly into the pan

6.  Once into pan, you can cut into bars and transfer to food dehydrator and cook on the fruit/nut setting       for 8-12 hours. You can also bake them in the oven as well 

The recipe can be adapted so much to make it have more protein,  gluten free, etc. They are really easy to make and are cheaper then buying those expensive bars. 

New Year & Resolutions

     It's a new year, and we are all thinking about the big old question. What will be my New Years Resolution? It's something that most us do every year, yet only 8% off all people who make resolutions actually stick to them(New Years Statics). I know for myself, I have barely ever stuck to any of my resolutions that I have made. One reason why we fail so much, is that we put so much stress on ourselves to accomplish these goals. In fact, we put so much stress on ourselves that we actually set ourselves up for failure from the start. It's like we know we are going to fail internally, so we just set ourselves up for failure without thinking.

When I make my resolutions this year, I'm going think about it in terms of running.  When running,  you can't just go out and run a marathon if you have never run before. Instead, you have to work up and build up to the mileage in order for you to run that marathon. If we think of that recipe, we could better set up ourselves to be successful in our resolutions.

    So when making a resolution think baby steps and take some of these steps to help you make a resolution that will become a recipe for success.

1. Make sure the resolution is for you and not anyone else. A resolution should be something that you want to improve or make better about yourself, and not decided based on what society says.  Your resolution should come from your heart and soul.  

2. Start your resolution slow and steady to win the race. For example, if you want to eat healthier, pick one meal at a time to change your diet, and then move up to two meals, once you have successfully conquered eating one healthy meal per day.

3. Don't be hard on yourself if you fail. As humans, we all make mistakes; it's just going to happen.  One way to help you from continuing to make mistakes is by keeping a journal of every time you fail. When you fail, write down what you were feeling and what your day was like. The next day, aim to get back on track and look at why you failed. By looking back, you can try and find methods or ways to prevent you from repeating the same mistake. As we learned in school (though our politicians may not follow this) is that we learn from our past. Our past is a gateway of knowledge and experience that could help us succeed.

4.  Lastly, I like using Chris Freytag's (of ChrisFreytag.com) 80/20 percent rule to improve your life. If you are able to accomplish your resolution 80% of the time, I see it as a success. After all we aren't prefect, but I say 80% is a pretty good number to aim for.

Happy New Year from The Healthy Munch

Life Without Coffee & Caffeine

Buzz Buzz Buzz, it's the sound that everyone hears in the morning. In fact it's a dreadful sound that most of us don't want to hear at all, but it's a fact that we have to get up and head to work. Just as the alarm becomes a routine, so does our daily cup of coffee.  In fact, each day 54% of americans over the age of 18 drink roughly around 3.1 cups of coffee a day (Coffee Statistics ) which equates to a total of 500 mg or more of caffeine a day that we are drinking. This is not including any other caffeinated items we may be having through out the day such as soda, energy drinks, etc.  So can this really be good for us? The fact is that the amount of coffee and caffeine Americans are drinking is exceeding the total recommended daily consumption, which is around 200-300mg of caffeine per day.  So what are some of the negative effects of caffeine? They include insomnia, nervousness, restlessness, irritability, stomach upset, dehydration, fast heartbeat, and muscle tremors (Caffeine Side Effects). In addition to these symptoms, caffeine can cause the urge to consume more sugary food as it will spike your sugar level, causing you to crash.
   Upon learning all of this, I embarked on a challenge to rid myself of coffee and caffeine as much as possible. I started my journey over three weeks ago, and I have to say that I am feeling much better overall and have much more energy throughout the day without coffee. I had always been a morning person, but now I feel even more energized in the morning since ditching the coffee. It was a tough battle, as during the first week I suffered really bad headaches and was feeling brain cloudy and shaky during the day, while starting to get off of the coffee. I felt it was worth the benefits of  better sleep, a clearer mind to think, and feeling better about myself overall. As part of this journey, I began testing different teas that would be both caffeine free and would provided a more  natural and holistic approach towards energizing the body and supplying beneficial vitamins and nutrients.  The first tea I turned to was Dandelion Tea, as I feel it's a super power of tea. I used Traditional Medicinals Dandelion Tea, as my morning cup of hot beverage to get my day started and the benefits are just amazing.

works great to purify the blood and cleanse the system

Enhances detoxification, by stimulating urination and, by replacing potassium lost in the process

improved the function and maintains optimum liver, kidney, pancreas, spleen, stomach and gall bladder functions

Help control weight