I’m eating lots of yums at my parents’. My mom made this wonderful amazing stir-fry tonight for dinner.

I don’t know the recipe, but I know it had lots of peanut butter. It was delicious. Maybe I’ll ask her how she made it sometime soon. It had all of my favorite veggies – broccoli, mushrooms, carrots (which I actually avoided because I’m trying not to turn orange), and red peppers. She’s not scared to use enough oil to make it taste good either.

This morning (and yesterday I think) for breakfast I made a really good bowl of hot cereal. I mix together…

• ~1/2 cup of quick cooking oats
• a few tablespoons of farina
• cook it in water & almond milk
• cinnamon, almond or orange extract (or both!), dash of salt

I like to top it with milk (whole cow’s milk or more almond milk) and maple syrup or honey. My facial lady told me to avoid sugar and see what happens (I know what will happen – my face will be clear), so today I had it with no syrup (but extra milk).

Uh oh. I think I have a new addiction. It sounds like kabocha, but it’s more expensive – kombucha.

The one I tried was $3.39 (yikes) and it was "GT’s Organic Botanic No. 7 Kombucha". I specifically got the one with probiotics to help with my digestion. This one was raw.

Kombucha is a fermented Chinese tea. It takes about 30 days to make; during the process various nutrients are formed (enzymes, probiotics, amino acids, antioxidants, and polyphenols). It’s basically the healthiest thing you could possibly drink.

Some people say it tastes like vinegar; I thought it tasted a little bit like wine, only fizzy and better (I don’t really like wine). I’ll definitely be buying this again as soon as I can wrap my head around the price. It’s so darn pricey. I will absolutely try to make this in the future. Tips?

Speaking of yummy things, I did these 5 videos yesterday for exercise. They are each 10 minutes. Try them out! My sister loves Polly’s videos too.

• YOGA for yummy abs
• YOGA for upper thighs
• YOGA for your muffin top
• YOGA for yin
• YOGA for triathletes

Do you like kombucha? Have you tried it? Have you tried Polly’s videos yet? (It’s her birthday week by the way!)

P.S. Check out Clare’s Positivity Giveaway. She’s so sweet

Now Coco and Sophia are both here!

Tonight we drove up to San Francisco for the first Foodbuzz Festival event. The welcome reception was from 5-7pm at the Hotel Vitale. This wasn’t the main food event of the day, but they did have two cool appetizers: gruyere gougeres with bacon and mascarpone and pork rillettes. They were provided by midi.

I tried the rilletes. Pretty good, but kind of salty. I didn’t try the puff things, but they looked cool.

After the reception we headed over to the Ferry Building for an amazing dinner event. Foodbuzz rented out a portion of the building and had restaurants serving food all the way down the alley.

As soon as we entered I saw mini cupcakes, and I couldn’t resist. Dessert first! I tried the pumpkin cupcake, but they also had red velvet, chocolate cinnamon, and an almond flavored one. I had an almond one on my way out for my real dessert. These were provided by Mission Minis.

I also tried this delicious vanilla bean ice cream by Straus Family Creamery. Awesome.

Then it was time for some real food. I had a bean burrito from Tacolicious. It wasn’t that good. I wanted chicken, but they were out. They had cool shirts though.

I also tried these savory vegetarian and meat pies from Pie Truck. Pretty yummy!

And a raw oyster from Hog Island Oyster Co…. awesome.

I passed on these chicharrones (fried pork chips) but they were cool looking. From 4505 Meats.

Alive had a selection of raw foods – 2 raw pizzas and raw cheesecake. These were okay. Not my favorite, to be honest.

The best items of the night: Spencer on the Go’s Beet Salad with blue cheese and "far west fungi vol au vent" (creamy mushrooms on top of a puff thing). I went back for seconds on both of these.

Then there was some incredible thin crust pizza from Pizza Politana. This was the best pizza I’ve had outside of Italy and New York. And I didn’t think I was a pizza person.

Lastly, there was a cool pork sandwich and potatoes from Roli Roti. This seemed to be really popular with other bloggers, but I thought it was just okay.

They had this funny shirt: "I heart Crispy Skin". (TWSS? Not.)

My favorite of the night was absolutely the mushroom dish from Spencer on the Go (second favorite was their beet salad). Holy amazing yum. On the way out I snagged some more ice cream and the almond cupcake.

Don’t worry, I didn’t finish everything pictured. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for tomorrow… Happy Saturday!

Coco is here! And I have a big wrap-up of recipes and food to show.

First up: here are two breakfasts. Cheesy grits topped with leftover chicken (1/4 cup grits, cooked in water; cheese added at the end). There was a little bit of avocado on there too (avocado came with the chicken salad that this is leftover from).

Oat bran cooked with protein powder, cinnamon, vanilla, and a dash of salt. Topped with sesame seeds and maple syrup.

Have you tried Averie’s raw vegan cookie dough balls yet? Okay, mine are not balls (the first batch was), nor do they have chocolate chips. They are so simple to make.

Averie-inspired Raw Vegan Cookie Dough Yum

Ingredients (1 serving)

• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• a little bit of water

Directions

Mix syrup and flour together. Add a few drops of water at a time until you get your desired consistency. I like mine a little bit too wet for balls (TWSS?).

Variations

• part wheat germ, part flour (my favorite)
• part wheat bran, part flour
• ground nuts for flour (Averie’s original recipe)
• part oatmeal or oat bran, part flour
• grind oatmeal/oat bran in the blender and sub for flour

I also made bread the other day. I just took my Easy Peasy Pizza Dough recipe and subbed in a few things for the flour. Instead of 3.5 cups of flour, I used the dregs of a cornbread mix (maybe 1/4 cup – Jiffy brand), some Heart Smart Bisquick, and whole wheat flour. It came out well. It was a little dense, but yummy with soft butter.

I have 3 more pictures of healthy yums, but I’ll save them for when I’m on the road and lacking in delicious food.

I can’t wait to pick up Sophia tonight and go to the Foodbuzz Festival.

What are you doing this weekend? You know what I’m doing.

A few of my favorite bloggers have recently committed to getting back on track. Caitlin declared the whole month of November as a time to get back on track; Angela is doing it for the first week of November, starting today (the 2nd). I’m feeling it too: I haven’t been doing that much yoga, I haven’t been walking as much as I like to, and, to be perfectly honest, I’ve been eating a lot of crap. I haven’t been practicing mindfulness either, and I find myself munching through the day instead of eating proper meals.

This challenge might be hard for a few reasons – 1) Bobby and I are driving across the country next week; 2) the holidays and lots of decadent foods are coming up; 3) due to the move, I don’t know what my new routine will be (we’re moving to Manhattan btw). But I’m going to try. I’m synthesizing their goals and mine, and this is what I came up with. I’m going to try to do this for as long as I can. These aren’t arbitrary; these goals are what my ideal lifestyle would be so I want to keep up with them.

1. Go to bed early (by 11:30pm) and get 7-8 hours of sleep a night.
2. Cut out artificial sweeteners. I’ve been on a diet coke kick recently and it’s time to stop.
3. More veggies, less fruit.
4. More cooked foods, fewer raw.
5. Lots of water and tea.
6. Cook and plan more (or at least eat out at cheap-yet-healthy places).
7. Sit down for every meal.
8. Do something relaxing for 30 minutes every day (yoga, a bath, these exercises).
9. 30+ minutes of cardio each day (walking, running, yoga).
10. Give myself credit. Even if I don’t do all of these things perfectly, I’m going to give myself credit for the attempts and partial successes.

Because we’re moving, I’m trying to use up the groceries we have and I don’t plan on buying more. This week I’ll be eating out a lot but I’m not too worried about that; I love eating out and I can always find something healthy on the menu. The only thing that worries me about eating out is the money issue. I wish I was less frugal

The other issue I might have is that this weekend is the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival. I plan on eating well, but I doubt that I’m going to get much sleep because two of my favorite bloggers are coming to stay with me and we’re all going together. I am so excited to meet them.

Some of the yummy dishes I plan on making and eating during this November challenge are…

a healthy Thanksgiving meal, like last year’s

fresh delicious salads

lots of squash fries…

this fun Indian mushroom recipe

… and lots more. You should check out my recipes page for more inspiration. This bread recipe was one of the first things I ever posted (December 2007).

Anyway, back to the “back on track” plan. Today has been a good day so far. I did a yoga class this morning at my studio and I went to bed early last night (crashed on the couch at 9:30pm). I wanted to go to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner, but Bobby has band practice… so maybe not.

And now this post is getting epic. Happy November! Are you challenging yourself this month?