Quail Eggs and Sautéed Veggies

September 3, 2017September 2, 2017Leave a comment

Saturday mornings are reserved for visiting my favorite farmer’s market.

Me & McGee Market is located off Highway 70, near the Galloway exit on I-40, in North Little Rock. When we moved to the country, I realized we were 20-25 minutes away from the nearest grocery store. And I am a frequenter of the grocery store. I love cooking, and having fresh produce and meat is important to me.

Yesterday, I visited the market, and they happened to be out of eggs. I got there earlier than normal so the lady who brings fresh eggs hadn’t delivered the weekend loot. So Neva suggested quail eggs.

How cute are these little guys? I’ve never had nor cooked quail eggs before, but I can tell you the cuteness makes them taste better. And they felt really special to enjoy on a lazy Saturday morning.

So here is how I prepared my quail eggs.

First, I chopped up all my veggies. I used red bell pepper, onion, baby tomatoes and a mix of greens. I diced the bell pepper and onion pretty small so they would cook quicker, and I sliced the tomatoes in half. I rough chopped the greens to give them a little more longevity. Greens tend to wilt quickly, and I’m not a fan of a whole mouth full of wilted greens unless bacon grease is involved.

I cracked the quail eggs one at a time in a separate bowl. Since they are so tiny, I cracked the tops with a sharp knife and let them slide out into the bowl to avoid getting shells in my eggs. Not knowing how many eggs it would take to make what I normally make for breakfast, I cracked six quail eggs. It turned out to be the perfect amount.

I fried the eggs in a little bacon grease. And since they are so small, they cook really quickly. So just be aware.

And this was the final product. The most delicious plate of eggs I’ve ever made. The yolks were so rich and flavorful. I couldn’t get over how they complimented the veggies. The only seasoning I used on all of this was salt and pepper. Because when you buy good quality ingredients, it doesn’t need much. Just let the flavors shine.

And the best part is this whole breakfast was Whole30 approved. So you can bet I will be making some version of this again.

What are your favorite lazy Saturday morning meals? Are you adventurous enough to try quail eggs?

Roasting Veggies

September 2, 2017August 30, 2017Leave a comment

My favorite way to cook after a long day at work is with the handy-dandy oven.

I love roasting veggies in the oven.

Magic temperature of 400 degrees, give it 12-30 minutes (depending on what you are roasting) and boom, it’s all done.

I’ve even gone as far as briefly pan-searing meat in a oven-safe skillet and throwing it in the oven with the veggies. It’s life-changing.

Case-in-point: These roasted chops with okra, Japanese eggplant and baby tomatoes.

This whole meal was sourced from Me and McGee Market, my favorite farmers market in North Little Rock. The grow the okra, tomatoes and eggplant in their backyard garden, and they get their meat from The Farm at Barefoot Bend in Crowe, Arkansas (right outside Hot Springs Village).

But the true beauty of this meal, outside of I know exactly where it came from and who grew it, is the fact that I made it all in the oven.

As much as I love cooking an elaborate meal, I love convenience and speed of cooking just as much. Roasting veggies in the oven gives a deep flavor and a crispy texture, and I can’t get enough of it. As I said earlier, I’ve started pan-searing my meat with a little avocado oil for a couple minutes on both sides, and then I throw it in a 400 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes, depending on the size, until it has a nice golden crust on the outside.

I love how oven roasting meat and veggies doesn’t get my stove all messy. I love that I don’t have to stand watching over the stove. The oven just takes a lot of undue stress off of cooking dinner. Plus, if you are a good with meal prep, you can have all of your veggies for the week prepped and ready to go in the oven so making dinner is super easy.

What are your favorite veggies to roast in the oven?

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

September 1, 2017August 30, 20171 Comment

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

Via

My most favorite kid Asher Ray has been fighting Ewing’s Sarcoma since she was three years old. She will turn nine in October. Ewing’s is a rare type of bone cancer. She has fought the most beautiful fight with the most grace and patience I’ve ever seen from anyone. She is the strongest person I know. (Her parents are close seconds.)

Every September we advocate for Childhood Cancer Awareness. We need a cure. This child deserves a cure. All the children deserve a cure. And we will fight to get one.

This month I will donating all of the income from my Beautycounter business to the American Childhood Cancer Organization of Arkansas in honor of Bit’s fight. Beautycounter and fighting childhood cancer go hand-in-hand. The mission of Beautycounter is to get safer skin care and beauty products into the hands of everyone.

Some of the things found in our personal care products are known carcinogens, meaning they are known to cause cancer. With skin being the largest organ of our bodies, it seems like a no-brainer to want to take care of it. But here’s the thing…there is little to no regulation on what companies can put or not put into your personal care and beauty products. Words like “fragrance” are used to hide whatever carcinogens, hormone disruptors or irritants companies need to hide.

We deserve better than that as consumers.

Finding Beautycounter was a total turning point for me. Learning I could make better choices about what I put on my face and body makes me happy, and the products are high performing and high quality.

My goal for September is to get safer products for you so I can donate my commissions to an organization that is near and dear to my heart.

To get yourself some Beautycounter products, check out my Website. I will be giving away some really awesome stuff throughout the month. So be sure to watch for it on my Facebook page.

September Whole30

August 31, 2017August 28, 20172 Comments

I’ve successfully completed two round of Whole30. If you’re not familiar with the Whole30 Program, I highly suggest you look into it for a reset to healthier eating habits.

I did my first Whole30 in June 2016. I was ill-prepared, and I thought I could wing it. But it taught me a lot about my health and meal prep. But I considered it more like a challenge instead of a lifestyle.

Paleo eating wasn’t really my thing. While I love fruits and veggies, I’m not the biggest fan of meat. I do love chicken and seafood. So the thought of giving up dairy and grains for 30 days seemed like a deal breaker for me. But I read up about it. I got the Whole30 book, and I started learning about the program.

I strategically talked the Boyfriend into doing the Whole30 challenge with me with promises that his pants would fit more comfortably. I simply just wanted to complete the 30 days to see how much better I would feel.

I learned a lot during my first Whole30. And by January 2017, I was ready to do another. So now it has become a thing in our household. We do a Whole30 reset whenever we start to feel icky, sluggish, and when our eating habits get out of hand.

Case in point: Two weeks ago, we were enjoying life on the beach. Vacation diet. Days of sitting. Nights of enjoying dessert and adult beverages. Out of control.

September marks the start of our third Whole30. The most valuable thing I’ve learned in doing Whole30 resets is each one reveals something different. The first one revealed that I was capable of anything. The second one revealed that I was a better meal planner than I originally thought, and my tummy is not a big fan of dairy and wheat products. And this one will be completely different, too.

This time I am prepared. Thanks to Thrive Market, I have all my Whole30 approved pantry items delivered right to my front door. I also have the best farmers market in my little tiny town, and it has the best grass-fed, organic meat and poultry from a local farm. So my meat and veggies are covered.

I’m also working out through this round of Whole30. I don’t live anywhere close to a gym, but I downloaded the Daily Burn app to our TV. It’s been working well so far. More on the Daily Burn soon.

But I’m super excited about this round of Whole30. I have Labor Day weekend to get settled into the swing of Whole30 eating, and I have the long weekend to prep for a short week. The one challenge is a day in Nashville during the early part of the month. I’ll have to plan it really well to maintain our Whole30 success, but it can be done.

As the month goes, I will share Whole30 approved recipes (some will be mine, some will be others), what makes Whole30 the right choice of reset for me, and how I feel on Whole30 while I exercise.

Adventures to Wellness is Coming

August 27, 2017August 27, 2017Leave a comment

Things are changing around here. And I’m super excited. The most excited I’ve been in a long time about a personal project.

If you’ve followed me for awhile, you know I’ve had a designated blog space since 2009. It started on Blogger as It’s Always Something… and then evolved into Barefoot ‘N Running, the space I wrote the longest.

But when I quit running regularly, I quit writing there. When I finished grad school and started working full-time, I quit writing for a little while.

Then about two years ago, I create When I Grow Up I Want to be a Chef. I always thought I wanted to be a food blogger. To create recipes and share them. To take food photography. But I felt pigeon-holed and lacked creativity to share recipes. And to be honest, I’m terrible a writing recipes because I don’t measure anything. My cooking style is intuitive. It’s how it looks and smells and tastes more than it is measurements for people to recreate.

And to be honest, I felt like I failed at When I Grow Up I Want to be a Chef. Because it wasn’t like everyone else.

But in reality it wasn’t me at all.

So here we are. Eight years into having a personal writing space on the web, and I have it no more figured out than when I was 22.

Truth bomb: I’m not ever going to have it figured out.

But what I do know is I need a space to write and share and build community. And if the spaces I developed in the past are no longer serving me, I need to evolve.

So here we are.

Adventures to Wellness is a space to help me find balance. Or share how I’m constantly finding balance in the everyday. It’s about being able to adapt. And finding gratitude. And loving the beautiful, messy life I’ve been given.

It’s an adventure to living my healthiest life.

It’s about sharing food in a way that I want to share food with photos, links to recipes, sharing bloggers I love, recipes, food prep, farmers market shopping, buying local.

It’s about sharing exercise practices, exercise failures, lack of motivation, finding motivation, taking care of myself.

It’s about sharing life with music, movies, love, best practices, worst practices, failures, storytelling and just being a real person that you can relate to.

It’s about figuring it out on the fly. Being open and honest.

Finding balance is an ever-changing, ongoing adventure. Finding my own version of wellness is an ever-changing, ongoing and, ultimately, life-changing adventure that I can’t wait to share with you.

Welcome to my new space.

With love,
Ashten

P.S. Official site launch and new content begins September 1, 2017. I have lots of ideas and things to share with you. Get. Excited.