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.

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.

Summer Grillin’

June 12, 2017Leave a comment

Nothing beats a hamburger on the grill.

Lately, I’ve been grilling up some mean hamburgers. I found some delicious seasoning mix called Fennel and Fire’s Hambuger Blast. And it is life changing.

I paired my burgers with fried potatoes, lady cream peas and sautéed lemon pepper okra from Me & McGee Market in North Little Rock.

It was summer produce perfection.

I absolutely love having a farmer’s market in my backyard. I actually have three within a couple miles of each other so I like to share the love.

What have you been grillin’ lately? Favorite summer dinners? Favorite farmers’ markets?

Lazy Sunday Brunch

July 10, 2016Leave a comment

Today is the first Sunday we’ve been home to have a lazy breakfast.

Eggs and toast are a staple at our house. And today we have two variations.

Mine was wheat toast, stone ground mustard, guacamole, sliced tomatoes from the garden and a farm fresh double yolk fried egg.

The boyfriend had wheat toast, stone ground mustard, a fried double yolk egg, diced jalapeño and raspberry jam.

Black coffee all around.

Perfect Sunday morning.