Halsa Mat

I saw a rerun of Dr. Oz the other day and he spoke about the benefits of the Halsa Mat.

My boyfriend has a bad back so I decided to order it for him in hopes that it would relieve his pain.

It came in the mail yesterday and already he feels like it is working.  It relaxes him and makes his back pain feel better.

I ordered it off amazon.com for $29.95 with free shipping.

Have any of you tried the Halsa Mat?  Do you have any suggestions for how to relieve back pain naturally?

Homeopathic Medicine

I returned to work on Monday after being on disability for the past 6 weeks because I broke both of my elbows.  I had a lot of anxiety about coming back to work and everything I had to catch up on and a lot of changes were going on in my office too.

I was at Wegmans, the best grocery store by my house and I was looking in their organic section for something that would calm me down and stop me from worrying and stressing.

A couple of weeks before I came across a homeopathic brand called Boiron, and bought some pills that were labeled as helping with bone trauma.  I do think they helped heal my elbows so I went straight to that brand to look for medicine to help with my anixety.

Sure enough they had medicine labeled to help with "nervousness due to everyday stress."  The ingredient in it is ignatia amara.  I took the medicine and it immediatly calm me down and got my mind off of my stresses so I could relax the night before I had to go back.  The next morning I also took some right before I go to work - it calmed me right down.  My heart wasn't racing and I didn't feel as nervous and anxious as I had before.

It comes in a little blue tube and it has a very cool way of twisting it so you only get out the amount of pills you need.  This is the product that I took for my stress:

http://www.boironusa.com/products/single/ignatia-amara.php

I gave it to a co-worker who was having a bad day and super stressed - she said that she calmed right down and it really made her day a whole lot better.

I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a natural way to help deal with their stress.

Of course these two little ones help calm me down too!

Oragnic Wine

Lately I have trying to eat a lot more organic than I used to.  I would say that half of the things in my fridge right now are organic (eggs, milk, string cheese, carrots, lettuce, celery, salsa, orange juice, lemonade, ketchup, jelly, marinara sauce, etc)  in my pantry I have organic soups (Amy's brand), cereal, oatmeal, granola bars, trail mix, peanut butter, taco seasoning, beans, mac and cheese, etc) and in my freezer i have Amy's meals and burritos, morning star black bean burgers, chix patties, mushroom burgers, etc.

A couple of weeks ago I tried some organic wine from the liquor store by my house..and they were both really good.  If you are looking to get into organic wines I recommend starting off with these two.

My Garden!

My Garden this year did pretty well..considering my tomatoes took over everything and I over crowded it!

Here are some picks of how my garden started, what I harvested and how it is looking today.

I probably harvested around 14 zucchini, 6 yellow summer squash, hundreds of cherry tomatoes, over 30 regular sized tomatoes, 5 acorn squash, only one butternut squash, 10 banana peppers, 3 bell peppers and around 10 other kinds of 10 peppers.  The tomatoes were in the same garden bed as the peppers and they took over - I do have a lot of peppers still growing.  Next year I will put tomatoes in their own raised bed.

Pepper Suprise!

I was out in my garden picking tomatoes and I came across this pepper!  It must have been hiding because I most likely would have picked it when it was green.

A red pepper is just a green pepper that ripens on the plant longer. That is why they are more expensive then green peppers in the store...because it takes longer for them to come to fruition.

Red peppers are also better for you and have disease fighting antioxidants!

Fast and Easy Breakfast

Egg sandwich with laughing cow cheese and tomatoes and a side of strawberries!

Are you in need of a new recipe to use up all those tomatoes from your garden?

If your garden is anything like mine you should have more tomatoes than you know what to do with - this recipe is delicious and uses up a ton of them...plus it has bacon in it...everyone loves bacon.

This is what you will need:

Mushrooms (you can leave these out if your not a fan), bow tie pasta, 1/4 cup red wine (I used yellow tail pino noir - don't make fun of my cheap wine!), 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, 1/3 cup Pecarino Romano cheese, BACON (I used a low sodium center cut), onion, 4 garlic cloves, and tomatoes (I use a combination of cherry and regular)!  Simple!  Now listen people...I don't really follow recipes.  I used what I have in my fridge, cupboards and garden.  If you don't have something I am sure you can substitute.  Whole wheat pasta would be a great healthy alternative...adding spinach would also be great.  This makes a ton of food - is perfect for a dinner party and would be great with a salad and garlic bread.

Now here is what you do:
Dice and Cook Bacon

While the Bacon is cooking dice onions, garlic, tomatoes and mushrooms:

 Take Bacon out of the pan and drain out most of the bacon grease...leave about one tablespoon in the pan and put the onions and garlic in..cook until the onions are translucent.

Now you should start your water boiling to cook your pasta.  I highly encourage you to be drinking wine through out all of this and every once and a while eat a little piece of bacon...because bacon is delicious.
 Now add in all of the tomatoes and mushrooms:

This will have to cook down - it takes about 10 minutes...Then add in the wine...

Cook it down for 5-10 more minutes...now I know it looks very watery...its all of the lovely juices from the tomatoes...I have a trick for this..as soon as your pasta is al dente - drain it and put it in the sauce so it soaks up all of the juices!  Don't worry those arn't my man hands...my boyfriend is helping - it is still hard for me to cook with my broken  elbows!  Then add the bacon and cheese:

Stir all together and let simmer for a couple of minutes and then you have this delicousness!

By this time your house smells amazing and everyone in it is starving....so now time to eat!

Enjoy!  My boyfriend sure did, he had three huge plates...and we still had a ton of left overs!