Category: Health and wellness

What We Ate Last Week & What’s On The Menu This Week

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, Health and wellness, mediterannean, Nutrition, Recipes1 Comment

Remember how a few weeks ago I said that most of the time my meal plans go awry for some reason or another? This last week was the perfect example. Monday and Tuesday went great, when I made farotto and a salad (risotto made with farro) and Tuscan bean soup with bruschetta, respectively. Wednesday things went off the rails when I found out the rest of my family had things going on and would not be joining me for dinner. So, I kept the scallops in the freezer and ordered myself Crisp & Green for takeout. I love C&G salads, but I’m a little irritated that probably 50% of the time something is wrong with my order. Still, they are really yummy and healthy so I keep getting them. Thursday, we had Eat for Equity as planned, and Friday my husband got us reservations at Martina, one of my favorite places to eat and have a cocktail. We had scallops, pasta, and Brussels sprout salad, with a delicious banana caramel crepe for dessert. Our plans Saturday were foiled because our paddle party was cancelled due to weather, so we punted and had more Eat for Equity. We tried watching Jurassic World Dominion but it was just meh so we switched to our daughter’s high school’s championship hockey game, which was super fun to watch, and they won state! Sunday I heated up the lasagne from Eat for Equity and we had that and a salad while watching the Oscars. My daughter put together this fun snack tray below. Yes, there’s candy and cookies there! And microwave popcorn. These are all ok (we practice moderation). I lost the Oscar’s ballot competition by a mile.

Oscar’s Snack Tray
Bruschetta with fresh tomatoes and garlic
Farrotto, made with farro, asparagus, peas and parmesan
Romaine with strawberries and goat cheese with a vinaigrette
Tuscan white bean soup with kale

Moving on to this week’s plan!

MONDAY: The scallop recipe from last week’s post, along with some leftover roasted vegetables from Eat For Equity.

TUESDAY: Sicilian chickpea and escarole soup with whole grain bread dipped in olive oil.

WEDNESDAY: We have a retirement party to attend, so we will be out (on a school night!)

THURSDAY: Eat for Equity

FRIDAY: Corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. I’ve been told this is not an actual traditional St. Patrick’s meal, but I love corned beef and cabbage and eat it once a year, at most, on this day.

SATURDAY: Eat for Equity

SUNDAY: French onion soup casserole. My daughter and I are big fans of French onion soup, and this just looks cozy and delicious and I love the addition of white beans. Sadly, winter is far from over here, so this recipe just spoke to me, and it came highly recommended.

I hope you have a delicious and restful week! I will need some extra zzz’s thanks to Daylight Savings Time.

What I Cooked Last Week/What I Plan To Cook This Week

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, health, Health and wellness, high cholesterol, mediterannean, Nutrition, Recipes1 Comment

I have been really enjoying having my meal plan set each week, as well as having the time and energy to actually adhere to it. That wasn’t alway the case, so if it’s not in the cards for you these days to stick to a meal plan, don’t worry. I’m in a season of life where it’s possible and also fun for me to cook a lot. We’ve gone through seasons where we were doing a lot of “fending” for ourselves, or scraping together whatever, or picking up dinner on the way home. The best way to ensure you hate cooking is to hold yourself to some arbitrary standard that doesn’t fit in with your current life.

So, if you’ll remember from last week’s post, I planned to make roast cod with chermoula and broccolini on Monday, peanut and veggie soup from the freezer on Tuesday, pasta with zucchini and tomatoes with a salad with Marcona almonds and manchego cheese on Wednesday, Eat for Equity on Thursday and Saturday (we got hot pot! Some beef and some vegan with tofu), over to friends on Friday and Crappy Dinner Party on Sunday. How did it go? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday went according to plan. When I went to make the pasta on Wednesday, I realized I didn’t have enough fresh tomatoes, so I broke out a jar of Rao’s (seriously, it really is the best tasting jarred pasta you can get, and it’s available at Costco) and did a little riffing. It turned out delicious. Make sure to check out the post from last week if you want recipes. So, what didn’t go according to plan? By Saturday we had eaten most of the Eat for Equity food, our daughter was out, and we had hosted friends for cocktails and bites (olives, cheese and crackers, veggies and hummus) so we didn’t need a full dinner. I had a bowl of Trader Joe’s O’s cereal. Sunday, our Crappy Dinner Party was postponed so we pivoted and ordered from one of our favorite places, Edina Grill. We got two Thai chicken and brown rice bowls (so delicious) and a chopped Italian salad. Here are some photos from dinners last week.

Cod with chermoula, white beans with herbed oil, and broccolini.
Vegan Hot Pot from Eat for Equity, topped with kimchi.
Whole wheat spaghetti with zucchini and pine nuts.

On to this week’s plan. All recipes are from America’s Test Kitchen Complete Mediterranean Cookbook, but I have found the same or very similar recipe links elsewhere. As you can see, my pattern is to make dinner Mon/Tues/Wednesday and then the rest of the week is sort of loosey goosey. We are so lucky to have Eat for Equity to fill in some gaps, and I keep stuff in the freezer and pantry that we can make meals out of.

MONDAY – Farrotto with pancetta, asparagus and peas, and an arugula and pear salad with goat cheese

TUESDAY – Tuscan bean soup with bruschetta

WEDNESDAY – Seared scallops with orange lime dressing and skillet-roasted cauliflower with capers and pine nuts

THURSDAY – Eat for Equity

FRIDAY – Either more Eat for Equity, or go out

SATURDAY – Pizza and paddle (click here if you’re wondering what paddle tennis is. We play it in the winter here in Minnesota).

SUNDAY – TBD, not sure if we are doing Crappy Dinner Party. It’s the Oscars so maybe we will do something fun around that.

I hope you all have a great week ahead and feed yourselves well, whatever that means to you.

What I Cooked Last Week/What I Plan To Cook This Week

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, Health and wellness, Nutrition, Recipes2 Comments

I got a lot of interest in my meal planning post last week. And it makes sense. There are some weeks when I sit down to plan the menu for the week and I think “What do I even cook?” My mind just goes completely blank. It’s nice to see what other people are doing with their cooking lives and get new ideas.

First things first: how closely did my actual cooking life last week resemble the plan? I give myself an 9/10. The only change was that on Wednesday I made homemade chicken noodle soup out of the leftover roast chicken because my kiddo wasn’t feeling well. (FYI, if your celery is looking anemic and bendy, throw it in some soup instead of tossing it in the garbage or compost). So I punted on the coconut curry until Thursday, which punted the Eat For Equity meal until Friday. Which means on Friday instead of going out or ordering in, we assembled the most amazing shrimp po’ boys topped with coleslaw made with miso dressing and collards with raisins. We were supposed to go out with friends Saturday but that stupid cold that’s going around foiled our plans, so while our daughter was out, we ate Po’ Boy leftovers and watched the Yellowstone prequel 1923. This time we also ate braised butter beans along with it, also from Eat For Equity. And tonight, we are going out, an usual plan for us for Sunday evening. Anyway, maybe I should give myself an 11/10 for cooking an additional meal this week. Here are some photos of the things we ate. As I keep saying, I’m not a professional blogger who curates amazing photos. I’m a real person who doesn’t have the patience to stage a photo, so you’ll see real-life depictions of what food actually looks like.

Coconut Curry Lentils
Oven roasted garlic
Burst tomato pasta with basil and parmesan

This week, I plan on making the following (they are all from the America’s Test Kitchen The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook so I’ll provide similar recipe links. OR you can buy the book or pay to have access to the recipes online):

MONDAY: Roast cod with chermoula (a sauce made with cilantro and other delicious things), and broccolini with garlic and red pepper flakes.

TUESDAY: I’m chaperoning my daughter’s Model United Nations conference and then playing paddle (if you don’t know, definitely watch the video link. It’s such a fun winter sport!) Tuesday late afternoon, so I’ll be pulling out a peanut stew with winter vegetables from the freezer that I ordered from Eat for Equity. The recipe is from Bryant Terry’s Afro Vegan Cookbook. I plan on serving it with toasted sourdough.

WEDNESDAY: Pasta with zucchini and tomatoes and pine nuts, served with a green salad with Marcona almonds and manchego cheese.

THURSDAY: Eat For Equity

FRIDAY: Out

SATURDAY: Eat For Equity

SUNDAY: Crappy Dinner Party (if you don’t know about this yet, read about it here). It’s our turn to host, and I’m thinking maybe my husband can smoke something in our smoker, TBD).

I also plan on making a chopped salad with chickpeas along the way for lunch. Something like this but with my leftover goat cheese instead of feta. As usual, I will also probably eat avocado toast with an easy salad once or twice. Here’s a photo of what my lunches look like most days.

I hope you all have a delicious and healthy week ahead.

My (Obsessive?) Organizing Life

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Health and wellness, self improvement, Uncategorized2 Comments

Sometime in the fall, I got the insatiable urge to start organizing and decluttering my house. Maybe it was the cleaning Tik Toks I’m so fond of (they are so relaxing and satisfying), or the fact that our only child is leaving to go far away to college in the fall, or being irritated constantly that I didn’t know where things were or what we even had. But one day I just decided to make a list on the notes app on my phone of all the spaces in my house I wanted to address. Nothing was too big or too small to make it on the list. Sock drawer? Yes. Pantry? Hell yes. Take everything out of the home office, every paperclip and cord and blank cassette tape (omg) and look through every piece of paper in my personal files? Yuuup.

As a person whose motivation comes when it comes, and if I don’t take advantage of it who knows when it will come back, I leapt on this sudden energy. At least several days a week since I started, I’ve woken up, looked at my list, and gotten a jolt of energy and anticipation over that day’s project. Likely it’ll disappear just as suddenly as it came, but I’m hoping to get as much mileage out of it before that happens. I just completed my 52nd project (!!!) yesterday. I’ve been flabbergasted by how much lighter I feel by doing this. I no longer have the same feelings of being weighed down by my possessions and clutter the way I did before this. There’s also a lot more space mentally, to ponder and think and contemplate. Even though our clutter was mostly contained in drawers and cabinets and closets, I still felt its presence. Hiding it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Here are some things I’ve learned from this project that might help you if you’re thinking of embarking on your own project:

  1. I’m much more organized than I thought I was.
  2. But, I have too much stuff (we all have too much stuff).
  3. You don’t need fancy canisters or bins. The companies selling you fancy canisters and bins want you to think the fancy canisters and bins are the key to lasting happiness, but they aren’t. Start with what you have. Use containers you already own. Shoeboxes work great. You can always fancy it up later. Don’t buy more stuff in order to get rid of more stuff (see how crazy that sounds?)
  4. Start with a small project or two first. It will give you immediate gratification and a jolt of energy, and it’ll hopefully help keep you inspired.
  5. Take photos as you go and send them to people who will cheer you on. My friend Catherine has been my biggest cheerleader. As a person whose love language is words of affirmation, this is a huge motivator for me. If having a cheerleader isn’t what you need, figure out what *will* keep you feeling proud of your progress, and ask for it.
  6. If you need help getting motivated, another trick that works for me is using the “pairing” technique. Save a podcast or an audio book or your favorite music for when you are doing your projects. It’s like a reward.
  7. Have a list of go-to places where you can get rid of the things that no longer serve you. I have made huge use of our local Buy Nothing community on Facebook. Literally you can get rid of opened cereal that you realized you didn’t like. Or a beautiful pair of shoes. Or some twine. It’s amazing what you can keep out of the garbage with this community. I also have donated to a local organization that operates a thrift store to raise money to provide vital funding for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. I’ve taken two carfuls of stuff there. I took two large tote bags of books to Half Priced Books. Food goes to our local food shelf (please no expired food).
  8. Don’t let perfect become the enemy of good enough. Those Tik Tok and YouTube videos are compelling, but it’s easy to think that your house also has to be perfect and idyllic for it all to count at the end. It doesn’t.
  9. Get ready to discover some gems you haven’t seen in a while. By clearing out a bunch of jewelry I never wore, I uncovered several pieces that felt new all over again and that I’m excited to wear.
  10. Keep a running list of your projects and check them off as you go along. Periodically go back and admire how far you’ve come.

I plan on embarking on a spring clean of the house as soon as warmer weather arrives. I’ll keep you posted!

What I Plan To Cook This Week

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, Health and wellness, high cholesterol, Nutrition, Recipes2 Comments

This will be interesting, because many (most?) times my menu plan and what I end up cooking are vastly different. Either I realize not everyone will be home for dinner, or we have so much leftover food it doesn’t make sense to make a new meal, or I get a headache and don’t feel like cooking, or whatever other life stuff pops up. But having a menu plan is good! It helps to make sure I’m buying only the food I need, and keeps me focused on cooking healthy meals vs. falling into the takeout trap.

Here’s what the menu plan looks like for this week. I hope to circle back at the end of the week and report back on what actually happened! Either way, I hope this gives you some inspiration.

MONDAY – Burst cherry tomato pasta with a simple arugula salad (literally lemon juice or rice vinegar and a drizzle of olive oil, sprinkled with s+p) and sourdough bread toasted and dipped in olive oil. If I’m really feeling myself, I’ll roast a head of garlic until it’s soft and spreadable and serve that with the sourdough.

TUESDAY – Roast whole chicken (I buy it cut into pieces), herb new potatoes (I buy the container that you just microwave) and roasted cauliflower with pine nuts and capers. This recipe is from a cookbook and I can’t find it online, but if you google it, similar recipes will pop up. Easy enough to leave out the capers and pine nuts and just roast some cauliflower with the herbs and spices you like.

WEDNESDAY – Lentil crockpot curry served over brown rice. We have, by all accounts, a massive snowstorm coming from Tuesday through Thursday of this week. I imagine school might be cancelled, but even if not, we have appointments on Wednesday so I want to be able to put this in the crock pot and forget about it all day. If we are home we can enjoy the aroma, and if not, we will come home to a delicious and warming meal.

THURSDAY – We order meals every week from a local organization called Eat For Equity. We get two main dishes, two sides, two salads/soup/bread, and one dessert. It’s an amazing organization and the food is so yummy. I always say, it’s the food I would make if I had just a little more energy to make my dinners really special. They deliver every Thursday to our house. We usually eat E4E for dinner Thursday, and then throughout the weekend either as another dinner or as our lunches. We are so lucky to have this option! As a backup (because we are expecting 1-2 feet of snow overnight Wednesday and into Thursday), I am also planning to make a Greek white bean soup from a Mediterranean cookbook I have. Here’s a comparable recipe.

FRIDAY – We usually eat out or order in on Fridays. Sometimes we have an Eat for Equity meal, which I suspect will be the case this week because we have dinner out both Saturday and Sunday.

SATURDAY – We are going out with friends Saturday for dinner! For lunch, we will probably eat some of our E4E meals and if I feel motivated, I will make a salad of some sort.

SUNDAY – We will be going to a pasta dinner out. I’m excited because we get to pick our type of pasta plus all the add-ins. I’m not just saying this, but I love a pasta with tons of veggies in it, so I expect this will be really yummy.

If you’re wondering what I do for lunch during the week, mostly I eat leftovers, avocado toast, or Dr. Praeger’s California Veggie burger with raw sauerkraut. Once a week, I generally treat myself to a salad from Crisp & Green.

Please comment below with what you are cooking this week, if you’d like. I always like trying new recipes.

What is balance?

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Health and wellness, Nutrition, stress, wellnessLeave a comment

I am a wellness educator. I know the right vitamins and supplements to take, and I know what foods to eat for optimal health. I know meditating each day helps keep my mood stable and immune system strong. I know that daily exercise outside will expose me to sunlight and fresh air, and that when I don’t get outside I start to go a little off the rails.

I know that if I try to do everything and be everything to everyone in my world, it feels good at the time but I pay for it dearly later on. Whether it’s with exhaustion, exasperation, or worse, it always comes back to bite me.

Recently I had six week stretch of time that was truly the busiest and most frenetic I’ve ever experienced. I loved most of it. I loved being productive, I loved that the golf events business I’ve been building experienced a surge of activity and that my business partner and I took the challenge and succeeded (and exceeded). I love that my daughter started a new adventure in high school and not only dove right into being involved and enthusiastic, but also made the tennis team (requiring a lot of parental involvement in the form of rides and a cheering section). I love that my wellness business is thriving and growing, too.

What I didn’t love: spending wayyyyyyy too much time sitting in a car. Whether battling traffic or sitting in the parking lot waiting for tennis practice to let out, it left me feeling cooped up and caged. I tried to set up my car to be comforting and useful, even putting a lavender essential oil diffuser in the vent. It helped to a certain extent but didn’t change that I was putting hundreds of miles in every few days. Not healthy for anyone.

I didn’t love being unwilling to let myself off the hook a little bit for doing all the same things I would under “normal” circumstances. I still expected myself to make dinners (failed), attend all the tennis matches (mixed), and be a completely present parent for my daughter’s first month of high school (probably not great). I don’t love that I threw everything I knew about self care and nutrition out the window. It felt a little freeing at the time, but as with most unhealthy practices, it ultimately wasn’t a good choice.

The result of all of this was feeling totally burnt out. Depleted. And sick. When everything wrapped up at the same time: my daughter’s tennis season, a big multi-year co-chair volunteer job, and the three golf tournaments in a row, I thought I would feel a sense of accomplishment and freedom. Instead I just felt…nothing. A classic sign of burnout.

The takeaway from this is NOT to scale back my work. No way. I love what I’m doing and I want MORE jobs, not less. Rather, it’s to stay mindful of the things I know will help me feel balanced and healthy when the flurry of activity comes to a halt. Meditation. Acupuncture. Walks with my dog. Good nutrition. Sleep. Yoga. ASKING FOR HELP. And setting good, old fashioned boundaries on what I’m willing to do. It’s my responsibility to set those boundaries, and like many women, I find it difficult to do. Luckily, life isn’t slowing down and I will have endless opportunities to practice these skills. Maybe, someday, I might even find balance.

I put a call out to my social media community for their thoughts on achieving balance, and this is what I heard. If anything, it was really comforting to know that we have all experienced similar challenges, and I hope you find it helpful, too. Here are a few responses:

“Healthy food, adequate sleep, moving my body and laughs/time with those I love (aka Crappy Dinner Party!)” — Deanna (my amazing friend and neighbor)

” I don’t think true balance is achievable. I feel like I have to intentionally take inventory of my priorities and what may need more of my attention on a particular day/week/month. I gave up trying to “have it all” a LONG time ago because it was making me crazy. Of course my children are my #1, but if I’m not working we don’t have the financial resources we also need as a family. Giving yourself grace as a working parent is also important because let’s face it, you’re going to get some things wrong. If we can give ourselves some forgiveness and bring a healthy dose of a sense of humor, we can navigate the “close to balance” goal in a more enjoyable way!” – Stacy

“(You) must be prepared to let go of things and be clear about boundaries to get close to work toward balance— always a work in progress tho!” – Molly

Please respond below with your thoughts on finding balance. Is it achievable? How do you approach it?

MayCember Meditation

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, Health and wellness, stress, summer, wellnessLeave a comment

It’s a stressful time for a lot of people — teachers/school employees, parents and kids, especially. Some people call May “MayCember” because it’s the time of year when there are a million extra activities on top of all the other normal everyday stuff you have to get done. It’s a lot.

So, today, I’m just leaving this beautiful image right here for you to gaze at for five seconds while drinking your morning coffee and contemplating the never ending to-do list. I hope you have some time this weekend to just relax and be still. It might seem frivolous to do nothing. Trust me, it’s essential from time to time. Did you know five seconds of being mindful of your breathing and nothing else counts as meditation?

I want to be on this boat right now with a thermos of hot coffee and a really good book.

New Recipe: Cold Sesame Noodles (And More On Healthy Portable Dinners)

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, Health and wellnessLeave a comment

It’s activity season in Minnesota, and it’s probably the same where you live. If you have a school aged child, chances are you are spending a good amount of time shuttling them from one activity to another. My teenage daughter is in drama club, rugby, and she takes tennis lessons. The maneuvering required to keep one kid’s schedule straight is a feat in and of itself. I don’t know how people with multiple kids even do it!

Because my daughter goes to school 25 minutes away, it doesn’t make sense to come home and then go back to school for rugby practice at 6 p.m. So, she either goes to drama club or stays and does homework, and I bring her dinner for her break before practice. I’m not the best at coming up with travel friendly healthy dinners, so I am going to start compiling a list. If I get enough suggestions, I will share the file!

I did find this recipe for Cold Sesame Noodles and it looks delicious. I’m trying it out tonight. A friend of mine also recommended these Breakfast Burritos that her kids love.

Ok, so here is where I ask you to help me! Comment below with your favorite portable meals and I will start a file.

Thoughts From The Sick Bed

On By Cultivate WellnessIn disease, health, Health and wellness, Nutrition, wellnessLeave a comment

Even the healthiest people get sick. I fell ill with the flu 10 days ago and am just now getting out of bed and starting to feel better. My doctors tell me if I hadn’t received the flu shot, I would very likely be hospitalized with complications.

I do “everything right”. I get a lot of exercise, I take my supplements, I eat very healthy, I get 8-9 hours of sleep a night, I meditate, I enjoy lots of nourishing relationships. Sometimes, even with all of that, you just get sick.
I’m telling you this because a lot of holistic nutritionists and wellness practitioners sell people on this notion that if you just do all the “right things”, you will be invincible. That if you just cut out all sugar, or go gluten free, or go vegan, or go paleo, or any number of other things, you won’t ever get sick. That is nonsense. We are human and human bodies sometimes break down, get sick, or get injured.

Someone from my cohort yesterday told me not to eat any fruit whatsoever and stop all my supplements because they “feed the pathogen”. This is such utter nonsense. When I asked for studies to back up her claims she went radio silent. It makes me angry that someone out there is peddling this psuedo-science.

Bottom line: be careful when seeking wellness information and guidance. Look for real, honest-to-goodness scientific studies and papers to back up any claims. If something doesn’t sound right, follow that instinct. And if you ever have any questions, reach out to me. I like nothing better than to provide science based wellness advice.

In the meantime, I’m following doctor’s orders to rest. I’m going to eat lots of fruits and vegetables (they are full of vitamins and minerals, fiber, vitamin c, and other anti-inflammatory compounds). I’m going to get acupuncture today, and I’m staying hydrated. Sometimes, time is the best medicine.

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: My Own Experience.

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Health and wellness, wellnessLeave a comment
A great book to help you get started. Even my dog agrees the house feels calmer.

In my opinion, and a lot of experts agree, a cluttered house leads to a cluttered mind. Higher rates of anxiety and depression can be seen in people who live in extremely cluttered environments. And when your mind is cluttered, your creativity and productivity are inhibited. As one of the foremost experts in happiness, author Gretchen Rubin has studied this extensively. She likes to say:

“Outer order contributes to inner calm.”

Gretchen Rubin


I’ve spent the last week decluttering my house. All the drawers, cabinets, storage spaces, and nooks are being methodically purged and organized one by one. I’m not finished yet, but I hope to be by the end of this week. We don’t have a lot of surface clutter, but look inside drawers and it’s a different story. This leads to me to feel like I don’t have control over my surroundings. And when I try to find something and I have to wrestle with a bunch of odds and ends in a drawer to find it, I get frustrated.

In the middle of my project, a friend told me that Marie Kondo, author of the book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, had a new Netflix series called Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. I have read that book and used it to purge my clothes closet a few years ago. I watched the eight episodes of the series over the course of the last four days and got a lot of great tips from it. She’s calm and kind and I loved watching her process.

So, is organizing your space on your list of New Year’s Resolutions? Leave a comment below and tell me. I am amazed at how energized I feel since I’ve started decluttering. Today I’m tackling the kitchen utensils, which will make cooking even more enjoyable.


Have a great day!