Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (with secret ingredient!)

My soon to be hubby happens to be a huge fan of Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. You too? So am I!  Ice Cream is one of those things that make the world go round, would you agree? It's good any time of the year, it comes in a ton of flavors and even had a truck named after it! 

But let's say you want to better your health and eat "Real" food but don't wanna give up Ice Cream. You've come to the right place! Eating healthy doesn't have to mean eating green beans for every meal or downing a cup of kale juice! It means making the best choices you can make everyday to better your health. If that's eating an apple besides a bag of chips or sipping on water instead of pop. I'm proud of you. At least you're trying! 

Now let's say you already are eating right, but your kids just won't have that spinach salad for supper. Make them some Ice Cream, yup you heard me! Ice Cream!

WAIT! Hold up now... Drop the Edy's Ice cream and put your hands in the air where I can see them!

Phew! That was a close one! I wasn't talking about THAT Ice Cream. Silly you!

This brings you to "I knew there was a catch" , didn't it?  The Ice Cream in stores today are loaded with unhealthy ingredtients some that do damage to your body! Here is what the back of a Edy's Ice Cream looks like... 

So sure SKIM MILK: not going to kill you

CREAM: (Even though isn't organic) not going to kill you. 

SUGAR: Dr. David Reuben says "White refined sugar-is not a food. It is pure chemical extracted from plant sources, purer in fact than cocaine, which is resembles in many ways. It's true name is sucrose and its chemical formula is C12H22O11. It has 12 carbon atoms, chemical formula for cocaine is C17H21NO4. Surgar's formula again is C12H22O11. For all practical purposes, the difference is that sugar is missing the "N", or nitrogen atom"

What's he saying? Sugar is like cocaine. 

WATCH! (After you read post)

FRACTIONATED PALM KERNEL OIL: Processed crap!

SOY LECITHIN: That's a no go! 

NATURAL FLAVOR: Beaver BUTT. 

CORN SYRUP: Causes OBESITY, DIABETES, TOOTH INFECTIONS and DECAY! Increases risk of HEART ATTACK and HEART DISEASE. MOOD swings. AND SO MUCH MORE!

YELLOW 5: Hyperactivity in children, sign of ADHD

BLUE 1: It is suspected to cause cancer, and has also been linked to learning and behavioral problems. AND is banned in most European countries (But it's find to use in America because why??)

If that doesn't make you want to never eat that kind of ice cream again, I don't know what will!

So let's go back to the healthy part in all this! Here is the recipe for the Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (With a secret ingredient!)

1 can of Full Fat Coconut Milk

1/3 cup Organic sugar OR 1 Banana OR Honey

1/3 Enjoy Life Chocolate chips

2 teaspoon Peppermint extract 

hand full of SPINACH

Yes spinach!

Put all ingredients in a blender (beside chocolate chips), blend until smooth... 

Once smooth pour the mixture into the Ice Cream maker (Thanks mom for mine!)

Add chocolate chips.

Eat any chocolate chips that fall out .... 

Now wait 20 minutes, and come back to THIS! This is the real green too! 

I know what you're thinking "Gross, it probably tastes like spinach" Well I can tell you NO it doesn't! But I know how I am with things, I won't believe you until I try it. So, try it. Let your kids try it first! See what they say, swear to you... you can't taste the spinach. 

 I freeze the ice cream in these glass containers for when Cain is ready for some yummy treat at night, or afternoon... or whenever he decides. Because unlike the Edy's Ice Cream that has damaging affects on you. This one is more like a bonus on your body that you can enjoy eating without guilt.

COCONUT: Is a healthy fat, signs have shown to help you lose weight. Improves heart health. Rich in antioxidants, which prevents the development of many diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, alzheimer's disease and age-related dementia.

CANE SUGAR: Hear me out, sugar is sugar. I prefer using the Banana or Honey but this won't kill you to eat in moderation. Treat's are meant to be enjoyed, but choose your sweetener wisely and beware of the side effects of sugar.... it can be addicitve. Unrefined cane sugar contains 17 amino acids, 11 minerals, and 6 vitamins, including antioxidants that may help reverse oxidative damage.

ENJOY LIFE CHOCOLATE CHIPS: Gluten-Free, Dairy-free, Peanut-Free, Tree-nut free, Soy Free, Egg free and Casein-free.

SPINACH: Loaded with Vitamins: A, K, D and E. Source of Omega 2 fatty Acids (Good for you!) Anti-Cancer and anti-Inflammatory Antioxidants! Helps give you healthy bones! One of the best sources of dietary potassium. Great source of Iron. Helps with your hair and skin health! And SO MUCH MORE!

I'm bashing Edy's Ice Cream, not you. When I write about the side effects of the processed food in America I'm not calling you out saying "How dare you eat that!" I've ate that. But once I knew what was in it, I did stop. I'm trying to better myself, and learning these things for the benefits of our future children. They will make mistakes just like Cain and I did and do! But I'm not going to stand by and not teach them the benefits of healthy foods and the side effects of processed foods.

Be aware. Be smart. Be healthy.

:)

Lanette

Wrestling meet weekend

Wow look at me, writing a blog post in the middle of the weekend! Most weekends I'm either working while Cain works or Cain is working and I'm busy! So here Cain is working and I'm home alone with Nova Blu.

Right now as I write there is some yummy homemade Mint Ice Cream in the making down stairs! I can hear my ice cream maker at work. Cain is going to be pretty happy to come home to that tonight!

Friday's have turned into a real full out laziness day! Fridays is my day off and Cain normally doesn't work Friday's until after 3:00pm. So we both sleep in as long as we can. That means I wake up at 7:30am... Cain at like 9:30 ;) Actually Cain is waking up a lot earlier these days. He brought his laptop into my room to do his FASTA info and then played a game of Mario :) As I lay there with him I am counting my blessings for so many things. Life is so wonderful, even through the hard times. I can't thank God enough for what he has done in my life.

Cain was a huge help Friday with cleaning up our rooms. Since Cain moved out his and my room have been the trash zone of all our things. With still moving things over to the apartment and me trying to get rid of the things we don't need there was just a reck of everything in one place! We were able to back up some more things to take to the apartment and then clean the rest up!

Nothing is better then a clean room!

This morning we headed over to Huntington for a Jr. High wrestling meet. It was Sam's birthday today also so it was a bonus to get to wish him Happy Birthday and see him wrestle!

Wrestling meets are long and always early on the weekends. So you get up early, drive far, then sit and wait for your kid to wrestle. Sometimes the match only last a minute! And then you sit and wait again (sometimes an hour or more) to see him wrestle again! These parents are such great support and true fans I tell ya! One day it will be us as the parents, cheering on our little boys probably downing coffee to stay awake!! But we honestly can't wait for that! Cain will be one of those dad's yelling at the referee and getting asked to leave the building. Just wait, it will happen and I will laugh. 

Cain is my rock! I am so lucky to have him in my life!

While at the meet Cain's younger cousin was telling us about the guy who cheated on her (If I see that kid he will get a talking to from both Cain and I, by the way!) and how big of a jerk in the end he was. I looked at her and said "Honestly, you won't find anyone like your cousin Cain, no one is as great as him" We laughed and she knew I was joking, not about Cain being the best but that she wouldn't find a guy! I do believe there are great guys out there, but I know also that they are becoming fewer and fewer. One who is loyal, loving, not quick to anger, an leader and hard worker! Those are becoming rare. I treature Cain and all that he stands for.

That wonderful guy I was just talking about got called into work early tonight so we had to leave the meet early. We got home and he was able to sit down for a minute before having to leave.

Nova came up and sat down next to him. She's spoiled

That left me home alone! So I am going to get some work done here around the house and like I said before I am making the ice cream now and then going to prepare my supper!

What's your Saturday evening like tonight? Tell me all about it :)
Lanette

Inside my stomach

This afternoon calls for some down time. After traveling two days in a row I feel like a lost puppy not sure what all I need to get done for the rest of the week. Monday's has been my food haul day but due to Derrek being in the hospital this week, and this up coming Monday I have a viewing to go too with my mom I am now trying to debate when the next best time would be to go grocery shopping! I will get that all worked out, but what I really can't wait for is a date with Cain!

Today Cain say "Let's go out on a date" Of course I said "Yes!" We haven't been out on a real "date" since I took Cain to Chicago for his birthday in December! So just some time spent alone at dinner or something would be so nice. I love going out with my man, he is such a joy to hang out with. Honestly I couldn't ask for a better friend.

So I've said before that I would like to start posting on here the foods I eat. I often show you what I make for my dearest Cain but a lot of time I don't eat what I make him. Which is a reason I'm always so nervous if it's going to taste good because I don't taste test!

My diet it filled with vegetables and fruit! I do eat organic meat but come summer time I won't eat as much meat, if any. Because there are so many more vegetables to choose from that I can get straight from the garden or farmers market.

Today before picking up Graci at preschool I started thinking that there were only enough left overs at the house for one person and I wanted my mom to have it, so I got creative and thought buffalo sounded really good.

My mom asked if I could stop in at Kroger before coming home and pick up something we needed for our dinner tonight. I asked if she minded if I picked up a couple veggies. A mom can't say no to that! I picked up the Cauliflower, green pepper, cucumber and a bag of onions.

And with that I baked my cauliflower buffalo bites with onions!

As you can see I also have the sliced cucumber and peppers on the plate too! I try and eat as many RAW vegetables in a day as I can. It's not easy in the winter when all you want is warm comfort food but if you set your mind doing something, it will be done. Promise.

Here are the Chocolate covered strawberries Graci helped make yesterday for the ladies bible study I go with my mom too. They were the BOMB haha. Did I just say bomb? That's new.

Breakfast is always the same. If I am craving something special and have time I do make other things but eggs are easy and eggs are good. Not just in taste but in health. I top them with cinnamon sometimes. Yes you read that right, cinnamon. Have you tried that yet? It's so yummy.

Let's talk smoothies. I have been out of spinach the last couple of weeks (And when I say out it means I buy it for Cain but I don't buy it for myself here at my parents house. When my mom buys it I eat it, but I can't afford to buy two of everything, every week!) But normally I layer my smoothies with Spinach, fruit (Mostly berries) , filtered water, protein powder and sometimes Flax seed or Chia seeds.

This yellow heaven looking one was fresh Mango! And wow, wow.

Just cut and peel your mango to get the goodness out, add an cup of ice or more with some filtered water and you have a amazing desert!

Bananas are my treat. Banana's are soooo good for you. They really are. But they do have a lot of sugar that comes with them, now listen .... it's the good sugar. Natural. But even natural fruit sugar needs to be eaten in moderation. When summer comes and I am walking everyday, running more miles and just doing more activity I will most likely eat more Banana's. But because I'm not doing that much activity to burn those lovely sugars I try and eat one once a week! 

I also LOVE almond butter! It might have a lot to do with it being close to Peanut Butter. I was always a huge fan of Peanut Butter until learning that they were NOT a nut but a bean also called an Legume. Legumes contain lectins, specific proteins known to cause damage in the gut lining. Now I'm not saying I will never have peanut butter again or beans. I just try and not put them in my everyday diet. But when the time calls for it. I will. 

So back to the Almond Butter. I do love it, but again everything in moderation. Almonds are wonderful for you for a lot of reasons but so much of it isn't always a good thing. So for every 3 miles I run I enjoy a serving of Almond butter! 

The two together is... well... try it. Taste heaven!

I posted this picture from last Saturday night when making Cain his Bison steak for dinner. On this plate you have a choice of either Green or Red Peppers, Red onion, Yellow squash, Carrots or Zucchini! We both ate everything on the plate. 

Here is a Veggie Plate I had for lunch this week. I've got Green beans, a Carrot, whole Avocado with raw almonds inside! Graci was trying to tell me I couldn't finish it all and I should give her the green beans... this is after she already finished a plate of her own green beans! I said, I think I can finish it all... she smiled and said... "I don't think so" Well I almost finished it all but then decided I would share the last few bites :)

Fruit is my favorite thing of all time. Right next to chocolate though. Any fruit I love. This is a organge, strawberries and left over chocolate from the chocolate strawberries I made! 

 Now you see what I do eat! Here is something I DON'T eat!

For the past year once a month while I seat in the drive up line waiting on Graci to get our of preschool a lady will pull up with her SUV and open the back up and is a huge load of grocery for what I'm guessing is for the kids at the preschool. I am also the first one in line at the drive up so when she pulls up she is right in front of me. So a year ago this happened for the first time and it was snowy out and here she is loading all these groceries into a cart to take into the church. I right away got out and started helping her. It only takes 1 minute for us to load it onto the cart and then she takes everything inside and I get back into my car.

This has gone on for now a year. We don't say much, just something about the food or the weather. But today after everything was on the cart and she pulled her SUV into the parking lot like normal but this time she came up to my window and handed me a Reese's Peanut Butter Egg (Guessing for Easter coming up?) She said "I know it's not much but thanks for aways helping me" I smiled and said "No problem" And she walked away. It really is not problem. What am I going to do, sit in my car nice and warm and watch a nice young lady load a ton of groceries into a cart in the freezing cold?! But still, I thought it so sweet of her to want to do something small to just say "Thanks"

Now I think you know where I'm going to end with this though. I choice not to eat processed food so of course I didn't eat the Reese's Peanut Butter Egg. I did wonder though right away what the ingredients were in them so I flipped it over and here is what I saw...

So let's start with PEANUT: Not the end of the world but unless organic not great. MILK CHOCOLATE: Not so great either, get 70% or more cocoa when choosing chocolate. SUGAR: This is not the sugar from the banana I was talking about. It should not be eaten in motivation, it should NEVER be eaten. COCOA BUTTER: Ok. NON FAT MILK: No go. Full fat organic Milk is the only dairy to drink/eat. SOY: So bad for you. Look up the affects of Soy sometime you will be surprised. VEGETABLE OIL: The worse of it all! This is a oil you should never eat again. The SUNFLOWER and/or SAFFLOWER oil is also oils I stay away from. Choose either Olive Oil or Coconut Oil. Not sure what the next few are, which isn't a good thing. You should KNOW what EVERYTHING is before eating it. And last ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR: Beaver Butt. Don't believe me? Check THIS VIDEO out HERE <

Now again, I thought that is was extremely sweet that the lady wanted to be kind by giving me something as a token of thanks! And I'm not trying to call her out as a horrible person for eating this. Because, honestly she might not eat it and was trying to get rid of it! I've been guilty of that before!

But it just reminds me that when I do give food I wouldn't eat to others (Unless its a real food) that I'm hurting their bodies by doing so. So note to self: Treat others with what you would want to be treated with.

Thanks for reading,

Lanette

Another weekend, but not a normal one

What a very long weekend it was! I want to do a quick catch up before really heading into this upcoming week! So here it goes... 

Thursday I made homemade Lara bars for Cain to take to drill. It was a apple pie one and it turned out amazing! Cain love them which I was really happy about! Super easy recipe to!

Friday Cain had the day off which was much needed! Getting to relax all day with him and Nova was  a joy!

I swear can they get any cuter?!

So check this out. This is where the Wedding will take place in 97 days. Think things will clear up by then? Haha I sure hope so! Right now it's flooded with mixture of ice, snow and water. I would like to take a picture come May 30th and see green grass, flowers and leafs!

Cain moving the trampoline so that the grass doesn't die there!

Saturday Cain was at drill all morning and afternoon. I was babysitting until 3:00pm then went straight to Fort Wayne afterwards to shop for Cain's food. I got him a Bison steak to have once he was home from drill! Aren't I a great future wife ;)

Here is a the grilled veggie plate I made! SO GOOD! Will do this again and again and again!

Look what we hung up Saturday night!!! I just LOVE this picture and the moment I saw in back in July I knew I would hang it in my kitchen one day, and look there it is!!! I need to put some kind of matting behind it but I was to excited to wait for that!!! I was doing a little happy go crazy dance! 

So if we back track to Friday for a minute I will tell you about what happened to Derrek (Cain's brother) over the weekend. We got a txt Friday afternoon saying that while Derrek was at drill he was having stomach pain and come to find out he need his appendix taken out. We were going to drive to Connersville to see him after his surgery but decided not knowing he would be out the next day and that Cain had drill early Saturday. He was out of surgery Friday and on the way to recovery! Come Saturday late afternoon is when we got the news that they how realized there was internal bleeding and they were going in to do a second surgery. Yet again we wanted to go see him but Cain wasn't even out of drill yet and he needed to be at Drill Sunday morning early again. So the 2 hours drive is what stopped us. Now looking back we wish we would of just drove there because the second surgery was a fail, an epic fail. So a THIRD surgery needed to take place. 

Once out of the third surgery Derrek was in ICU and not doing good. So Sunday morning Cain went to his Sergeant and asked to leave due to his brother being in ICU. They let him off thank goodness! Cain came straight to me and we were on our way to Connersville by 7:30am! Thanks to the melting snow we had to take 3 detours to get to the hospital! But we did finally make it. He had a rough Sunday and Monday but now seems to be up the up swing!

Playing games.

Derrek was in and out of sleep all day. We watched tv and waited for when he needed something from us!

While Derrek slept Cain also slept. 

 I had a wonderful time with Christine and Cat, I have some great sister in laws that I love dearly.

Today was like every other Tuseday. While I walk down the stairs to leave the house to pick up Graci Nova is right behind me following me. She knows when Tuesday comes she gets to go pick up Graci from the shop.

On our way home we seen the flood going on at the green way.

Graci helped me make chocolate covered strawberries today for tonight's ladies bible study! There was some extra chocolate left over so of course we wanted to eat it. First we sliced an apple to dip them in the chocolate... then we just took the spoon and finished it off! 

This is the chocolate I use if I don't have time to get dark chocolate (70% or more cocoa)

If you are going to eat chocolate (which I know you will, who doesn't!) Please get it without SOY! Dairy is one thing (of course if it's from whole milk) But Soy is not good!

I got our photo book in from SnapFish today! It looked amazing! It will be at our His and Her shower in 2 weeks!!!

This was my mom's favorite page. So therefore, it's mine too.

 Leaving to go to the bible study! See ya :)

Lanette