Organic Surfer Girl

Before I write this post, I must apologize for the long gap in posts. I live on Long Island where we recently have been hit by Hurricane Sandy. No gas, no power, no work. Things were crazy. I was lucky enough to have my power. However, my mother was displaced and was staying with me for about three weeks. I have gone back with her to her place in the past week due to Thanksgiving. She also got a new dog so she wanted my help with helping the dog adjust. In that time, I also had some personal issues going on as well. I do not feel the need to share them in a public forum. Just know, there's been a lot going on. As I write this, I am writing from my mother's computer.  Well today is the Monday after Thanksgiving, I had meant to write a running post, planning post and a pre-holiday prep post in the past month. Needless to say, that went out the window. I have been in the meantime, getting ideas and being somewhat creative with my recipes. If you have food sensi...

The fall is here!! I love the fall, I love all things pumpkin and apple, such as apple cider and pumpkin muffins. Around this time last year, I had just started my journey on clean eating. This time around, I'm starting my journey of gluten free clean eating. Over the past few months, I have discovered that I have a gluten sensitivity. This explains the headaches, the breakouts, etc. I feel SO much better when I'm gluten free. It's a bit easier going gluten free when you already make so many things from scratch. However, I am also discovering that simple ingredients contain wheat, like soy sauce. (That explains why I bloat up like a pufferfish after I have sushi) I am also discovering that a lot of gluten free items and/or recipes contain ingredients that are not included in my clean eating lifestyle. That makes things a bit more difficult. So off I go to revamp my cooking methods, mostly the baking. I am in the process of testing out gluten free baking flour (I...

The more I read about juice detox, the more I wanted to do it. Well, I finally got my juicer a few weeks ago. I was able to do the juice detox that I've been wanting to do for months!! I went off to the store and got all the food needed for a three day detox. I fully planned on writing this post after I broke the detox. It was only a three day detox, how bad could it be? I had gotten my detox plan from Food Babe. (Her website is www.foodbabe.com ) She indicated by day three, she was feeling great so I figured I'd just follow her plan. I didn't really want to go through all the other juice books and come up with my own three day detox. (Yes I was lazy. However, I do have a juice book now and will be creating several of my own juice detoxes)  There are two main reasons why one may want to do a juice cleanse. One is weight loss and the other is to eliminate toxins in the body. I obviously did and will be doing juice detox to get rid of the toxins in my body. It ...

If you don't have the Deliciously Organic cookbook by Carrie Vitt, I highly recommend it. Many of my new favorite recipes including this one has come from that cookbook. She also has a website, www.deliciously organic.net She often will post recipes and tips on her website. Carrie also has meal plans for a variety of diets if you would like to order one. (You do have to pay but I've read a lot of great reviews that would make it worth it.) A few weeks ago, after I was feeling better from my first cluster headache episode, I wanted to cook badly. I had my chicken out from the freezer. We had also gotten multiple bunches of carrots in our CSA. I wanted the carrots to be a great side dish. I'm not a big fan of roasted carrots or constantly eating raw carrots. I wanted to play around with the ingredient. I went to my kitchen "bibles". (please let me know if you want me to do a review of the several cookbooks that I LOVE cooking out of. I'll do a post...

        This post took some time to put together.  I really needed to do my research before presenting my information to my readers.  Some of you may not know, recently I suffered a two week migraine (cluster) headache!  I was dizzy, throwing up and in extreme pain. I've been back and forth to the doctor several times. At one point, I actually had an allergic reaction to the migraine medication. I finally ended up at the hospital where they gave me some heavy duty pain medication to break the pain cycle.Ahh pain relief. The doctor said that if the pain cycle never breaks, it gets worse.  Um ok, I've never heard of a two week migraine, have you?  My question was and is how did I get it and how can I avoid it?       I did some research.  I decided on multiple things. I made an appointment with the neurologist.  I also made an appointme...

I have been busy in the kitchen! My CSA comes every other week. It's tricky trying to come up with recipes based on the ingredients that I receive biweekly. One thing positive that has come out of the CSA pick up is that I'm forced to cook recipes that I don't cook on a regular basis. I have to cook right away otherwise this fresh farm grown food goes bad! The great thing about this particular post is that you are going to get several different muffin recipes in one post! Rather then posting several different times about the same topic, I figure I will just post the several different recipes under one topic. Muffins. Muffins are delicious. You can make any sort and it always comes out delicious. What I like about the muffins I make is that they are quick and easy to make. I often will make a couple of batches, throw it in the freezer and have some for the week. I heat it up for a minute if I would like my muffin to be warm. (Who doesn't!) I usually will ha...

Wondering what to do with all that summer squash in your garden? Tired of grilling vegetables the same old boring way? Here's a quick recipe to incorporate the squash in your everyday dinner. It's also a good way to get squash into your children's tummies without them noticing that there's vegetables in their pasta! The reason I say this is because this recipe is actually from my mother's kitchen. She made it frequently while I was growing up and I loved it. I still do. So channeling my mother, I made her spaghetti and squash recipe last weekend. It was a perfect way to incorporate all the squash I got from that week's CSA. Spaghetti and Squash 1 onion diced olive oil 7 summer squash, peeled and quartered. (Mom uses green squash, I used yellow in this picture, it doesn't make a difference) 1 can of tomato sauce (or just crushed tomatoes) Parmesan cheese to taste salt to taste pepper to taste 1 lb thin spaghetti (100% whole wheat) cooked 3 tablespoo...