Healthy Mind and Bodies Group Meeting Re-Cap

We had a great turn out at the meeting, and it was really fun to sit and chat.

Here are the dishes we tasted at the meeting:
AnnDee’s Gourmet Tuna Salad (nice way to sneak in extra veggies and flavor)

Lisa’s Shrimp Creole over brown rice, and her Couscous salad (both big hits)

Carolee’s Wheat Berry Salad with red fruit (one of my all-time favorites)

Heather’s Black Bean Soup (made by Anne)

Jenny’s Quick Parmesan Pita Chips (a nice, quick way to jazz things up)

We discussed a few ways to find great recipes online (Allrecipes.com , Epicurious.com , simply Google “healthy recipes” to get ideas).

We also talked about how to cook “smarter” so that each dinner doesn’t become a long chore.
-We Beans often cook every other night or every third night and make enough to have leftovers for lunches and dinners (adding a quick salad or something to change things up, or using the same beans and rice in a different dish).
-Others mentioned making double (soup, veggie enchiladas, or whatever) and freezing some.
-Even if you have a “regular” meal line-up, you can put a healthier (and faster) recipe in and rotate out one of the more time-consuming and less nutritious recipes
-Another idea was to do things in bulk (like cooking meat or chopping onions) and freezing the results in portions to make cooking future meals faster.

Our next meeting will be in September and we’ll be sharing ideas for getting the whole family involved in trying new, healthier foods. Or in other words, how to get your kids eating spinach and your husband eating brown rice.

Here is a compilation of the Healthy Recipes from the exchange. It’s a Word document you can save to your computer.

Thanks, ladies!

I believe I promised some pictures

First up, a head and what I thought we were told was a foot. If that’s true, that is one flexible baby and it explains much of the acrobatics I feel throughout the day and night.

Edit by Student Doctor Bean: The previous picture is actually of her foot and part of her chest. To capture both her feet and chest at the same time our daughter had to have her knees tucked up close to her chest. Chances are that she was preparing for a particularly strong kick.

Now, don’t get creeped out. I do a little bit when I look at her eyes in this picture. She’s looking right at you and you can see her rib cage and the lens of her eye (something about density difference makes it show up on an ultrasound). Oh, and she’s throwing a mean left hook.

Scott was really smitten by the nice thick umbilical cord, so the doctor was nice enough to print this one out for us as well.

This one is another mess of limbs. One thing is for sure, she’s a mover! I swear this all made sense on the ultrasound as we tried to keep up with her cruising around. Somehow, you take a still picture and time passes… and before you know it, I don’t have a clue what I’m looking at. Well, my daughter, but which parts? Beats me!

I think this picture just made sense to me for the first time. We’re looking, I believe, at a pair of cute cheekies with her legs kicking up and her back taking up a lot of the picture. No worries, she only has two legs. That squiggly one must be the umbilical cord. Hehe.

So, upside down and backwards. And, she still looks pretty cute. That’s a good sign!

Edit by Student Doctor Bean: Unfortunately, there are no “cheekies” in the aforementioned picture. This was just another shot of the uber-cool umbilical cord.

Here she’s drinking in the amniotic fluid. Yet another thing about pregnancy that would kinda freak me out if I dwelt on it. So, moving on…

My favorite picture of all:

That’s the sassy profile that I instantly fell in love with. With which I instantly fell in love, I mean. Why does proper English sound so awkward sometimes?

Ok, and for those of you following along at home, here are the stats:

So the official due date is the 28th of December, but she’s measuring for the 24th. And if you take her head size as a reliable indicator, she’ll make her appearance well before the holidays.

Pregnancy update:

I’m 23 weeks today, which means my baby is tipping the scales at just over a pound now. People are starting to “guess” I’m pregnant, though no complete strangers have commented yet.

The only person compelled to touch my belly thus far is Scott. He keeps saying how cute it is and grinning ear to ear. That makes the nosebleeds and headaches all worth while, lemme tell ya. I’m one lucky woman!

I feel the baby constantly and if you watch my belly you can see it jumping around. When Scott puts a cold hand (or foot*) on it, the baby must feel it because she punches and kicks and wiggles right where the cold is coming from.

My migraine medication is still working wonders and I’m grateful for it every day.

Scott is very concerned about me gaining enough weight, so he spoiled me yesterday with a fresh strawberry pie and the best local pizza in Columbus. It’s actually take and bake on whole wheat crust and loaded with veggies (artichoke, onions, broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, roasted garlic). I know, not healthy even with the veggies, but it’s calorically dense and it does his heart good to see me go down on it.

*Here’s a bit of strange Bean history for you. I used to have really bad abdominal pain… off and on for years, actually. When Scott and I were dating or maybe newly married… he offered out-of-the-blue to put his foot on my stomach because he said it might feel good (his feet are always frigid). It felt marvelous and really helped with the pain. Two points for Dr. Bean.

The Ohio State Fair: Quite an Affair

First, let me say, I didn’t really know what to expect because I’d only been to county fairs before. We purchased student tickets $3 a piece instead of the usual $8 and we parked at our usual free spot in the ghetto to avoid the $7 parking fee.

That being said, I still wasn’t sure we’d get our money’s worth when we walked in and were assaulted with this:

Call me crazy, but fried cheese on a stick, short people on display, and tilt-a-whirls just weren’t what we were hoping for.

We pressed on and were pleasantly surprised to encounter Smokey the Bear and a nice little forest to walk around in and learn about habitats and observe butterflies. Oh and we stopped and watched the Senior Ohio Choral Club doing their thang.

We thought it unlikely that we could top that performance, so we were headed to exit when we found a barn full of rabbits. So, we caught the “youth showmanship” competition:

We wore out the camera battery trying to capture all the cool bunnies in action.

This was my favorite:

Next it was on to the birds. You’ll be glad to know, we giggled at this turkey for a good five minutes:

We actually have a bit of a history with feather-footed fowl because we first saw them in the Czech Republic:

Who knew birds could be so expressive?

Sick of pictures yet? Good, because we didn’t get many in the swine barn. Those pigs were trotting around so fast, it was hard to keep up! One pig in particular was determined to be free and kept dashing past us to the exit. It brought up an important topic of conversation between Scott and I… how do you stop a grain-fed prize porker once it gathers momentum? Not easily, we concluded as we watched the hog farmers of Ohio unite in herding this pig back to his pen.

Let’s see, we also saw some big old beef cows:

We got a milkshake and admired the 2 ton butter sculptures in the dairy barn.

Then we saw a really fun horse show where they pranced around the ring to live organ music, pulling shiny rigs and looking all gussied up. I enjoyed it more than Scott. He’s not into gussied horses, I guess.

It was a really fun day, and we ended with admiring the quilts and cakes and canned chicken (no, not kidding). After an afternoon full of adventure, we were stopped in our tracks when we saw this sign:

Not only did someone think up the concept of a “hot beef sundae” but they actually sold them right there at the fair next to the deep fried ravioli and candy bars. Oh, and for future reference, they are available in the freezer section of the local supermarkets here in Ohio.

If nothing else, we learned from this experience that here in Ohio, people are serious about their meat. A whole section of the rabbit barn was dedicated to “meat rabbits” and a young boy told us very matter-of-factly that we were welcome to buy one of his bunnies and um, you know… eat it.

I managed to keep my milkshake down, and we walked home exhausted but happy, munching on a banana and clutching a nice bag of salt water taffy.

Healthy Recipe Exchange

So, our next Healthy Mind and Bodies Group Meeting is tomorrow and it just occurred to me that I should include my blogging public in this as well.

Duh, Anne.

Here are the guidelines I emailed to the women who usually attend (I forgot that my few but fabulous blog readers might want in on the exchange as well):

GUIDELINES
We’ll finally be exchanging healthy recipes!

As we’ve learned, everyone has a different idea of what constitutes “healthy”. You’re welcome to contribute whichever recipes you’d like, but in an effort to break out of our typical fare, I’d suggest trying recipes that don’t have cheese or refined grains. As an extra challenge, try recipes that don’t center around meat, and instead are focused on a vegetable, grain, or bean (are beans vegetables? I guess they are legumes.)

Think outside the box a bit. Some ideas could be: Baked apples, whole-grain waffles, a great salad dressing, soups, guacamole, asian-style broccoli, potato curry… the possibilities are really endless. The meeting isn’t for another 2 1/2 weeks, so feel free to experiment with new recipes. These don’t need to be things you’ve ever made before today… but I do want you to make them at least one time before sending the recipe to the rest of us!
EDITORIAL NOTE: Obviously, if you’re hearing about this for the first time, the time to experiment has probably passed. Sorry about that. But please do send recipes you’ve made before!

Again, there’s nothing particularly wrong with a chicken dish or cheesy casserole, but I think we all have plenty of those kind of recipes in our arsenals already. Hopefully this recipe exchange will shake things up a bit and give us some brand-new recipes and ideas.

Here’s what I’d like to do:
- As always, everyone is welcome to come to the meeting, recipes or no recipes.
- Whether you plan to come or not, we’d love to add your recipes to our exchange. I think the easiest way to do this is to email me the recipes and I can compile a master list to give to all those who attend or anyone who wants a copy via email.
- Let’s shoot for three recipes each, but if you have more… don’t be shy!
- If those of you who plan to attend will each bring a dish for all to taste (if possible), that would be great. If you need help coordinating this, just send me an email.
- Just to be clear, don’t feel like any recipe you submit has to be the end-all-and-be-all of healthy. It just needs to be something that you feel is healthy and that you’d like to share with the rest of us.

END OF GUIDELINES

There you have it!

I think I will plan on posting the recipes here on the blog and sending out an email copy as well. You are welcome to submit recipes in the comments or shoot me an email. Ideally, you’ll be able to do this prior to Tuesday night, but I’ll add your recipe to the bunch even if I don’t get it in time for the meeting. Thanks!