Body Care

Stuff On Sunday: Body W.I.P.

Nicky6 Comments

My latest W.I.P. (work in progress)  is a 20lb weight loss between Sept 1st 2012 and March 31st 2013.    This is not for vanity but for health reasons.  This W.I.P will eventually have it’s own post, but for now, what it does is give me an opportunity to become even more creative in my kitchen.  Since opportunities for creativity exist even in our food preparation, this goal allows me to think about food, to prepare and serve it nicely and also think about what my body needs to function better than it is now.

Today’s finds includes an old promotion from the US Food Administration:

I found it at the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture based in San Francisco.  I’ve decided to go the seasonal route with my cooking and found two awesome pdf’s from CUESA (in addition to truckloads of recipes) — read more about the organisation here.  The website is an awesome resource for anyone who wants to improve his/her quality of life but eating sustainably.   Even their Pinterest board is full of ideas and inspiration.

Eating seasonally means is that I’ll be incorporating vegetables and fruits in my meals according to the season they are grown in.  This ups the market freshness quotient exponentially.  That’s not to say that I wouldn’t be eating any out of season food that’s green-house bred as opposed to field grown.  Since the former is grown with more preservatives, eating seasonally eliminates some of that.

The link to the vegetable chart can be found here and the fruit chart — here.

I start school this week coming up so I’m going to use the next few days to really create a workable schedule that incorporates, exercise, eating, crafting and study.  I love the quick, easy recipes I’m finding on CUESA; I can see myself utilizing this website a lot during the upcoming months.

In keeping with my goal of utilizing more natural items physically and cosmetically, next weekend will involve some of these jars:

found here at Ikea.  I’ll be using them to store some homemade applesauce and test out a sugar-scrub recipe I’m using in the spa-package I’m creating for Christmas gifts.  Once I finesse the sugar-scrub recipe, I’ll be sure to post it.

Have a wonderful week everyone and Happy Sunday!!!

Body Butter: Part Deux

Nicky2 Comments

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup solid raw cocoa butter & shea butter
  • 1/4 cup of jojoba oil
  • 1/4 sweet almond oil
  • Dark chocolate fragrance oil

Instructions

  1. Melt shea & cocoa butter and jojoba mixture in double boiler or make-shift boiler if you don’t have one.
  2. Melting process started.
  3. Almost melted.
  4. Completely melted.  Add the sweet almond oil and any essential fragrance oils chosen — make sure the essential oils are skin safe, since not all of them are.  I used a Dark Chocolate flavor.  Yum, yum.
  5. Allow the mixture to cool.  I put mine in the freezer for 20 mins. or so until a hard crust builds on the top of the mixture.
  6. Use hand mixture or KitchenAid mixer and whip until the mixture is firm and mousse like.
  7. Use lightly — feel decadent!!!!!

Goal: to get to the point of the perfect mixture.  In comparison to the batch I made here, it’s firmer, and less oily.  Win, win!!! 😀

adapted from this recipe here