Way Behind

I cannot believe it has been over a month since my last post. I am SO far behind posting recipes and thoughts. June marked my one year anniversary of clean, organic, whole food eating and living. I continue to flesh out small areas every few weeks that I have not yet switched over, and at this point these areas are less related to food and more related to daily living. It has been over a year since I have eaten at a fast food restaurant or had any soda. Do I miss it? Not really. The only time I miss soda is when I have a stomachache, and then I long for some ginger ale, but so far I have been able to get by without it. If I need something other than water I make fresh lemonade, mmmm. How is my weight doing, you ask? Horribly. Remember those 15 pounds I dropped in a little over a month last summer, with a total of over 20 for the whole summer? They all came back. By January. This was/is so frustrating for me because I KNOW I did not eat this winter like I did in past winters, and yet still packed on over 20 pounds. Even more frustrating is that none of it has come off yet, and usually by this part in the summer at least half of it would be. Much of it is stress weight. I find when I have extra stress in my life, the pounds just won't come off. I thought once summer came I would be able to get back to my morning exercise routine but the summer schedule has been too irregular thus far. I know, this is no excuse...

So for now let me leave you with some pictures of my first batch of homemade yogurt. I used these directions as well as Stoneyfield Organic Whole Milk and some Stoneyfield Organic French Vanilla yogurt as my starter. This really was as easy as it sounds from the directions (heat milk in pan to just under 100 degrees, add to clean jar, shake w/ about 3/4 c yogurt and place in cooler with hot water for 8+ hours). I did not add vanilla or sugar to mine in the jar, I did it individually as I ate it. It was a little runnier than I liked, but the longer it stayed in the fridge it did thicken some. It was great for baking, though, and I'd like to try freezing some in ice cube trays to use for smoothies. I keep wanting to make smoothies but for some reason never seem to get to them...that's gotta change!

Anyway, here's my yogurt, if you look closely you can see the wonderful bubbles from the probiotics!