Health & Fitness Friday: Yoga Graduation!

I am so excited to post today for Health & Fitness Friday because later this afternoon, I am graduating from yoga teacher training!!  It has been such a great experience and journey!  Not only have a learned so much about yoga and teaching, but I have also met some amazing friends that I know will be in my life for a long time to come!  I'm not sure exactly what our graduation will be like, so check back later to hear about it.

I am hoping to start teaching somewhere in the fall.  I will start looking for and visiting different studios around town this summer as I send out applications :)

This has been a wonderful but huge commitment for me for the past 9 months.  After spending each Friday in weekly yoga study meetings, 34 tech sessions, a 4-week intensive series, 5 workshops, one visiting instructor weekend, 1 karma yoga community project, and a 15 hr personal mentorship, I am finally earning my title as RYT or registered yoga teacher!

I am so excited to see my yoga friends today for our class and then head out for a happy hour in celebration of our graduation!

Namaste!

When people are idiots...

There are a lot of stupid people in this world, but yesterday I was made aware of a person/group of people that really takes the grand prize of idiotic behavior.

I was just casually looking through my blog stats when I noticed that a website called www.exvegans.com had been referring people to my blog. I was curious.  And then I was horrified.  My picture is posted on this website (without my permission I may add) and a little snarky comment is mentioned about how I used to be vegan, but now, according to the "mission statement," I am just a sell-out who hates animals and loves murder.

By the way, I am apparently the only Minnesotan vegan sell-out, quite a claim to fame if I do say so myself.  Thank you, Vegan Freak, for thinking that my occasional hamburger is somehow "news" that people on the internet will care about, its really quite an honor. 

Of course, I was formulating my own defense as soon as I saw this.  I thought maybe I should explain that I was never vegan because of "moral issues" just a faulty GI system- sorry, my bad! And I thought I could point out that I rarely even talk about it on this blog and have never ever tried to convince another person to follow any type of diet.  I could also point out that my vegan diet put my body in a comprimised state and also put my mind in an unhealthy place too. 

But I won't do that.  Why not? Because as I was reading this pathetic-boardering-on-hilarious "mission statement" I noticed something that is truly despicable.  The owner of this site actually suggests that people like me who have "regressed from moral consistency to moral depravity" either go back to being vegan, or they should kill themselves.  Yep. (Here I could explain that I actually have been personally impacted by suicide.  I could also explain that I have spent my entire career so far working with individuals with mental illness.  But no, I won't do that.  They don't deserve my time)

So, since this person/group of people clearly don't have working brains, nor do they deserve an ounce more of my time or attention, I have just 2 things to say to them:

1. It is really pitiful that you spend your time shaming people who don't live exactly the same way you do.

2.  Get an F'ing life.

(One more thing, I did contact the administrator of the website and ask to be removed.  They have not responded.  Shocking!)

The big chop.

Yesterday I did something big....

Before:

After:

The "before" picture is pretty terrible because I had been wearing my unwashed hair in a ponytail all morning, but you get the idea.  Thank you for all the sweet messages on IG, you guys are the best! I think its definitely an improvement, we'll just see if I can actually style it on my own.

Wish me luck :)

Taste of Tuesday: Honey Rhubarb Scones

If you remember a few weeks back, I posted this about having a ton of rhubarb and no clue what to do with it.  I ultimately decided to make the last recipe on that page for the scones.  The original recipe can be found here, so I won't repeat everything, but I did make a few tiny changes.

First of all, the original recipe calls for vanilla yogurt, but I had plain greek yogurt on hand, so I used that instead.  I added a little splash of vanilla to the dough also.  The only other difference between my scones and the recipe is that I used lavender honey, also because its what I had on hand.  If when I make these again, I think I'll add some orange zest to them, that would be tasty!

Exhibit A: Gigantic rhubarb plant:

I used my kitchen-aid mixer to whip up the dough.  It was very easy, just mix together:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 6 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 2 Tbsp. honey, plus more for drizzling
• 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt

Add the rhubarb (I used 3 large stalks) after simmering it in a saucepan with 2 tbsp of brown sugar.

Form a round disc of dough, cut into 8 scone-shaped pieces (btw, why are scones always shaped like triangles?) and bake at 400 for 15 minutes.  Voila!

Very easy and very tasty.  Especially when eaten straight out of the oven!

Be sure to visit the website for the original post AND check out the other recipes from this week's Taste of Tuesday hosted by Ashley and Jessica.

Weekend (or lack thereof)

Oh hey, Monday morning.  While the rest of the world is heading to work I am finally enjoying a day off!  I've been working for the past week and 2 weekends, so I really don't have a ton of fun weekend updates to report on. We had dinner on Friday night with our good friends Brenna and Tate at their townhouse.  The storm that rolled through was so crazy and the lights were flickering as we ate, but we didn't lose power.  Apparently we lost power at our house at some point, but it was back on by the time we were home.  I guess we were lucky because there are still people in the Twin Cities without power!

We went out for a couple beers after I got home on Saturday, but I turned in pretty early that night.  I had to go to a yoga thing right after work last night, so when I got home at 7:30 I was almost in tears I was so tired!  I poured myself a tall vodka tonic, watched some tv, and went to bed.

The big news of the weekend is that the plumbing and tile work is all done in our bathroom!  That means we have a working shower, tub, faucet, and toilet upstairs! Woo hoo!

Our bathtub hasn't worked ever since we moved into our house 1.5 years ago.  The part of the tub that switches the water from the shower head to the tub filler wasn't working, so I have never ever taken a bath in this house!  I don't really take leisurely baths, but I did regularly take ice baths and epsom baths after long runs while training for my last marathons, so this is just in time!

Hope everyone else had a nice weekend and that the storms here didn't cause you any damage!

Health and Fitness Friday: PT update & weekday workouts

I had my first PT session last Friday afternoon at Tria, where I had my surgery & PT last year.  My PT did a bunch of tests to evaluate my muscle strength, range of motion, and source of the pain.  She was unable to determine if it was coming from inside the hip joint (which would probably mean that the labral tear wasn't completely repaired) or if it is from outside the joint (meaning tendonitis or bursitis.) I really hope its tendonitis! 

She gave me several exercises and stretches to work on for the next month, when she will evaluate again and make some recommendations.  She told me to keep running low mileage weeks while I do my PT, otherwise we wouldn't know if the pain was getting better from the PT or from rest.  Neither of us see rest as a long term solution since I rested my hip for almost a year and the pain came right back, plus I don't plan on changing my active lifestyle anytime soon.   I see her again today and am anxious to see if I've improved at all or if she gives me any more recommendations.  Last week though, she did tell me that she thought I might be a good candidate for cortisone injections, which I've always wanted to avoid, but now I'm warming to the idea. 

In light of my hip pain, I am pretty proud that I have still had a fairly active week, especially given that I am working 9 days straight!  Here is the rundown since last week in addition to PT exercises each day:

Friday: 6 miles

Saturday: Walked my dog 2 miles

Sunday: Pure Barre, ran 2 miles

Monday: 75 min yoga class, Walked my dog 2 miles

Tuesday: Pure Barre

Wednesday:  Ran 3.5 miles

Thursday: Rest

Not too shabby.  I've been doing fairly well with eating this week too- lots of fresh fruit and good salads.  We grilled some kabobs on Wednesday that were delicious!  I brought gazpacho for lunch today and I am already looking forward to it!  Mark and I are grilling with some friends tonight and I made a rhubarb crisp for dessert- it has fruit in it, so it's healthy, right!!? Nevermind the ice cream we're having on the side!  You gotta enjoy summer while you can around here :)

I Am The Bionic Woman.

For real, I am.  I have my very own remote control...don't believe me? Here it is:

And I carry it around with my in a sparkly pink coin purse.

The truth is, this is a hard post for me to write.  It's about something most people are embarassed about, but it's become such a huge part of my life that I feel like I am living a double life when people don't know about it.  I explained the background of my GI issues here, so read that if you haven't yet. I carry the diagnoses of IBS-C and colonic inertia. You can read about those in the links because I really don't want to explain either of thos things.  I have no idea how I ended up with either of these things.  I first notied a problem when I was on a trip to Guatemala and everyone I was with got a parasite- so did I, but my symptoms were different/opposite than everyone else. That year I also had jaw surgery and was on a liquid diet, which when combined with pain killers really took a toll on me. 

I explained in the post linked above that I tried to modify my diet, increase my already active lifestyle, tried over the counter and prescription meds, and many holistic & herbal treatment routes as well.  I had lots of labs drawn, lots of very uncomfortable testing, and several rounds of biofeedback therapy.  Nothing worked AT ALL.

Last summer I went for my annual OB/Gyn and she referred me to a urologist because she had worked with a similar patient who had a sacral nerve neurostimulator implanted that helped her.  She said that most people with bowel problems also have bladder problems even if they don't know it- and she was right.  I was feeling "bloated" all the time because I also had pretty severe bladder retention.  I'm actually lucky about that, because my implant isn't FDA approved for either of my GI diagnoses, but it is for all urinary condtions- so I qualified to get the surgery.

Last fall I had 3 surgeries to implant this bad boy.  It took 3 because they do a "test phase" first, which I had to do 2 of, before they put the permanent device in.  During both test phases, I had multiple wires sticking out of from under my skin (gross!)that were connected an external device, which was kind of like a really huge pager that I had to attach to my waistband.  The whole process lasted about 3.5 months.

Now I have a pretty sweet scar on my lower back/upper butt, and I have a rock-hard spot where the device is that you can easily feel if you touch it.  I control the settings with my remote control, so I can turn it up or down, or switch which lead is working (I have 4.)  So weird right?  I still have to take daily medications, but this device has made me feel a lot better!

I bet you didn't know that you had a bionic friend...well, now you do!!

Have you FLIPPED yet?

No, I'm not getting paid to do this.  Nor am I getting any free yogurt (ahem, Chobani!)  I just happen to take my Greek yogurt eating very seriously and thought I would do a little PSA for you all on this very important subject.  So without further ado...my review of Chobani Flipped! (I couldn't find the Honey Bee Nana or Raspberry Choco Fix at my Target. I haven't seen these anywhere but Target yet either...)

In general, these are very good!  A few flavors stood out above the rest, and a few I could do without.

Ranked from favorite to least favorite:

1. Key Lime Crumble (Key lime yogurt with graham crackers and white chocolate):  Holy Cow! This is amazing!  Best lime flavored yogurt I've ever had, and the graham and white chocolate are the perfect accompaniments.  It's not too sweet, not too sour, but just right.  I could easily eat this everyday

2. Almond Coco Loco (coconut yogurt with almonds and dark chocolate):  Another huge winner.  I've never had coconut yogurt before and I feel like I've finally found my missing puzzle piece.  Its sooo creamy and luxurious.  Even though this is also not too sweet, I'd definitely be satisfied by having this for dessert!

3. Blueberry Power (blueberry yogurt with chia seeds, hemp seeds, and walnuts):  Loved this one also, especially the addition of hemp seeds which I'd never had before.  The flavor is spot on and its full of healthy super foods!

4. Vanilla Golden Crunch (vanilla yogurt with cornflakes, oats, and pecans.):  This was tasty, but honestly not that exciting.  It was a lot like the yogurt creations I already make at home, so I'm not feeling the desire to go buy any more of these.  Definitely still good though, especially if you don't love fruit!

5. Strawberry Sunrise (strawberry yogurt with honey oats): Another good but sort of boring one.  I feel like I've had a lot of yogurt parfaits just like this one.  I think it would be great with some dark chocolate or something.

6. Peachy Pistachio (Peach yogurt with pistachios and dark chocolate):  Ohhh how I wanted to love this one.  I am a huge fan of all three of these flavors, but something about all of them together just didn't work for me.  Plus, the pieces of peach in the yogurt seemed kind of weird, they were a little slimy.  Boo.

Has anyone else out there fallen in love with these?  What flavor is your favorite??

Bathroom Remodel

Never have I ever been so thankful that we have 2 bathrooms in our house.  I probably said that sometime around March, when our upstairs shower became unusable, but now I really mean it.  Yesterday our sink and toilet were ripped out of the upstairs bathroom also, and I really can't imagine what we would do if we didn't have a bathroom in the basement.

Let me back up a bit...

A few months ago I was walking through our downstairs guest room and noticed that the ceiling was wet.  I panicked and yelled for Mark, who proceeding to touch the ceiling and cause part of it to crumble.  We ended up with a gaping hole in the ceiling and lots of water dripping down.  Originally we thought the culprit was ice dams, but eventually we had a plumber tell us that the bathtub was leaking into the basement!  Eeek!  So we have been showering in our basement ever since and getting lots of quotes on a remodel.  Our trip to Europe put this project on hold for a bit, but now we are finally on the way to a new bathroom!

We toyed with expanding the bathroom or adding a master bath while we were already in there, but ended up deciding on just retiling, putting in new fixtures, new plumbing, and repainting.  Most of it will get done this week, but the painting won't happen until July.

Here is a "before" picture of the bathroom...

I really can't wait to post an "after" picture soon!!

Health and Fitness Friday

I have to just start by saying that I love participating in this weekly linkup with all of the ladies that Jen has got posting about their health and fitness each Friday.  I find myself thinking about you ladies and this post whenever I feel like I'm losing motivation- I want to have positive stuff to report about my week to you all and the accountability is awesome! 

I have my first PT session this afternoon and I am sort of nervous.  Being that I am an OT, and have spent a fair share of time in PT myself, I am not nervous about the exercises themselves or anything, but I am nervous that the therapist will tell me to stop running.  I feel like I have FINALLY found the motivation again to start training for the TC Marathon, and I don't want to get those hopes squashed.  The good news is that I ran 5 miles last weekend with no pain.  I continued to run 2 miles before work this week, and now that I have a day off, I am planning on 6 miles this morning.  I guess that it won't make much of a difference though if the PT tells me to rest, because starting tomorrow (Saturday) I work 9 days in a row and will probably not have a lot of time or energy for running.  I also went to Pure Barre on Monday, and I might make it today.  I am going to try to squeeze it on Sunday too if I can sneak away from work for an hour.

As far as healthy eating goes, this week was sort of meh.  I've probably been eating too much ice cream, but it is finally summer here and I don't know how else to express my happiness about that!  I refuse to apologize for it!  I know it will be difficult next week to find time to cook healthy meals too, I have so many meals that I want to cook so I just need to make a game plan and schedule some time I guess!  Feel free to share any of your favorite summer recipes with me- I am always up for new ideas!  Happy Friday!!

The Eight Limbs of Yoga

A lot of people think yoga is all about stretching and holding crazy poses that tighten up your booty, but there is actually so much more to it.  In reality, "practicing yoga" doesn't have to involve any of the physical poses (asana) at all.  Patanjali, who wrote the Yoga Sutras, outlined eight "limbs" of yoga. According to Yoga Journal,

"These eight steps basically act as guidelines on how to live a meaningful and purposeful life. They serve as a prescription for moral and ethical conduct and self-discipline; they direct attention toward one's health; and they help us to acknowledge the spiritual aspects of our nature."

These are the eight limbs: 

1. Yama (5 restraints)

2. Niyama (5 observances)

**The Yamas and Niyamas are a set of 10 principles that comprise a sort of moral code for living the path of yoga.**

3. Asana (physical poses)

4. Pranayama (breath control)

5. Pratyahara (withdrawal of the external senses)

6. Dharana (intense concentration)

7. Dhyana (meditation)

8. Samadhi (enlightenment)

I want to eventually write about each of the limbs, so come back and read more if this interests you.  I really want to make sure that I understand all of this before I start teaching students regularly, so this is really more for me, I just hope its interesting for some of you out there too!

Rhubarb Crazy

I have a gigantic rhubarb plant growing in my backyard and I have no idea what to do with it!  I pretty much love all fruit (I don't think rhubarb is technically a fruit though) but I have never really experimented much with rhubarb.  I made jam with it once, which was very tasty now that I think of it, but I'd really like to try out some new things.  Thank you pinterest for the following ideas...

Rhubarb Muffins

Rhubarb Raspberry Crisp

Fresh Rhubarb Cocktail

Rhubarb Raspberry Yogurt Pops

Honey Rhubarb Scones

Do you have any favorite ways to use rhubarb??

Mediterranean Pasta Salad

I'm not exactly sure where this recipe came from, but I've been making it for years.  It's so easy and makes a ton of leftovers to have throughout the week.  It's also really adaptable and can easily be made vegetarian, vegan, or gluten free (with gluten free pasta.)  So, let's get to it for this week's Taste of Tuesday! 

Fill a large pot of water and bring to a boil.  Add an entire box of pasta (I used fusilli this time, but I use penne or bow tie sometimes.)

First, chop 1/2 of a red onion and place in a LARGE bowl.

Saute some chicken sausage (or omit for vegetarian/vegan.)  Add to bowl.

Add 1/2 jar of oil packed sun-dried tomatoes to the onion.

Add as many olives as you like.  I usually fill one of the small containers at an olive bar with a mix of kalamata and green olives for this.

Once the pasta is cooked and drained, add an entire package of feta cheese (omit for vegan option.)

Add an entire bag of baby spinach to the bowl.

Immediately top with the hot pasta and allow the spinach to wilt and feta to melt.  Mix thoroughly.

Drizzle with good EVOO, red wine vinegar,  and juice from 1 lemon.  Season with salt & pepper.

 Enjoy!!

Serves 6.

1 box of short cut pasta

1/2 red onion

4 chicken sausages

1/2 jar sun-dried tomatoes

1/2 pint container of good olives

1cup crumbled feta cheese

1 bag of baby spinach leaves

juice from 1 lemon

Extra virgin olive oil to taste

Red wine vinegar to taste

Salt

Pepper

Weekend in Review

Another weekend has come and gone and it STILL isn't summer here!  I am really losing it with this dreary and cold weather.  Isn't it supposed to be June?  Ugh.

On Friday night, we pretended that it was a nice summer evening and had a bonfire in the backyard.  We have been watching Mark's parents dog all weekend and it was like a 3 ring circus trying to manage her with Shay and Orlando, so we decided it would be best to try to spend the evening outside with the dogs.  We didn't stay up late though, because I got cold and our neighbors were having a gigantic and annoying party.  Oh well.

I got up early on Saturday to go running.  I got through 5 miles with NO hip pain!  I'm not overly excited about this though, because the pain seems to come and go at random.  We had a wedding to go to that night, so I went to The Wow Bar to get my hair blown out.  I'd never been to one of those blow dry bars before and I thought they did a great job!  An added bonus was running into Diana who was also getting her hair done!

The wedding was a lot of fun, the bride was the daughter of my dad's business partner, seems random but our families are really close friends.  The reception was at Interlachen Country Club, which is where our wedding was too, so of course it was fun reminisce and see how it was decorated.  The decorations were spectacular!

Amazing flowers, this arrangement was on every table!

Mark and I

My sister and I (do you think we look alike?)

On Sunday morning, I got up at went to another class at Pure Barre.  I think I'm getting addicted to it, I love these classes!  It was super hard though and my legs are feeling the burn!  I went straight from that class to this 2 hour Kundalini Yoga workshop.    I love taking classes from Nicole, the instructor of this workshop.  She is a really good teacher and her classes are so interesting. 

I basically sat around like a bum the rest of the afternoon.  I was pretty exhausted from the weekend so it was good to just relax.  Now, onto another week....have a nice Monday!!

Fitness Friday!

It's that time again, Health and Fitness Friday! I wasn't able to get in for PT until next week, so I am just sort of buying my time until then.  I have been able to run a couple times, walk the dog, and go to 2 yoga classes this week.  I also did a ton of gardening, which is a workout in itself!

I'm going to a barre class next week with a friend, but I decided that I had to check it out first to make sure I didn't make a total idiot of myself.  My legs are definitely sore, wow!  I will write up a full review of the class later, but I will say that I am intrigued.  I'm committing to going for at least the next month to see what happens, after that, we'll see...

The real reason for this Fitness Friday post is to share this article with you.  It's sort of tongue-in-cheek, but its a good reminder that this whole "perfect bikini body" thing is a load of crap.  There is no such thing as perfection, thank God!

I've been bummed out lately because several of the patients I work with are really struggling with their eating disorders.  I've had quite a few re-admitted over the last few weeks and it is pretty hard to watch sometimes.  Sometimes though, I think I need these reminders just as much as they do so I will share a few words of wisdom today...

Happy Friday everyone!

THREE years ago!

I just told you about our 2 year wedding anniversary last month, so it only seems fitting that I should tell you about how we got engaged exactly 3 years ago from today!

Let me preface this by saying that my sister got engaged exactly 1 week before we did.  I had a feeling Mark was planning something soon, but when my sister got engaged, I just figured he was going to wait for awhile.  Nope!  The man had a plan and was sticking to it!  I sort of felt like I was "stealing her thunder" and I was super afraid that people were going to judge me for getting engaged right after her, but I am glad that Mark stuck with his original plan.  He had a special day in mind and didn't want to change it OR hold on to the ring any longer!  (Funny story, when I called him to tell him my sister was engaged, he was on the way home from the jeweler with my ring.)

SO...what was this special day he had in mind? I was running my very first half marathon on June 6th and he had graciously decided to run with me the whole time, even though he can literally run a half marathon twice as fast as me. 

I really didn't think he was going to propose at the race, but I was secretely sort of wondering if he had hidden the ring somewhere in his running shorts.  It wasn't until we crossed the finish line and saw another couple getting engaged that I thought "well, wtf?! that would have been a GREAT time to propose, loser!"  But who wants to get engaged right next to another guy down on his knee?  No, no, no...he had other plans.

I make it no secret that a big chunk of my motivation for running is being able to indulge in more tasty foods more often.  So OF COURSE we had to have a big dinner out on the town planned for the night after the race!  We planned to go somewhere in St. Paul (where we both lived at the time) but Mark started driving towards Minneapolis.  I questioned him, to which he answered that we were going to use our free drink tickets that we got from the race, I don't even remember where they were too...The Newsroom maybe?  Anywho, after our free drinks Mark suggested that we just stay downtown for dinner.  He non-chalantly suggested that we go to The Capitol Grille which was pretty nearby and didn't seem suspicious to me, except that it's a really nice restaurant.  I was suspicious though when I realized that he had made reservations.  But I played it cool. 

We sat down and ordered some wine and browsed the menu.  Mark started talking about celebrating my first big race and how we was so proud of me...then he said that he had something else to celebrate that night too.  All of a sudden this beautiful sparkly diamond ring was right in front of me and he was asking me to marry him! Duh! Of course I said yes!  We enjoyed a wonderful dinner and had fun calling our family and friends afterwards.  Turns out my sister already knew and wasn't mad at all.  Mark had "asked" my parents the week before and they briefed her on it just to make sure all went smoothly. 

It was such a fun evening and of course seeing my friends the next day with my new jewlery wasn't too bad either.  I can't believe it was already 3 years ago!  Wow, where does the time go!?

The 5 types of Yogis.

I have so much to say about yoga so I think I'm going to write a weekly post on some yoga subject, would any of you read that?

Well to start it out, lets talk about something funny.  The 5 types of yogis.  Ok.  Really, there are 6.  The 6th being the category that includes all normal people.  Like me.  And hopefully you. Unless you are #3, in which case teach me your ways.

In one of my latest yoga classes, I got to thinking about the types of people who show up around the studio.  You could probably come up with a handful of your own stereoypes (feel free to share!) but here is what I've got for you.  (Please take this with a grain of salt.  I love all you crazy yogis out there.) 

1.  The Noisemaker.  This is the yogi who feels the need to breath so loudly that you'd think they were trying to give the teacher mouth-to-mouth.  From across the room.  This category also includes those who feel the need to sigh, moan, or use expletives in every posture. 

 

2.  The Extra-Cruntchy Granola.  You know this person.  They always show up to class with about one thousand mason jars full of unrecognizable liquid that they claim is "soo good!"  Is it kombucha?  A spirulina smoothie? Urine?  (idk, there could be anything in there!)  They also exclusively bike or walk to class.  They roll out their sustainable yoga mat, touched only by all-natural cleaners.  They don't wear anything sweat-wicking.  Or anything Lululemon. 

3.  The Freakishly Strong.  Ahh yes, the sneakiest of all yogis.  They act like regular people.  They look like regular people.  In fact, they sometimes even look like regular out-of-shape people.  This is the person you might strategically position yourself next to in order to make yourself look better.  But watch out.  They can probably seamlessly transition from crow to scorpian.  And they will put you to shame.

 

4.  The Overachiever.  Remember when I said that I "love" all the crazy yogis out there?  Well, I lied.  I do not love The Overachiever.  In fact, this person drives me nuts.  This is the yogi who has to set up their mat front and center in every single class.  They pretend to follow the teacher's sequence for the first couple of poses and then BAM.  They suddenly start breaking out every difficult and advanced pose they can think of, completely disregarding the teacher.  Ok, maybe it's not always quite like that- but still, it's pretty rude if you ask me.

 

5.  The Old Guy Wearing No Pants.  Do I even need to explain this one?  If you've seen him, you already know too much.

 

Which type of yogi are you?  Do I have any #5 readers out there??

Summer Shandy Chicken Lettuce Wraps

I make shredded chicken in my crockpot almost every week.  I actually am not really a fan of chicken and I never have been, but shredded crockpot chicken is the exception.  I take 3-4 frozen chicken breasts (no need to thaw out) and throw them in the crockpot, cover them with some sort of liquid, and let them go for 4-6 hours on low (or high depending on your crockpot.)  Then I shred with 2 forks, and voila!  Easy lean protein to add to salads, sandwiches, pasta, etc.  It is from this basic shredded chicken that this recipe was born.

The Summer Shandy pulled chicken could easily be served over rice or a salad, but I was feeling the lettuce wraps!


Serves 4

4 frozen chicken breast
1 medium white onion, sliced thinly
1 bottle of Summer Shandy (or any shandy style beer.)
1 lemon
1 tsp caraway seeds
1/2 green pepper, diced
1-2 tbsp lean sour cream or plain greek yogurt
8-10 iceberg lettuce "wraps" (I tore 1 full leave in half for each wrap.)
several leaves of fresh cilantro
optional: shredded cheddar cheese

First, slice your onion and lemon.  Place them in the crockpot with frozen chicken breasts.  Cover with 1 bottle of Summer Shandy.  Ok, almost 1 bottle.  I'll let you figure out what happened to that last swig. Leave them be for 4-6 hours.

 Once this chicken is cooked through, shred with too forks as so:

Pour out about 1/2 the cooking liquid and return shredded chicken to crockpot for about another hour.

Stir in the sour cream and green pepper.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

At this point, you can decide if you want to let your chicken cool off or eat it while it's hot.  I let mine cool, but I think it would be good either way.  Spoon into a lettuce wrap, I used about 1/3 cup of chicken in each wrap.  Chop up some cilantro and shred some cheddar, sprinkle on top!  Enjoy with a Summer Shandy, duh.