Monika's Blog

Growing up my parents had an aloe vera plant. I remember we would cut off a piece if we ever got burned and use the gel inside the leaves to help soothe the burn. Not only is the gel great for use on burns, but there are other benefits to aloe vera that one gets from eating the gel inside the plant.

A quick Google search pulls up benefits such as halting cancer (they don’t show any research that proves this, however), soothes inflammation, and can help heal stomach ulcers. Jon and I heard about the benefits of eating the gel from the documentary, Hungry for Change, who said that eating the gel would cleanse your digestive tract which would, in turn, help your body absorb more nutrients. After seeing aloe leaves for sale at Whole Foods for a few weeks, we decided it was time to try eating aloe vera and decided to make a smoothie using the gel.

I tried to find a good recipe online for smoothies using aloe, kale and ginger, but most contained more fruit (sugar) than any other ingredient, so we decided to come up with our own recipe.

Aloe Vera Paleo Smoothie

Ingredients:
1/2 a bundle of Dino Kale
1/2 of a Cucumber
2 Apples
1/4 lb Ginger
2/3 lb Pineapple
1/8 Aloe Vera Leaf’s Gel
Splash or two of Vanilla Almond Milk

We used a juicer for the kale, cucumber, apple, ginger and pineapple. After we got as much juice as possible out of those ingredients, we switched to the blender and added the aloe gel and almond milk.

The outcome? Surprisingly good! Not too sweet, not too spicy/sour or any weird consistency. Just smoothie deliciousness.

The gel was super sticky and kind of oozy before we put it in the smoothie and we weren’t really too sure how it would blend, but we were surprised that we couldn’t see or taste it. The only thing I will change next time is to not add as much ginger, but that is mainly just because I am not a big fan of ginger.

Have you ever used aloe to cook with? What other recipes should we be trying with this plant?

I love how a song can instantly take you back to a specific time and place.

I experienced that today when The Fratelli’s song Chelsea Dagger came on my Pandora station. Remember this song?

If you are a Chicago Blackhawks fan, you know this song well. It is played after a home team goal and home team win.

In 2010 I had the pleasure of being in Chicago for a conference during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which the Blackhawks just happened to win. I stayed after the conference to hang out with my cousin Cindy. We had plans to go to a Cubs game and decided to head to Wrigleyville early to meet some friends, pre-game, and eat lunch. Hearing this song today, instantly transported me back to this bar:

(I don’t quite remember what we were doing here, but this was the bar)

While at the bar, they were playing the parade on the tv’s and blasting The Fratelli’s every few minutes. Each time the song came on, the ENTIRE bar erupted and sang along. It was so much fun to be a part of that.

After remembering that bar, the rest of the weekend started to come back to me. After the conference was over, my boss, Paul, dropped me off at Hermes so I could attend an invite only event with my cousin Cindy.

I don’t remember the reason for the event, but there were horses everywhere:

They trotted down the stairs and sang this song:

Yea, I don’t know wither.

Anyways, then there was the Cubs game. Oh how I love Wrigley field:

And, while I do not have pictures to prove this, after the game we hung out with Richard Roeper. I remember grilling him on who ran his Twitter account and told him he better be the one tweeting, and not some of his interns. He assured me it was him, and even started following me then, just to prove it.

Look, he still follows me to this day!

What a fun weekend in Chicago that was. I definitely need to get back to the Midwest sometime this summer.

What was the last song you heard that transported you to back to a memory?

Tonight Jon and I cooked a great Paleo meal to celebrate his return from PaleoFX.

*

We were inspired by the cooking class we went to last week at Natural Grocers: “Paleo Cooking with Caveman Cafeteria: Where the Hunters Gather“. Jon has been a friend and supporter of Will from Caveman Cafeteria for awhile now, and if you haven’t been to his food truck, I *highly* recommend trying it. The deep fried brussels sprouts are amazing!

Anyway, back to the cooking demonstration. I wasn’t sure what to expect, if it was going to be more informational, educational or an actual demonstration. When we got to Natural Grocers I was surprised by their presentation kitchen! There was plenty of room for people to watch, and the kitchen was huge!

I had never heard of a grocery store like this doing a cooking demonstration, nor had I ever attended, so I didn’t know how many people attended, but it was a full house.

After a brief introduction, Will and his head chef, Johnny, talked through some of the dishes that they would be preparing for the crowd.

Caveman Cafeteria made a Zucchini Salad to start, then presented a Bistro Steak and ended with Sausage & Peppers.

Oh man, they were all so good!

Here are the recipes (and photos to show how good the food was):

Zucchini Salad:

Ingredients
1 Zucchini
2-4 Torn Mint Leaves
1 Teaspoon Capers
1 Teaspoon Fresh Chopped Garlic
3/4 Teaspoon EVOO
1 Teaspoon of Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice
Salt & Pepper to Taste
Pinch of Crushed Red Pepper

Instructions
Thinly shave the zucchini with a peeler on all sides until you start to see the seeds.
Tear mint leaves.
Add all ingredients to a bowl.
Toss together.
Add salt & pepper to taste and a pinch of crushed red pepper.
Serve.

Bistro Steak:

Ingredients
4 oz Flap or Sirloin 100% Grass-fed Steak
Salt & Pepper to Taste
Fresh Thyme
Fresh Chopped Garlic
1 Portobello Mushroom
1 oz Caveman Cafeteria Demi-Glaze (or substitute)

Instructions
Use a grill to mark steak until seared on all sides.
Allow steak to rest 20-30 minutes in the refrigerator before slicing into 1/4 inch thick pieces against the grain.
Heat bacon grease in a saute pan and add fresh thyme.
Allow to sizzle before adding sliced portobellos.
Add salt & pepper to taste.
Cook almost until complete before adding slices of steak.
Finish with chopped garlic and a pinch of fresh thyme.
Top with demi-glaze.

Sausage & Peppers:

Ingredients
Melange Peppers
Onions
Spicy Italian Sausage
Tomato Sauce
Fresh Chopped Garlic
Fresh Chopped Basil

Instructions
Spread spicy Italian sausage on pan and bake in oven.
Saute peppers and onions in clarified butter (ghee).
Add tomato sauce.
Crumble sausage and add to peppers.
Serve.

*For our meal tonight we added serrano peppers to the saute, omitted the tomatoes and added some bacon to the finished meal. It was a bit spicy for Jon, but we think the tomato sauce may help cut the spice a bit.

I have to say, this is the first cooking class I have ever attended and I really liked it! I was impressed by the layout at Natural Grocers and I loved how open the class was. People got out of their seats to get a better view of what the Chef was doing, Will was answering questions from the audience the whole time and I think we all learned a ton.

Where do you gain your recipe inspirations from?

Recently, I’ve stopped creating Google Docs of links to blog posts around certain topics and started to use Pinterest to keep all of the information in one spot. You can see my most recent post on How to Ditch the Shampoo and the Pinterest board there.

Rather than link to the board, I figured it would be better to visually feature it. I was going to take a screenshot, until I remembered that Pinterest now allows for people to not only embed Pin It buttons, but also Pinterest profiles, individual pins and Pinterest boards!

Doesn’t that look much better than 5 or 6 links? Or just a link to the Pinterest Board? Not only can you get to the board, but you can see all the pins which make it easier for you to decide if you want to click over to the board or not. Plus, I don’t know about you, but I am a visual thinker/learner, so if you put images in front of me rather than text, I am more likely to click the image/link.

So, how do you embed your own Pinterest board. It is pretty simple. Go to the Pinterest Button and Widget Builder, and enter the URL of the board you wish to embed. I played around with the advanced options a bit until I got the widget and images to be the size I wanted.

After you get the correct sizes, copy the code below the preview and paste it into your blog post. Now, here is where I went wrong. I thought that was all I had to do and was ignoring the JavaScript section underneath the code.

Of course the widget wasn’t loading. I then copied the JavaScript and added it to my sidebar. Viola! That was all I needed to make the widget appear.

Best part? That JavaScript makes it so that whenever I add a new pin to the board, it is added to the widget. It’s like magic!

Did I mention that you can embed ANY board? Doesn’t have to be one you own! I’m sure there will be many more blog posts on here that include embedded Pinterest boards.

I’ll still never forget the time when Jon and I were going to stay in his apartment before going on a trip and we had the following conversation:

Me: “Do you have conditioner in your apartment, or do I need to pack my own?”
Jon: “I know we just got married, and I promise I am not a crazy hippie type, but I don’t wash my hair.”
Me: “Ok, so bring shampoo and conditioner is what you are saying to me.”

So I brought my own and didn’t think about it again.

Until a few weeks later when I stumbled upon a blog post talking about going ‘No ‘Poo’. I then went down the rabbit hole and started googling others that had done the same thing. I became intrigued and decided to go ahead and try it.

Now let me back up a minute. For the past two years or so I’ve only been washing my hair with shampoo every two or three days and supplementing the other days with dry shampoo. My favorite kind of dry shampoo was the Bumble and Bumble aerosol spray from Sephora.

This was my favorite for a few reasons:
1) It came in a travel size, so I could take it on planes.
2) It provided SO much volume! It was like hairspray. Volume and helped hold my curls.
3) Remember when I was a brunette? Well they have a brown colored spray that was PERFECT for covering up my roots!

(Remember these days?)

The downside to so much dry shampoo? I felt like I had to wash my hair twice after I used so much of the spray. Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

I’ll admit. I was very skeptical of the whole ‘no ‘poo’ movement. I mean I grew up washing my hair, there are millions of products dedicated to washing hair, and when I don’t wash my hair, it gets oily. But on the other hand, after a few weeks of washing every few days, my hair did adapt and wasn’t as oily, so maybe this wasn’t as crazy as I thought. Either way, I decided to go for it.

The first week wasn’t so bad, nothing a little dry shampoo couldn’t help (no, not the aerosol spray, the powder).

Then I ‘washed’ my hair with baking soda and rinsed with apple cider vinegar. First it is not easy to switch to something like baking soda that doesn’t foam up like ‘normal’ shampoo. I didn’t know if I was doing it right, or what it was supposed to feel like. Same with rinsing with the vinegar. Then I was *convinced* that my hair smelled of vinegar after the shower. Jon reassured me that it was all in my head. Right after using the baking soda/vinegar concoction, my hair was a bit oily at the roots. Google reassured me that this happens because your hair is still trying to correctly balance out the pH.

I am now 4+ weeks into the ‘no ‘poo’ thing, and LOVING my hair! It now has the same volume, naturally, that I had after using a bunch of product. Sometimes I wear my hair curly, and my curls are BETTER than when I used to smother them in mousse and hair spray. I am still working on figuring out what combination of baking soda and vinegar to use, but I will continue to experiment. I’ve also found that it is best (for me) to wash my hair at night and let the oils make their way all the way down my hair before styling the next morning.

Another perk? My showers, when I dont’ wash my hair, are SUPER quick! I use a shower cap to keep my hair nice and dry on those days. My mom bought be a super cute polka dotted one for my birthday last year. I don’t think she realized how much I would be using it!

Want proof? Here I am after ‘washing’ my hair with baking soda and rinsing with vinegar aka 4 weeks after I stopped using normal shampoo:

Here are some resources that helped me while I was trying to make the decision to go No ‘Poo as well as some of the products I use and some hairstyles I am excited to try:

Now, do you think I am crazy? Or are you going to try the No ‘Poo thing with me?

So I am sure most of you don’t know this, but I used to be able to tell the year of an old Mustang car just by looking at the tail lights. Why? In high school I hung out with the guys and they all owned late ’60′s Mustangs and were very passionate about them. Did you know the first year Mustang is actually a 1964 1/2? #RandomMustangKnowledge

Have you ever driven one? Oh wow, what I wouldn’t give to take a ’60′s ‘Stang out for a road trip. So much power in that car.

Why all this talk about cars? Well I am going to the Denver Auto Show this weekend and can’t wait to see what new technologies the car companies have come up with recently.

Here are just a few things you can expect to see from Ford at the Denver Auto Show (images taken from the @FordAutoShows Instagram account):

(Sadly this car won’t be at the Denver Auto show, but it is still awesome!)

Did you know my grandfather has a Model A? He used to drive me to school in it everyday. I love the horn! Ahooga! Ahooga!

Hoping to see some of these logos at the show!

Who wouldn’t want to turn a classic car into a pool table? You can actually play this pool table at the Denver Auto Show!

Want to go with me? Ford’s #FiestaMovement was nice enough to give me a pair of tickets to the Denver Auto Show this weekend that I’m giving away to you! All you have to do is follow the instructions below in the Rafflecopter and you’re entered! I’ll pick a winner on Friday afternoon.

Now tell me, what are you looking forward to seeing at the Denver Auto Show this weekend?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So, I’m headed back to Austin this year.

This will be my 5th year attending SXSW and my second year going badge-less. After last year, when I went alone I told myself that I wouldn’t be going back, especially alone.

Two years ago I got a Platinum badge. In many ways it was totally worth it! I mean Stefan and I got to watch the Foo Fighters documentary, with the band, then they played a free show and because of the badges, we got in early and were almost front row for the show. The downside? Many of the panels we wanted to attend were PACKED. If you didn’t plan early and get in line 30+ minutes before it started, you weren’t going to get in. Advice for those attending with badges? Plan which panels you really want to attend and be sure to get there early.

So, why am I going back? Clearly I just can’t stay away. I mean it combines two of my passions, tech and music, in a week long event full of smart, passionate people.

Also, I am trying to step out of my comfort zone a little bit. Despite knowing a ton of people attending, I didn’t like going alone last year because I do not like being alone. Sure I can hang out at home alone, but I *hate* going to a restaurant alone or attending a concert alone. Yes, I will do those things, but there is just something about knowing you have another person to hang out with, or meet up with, that makes the whole experience better, in my humble opinion at least.

So what changed my mind? There are a few things, but first I am going to blame my husband. Since meeting him, he has definitely pushed me to do the things I wanted to do, especially if it makes me step out of my comfort zone. I want to get better at meeting people in social situations and networking. What better way to do that than to throw myself into a conference, alone?

Another fun reason? I am going to be blogging for MapQuest while down there. I will be sure to send out the link next week so you can follow along with all of my adventures!

Lastly, and this is the biggest reason, when thinking back to attending past years of SXSW, it always brings a smile to my face. I have meet some amazing people and discovered great bands because of this conference. That’s why I am going back again.

Since I will be badge-less, this year will require quite a bit of planning and RSVP’ing for events. Hopefully it will all come together and I will step out of my comfort zone, meet some great, inspiring people, give out a ton of my business cards and discover some great new bands!

Let me know if you know of anyone I should meet, parties I should attend and new bands I need to listen to before heading down!