My Biggest Mistakes as a Mother
When your children become teens & adults is when you can easily pinpoint EVERY mistake you’ve ever made as a parent. From one parent to another, I hope these 3 things help you! 
❤️
#1 – Don’t helicopter and enable them. Seriously, they can’t function on their own when you do. It’s scary. Hell, even when you don’t enable them, most high school graduates can’t do some of the basics on their own (laundry, write a check, take care of their taxes…..) so teach them the important stuff they need to know. And don’t feel like you have to fix EVERYTHING. Because you don’t. *Out of everything I’m going to share with you, this is the one I WISH we did more than anything else* I totally smothered my kids in love & helping them in every possible way (including catching them when they fell – instead of letting them ‘feel’ how much the ground hurt)….and am now seeing how damaging this is. Just don’t.
#2 – Make them do sports (or physical activities) even when they throw huge crying on the floor temper-tantrums because they don’t want to do it. Make them. Because it serves them well to learn how to lose. (Gosh that sounds crazy saying that, but you discover more about your inner strength when you don’t always win). 99% of the time they end up liking it – or at least challenging themselves to perform better. Bonus: colleges look for “grit” in kids. In other words, they look for kids who do an activity – especially in competition settings where the possibility of losing is involved – for AT LEAST 2 years in a row. And if in your kid’s application essay they share how much they hated it, and then triumphed, they’ve just increased their acceptance rate ten-fold.
#3 – Let them fail. Let them fail hardcore if you have to. Help them up – only if/when they ask for it. But let them make their mistakes so they can learn from them. Decisions you make can negatively/positively affect the REST OF YOUR LIFE. We know this. They don’t. Let them fail while you can still easily protect/help them with little things (before they get to be big things).
There are many more smaller mistakes I’ve made and wish I hadn’t, but seriously these have been the biggest “a-ha” moments and take aways from the past few years. Good luck Mamas! Sending you lots and lots of love!
xoxo
Kirin
Roast Chicken with Heirloom Tomatoes
Combine simple flavors to ANY DISH for delicious results. Here’s how a few fresh, easy to find ingredients transform basic chicken:
– Colorful, small tomatoes
– Scallions
– Chives
– Fresh garlic
– pink Himalayan sea salt
– freshly ground pepper
+ chicken cooked in a hot pan (add broth or warm water and cover to keep it moist as it cooks)
To roast a chicken means you are using dry heat vs. moist heat to cook it. I like to use a hybrid approach and start cooking the chicken with dry heat to enhance the flavors and give it beautiful coloring, then half-way through use moist heat (like water or broth) to seal in the juices.
Ingredients:
- Chicken breasts
- Scallions/Green onion
- Colorful heirloom tomatoes
- Chives (we like freeze-dried chives because they have better flavor than traditionally dried chives you find in the spice section – and chives are harder to find in the fresh section than some of the other herbs)
- Garlic cloves
- Salt & pepper to taste
Directions:
- Take your chicken out of the refrigerator anywhere from 15 min – 2 hrs prior to cooking so it can get closer to room temperature.
- Warm your skillet to medium-high heat.
- Lightly spray with oil (we like the neutral flavor of avocado oil).
- While the skillet is heating, pound the thick parts of the chicken to make them more uniform in thickness.
- Once the pan is hot, put the chicken in. Add a little bit of salt, pepper, and chives and cover with a lid for 5 – 8 minutes.
- Then flip chicken and add 1/4 cup of broth, stock, or water, garlic, tomatoes, chives, (and only if it needs it, a little bit more salt and pepper) and cook covered for another 3 – 8 minutes (possibly a few minutes longer depending on thickness of chicken breast).
- Stir tomatoes and scallions once or twice.
- Chicken will be done when you pierce the thickest part and the juices are clear (not pink!)
Enjoy!
Kirin Christianson
– See more at: http://drchristianson.com/roasted-chicken-with-heirloom-tomatoes
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Easter Brunch
Making fresh bread the night before
Love this sweet burlap banner
You can use any simple crust. Sweeten with xylitol or stevia
Looks naughty, but this fruit tart is actually 28g of protein & 0% fat!
Our son transformed the napkins into bunnies
Table #2 setting
Paper Flowers (pom-poms) | Burlap Easter Banner | Round Charcuterie/Veggie Boards – Home Goods
For the first time in as long as I can remember, we did NOT go out to eat for Easter. And it was wonderful!
Instead, Alan and I hosted our family for Easter brunch at our house – and not only did it save $65-100/person (and there were 14 of us!!), but it allowed us to serve the most delicious food…and eat at a reasonable time of day.
And no matter how much I spent on decorations (around $20), or food ($150), it still was less than going out to eat…with just as beautiful of an environment as a fancy resort. (And trying to book 14 people for Easter brunch at a fancy resort is tricky too, because they don’t usually have room until weird times like 3pm….Who eats at 3pm??)
Set up & clean up were a breeze because I enlisted the kids and made them help out. Even my daughter’s boyfriend, Ferdinando from Italy, helped out (I’m liking him more and more – and he was already pretty great to begin with). They had to find the eggs hidden in the backyard first though….and no matter how mature your kids are, they still love hunting for Easter eggs!
My son made the bunny napkins. And my artistic daughter designed and decorated the charcuterie board.
Some of the highlights:
Sugar-free Protein Fruit Tart
Used a yogurt with 28g of protein and 0% fat
Mixed with xylitol and a few drops of Madagascar vanilla extract for sweetness
Topped with fresh fruit
Charcuterie / Veggie Board
(yes, I realize traditional charcuterie boards are meat and cheese boards….but I wanted to improve the healthiness of the traditional charcuterie boards – because you can find inspiration everywhere – and use those ideas to IMPROVE things for your family)
Smoked salmon
Salami (which was the one thing that wasn’t eaten)
Veggies
Hummus
Homemade Ranch dip
(using the same 28g protein & 0% fat yogurt) mixed with ranch seasonings
Homemade bread (doesn’t hurt our tummies or make us bloated like processed bread does)
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Best Sautéed Spinach Recipe
Big News!
I’m sharing my love of healthy food with more people….and taking over the recipe portion of my husband’s newsletter!
You’ll still see great recipes here on my blog. AND you’ll get the latest health news that is “Fad-Free” about your thyroid, adrenals, and diabetes (with recipes that support that), from the oh-so-handsome (and brilliant, and kind, and caring, and…..*sigh – he’s so dreamy), Dr. Alan Christianson on his newsletter.
Are you signed up?
Back to today’s recipe….
This sautéed spinach with roasted tomatoes and garlic was one of my families favorites yet! Hands down, the best sautéed spinach we’ve ever had. And it was so easy and took less than 10 minutes to cook!
Ingredients:
1 medium sweet onion chopped
4 roma tomatoes (or 1/2 pint of cherry/grape tomatoes) diced into medium-small chunks
1-2 bags spinach
3/4 cup – 1 cup of WARM low-sodium veggie broth
2-3 cloves of crushed garlic
Salt to taste
Directions:
– Sauté onions on Med-high heat 2 to 3 minutes
– Add garlic and tomatoes and a pinch of salt
– Sauté until everything is golden and onions are slightly caramelized *this is the secret step to having it taste extra delicious
– Add 1/4 cup at a time – of warm vegetable broth as you need it (so your ingredients don’t stick to the pan)
– Add spinach
– Cook 2-5 min (depending on how much spinach you use – and how big your pan is.)
– Enjoy!
Kirin
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