#aka it means no grain aka no noodles :(

[butcherb1rd]

accidentally bought chicken soup instead of chicken noodle 😔 curse my lack of reading skills

[soulfoodshonali]

You are What You Eat

What if we were to tell you that the solution to all your health and fitness concerns begins with fixing your relationship with food? A healthy diet is vital for physical fitness and ensuring mental well-being. We are what we eat; therefore, it becomes crucial to be mindful of the food we intake and establish a healthy connection with it. Shonali Sabherwal, a celebrity chef and personal health coach Mumbai, brings a unique macrobiotic perspective to promote healing with food. 

The Macrobiotic Philosophy

Shonali is India’s first practising macrobiotic counsellor and a leading gut health nutritionist. Macrobiotics comprises two terms—macro, meaning large, and bios meaning life. The literal translation of the term comes down as a larger-than-life approach to a consistently healthy lifestyle. The system finds its roots in several ancient philosophies from India and Japan, such as Ayurveda, the Buddhist idea of Zen, Yin-Yang, and other Chinese medicinal traditions. The ultimate goal is holistic detoxification of the body and establishing a state of equilibrium by balancing the intake of acidic and alkaline foods. A macrobiotic diet mainly comprises: 

Organic Vegetables: Organic vegetables will form about 20-30% of your macrobiotic diet. A macrobiotic diet encourages the consumption of locally sourced vegetables and fruits, especially leafy greens. The cooking style advised is either steaming, boiling, or sauteing the vegetables with a regulated amount of unrefined or cold-pressed oils. The vegetables can also be used to prepare salads. 

Whole Grain and Cereals: Whole grains and cereals form 40-60% of a macrobiotic diet. As your gut health nutritionist, Shonali recommends organically sourced whole grains and cereals for her macrobiotic diet. These include barley, brown rice, buckwheat, and gluten-free grains for those intolerant to gluten, millet, whole oats, and whole wheat. You can even incorporate a portion of pasta and noodles made of whole grains instead of refined ones. The partially processed grains the diet permits include bulgur, aka dalia and semolina (rava or suji).  Bread made without yeast can also be included. 

Fish and Fruits: The macrobiotic diet encourages you to shop for locally available and seasonal fruits occasionally. You can consume these as is or use them for preparing dessert. But remember to use plant-based sweeteners instead or any artificial sweeteners. Such desserts can be included in the diet twice or thrice a week. 

As your personal health coach Mumbai, Shonali’s recommendation for fish includes fresh white meat fish. As for beverages, the diet allows decaf, herbal, and non-dairy probiotics. 

Beans and Fermented Foods: About 5-10% of your diet should include beans and fermented foods. The regular-use beans included in the diet are whole beans, such as chickpeas, kidney beans (rajma), lentils, and green mung. Shonali also recommends incorporating fermented foods such as quick pickles, pressed salads, and probiotic drinks into your daily diet. 

Shonali’s macrobiotic approach is proven to relieve several health ailments such as asthma, diabetes, insomnia, migraine, thyroid, vitamin deficiencies, and more. The diet is also helpful in regulating weight, maintaining a healthy gut, strengthening immunity, and getting healthy hair and radiant skin.

Source: https://baitk.com/read-blog/50227 

[thelittlepalmtree]

Your body does need sugar to work. And I think it's not necessarily true that everyone should just follow their cravings 24/7 because while intuitive eating is great, it doesn't work for people like me who have ADHD. Not only does my medication have an appetite suppressing quality, but I don't think I've ever had a craving. In fact, I didn't even know what hunger felt like until after my anxiety got treated and I realized that the physical symptoms of my anxiety completely drowned out my hunger feelings which was why most of my life I would eat all day or wait unti I was showing signs of low blood sugar before having my first meal of the day. And there is definitely a difference between refined, processed sugar, simple carbs, and complex carbs in whole foods. We have to remember that humans (homo sapiens) pretty much stopped evolving around the advent of civilization. So we should think about the kinds of foods we have evolved to eat. Mostly, I think it was what we modern humans would consider unprocessed grains, vegetables, occasionally meat, dairy, and fruit. I try to think of the amounts of these foods ancient people had access to and balance that with the activity level they had compared to me. The history of agriculture and cooking is amazing, and it is literally the main thing that separates us from other animals. But you know what our ancestors also had access to? Honey! Honey is basically straight sugar. There's some other great stuff that may be better for you than just sugar syrup, but nutritionally, it's mostly just fructose and glucose. We also had access to things like maple sap and other high-sugar natural products. But we wouldn't have had a ton of it.

Now you don't have the stomach of an ancient sumarian, it's been trained on a food system that is incredibly corrupt. I think of our food system the way Famine was described in good omens. Where he was developing food that could make people morbidly obese while also dying of malnutrition. And i'm not saying this as some crunchy mom. I'm pretty sure 100% of my food touches plastic at some point. And I agree any food is better than no food. And like one of the commentors above said, you may have doctor's orders to eat sugar all day. The underweight category in the BMI chart is the highest risk category. BMI was actually invented to measure a population's need for welfare services. And, in order to make the need for welfare look lower they actually shifted all the numbers down in order to make the "under weight" category smaller. So a person at the lower end of "normal" may actually be in serious need of medical care.

I think it's particularly insidious that we have a food system that makes healthy food completely inaccessible to most and then shames people for not fitting in to the arbitrarly set "healthy" category based on a teast that the inventor said was not a measure of overall health in an individual (and actually was meant to be more of a population measure). The biggest injustice in this world is that none of us can afford the luxury of living like a Sumerian peasant.

So what I'm saying is, yes, eat the Snickers bar. But also don't if you don't think it's the right choice for you. Straight up sugar is something your body has the means of processing, but only in small amounts. And maybe your body is great at telling you what to eat, and maybe your brain is great at acquiring the thing you want. But that just isn't true for everyone. And while intuitive eating isn't inherently bad, it's also just not something everyone can practice. I know, I have felt a lot better only eating my carbs in the form of whole foods (aka plants from the ground like fruit, corn, I would say potatoes but I don't loke potatoes, peas, etc) during the week and having more simple carbs like bread, noodles, white rice, and sweets on the weekends. Learning how to meal prep has also helped me a lot. And I'm going to be real. I am not eating an Egyptian peasant's tablespoon of honey once a week. I eat a lot more sugar than I want to. But, I have a framework to make my decisions that isn't just "do what you want" and "never eat xyz food" it's complicated.

I also want to say there's a huge link between obesity and trauma, obesity and neurodivergence, obesity and disability, and obesity and other conditions that outside of obesity we would see as completely out of control of the individual. It's so much more likely to be a symptom than a disease of its own. It also has a very high link to PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome), which is at its core a hormonal imbalance in women and afab individuals. It's my personal theory that this is a big reason why hormonal birth control (including plan B) is not very effective for overweight women because those are actually the treatment for PCOS and therefore are usually balancing out hormones not adding more (as they would in a non-PCOS body). PCOS is also accompanied by insulin resistance, so weight gain is a very common symptom. Not only is this proof that you really have no idea why someone is overweight just looking at them, it's also just a good reason for everyone to have the nutrition plan that works best for them. Whether that be structure, ituitive eating, or something else, that's between you and your medical providers* (*just want to note that most doctors receive zero nutritional training so they might not even be the best ones to tell you what to do*). No food is bad, but no food is perfect (trust me, I lived off chicken soup for almost 6 months). Sometimes you need sugar. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes your body will tell you. Sometimes it won't.

Above all, you exist on this planet to experience joy. Make the choices that will enable you to have the most joy for the longest amount of time.

You know that feeling when you eat a lot of candy on Halloween and suddenly you crave carrots because your body is telling you that it needs nutrients not in the candy? That is no different than when you eat a lot of carrots and crave a Snickers bar.

Your body knows what it needs. Your body uses cravings to tell you to eat the nutrients you're in low supply of. You crave sugar all the time? It's because you are restricting sugar and not actually listening to your body. Cravings are not evil. They're literally how your body is designed to maintain a balanced food intake.

Please for the love of god (nontheistic), learn about intuitive eating and finally end the grip that diet culture has on you and your wallet. And in case this is one of my posts that somehow leaves fat activism circles, fatness is not evil either. You will never escape diet culture until you end your fear and hatred of fatness. Period.

[tl-notes]

Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon S2 Episode 10 Notes

I’m extremely not an expert in birds, but I tried to look these up to see if they were a species native to New York (since they’re similar to the sparrows we usually see around Kobayashi’s place). Apparently there are few similar-looking species in New York? My totally uninformed guess is that they may be house sparrows.

The sun sets in Japan relatively early (probably around 6:30pm when this episode takes place), which would make it entirely plausible that if she just flew east (with a slight northward angle) she’d find herself over New York in the early morning while most of the rest of the country is still dark.

These bumpy grey pads at the pedestrian part of the intersection here are known as (among other things) tactile paving; they’re to assist people who can’t fully rely on eyesight to get around.

Interestingly (imo), they were actually invented in Japan in the 60s (by a Miyake Seiichi), where today they’re extremely ubiquitous. They even show up later this episode!

They’re often referred to in Japan as 点字ブロック, tenji (Braille) blocks, and they tend to come in two types: the “dot” design, which indicates a place to stop (or an angle change, or more generally “caution”), and the “line” design which indicates you can safely keep going. They’re generally colored yellow in Japan, ideally making them stand out more to help people with impaired vision find them, and are mandated by law in most places public transport can be found (among others).

Not really a translation note, but “deer cola” felt especially funny in the context of all the horse medicine stuff. 

I guess “[animal] [drink]” is a common branding device in-universe, given the crab beer Kobayashi’s always drinking.

Also not really a translation note, but the difference between how “hard” Kanna and Chloe are running to be at the same speed was a nice animation touch.

遊んだ遊んだ！ asonda asonda!

One feature of the Japanese language is a very heavy use of repetition. This includes “reduplication,” a linguistic term for creating words by repeating a root (e.g. a “boo-boo” in English or the dara-dara example below in Japanese), but also just like… saying the same word multiple times, as Chloe does here.

Typically this is done for emphasis or to help increase clarity: if you’ve worked in a Japanese office, you’ve likely heard someone in a phone conversation say desu desu in response to someone asking for confirmation. 

This acceptance of repetition sort of extends beyond the obvious uses like this as well: for example, personal pronouns are much less common; instead (if the subject isn’t dropped) you’ll often just use the person’s name again. You’ll notice similar trends with other types of words as well.

Not to mention the ubiquity of things like otsukare.

This often ends up being a challenge for translators, because reusing words in English (when it’s not for an obvious reason) tends to stick out rather unflatteringly, even if they aren’t that close together. 

(Like when I overuse “hence” in these notes.)

This “Christ” in the Japanese was “ったく” (short for 全く mattaku, but just used as a semi-generic exclamation). I mostly bring this up because it’s a good example of a word that doesn’t work out of its cultural context; e.g. it wouldn’t make any sense for a fantasy character to say “Christ,” but since this is an American speaker it works just fine (and helps distinguish that fact, even). 

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but English uses a lot of “explicit reference” words like this, that can break immersion if put in the mouths of characters who wouldn’t have exposure to said reference—which can be annoyingly limiting when trying to write dialogue sometimes.

As a bit of a culture shock for a lot of Americans I’ve met, most Japanese homes tend to have wall mounted air conditioning units, like this one, that are only for heating/cooling the one room they’re in. (Many also have a “Dry” setting that makes them act kind of like a dehumidifier as well.) It’s common to not have them in every room, like bedrooms, however.

This is in contrast to the central air conditioning system used by a majority of homes in the US (though type/use of AC in the US varies a lot by region; less common in the north for example)—and places like the UK where apparently residential AC units of any kind are quite rare.

You may have noticed that the doors between rooms always seem closed in Kobayashi’s apartment. That’s not just to make the backgrounds simpler, it’s also a good habit to keep if you’re going to be running the AC!

“Kobayashi, are you お休み today?” 

“Yeah, お休み.”

お休み o-yasumi, is a noun form of the 休む yasumu, to rest. The word has a variety of applications, as we see here. A day off work/school, i.e. a rest day? お休み. Want to say “good night” to someone before bed? Also お休み.

In this case, it’s not even necessarily clear it’s being said as a pun; as mentioned earlier, repetition is a common feature of the language, so despite the yawn there wouldn’t really be any reason for Kanna to think Kobayashi was about to go to nap or anything.

“Laze about” here is だらだら dara-dara, another phenomime (擬態語 gitaigo in Japanese)—one of those words that mimics the “sound” of an idea/concept/state, which don’t actually make a sound per se.

These phrases aren’t necessarily childish or anything (overuse of them can be, but you can find them even in news articles and political speeches for example). They are, however, used frequently by children, and by adults talking to children, as they’re very “easy” words: they’re expressive, they capture useful daily-life concepts, and they usually roll off the tongue. You’ll notice, for example, that Kanna uses them a lot.

Kanna has a very interesting way of talking actually, which I’ll touch on a bit more later.

Kobayashi’s “bean jam” here is あんみつ anmitsu, a traditional Japanese dessert (technically a spinoff of mitsumame). It typically is a mix of red beans (and/or red peas), agar (an algae-based gelatin equivalent), some fruit, some variety of rice flour product (shiratama in this case, similar to mochi), and a syrup (often black sugar based).

You can find it year-round, but it has a strong summer association and is even used as a summer season word. (It’s typically chilled and you can often get it with ice cream as an ingredient.)

It’s also sometimes paired with a green-tea flavored something as well (e.g. ice cream, agar, or syrup). The trinity of green tea, red beans (aka azuki), and shiratama makes what I like to think of as the “Japanese S’mores Flavor (for Adults)”. No I will not elaborate on this.

I will though point out the shaved ice flavor Kobayashi ordered later in the episode:

え？今スイカ様子あった？

A word of note here for language learners is 様子 yousu, which has a lot of definitions, but in cases like this where it’s attached to a noun or phrase means roughly “the appearance of __” or “an indication of ___” etc. In actual use, it typically means something that makes you think of whatever ___ is—or the lack of something that would make you think ___.

For example here, it’s like “Watermelon? Where’d that come from?” (since the TV was talking about a different dessert-y food entirely). 

Or an unrelated example: “I think that guy is hiding something” → “Really? I haven’t seen any yousu of that.” In other words, it can be a lot like “sign,” as in “I’ve seen no sign of ___.”

These color-bordered envelopes (originally colored based on the flag of the country of origin) used to be the standard for air mail, domestic or international, though they haven’t been required for several decades.

That said, they’re still popular for that “ooh, international mail!” feel (at least in Japan) and you can buy them at most places that sell stuff like envelopes. As here, they’re often used in media to immediately convey that a letter came from outside Japan.

Kanna (and Kobayashi) says エアメール, lit. “air mail” in English, which is used colloquially for international mail specifically, rather than “mail sent by plane.”

They’re having what’s called 冷やしそうめん hiyashi soumen, chilled/cold soumen for lunch here. (Soumen being a thin wheat noodle; udon but thinner.) As Kanna says, it’s very easy to make!

Basically you just boil it, wash it in cold water, add ice, get some sort of sauce to dip it in, and you’re done! It’s a popular quick meal in summer, and much easier than the more involved nagashi soumen setups you may have seen elsewhere, where they slide the noodles down a chute for you to try to grab and eat. (It’s basically the same meal aside from that though.)

(You can of course add more to it, but as we see here, you don’t really have to.)

The type of tea here, for the curious, is 麦茶 mugicha, barley tea. Mugi is the general name for cereals/grains including wheat (komugi), barley (oomugi), rye (kuromugi or rye mugi), and oats (enbaku or oat mugi). It’s incredibly common in Japan (and much of East Asia), where it's the household summer drink.

It has no caffeine like many other teas, and has a bunch of various nutritional benefits, so it’s considered a good way to stay hydrated as you’re sweating buckets in the muggy Japanese summer weather.

帽子した？  boushi shita? した！ shita!

I thought this was a cute way of phrasing this question/answer, and a good example of the “parent and their young child” way these two talk.

The suru (past tense shita) verb used here is the ultimate in “generic verb,” and it basically doesn’t get any simpler grammar-wise to phrase something as “noun+suru” like Kobayashi does here (even the particles are dropped). 

Kanna, for her part, doesn’t respond with a “yes” or etc, but instead just repeats back the verb itself in confirmation.

Just to note another one of those words like dara-dara: bura-bura, used for things like wandering around, doing something (or nothing) casually/aimlessly, or (with one bura) for something dangling/swinging in a more literal sense, like a spider, slack yo-yo, or wind chime.

These booklets are a common homework assignment for practicing kanji; you can see along the left side there it shows the stroke order, with the first block giving an example to trace over & showing where to start each stroke.

Each character is made up of radicals (e.g. “hot” above: 日 and 耂), which each have a standard way to write them. There’s 214 such radicals (though many are pretty niche; only about ~50 of them are needed to make most characters), and once you get a hang of them it makes learning new characters much easier (not too different from learning word spellings in English imo).

Kanna is repeating out loud the reading for the “hot” character as she writes it.

In addition to the above workbooks (which usually involve both kanji and math problems at Kanna’s grade), elementary school summer homework in Japan typically involves doing an illustrated diary (not a daily one necessarily) and some sort of research project about a subject of your choice. (Think kind of like a small science fair project).

The “research” project part is pretty expansive, and you can typically even do something more arts & craftsy for it.

Manhole covers in a lot of Japanese municipalities feature art representative of the area. For example, the city of Chofu, where the author of GeGeGe no Kitaro lived most of his life, has several with art of that series.

(Photo from https://www.gotokyo.org/jp/spot/1734/index.html)

I mentioned earlier that Kanna has an interesting way of speaking. Probably a better way to put it is that she has a pretty convincingly childish way of speaking (despite the monotone). That is, she uses simple grammar and “easy” words most of the time, but then throws out random big words and fancy idioms from time to time that make you go “...where did you learn that?”

In this case, the phrase she uses is 巷で人気 chimata de ninki. Chimata originally means like a fork (in the road), and since those are often places with lots of people passing through, it expanded to mean “the undefined place where people talk about ~stuff~.” So it’s used for “many people are saying~” or “word on the street is~” types of situations (or “talk of the town,” as here).  

It’s kind of an “adult” word though; for example the character for it isn’t included in the jouyou kanji (the 2000+ that are taught in elementary through high school). Hence Kobayashi’s reaction here.

The word she uses for “protected” here is 死守 shishu. The word is the combination of the characters for “death” and “protect,” ~meaning to protect something even at risk to one’s life (to the death, as it were).

It's a word that you learn in third grade in the Japanese education system—the same grade Kanna is in!

Both of these types of signs are common sights in residential areas like this: depending on where you live, it can feel like there’s always some sort of construction project going on, and Japan’s many family/individually-owned businesses like this tend to be closed on various extra days during the summer (and certain other times) to allow for time off.  

In this case, them being closed August 12th~16th implies they’re taking off for Obon (and probably leaving town to visit family).

The word Kobayashi uses here is 風物詩 fuubutsu-shi. Fuubutsu refers to something that makes up part of the “scenery” of a place or season, in a pretty broad sense. This shi typically means “poem.”

So fuubutsu-shi is originally a type of poem celebrating a season or a scene of natural beauty, that sort of thing. From that, it’s also now (more popularly) used to describe things that are representative of a season; the kind of stuff you say “it’s not winter until…” about, or “you know it’s summer when…” (It can also be used for places + seasons, like the ice sculptures of Hokkaido winters, or even summer Comiket in Tokyo.)

They’re very similar to the season words I’ve mentioned previously, though they’re far less strict about what counts as one. Here, Kobayashi’s could be referring to the whole package experience of “having to take cover and wait out a sudden heavy rain, despite it being mostly clear skies a few minutes ago,” which you could call fuubutsu-shi (summed up probably as like 夏の雨宿り etc.)

In contrast the relevant season word here would probably be yuudachi (or niwaka-ame), a word referring to the short, sudden bouts of rain that tend to fall (from cumulonimbus clouds, the makings of which are noticeable in the backgrounds before this) on summer evenings.

Feels like in season one she woulda eaten it. Three cheers for character growth!

The parentheticals there are just the “English” in hiragana/katakana.

Kobayashi’s comment (nihongo de ok, roughly “you can just use Japanese”) is an internet-born term people originally would use to reply to someone who said something that didn’t make any sense, had terrible grammar, or was so full of katakana loanwords it was hard to read etc.

Kanna says this line in English, and while I have no proof at all, my guess is that the specific choice of “wicked” was taken from the translation of “maji yabakune?” used in season one.

[neko-sufis-world]

Did you know Herobrine and Steve loves summer and trendy outfits, because they wish they could meet their brother again to celebrate summer party, for example: Beaches, Disco, Dancefloor, ect. ^_^

Ouh. Well, as for Usagi-Ijah, she likes to spend her time with her friends at Japan, when the summer started, they are planning to go somewhere for holiday, vacation I must say. And their favourite snack or food they would like to eat is kakigori, Japanese shaved ice dessert! With syrup flavour and a sweetener, often condensed milk. She also went to the summer party like, beaches, dancefloor, karaoke to sing, etc! Ouh! And you see Usagi's favourite food is sushi, taiyaki, zaru soba, unagi and yakitori! While Yumaki's (Usagi's 1st friend) favourite food is somen, taiyaki, unagi, sushi, anmitsu and yakisoba. For Mayuki's (Usagi's 2nd friend) is ramen, shabu-shabu, yokan, hiyayakko, and hiyashi chuka. And their most favourite food is mochi, sushi and sashimi! ^^

Taiyaki: A Japanese fish-shaped cake, commonly sold as street food. It imitates the shape of tai, which it is named after. The most common filling is red bean paste that is made from sweetened azuki beans. Other common fillings may be custard, chocolate, cheese, or sweet potato.

Zaru soba: A Japanese dish of chilled soba noodles. The dish is typically served with freshly grated wasabi, thinly sliced scallions, tsuyu (mentsuyu), and a dipping sauce made from soy sauce, dashi (made with both kelp and katsuobushi, or dried bonito flakes), mirin(For Muslim, they usually use vinegar, cuz Mirin is made by alcoholic), and sake(Even sake is also alcoholic, so, Muslim use the vinegar only).

Unagi: The Japanese word for freshwater eel, is an elongated fatty fish, rich and bold in flavor.

Yakitori: Bite-size marinated pieces of beef, seafood, or chicken on skewers

Somen(Aka white noodle): Thin, white, noodles usually served cold and accompanied by dipping sauce.

Anmitsu: A Japanese dessert that dates to the Meiji era. It is made of small cubes of agar jelly, a white translucent jelly made from red algae. The agar is dissolved with water to make the jelly.

Yakisoba(Aka fried noodles): A Japanese noodle stir-fry dish. Usually soba means buckwheat, but soba in yakisoba means Chinese noodles (Chuuka soba) made from wheat flour, and are typically flavored with a condiment similar to Worcestershire sauce.

Ramen(Aka noodle): Quick-cooking egg noodles usually served in a broth with bits of meat and vegetables.

Shabu-shabu: A Japanese dish consisting of thinly sliced beef and vegetables cooked briefly in simmering broth at the table.

Yokan: A jellied dessert or confection made typically from a thick red-bean paste, sugar, and agar, formed into a solid block and eaten in slices.

Hiyayakko(Aka chilled tofu): A classic Japanese side dish. Say bye to "plain old tofu" with colorful toppings like scallions, ham and shiso, and enjoy with a versatile konbu soy sauce

Hiyashi chuka(Aka chilled Chinese): A Chinese noodle style Japanese dish consisting of chilled ramen noodles with various toppings served in the summer.

Mochi: A Japanese rice cake made of mochigome, a short-grain japonica glutinous rice, and sometimes other ingredients such as water, sugar, and cornstarch. The rice is pounded into paste and molded into the desired shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki.

After they done having a fun, they went back to the summer house to rest. And they make barbecue at night for dinner. They also made sandwich too! Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But, Mayuki had a peanut allergic, so, she eats jelly sandwich only instead peanut butter.

For Neko-Sufi, even she lives her own in the big house at forest, she has friends, Maria, Elisa and Rolanda, she meets at café she usually go. So, she can go to the vacation with them on summer. Like went to the beaches, dancefloor and karaoke to sing. And their favourite snack is s'mores, ice cream, slushy and etc.

S'mores: A sweet snack consisting of a chocolate bar and toasted marshmallows sandwiched between graham crackers.

After they done, they went back to the hotel to rest

[aliciameade]

Have Your Cake

Title: Have Your Cake Author: aliciameade Rating: E for Extra Fun Pairing: Beca/Chloe...and Aubrey?! AKA the juggernaut that is: Triple Treble Summary: “I want you.” Beca grins and pulls her close, words spilling out without thinking. “I want you...and her.”

Fully inspired by/based on S1E4 of The L Word Generation Q and Alice, Nat, and Gigi.

Shout out to the peeps who waited 3 years for me to write this threesome in Finding Harmony only for me to never write it. (This isn’t part of FH, to be clear.)

Also on AO3

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“Are we busy Saturday night?”

Beca watches from the other side of the dinner table as Chloe thinks about it and then consults her phone’s calendar.

“Nope,” Chloe says with a smile before setting down her phone in favor of her fork and the Thai-inspired stir fry they’d made together that evening. “What’s going on?”

“I got invited to this thing.” She knows she’s being too vague. She should have been more specific to prevent further questioning.

“Ooh, what kind of thing?” Chloe asks with a curious waggle of her eyebrows before she takes a sip from her wine glass.

“A party. A birthday party,” she amends.

Chloe perks up. (Not that she was un-perky before.) “Ooh, fun! Do you want to ask Aubrey if she wants to trade weekends?”

Beca glances at their daughter, oblivious to the conversation thanks to the joy of rice noodles. Sophie had commented more than once during their cooking adventure that the noodles looked like her own blonde waves and Beca knows they’re still not clear of the possibility that one of them will be washing fish sauce out of her hair tonight.

“Uh, yeah, about that,” she chuckles and nervously rubs at the back of her neck. “It’s, uh...it’s actually Aubrey’s birthday party? So we’d need to find a sitter.”

She sees the perkiness fade from Chloe’s face. “You’re going to Aubrey’s birthday party?”

“You know we’re trying our best to make this work,” Beca says quickly and quietly, hoping to mend the tear before it frays out of control. “It’s just a party. Amy rented out a whole club for the entire night. There’s going to be a ton of people there. It could be fun. You know we have to try—” she glances at Sophie who smiles up at her just then with an enormous ball of noodles wrapped around her fork and chooses her words carefully. “It’s for the best if we can all have a nice time together.”

“Mommy’s having a birthday party?” 

Beca winces; she could have chosen a better venue to bridge this topic with Chloe, such as any venue where the daughter she had with her ex-wife wasn’t in attendance. Her relationship with Aubrey had been sudden and a whirlwind, or more like a hurricane. She stormed into Beca’s life and somehow they married, had a child, and divorced within five short years.

And now she has Chloe with whom, Beca realized way, way late but apparently not too late, she was always meant to be. She was dumb to not realize it earlier. Then again if she had, she wouldn’t have married Aubrey, but then she wouldn’t have Sophie, and she can’t imagine life without her.

(The fact that Chloe and Aubrey had been best friends when they were all in college together had made for a lot of contentious conversations over the years.

Beca has always wondered if there was more to the contention than two best friends falling for the same person.)

“She is!” she answers. “But this one’s for her grown-up friends. You’re going to celebrate with her on her official birthday.”

“Okay,” Sophie says happily before refocusing on her noodles.

Beca’s own focus shifts back to Chloe. The tension that had appeared in her features when Beca had explained the event has faded.

“I was just surprised I wasn’t invited,” she says, seemingly explaining herself. “What time on Saturday? I’ll see if Abigail can stay with Soph.”

Beca relaxes and offers a gentle smile. “She said you should come, too. I should have clarified. I don’t think she intentionally didn’t invite you personally; it came up when we were texting the other day. And she told me 9:00.”

“So, 10:00?”

Beca can see the humor in Chloe’s eyes and finds relief. “Yeah, make it 10:00.” Chloe knows how Beca hates being first to any event whether a baby shower or a red carpet and something about that, as small as it is, makes her feel warm and fuzzy.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Inevitably, there are photographers waiting at all entrances to Aubrey’s party venue when Beca and Chloe arrive; Beca even asks the driver to circle the block hoping to find a clear entrance to no avail.

Pushing through shouting photographers and blinding flashes, they walk hand-in-hand into the very upscale West Hollywood club Amy’s commandeered for the festivities. They both take it with a grain of salt; after all, there’s no such thing as bad press and Beca’s been in the studio working on an album with a number one pop star and the sequel to Chloe’s sleeper hit indie film is opening in a few months.

“Remember when we used to start our nights at midnight?” Beca asks over the music as they check out the lay of the land in the club. “It’s barely 10:00 and I’d like being in bed right now just as much as this. Maybe more.”

She means to be whining about how they’re getting older; after all, they’re at Aubrey’s 35th birthday party. However, in classic Chloe fashion that makes Beca roll her eyes just as much as it makes her smile, Chloe leans close to whisper hotly in her ear, “I promise, you’d like being in bed right now a lot more than this.”

“Keep it in your pants. We at least need to make an appearance before dragging me into a dark corner.”

“Like I’d really have to drag you,” Chloe says before pressing a kiss to Beca’s cheek, followed by her neck. “And I’m wearing a dress, not pants.”

Beca smirks to herself and slips her arm around Chloe’s waist. They’re still making up for a decade of lost time together and Beca is as wildly attracted to her now as she was when she was 18.

Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. 

Well, not that dumb. She was wildly attracted to Aubrey when she was 18, too. Aubrey was just the one that was brave enough to make a move. Beca can still remember the vitriol laced with sadness seeping from Chloe when she walked in on them kissing in Aubrey’s hotel room in New York while traveling for a competition.

When she spots a few members of the cast of her current favorite TV show, Beca muses to herself how absurd it is that the three of them found the success they did. The indie movie about dragons (with questionable special effects) Chloe had booked to help ends meet in grad school had blown up far past the core audience of the readers of the book it was adapted from. She now has three more films lined up—more adaptations of books in the series (with better special effects). It had almost been a joke when she auditioned and now she was one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

Aubrey started with Lighthouse Television as an intern on their legal team. Seven years later, she had a corner office on the top floor. Four more years and a massive corruption scandal that she blew the whistle on, and she was running the entire network.

Of the three, Beca’s the only one who planned to end up with the career she has today. But the fact that any of them have the careers they have at all is, she knows, more than a little unlikely. She remembers a journalist once asked Chloe what was in the water back at quaint Barden University.

When they finally find Aubrey, she’s talking to several people Beca doesn’t recognize but she can tell they all recognize her and/or Chloe by the looks on their faces as they approach.

“You guys came!” Aubrey says, interrupting her own conversation to leave the group and rush over to hug them, first Chloe, then Beca. She’s wearing a sparkly black dress, fitted at the bust with a free-flowing skirt that stops a few inches above her knees. Her hair is down, save for the bit that’s clipped back above her left ear, and for a moment, Beca remembers the things that made her fall for the woman all those years ago.

Beca feels her linger a second or two too long and eases out of their embrace. “Happy Birthday!” she says. “This party is amazing!”

“Oh, you know how Amy is,” Aubrey says with a wave of her hand. “The word ‘understated’ doesn’t exist in her vocabulary. Where are your drinks?” she continues, barely stopping to breathe. She’s already tipsy; Beca can see it in the color of her cheeks and the way her shoulders aren’t holding their perfect posture. “Let me get you a drink.” Her hand is up and snapping before either of them can politely offer to fetch one themselves. “These two are my best friends,” she says to the waitress who appears from seemingly nowhere. “Get them anything they want.”

She and Chloe exchange a look at Aubrey labeling them as her best friends. They’ve been little more than strained acquaintances since Beca and Chloe got married, keeping up the bare minimum of civility required when co-parenting a child of divorce.

“What can I get you?” they’re asked.

“Bourbon,” Beca answers. “On the rocks.”

Chloe eyes her and Beca knows what she’s thinking: that she hasn’t anything stronger than wine in a long time. They’ve both been so busy with work and family that nights out have been few and far between. “Vodka soda with a splash of cranberry,” Chloe orders for herself and Beca gives her the same look.

Maybe they’re both in dire need of a fun night.

Chloe shrugs in response and threads her fingers with Beca’s.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m actually in the middle of a business conversation,” Aubrey says with a glance over her shoulder at the group she abandoned. “Go enjoy the party. I’ll find you guys later, okay?”

“Working at your own birthday party?” Chloe asks. Beca thinks there’s more than a hint of judgment laced with the comment but Aubrey just nods in response before returning to her presumed colleagues.

“Come on,” Beca says to distract Chloe from whatever weirdness is happening. “Dance with me.” She gives her hand a tug to lead them toward the dance floor.

“But our drinks,” Chloe says with a glance over her shoulder even though her feet are following Beca.

“She’ll find us.” Beca reels Chloe in close when they hit the polished black dance floor; she’s determined to have a good time tonight. “Dance with me,” she repeats and watches Chloe’s distraction disappear. 

Chloe’s arms slip around Beca’s waist to hold her just as closely. “It’s been a while.”

“Exactly,” Beca says as she leans in to touch her lips to Chloe’s as they fall into an easy rhythm together.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

The waitress definitely found them.

Beca’s hanging on to Chloe to keep herself upright as they laugh. She doesn’t even know what they’re laughing about but it’s so hilarious she can barely catch her breath and Chloe’s laughter in her ear sounds prettier than any song Beca’s ever heard. Chloe runs a hand through her fiery curls and it stirs up her perfume. It draws Beca in like a magnet and her lips are on her neck while Chloe continues to laugh.

Not that Beca minds. A happy Chloe is the most attractive Chloe there is and Chloe’s hands are moving over Beca with possessive purpose. Parties like this, full of “industry people,” are the only places they’re safe to act like themselves. They can’t go to a regular bar on a normal night without causing an uproar, let alone feel each other up on the dance floor without angering their publicists with tabloid photos and trending on Twitter or becoming a meme.

She never got that freedom with Chloe; Beca was already walking red carpets when they finally found each other. Their entire relationship, they’ve had to do their best to be “appropriate” (whatever that means) in public. 

Tonight, though, Beca’s teeth nip at Chloe’s neck playfully when she feels Chloe’s fingertips slipping under the waistband of her black pants to tease her.

“What are you doing?” Beca asks before lifting her head to kiss Chloe instead of letting her respond.

“What does it feel like?” Chloe mumbles against her lips before cutting off any follow-up questions by giving Beca’s tongue something better to do.

She loses track of time after that. She can feel the edge of the bar digging into her back as Chloe presses against her like she can’t get close enough. They haven’t stopped kissing except for the brief moments needed to breathe or down their very, very strong drinks that keep appearing on the bar behind Beca without anyone asking for another. Chloe’s managed to undo at least three buttons on Beca’s white blouse and Beca is grateful that she isn’t wearing a front-clasping bra because if she was, she knows Chloe would undo it and people would really get a show.

Even so, Chloe knows exactly what she’s doing and how to touch Beca to have her teetering on the sharp edge of climax without having to unbutton her pants and Beca’s having to fight off the orgasm Chloe’s managed to drive her to. Not because she doesn’t want to come, but because she doesn’t want to come in a room full of people. At least, not tonight.

Her eyes flutter open when Chloe shifts her attention back to Beca’s neck and in the strobing, flashing lights of the club, Beca notices Aubrey a few yards away. She’s not sure why she noticed her of all the people in the club in the two seconds her eyes were open. Maybe it was because Aubrey’s eyes were already on her. Or them? Watching.

Maybe it’s the bourbon, but something about that manages to turn Beca on further. The hint of jealousy she can read. The memories of the times she and Aubrey were all over each other in a club under the shield of anonymity. The way she was always able to crack Aubrey’s resistance to risky behavior and have a lot of fun together over the course of their hot, heavy, and tumultuous relationship.

And it’s not like the divorce magically made Beca’s attraction to her disappear overnight. Sure, it has waned over the years. It’s hard to notice anyone else when Chloe’s in the room.

She still notices Aubrey, though, and makes a point of guiding Chloe away from her neck to give hers the same treatment. Aubrey doesn’t look away; in fact, a hint of a smile touches her lips when Beca holds her gaze while her tongue glides along Chloe’s skin.

Beca’s too slow to react when Chloe pulls away, intent on kissing her again, when she notices Beca’s eyes aren’t closed. Or even trained on Chloe.

“Who are you looking at?” Chloe asks, slurring a little as she turns to follow Beca’s gaze.

“No one,” Beca says. She knows she maybe should panic when Chloe spots Aubrey, at least a little, but the bourbon and lust are sitting so warm in her belly and brain that she just kind of smiles as she says it.

When Chloe turns back to her, she looks a little sympathetic. “She’s really beautiful.”

“You’re beautifuller,” Beca says as she tries to lean in for another kiss.

“Wait, wait,” Chloe giggles, though her question is serious. “Is there a tiny part of you that still wants her? You can tell me, you know. I trust you.” Her hands are still moving, caressing Beca’s face and neck and the bare skin of her chest where her shirt is open.

“I want you.” Beca grins and pulls her close, words spilling out without thinking. “I want you...and her.”

It’s the bourbon. It’s definitely the bourbon. And the arousal throbbing between her legs. A flash of regret zips through her when she realizes what she said. It wasn’t something she’d ever thought about until 30 seconds ago.

“Right?” Chloe says after a surprised silence. Her smile looks devilish before it’s kissing Beca again. Then she’s turning to wave at Aubrey. “Hey! Come here! We need you!”

Beca doesn’t know if Aubrey can hear Chloe but she crosses the room anyway, tottering a little on her heels with a drink in her hand.

Beca can’t help it. She can’t help but stare at her ex-wife and remember how every inch of her skin tastes and feels and the way her voice sounds when she— 

“Hi,” Aubrey says with an easy smile.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Beca’s not sure who brought whom to the club manager’s office but Chloe’s closing and locking the door behind them when Beca feels Aubrey’s hand on her lower back.

She also doesn’t remember a discussion happening. She remembers replying to Aubrey’s, “Hi,” with a “Hey,” of her own and now she’s standing by while Chloe and Aubrey seem to size one another up with a level of heat and intensity that shouldn’t exist between two former best friends.

Chloe glances at Beca who just nods, because whatever this is, whatever is happening, she wants it to continue.

And then her current wife is leaning in to kiss her ex-wife.

It shouldn’t be hot; she ought to be angry or jealous but instead, she bites her lip to stop the moan that wants to escape just from watching Aubrey tilt Chloe’s head to slip her tongue into her mouth. If Beca’s underwear weren’t already ruined from Chloe’s advances earlier, witnessing that would have done it.

And Beca thinks Chloe would have every right to be angry or jealous when the kiss ends and Aubrey turns toward Beca, but instead, Chloe’s hand is on the back of Beca’s neck, guiding her right into Aubrey’s kiss with a look of excitement.

She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to kiss Aubrey. She was a precision kisser, calculated even in their wildest moments, always working to make Beca’s toes curl and this is no different. Her tongue teases over Beca’s with skill and familiarity that makes it easy for Beca to shake off the last vestiges of hesitation about what’s about to happen.

What is already happening.

She’s barely getting used to it when the hand at her neck guides her away from Aubrey and pulls her into Chloe.

Unlike Aubrey’s precision, Chloe’s kisses are wild and barely contained, always walking the line of passionate sloppiness without crossing it (well, sometimes she crosses it when they really get going). She feels a third hand on her back, and then just two again, as a third tongue slips its way somehow into their kiss.

It’s not like Beca’s never done this before. She and Chloe have what Beca feels is a very active, adventurous, healthy sex life. They’ve taken a woman on a date, intentions and possibilities known and agreed to by all, and brought her back to a luxury hotel room (because they would never bring a stranger into their home) for sex. Not because they were bored with each other, but to the contrary: they wanted to see how wild and daring they were comfortable getting.

She thinks, foggily as she bows out of the triple-kiss to re-introduce herself to the way Aubrey’s neck feels under her tongue to let Chloe and her get used to each other, that having a ménage à trois with her former and current wives is pretty damn wild and daring.

There are hands on her, out of synch in their missions but familiar in their confidence. There’s one on her ass and she knows it’s Aubrey’s. There’s another in her shirt, somehow fully unbuttoned now, holding her breast and she knows it’s Chloe’s. 

Her own hands are roaming and long to touch Aubrey in places she hasn’t in so many years. It’s automatic to reach for and find the zipper at the back of her dress and, to her surprise, there’s already a hand there.

The fact that it’s Chloe, and that Chloe is on the same page, makes her dip her other hand right between Chloe’s legs, under her dress, to press against her.

She hears Chloe’s soft moan and feels Aubrey react to it (or to the fact that they’re both unzipping her dress), the hand on her ass gripping harder. Beca has to look because there’s no way this is happening (right?) and she eases back from sucking on Aubrey’s neck long enough to see that she’s found her wife’s chest and is quite actively toying with Chloe’s nipple, which is so hard Beca can see the details through her dress even in the dark of the room. It makes her mouth water.

She needs four hands and two mouths. That’s the only way this night isn’t going to be a constant battle of satisfaction versus frustration.

At the very least, they need to not be standing in the middle of the room. She’s about to push them toward the large sectional couch along the far wall when Aubrey starts to pull both of them in that very direction.

Aubrey lands first and she pulls Chloe down with her to resume a kiss that Beca knows, from first-hand experience, is surely melting both of them. Beca follows, everyone shifting further backward, and molds herself to Chloe’s back, chin hooked over her shoulder to watch them.

She lets her hands move over Chloe, over her chest to feel for herself how hard her nipples are, down to her waist and hips and thighs to notice that Chloe’s landed with her knee between Aubrey’s, straddling her thigh as she kneels.

It’s quite a show, Beca thinks, watching them kiss. They kiss like they’ve been waiting to kiss for years.

Beca would know. She’s been that person.

And she has a front-row seat to it as she clings to Chloe’s back, chin on her shoulder as her arms frame Chloe’s hips as her hands rest on Aubrey’s thighs. She can feel Chloe’s restlessness, shifting and twisting every few seconds that is a clear tell that she is starting to get desperate for touch. Chloe getting turned on by Aubrey turns Beca on even more. She can’t help but bite at Chloe’s shoulder, bare next to the strap of her dress.

Aubrey’s eyes flutter and their eyes meet before they’re closed again, Aubrey whimpering as Chloe’s entire body shifts forward to press closer. It makes Beca reach for Chloe to flatten her palm and run it under the hem of the top of her two-piece dress. She feels Aubrey’s hand skate over her own to run up Chloe’s body until it’s shifting to reach for Beca. Her hand finds Beca’s face and cradles it as Beca’s mouth shifts to Chloe’s neck.

She can feel Aubrey’s fingertips as they trace her hairline, the edge of her ear, the line of her jaw, the softness of Beca’s bottom lip until her finger is slipping into Beca’s mouth.

It makes Beca moan and she takes Aubrey into her mouth, lips traveling to her knuckle before she pulls back, sucking as she goes. Her hands move up over Chloe’s ribs until Beca’s hands are over her breasts. She squeezes and Chloe’s reaction is to kiss Aubrey more deeply, the two of them moaning.

But Aubrey retreats, pulling back from Chloe’s kiss enough to get her attention and turn it toward Beca with a tilt of her chin. Chloe turns to look just as Aubrey’s finger slips from Beca’s lips. Beca feels the tip of it under her chin, guiding her up to kiss Chloe—not that she needed guidance—who kisses her hungrily.

Aubrey’s hands are on Chloe and Beca knows it. Their hands are crossing paths as they both reach for her, grazing at her chest and bumping at her hips.

“Please,” Chloe whispers against Beca’s lips as they kiss. She doesn’t say what she wants, but she doesn’t need to. Beca pulls and pushes at her hips until she gets the hint and turns, falling back against Aubrey whose arms immediately encircle her. Beca takes a step back for a second, just to watch as Aubrey’s hands push Chloe’s top higher and higher until her bra is exposed, as Chloe tilts her head back so she can find Aubrey’s mouth, how Aubrey’s legs part so Chloe can sit between them.

Chloe’s hands reach out toward Beca and Beca makes her wait, just for a moment or two, until Chloe whines and drops her hands, one to Aubrey’s thigh and the other two her own. It quickly moves up Chloe’s thigh and Beca’s about to reach for it and stop her from getting too far when Aubrey does it for her.

She looks up to find Aubrey watching her, still kissing Chloe as she pulls Chloe’s hand away from herself with audible protest. It makes Beca reach for Chloe, hands skating up her thighs to hook her fingers into the waistband of her thong and pull it down her legs and past the heels Chloe is still wearing.

It takes the last ounce of self-control Beca has to not immediately reach between Chloe’s legs. Instead, she moves up, dropping kisses over Chloe’s bare stomach and the swells of her breasts where Aubrey’s hands are, to Chloe’s throat and chin until her mouth is on Beca’s instead of Aubrey’s.

Chloe’s entire body rolls with their reconnection, or maybe it’s because Aubrey’s hands are at her back unhooking her bra. She feels Chloe’s repeated plea against her lips more than she hears it, but Aubrey definitely hears it. Chloe’s suddenly being pushed toward Beca, guided until they’re both upright and on their knees. Beca blindly pulls Chloe’s loosened bra away and the top of her dress being removed interrupts their kiss for a second only to resume with even more fervor.

Beca can feel Aubrey moving and with a brief glance, sees her on her knees as well, behind Chloe so close as she kisses Chloe’s neck just inches from Beca. She can feel Aubrey’s hands moving between them; they’re on Chloe, on her stomach and on her breasts, but Beca’s so close that they’re touching her, too, and her impatience gets the best of her.

She stops drawing out the foreplay and skates her hand up Chloe’s thigh under her skirt until it’s between her legs.

Chloe’s mouth slips away from Beca’s with a startlingly loud moan and Beca can feel just why that is. Chloe’s so wet that it actually takes Beca a second to feel more than just slick wetness beneath her fingers.

“Fuck,” Beca exhales. She savors it, her own breath catching when she feels how swollen Chloe is. When she opens her eyes she’s expecting to see Chloe’s face but instead, it’s Aubrey’s. Her eyes are dark and fixated on Beca’s. Beca’s compelled to lean forward and kiss her and she knows Aubrey wants the same. They try, but with Chloe between them, they can’t quite reach one another. Instead, they stare until Aubrey’s eyes fall closed and there’s another, this time surprised, moan spilling from Chloe’s lips.

Chloe’s head lolls back to rest against Aubrey’s shoulder and she looks down her nose at Beca, nothing but wild lust in her eyes before her hips rock forward. It pushes Beca’s hand further between her legs and it’s Beca’s turn to moan. Her fingers bump into something she hasn’t felt between Chloe’s legs before: Aubrey’s hand. 

Specifically, she can feel where Aubrey’s fingers disappear into Chloe as Aubrey reaches her from behind.

It’s an out-of-body experience, really. To be sharing her wife with the woman with whom she used to share so much. With whom she still shares so much.

She and Aubrey had never done something like this, not with a third person. They’d been young and wild but in a different way than she and Chloe are.

“Oh, my God,” Chloe says through another moan as Beca feels Aubrey’s fingers start to slip in and out. Her hips follow and the motion spurs Beca’s own fingers into proper action.

Her fingertips press against Chloe and move in the way she knows can drive Chloe over the edge in a few short minutes. It isn’t that she wants it to end quickly, but she’s overwhelmed by the need to make Chloe feel good, to help Aubrey blow Chloe’s mind.

Hands grab at and touch Beca all over; she can’t keep track of whose hands they are and she doesn’t care to try. She’s too busy fucking Chloe with Aubrey, 

She loses herself in it, the cadence the three of them fall into, fingers and hips moving in a coordinated, if frantic, rhythm. Hands clutch at her hips and she knows Chloe’s close and fighting it. Beca opens her eyes to watch it happen and she meets Aubrey’s gaze first as Aubrey’s lips and tongue move across Chloe’s shoulder to her neck to her ear.

Beca sees the words Aubrey whispers in Chloe’s ear more than she hears them; it’s difficult to hear over Chloe’s voice and their empathetic answering moans.

Chloe comes with a wanton cry, one hand gripping Beca’s wrist between her legs, the other clutching the back of Aubrey’s neck.

It’s a beautiful sight and for a moment, Beca thinks she could come, too, right there, from watching Chloe’s experience and sharing in it with Aubrey.

Aubrey, who’s staring at Beca with a look she hasn’t born witness to in years. A look that Beca’s never forgotten and neither has her body if the way the ache between her legs spikes in intensity because she knows what it means.

Chloe’s still coming down from her high, half-collapsed against Aubrey when Chloe mumbles a breathless, “That was so hot,” followed by a whimper. A few seconds later, Beca notices Aubrey has her own fingers in her mouth and Beca knows they’re the same fingers she’s just withdrawn from Chloe.

Chloe, in her uber-relaxed state, slumps to the side and Beca and Aubrey help to slow her collapse. They’ve barely finished getting her situated when Aubrey’s surging forward to kiss Beca.

It makes Beca’s head spin. Aubrey tastes like Chloe and she moans into the kiss as Aubrey’s hands start to undress her.  Her shirt, already unbuttoned, is pulled down her arms, followed by her bra.

She doesn’t remember when her pants had been unbuttoned but they’re already loose around her hips when Aubrey’s pushing them down. They don’t make it far, still on her knees as she is, but Aubrey’s solution to that is to grab Beca’s hips and turn her to trade places.

“Up,” Aubrey says against Beca’s lips and she doesn’t understand until her ass hits the back of the couch. It’s deep enough that Beca is able to slide onto it to sit and as soon as she’s seated, Aubrey’s working her pants past her knees.

At the same time, Beca feels her heels be slipped off though Aubrey’s hands are definitely on her pants and she glances down to see Chloe, though still dreamy-eyed, has come back to herself and is helping Aubrey undress Beca.

Two different hands pull at her underwear and Beca knows she’s about to find out just how hot it was for Chloe to have the two of them fucking her. She feels dizzy and digs her nails into the edge of the couch and leans back against the wall, almost fearful of passing out because her heart is beating so quickly.

She already knows what Aubrey is going to do; the look she’d given Beca was her warning and she watches as Aubrey guides her thighs apart and gets onto her own hands and knees to be able to put her tongue on Beca.

It feels like it’s in slow-motion as Aubrey’s pointed, purposeful tongue draws a line between her legs, moaning as she does so.

It makes Beca’s jaw drop and her hand fly to the back of Aubrey’s head, fingers twisting into soft blond hair she hasn’t held this way in so many years. She’s sure she makes some kind of sound, probably a sound she’d be ashamed of in any other scenario. It hasn’t even finished escaping her lips when Chloe’s mouth is on hers.

She moans again, senses quickly overwhelmed by the dormant memories of how Aubrey used to make love to her roaring back to real life and Chloe’s wild, passionate kisses that seem to be as reassuring as they are purely sexual.

There are hands at her breasts and they aren’t moving in sync. One caresses while the other squeezes. One pinches while the other pulls.

She has to tear her mouth from Chloe’s to try to catch her breath but it offers little reprieve; Chloe’s lips drop to Beca’s chest instead to suck hard. She glances down and regrets it instantly because Aubrey’s hand is tangled in Chloe’s hair, pushing her mouth to Beca’s breast just as Chloe’s hand covers Beca’s to push Aubrey closer.

It sends her over the edge without warning, gasping for breath as she shudders. She can hear Aubrey moaning; she’d always gotten off on making Beca come, and she wonders if she’s touching herself and coming. Or if Chloe’s touching her. Or if she’s coming just from the intensity of the moment like Beca nearly did.

It’s the last coherent thought she has before she can’t think any longer.

She’s still trying to recover when she feels Aubrey disappear from between her legs. She whines at the loss and starts to protest when she sees the reason for her absence: Chloe’s pulled Aubrey away by her hair and is pulling her—not gently—back up to her knees until she’s claiming her mouth.

All Beca can do is watch; she’s too spent to do anything but watch as Chloe kisses Aubrey deeply. As Chloe’s hand disappears between Aubrey’s legs. As Aubrey’s head tips back with a groan.

They quickly lose themselves in each other but they don’t forget about Beca. Aubrey’s hand, the one not holding on to Chloe, roams Beca’s body. Chloe’s hand is on her thigh, just holding on as though she’s keeping Chloe from floating away.

Maybe she is, Beca thinks as, mind still hazy, she notices her hand is between her own legs.

She notices it almost distractedly, like an afterthought, that she’s touching herself while her wife and her ex fuck right next to her.

There’s no room to care about modesty or feel ashamed. She’s still so turned on that she has to press hard to get any friction against herself. Soaked in the same way Chloe was—and probably still is.

Aubrey and Chloe’s voices sound so good together, she does manage to note, and she focuses on them. It’s too difficult to keep her eyes open to watch so she listens. She listens to Aubrey’s increasingly desperate moans, to Chloe’s sighs and words of encouragement, to the unmistakable sounds of wetness—her own and Aubrey’s. She feels Aubrey’s fingers tugging on her nipple and Chloe’s nails on her inner thigh. Feels her own fingers on her clit.

She hears how close Aubrey is and, unexpectedly, how close Chloe is as well.

Chloe had been the sole giver when Beca had closed her eyes and she has to open them to see what’s happening, to see the way Aubrey’s hand moves between Chloe’s legs and how their hips buck as they ride each other’s fingers.

It yanks Beca right to the edge just as they climax and her own rushes through her in tandem with theirs.

All she can register beside her ecstasy is how good they all sound together. Just like they used to.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Beca is still drunk.

It’s the first thing she notices when she wakes up. She’s also thirsty and feels like she needs a shower.

It’s also far too early to be awake—it’s still dark—and she turns over to move in closer to Chloe, warm and soft next to her.

She’s just drifting off again when there’s movement behind her and an arm slipping around her waist followed by lips on the back of her shoulder.

Her mind is foggy and it takes a few seconds to register that it isn’t Chloe because Chloe is in front of her, not behind. Then she catches a whiff of familiar perfume.

The memories of last night surface and though Beca thinks she should probably be horrified or embarrassed, she’s instead filled with a kind of warmth and she moves her foot backward to slip between Aubrey’s.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

The next time she wakes up, the bedroom is alight with the orange glow of dawn. She’s no longer drunk and she’s awake and is alone with her thoughts and memories until she feels Chloe stir.

She’s awake, too, and wiggles until she’s turned over to face Beca. “Morning,” Chloe says with a sleepy smile. For a moment, Beca wonders if Chloe remembers what transpired the night before until Chloe asks, “How are you?”

“I’m good,” she replies. And she is, Beca thinks. She’s okay with what happened. It was a wild, drunken encounter between three consenting adults, all of whom trust and care for the others. “Are you?”

Chloe beams at her, even through her hangover, and nods.

“Oh, my God, my head is pounding.”

The voice startles Beca as it breaks their whispered conversation. She cranes her neck to look over her shoulder at Aubrey sitting up next to her, one hand holding the sheet to her chest, the other clutching her forehead.

“I can make coffee,” Chloe says helpfully and starts to move but Beca touches her hip to tell her to stay.

“It’s okay, I’ll do it.” She’s been awake long enough that the threat of physical movement causing instant nausea has lessened.

She detangles herself from the sheets to crawl off the foot of the bed; there’s a familiar graze of fingertips across her shoulder and it stirs bittersweet nostalgia within her. It’s only when she’s on her feet and turning back while she tugs a T-shirt over her head to face what’s in her bed that the gravity genuinely sets in. She’s out of bed, out of the bubble, and she feels it pop.

She slept with her ex-wife last night.

So did her wife.

Nausea rushes her and she thinks she might gag but her reaction to the stress is interrupted by the pounding of a tiny fist on the door.

“Mama!”

“Shit,” Aubrey hisses, suddenly coming back to life as she scrambles out of bed.

“Just a minute, sweetie!” Chloe sing-songs and Beca can hear the panic in her voice.

Beca feels stuck and her brain is struggling to process; she doesn’t know what will happen if Sophie walks in to find her Mom, Mama, and Mommy having a sleepover together.

“Can I lock the door?!” Aubrey whisper-shouts as she frantically searches for items of her clothing to get dressed. 

“Yes, you can lock the door!” Beca manages to say, brain beginning to work and feet starting to move to find shorts to put on. 

“It wasn’t already locked?” Chloe asks from the bed she’s making while she’s still in it.

Aubrey’s running around so quickly, Beca’s not sure she won’t set the floor on fire. “Aubrey, she can’t see you; slow down.”

“I’m supposed to pick her up for our trip to the aquarium in—” she looks at a phone she finds on the floor—“five minutes!”

“In your dress from the party?” Chloe asks as she crawls out from under the covers and to the end of the bed.

“Walk of shame, I guess,” Aubrey says she tries to shove her arms into the sleeves of her dress that’s on backward.

“Oh, my God, here,” Beca says as she finds and hands Aubrey another of her tees.

Aubrey looks at it and frowns. “Budweiser? Really?”

“Turn it inside out.”

“You know, there’s no shame in—” Beca starts but Aubrey cuts her off.

“I’m going to go around the back and ring the doorbell, okay?” she says, already heading for the sliding glass door. “Crush some aspirin and put it in my coffee? I’m dying.”

“Yeah, sure,” Chloe says from her spot on the bed. She’s eating a piece of cake and Beca does a double-take. She has no idea where she got cake from.

“Savior,” Aubrey says before she disappears, still holding her heels instead of wearing them.

“Mom!” Sophie shouts again.

“Just a sec, sweetheart!” Beca calls in response as she starts toward the door, only to stop and look at Chloe, naked in bed eating mystery cake with a smile. “Are we...fine?”

Chloe shrugs and sucks the frosting off the tines of her fork. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

Beca makes a mental note to circle back on this situation once they’re both clear-headed and pulls open the bedroom door just as the doorbell rings. “Good morning, my big girl!” she says as she reaches down to lift her daughter and hug her good morning. “Did you hear the doorbell? Mommy’s here! Let’s go say ‘hi’!”

Aubrey looks impossibly flustered when Beca opens the front door and, she realizes, the morning panic was unnecessary. It’s not as though Sophie is old enough to understand what a Walk of Shame looks like or what it even meant for Aubrey to spend the night with Beca and Chloe.

“Morning,” she says with a smirk as she hands her wiggling-with-excitement daughter to Aubrey who immediately showers her face with kisses.

Aubrey doesn’t quite make eye contact, instead choosing to stay focused on making Sophie giggle.

“I’m making coffee.” The words drift past them as Chloe makes her way to the kitchen. “You’re welcome to join us for a cup,” she adds.

Aubrey does meet Beca’s eyes then as if questioning the invitation, or maybe asking for permission.

“Come on in,” Beca says after a beat, stepping aside to let Aubrey [back] into their home.

She doesn’t understand what transpired between them. Maybe she isn’t supposed to. She doesn’t regret it, at least not yet. It was fun. It was hot. And Chloe actually inviting Aubrey [back] into their home this morning and not being upset is a relief. Their long-held and only-somewhat thinly veiled contempt for one another has been exhausting for Beca to navigate and, at least for the moment, seems to have evaporated.

Beca can’t say she minds as she closes the door to join them in the kitchen.

It would be kind of nice to have Aubrey around more without the tension.

And if there was tension...Beca thinks as she watches Chloe tease Aubrey by tickling at her lower back...they have a pretty good way to relieve it.

The End

[missguomeiyun]

dinner @ DaGu

BACK AGAIN :D

Slowly working my way thru their menu~

I was close to ordering something from the “all in” soups from their menu, but I went for the crossing the bridge noodles again. The contents are the same, but somehow I’m just more drawn to this set-up, & I like the joy of adding each item into my soup lol again, I got extra beef slices bcos.. . it’s just not enough, what’s included in the soup already.

Ta-daaa~ The kimchi + fatty beef soup. It smelled pretty much like kimchi jjigae, which isn’t surprising.

Something that I didn’t notice before (since I’ve never ordered this soup before) was: there was baby shrimp in this. For those who are allergic to seafood/shrimp, maybe choose another option. What we noticed first was actually on their appetizer menu, they have “kimchi”, but in Chinese, they wrote “baby shrimp kimchi”. We were like hmm.. . contains shrimp? Includes shrimp paste in the fermentation process? Traditionally, kimchi contains fish sauce. & I guess there are others that use shrimp in there. Anyway, I found small whole shrimps (the salted kinds used as a condiment) in my soup. And I mean SMALL. They’re like 10cm in length. I liked it, but not sure if others would freak out by the looks of them.

Everything is added~

I got 2 bowls of noodles bcos.. . I can :P

You know what, I enjoyed this flavour but at the same time, it just didn’t really work for me. I love kimchi jjigae, I love rice vermicelli.. . This tasted like a watered down kimchi jjigae. Flavour was less rich & flavourful as a normal kimchi jjigae bcos I guess “jjigae” is a stew, so naturally, it’s just thicker & there’s more depth to it. While this kimchi + fatty beef soup.. . it was more flat. Still a little spicy & savoury but it tasted more plain.

I don’t think I’ll order this again, but I still liked it!

This was also ordered: the sticky rice with brown sugar. I didn’t try it bcos Clara described it as a “soggy ddeok” (”ddeok” = rice cake” in Korean); I simply don’t like soggy ddeok. She said the whole thing is soft, but you can tell there are individual grains of sticky rice in it. The sauce was a sweet brown sugar syrup, & it was topped with injeolmi powder (aka, mung bean powder - the same kind that Korean desserts have).

[fiti-vation]

Hey ☺️ Been a follower for a while and I find what you post so incredibly helpful; I’ve always felt intimidated by both exercise and how to eat the right way for who I am so that I end up not doing anything usually even though I feel almost desperate to. I’m a pescatarian but rarely eat fish (so practically a veggie) and I struggle with how to get enough protein and iron. I take multivits with iron most days but still have very low energy. Any advice on easy protein/iron? Thank you so much!🙏🏼

Aww thank you very much for the kind words and support love!

There’s a lot of advice out there on how to incorporate more protein into your diet, and if I’m being honest, it can sometimes feel like too much to think about. Whether you’re paleo, vegan, or counting macros, everybody needs protein. My motto when it comes to getting enough protein is to focus on the essential. Instead of focusing on protein focus on getting enough of the amino acids your body cannot make by itself!

A bit of nutrition science (I’ll simplify everything down below): Protein is an important nutrient required for the building, maintenance, and repair of tissues in the body. Proteins are made out of smaller molecules called amino acids, which are linked together like beads on a string. The linked amino acids form long protein chains, which are then folded into complex shapes.Some of these amino acids can be produced by the body, while we must get others from the diet. The ones we cannot produce and must get from our foods are called the “essential” amino acids.

English please 💁🏽‍♀️: Here’s the simplified version of what I just said: Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and they can be synthesized by the body or ingested from food. There are 20 different amino acids (some sources list 22) in the food we eat, but our body can only make 11 of them. The nine essential amino acids, which cannot be produced by the body, must be obtained from the diet. If you scroll through my blog, you’ll notice I’ve often elaborated on this topic before.

A variety of grains, legumes, and vegetables can provide all of the essential amino acids our bodies require. However, keep in mind that since grains, legumes, and vegetables are incomplete sources of protein you’ll have to combine these foods (protein combining (or protein complementing) – more on that later. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics posits that protein from a variety of plant foods eaten during the course of a day supplies enough of all essential amino acids when caloric requirements are met.

Protein Requirements

A lot of people consume protein without knowing their daily protein requirement.  Before you start to incorporate more protein into your diet it’s very important to have an idea of how much you should consume daily. Obviously, this will depend on many factors such as your weight, your fitness goals, how active you are, and your age. That said, however, in the athletic world, there is no greater debate than how much protein you require on a daily basis. There are a number of varying recommendations and calculations when it comes to how much protein you should be consuming. On closer inspection, the daily intake of protein depends on age and activity level. For example, weight trainers and teenagers require more protein than a sedentary individual.There are a few calculations that can be used in terms of protein recommendations.

The RDA increases by 30 grams per day during pregnancy and 20 grams per day during lactation. During growth, different amounts are needed. For example, 2.2 grams of protein are needed per kilogram of body weight each day in the first six months of life, and 2.0 grams per kilogram for the next six months.

Many nutritional experts feel the RDA for protein is far too low and is only suitable for sedentary adults. For those who are active, insulin sensitive, overweight or seeking weight loss or are in their teenage years, the amount of protein should be higher. If this is the case, you will likely need to increase your protein intake from the RDA’s recommendation of 0.8 g/kg to 1.2-1.8 g/kg. The calculation would be:

1. Weight in pounds divided by 2.2 = weight in kg2. Weight in kg x 0.8-1.8 gm/kg = protein gm

If you are pregnant, recovering from an illness, stuck in a metabolic rut, under stress or work out intensely, I recommend using a number between 1 and 1.8. The calculation would be:

Example: 150 lb female who is a regular exerciser and lifts weights150 lbs/2.2 = 68kg68kg x 1.5 = 102 gm protein/day

Protein Quality

Once you’ve determined from which foods you can get your essential amino acids and also your required daily protein intake – you can begin to incorporate more protein into your diet according to your needs. As I’ve mentioned earlier grains, legumes, and vegetables are incomplete sources of protein, so you’ll have to combine foods to get all of your essential amino acids!  Protein complementation is essential if you decide not to eat any animal-based products. It simply means ‘putting together 2 or more sources of protein together to make sure you get the 9 essential amino acids’. And remember although there are only 9 essential amino acids, the body uses 20 amino acids to make its proteins, so make sure you eat enough! Complementary proteins do not need to be eaten together, so long as the day’s meals supply them all.

Vegetables are quite often low in the Amino Acids Methionine and Isoleucine. These are important for heart health, muscle recovery and blood sugar regulation. So, if you tried to survive on veggies alone you probably wouldn’t be doing all that well.

You could try a diet of grains (which seem to make up the majority of most people’s diet… but don’t necessarily include them in their raw form unfortunately). As I’ve discussed above, grains are low in Lysine, but also in Threonine and Tryptophan. These three-control bone development, hormone production, sleep and regulate moods. So, if you lived off grains alone you’d be a tired, cranky, hormonal mess probably with Osteoporosis!

Onto Nuts and Seeds, which are deficient in Lysine and Isoleucine which have been previously mentioned for their involvement in bone development, muscle recovery and blood sugar regulation. Likewise, with Legumes which are low in Methionine and Tryptophan for heart health, sleep and mood regulation.

So, as you can see you can’t live off any one of these categories alone, however, if you combine the correct foods and have a good variety you won’t be missing out at all! If you want to ensure you have a Complete amount of protein with every meal, consider combining the following…

So simply pick the base of your meal and add one of the two options and you’ll be laughing. Note that, combining at each meal isn’t necessary! Alternatively, if that doesn’t suit the meal you’re trying to make, just make sure you eat a good variety of all four by the end of the day and your diet will be full of Complete protein by the end of the day. 

Also keep in mind that even if you don’t have time to meal prep to combine foods, we have a 30-foot-long digestive tract and foods transit through it in somewhere between 14 – 30 hours. This means that proteins will be combined in the small intestines all day. As long as you eat a variety of plant foods, such as nuts, seeds, whole grains, legumes (beans, peas, lentils), and greens, your protein needs can be easily met.

Here are some common meal items that naturally complement each others’ proteins/ Some ideas for foods which you can put together to combine protein:

Beans and rice or tortillas

Peanut butter sandwich/Peanut butter on bread 

Baked beans toast

Poached egg and toast

Macaroni and cheese

Tofu with rice (or any grain)

Taco/tortilla & beans

Black Bean Burritos

Hummus with pita bread

Grilled cheese sandwich

Peanut Butter Spaghetti

Yogurt with nuts

Noodle stir-fry with peanut or sesame seed sauce

Lentil soup or dairy-based soup with bread

Whole grain cereal with milk

Pizza

Lasagna

Tacos filled with beans or lentils

Quinoa salad with black beans and feta

Corn, beans and squash are the three sacred crops of the indigenous peoples of North America. The Iroquois called them ‘The Three Sisters.” When combined in equal amounts, they provide 100% of the essential amino acids – rivaling animal foods. Additionally, quinoa, and soy are nearly complete vegetable proteins on their own.

Other tips

Before I end this, here are a few more tips that I personally use to make my life easier when it comes to incorporating protein:

1. Invest in a good BCAA supplement, my favourite BCAA supplement is ALLMAX Nutrition, Aminocore – the key lime pie flavour! -  I haven’t tried the other flavour yet but I will. You can make delicious lemonades during hot summer days. You can also make BCAA popsickles. I drink BCCA every day before and after my workouts. P.S. it’s available at Walmart

2. Also invest in some quality vegan protein! Protein shakes are an amazing way to achieve your daily protein intake requirements. As I’ve mentioned before protein shakes aren’t disgusting – but it’s the way one makes his protein shake that makes it disgusting. I hate mixing protein shakes with just water – it’s just yuck, I don’t know how people can just drink protein powder with water 🤢🤮 (my opinion though – don’t @ me please 🙃). You gotta add some life to the protein shake!!! I once made a protein shake with:

Vanilla protein powder (25g protein)

Strawberries

Coconut water

Almond milk

I also did:

Fruit blast Tropical powder blend (21 g of protein)

Coconut water

Almond milk 

Baby spinach + Pineapple & Mango

3. If your feeling fancy, make delicious smoked salmon bagel sandwiches. It’s easy to prepare and a real delight for your tummy.  I bought some smoked salmon for $2.49 the other day at GT Boutique (aka Giant Tiger). I don’t think GT exists in the States so try Walmart. Here are the instructions:

4. You can make a variety of mouthwatering salads packed with proteins. Here are 2 of my favourite salads that are super easy to make.

5. Here are a few non-meat protein sources:

You can also take a look at these posts from my blog for more ideas:

Plant protein energy kit [X]

Protein shakes [X]

48 delicious protein shake recipes [X]

10 vegetarian ways to eat your daily protein [X]

10 ways to add protein to your breakfast [X]

8 Must-Have Veggies for Building Muscles [X]

No meat muscle: 4 Rules for building lean mass on a vegetarian diet [X]

7 unique sources of protein [X]

Top sources of plant based protein [X]

Hope this was helpful and you enjoyed,Stephanie 😊

[igrublocal]

11 Absolute Best Takeout Tricks for Weight Loss | Eat This Not That

Takeout can sometimes feel like a free pass. We secretly love it because it feels good to throw caution to the wind and surrender our dietary choices to the higher powers of whatever restaurant we're ordering from. It can even feel right to do that—takeout is a treat and we should be able to indulge as much as we want. This may very well be true if takeout was reserved for special occasions only, but during the pandemic, it has quickly become a reliable go-to in feeding ourselves and our families. It's safe to assume that no matter what your prior eating habits were, you are now enjoying more takeout food than ever. So it's even more important to be mindful of what you're eating and how you can make better diet choices, especially if weight loss is your end goal.

Don't think of healthy food as deprivation or an all-or-nothing deal—there are so many small, incremental steps you can take that will still support your weight loss goals. Try these tips and swaps next time you order takeout, and regain control over what you're eating. Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest food and diet news delivered straight to your inbox.

Put it on a plate

"Eating your takeout meal right out of the container may cause you to eat more as portions are usually large, especially with Chinese or Indian dishes," says Lisa Andrews, MEd, RD, LD, and owner of Sound Bites Nutrition. Instead, turn your takeout food into a dignified sit-down dinner, where you're truly enjoying every bite at the kitchen or dining table. After you've filled your plate with one serving, put the rest of the food away so you're not tempted to go back for seconds. You'll also have leftovers for tomorrow—here's how to store them properly.

If you're ordering an indulgent dish, split it

If you really want to go for that chicken tikka masala or lo mein, get an order to split with your family, and supplement the meal with a healthier side order or a big salad. We often order way more food than we need because we think that each person needs their own main dish. If your splitting the food with several people, order fewer mains and mix and match among the group. You'll get to try several delicious things, and you'll likely feel more satisfied while eating less food. Here are the 101 Unhealthiest Menu Items in America.

Don't go for the unhealthiest options

If you're going to eat takeout several times a week, make sure you're balancing your fast food cravings with options that are more suitable for weight loss. Already had pizza this week? Opt for sushi, a salad, or a grain bowl instead. Craving Chinese? Go for it, but don't get the notoriously unhealthy General Tso's chicken (laden with fat and deep fried). Make sure you avoid 7 Worst Takeout and Delivery Foods Ever.

Order a healthy veggie side for a good balance

No matter what type of restaurant you're ordering from, there are bound to be several vegetable-forward options on the menu. If you supplement your meal with a side of roasted broccoli or a nice big Greek salad, you'll be less inclined to eat the whole order of pasta that came with it. This way, you're also making sure you're getting your daily dose of greens without compromising the main you truly want.

More on Restaurants

Ask for healthier swaps

Most restaurants will let you swap out white rice for brown rice or quinoa, and plain pasta for whole-grain pasta or even zucchini noodles. If you're getting a sandwich, go for baby carrots or a side salad instead of a bag of potato chips, and instead of French fries with your burger, how about a nice side of deliciously roasted Brussels sprouts or some sweet potato fries? There are so many ways you can lighten the calorie load of your meal! Check out our list of 40 Food Swaps to Lose Weight.

Don't ruin it with soda

Just because soda and pizza or soda and burgers seem like such a quintessential pairing doesn't mean you're actually obligated to order it. Try skipping soda (or any other type of fountain drink for that matter) to reduce your sugar intake and avoid unhealthy synthetic sweeteners. Instead try some seltzer water—the refreshing satisfaction will still be there without all the extra calories. Here's a list of 108 Most Popular Sodas Ranked by How Toxic They Are.

Do away with sugary condiments

Condiments are the spice of life, am I right? But they're also very easily overlooked when you're tallying up the calories of your meal, because we feel like they're just implied. Sauces like ketchup, sriracha, mayo, and honey mustard actually pack significant amounts of sugar, and the calories can quickly add up when we're using them on our food liberally (aka squirting them mindlessly on anything and everything). First off, try to appreciate the flavor of whole foods, vegetables, and meat without having to douse them in condiments. If you still need a bit of flavor, opt for a yogurt-based sauce like tzatziki or a fresh salsa. Learn about the best and worst condiments for weight loss here.

Get the dressing on the side or make your own

Salad dressing can be just as tricky as condiments. If you're eating a salad mixed with a ton of ranch dressing, you're doing yourself a disservice. Again, opt for lighter yogurt- or olive oil–based options, or make one of these healthy salad dressings at home. You can also ask for dressing on the side and use it sparingly in your dish. (Same goes for dips that come with your dumplings.) These are the 20 Unhealthiest Salad Dressings on the Planet.

Skip the fried stuff

Fried foods have a sneaky way of finding their way onto so many menu options that tempt us. From appetizers like fried potstickers, spring rolls, samosas, and mozz sticks, to mains that feature fried stuff like chimichangas, chicken parm, and French fries, it can sometimes feel like fried food is the easiest and most delicious option. But if you're truly watching your weight, the fried stuff needs to go. Opt instead for pan-seared or roasted protein like salmon or rotisserie chicken, baked or mashed potatoes instead of fries, and appetizers like salads, roasted vegetables, or hummus. These are the 19 Unhealthiest Restaurant Appetizers in America.

Blot the extra grease

It may seem silly, but you can actually get rid of a lot of extra oil from your food by blotting it with a paper towel. Make it a habit to remove extra grease from your pizza before you eat it, and you could be shaving off up to 40 calories a slice. Who's laughing now?

Even if you're opting for a dish that mostly consists of carbs, there are ways to minimize the damage to your waistline. If you're eating a sandwich or a burger, get rid of the top slice of bread and eat it open-faced; if you're going for pizza, opt for thin crust and avoid deep dish, and if you're craving a burrito, skip the tortilla and get a burrito bowl instead. You'll feel just as satisfied without being bogged down and zapped of energy. Get more tips with 9 Genius Tricks for Cutting Carbs You've Never Tried.

She Lost 100 Pounds—And Shows You How!

Registered Dietitian and Nutritionist Ilana Muhlstein lost her weight and kept it off—and in You Can Drop It!, she'll show you how to lose it, too. More than 240,000 clients have chosen her program—and now it’s yours to keep.

[emarislaughsmaniacally]

(via What's that Smell? Cordite vs. Gunpowder vs. Propellant)

APRIL 30, 2015 / Ben Sobieck

TLDR: Avoid depicting cordite, use gunpowder as a default, reference propellant to look like a smarty pants.

Gunpowder propellant cordite fiction writing

Modern gunpowder (aka propellant) doesn’t always look like a powder. It’s still OK to call it gunpowder when writing, though.

When articles debunk common firearm tropes in fiction, they usually mention how the “smell of cordite” isn’t in the air after a gunfight. Cordite’s heyday as the substance that makes a gun go bang started in the late 1800s and ended with the close of World War II. That means scenes set after 1945 wouldn’t include cordite.

What isn’t usually explained is a better alternative. Browse the aisles of a sporting goods store (always a good idea when researching guns and knives) and you’ll spot canisters labeled gunpowder, blackpowder, propellant, smokeless powder, blackpowder substitute, muzzleloader powder, Pyrodex® and other proprietary names, and itching powder (wait, turn around, you’ve left the store and wandered into a Three Stooges sketch). They all do about the same thing, so why are there so many kinds?

Different powders are designed for specific purposes. Some are designed for older firearms that can’t take the extreme pressures of modern powders. Others are high-performance rocket fuel for the latest guns. These commercial powders are used to manufacture ammunition at home or as part of a business. (Yes, that’s legal to do in the civilian world.)

Cheat Sheet

You don’t need to know the specifics to determine the best term to use in your writing. This cheat sheet sums it up nicely, but by no means is an exhaustive list.

Blackpowder/Black Powder (pick one and be consistent) – Use this term in settings from from the dawn of firearms in 9th century China to the 1880s. Antique or vintage-style firearms would use blackpowder after that.

Cordite – Only use in settings from about 1889 to 1945. Fun fact: instead of powder, cordite actually looks like tiny spaghetti noodles.

* Gunpowder – A blanket term OK to use in any setting, even if the material isn’t too powder-y. This gets the gold star as the best go-to term. Writing this as gun powder (two words) isn’t common but still acceptable so long as it’s used consistently.

Propellant – Any substance that makes a gun go bang is technically a propellant, but today this usage normally applies to a variety of modern powders that don’t always look powder-y to the eye. Check out the cylinder-shaped grains in the photo at the top for an example. Use propellant if a modern character is exceptionally familiar with firearms or if you want your writing to look hip.

What’s that Smell? Cordite

Although they’re similar, each formula of powder has a distinct aroma to hang in characters’ nostrils. I’ve never caught a whiff of cordite, but you can get the sense of it by sticking your schnoz near some nail polish remover. Acetone is a primary ingredient in both nail polish remover and cordite. I’ve read that cordite smoke is sharp and a little sweet.

Blog reader Ralph Schneider wrote to me to offer this perspective:

Acetone was used (as a solvent, presumably) in the manufacture of cordite, but I doubt that it remained as any part of the finished material itself—so the odor of acetone isn’t present if you take a whiff of the unburned cords (trust me on this), and it certainly would not be a part of the complex of odors present when guns using cordite have been fired.

Recently, as part of an experiment determining the corrosive nature of some primers in modern ammunition, I had occasion to pull the bullets from a couple of rounds of .303 British ammo and empty out the cordite strands. It is pretty much as you described it—looks like short pieces of spaghetti—but a dark tan in color.

What’s that Smell? Blackpowder

Blackpowder smoke is musty and sulfuric. The farther back in history you go, the worse it probably smelled, although I don’t have a source for that. Impurities likely made their way into the powder as people made the stuff in all sorts of conditions. And nothing smells better than burning horse shit.

As blog reader Darren pointed out in the comments below, it may be necessary to use the vanilla term “gunpowder” if the character making the reference to it is in a setting prior to 1884. There wasn’t a need to distinguish “blackpowder” from anything else. It was the only game in town. After smokeless powders came along in 1884, there became a need to tell the difference between the two versions. (Thank you, Darren, for the excellent tip.)

What’s that Smell? Modern Gunpowder/Propellant

Most modern gunpowder/propellant has an acrid bite to it, but it usually isn’t overwhelming. Much depends on the kind of firearm and whether the shooter is indoors or outdoors. There’s a reason indoor gun ranges use high-tech ventilation systems. (OK, sometimes that tech is just a window, but still.)

As for any other unusual smells on the scene, I’m looking at you, dear writer. I won’t judge you unless you blame it on the dog.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Get the Book

The Writers Guide to WeaponsThe Writer’s Guide to Weapons: A Practical Reference for Using Firearms and Knives in Fiction (Writer’s Digest Book by Ben Sobieck) comes with everything but the ammo. Pick up a print or digital copy from these fine retailers:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Writer’s Digest Shop

[pestheart6-blog]

chicken and veggie stir-fry

Forget about take out! This easy and healthy Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry is a 30 minute veggie-heavy dinner the whole family will love. It’s grain-free and soy-free so that means it’s Paleo friendly! It’s loaded with broccoli, peppers and boneless skinless chicken breast. 

This year I am thrilled to be partnering with one of my favorite brands, La Tourangellle Artisan Oils. I have been in love with their oils for years, and have even featured them here on Healthy Seasonal Recipes in an unofficial capacity before. I have always loved them for their high quality, heart healthy pure oils. Not to mention for their drop-dead gorgeous packaging! But recently I learned there is even more to love. La Tourangelle is family owned and was originally in France. Now it operates using the same 150 year old techniques at a mill in California- the only one of its kind here in the states!

Anyway, I could gush on and on forever, so I am going to try to stay somewhat focused today. I have a super simple paleo-friendly stir-fry with chicken and veggies in it. I thought it would be a great healthy recipe to share during the January paleo challenge my husband and I are doing.

Speaking of which, eating paleo (aka grain-free and dairy free) this month is going great! Jase told me this morning he has already lost 8 pounds! And my belly issues have improved! It’s amazing! Thank you so much for all of your support during this time! I am so grateful for you guys!  

Anyway, back to this recipe…

One of the things I wanted to talk about is about why I used two different oils in it. But first, we have to talk about smoke point.

The Smoke Point of Oils

Do you know what the smoke point of oil is? That’s the temperature at which an oil starts to go from being a liquid to a vapor and it gradually begins starting to smoke. You’ve likely seen this before, if you are heating up oil in your skillet, and get distracted, and all of a sudden your skillet is smoking! Well that’s because it got so hot that it reached its smoke point. When it does, the oil’s structure breaks down (which isn’t healthy) and it’ll take on a foul taste and smell. Different oils have different smoke points. Luckily you can look right on the packaging of La Tourangelle artisan oils to see which should be used at lower temps and which can be used at higher ones. There is a little thermometer letting you know which type of oil it is.

The smoke point is why I decided that I wanted to use two separate oils for this recipe. First I used grape-seed oil which is a high-heat neutral cooking oil. I used that to sear the chicken and veggies over high heat. Since it has a high smoke point, the oil is not damaged by the higher heat required in a stir-fry. And then I added Toasted Sesame Oil as a second, super flavorful, oil to add to the sauce to make the veggies and chicken flavors pop! The liquid in the sauce brings the temperature of the pan down, and prevents the oil from getting to that smoke point.

How to Make Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry

If you have a wok, this is the time to bust it out. This stir-fry has a lot of veggies in it, so you will need it for its big size. If you don’t have one and are thinking of getting one, I really love mine. It is basic, but that’s all you need. Get one with a rounded bottom and a lid like this one (that’s an affiliate link) if you can.

If you don’t have a wok, use a very large heavy bottom skillet. You’ll need a lid that can fit over it too.

As always, with stir-fries, it’s important to get your mis en place together before you begin. Stir-fries are quick and completely hands-on, so you won’t have time to be chopping or stirring once the food hits that hot oil!

I like to cut my veggies first, then the chicken. That way I only have to wash and sanitize the cutting board once. Once it’s cut, just set everything next to the stove in prep bowls.

Get that wok or skillet hot! Add the oil in and swirl it to coat the surface. Then the chicken cooks first. Add it onto the cooking surface in a single layer so that it can sear. It will stick to the surface if you try to move it around, so just let it sit for several minutes and get a nice golden brown sear on the bottom surface. Then take your spatula, and scoop up some of the chicken and flip it over onto an uncooked side. You can’t be too fussy about this because it’ll be hotter than blazes and the oil may be spluttering about, so just flip it all as best you can. At this point the chicken will likely bring your cooking surface temperature down a bit, so it will not take on too much additional browning, and it will be easier to stir once or twice. To see if it is cooked through, use your spatula to split a piece in half. There should be no pink in the center.

Take the chicken out of the wok or skillet when it is cooked through and set it aside on a plate or bowl. Covering it with foil is helpful to keep the heat in and trap any moisture that wants to evaporate.

Next the veggies need to be stir-fried. So you need more oil. But if there is any moisture in the wok or skillet you will get splattering, so let it evaporate for a second or two before adding in the second tablespoon of oil. Again, swirl it to coat the surface.

Then add in the veggies! I used a combo of broccoli, peppers and onions because that is a slam dunk combo in my family. If you prefer other veggies, use them instead. Just try to keep in mind its best to cook veggies that cook at the same rate, and to cut harder, slower cooking veggies into smaller pieces to make sure they become tender.

After the veggies have had a chance to get a bit blistered in the hot oil, next comes in the sauce!

The sauce is made up of simple ingredients. If you are not paleo, you can use tamari or soy sauce instead of coconut aminos. And you can use Sriracha instead of Sambal Oelek. As I said earlier, the La Tourangelle toasted sesame oil is rich and flavorful and it will add a lot of complex flavor to the final dish.

The sauce is thickened with arrowroot starch which is a staple in a paleo pantry because it is grain-free but works like cornstarch to thicken sauces. It can also be used in baking or as a substitute in other recipes like pancakes. Swap 2 teaspoons of cornstarch for the arrowroot if you prefer it and aren’t paleo.

Once the sauce is added, set the lid on top of the wok or skillet and let the veggies steam in the sauce. To make sure the veggies cook evenly, take the lid off and stir the veggies in to the sauce a couple times while it is cooking. The veggies will become tender in just a few minutes. I prefer a nice bit of toothsome texture to my veggies when I make a stir-fry so I often err or the shorter end of the spectrum.

All that’s left is adding the chicken back in! I also add in some scallions to layer in the flavor.

I served the Paleo Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry with cauliflower rice. If you are not grain free some other options would be brown rice or rice noodles.

To try either of these delicious high quality artisan oils by La Tourangelle, you can pop right over here to have them sent right to your doorstep! 

QUESTIONS:

Have you ever let a skillet of oil get too hot?

Have you ever tasted oil that has gotten past its smoke point?

What kind of veggies do you add to a stir-fry that you know your family will love?

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chicken and veggie stir-fry

Description

Forget about take-out! This easy and healthy Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry is a 30 minute veggie-heavy dinner the whole family will love. It’s grain-free and soy-free so that means it’s Paleo friendly! It’s loaded with broccoli, peppers and boneless skinless chicken breast.

Ingredients

½ cup chicken broth

3 tablespoons coconut aminos

1 tablespoon maple syrup

2 teaspoons Sambal Oelek, Chili garlic sauce or Sriracha

2 teaspoons La Tourangelle Toasted Sesame Oil 

2 teaspoons arrowroot starch

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized cubes

½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt

½ teaspoon ground white pepper

2 tablespoons La Tourangelle Grapeseed Oil, divided

2 bell peppers, any color, cut into bite-sized strips

1 medium sweet onion, sliced

2 cup chopped broccoli florets

¾ cup sliced scallions

Instructions

Whisk broth, coconut aminos, maple syrup, chili sauce, La Tourangelle Toasted Sesame Oil and arrowroot in a small bowl.

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 tablespoon La Tourangelle Grapeseed Oil in a wok or large heavy skillet over high heat. Swirl to coat the cooking surface and add chicken in a single layer, and let cook, undisturbed until seared, 2 to 3 minutes. Turn the chicken over and continue cooking, stirring once or twice more until the chicken is browned and cooked through, 2 to 4 minutes longer. Transfer the chicken and any liquid from the wok or skillet to a large plate and cover with foil.

If the wok or skillet is moist, set over the heat and allow any liquid to evaporate. Once the surface is dry, add the remaining tablespoon oil and swirl to coat the hot cooking surface. Add peppers, onion and broccoli, and stir fry until the peppers are browned and blistered in spots, and the onions are starting to soften, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the sauce, toss to coat and cover. Let cook, covered (stirring once or twice) until the broccoli is bright green and the onions are tender, about 4 minutes. Remove lid, stir in chicken and any accumulated juices from the plate and scallions and cook until heated through and the sauce is loosened by the chicken liquid. Serve hot.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1 1/2 cups

Calories: 278

Fat: 12 g

Saturated Fat: 2 g

Carbohydrates: 19 g

Fiber: 7 g

Protein: 25 g

Keywords: stir-fry,paleo,gluten-free,grain-free,wheat-free,dairy-free,chicken,vegetables,healthy,entree,30 minutes

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Source: https://www.healthyseasonalrecipes.com/chicken-and-veggie-stir-fry/

[bulbspoon9-blog]

chicken and veggie stir-fry

Forget about take out! This easy and healthy Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry is a 30 minute veggie-heavy dinner the whole family will love. It’s grain-free and soy-free so that means it’s Paleo friendly! It’s loaded with broccoli, peppers and boneless skinless chicken breast. 

This year I am thrilled to be partnering with one of my favorite brands, La Tourangellle Artisan Oils. I have been in love with their oils for years, and have even featured them here on Healthy Seasonal Recipes in an unofficial capacity before. I have always loved them for their high quality, heart healthy pure oils. Not to mention for their drop-dead gorgeous packaging! But recently I learned there is even more to love. La Tourangelle is family owned and was originally in France. Now it operates using the same 150 year old techniques at a mill in California- the only one of its kind here in the states!

Anyway, I could gush on and on forever, so I am going to try to stay somewhat focused today. I have a super simple paleo-friendly stir-fry with chicken and veggies in it. I thought it would be a great healthy recipe to share during the January paleo challenge my husband and I are doing.

Speaking of which, eating paleo (aka grain-free and dairy free) this month is going great! Jase told me this morning he has already lost 8 pounds! And my belly issues have improved! It’s amazing! Thank you so much for all of your support during this time! I am so grateful for you guys!  

Anyway, back to this recipe…

One of the things I wanted to talk about is about why I used two different oils in it. But first, we have to talk about smoke point.

The Smoke Point of Oils

Do you know what the smoke point of oil is? That’s the temperature at which an oil starts to go from being a liquid to a vapor and it gradually begins starting to smoke. You’ve likely seen this before, if you are heating up oil in your skillet, and get distracted, and all of a sudden your skillet is smoking! Well that’s because it got so hot that it reached its smoke point. When it does, the oil’s structure breaks down (which isn’t healthy) and it’ll take on a foul taste and smell. Different oils have different smoke points. Luckily you can look right on the packaging of La Tourangelle artisan oils to see which should be used at lower temps and which can be used at higher ones. There is a little thermometer letting you know which type of oil it is.

The smoke point is why I decided that I wanted to use two separate oils for this recipe. First I used grape-seed oil which is a high-heat neutral cooking oil. I used that to sear the chicken and veggies over high heat. Since it has a high smoke point, the oil is not damaged by the higher heat required in a stir-fry. And then I added Toasted Sesame Oil as a second, super flavorful, oil to add to the sauce to make the veggies and chicken flavors pop! The liquid in the sauce brings the temperature of the pan down, and prevents the oil from getting to that smoke point.

How to Make Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry

If you have a wok, this is the time to bust it out. This stir-fry has a lot of veggies in it, so you will need it for its big size. If you don’t have one and are thinking of getting one, I really love mine. It is basic, but that’s all you need. Get one with a rounded bottom and a lid like this one (that’s an affiliate link) if you can.

If you don’t have a wok, use a very large heavy bottom skillet. You’ll need a lid that can fit over it too.

As always, with stir-fries, it’s important to get your mis en place together before you begin. Stir-fries are quick and completely hands-on, so you won’t have time to be chopping or stirring once the food hits that hot oil!

I like to cut my veggies first, then the chicken. That way I only have to wash and sanitize the cutting board once. Once it’s cut, just set everything next to the stove in prep bowls.

Get that wok or skillet hot! Add the oil in and swirl it to coat the surface. Then the chicken cooks first. Add it onto the cooking surface in a single layer so that it can sear. It will stick to the surface if you try to move it around, so just let it sit for several minutes and get a nice golden brown sear on the bottom surface. Then take your spatula, and scoop up some of the chicken and flip it over onto an uncooked side. You can’t be too fussy about this because it’ll be hotter than blazes and the oil may be spluttering about, so just flip it all as best you can. At this point the chicken will likely bring your cooking surface temperature down a bit, so it will not take on too much additional browning, and it will be easier to stir once or twice. To see if it is cooked through, use your spatula to split a piece in half. There should be no pink in the center.

Take the chicken out of the wok or skillet when it is cooked through and set it aside on a plate or bowl. Covering it with foil is helpful to keep the heat in and trap any moisture that wants to evaporate.

Next the veggies need to be stir-fried. So you need more oil. But if there is any moisture in the wok or skillet you will get splattering, so let it evaporate for a second or two before adding in the second tablespoon of oil. Again, swirl it to coat the surface.

Then add in the veggies! I used a combo of broccoli, peppers and onions because that is a slam dunk combo in my family. If you prefer other veggies, use them instead. Just try to keep in mind its best to cook veggies that cook at the same rate, and to cut harder, slower cooking veggies into smaller pieces to make sure they become tender.

After the veggies have had a chance to get a bit blistered in the hot oil, next comes in the sauce!

The sauce is made up of simple ingredients. If you are not paleo, you can use tamari or soy sauce instead of coconut aminos. And you can use Sriracha instead of Sambal Oelek. As I said earlier, the La Tourangelle toasted sesame oil is rich and flavorful and it will add a lot of complex flavor to the final dish.

The sauce is thickened with arrowroot starch which is a staple in a paleo pantry because it is grain-free but works like cornstarch to thicken sauces. It can also be used in baking or as a substitute in other recipes like pancakes. Swap 2 teaspoons of cornstarch for the arrowroot if you prefer it and aren’t paleo.

Once the sauce is added, set the lid on top of the wok or skillet and let the veggies steam in the sauce. To make sure the veggies cook evenly, take the lid off and stir the veggies in to the sauce a couple times while it is cooking. The veggies will become tender in just a few minutes. I prefer a nice bit of toothsome texture to my veggies when I make a stir-fry so I often err or the shorter end of the spectrum.

All that’s left is adding the chicken back in! I also add in some scallions to layer in the flavor.

I served the Paleo Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry with cauliflower rice. If you are not grain free some other options would be brown rice or rice noodles.

To try either of these delicious high quality artisan oils by La Tourangelle, you can pop right over here to have them sent right to your doorstep! 

QUESTIONS:

Have you ever let a skillet of oil get too hot?

Have you ever tasted oil that has gotten past its smoke point?

What kind of veggies do you add to a stir-fry that you know your family will love?

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chicken and veggie stir-fry

Description

Forget about take-out! This easy and healthy Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry is a 30 minute veggie-heavy dinner the whole family will love. It’s grain-free and soy-free so that means it’s Paleo friendly! It’s loaded with broccoli, peppers and boneless skinless chicken breast.

Ingredients

½ cup chicken broth

3 tablespoons coconut aminos

1 tablespoon maple syrup

2 teaspoons Sambal Oelek, Chili garlic sauce or Sriracha

2 teaspoons La Tourangelle Toasted Sesame Oil 

2 teaspoons arrowroot starch

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized cubes

½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt

½ teaspoon ground white pepper

2 tablespoons La Tourangelle Grapeseed Oil, divided

2 bell peppers, any color, cut into bite-sized strips

1 medium sweet onion, sliced

2 cup chopped broccoli florets

¾ cup sliced scallions

Instructions

Whisk broth, coconut aminos, maple syrup, chili sauce, La Tourangelle Toasted Sesame Oil and arrowroot in a small bowl.

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 tablespoon La Tourangelle Grapeseed Oil in a wok or large heavy skillet over high heat. Swirl to coat the cooking surface and add chicken in a single layer, and let cook, undisturbed until seared, 2 to 3 minutes. Turn the chicken over and continue cooking, stirring once or twice more until the chicken is browned and cooked through, 2 to 4 minutes longer. Transfer the chicken and any liquid from the wok or skillet to a large plate and cover with foil.

If the wok or skillet is moist, set over the heat and allow any liquid to evaporate. Once the surface is dry, add the remaining tablespoon oil and swirl to coat the hot cooking surface. Add peppers, onion and broccoli, and stir fry until the peppers are browned and blistered in spots, and the onions are starting to soften, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the sauce, toss to coat and cover. Let cook, covered (stirring once or twice) until the broccoli is bright green and the onions are tender, about 4 minutes. Remove lid, stir in chicken and any accumulated juices from the plate and scallions and cook until heated through and the sauce is loosened by the chicken liquid. Serve hot.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1 1/2 cups

Calories: 278

Fat: 12 g

Saturated Fat: 2 g

Carbohydrates: 19 g

Fiber: 7 g

Protein: 25 g

Keywords: stir-fry,paleo,gluten-free,grain-free,wheat-free,dairy-free,chicken,vegetables,healthy,entree,30 minutes

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Source: https://www.healthyseasonalrecipes.com/chicken-and-veggie-stir-fry/

[coachdog96-blog]

chicken and veggie stir-fry

Forget about take out! This easy and healthy Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry is a 30 minute veggie-heavy dinner the whole family will love. It’s grain-free and soy-free so that means it’s Paleo friendly! It’s loaded with broccoli, peppers and boneless skinless chicken breast. 

This year I am thrilled to be partnering with one of my favorite brands, La Tourangellle Artisan Oils. I have been in love with their oils for years, and have even featured them here on Healthy Seasonal Recipes in an unofficial capacity before. I have always loved them for their high quality, heart healthy pure oils. Not to mention for their drop-dead gorgeous packaging! But recently I learned there is even more to love. La Tourangelle is family owned and was originally in France. Now it operates using the same 150 year old techniques at a mill in California- the only one of its kind here in the states!

Anyway, I could gush on and on forever, so I am going to try to stay somewhat focused today. I have a super simple paleo-friendly stir-fry with chicken and veggies in it. I thought it would be a great healthy recipe to share during the January paleo challenge my husband and I are doing.

Speaking of which, eating paleo (aka grain-free and dairy free) this month is going great! Jase told me this morning he has already lost 8 pounds! And my belly issues have improved! It’s amazing! Thank you so much for all of your support during this time! I am so grateful for you guys!  

Anyway, back to this recipe…

One of the things I wanted to talk about is about why I used two different oils in it. But first, we have to talk about smoke point.

The Smoke Point of Oils

Do you know what the smoke point of oil is? That’s the temperature at which an oil starts to go from being a liquid to a vapor and it gradually begins starting to smoke. You’ve likely seen this before, if you are heating up oil in your skillet, and get distracted, and all of a sudden your skillet is smoking! Well that’s because it got so hot that it reached its smoke point. When it does, the oil’s structure breaks down (which isn’t healthy) and it’ll take on a foul taste and smell. Different oils have different smoke points. Luckily you can look right on the packaging of La Tourangelle artisan oils to see which should be used at lower temps and which can be used at higher ones. There is a little thermometer letting you know which type of oil it is.

The smoke point is why I decided that I wanted to use two separate oils for this recipe. First I used grape-seed oil which is a high-heat neutral cooking oil. I used that to sear the chicken and veggies over high heat. Since it has a high smoke point, the oil is not damaged by the higher heat required in a stir-fry. And then I added Toasted Sesame Oil as a second, super flavorful, oil to add to the sauce to make the veggies and chicken flavors pop! The liquid in the sauce brings the temperature of the pan down, and prevents the oil from getting to that smoke point.

How to Make Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry

If you have a wok, this is the time to bust it out. This stir-fry has a lot of veggies in it, so you will need it for its big size. If you don’t have one and are thinking of getting one, I really love mine. It is basic, but that’s all you need. Get one with a rounded bottom and a lid like this one (that’s an affiliate link) if you can.

If you don’t have a wok, use a very large heavy bottom skillet. You’ll need a lid that can fit over it too.

As always, with stir-fries, it’s important to get your mis en place together before you begin. Stir-fries are quick and completely hands-on, so you won’t have time to be chopping or stirring once the food hits that hot oil!

I like to cut my veggies first, then the chicken. That way I only have to wash and sanitize the cutting board once. Once it’s cut, just set everything next to the stove in prep bowls.

Get that wok or skillet hot! Add the oil in and swirl it to coat the surface. Then the chicken cooks first. Add it onto the cooking surface in a single layer so that it can sear. It will stick to the surface if you try to move it around, so just let it sit for several minutes and get a nice golden brown sear on the bottom surface. Then take your spatula, and scoop up some of the chicken and flip it over onto an uncooked side. You can’t be too fussy about this because it’ll be hotter than blazes and the oil may be spluttering about, so just flip it all as best you can. At this point the chicken will likely bring your cooking surface temperature down a bit, so it will not take on too much additional browning, and it will be easier to stir once or twice. To see if it is cooked through, use your spatula to split a piece in half. There should be no pink in the center.

Take the chicken out of the wok or skillet when it is cooked through and set it aside on a plate or bowl. Covering it with foil is helpful to keep the heat in and trap any moisture that wants to evaporate.

Next the veggies need to be stir-fried. So you need more oil. But if there is any moisture in the wok or skillet you will get splattering, so let it evaporate for a second or two before adding in the second tablespoon of oil. Again, swirl it to coat the surface.

Then add in the veggies! I used a combo of broccoli, peppers and onions because that is a slam dunk combo in my family. If you prefer other veggies, use them instead. Just try to keep in mind its best to cook veggies that cook at the same rate, and to cut harder, slower cooking veggies into smaller pieces to make sure they become tender.

After the veggies have had a chance to get a bit blistered in the hot oil, next comes in the sauce!

The sauce is made up of simple ingredients. If you are not paleo, you can use tamari or soy sauce instead of coconut aminos. And you can use Sriracha instead of Sambal Oelek. As I said earlier, the La Tourangelle toasted sesame oil is rich and flavorful and it will add a lot of complex flavor to the final dish.

The sauce is thickened with arrowroot starch which is a staple in a paleo pantry because it is grain-free but works like cornstarch to thicken sauces. It can also be used in baking or as a substitute in other recipes like pancakes. Swap 2 teaspoons of cornstarch for the arrowroot if you prefer it and aren’t paleo.

Once the sauce is added, set the lid on top of the wok or skillet and let the veggies steam in the sauce. To make sure the veggies cook evenly, take the lid off and stir the veggies in to the sauce a couple times while it is cooking. The veggies will become tender in just a few minutes. I prefer a nice bit of toothsome texture to my veggies when I make a stir-fry so I often err or the shorter end of the spectrum.

All that’s left is adding the chicken back in! I also add in some scallions to layer in the flavor.

I served the Paleo Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry with cauliflower rice. If you are not grain free some other options would be brown rice or rice noodles.

To try either of these delicious high quality artisan oils by La Tourangelle, you can pop right over here to have them sent right to your doorstep! 

QUESTIONS:

Have you ever let a skillet of oil get too hot?

Have you ever tasted oil that has gotten past its smoke point?

What kind of veggies do you add to a stir-fry that you know your family will love?

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chicken and veggie stir-fry

Description

Forget about take-out! This easy and healthy Chicken and Veggie Stir-fry is a 30 minute veggie-heavy dinner the whole family will love. It’s grain-free and soy-free so that means it’s Paleo friendly! It’s loaded with broccoli, peppers and boneless skinless chicken breast.

Ingredients

½ cup chicken broth

3 tablespoons coconut aminos

1 tablespoon maple syrup

2 teaspoons Sambal Oelek, Chili garlic sauce or Sriracha

2 teaspoons La Tourangelle Toasted Sesame Oil 

2 teaspoons arrowroot starch

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized cubes

½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt

½ teaspoon ground white pepper

2 tablespoons La Tourangelle Grapeseed Oil, divided

2 bell peppers, any color, cut into bite-sized strips

1 medium sweet onion, sliced

2 cup chopped broccoli florets

¾ cup sliced scallions

Instructions

Whisk broth, coconut aminos, maple syrup, chili sauce, La Tourangelle Toasted Sesame Oil and arrowroot in a small bowl.

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 tablespoon La Tourangelle Grapeseed Oil in a wok or large heavy skillet over high heat. Swirl to coat the cooking surface and add chicken in a single layer, and let cook, undisturbed until seared, 2 to 3 minutes. Turn the chicken over and continue cooking, stirring once or twice more until the chicken is browned and cooked through, 2 to 4 minutes longer. Transfer the chicken and any liquid from the wok or skillet to a large plate and cover with foil.

If the wok or skillet is moist, set over the heat and allow any liquid to evaporate. Once the surface is dry, add the remaining tablespoon oil and swirl to coat the hot cooking surface. Add peppers, onion and broccoli, and stir fry until the peppers are browned and blistered in spots, and the onions are starting to soften, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the sauce, toss to coat and cover. Let cook, covered (stirring once or twice) until the broccoli is bright green and the onions are tender, about 4 minutes. Remove lid, stir in chicken and any accumulated juices from the plate and scallions and cook until heated through and the sauce is loosened by the chicken liquid. Serve hot.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1 1/2 cups

Calories: 278

Fat: 12 g

Saturated Fat: 2 g

Carbohydrates: 19 g

Fiber: 7 g

Protein: 25 g

Keywords: stir-fry,paleo,gluten-free,grain-free,wheat-free,dairy-free,chicken,vegetables,healthy,entree,30 minutes

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Source: https://www.healthyseasonalrecipes.com/chicken-and-veggie-stir-fry/

[starvelikeastar]

Shalita Grant:

Shalita Grant is an actress on NCIS New Orleans. She lives by the motto, “Eat to fuel your body, not to stuff your feelings” . She can “nail a stunt, because her body is dope!”.  And just take a look, it is dope.

Hydration: 6 - 8 bottles of water (that’s 12-16 glasses!!) plus a 16 oz. Kampuchea.

Breakfast: Omelet

This omelet was freaking delicious!  And it was a proper portion.

This is a two-egg omelet with a 1/4 cup of sautéed kale, cooked in olive oil and seasoned with salt.  Bless her heart, a star who finally seasons her food! I guess all that time filming in New Orleans must have had an effect on her.

I was a little worried about how this would come out because I had to photograph it, but I was happy with the result.  Not all omelet attempts are a success.

First I sautéed the kale and set that aside, so my pan was good and hot when I added the eggs and kale.  I believe the key to a successful omelet is a hot pan, and to my delight, it worked.

A good breakfast really can change your outlook on the day.

I have to up my water game today.  I am sure filming in New Orleans keeps her thirsty and needing plenty of hydration!

Snack: Yogurt with Blueberries and Granola

This was the perfect little snack at the perfect little time.  It is a half cup of plain low-fat yogurt with a 1/4 cup each of blueberries and granola.

If I had to change anything, I would drizzle a little agave nectar on it for some sweetness, but I loved the texture, especially the crunch of the granola.  A 1/4 cup granola is more than you think.  I thought it would be gimp, but it wasn’t.

I like how this girl eats!  It’s been a great eating day so far.

Lunch: Salad

Look how beautiful this salad is!!  This consist of 1/2 cup of black beans, 1/4 cup of white rice, 1/4 cup of diced cucumber, 1/4 cup of diced red bell pepper, 1 tablespoon of white onion, fresh herbs, (basil, thyme, mint and chives....it’s what I have in my garden), dressed with 1 tablespoon each apple cider vinegar and olive oil.  It’s seasoned with salt and pepper.

It is both pretty and delicious!  I didn’t think a quarter cup of this and a quarter cup of that would add up to much, but it was the perfect portion.

To drink:  Kambucha.  I have never been a kambucha fan, so I chose one that had the most flavor.  This one had raspberry, lemon and ginger in it. I thought you were supposed to shake it before drinking. It exploded like a soda.  Luckily, I didn’t lose that much or make a big mess. Upon closer inspection, in very small print, it says, “Do not shake before opening”.  Oops.

This kambucha was actually very tasty, and I managed to drink all of it with lunch.

Snack: Kimchi

This is a 1/4 of a cup of kimchi, and was an odd and weirdly delicious snack.

For those of you who are not familiar with kimchi, it is fermented cabbage.  It is a staple of Korean cuisine. (It can actually refer to any fermented vegetables, but in America, we associate it with fermented cabbage).  If you were buy kimchi at the store, you would get cabbage.  I have not actually seen any other type of kimchi for sale.

Although I like kimchi, I would never think to just grab some from a jar as a snack.  I have had kimchi plenty of times, but always as an accompaniment to a dish. It’s supposed to be super healthy for you. It is said to aid in everything from good gut bacteria to lowering your risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Dinner: Seared Tofu with Buckwheat Soba Noodles

This may look delicious, and without the tofu it would have been.  Why the hell do people eat that stuff?  Seriously, is didn’t taste like anything.  People say it tastes like cardboard, but at least cardboard tastes like cardboard.  This didn’t taste like anything.  Totally bland.  And the bitch of it is, it would have been a great dish, minus the tofu.

This meal is  a 1/2 cup or buckwheat soba  noodles with bok choy, Chinese eggplant, enoki mushrooms and 6 oz. of tofu.  It is tossed with  tamari, (which is a type of soy sauce), and red pepper flakes

I would have GLADLY given up the tofu for more of EVERYTHING ELSE.  Husband hated  the tofu so much he picked it out and fed it to Dog.  Dog, by the way, had no complaints whatsoever, and happily gobbled it up.  I was, however, hungry, (not starving), for dinner and ate all of mine.

Dessert: 1-2 oz of artisanal chocolate

This is 1.5 oz. of 72% dark chocolate with sea salt and almonds. 

I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, even for chocolate, and would have happily given this up for wine with dinner.  It was good, but just saying, wine would have been more satisfying.

What is the aversion to alcohol?  I just don’t get it.  FYI, myth busted......not drinking ANY alcohol does not help you sleep any better. 

At the end of week one, I am still a firm believer in “everything in moderation”.

My verdict:

Shelita Grant defiantly was the clear winner this week!  I did not starve at all.  In fact, I was satisfied and sated all day.  Her food was tasty, healthy and pretty.

Note: From People Magazine on-line, “I have a chef come in every day and prepare my meals,” the 4’11” actress, 28, told PEOPLE. “There is no way I could do the stunt work, stay up as late as I have to, or be outside in the heat if I’m eating poorly. That means I can’t eat craft services!”

Hmmmm.....at least she admits it.  I am sure that Oprah and Julia are not preparing their meals either.  And when you reach a certain star status, you can demand a chef and not have to eat from “craft services”, aka, “mass catering for the plebians on set”.

People Magazine Verdict:

Shalita has a very good gut diet. (Agreed!). She could add more whole grains to her diet. ( Even though I had an early dinner, I was happily satisfied with the amount of food and the portions.  If I worked out like she does, I would probably want more whole grains, but I am not a star, and don’ t exercise like one.)

She get praise for snacking on sweet and savory superfood. (Agreed, although the kimchi was a little weird.  I could have easily just had another yogurt.)

I managed to drink 12 glasses of water today!

[whatstheherb]

Two birds, one stone. Or better yet, one dish.

Adrenal Fatigue & Acne. Yep, they’ve both got 3 things in common. Hormonal imbalance, stress & inflammation. All sounds pretty common, right?

So, Adrenal Fatigue. What is it and why do so many of us (especially in the service industry in NYC) have it without knowing what it is?

Adrenal fatigue is a term used to describe a list of nonspecific symptoms, such as body aches, fatigue, nervousness, sleep disturbances and digestive problems. The term shows up in popular health books and on alternative medicine websites, but isn't an accepted medical diagnosis (surprise, surprise).

Your adrenal glands produce a myriad of hormones that are essential to life. The medical term adrenal insufficiency (Addison's disease) refers to inadequate production of one or more of these hormones as a result of an underlying disease.

Signs and symptoms of adrenal insufficiency may include:

Fatigue

Body aches

Unexplained weight loss

Low blood pressure

Lightheadedness

Loss of body hair

Skin discoloration (hyperpigmentation)

Adrenal insufficiency can be diagnosed by blood tests and special stimulation tests that show inadequate levels of adrenal hormones. Unnecessary supplementation can be harmful, so it’s imperative to see a physician and have them run proper tests to determine your adrenal status. 

Alright, now that we’ve got all that the FDA wants us to say out of the way.... let’s talk about how simple foods like Brazilian nuts & Black rice can provide our diets with the necessary minerals & vitamins to reduce inflammation & hormonal imbalance within our bodies, which lead to more severe & chronic issues.  Think, thyroid gland - produces a vast range of important hormones in which your whole body benefits by maintaining its healthy function. Ever notice the increase in how many people, especially women, are experiencing thyroid dysfunction in recent times? Even medical diagnosis & treatment have almost been at a loss for many of the dysfunctions arising with the thyroid gland in the last 5-10 years. This tells us what?

Searching for the silver bullet to the symptoms of a long-standing problem, won’t make your ACTUAL problem sit down. Or better yet, leave.

Integrative/Complimentary/Alternative medicine have all been looked down upon by the medical community, when it should be embraced & INTEGRATED (Tell Bill Nye I said “what’s good?”). What we make a habit of putting into our bodies surely comes to the surface when our body is coming undone or losing alignment. It’s hard to pinpoint what works and what doesn’t when it comes to diet, unless you put in time & consistency. I will admit that 2 Brazilian nuts & a cup of OJ first thing in the morn’ definitely gives me an immediate immune system boost that I feel almost instantaneously, but that can’t be the end all be all of course. This has to be consistent. & Homeopathically would be best (micro-dosing). 

Raw Brazilian nuts are exceptionally good for your health. In many ways, their benefits are due to their high content of the mineral selenium. Selenium is essential to a variety of very important processes within the human body. We must consume small amounts of it on a daily basis in order to stay in good health. Raw Brazilian nuts make for one of the most delicious ways to get your daily fix of this nutrient. They’re also almost the only way for vegans to get this element as other food sources of selenium are fish, shrimp, beef, and turkey. Fortunately, unlike with animal sources, the mineral from the nuts doesn’t break down during cooking (which is awesome since I roasted these babies before tossing ‘em in the salad). 

Food To Live’s statement on the importance of selenium in Brazilian nuts: “Note that some whole grains also contain selenium. However, they lose over 60% of its originally meager content during the processing. Brazil nuts are, without a doubt, the best plant-based source of the element. In order to stay healthy, an adult should consume 55 mcg selenium per day. Considering the level of it in these extraordinary nuts, eating two pieces a day would get you the necessary boost. Selenium is so important for the general wellbeing because it’s an extremely potent antioxidant. In fact, this particular element is necessary to ensure the function of enzymes directly responsible for removing toxins from the body. It’s very wise to combine your Brazil nuts raw snack with foods rich in vitamin C, because these same enzymes are responsible for the recycling of this element. Therefore, selenium enhances the antioxidant effect of vitamin C. The other vitally important function of the mineral that makes eating Brazil nuts regularly a smart idea is its effect on the thyroid gland. Another enzyme that contains selenium is affecting the transformation of a thyroid hormone T4 into T3, which is more active. The hormonal balance within a human body is extremely delicate, and once it gets out of alignment, the negative effects can spread to every system. Therefore, you should always do your best to maintain this precarious balance. Leading a healthy lifestyle and eating a well-balanced diet are the best ways to go about it. Studies indicate that eating 2-4 Brazil nuts a day is perfectly safe, as this ‘dose’ doesn’t carry the risk of selenium overload. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the maximum safe level of daily selenium intake is 400 mcg.”

As an acne treatment, selenium needs to work synergistically with Vitamin E & Zinc. Selenium helps treat acne through protecting other antioxidants, increasing the body’s overall antioxidant levels which are proven to decrease inflammation that contributes to acne. Considering the powerful capability of selenium to increase antioxidant effects, it makes sense that this recipe including Brazilian nuts also included Black rice (packed with Vitamin E & anthocyanin). While whole grain red rice and brown rice also contain beneficial antioxidants, only black rice contains anthocyanin (a blue, purple or red flavonoid that helps to repair damaged cells and promote the growth of new and healthy cells while giving protection against free radicals). I use both black and white rice for the rice water in Aliensauce’s Alien Dew Toner, for all of these reasons. Anthocyanins and other polyphenols help the human immune system to work more efficiently against all type of infections & modulate inflammation - decreasing primary and secondary tissue damage. Primary being the damage generated by the immune response itself, and secondary being the damage caused by the original injury.

Now finally, the recipe which I acquired & tweaked a bit from the same company from which I purchased 2 lbs of raw Brazilian nuts, Food To Live. Along with the sesame oil used in the dressing, the black rice & Brazilian nuts were stars of this dish as all of the ingredients synergistically worked to provide the minerals & vitamins necessary for healthy hormonal balance & nutrient supplementation -- leading to radiant skin, a strengthened immune system & overall energy boost. Adrenal fatigue & acne, who?

Brazilian Nut & Black Rice Salad:

1 cup black rice (cook according to package instructions)

10 mushrooms of your choosing (sliced)

3 tablespoons of fresh coriander roots (sliced)

½ brown onion (diced)

1 handful fresh baby spinach

1 handful fresh basil leaves

1 handful coriander leaves (chopped)

1-2 handfuls Brazil nuts (roasted)

1 fresh jalapeno (sliced with the seeds removed)

Dressing Ingredients:

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon agave

½ tablespoon lime juice

¼ teaspoon ginger (minced)

1 clove garlic (minced)

½ jalapeno (minced, seeds removed)

Sesame oil (as much as necessary)

Instructions:

Cook the rice. To do this you need to rinse it thoroughly, bring to a boil, and cook for about 30-40 minutes. The length of cooking depends on the type of rice you use. You should consider rinsing the rice after it’s cooked to remove any leftover starches.

Cook the onion in a pan, then add the mushrooms and cook until they soften. Use the kind of oil you prefer. When cooked, set the mushrooms and onions on a paper towel so that the extra oil drains off them.

Mix the dressing ingredients in a blender or just whisk them together in a bowl.

Mix all the ingredients together into a delicious salad. You can serve it topped with noodles, either cold or warm.

The Mahi Mahi, I simply seasoned with salt/pepper/cayenne, dusted with paprika/flour & pan-seared in grape seed oil & savory/thyme butter (also all full of antioxidant properties).

Because, healthy and delicious belong together. Don’t they? Of course they do, now let’s hit all the birds.

<3, Sasha Anniyah