Easy creamy tomato pasta

This is really delicious and so easy to make. It can easily be made vegetarian by omitting the chicken.

Takes about 20 minutes to cook, 10 if you make the sauce while the pasta is cooking, and serves 4.

Ingredients: 

1 pound of pasta cooked, drained and buttered or oiled so that it doesn't stick.

2 tbsp of butter

1 red onion, minced

1/2 pound of chicken thighs or breasts cut into small pieces, about 1/4-1/2 inches

2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 large tomatoes chopped (Don't get rid of the juice! This goes in too) or a can of diced tomatoes (you might want to chop them up a bit more)
1/2 cup of cream cheese
1 Tbsp of oregano
1 Tbsp of basil
1/2 cup of olives, chopped
1/2 cup of chopped artichoke hearts
Parmesan or asiago cheese to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Melt the butter in your pan (I left the pasta in the colander and did this in my pot to save of dishes but you can just as easily do this in a saute pan or skillet with high sides.) Cook the onions in the butter with some salt to help them sweat for a couple of minutes or until they soften up and start to become translucent. Scootch the onions to the sides of the pan and add in the chicken. You can season the chicken if you want. Since they are small pieces they should take 2 to 3 minutes to cook. Add in the herbs and tomatoes and let them cook a bit, don't forget to add in the juice that was released when you cut them up. Add in the cream cheese and let it melt into the sauce. Add in everything else but the pasta and let it mix up then combine it with the pasta. Whala you are finished.

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Easy Diy Perfume

I love to use essential oils and hydrosols for perfume instead of that toxic nastiness that you get on your fingers when turning the page in a magazine for a perfume add. Instead of messing up your endocrine system, giving you headaches, and causing cancer in your body, you can actually help your body out with perfume made from essential oils and hydrosols. 

You can make perfume 3 ways, one as a roll on with a carrier oil, 2 as a solid perfume (find my tutorial for that HERE) and 3 as a spray using hydrosols for the carrier instead of alcohol. 

I like to keep things simple with rose hydrosol and chamomile oil in a spray bottle, but you can get as complex as you would like. Bellow I have oils in groups to give you ideas.

For a roll on take a bottle with a roll top and drop in your essential oils first. you will want the oils to go probably about 1/8th to 1/3 of the way up. Experiment with just a little first so that you can test out combinations without wasting any oils. Then fill the bottle up the rest of the way with a carrier oil such as almond.

For a spray perfume choose your mixture of oils and add them to a spray bottle with a hydrosol of your choosing. Hydrosols are the water left over from making essential oils, so they still have the smell and small particles of the essential oils suspended in the liquid. You will want to play around with the ratio of oil to hydrosol because every oil has a different strength to it. 

You can even use floral waters, like orange blossom and rose water that you can get at the grocery store with extracts like vanilla and almond. 
 
Blend ideas for women:
 *Neroli, chamomile, and bergamont are refreshing and relaxing.
*Jasmine, ylang ylang, vanila, cardamom, orange create a romantic scent
*Lavender and vanilla is simple and sweet.

Oil ideas for men: Sandalwood (calms and soothes but also increases testosterone and balances hormones) Frankincense, spruce, fir, cedarwood, vetiver, sage, vanilla, hints of cardamom are nice, basically anything manly. You can go woodsy, or more spicy. 

My favorite is sandalwood with frankincense and cedar with a bit of orange and vanilla. 

You can put oils in a roll on and use them for various problems that you might be having to rub directly on where you need the oils. 

Sore muscles/back pain: Peppermint and clove work marvelously together. You can also add other warming oils like wintergreen, cypress, basil, marjoram, and elemi can be added as well as calming oils like lavender and chamomile.

Endocrine system rosemary, cinnamon, Black pepper, dill, geranium, and frankincense.
  
Fatigue:  Ginger, Peppermint, White Fir, melissa

Help you think: Rosemary, basil, sage/Clary sage, peppermint.
  
Hot Flashes: Peppermint, Geranium, citrus oils, and Clary Sage.  
  
Low Blood Sugar: Cinnamon, clove, thyme,

 Mood: Bergamot, Clary sage, fennel, geranium, lavender, lemon, peppermint, rosemary, sandalwood, blue spruce, ylang ylang, melissa

 PMS: bergamot, Clary sage, fennel, geranium, grapefruit, lavender, Roman chamomile, melissa,

Have fun being creative and smelling fabulous!

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My snack food favorites

It is so difficult to find good alternatives to junk foods but I think that I have come across some pretty good ones that I am going to share with you today.

Find them HERE

I really like Inka Plantain chips. They taste like potato chips, and they have 3 ingredients, Plantains, sea salt, and palm olein. They also have roasted corn, broad beans, and potato chips all made with palm olein instead of canola, sunflower, or safflower oil. Palm olein is much healthier for you, read more about why this is HERE. Palm olein is liquid palm oil. It has been more processed, but so far I haven't found anything showing it to be harmful.

As far as corn chips go I look for one that is organic,  made with sprouted ingredients, and doesn't have canola oil. Late July's corn chips are delicious but their are lots of brands that are like this. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any made with a good oil, but since I don't eat them often I choose ones that I will actually get nutrition from and don't have toxic canola oil. Even Tostitos has blue corn chips that aren't made with canola oil. They aren't sprouted but they are better than gmo's.

Back to Nature, Late July, and Annie's brands have fairly decent ingredients. You just need to pick and choose what you want to omit and all three brands can be found at most grocery stores. They have chips, crackers, cookies, and bunches of other stuff.

I really like Pamela's shortbread cookies. They are gluten free, buttery, and delicious.

Heavenly organics have these chocolate patties that are just three ingredients  Chocolate, honey, and peppermint oil. They also have pomegranate and almond ones. You can find those HERE

I love Justin's nut butters. They have such a delicious alternative to nutella, and they also have yummy nut butter cups and candy bars. They do have sugar, but it is less than other brands and it is organic. 

I love, love, Love SunDrops. They are such a good alternative to MnM's. They don't have all those nasty artificial colors.

I'm not that into snack food, I mostly get the plantain chips, the chocolate patties, and dried fruit, but every once in a while it is nice to have alternatives that although they aren't healthy, they aren't terrible for you. My list isn't that extensive, but as long as you read labels then you should be able to find some favorites too. 

Things to watch out for, Artificial colors and flavors (which come from beaver butts (serious), and petroleum. the ones from petroleum can cause hyperactivity and cancer.) Hydrogenated oils, canola oil, cotton seed oil, soybean oil, to much sunflower and safflower oil, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, agave nectar (some healthy-er alternatives have this sweetener that has more fructose than corn syrup) gmo's, Sodium Benzoate, Potassium benzoate, sucralose, artificial sweeteners,  BHA, BHT, propyl gallate, sodium chloride and salt (but not sea salt), soy, potassium sorbate, soy lecithin (mostly if it isn't organic). 

 I usually post recipes, beauty DIY's and health tips once or twice a week so if you want more then subscribe over on the side bar. :)