11 Days of Giveaways – Day 1

It’s my 5 Year Blogiversary!!!

Some of you already know this, others may be here for the first time (welcome!), but this week marks five solid years of blogging for me and the Guilty Kitchen Blog! Way back in 2009, I kicked this puppy off and we’ve been growing and evolving ever since. When I started this blog as a way to keep busy with an infant while on maternity leave, I would never have imagined that it would have turned our as successful as it has. Who knew I would never go back to the Mon- Fri grind? Or that I would be able to make a career, as I’d always dreamed, out of writing and cooking? I’m happy to say that with hard work and dedication, you really can make dreams come true. All the people I’ve met along the way, the opportunities and collaborations, the brainstorming and development have made me who I am today. This little blog even helped me overcome an eating disorder and an almost imploding marriage.
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Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

There’s nothing like homemade ice cream.

Except when your gut microbes tell you that you can’t eat unfermented dairy. Waaaaaah!

Then you have to figure out other ways to make ice cream. Anyone who has been Paleo or dairy-free for more than sixteen seconds has definitely tried coconut milk ice cream, which I love! Sometimes though, you just want to experiment, right?! Maybe it’s just me. Sometimes I miss the opportunities that arise when you work in a commercial kitchen. You just get to experiment a lot more often, and it doesn’t cost you any money either, which is nice. So after making the Paleo Vanilla Coffee Creamer the other day, I realized that it would probably make a very good non-dairy ice cream base. And seeing as my informal Facebook Page poll went crazy with comments, I knew I was going to have to make several different varieties of ice cream to satisfy all you closet ice cream lovers!
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Paleo Vanilla Coffee Creamer

Here’s a quicky for you guys, because it literally took me five minutes to make this and then I was swimming in luxuriously creamy heaven. I wanted to take the time to say thank you to everyone who reached out to me about my last few editorial posts (more of those coming your way), especially my article on eating disorders. If you think you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder, disordered eating, orthorexia or any other unhealthy relationships with food, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

Today’s recipe for Paleo Vanilla Coffee Creamer comes to me from a friend, Ryan Kingsbury, who shared his tips on making my own coffee creamer that was dairy free. Some of you might know that I don’t handle dairy very well, cream in my coffee has never really been a problem, but I try to avoid it in most cases. I don’t consume soy products and most creamers have terrible ingredients, so making my own was a pretty rad option.
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Do You Have an Eating Disorder?

Lately, I’ve been receiving a lot of emails and messages from people that want to thank me for helping them through an eating disorder or body dysmorphia. I can’t even express to you how much that makes me fill up with gratitude, joy and relief. Since I was about 14 years old until I was about 25, I suffered from many forms of eating disorders and it wasn’t until the last two or three years that I have accepted my body for all the amazing things it is and can be. Liz's spine small

It’s hard for me to put into words what it was like for me growing up. For one thing, having your spine completely fused from top to bottom creates a certain mindfulness that not a lot of people can identify with. At the tender age of 13, my spine was curved and twisted and ultimately ended up being fused just before my 14th birthday. Because my scoliosis curve was so dangerously severe (80 degrees using the Cobb method), they could not, at that time, correct it to a perfectly straight back (nor do they most of the time anyway). That being said, I was left with some pretty heavy things to deal with. I would not reach the height at which I should have grown to (most likely around 5’10” or more, I am currently 5’5″), I would never be able to flex at the spine again (no stretching, leaning back, twisting to the side or bending side to side as much as most people can) and I would be left with a slightly bent over appearance. You can kind of get the idea in the picture set below…especially the middle one.
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Summer of Smoothies

It’s Finally Summertime!

In the summer, one of the biggest nutrition switches I make (besides gorging on ridiculously large bowls of fruit) is eating more smoothies. I am not one of those people who have them year round. I am very particular about how I like my smoothie, and the way I like it is ice cold with loads of ice cubes and frozen fruit. Of course, I usually have a shake every day, year round…but to me a smoothie involves a lot more ingredients than a shake. Shakes are for siphoning nutrients quickly into your body after a workout, whereas smoothies are more of a meal replacement, at least when I make them anyway.
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