I feel like (and maybe you do too) that I haven’t posted a recipe in a while. On a new blog, a few days of not posting seems like a long time and not very smart from a developing readership standpoint. I started this site out of my love for cooking and eating and my advocacy for better health through food. Fulfilling the longing to have this creative space and the positive response has been so incredible for me. It is humbling to be a beginner; it requires hours of dedication to learn and find your way.

In that process, it is easy to put less energy into those more familiar roles which for me are a wife, mother, home keeper, and part time working professional. After all, there is only so much time in a day. At a time that I probably had an inch of room in my life to take one more thing on, I squeezed in this huge project called Charlotte Veggie. Because don’t I deserve it after everything I take on and sacrifice in the name of being a good wife and mom? It’s my turn, right? Not so simple.

Because there’s this thing called life and it’s unpredictable. Over the last couple of months, we’ve had major plans shift, our beloved babysitter resign, personal issues, illnesses leading to doctor’s appointments, injuries leading to urgent care visits, physical therapy sessions, too many sleepless nights, various travel, what seems like an endless simple-turned-complex renovation, the ideal middle school search, and basically a prolonged phase of “when it rains, it pours”. Overwhelmed is an understatement but rather than motivate me, it was paralyzing. I was incessantly checking social media rather than being productive, more impatient with my children, and really just sucked into what I had to get done when those tasks had little return. I saw Brene Brown speak and she said that she turns down more opportunities than she takes, that saying yes means saying no to something else, and that family time comes first. Following this, a good friend invited me to take a Parenting With Peace class with the amazing and local Kristen Oliver. I knew I had to make time. I knew I had to stop obsessing and re-focus on where my life holds true value. I was even more sure of this when I went on a girls’ trip weekend at a quiet lake and had time to think.

Life is undeniably about survival and doing what you have to do and putting bread on the table and striving to reach goals. But it is empty without connection and helping and prizing moments together. So there are moments that I could have been cooking, thinking up new recipes, and blogging but I decided to watch a show with my husband, play Connect Four with my son, finally read some of the stories my daughter writes, and be there for others I care about as they embark on new journeys or go through heartbreak. My parents and my sister’s family moved to Charlotte earlier this year; it means everything to me that they are here yet it’s so hard to stop the to do’s and embrace it. And on nights that I intended to work on Charlotte Veggie but a friend dropped by the house, I decided that it was ok, more than ok to enjoy the company and relationship. Everything will be okay. The blog is not going to make or break; my relationships could. Living authentically is the least stressful way to live.

So imagine that, just as I stepped back and let go of my self imposed mental grip, I got the opportunity to do a cooking segment on our local FOX channel’s morning show, Good Day Charlotte for their feature called “What’s Your Dish” on 10/20/15.  They have had chefs and non-chefs on and it is pretty casual. But for yours truly that used to watch nothing but the Food Network at one point in time, it was a dream come true! Far more important to me was the platform to share my weight loss story (no link for that but if you have it taped, it was at 8:20am) and convey that healthy, fast, gourmet cooking can be done. Spreading my message was beyond gratifying. Everyone could not have been more friendly and welcoming. I wasn’t nervous and had fun!

You can watch how I made my Crispy Cauliflower Tacos With Cashew Crema (8:50am) on live T.V. here!

And here are some photos:

It was awesome that everyone came to eat the food after the show and the tacos were a big hit!