Be balanced by brynn

I am bursting with gratitude and love to call this beautiful woman my mom.
Happy Mother’s Day to you 💞🌷🌞Love and miss you sooo much!
Thank you for raising me and being my best friend through it all.

Can you find the beauty in every moment?

Want to know a quarantine cooking hack!? I promise it will be delicious, easy and save you time!
Using your slow cooker! And if you don’t have one, maybe it is time to invest 🥳
All they require is a little prep, some time and easy clean up! You can also use a instapot for this. I don’t have one (shocking I know 😉 but don’t have space in my tiny kitchen)
Slow cooker carnitas! Ready in about 8-10 hours. Will make many meals out of this for about a week. You can make tacos, enchiladas, pair with a salad, make a Mexican bowl or simple add it with my sautéed greens. The possibilities as endless.
Here’s the recipe:
1 4lb pork shoulder
Roughly chopped onion
3-4 cloves of garlic
Half of deseeded jalapeño
Juice if 1 orange
2 tbsp of salt
1 cup of bone broth or stock
Mix of herbs and spices. I don’t measure these 😬 just do a couple of shakes.
Oregano, cumin, cinnamon, chili powder, pepper.
Turn your slow cooker on low, cook for 8-10 hours. Once it’s done, pull apart with a fork.
To make this crispy like in the restaurants, once meat is done, add to frying pan!
Enjoy friends! And let me know what you made from your carnitas.

If you haven’t done this already, go outside (social distancing of course).
Sit in the sun. Take a walk.
No matter where you are. Or how busy your day is. Do it. I can promise you, you will feel better.
It is a warm embrace 💛
This is a practice of loving yourself. Plus you get your daily dose of vitamin D. A essential vitamin we all need!

Feeling the island vibes with this brekkie 🌴🍍🌺🌈✨Avo toast with a fried egg and a tropical green smoothie💚
This made us day dream about Bali, surfing, sun ☀️ and having a little cafe to serve all the yummy toasts, juices smoothies & salads!
Food and meals are a great way to reminisce about old memories. Manifest dreams and goals. Get in your kitchen and recreate your favorite travel meals, especially while we can’t travel during this time. Anyone else feeling the wanderlust? 💫✈️

With Covid-19 having us stay inside, many of us are cooking at home a lot more, which is great! But it takes work and time! There’s the prep, cooking, eating and then the clean up. And multiply that by three (or more) and that is a lot of your time! If you are like me, you love the process but others hate it.
Embrace and love the leftovers:
Cook 1.5-2 times the amount you normally would for dinner and eat the leftovers the next day. You can turn one meal into 2, 3 or even 4 meals. One pot meals are another great example of this. Get out your instapot, slow cooker or soup pot. Another perk is the food that you bought doesn’t go to waste!
Last night I made NY grass fed steaks and Spicy Garlic Lemon broccolini for dinner, for lunch I added the steak to a GF grilled cheese and had the rest of the broccolini. Tomorrow, I’ll add the rest of the steak to a steak and eggs scramble😋 @ San Francisco, California

A simple afternoon snack 🍊

Quarantine: let’s be real here. This is a trip. This is real. I am not the only person going through this. The whole world! Sometimes I get lost in thought that there a millions, billions of people going through the exact same thing as me.
I share a tiny studio apartment with my partner. And by tiny I mean 450 sq ft or maybe even less. We are with each other 24/7. This is definitely making us closer. We are both working from home. There are times that I have to do virtual meetings in our bathroom (it’s small too). There are times when I am hungry and want to make food but I can’t because he is meeting with a client in our kitchen.
We have no backyard. No balcony. No rooftop. We live surrounded by giant concrete buildings. We only go outside to buy groceries or go for a small run/walks in the mornings.
I miss the trees. I miss the grass, dirt, the earth. I miss the ocean, rivers & lakes.
I sit in my house and sometimes get so angry. I cry. My moods shift up and down many times in a day. I miss my friends. I miss connection.
Then I look outside my window. I see a homeless person setting up their tent or most times even less than that to go to sleep for the night. I read the news - all the people who are fighting the virus. The deaths. The healthcare workers.
The duality of how I feel. Selfish in my own feelings of “hardships”. But grateful for my life. Sadness for the world. But gratitude for the workers on the front lines.
These are uncertain times. And everything I am feeling is alright.
This is certainly something I will remember for the rest of my life.

Turmeric Smoothie ✨💛✨
Haven’t made this in years!
It has:
✨Turmeric, fresh or ground
✨Ginger, fresh or ground
✨Frozen banana
✨Frozen pineapple and/or mango
✨Frozen steamed cauliflower rice
✨Non dairy milk- I used my homemade cashew milk(see my story on how to make)
✨Coconut oil
✨Black pepper
✨Cinnamon
✨Collagen peptides(I use )

This is a nourishing morning meal. It has healthy fats -🥥 oil. Veggies/fiber - cauliflower. Vitamins and digestion aid - 🍍&ginger. Protein - collagen. And the black pepper is in there to help aid adsorption of the curcumin found in turmeric.
It’s tropical and spicy all at the same time 🤗
We made it to Wednesday on quarantine day I lost track. But this smoothie will sure brighten up your day 🌟

Ginger. Turmeric. Lemon. Honey. Repeat.
Have them separate or together. They taste delicious. You can make ginger turmeric tea and add lemon and honey. Squeeze some lemon in warm water to start the day. Have a spoonful of honey for a sweet treat that good for your throat. Or add any/all to a meal you are cooking/baking. The possibilities are endless. Get creative.
Best of all, your body is thanking you.
Don’t forget friends. Food is medicine ✨

✨Immune Boosting Breakfast✨

Even though we are staying inside as much as possible, which in all seriousness is soooo important to do to flatten the curve. So please stay inside and only go out into the world for essentials.
I am boosting our immune systems every day!

This breakfast includes:
✨Sunny Turmeric fried eggs - turmeric contains Curcumin which is anti inflammatory, antioxidant and helps improve antibody response.
✨Sautéed chard, kale, dandelion greens - dark leafy greens are high in vitamins C,K and folate.
✨Sauerkraut - eating probiotic rich foods helps populate the gut with those good bacteria. Good gut health=good immune health.
✨Bacon - not the most immune boosting but who doesn’t like bacon 😋

This is a friendly reminder to
S M I L E

When you are still trying to figure out your quarantine work from home flow 🙃
Dealing with some unsure stressful times ☹️
Wondering what the f... is going to happen the next day, next week, next month 🤷🏽‍♀️
And feeling the heartache of the world right now 💔
You make yourself some Gluten Free Banana Coconut French Toast for lunch and savor it up 😋
Easy GF French Toast:
• Couple slices of GF bread.
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup of coconut milk or any other nut milk or regular milk if you don’t want to make it DF.
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon of pumpkin spice
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• pinch of salt
Mix eggs, spices, salt, coco milk, vanilla in shallow dish. Dip GF bread slices. Make sure to cover both sides egg mixture and let it soak in a little. Heat up a pan with some ghee or coconut oil. Cooked on both sides until toasty and brown.
Add your favorite toppings!
I did banana slices, coconut whipped cream, a little of my homemade elderberry syrup, toasted coconut and goji berries 🥳

Be kind. Be grateful.
We are all into this together ❤️

Day light savings is right around the corner.
Who else is excited for spring?! 🌸🌺🌷. Flowers are blooming. Their sweet smells fill the air. My body craves that sweet warm sun that comes out ☀️My nose and lungs love the clean smell after a spring shower 🌧.
It is a time for growth. Budding new ideas. I find this time to be a exceptionally motivating period for myself. My mind is more creative. I come up with new ideas and create plans of action.
How does spring make you feel?