Welcome to week 20 of the 5% solution. Hi, I'm Robin Nielsen, and I'm so glad you're here.

Today we're in my beautiful, gorgeous kitchen where I spend a lot of time. It's one of my favorite places, and I thought it would be really cool to share some of the tools that I use in cooking, some of my favorites that have made cooking really, really easy.

So we know that if we eat at home at least 50% of the time, we are so much healthier. My husband and I love to eat out, and it's so easy, right? You just go somewhere and you sit down and somebody serves you and it's really simple. But, oftentimes, we're disappointed after our meals, because the meals just aren't as yummy and delicious and nourishing as the meals we make at home, and it's expensive. So, we expect a lot, and we really don't get a lot in return.

Eating at home, you know what's in the food, you know what you're getting, you know that it's balanced, and there really is no substitution. So, enjoy your meals out. We had a weekly tip about how to eat out a little bit more successfully, but grab some of these tools to make it a little bit easier for you to cook at home.

Here they are. I have a set of knives that are my favorite. These are ceramic knives. The reason I like ceramic knives is because they never have to be sharpened. How cool is that? If you have to sharpen a knife, the chances of you using it are really not very big, because the knife is dull, and when you cut your food with a dull knife, it's really ugly, right? You can really damage the food by cutting with a dull knife. Ceramic knives stay forever sharp. The downside is they're dangerous. You can really cut yourself with them. The upside is you will have beautiful food when you cut it. I mean, cutting a tomato is like a dream with ceramic knives. Oh, my gosh. I think we use all three of these, these sizes, every single day. This medium one here and the two smaller ones. This big one we just use for special projects. Okay? So ceramic knives are my favorite.

I'm going to show you one more thing that is ceramic. This is called a mandolin, and I believe that this is a Kyocera mandolin. I think that our knives are Kyocera too, although this one says Cuisinart. There are a lot of different ceramic knife companies now, and you can get them fairly inexpensively, whereas before they used to be really expensive.

A mandolin actually slices food very thinly. You can see this ceramic blade here. Zucchini, for instance, if you want to make some zucchini noodles, where they're about an eighth of an inch thick. I make a beautiful lasagna, and I use zucchini instead of regular noodles. You basically just run it along the sharp edge here and it makes these thin slices. The downside is you've got to keep your knuckles and your fingers away, right? So you do it flat, or you use this. This has little pokey things that actually poke right into the fruit or vegetable so that you can do it without hurting yourself, okay? It's called a mandolin. Lots of different types and varieties. I like this one because it's super simple. Super simple, and it's going to stay very sharp. If you don't get the ceramic blade, then you're going to end up having to discard it before too long because the blade will get dull. That's why I love ceramic.

All right. My next two implements, just this simple brush, right? For using oil, coconut oil, olive oil, putting it in your little ceramic muffin pans to make your egg cups, or to use on pans to put oil on. Just indispensable. Sauces, right? Put sauces on meats or vegetables or whatever when you're cooking, or roasting. Amazing.

This little spatula is fantastic for your high speed blender, for your Nutribullet, to get all of the remaining goodies out. It's hard to get those goodies out at the bottom. I made some cashew cheese the other day. So delicious, just with a cup of cashews, about a half a cup of almond milk, two cloves of garlic, and some fresh basil. You just blend it up in your blender. Well, to get that yummy cheese out, you need something like this. Super handy, really inexpensive.

Some kitchen scissors, kitchen shears, for opening packages, for cutting things that are a little bit harder, vegetables, things like that. Kitchen shears are so indispensable. Get yourself a pair of those.

This is a grater that is amazing. I think it says microplane on it? I love this grater because when you grate things like ginger, lemon peel, it's big enough so that it sits right on top of your bowl, and you can just grate back and forth. Let me grab a lemon really quickly. You can just actually grate back and forth like this to get your whole lemon peeled, and all of the peel, or all of the ginger, or whatever it is you're grating, ends up right in here. Then you can just take it and push it right into your dish that you're making. Oh, my gosh, it makes life so simple, and really, your meals so delicious. This is one of my favorite tools. When I got this, I was so happy. A true chef gets really excited with these silly little kitchen implements.

We had an exchange student from Venezuela, and he was, I think, 18 years old when he came to stay with us, and he went to a senior year of high school while he was with us. They took a trip to Yosemite, and he brought us home these really cool bear paws that are actually for salads, for tossing salads. These, gosh, we've had these for probably, I want to say 12 years? These have been our go to salad implements forever. Something simple, just to toss your salad. It doesn't have to be bear paws, but whatever it is for you that's really easy just to toss beautiful salads will be really fabulous for you to have on hand.

I just have three more things. One, of course, is a peeler. Got to have a peeler. One thing that's really cool to do is to take a regular cucumber after you've washed it and then variegate it, so that you don't peel the whole cucumber, but you do peel here and then you take a space and peel so you make stripes with the dark green? Then when you slice it thinly, you get these beautifully variegated pieces of cucumber. All sorts of really fun things like that, but a peeler is essential, right? It's essential, and you want to keep a sharp one around.

And I love this little strainer, because for instance, you can squeeze a lemon, and catch the seeds in here when you're putting lemon juice on things. You can use it for straining small things, like nuts and seeds and things like that. Just great to have a small little strainer. It's perfect for over a cup. You can just put it right over a cup, and then even tea leaves you can strain. So, whatever you need to strain, a little tiny strainer is so, so essential in your awesome kitchen.

The last thing is this mortar and pestle, right? It's so beautiful. Isn't that gorgeous to have in your kitchen? We've had this for years and years and years, probably 25 years. It's great for putting things in here and mashing them up, so I can think of when I made the mocktails for the mocktail guide, we mashed up so many different things. Of course, ginger is great to mash up, cranberries, anything that you need to mash, this is perfect for. Garlic, yeah, all sorts of yummy things. So, mortar and pestle, and it also just makes your kitchen really beautiful.

Those are my favorite kitchen elements to have around, kitchen utensils, kitchen support tools. So, consider trying one or two of them. Maybe you've picked up a tip today that'll help make your kitchen experience a whole lot better, and certainly make it easier for you to cook.

All right. So great to be with you here today. I'll meet you here next week. We're here for you every step of the way.

Welcome to week 21 of the 5% Solution.

Hi Beauties this is Robin Nielsen, it's so great to be here with you. You know, I wanted to share with you a quick way to make dinner, because sometimes it's so hard when we're tired at the end of a long day, but a really good question to ask yourself is, "What is it that would most nourish me tonight?"

And I asked myself that question, and I came up with soup. I just felt like I needed some soup to really nourish my body. So, I opened my cupboards, I took a look and I had a few things.

So, I had a partial bag of these split green peas. About a cup and a half. So, I put that in this pot here, and then I had a couple of boxes of Imagine vegetable broth, which is my favorite. I get the low sodium so I can add my own sea salt. And I put a whole box in here, along with two cups of water, and I let it cook for about 30 minutes. So, I brought it to a boil and then I put it on simmer, and I let it cook for about 30 to 40 minutes.

Then I added some more vegetable broth. You can also just add some more water. And I added some carrots. You can see how I just quarter them here. You actually just cut it in half like this, cut it in half again, and then you can just make some simple, nice pieces like that to throw in. And I do not peel the carrots, because I want to make sure that it's the whole, real food, but I do wash them really well.

And then I got this beautiful fennel. All of this is from the local farmers market. And I just chopped this up into small pieces and threw that in, and then I have some gorgeous baby bok choy here and I chopped that up, and I threw the whole thing in, including the leaves.

And then I added a little bit more water, a little bit more vegetable broth, and I added about a tablespoon of sea salt, a tablespoon of cumin, and about a tablespoon and a half of onion powder. It's really important to taste your soup to make sure it tastes delicious for you. Okay?

And then you can see how beautiful this is. It's so thick, and rich, and delicious, and oh my gosh, I cannot wait to eat it. So, it doesn't have to be these exact ingredients, it just has to be whatever you have on hand, and you can use your herbs and spices to make it extra delicious.

Alright, that's it. So, what's on your dinner table for tonight? I'll see you soon.

Where You Put Your Attention Matters For Hormone Success!

Hey, happy motivation Monday beautiful. I'm so excited to be here with you today. It's a beautiful, beautiful day to set some really powerful intentions for yourself.

One of my favorite people around this is a woman by the name of Mary Morrissey, and she has this beautiful book called the miracle minute. I'm going to read you a passage in this book that will help you to set your intentions for what it is you want for yourself, because our bodies are actually wired for stress.

So it's really easy for our minds to go to that really negative, more stressful place because we're designed to stay alive. So we're always on alert for things that may be wanting to kill us. And of course when we experience symptoms of hormones imbalance, we are much more susceptible to this state of being. So we have to really, really be conscious about our thoughts and how our thoughts are really changing every single cell of our body every day.

And so the more we can start turning our thoughts to those things that we want for ourselves, the more we're gonna get those things. And that really makes so much sense right down to our health every single day.

So I like to read to you this passage from Mary's book a miracle minute. So it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about and how you can start to use them for yourself. And when I held the New You Master Class, that's what this was all about. So...it's called intention.

"I once heard someone say where you place your attention you are placing your intention. In fact, the only way the universe knows what we are truly desiring is by where we are placing our attention. Because the universe gives us the power of focus and the power of free will. Where we focus our attention. with our freewill builds an energy field that by the law of attraction, attracts unto us the molecular structure of those thoughts. Where we're placing our attention today and everyday creates a pattern of experience, a pattern of possibility, and a pattern of attraction. That is why it is so powerful for us to remember to take our minds off of our problems and put them on God."

Okay. So it might be god for you. It might be the universe, it might be the divine beloved, whatever it is for you.

"You have to know that there is a greater power that we can release things to. Okay? So we to take our minds off of what's missing or what seems wrong and put our minds on possibility, and opportunities. To look for the good and to appreciate because [inaudible] field only more of the good can be made manifest in our lives. So today we take our attention and we put it on God. And give thanks for this day, another day of living."

Doesn't that sound beautiful? And there's a fantastic book called Outrageous Openness. I just love it. It was recommended to me by Dr Christiane Northrup, who is one of my favorite hormone experts of all time. And it's really all about telling the universe, telling God what you want, and then releasing it.

And, and I think you know about sometimes in my life, like what's going on for me? And you know, I think, um, one example, one very simple example,I have is in my tennis matches. And you know, of course I always want to win, but I want to also have fun and I want to have joy. And one thing I noticed is that my tennis matches while I was winning them, they were lasting a really long time.

They were so, Oh hard. They were hard. It was hard to win. And I thought, you know, I never asked for a short tennis match. Okay, this time I'm going to ask for a short tennis match. So I, I said a little prayer to the divine beloved. They just said, you know, please, today I would like to have, I'd like to not only win and have fun, but I'd also like it to be short. And so then I started getting that.

So of course I asked for good energy and good mental clarity every day. And then I ask for other things. Like I ask that you are served in the highest good to help reach your health goals and live the life of your dreams. So you are often in my daily prayers here. So what is it that you want for yourself?

What is it that you want around your health? And then ask for that every single day. And that's then where you're putting your attention. And then in the evening, I say what I'm grateful for before I fall asleep at night because what we're grateful for, we get more of.

So I will say that I'm so grateful for you and I'm so grateful for the beautiful health progress you are seeing. And then I find those new little things that I'm grateful for because it helps our bodies and our minds to search for the good in every day. And it could be like the smallest, smallest thing like, the dish that you made with so delicious. And I'm just grateful for how delicious my meal was.

Whatever it is for you or for a beautiful flower or for a beautiful connection you had with someone. But just saying those gratitudes really helps put your intention where you want it to go. Put your attention on your intentions. I hope this makes some sense for you, and I hope that you will take just a moment to ask for what you want today. Sending you so much love and gratitude.