Name: Kara Douglass Thom

Kids: 4

Occupation: Writer/Mom

Hometown: Chaska, MN

H&H Interview with Kara:

1. What are the top 3 items in your grocery cart?

Cereal, diapers, and yogurt.

2. What are you reading (honestly)?

Last night I read from the fall issue of Brain Child magazine (one of the few magazines I read cover to cover). I just finished reading the galley for the book I co-authored, “Hot (Sweaty) Mamas: Five Secrets to Life as a Fit Mom,” two days ago. Honestly!

3. What is your guilty pleasure when you get a break from the kids?

It depends on what I need. If I’m tired, then a nap. If I’m stressed, then a workout. If I need to socialize, then meeting up with friends. If I need all of those things at once a good yoga class works.

4. What would we be surprised to find in your purse?

Just took inventory of my bag (no way is it a purse): bandaids, a digital recorder and several Burts Bees lip glosses.

5. What is your favorite reality TV show?

Biggest Loser

6. What is your cocktail of choice?

Mojito or Margarita

7. What is the funniest thing your kids have said or done lately?

Was it watching my daughter lick a light switch? Was it when my youngest daughter asked to play “Poke Your Face,” on the iPod? Was it my son’s attempt to “cook” with flour, sugar and olive oil on my kitchen floor (it wasn’t that funny at the time). Lots to choose from around here.

8. What is your favorite quotation?

I’ll go with Rumi:

“Keep walking, though there is no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings. Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.”

9. What are you currently working out to on your iPod?

Admission: I rarely if ever workout with my iPod.

10. Who is your favorite celebrity mom and why?

I have sat here too long thinking about it. I have so many favorite “real” moms in my life from whom I get inspiration. Lucky me.

11. What is something most people don’t know about you?

After blogging for two and a half years I don’t think I have any secrets left!

12. What is your secret to staying Hot & Healthy?

Good concealer. Good metabolism (thanks mom!). A passion for fitness. Not being afraid of change and challenges. Being grateful. Deciding to live happily.

Written by Lea Barlow • Leave a comment

I first bought coconut oil not to cook with but to use as a moisturizer. After resisting the urge to lick my arms repeatedly from the amazing aroma I decided to start cooking with it instead. Not a bad idea considering the enormous health benefits associated with this oil.

The ticker: Cooking with coconut oil is good for your heart. The oil contains 50 percent lauric acid, which is known to help control conditions like high cholesterol and high blood pressure. The saturated fat in coconut oil, unlike other vegetable oils, is not harmful and won’t increase your LDL levels.

The tummy: Cooking with coconut oil can benefit your digestive system because it contains saturated fats with anti-microbial properties, which help eliminate parasites, bacteria and other causes of indigestion. Because it is easy to digest, it can help prevent stomach-related problems like irritable bowel syndrome. Coconut oil is also healthy because it helps your body absorb nutrients, vitamins, minerals and amino acids.

The bummy: Great for weight loss. It removes unnecessary stress on the pancreas, which helps to burn more energy and reduce weight. Coconut oil also has short- and medium-chain fatty acids, which can help you keep weight off.

Because it’s so damn healthy for you I decided to highlight recipes that will satisfy your sweet tooth. Sort of the whole being good while being bad thing. Give one a try this weekend and report back.

Heavenly Baklava

• 2 cups hazelnuts
• 3 cups pecans
• 1 Tbsp. orange zest
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 1/4 cups maple syrup or honey
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 12 sheets filo dough
• 1/2 cup virgin coconut oil, melted
• 1/2 cup pistachios

Coconut oil is replaces the butter normally used and this baklava is sweetened with maple syrup rather than sugar.

Preheat oven to 325°. Put the hazelnuts on a baking sheet and put into the oven for about 10 minutes to roast them. Put the hazelnuts, 3 cups of the pecans, orange zest and cinnamon in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped—you want to do this until they are chopped up small, not like a powder. Transfer the nut mixture to a bowl. (If you don’t have a food processor, you can finely chop them by hand.)

Lightly oil a large baking tray or cookie sheet and cover with parchment paper. Lay 4 sheets of filo dough on the tray, brushing each one with coconut oil. Spread 1/3 of the nut mixture on top of the filo dough and drizzle with 1/3 cup syrup or honey top with another four sheets of dough, oiling each one. Top with 1/3 of the mixture and repeat, ending with dough on top. Brush the top liberally with oil, and slice into 2-inch squares or into triangles.

Bake for about 30 minutes.

Finely chop the 1/2 cup pistachios and whisk together the remaining 1/4 cup syrup and 1/4 cup orange juice. Drizzle the syrup and juice over the top of baklava and sprinkle with the chopped pistachios. Bake for a further 10 minutes.

The Easiest, Healthiest, Most Scrumptious Fudge Ever from

The Nourishing Gourmet

1/2 cup of virgin coconut oil
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
1/2 cup of coconut/palm sugar (the paste like kind)
dash of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

In a heat resistant, glass measuring cup (pyrex), place the coconut oil. Fill a small saucepan with a few inches of water, and place the glass measuring cup in it. Heat on the stove top until the coconut oil is mostly melted (the coconut oil should be room temperature, not hot. This will protect it’s raw benefits).

In a food processor using the regular blade, add the melted coconut oil and the rest of the ingredients and mix until well combined.

Place enough plastic wrap or parchment paper in a loaf pan to cover the bottom and sides of the pan. Scrape your fudge “dough” into the loaf pan, and fold the plastic wrap or parchment paper over the top of the fudge. Gently press down, to even out the thickness of the fudge (you want it to be about 1/2 inch thick, it will cover probably about 1/2 of the bottom of your loaf pan). Take out the fudge, carefully wrapped up, and place in the freezer or refrigerator until it has set up. In the freezer it only takes about 20- to 30 minutes.

Cut into small squares, and enjoy!

Classic Carrot

2 eggs
1/2 cup virgin coconut oil
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup raw honey
1/2 cup plain organic yogurt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 cups grated organic carrots
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup organic raisins
1/2 cup dry roasted chopped walnuts

Written by Lea Barlow • Leave a comment

I have been a bad, bad girl. If you are a regular reader you know that I recently broke a toe. To be exact, it was 5 weeks ago. Well, I now believe there to be a scientific correlation between foot injury and compulsive shoe shopping. Every week since the break I have purchased a new pair of shoes. I thought maybe as the toe healed the shoe shopping frenzy would subside. Nope. I doubled-up yesterday. For my husband’s sake, I hope he doesn’t check the site today. I definitely see some chest clutching in his future and some revoked shopping privileges in mine.

This lovely pair of Croco Peep Toes purchased 4 weeks ago.

I actually wrapped my swollen toes with medical tape from the kid’s first aid kit to make wearing these possible.

Some seasonal suede purchased 3 weeks ago.

This pair definitely lengthened the healing process.

Michael Kors Peep Toe Oxfords purchased 2 weeks ago.

I had been on the fence about this pair for awhile. Then, poof! Ring ‘em up, please.

Everyone needs a new pair of brown boots for the fall…

…and a new pair of black boots. Both purchased yesterday.

I have never considered myself a shoe snob but I did look down a little at the Jessica Simpson shoe collection. But this pair is pretty hot and I figured since she can’t hold on to a man I might as well help line her pockets.

I’ve got my eye on this DVF pair for next week. Totally purplicious.

Written by Lea Barlow • Leave a comment

by Alexis Novak

I once had a college boyfriend who fancied himself a fashion stylist. Going through my cluttered closet he eyeballed my vast sweater collection and scolded, “Don’t buy another cream sweater….ever.” I laughed because I knew in that moment that I would never get serious with a man that told me how to shop. I also had to admit that I had a problem. I was dressing the wrong co-ed. I had been shopping for a girl that lived in upstate New York, not one that lived in steamy Florida like me.

Fashion’s call of drama and escapism has always been hard for me to ignore. My mom was a model and frustrated fashion design student herself so clothes, magazines and fashion talk colored my childhood. In my twenties, I never let my boring financial realities hold me back from my wild clothes-horse imagination and had the credit card debt to prove it. Through outfits I was creating! And it was costly.

Today, I stand in front of my closet, staring at the carnage of my younger selves I shopped for once upon a time. In full fashion identity crisis mode, I fondly remember those old friends.

There was my English teacher self- all Ann Taylor Loft skirts and knit tops with matching knit boleros. Kind of conservative but lots of color and chunky jewelry punched up the fun a little. I wore so much brown in those years that I have sworn it off since.

Then there is the evidence of the Atkins Addict I become at 27. She wore all the designer denim when it started getting really expensive and the back pockets told people how cool you were. She also loved anything BCBG, stilettos and leather hobo bags with fringe five times the size of her head.

There is also a vintage gal in the mix from shopping thrifts since high school. Dresses from the 40’s in gem stone colors with waists tinier than we can imagine girls ever fitting into. Lucite purses and bangles, peep toe shoes, swing jackets, vintage fur! I once shopped a Miami thrift hours after Madonna’s stylist cleaned them out of vintage Pucci. Vintage is my fashion porn.

I can’t leave out the Pregnasaurus of the last three years, less about porn and more about camouflaging new body changes that could only be described as shocking. Mostly stretch cotton Gap and Old Navy, but some gifted Pea in the Pod.

And of course I still own a ginormous sweater collection just in case I ever move to Vermont.

After I reminisce with the old gals, I am left wondering who the hell I am today and what does she want to wear? I can only answer chic and comfortable without tragically trying to look forever 21. The problem is that “Mommy Chic” clothes do not exist as far as my shopping eye can see. On the continuum from Frumpedinka to Fashionista, I fall on the Fashionista side but haven’t hammered out the new mom details just yet. My fun is in the reinventing. And inventing. And reinventing.

I am sure my college ex would criticize my current assortment of rarely-used camel, cream, off-white and white cardigans. What he didn’t understand was that I never dressed for him. The fantasy has always been just for me.

Written by Alexis Novak • Leave a comment