Kaela Hill

Most perfect day at the beach.

Yeeehawww!

Home in FL, and my mom is using me as slave labor to dig holes for fence posts amongst many red ant piles.

Proudly making this ridiculous fashion statement to protect those pretty legs!

Last night in Aspen. Ordered my taxi for a 5:20 a.m. ride to the airport tomorrow, yikes!

Made this delish vegan lentil soup. Get excited, cause I’m dishin out the recipe!

This is super easy, and it’s great because lentil soup is jam-packed with health benefits. Lentils significantly reduce your risk of heart disease, help stabilize your blood sugar, prevent digestive problems, increase energy, and have massive amounts of folate and magnesium. One serving of lentils has a whopping 43% of dietary fiber, 10 grams of protein, 0% fat and only 80 calories. Can’t get much better than that.

What you’ll need:
-tablespoon of olive oil
-7 cups vegetable broth
-2 carrots
-one yellow onion
-2 stalks of celery
-4 minced cloves of garlic
-1 cup lentils
-handful of grape tomatoes (sliced in half)
-1 large potato (diced into chunks)
-2 bay leaves
-a few pinches of thyme
-salt and pepper to taste

Get your cook on:
Chop the carrots, celery and onion and pour into a large pot with the olive oil and minced garlic. Let cook for 3-5 minutes, let the lovely smell waft into your kitchen, and then add the 7 cups of broth. While the broth is coming to a simmer, rinse the lentils and add them to the pot along with the diced potatoes and tomatoes. Then add the bay leaves, thyme and salt and pepper, cover the pot, and let simmer for 45 minutes.

All done, easy peasy.

Snow tickling my face while hiking to Crater Lake.

Snowing already!?

I realize I’ve been a bit on the quiet side lately…so here’s a little update on life after graduation.

Nothing says “focus and figure out your life!” like being in solitary confinement. So here I am, in my Colorado hermit headquarters. The lovely visitors have gone home, and I spend my days fretting over my resume…trying to figure out that one thing that is going to make me different, the one thing that will get me hired in this shit storm of an economy.

Spent hours researching agencies that I’ll go after…and tomorrow will be the day I’ll send out my first resume. The first round of applications will be off to New York, London, and one to Amsterdam.

Feeling a flood of emotion…terrified, excited, anxious. How long will it take? What if no one responds? Can I handle the rejection? Will I have to settle for something I don’t want?

Until then, I’ll be sitting here, bundled up in this cold, lonely house, sipping my green tea with my fingers crossed.

Just home from the farmer’s market in Aspen to stock up on some local produce.

Great finds: homemade trumpet pasta, the most amazing organic peaches, fresh raspberries, eggplant, corn, pears, okra, cilantro and basil (to make my vegan pesto), and of course this delicious vegan sausage!

Though it rained on me all the way home, twas a fantastic saturday market.

I have an OCD way of eating grapefruit. Total destruction.

Forest of Aspens …so quiet you can hear a pin drop.

Walked into town today for lunch and was wondering why a large section was roped off with police hanging around.

Because there’s a bear in the tree!