To all the ladies plus weekend eats

Happy International Women's Day and Mardi Gras!!

         2011 marks the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day!! This years theme is :

Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women

I am so fortunate to live in a country that respects women and provides us with equal rights. Some would argue that statement but I feel compared to many other countries, women have it pretty good in Canada (for the most part).

I am not afraid to express my religious beliefs
I'm not afraid to disagree with my husband
I can apply for any job that I want to
I can go to school to become anything I want to be
I can express my views publicly as I do on this blog

You forget sometimes how different things could be for you as a women in another country that does not have equal rights. Yet, I'm not naive enough to think that abuses against women don't exist where I live, because they do and it's absolutely terrible.

So, to all my ladies out there I love you all!! You bring such light to the world. You bring strength, beauty, and wisdom. You have so much to give...and you deserve to live a life full of love and respect!

And pass that respect on to other women. Women can be cruel to each other!! We compare ourselves to others, hate others who have more ____ (insert: money, success, sexy body, happiness etc). Then we commit something terrible..we abuse ourselves! We hate on our bodies, we tell ourselves terrible things, we instill fear. I know because I do this myself!

I have no problem respecting and loving all the women in my life yet, I have a hard time building myself up. Ironic wouldn't you say?  I think it's time I buy myself some post-its and start operation beautiful in my house!

Anyone celebrating Mardi Gras? Oh how I would love to be partying it up in New Orleans. One year I will have to make my way down there. I think it would be a blast!

Okay so now onto the weekend! It was pretty good. Hung out with friends Friday night and Sunday. Saturday ran errands and watched a movie. Sunday we also went to the BC Home and Garden Show which was a lot of fun. Lots of dreamy ideas for renovating and styling your home and garden. One of the coolest ideas was a pond pool. It's a pool that looks like a pond but has no added chemicals. Their booth had some pretty impressive designs.

Now looking back at the treats I've indulged over the past couple weeks..eek!

This cake was made by my aunt and it's called blata kuchen or layer cake!

 

Oh my this was so good!!! In between layers of dough is a pudding. Mmm mmm!

 

These were Meghan's crispy brown rice treats. Although basically it is a mix of rice cereal, pumpkin seeds, shredded coconut, chia seeds, almond butter, and honey. I didn't have any chocolate..boo! Still some great crunch. This would have been awesome on banana softserve:)

I served it with some turmeric tea, another Meghan Telpner creation.

I added coconut milk to my tea but any nut milk would be great!

Sprinkled with some cinnamon and you are good to go!

Turmeric is an amazing spice! Check out my post on it here.

 

Then came the homemade apple sauce. That I made in...ooh..a minute! Just take a couple apples, place them in your food processor, blend away adding water as necessary, sprinkle with some lemon juice (prevents browning) and cinnamon, and that my friends is apple sauce! I'm not a huge fan of eating apple sauce on it's own but I love using it in baking as it helps reduce/replace fat in a recipe.

Then I used the apple sauce in Nelly's banana bread recipe! Yum!!! I added chocolate chunks and then had a warm piece with coconut butter. Divine!!

Just to be clear I didn't eat all that this weekend. The goodies have been spread out over a few weeks:)

Shopping! Saturday I ran around to 4 different stores to gather some staples.

The goodies in the green box was from Costco. We recently signed up for a Costco card and are going to try it for a year to see if it's worth it.

This week I picked up Bob's Mill spelt flour, frozen blueberries, and a tub of dates (Thanks Kris)

Some other items I sometimes pick up are packs of sprouted bread, quinoa, organic greens and spinach, organic tofu, frozen veggies, and movie passes)

Do you have a Costco card? Do you think it helps with your food budget?

It's too early to tell for me.

Second stop! Local health food store where I get the best deal on Vega Whole Foods Optimizer.

 I also splurged on some Daiya cheese, miso, and coconut milk:)

Third stop! My favorite grocer, 2 EE's Farm Market. This week it was 4 bags of veggies and fruits!!

 I don't shy away from buying reduced veggies and fruits. I got a full bag of apples for $1.60 that I used for apple sauce and juicing. I make a judgement call if it's worth it or not. Bananas are always a great deal when they are over-ripe. I bought a bag, took the peel off, and placed them in the freezer for softserve. It probably costs me $ 0.50 to make softserve. I don't think Ben and Jerry's can compete with that:)

The fourth stop was to pick up kitty litter and food so nothing exciting to show you there.

Speaking of kitties, the boys wanted to say hi!

Oddie's getting big, big, big

Oddie is going to approach at lightening speeds..soon. Hence the yoda ears!

Such a little monkey!!

I also wanted to share a little about what my better half does for work. He works with a lot of wood and metal creating beautiful staircases like the one below. This was his first spiral work and I think it's so stunning I just needed to share|

This has taken weeks as he had to measure every angle in order to make it fit perfectly. No pressure, hey?

I'm so proud of him for conquering his fears and taking on such a tricky project!

Have a wonderful Tuesday everyone!! I'm off for a train run then it's study time for me.

PS My girl Nelly is having a CSN stores giveaway so be sure to check it out!

Dirty salad and other food musings plus surprising happiness

Welcome Wednesday!

The middle of the week again..wahoo! Hope your week is going well. I just wanted to send a huge hello to my family and friends who are reading my blog. Thanks everyone and miss you all:) Anywho..my week has been going okay ..the usual work/gym/ sleep routine..nothing too exciting. But what has had me excited is the delicious food I was able to make.

First off, I'm glad you guys are incorporating turmeric into your diet. It really is a power player and I'm happy to have it on my team. Sorry for sports analogy, I guess its the hangover from the Olympics..lol! As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to try Meghan's turmeric tea. I followed her instructions and used about a teaspoon of turmeric and man was this yummy! Here it is simmering on the stove...great color hey? I think I might have simmered it too long because when I was straining it it was rather thick. I heated up a bit of rice milk and added that and about a half a teaspoon of raw honey. All the glorious cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves tasted so good and you couldn't even taste the turmeric. I will definitely have this again..yumm! I thought I took a grand finale picture but I searched and couldn't find one. So, you will just have to take my word on it!

I read a post this week on Joanna's blog about bringing your salad to the next level. I'm totally game for that! She had some really great ideas and I'm glad my salads contained some of her listed ingredients. Does that make my salad popular (geek alert)? wahoo! Anyways... I did want to try her mustard dressing as Joanna uses apple cider vinegar and I usually go with fresh lemon juice in my dressings. I liked the dressing but I've come to realize I can't handle too much ACV, its just too sour for my liking. So, I had some "pulp" left over from making the turmeric tea and so I thought I would just add a bit to tone down the sourness. It turned out amazing. So, thanks Joanna for the inspiration! So, I needed some awesome salad to go along with this crazy dressing. I came up with my "dirty" salad. No, I do wash my produce! The dirty part has to do with the kelp powder and intense amounts of dried oregano and basil on top. All in all this salad rocked. It was pretty basic as it only contained romaine lettuce, carrots, cabbage, broccoli but with the dressing..I was in heaven. So good!

I also made Nikki's totally awesome sun-dried tomato zucchini hummus. We are truly addicted to this stuff! The flavor is so unique that I don't think I could enjoy regular hummus ever again (yep, that good!).

If you have a hard time digesting tahini or chick peas from regular hummus, Gena of Choosing Raw just did an awesome post on a more digestion-friendly hummus. So check it out!

For dinner, I blended up a soup from Carmella's blog named Indian Carrot Curry Soup. This was so good and nourishing for our post-workout meal. I had been craving Indian food and this so this was the perfect fit! Raw soups don't have to be scary! If you want something super easy and Delicious give this recipe a try. It literally took me 10 minutes...that's about an hour or so of time saved if you were to make a cooked soup. Bonus! I followed her instructions to blend the ingredients in two batches..and she was right, my blender was full to the brim each time. This makes a lot of soup but its a good thing because you will want more than one bowl. We each had a bowl for dinner and we each had it today for lunch. There is only one bowl left and its going to be a fight as to who gets to eat it...lol. By the way, I usually win those fights (Ryan might say otherwise but that's not important)! I'm loving recipes from Carmella blog. I tried the chocolate-dipped date truffles in this post, and Ryan and I still talk about them. I will be making them again real soon...yumm! So, head on over to The Sunny Raw Kitchen and try something..you will not be disappointed:)

The best of both worlds is what I called my lunch today! Hummus with Ryvita crackers and curry carrot soup. The hubby added some left over quinoa for a little boost in the protein department. mmm!

Back to dinner...We finished off with some cute over-sized chocolate chips from the co-op that are vegan and organic with 70% cocoa. They were so Delicious and the perfect way to end the day:)

My next foodie adventure was to make my own trail mix. The store I usually get it from was out so I decided that it was a good time to experiment. I bought natural almonds, raw cashews, organic dried cranberries, and organic raisins. I had some raw pumpkin seeds and raw sunflower seeds at home so I thought I would use some of these as well. I soaked all the nuts and seeds overnight.

I then had to leave them spread out on plates and baking sheets to air dry as I don't have a dehydrator. I quickly realized this was going to take too long so I put them in the over, turned the heat on low for a bit then turned off the oven. This was way more efficient (duh!). Aren't those almonds huge? They pretty much doubled in size after soaking them!

Ta-da..the final product! It made so much that I'm going to have to go buy a larger glass storage container as it wouldn't fit into anything I had on hand. One down side was that I really wish I could have dehydrated the nuts and seeds so I could get that "crunch" that I associate with trail mixes. Next time I think I will leave out the cashews and maybe go for a brazil nut or pecans. I would add more raisins and cranberries or maybe add some goji berries. The possibilities are endless! I felt like I went back to an older time where you had to make everything you eat. So, I definitely felt more connected to my food. Have you made something that made you feel more in touch with your food?

So, I really didn't measure what I used so I'm not sure how to determine if it was cheaper to make my trail mix or buy it..but I'm going try.

sunflower seeds - $1.00

Pumpkin Seeds - $.50 (didn't have much left)

Almonds - $3.71

Cashews - $ 2.19

Cranberries - $0.88

Raisins - $1.00

TOTAL = $9.28

I'm thinking that it's about the same price as the trail mix I currently buy but everything in this mix is organic. So if I compare it to organic trail mix prices, I think it's a better deal. Gotta love that!

Have you tried making your own trail mix? How did it go?

Last but not least, I tried a new kind of chewing gum that I picked up at the co-op. It is sweetened with xylitol which is, according to their website, ".....a naturally occurring sugar-alcohol found in corn cobs and stalks, and is shown to reduce tooth decay by up to 80%." The good thing is it is non-GMO but I'm still a bit iffy about corn sugars. Although, I think using xylitol is better than aspartame or sucralose. So, have you tried Spry gum? Or is there a gum you recommend?



So, what's my surprise happiness? Well, I wrote about my woes with our current tenants last week. Now, this week we decided to side with them and go ahead with a large repair that was not necessary (even though they claimed it was vital. We called them to make sure the time was okay. Then about 2 hours later they call back and say they are moving out..this month. Seriously, these people are all over the map. Good thing we could cancel the repair but not we have to find new tenants. Yet, amongst this mess I am smiling because they are leaving. Huge relief! At least I'm more prepared for looking at new tenants!

Well that about sums up my week so far! It's been fun! Hope the rest of your week goes well. I'm going to leave off with a picture of the King...well at least the king in our house...lol