MIA

Hello beautiful people!

Just wanted to give you a heads up. I'm going to be away for a tradeshow for work but I'll be back on Friday. I'm sure something fun is BOUND to happen, right? If not I might have to make it happen:)

Anyone else have to attend tradeshows for work? It's all good for the first hour..then standing at the booth gets really boring:) I'll be going to the bathroom a lot I'm sure te he!


See you all on Friday! XOXO

Update: Wacky weekend (Nemo's brother pictures)

Happy Monday all!

                How was your weekend? Fun? Crazy? laid-back? Well, mine was more a combo of all those things.

Friday night was pretty mellow which is the usual at my house. We take some time to wind down and just chill. We ended up having pizza and splurging further more on 85% dark chocolate (ya baby!!). We also caught up on some Dexter:)

Then Saturday came and things started going downhill.

I was working away in the kitchen when the hubby surfaced from the garage and asked me for some paper towels. I didn't know what was going on so I brought some over to him. He said that the handle on his jack dislodged and he punched the ground..hard. He was in quite the shock and didn't even know that at time that he split open his pinkie finger..blah! So, off he goes to the emergency to get stitched up and looking back now, I probably should have driven him:( Anyways I'm stuck at the house keeping guard of the precious truck that is now half way out of the garage on a hoist. I was going to go to an open house for pole dancing fitness classes with my cuz but I guess it just wasn't in the books for that day.

It was actually a beautiful day so I quickly got a workout in, made Ry a batch of cookies, and then got down to some organic chemistry business outside in the glorious sunshine.

And guess what?...even this dandilion is confused by this sudden visit of Mr. Sun.

Heidi, Spring may actually be back :)

I have one canna lily that bloomed! I think the colors are so beautiful!

It's funny because I don't particularly like the color orange..but in this flower and in my favorite flower, Bird of paradise, I think it's just stunning!

If you look closely, you can see another dollop of orange in that last picture...

 HAHA..he does this all the time now when I'm studying. Who knew cats like organic chem?

And again!! Love the little legs tucked in:)

Ryan made it out of the hospital after 3.5 hours:( There were only two doctors on duty.. On a Saturday? Bizarre!  He needed 4 stitches but thankfully he didn't fracture or break his hand. Being the guy that he is, he got right back at it and began working on his truck again. I guess it helped that his finger was frozen but I'm sure the doc wouldn't have approved.

We went to a dinner party on Saturday night which was alright. We only knew two people so it was bit awkward but we got to try some amazing home brews. They even had a chocolate beer and let me tell you it was AWESOME!

On Sunday my knee went out. I had some treatments on it in the past but I guess I need a few more. It was a bit scary as it happened as I was about to go down my stairs at home. Luckily I was able to catch myself. Then Ryan admitted that his knee was throbbing..he probably hit it at the same time he punched the ground, even though he says he doesn't remember.

So, we both hobbled around and made our way to his sister's 30th birthday party! Something happened here as well. My SIL's boyfriend lives in a very beautiful, secluded neighborhood but on Sunday a lady found herself on their street, parked in her car, sleeping off her drunkenness. After some members of the party made their way out to her car, they thought it best to call 911 as it took them a long time to wake her up and who knows what else she may have been on. So, this quiet street became a hub of fire trucks, ambulance, and police. Luckily she was okay and I think they took her to the station so she could sleep it off some more. I'm just glad that she didn't kill someone on the road!! And if she needs it, I hope she gets some help.

So, I never really got much kitchen time in at all but today I'm craving a hearty soup to go along with a serving dark skies and pouring rain. Sorry for the lack of pictures..I'm still nervous taking photos of food and such in situations where I don't know too many people. I'm sure this will change:) What do you think about my crazy weekend?  I think the saying ..."when it rains, it pours" suits my weekend theme perfectly:)

PS There is going to be a new member of our family joining us really soon. He is at my mom's right now but we will be picking him up this weekend. I hope to get some pictures to share with you all very soon. Nemo is getting a brother!

And stay tuned this week for some hazelnut picking, adventures downtown, and more!

Okay my cousin just sent me some pictures of the new kitty from my mom ( mom doesn't have a computer). Baah he is so cute!

 Hanging out with grandma!

 Te he!! so tiny and sweet! My mom said he was crying a lot. He was missing his brothers and sisters:( Don't worry little guy, you are going to have a big brother soon enough!

Where's Junior? HAHA that's what Ryan wants to call him. We shall see!

I'm so excited to bring him home..Nemo is going to be so happy..hopefully:)

Some of my favorite things and sites....

Hey Oprah does a show on it, I thought why not blog about it? Just a note before you get all excited, I'm not giving away any cars or vacations. Bummer. Hold tight though because I MAY win the lotto..just maybe:)

 Anywho, how are we all doing this Friday? I'm buzzed...on coffee. I'm fasting today so I am drinking my overload of coffee this morning lol! Here is our new favorite brand, Kicking Horse. I heart Oso coffee but I cannot find it around my neck in the woods. I know you can order it online but I might as well branch out and try some different, local companies.

Fun story!

Great labels!

This is what you want to see from a coffee company!

I love dark,dark coffee

So, here we go! In no particular order....

1. Young House Love

I originally heard about this site on Oh She Glows and it's awesome! If you need some inspiration for renovations on your home, check this site out. You will be amazed at what this couple can do on a small budget!

2. Food Gawker-vegan

Happy.Healthy.Life has an amazing list or vegan sites and blogs to check out. This is where I found Food Gawker. This is food porn to a whole new level! The site is beautifully laid out and is updated hourly! It is by no means complete but it provides amazing inspiration and new ideas. There are more gawker categories too including weddinggawker and craftgawker.

3. Glass jars

As you saw in my homemaker post, I use a ton of glass jars! I think they are the be-all-and-end-all of food storage and so much more. A non-toxic, attractive way to store sauce, dried goods, herbs, hemp seeds, figs, WHATEVER! I also use them to hold my craft supplies like buttons and ribbon. Plus, I bet your local thrift store has a good stash of them so they are economical too!

PS this is my dream pantry...actually Angela's is at the top!

4. Dry-skin brush

Removing dead skin cells, activating the lymphatic system, and so much more, skin brushing is an easy way to help your body do a little detoxifying! Grab a natural-hair brush at your local health food store or online and start brushing. Check out my older post on the topic as it goes into more detail!

5. i-tunes radio

Okay, I might be the last person on the planet to know about this, but it is awesome!! Sometimes my play list just won't do and new music is needed. I love that I can listen to whatever music genre I am in the mood for at the time. When I work out it's electronica, when I'm studying it's classical.  What's your favorite station/genre on there?

6. bodyrock.tv

I have been rocking these workouts lately and I'm loving them. They are short but INTENSE! Zuzana is great at explaining the exercises and watching her go through the workouts really helps with exercises that are a bit more complex. Cleavage aside, this site rocks and has added a new dimension to my workouts! I was even doing dive bomber exercises. Demi Moore does these in GI Jane...in the water:)

7. Happy vegan chocolate chip cookies

This is my go-to recipe for making chocolate chip cookies. It's super fast and customizable (different oils, flours etc). These disappear fast in my house!


That's it for now! I'm always on the lookout for fun sites and gadgets!
Any new sites or things that you are gaga for?
Have a great weekend! I've only got a dinner on Sunday planned so far so that leaves lots of kitchie time:) I'll be sure to share the successes..and failures with you all:) XOXO

Not a homemaker, homemaker weekend

Happy Tuesday Thursday!

Hope you all are having a fabulous week! I meant to post this on Tuesday but life got super busy and I also had some technology fails too. My camera showed me the blue screen of death and the only way it would come back to life would be if I deleted everything off my memory card. AAaaah! I had most of my pictures on my computer but all the amazing photos I had from my weekend were gone. Boo! Anyone else had to do this with your camera?

Anyways, here is a re-cap of my past weekend which is so far gone..but I wanted to share some of it at least:)

Another second cousin was welcomed into my family over the weekend!! That's #2 this month already..and a third is on the way! Do you find that babies and wedding come in waves? In my family they do, big time!

As for my weekend it was a busy one (as usual) and I actually got a lot of my to-do list completed. The only thing I didn't work on was my ND school application and that's okay as I have some time before the deadline. So that meant I was a total homemaker this weekend preparing the winter months:) Little House on The Prarie, anyone? HAHA not quite..but almost.

My itchen got a huge workout and I made a big mess, as usual, but it was great fun. I felt happy to know that I'm able to have nutritous food from the summer months in the dead of winter.

Let's start off with the tomatoes, shall we?

"sun-dried" in my dehydrator! I don't know wht I haven't thought about doing this before! I wish it was still summer and I could actually sun dry them:)

About 20 pounds of tomatoes turned into sauce and frozen! It's super delish too. Can't wait for a cold, rainy day to use those up:) I'm pretty happy that I was able to use a lot of glass to freeze everything too. There still are a few foods in plastic but not nearly as much as in glass! Plastic is freaking me out after my ND visit. PS the other jar is filled with golden plums.

some more "sun-dried" action

Oh sun-dried tomato hummus, I hear you calling my name!

Up next..pears!
My dehydrator was full all weekend...and still is! These are pears from an organic farm literally down the street!

Mmm...these are probably my favorite dried fruit!

I still have quite a few pears left over so I'm thinking about making some of these recipes:

Bonzai Aphrodite - Vegan vanilla pear muffins

Veganbaking.net - Ginger pear muffins

Raw Epicurian - Chocolate pears

Gluten-Free Goddess - Gluten-free apple and pear crisp

Any favorite pear recipes?

Herbs! I didn't have time this morning to take more photos but I dried thyme, pineapple sage, mint, lemon balm, and some cilantro.

Pineapple sage! Mmm this stuff is amazing! I picked it from my work and need to dry more. It has such a unique flavor!

Mint! I never tire of the smell or taste of mint. In the winter I love sipping on peppermint tea..I want some now actually lol as the rain continues to fall.

As for the basil I picked from Covert Farms, I thought I would try a preserving method that I heard works well for this amazing herb -ice cubes!

They smell amazing and how convenient to just drop one of these into a soup or pasta dish!

Just squish as much chopped basil into an ice-cube tray as you can then add purified water and freeze!

Then I tried to make zucchini bread -twice! I thought I had done something wrong the first time so I gave the recipe the benefit of the doubt and went for it again! Fail! Ahh nothing is more disappointing than that. I try to use the healthiest ingredients possible and so that means a would-be healthy, expensive dish goes in the trash. Boo! Oh well, I'll look for a different one. Thank goodness I still have zucchini growing in the garden:)

Have an awesome Thursday!

Where I feel I belong and my long to-do list!

Happy Friday!

I'm excited for the weekend! Nothing too crazy exciting is happening. In fact I've got a huge list of things I need to get done and I'm actually looking forward to most of them. More on that in a bit:) I just wanted to give you a re-cap of my day yesterday. I took the day off as it was d-day for exporting the truck. We drove down to Bellingham (again!) and found the truck safe and sound in the Walmart parking lot right next to all the RV's. We then drove back to the border but Ryan had to stay behind to make sure the truck was legit (mechanically speaking) and that he wasn't hiding cocaine in the seats LOL! Luckily he had no problems and the truck is now at its new home. I made it through too, even though the border patrol guy asked me a ton of questions. Geesh! The truck needs to have an inspection done here but then it's all good to go. I keep forgetting to take a picture of it but it looks exactly like the one below except it is all red...and the top (white part in the photo) comes off:)

Now the garage is filled with his two "loves" HAHA!

For the second part of my day I headed into New Westminster for a little visit at the naturopathic school I'm hoping to attend next year - Boucher. I met with the director of admissions and alumni relations first. I had a few questions I needed to get clarified. Then I was paired up with a wonderful student in first year. I actually got to sit in her Biomed class with her! It was great too because I could follow along to a certain extent! I only graduated 3 years ago yet I feel like all that knowledge has evaporated. I'm sure its buried deep in my brain somewhere..I just need to torture it with some more organic chemistry before it will let it out:) The student was a great help to me and allowed some of my fears to be put into perspective. Plus she is a rock star - a student + a mom! And she says its doable! I met some other girls in the class and all were super friendly and welcoming too.

I feel I've found my place.

Sitting in the class listening about extracellular matrices, wound healing, zinc, scarring, collagen, and so much more, I felt HAPPY! I wanted to be in the class now, as a student. It felt so right being there and it just re-ignited my drive to really hunker down and get my application in, complete organic chemistry (again!), and continue my relationship with my ND.

Have you ever had such an epiphany?

As for this weekend, I've got a huge to-do list. Here are some of the tasks:

1. Brew sugar/tea for kombucha

2. clean the bathroom...boo

3. Start and finish first homework assignment for organic chemistry

4. Make tomato sauce - freeze it

5. Make "sun-dried" tomatoes in the dehydrator

6. Dehydrate mint, lemon balm, some basil, thyme, cilantro

7. pick up car parts for the new "love"

8. dehydrate pears and plums

9. Freeze left-over tomatoes-plain

10. work on application process - autobiography, references (have to think about who to use for the last one), budget worksheet etc etc

11. Other things I haven't thought of yet!

It's fall, baby! I can feel it, even though I think we were jipped of a summer here. I'm already craving soups and squash. Fall also gives me time to catch up on the many things that were put to the wayside for sun, shorts, and sand! Mainly those things that involved being indoors for long periods of time. I love fall even though it brings so much rain for us coastal folks. I think I love it so much because I grew up in a vacation town where September couldn't come soon enough. Tourists dominated every part of my city and I couldn't really move in July and August, let alone find a good spot on the beach! Even though I don't live there anymore September still brings me a sort of peace.

Do you welcome Fall or does it bring you down that the hot summer sun has moved on?

PS - I saw a comment on a blog the other day that bothered me a little. Basically the commenter said that a lot of people who are food bloggers don't know how to write well. I thought that wasn't necessary to say-especially in the comments section. I fully admit that I am not a pro in grammar. I started writing this blog partly to better my writing skills. I don't know, I just thought that is was uncalled for especially since we aren't writing for our English profs here. What are your thoughts?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Aventuras en salsa haciendo :Part 2

Hello Wednesday!

How are you all doing today? I feel like I haven't had a chance to do much of anything these past few days! On Monday Ry and I went down to Bellingham as he was nervous about where he parked his NEW TRUCK (not brand new..but you get my drift)!! wahoo! He finally found a truck that was descent and he bought it even though he had to drive nearly 5 hours...across the border to get it. I was looking on craigslist everyday and then emailing and phoning people. That was stressful enough dealing with the wackos on there. I think Averie agrees! As we are exporting the vehicle to Canada there have been some tense moments as there is a lot of paper work involved. Tomorrow is going to be the tensest of them all as we attempt to bring the truck across the border...eek! I'm sure all will go well but those border workers scare the heck out of me lol!


While we were in Bellingham I made a few stops:)

I desperately needed new kicks as my gym shoes were pretty sad looking. I picked up a different brand than I usually go for -Asics. They were the ones that fitted the best and were able to accommodate my insole. I need to wear an insole as I have such a huge arch in my foot that when I step it needs support or I will walk with a very uneven step which has great implications for my knees.

They are really comfy and so far so good at the gym! I'm quite picky with shoes..and it started from baby one, seriously. My mom has this picture of me as a toddler just screaming my head off with my new shoes on LOL! I guess I couldn't say "no" at this point yet!

I also stopped by this place...

Wahoo!! TJ's! HAHA can you tell I'm a tourist? I didn't pick up too much just walnuts, Brazil nuts,almonds, and raw almond butter. Much cheaper than back home:) Plus a dark chocolate bar! I've never seen so much choice in chocolate bars..wow! I'm sure I would have caused more damage but my banker (hubby) was trailing me the whole time LOL. I still get a shock every time I got to a grocery store in the US and see the liquor isles. If you didn't know, Canadian liquor is sold only in government and private liquor stores.


After getting kicked out of TJ's prematurely due to my banker's hunger, we headed downtown Bellingham and found a fun burger joint. I didn't take any pictures but it was a great place that had many veggie options. Plus their beef was grown from a farm in Oregon and they were grass fed without any other crap that factory farmed cows are given. Sorry no pictures:(

Then last night I came home after the gym, scarfed down a salad, and went out for coffee with my cuz. It was nice to catch up on everything in each of our lives. Once I got home the hubs and I watched an episode Dexter! Love this show..even though there is a lot of murdering going on. I love the humour..it's so dry and maybe that's what makes it so hilarious to me. I know it's that time of year...so what shows are you anxiously waiting for? I'm looking forward to some more Glee. It's my "happy" show..I watch it if i want to get a smile on my face without me even trying:) Plus I'm still catching up on Dexter (I'm on season 2) and True Blood too.

Okay enough about TV..onto some farming!

Continuing on with the post of my salsa making weekend, I wanted to share with you our adventures on Sunday when we went to an organic farm to pick some tomatoes...or so I thought!We arrived at Covert Farms and to my utter disbelief...they still had strawberry u-pick! So, we grabbed two extra buckets..besides the two buckets for tomatoes and off we went.

To the right it pretty much all strawberries..I seriously could have stayed there all day...and ate of course:) But the scenery isn't too shabby either!

Row on row of strawberries. These were of the "everberry" variety!

I see you..beautiful, organic strawberry, you!

My mom and I both love nature and it's bounty and so you this is where we like to go hang out...in the berry fields:)

As you can see, my mom was finding all the "big kahuna" berries!

See! Look at those things....Mmm!

Then after we had to literally drag ourselves away from the berries, we made our way to the roma cemetery! There were so many tomatoes just laying on the ground. Bah! I wish there was a way to save all those tomatoes and give them to the needy...another project for me, perhaps?

There is something about picking tomatoes..I start dreaming of sauces and salsa, salads and "sun-dried" goodness.

EEK!! Mr. Spider I almost went right for you as a juicy tomato is on that branch. Fine, you can have it!

After about 5 minutes of picking we had over 20lbs of Roma's. So, so delicious!

watermelon fields. These were off--limits from u-pick! Darn!

Purslane! One of my favorite weeds to eat:) Their plants looked like shrubs there were so big!

I picked as much as I could as my plant is quite pitiful compared to these! It is fantastic in green monsters, by the way:) Funny story too about how they started growing purslane. One of the owners of a very famous restaurant in my home town was up at the farm one day and saw the workers ripping it out and tossing it aside. She told the farm that that is food and they should let it grow. So the farm began growing purslane for her and then it caught on how healthy it is and so they had to grow more!

Probably my favorite picture from the day! Right next to the purslane was the marvelous, intoxicating smell of basil. I picked a bunch and hopefully I will have enough to freeze or dry. If I don't eat it all in tomato basil salads.

Cherry tomatoes that were taller than me!

A wee baby artichoke!

At the main building they have a cafe, wine tasting, home made gelato, and so much more! They even have a kids play area so its a great place to bring the family for the day! And the organic factor is so awesome too!

We stayed there so long that I left a lot later than I had planned. Oh well! I enjoyed every minute of it!

Now, one other item we picked up were some tomatillo's!

Which were made into a delicious green salsa. Oh so delicious..the picture does not do it justice!

And the recipe for you to try at home!

Have a wonderful day everyone!