Inside Oso Negro, learning to have patience, and weekend eats

Happy Monday!

How was your weekend? I had a lovely time with lots of sunshine..I even see my skin is slightly darker!Yay! I also had a little issue with my knees that I'll get to that later on. I also enjoyed a couple dandilion latte's ....I'm officially addicted! I have talked a lot about chilling at my fav coffee shop, Oso Negro, but I haven't shown you any picts. Today, I'm going to change that! The building is actually a house that they converted into a coffee shop so that in itself gives it this homey feeling.

I love all the beams and the sunken in area in the middle. They also feature local art which is always changing so it's like going to a gallery every weekend..you never know what is going to be featured.


Sweet patio hey? Its so spacious and the wood benches are gorgeous and surprisingly comfortable. As this is a very wood-loving town, it only made sense that they honored that and used the beautiful oak for the benches.

Check out this cool piece of art..something to do with the world and at axis.




Ry with the "world in his hand"...lol!

This beautiful Magnolia (I think that is what it's called) brought amazing color to the patio.

Ta Da!!! The infamous dandelion latte with rice milk..yuumm!

The hubby with his delish dark roast. Check out the curved bench:)

I love this place and for what they stand for. They brew organic coffee and roast their coffee beans in Nelson. They feature locally made treats, most of them are vegan and some are gluten-free, all look amazing. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of the goodie case. If you ever pass through Nelson in your travels, you need to stop there. Really, its a must:) And...check out my new shades....

Pink aviators!!! Oh, ya! I'm pretty bad with my sunglasses. I lose at least one pair every summer by either sitting on them or leaving them at a counter somewhere.
So, I don't buy expensive shades but I love these and I'll try extra hard to hold onto them.

As I said on Friday, I was going to go on run #2 as the weather was too good to ignore. I actually wore shorts for the first time..isn't that the best?

I was really excited to get to wear these as I've owned them for a couple of years and they never fit. You know one of those "oh these are on sale and cute" buys..lol. But a Whole foods diet does a body good:)

Besides the cute polka dots, I really love that these don't have a zipper or buttons, they just have the criss-cross tie-up on the side! I like clothing that's unique:)

The run went well and with all the vacant benches, I was able to do 3 sets of 10 push-ups on the back side of the benches along the run. It was so nice to have the sun on my face and to listen to some bumpin' music on my ipod. Yet, the next morning my right knee was super tight and somewhat swollen. I had to limp most of the day and took the day off from the gym. I was really frustrated and thought that maybe my knees were back to their old, injured self. I push myself hard, I want to do as much as I can for my body, yet, sometimes its too much. I was confused too because I felt great after my first run. If it was the running you'd think the knees would swell every time. So, I re-traced my actions of the day and remembered that I had hit my shoe very hard on a raised part of concrete the day before. So, the running must have just egged it on, so to speak. I woke up Sunday morning and it felt better and I was prepared to go to the gym but I need to learn to give my body time. It knows what to do and I wish it could relay that information onto my selfish mind would learn to lay low when needed. I decided to take another day, just to be safe. Just because I want to complete my weeks work of TT workouts, doesn't mean that my body is up to it. I'm learning (slowly) to listen to my body, but I'm no expert. I know that I did a good thing by not lifting or doing intervals this weekend, yet I feel like I failed my program. I want to overcome this mentality because in essence I won because now I won't have a major injury to deal with which could put me out weeks. Do you have patience with your body? Do you allow things to heal fully before getting back into the game?


Now onto some good eats! Friday was a pantry dinner that was lentils with onions, carrots, and cabbage with pasta sauce..kind of like sloppy joes without the bread. Delish and filling!

I love this dish as it takes so little time to make. Cooking the lentils is the only limiting factor. The rest of the dish takes 5 minutes. So, 35 minutes total = perfect!


I ate a lot of salads with an abundance of sprouts. This salad had clover, daikon radish, and broccoli sprouts. I covered the veggies with some delish tahini-miso-ginger dressing.

Oh yum! I could literally lick the bowl this stuff is so good!

I love fried onions..its my one cooked food that still makes its presence often. I also love it mixed with quinoa and then...a little ketchup. You might think that its not appetizing at all. That's fine.. It's one of those foodie things for me..and possibly me only..lol!

I made some of Averie's High Raw Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls. This time I decided to put half of the chocolate chips into the food processor with the other ingredients rather than leave them whole. The result was an even more convincing cookie dough..yum!

Check out the little chocolate chunks..mmmm. You need to try these!

I also made some of Meghan's Superfood Bon Bons...

Ya..these rawk and the ingredients are all super dooper for you! This reminds me, her 5 Days Healing with Everyday Superfoods tutorial is on now. I'll be making some of her recipes this week and they sound amazing. If you want to get more amazing superfood recipes, grab her tutorial!

I made this recipe again that is off of Carmella's blog. It was posted by Mosaica on the Raw Freedom Community. The Indian Carrot Curry Soap is so good and I love the spice combo. We ate it like a curry on a bed of quinoa with some daikon sprouts for some added crunch. It makes a lot which is awesome because you will want seconds! You may even be lucky enough to attend one of her classes, like Bitt!

This week is chalk full of fun stuff going on, with Meghan's tutorial, green smoothie cleanse (more about this later), and its EARTH WEEK! It's time to give Mother Nature a break this week so change something in your life to a "greener" option whether it be bringing your own coffee mug to the cafe in the morning, walking to work, eating a veggie meal, or starting a compost. I'm going to be taking part in Lori and Katie's Green Week Challenge.Wahoo! It's going to be fun!





Have a great Earth Week and do something green!

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