Fueling up!

Happy Friday everyone!

 Long time no see, hey? This week was intense for me. So much going on!!

Doctor visit (it had been two years since I had a date with the blue paper robe..eek!)
Blood testing/skin testing for school ( Serious testing including TB, HIV, Hep C, and Hep B)
Travelling to the US for work
study, study, study

Deep down I do kind of like the craziness but only for a little while:)

Yesterday I made a commitment to myself to leave the house and go to the library to study where there would be no distractions. I'm finding myself giving in to watching TV with the hubby or cook or do anything else BUT study. Library to the rescue!

I managed to get in 3 1/2 hours of solid book time. I left with a bounce in my step! It felt great to really grind through some of the dry material. Plus after 7pm I was pretty much the only person in the library.

But before I took off to the library I had to get my nutrition in! I made a quick stop for some dates and then got down to business.

Remember my wheatgrass babies?

All grown up:)

I used one whole tray of wheat grass (not as thick as the stuff in the pict), carrots, celery, cucumber, parsley, apple, and ginger. Awesome!! I'm very obsessed with juices lately.

My juicer doesn't do a great job juicing the wheatgrass so I think it's time I invest in a separate juicer specialized for wheatgrass, Any suggestions?

Chia pudding with 1/2 banana, a few cashews, chocolate hemp protein powder, splash of mylk, and cinnamon

And these chocolate covered carrot cake protein bars. Recipe to come! I just need to tweak it a bit.

Out the door with delicious food in hand in under 30 minutes:)

This morning I switched schedules and started at 9am instead of 7am. So I took advantage of the extra time and snuck in a workout. First I had a date with Jillian and then ventured outside to the beautiful, but frosty morning. I walked to the nearby elementary school and ran intervals on the crispy field. The sun came out for a brief visit too which I LOVED.

Oh morning workouts how I love thee! It was a great way to start a Friday.

Have a great weekend everyone! One more week of craziness and then I can relax a little. I sure hope to increase my 1 post record from this week though:(

XOXO



Digging a little Deeper

Howdy folks!! Happy Friday. I do not remember Mon, Tues, or Wednesday...it's all a blur. It is fun when the end of the week feels like a Tuesday:)

I'm not just crazy at work, I've got my organic chem final in two weeks. Eek!! I'm trying to start early and avoid the major cram sessions that I usually ended up doing in university. It's good practice as I will not be cramming for ND school.

Being organized is a big help too!! I took a couple of hours and organized everything into this binder for easy access. I love it already! I'm not done "tabbing" everything yet but once I'm through it's going to be perfecto!! Hopefully this will lead to a near "perfecto" final:)


This is a whole different ball game. People's HEALTH are at stake and so I really need to get into a habit and a studying flow that works for me. I have a few things in mind already and so once it gets closer ( only 193 days!!! Yes, I checked:) to the start I'll lay out my plan!

Alrighty so today I wanted to share some food goodies with you and have a chat about my blog content.

Wa-bam!! Yes, this thing is actually edible! It's a breakfast cookie from the lovely fitnessista. This breakfast rocked my world. You're probably thinking, that big blob got your all riled up? Why yes, it's true.

I love the consistency (you know that's a big deal) and how customizable it is. Oh and it's delish too:)

My cookie :

1/3 cup buckwheat groats, ground into a flour
1 full scoop chocolate hemp protein powder
cinnamon
1/4 cup almond milk
1/2 banana
1 tbl raisins
1 tbl chia seeds
Vanilla
unsweetened coconut

I'm excited to try out different combos! Have you ever made Gina's breakfast cookie?

These beauties were made on Valentine's attempt #2!! As you can see I was impatient and didn't wait until it was completely frozen. Yum!!

The filling had almond butter, chia seeds, bee pollen, half scoop protein powder, unsweetened coconut. These were divine.

I know Nelly made some chocolate love too. Hi doll!!

Brain food!! I love mixing my foods together. I'm the one at the table on thanksgiving mixing the corn, peas, sweet potatoes, and whatever there is into one big mess..amazing!

The above has kale, cucumber, peppers, peas, avo, chickpeas, pickled beets, sauerkraut, and left over roasted veggies. I topped it off with an interesting dressing, if you want to call it that.

Trust me it's delicious! Just mix a tablespoon tahini with 1/2 cup salsa. I love it with salads (plus a dash of balsamic!) and with roasted veggies.

Dessert was protein pudding! 1 avocado, 1/2 cup blueberries ( I used frozen), carob or cacao to your liking, 1/2 scoop protein powder, stevia, water, and a touch of Cinnamon. Topped with shredded coconut and cacao nibs:)

There you have it, a sugar-free dessert to try out this weekend!! I guarantee you will love it:)

Now for some green!!

What's that under those paper towels?

Or under the grow light at work:)

 I work in the horticulture industry just in case you were wondering!

Wheatgrass babies!!! I am so ready for some fresh wheatgrass juice.

I did a post on the easy process to grow your own wheatgrass..no grow light required! Check it out!

PS I am quite amazed at the difference in growth between the wheatgrass grown under natural light (sunlight) versus the grow lamps. The wheatgrass under the grow lamps is double the size to that of the natural light babies. Interesting hey?

Watching these sprouts take off has me itching to start gardening again!  Or maybe it's all the seeds we just received for the garden at work.

All organic or heirloom seeds...sigh:)

This Weeks Goal

I've been bodyrockin' this week and it's been fun. Yet I feel sometimes that it's not enough. I don't have the strength that Zuzana and so I can't get in a ton of reps. I know it is still rocking my body pretty hard but I think the workouts need to be included along with a resistance program that uses some weights. That's my opinion, anyways. Also I'm a little nervous during her workouts as there is a lot of jumping and it's a lot of impact on my knees. I've been pretty good lately but a couple months back when I was only doing bodyrock workouts consistently for weeks my left knee starting going out again. When I was doing resistance training with weights along with HIIT, I rarely had an incident. So, I think the bodyrock workouts aren't a good workout for me to do everyday. But they definitely will be in my workout arsenal.

Besides that I've been enjoying my week and have discovered one of my favorite exercise combos to date:

Rollover Comando pushups

I'm amazed at how much stronger I am now compared to a few months ago. Progress, baby!!

Blog Content

Okay I want to be completely honest, I feel like I've been just going with the motions and have not really pushed my little blog to the place where I envisioned it to go. I'm not talking about being "famous" on the sphere, I'm talking about creating content that is more than my weekend or endless salad combos. I want conversation, I want to share new things with you that I learn, talk more about issues that I'm truly passionate about (besides food that is:). I know right now it's a crazy busy time for me but in a few weeks my exam will be over and work will have settled down into a more manageable pace.

So watch out folks, I'm going to be digging a little deeper in regards to content and getting my creative juices flowing again. It will always be fun though because that's the way I want it to be!

PS Katie shared this super cool website today on her blog..so much fun! It's called Wordle. Seriously..you have to check it out. I've been looking for something like this as wall art using my wedding vows:)

Here's mine after I entered in my blog URL:

Fun hey? I used "organic carrot" for the colors and "grilled cheese BTN" for the font! I see myself spending some quality time on this site for sure:) Yes, it's free folks!

Love you guys!!

Hope you have a rocking weekend and do tons of fun stuff.

I'm off to visit my grams and some other family. Then Saturday is all business, chemistry business that is. Sunday I have a baby shower to go to but I'm sure I'll be fitting in some fun stuff in between:)

It's March next week...yay!!!

Dinner In

Happy Tuesday everyone,

Hope everyone had an awesome labour day weekend! Sorry for the absence! I was on the move a lot and I also started my course which I'll tell you about it in another post. But today I wanted to share with you a very special dinner that the hubs and I had last week:)

Before dinner I made myself this amazing juice! My next round of wheatgrass was just screaming "JUICE ME" so I agreed:)

I picked this beet out of my garden just minutes before I juiced it. Love that!

The beautiful end result! wheatgrass-carrots-beets-beet tops

Mmm so good!

I was enjoying my juice out on the patio when this crazy guy spoiled my view LOL!

Pet me already!!!

As for dinner, I had this idea come to me at the last minute. I quickly cleaned off the table that was quickly become scrap paper/business receipts/school info central! Then I placed some mason jars and candle holders on the table! Last but not least, I put the glass jar out that contained the sand from the ceremony of our wedding.

My thought was to make a non-special order-in-meal....a special event where I would even dress up for the occasion. I find I don't take the opportunity to make something we do everyday...FUN!! The best part...I just cleaned off my kitchen table...took me 10 minutes!

I got dressed up in a fun dress and surprised the hubby when he came home with our favorite Indian cuisine! He was really surprised and he even played along and got all dressed up!

I find in relationships you can get caught up on constantly creating new excitement where you have to keep doing/buying new things (yes, I'm guilty!). But the simple things in life can and NEED to be fun too!

What simple things do you do to add fun to the mundane?

The beer..I mean bouch! Yes, we had kombucha in martini glasses. Classy, hey?


Mmmm so, so good!

Dinner was served! Naan bread, mixed veggie korma, rice, butter chicken (hubby), and a salad!

It was so much fun to dress up at home and have a candlelight dinner! I was smiling from ear to ear:) We don't eat dinner at the table very often so it was a nice change and one we will need to do more often.

Have an AWESOME Tuesday and I'll be back soon with some sort of adventure. Maybe some zucchini bread making as my last attempt wasn't the greatest!!!

XOXO

Kitchie adventures: Part 1

Happy hump day!

How is everyone's day going? I'm doing okay. Had to bring the poor kitty away today:( I tried yesterday to get him to the shelter but I hit many road blocks. One, I was driving back and forth on the wrong street FOREVER looking for the place. Little did I know that the street was split up (one on each side of an overpass). I live in this area but I never venture off the main drag. Then by the time I found the street..an accident had just happened and the road was blocked off. Boo! So, kitty had to spend the night at my place...sad! I'm a little paranoid now because I don't know what happened to him/her. I just hope that the kitty wasn't poisoned. I don't want to let Nemo out ever again but he just loves to laze around on the deck and follow me around the garden. Blah! I don't like this situation one bit!

One thing that was fun about being at the shelter was watching the little kittens run around and play. They are just so sweet:) I keep telling Ry that Nemo needs a playmate! I haven't received an answer on that one yet LOL!

Okay ladies and gentlemen it's time to share some kitchie stories. I've decided to split up my stories into multiple posts because I would be blogging all day otherwise.

First up.....wheatgrass!

I've been growing wheatgrass out of my ears! I went with the technique that the guy in my local health food store told me about.


1. soak the hard spring wheat

2. allow the wheat to sprout for a day or two, rinsing twice a day

3. Once you see little tails it's time to boggy!

4. I used the plastic trays that you get flowers in from a nursery with 50/50 peat and organic seedling mix.

5. Really wet the soil mixture in the trays

6. Add the sprouts, enough so you barely see the soil but not too much that they are piled on top of each other

7. Really water the trays with the sprouts (2nd watering for the tray)

8. Wet a piece of newspaper very well and cover the trays with it

9. Place by a window where it gets indirect light

10. Water everyday really well

11. Remove the newspaper once the wheatgrass has pushed the paper up.

12. Juice it, baby! Or you can give it to your furry friend:)

What the heck is this stuff?

Nemo is his own juicer LOL!

This way has worked for me so I'm going to stick with it. I'm sure there are a million other ways to do it too! Google is a good friend:)



Now for my turn to juice!

It took a lot of wheatgrass for me to get a little bit of juice. I do not have a wheatgrass juicer so that's probably why. My juicer I don't think is meant for wheatgrass and veggie/fruit juicing. Oh well, I'm drinking wheatgrass juice and that's all that matters:)

Look at that color! Powerful stuff! I drank just a little bit, probably a 1/2 shot glass worth but I still felt it. I get a strong reaction from wheatgrass. I can literally feel it working in my body and I get full of energy! I should have used a chaser this time though...as I found it more powerful than the commercially grown stuff!

Do you drink wheatgrass juice? Do you grow it yourself? Do you have an actual wheatgrass juicer?

Next I want to share with you what I made with my rejuvelec!

I think I used barley but I totally can't remember. Aimee says she uses quinoa! I'm obsessed with quinoa so I definitely will be giving that a try! If you want to learn more about rejuvelec check out this video.

I blended together 2 cups soaked cashews and a little over a cup of rejuvelec. Here's my cashew/rejuvelec mix after about 30 hours. I'm loving all this use of fermentation lately!

What am I making with this strange concoction? Well, nut cheese of course! I followed Meredith of The Raw Seed as her and her hubby went through the nut cheese process and decided to give their recipe for sour cream and onion cheese/dip a shot. Am I ever glad I did! This recipe rawks!

It seriously tastes like a SAD cheese! The hubby LOVES it and so do I! It is easy to make it just takes time:) I changed a few things. I didn't have any lemons so I used lime juice instead. I changed the proportion of cashews to suite what I had on hand but I think I added to much rejuvelec because it came out with the consistency of cream cheese. Not saying that's a bad thing! I'm just curious about the consistency in the harder cheeses. More experimenting to be done!

Meanwhile, I decided to try out this cheese in some wraps. I made them for the hubby for lunch and I got two thumbs up.

Coconut-oil roasted peppers, cheezy quinoa, on-a-bed-of-kale wrap

2 bell peppers, sliced into strips

1 tbl coconut oil

pinch of salt and pepper

1 cup quinoa, cooked

Sour cream and onion cheese or whatever creamy cheese you have on hand

2-3 kale leaves, de-stemmed and ripped into small pieces

Ezekiel wraps

Place the pepper strips in a glass baking dish or whatever dish/sheets you prefer. add in a tablespoon of coconut oil. Add some salt and pepper if you wish. Cover and place in the oven at 350 degrees. Remove after about 20 minutes. I just waited until they were slightly soft.

Place the kale pieces down the center of the wrap, add the peppers. Then add the cheese. And finally, add the quinoa. This way the cheese "holds onto" the quinoa. Like so...

Mmmm!!

The final product!! (sorry for the dark photos)

Stay tuned for Part 2!! Chocolate and kombucha!!

Have a great rest of your day everyone. I'm off to see the naturopath this afternoon and I'll tell you guys why I'm visiting and the outcomes soon!

PS if you haven't voted for me please do so here! I'm in the women under 40, second contestant!! Thank you!!

Dinners and progress picts

Happy Monday everyone!

Hope you all had a fabulous weekend. Mine was pretty good! It was busy and HOT. I started the weekend by making a beautiful dinner.

Nemo is very curious of my garden and all the crazy things that come out of it!

Clearly not impressed!

This is a raw vodka sauce from Bonzai Aphrodite. A wicked new blog that I found on G Living.
Yummy Yummy!

My veggie pasta with zucch and carrots that I made using my potato peeler. Why haven't I done that before? Loved it!

The beautiful platter! the raw vodka veggie pasta, coconut oil roasted beets, my garden salad with miso ginger dressing!

After dinner I was asked to babysit my little godson and his brother! It was quite an easy time as they were both asleep by the time I got there:) Their dad was very excited to tell me about a new book that he had just read that has changed his viewpoint on buisness and he thought I should read it. The book is called The 4-hour workweek. Have you heard about it or read it? I only got to page 30 but I like what I've read. Once I'm finished I'll tell you guys more about it.

On Saturday we went to another wedding. This time it was my beautiful cousin who got hitched! The wedding took place at a resort near Cultus Lake. It was nice because we didn't have to drive anywhere as the ceremony and the reception were at the same place:) Everything was beautiful and the weather was simply over the top gorgeous! It was so, so hot though so everyone was seeking the shade and a cool brews!

I LOVED her dress!! Stunning!

We stayed overnight at the resort and then I was lucky enough to have aunt flo visit me and so I was down for the count! It sucked too because we could have stayed around and hung out by the pool. GRRR! After I recovered we headed over to a friend's house for an awesome dinner and good times out on the patio.

Now for some kitchie progress picts!

Okay, so this is a new project! I went and picked the last of the raspberries at the no spray u-pick by my house. Then I remembered about red raspberry leaf tea. So, I picked some of the newest leaves and thought I would give it a try drying them.

I washed them and placed some in the dehydrator (YAY!) and some outside in the sun.

They dried super fast and I have been drinking the leaves in cold and hot water. They are really good for pregnant women or for women wanting to get pregnant as it tones the uterus. It also contains many vitamins and minerals including vitamin C and calcium:)

Guess who else was thrown into the dehydrator! Buckwheaties!

My rejuvelec was ready too! I have never tried it before so I'm not really sure what it is supposed to taste like. This batch didn't taste like much at all. I may or may not have added in too much water..lol! I made a second bathc with the same grains and it was a bit stronger, although it didn't really taste like much either. Maybe that's what it's supposed to be? I plan on making a raw cheese with it...post more about that next time!

My Kraut was also ready! I totally can't remember how kraut tastes like so I can just describe mine as perfectly tangy? I have to figure out a way to make it without attracting a gazillion fruit flies. Seriously, they were loving it! I have been keeping my eyes out for a crock:)

My beautiful wheatgrass! This was easier than I thought! I used a mix or peat moss and organic seedling soil that I mixed up myself from work:)

Grow, grow, grow!

This is the first tray that I started and so I am getting excited to make some shots soon!!

And last but definitely not least, my scoby! Or make that plurel..scobies? I'm glad to see her working away on that sugar! I get anxious with new kitchen projects and so I check up on her a bunch of times in the day..lol!

When we got back from the wedding I found that brown goop in my mix. I panicked and thought I did something wrong and my scoby was ill. So, in this time of need I did a crazy google search and one site said that its some sort of yeast growth and its normal. Apparently you just filter it out. So, calling all bouch masters out there! Have you ever had this happen? I'm still a bit nervous about it!!

As you can see I like to totally bombard myself with kitchen fun..apparently I didn't learn the one-thing-at-a-time rule!!

Are you somebody who get's excited and takes on multiple projects at once or do you think it out and do one thing at a time?

Have a great rest of your day everyone!