world peace begins in the kitchen

World Peace begins in the kitchen =)

 

First off, I just finished a SUPER yummy breakfast that I wanted to share.  It started last night with Averie's recipe for chia coconut mango soaked oats (click to get to recipe).  Most of my life I haven't been much of a breakfast eater, now I look forward to what's for breakfast each day, and this was a winner! 

Here's what the finished bowl looked like this morning.



This recipe calls for both chia seed and stevia, both of which I used for the first time.  Ok, I tried stevia once and I did not enjoy that taste, I think now that I used too much, because this morning it was the perfect sweetness with a great taste.  I borrowed some of this organic green leaf stevia from Mom's pantry.  She found it at Claudia's if you're local to the Toledo, OH area.  I ordered our organic chia from The Raw Food World store. 

chia seed on right, stevia on left



all the ingredients, I used a fresh mango because we had one and it worked out just great.



you'll notice that I have store bought almond milk again.  I've made another batch of almond milk with soaked almonds this time (I have read that almond skins contain enzyme inhibitors that ideally should be soaked away), but have decided that we would enjoy the milk more if we could strain it better with a nut milk bag.  I tried using our strainer, but didn't quite do the job.  Until I can find a bag...I remember looking at them here at ChocolaTree when we were in Sedona, wish I would've picked it up then, but it was a couple yrs ago and I thought to myself I won't really make nut milk ;)



getting mixed up, I then added the mango and let it set overnight in the fridge.





it was totally DELICIOUS!  I used an 1/8 tsp of dried stevia leaf, and a few drops of vanilla extract.

dinner last night turned out well.  We had marinated and grilled (stovetop cast iron grill pan) portobello mushroom wraps.  I used the Portobello Burger recipe from Get It Ripe. 

big organic portos marinating



we then wrapped them up



in these tortillas



a closer up, smear of Vegenaise, yellow mustard, red onion, Bubbie's pickle, lots of spinach with the warm mushrooms, yumola!



dinner a couple nights ago was vegan caesar salad with Sunshine burgers on top. 

dressing recipe is from Eat, Drink, and be Vegan by Dreena Burton.  Living Caesar Dressing.  My husband loves traditional Caesar dress, and he totally eats this live vegan one up.  We have our glorious Vita-Mix now, but I made this recipe tons while we lived in Vegas with a normal blender, it wasn't smooth, but still worked just fine. 



big salads





the leftover dressing is also great on raw veggies.



dessert for this week has been the Super Charge Me Cookies from the same cookbook (EDBV).  Great treats!  Dreena has the recipe posted online here.



So yesterday I started something that's been a little goal of mine, no-pooing my hair.  I'm curious to see how it will go...  I'm going by the instructions on this site, and so far so good.  I will continue to use organic unrefined coconut oil as a moisturizer for the ends to keep them tame, but would like to forgo the shampoo and conditioner.  I'm mostly trying to save money, we've been using Hugo Naturals for the last couple of years with some Aveda splurges here and there, it's a pretty innocuous product, but if that's another thing that we don't need to use than all the better I think.  Plus, I'm curious to see what my hair should naturally look like, if it will be any different, we'll see...

so here's what I took into the shower, a paste of baking soda/water, and a cup of apple cider vinegar and water.



anybody have experience with this method???  thoughts about it???   A green smoothie is calling, I'm hungry, until next time have a wonderful wonderful day and thanks so much for reading!