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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween/Samhain!

Happy Halloween everyone!  We're enjoying a nice Sunday here after hitting 3 parties already this weekend, it was nice to sleep in a bit today and have nothing on the agenda aside from greeting Trick or Treaters later =)  We're handing out the same treats this year. 

Annie's snack bags, we buy them in a big box from Costco

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and Organic suckers

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We've been so busy lately, I'm beginning to wonder if this time of year is the new summer or what???  One of the tasks that's been on my to do list was to find a non-toxic lawn service(TruGreen has been canvasing the neighborhood and pestering me, so thanks for the kick in the butt ;).  Today being Halloween marks our fourth year as homeowners!  In those four years we have not treated our lawn obviously.  We've been handpulling weeds, keeping the grass mowed long, and timing our mowing with the rain.  It's been working well, but living in a sub-division is a whole new ball game for us with manicured lawns.  We didn't want to let the weeds spread too much to where we'd need to treat them with something awful.  I contacted eco-logic lawn and landscape.  They were super helpful, knowledgeable, and willing to take the time to answer all of my questions.  Our fall treatment consisted of aeration, a corn gluten pre-emergent application, and an animal/byproduct free non-toxic organic fertilizer.  They left this cute little sign so our neighbors would know that nothing toxic was used.  I don't know about you but when the neighbors' lawns are treated the smell is awful and I hate walking through it on the sidewalks and tracking it back to our home, in all honesty I close all the windows when the trucks come into the neighborhood!  My Mom recently said that she loves that she can walk barefoot in your lawn and not worry about anything!  Me too, I don't really see the point of having a lawn that you don't feel safe to lay down on, walk barefoot in (I'm barefoot anytime it's warm enough), and let kids and animals play on.

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pretty green grass with fall leaves =)

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As I understand the corn gluten works by drying out any seeds making it's shell crack and prohibiting germination.  These methods will not work as fast nor probably quite as effectively, but it's safe and eco-friendly and that makes us happy.  And really isn't this true about weeds:  "A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson.  We still see dandelions as weeds in the lawn when they are actually really health promoting food, and free no less!  I should be harvesting our dandelions, maybe a few more years since I'm unsure of how the lawn was treated by our previous homeowner.  We enjoy their greens in smoothies and salads through the summer.  Ok, enough about the lawn ;) ...

Our library was kind enough to order this book in from my suggestion!  It's Get Naked Fast by Diana Stobo.  It's a nice sized book, not overwhelming with lots of good information.  The first recipe I made was the Banana Buckwheat Pancakes.

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I had some trouble getting them to flip well (this is probably user error, I have this problem a lot ;)  but found that the longer I let them cook the easier it was.  Anyway they were really delicious with some extra protein from the quinoa.  I did add 1 tsp of cinnamon to the batter, I can't seem to get enough of that spice! 

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We had breakfast for dinner or 'blinner' for any fellow Scrubs fans ;)  Here we are actually watching Scrubs while eating (yes I know this is a bad habit) blinner.  We had green smoothies and pancakes.  I dusted off our big bordeaux glasses so we could drink them all fancy like ;)

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Our blinner green smoothie recipe:
(serves 2)

20 oz water
3 big handfuls of curly kale
4 T hemp seeds
2 t spirulina
splash of almond extract
cinnamon
raw vanilla powder
2 frozen bananas
large peeled orange
fresh raspberries

I topped our smoothies with local organic bee pollen and fresh organic raspberries, these smoothies are seriously delicious!

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The previous night we had also eaten breakfast for dinner.  We had some purple potatoes from the FM left so I sliced them with, purple onion, red peppers from our garden, and lots of local garlic.  I sauted this mix in virgin coconut oil with some dried oregano, sliced mushrooms, and a splash of veg stock until the potatoes were softened enough. 

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I finished it by stirring in the mozzarella style daiya, sea salt, and pepper. 

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quick and easy dinner that pleases the hubby (ie. potatoes ;) and is nutritious. 

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Hope you all have a fabulous Halloween!  Thanks for reading =)

Friday, October 8, 2010

Spirulina Frozen Fruit Cream

Last night we had the most delicious, energizing, feel good dessert.  I have a raw foodie friend in school (how exciting!) and she let me borrow her Raw Energy.  Last night the Strawberry-Citrus Frozen Fruit Cream sounded great and it was!  I added some spirulina and subbed sunflower seed butter for raw almond butter (I have none ready...need to make a batch), and instead of citrus juice I just used a whole peeled large orange. We both loved it.  

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I had some leftover crust from making a raw cheesecake so we sprinkled that and some bee pollen on top.

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leftover crust of almonds, dates, vanilla, and salt

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yummy yummy sunflower seed butter.  Does that raccoon crack you up or what?  I think if he were spreading seed butter on his bread he'd probably just use his hands.

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We had a family wedding this weekend where we got to stay overnight in a hotel, I love that =)  king size bed and everything!  Here's us hanging out between the wedding and reception, we were at a bar where I enjoyed lemon water and big cucumber slices, I'm a party animal, haha!

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I did not go hungry though, I finally made Averie's Spicy Doritos Cheesy Dip.  It was the perfect dip to take along, I loved it and so did my parents.  I did swap the amounts of hemp and sunflower seeds around and added some extra water.  I just love raw dips!

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Here's most of my snacks that I took along, raw veggies, flax crackers, dip, and a mashed avocado with celtic sea salt.  I also made a sweet green date shake in case I had a sweet craving after seeing all the wedding cake.  I got through cake time no problem though and enjoyed the shake on the ride home the next day.  The bride and groom were also kind enough to have a veg meal for me, it was really nice of them!  At the wedding I ate lots of raw veggie appetizers, salad, and some nice pasta with spicy marinara sauce. 

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It's so nice for travelling with your own food when you have a refrigerator in the room! 

Marley is telling me it's time for his 'vitamin' and I have some studying to do for our workshop this weekend, wishing you all a wonderful night, hugs.

I'll sign off with this Mary Oliver poem I read on Yoga Addicted.

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver


You do not have to be good.


You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.


You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.


Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.


Meanwhile the world goes on.


Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Groovy Spirulina Smoothie

The smoothie I've been groovin on lately has involved this lovely green powder. 

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Spirulina!  Spirulina is a wonderful plant food, it's a single celled blue-green algae that grows in fresh water.  This algae has been eaten by ancient humans and is full of chlorophyll, a complete protein, and a source of GLA, an essential fatty acid, among many other health nurishing properties.  You can read more about it here.  I find the end very interesting how it is considered one of the first plants (a nuclear plant) and did not develop the fiberous cell walls commonly found in the plant kingdom. 

other ingredients:

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Groovy Spirulina Smoothie

10 oz filtered water (we use a Kinetico RO system)
handful or two of greens (we been using Russian kale, green curly kale, or spinach)
fresh banana (if I have one, otherwise go without, still tastes groovy ;)
small palmful of goji berries
2 T hempseeds
1 T essential EFA oil (it's flax and borage)
2 handfuls of frozen blueberries
1 t spirulina
cinnamon

In the above photo I've blended the water and the greens already, add everything else and blend until smooth.  It's so delicious!

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This one went with me on my errand day in my little cooler bag along with an antique apple.  I stopped into REI to look around at their sale...which doesn't start until Friday...so I bought Carrot Cake and Cashew Cookie Larabars.  Each month REI has different bar flavors on sale, they are the two flavors for Oct. so they're 99 cents.  I also picked up Yoga Journal which was $1 off, such a bargain shopper, haha!

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Then it was next door to pick up items at Whole Foods that I can't get from the FM.  I saw this recipe in the store for overnight oats!  I know many of us bloggers love our overnight oats and have many of our own recipes, and thought this was way cool to see in the store!

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In the car I also enjoyed an Almond Butter Ball that was leftover from our travels this past weekend for a wedding, it's great finding a treat like this in the car =)  I bought these at the HFS in Ohio around the corner form the wedding, they are SO yummy!  I love the textures and the almondy flavor.

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the inside shot ;)

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At WF I also picked up Purely Delicious a raw food mag, yea =)  I'm still reading it, but an except from the Jason Mraz article that I really enjoyed:
'I'm always trying to promote personal canteens.  If it's important for us to carry our freaking cell phones everywhere we go, so, too, can we carry a water bottle.'  Jason Mraz in Summer 2010 Purely Delicious

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Hope you all have a groovy morning, I'm off to yoga =D  xoxo

*my pics are getting cut off on the right, I will check into that after yoga...