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Thursday, October 27, 2011

Strawberry Chia Milk!

I remember seeing a post with a recipe on The Raw Food World's Facebook page and thought it sounded so good for strawberry chia milk.  Growing up 'pink milk' was one of my favorite treats, I loved to dunk my pb&js in it, seriously was there anything better?  My strawberry milk then was made by stirring pink Quik into a glass of milk and I'm sure that I used extra ;)  This is a decidely healthier real strawberry milk without any of the little blue specks.  Anyone else remember those?  I always wondered why there was blue in it and what it was, now I know;)  So, anyway here is the link to the recipe.  I made some changes so I'll give you the recipe I came up with.

2 cups unsweetened almond milk (not raw)
2 T organic chia seeds
3 T raisin soak water (I had been soaking raisins for pudding)
2 medjool dates, pitted
scant 2 cups of frozen organic strawberries (what we had left)
splash of organic fairtrade vanilla extract

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blending away, isn't it pretty?

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2 servings, one went with me on a bank errand and the other is for a treat today =)

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This milk is really delicious, very creamy and sweet.  If you want it a little less sweet, leave out the dates and see how you like it. 

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Thank you Raw Food World for sharing your recipe, their site is a great place to order your chias from, it's where we first got ours when I was chia curious ;) 

Onto dinner last night, this rice bowl sounded perfect (and we had all the ingredients on hand) that I found on Happy Foody while starting to catch up on blog reading yesterday. 

changes I made:
used collards as the green (are garden is abundant yet =)
I skipped Nori (ours is expired, not sure if that's ok or not...) and used dulse flakes instead
added chopped red pepper, we had a little late crop in the garden =)
used raw agave as the sweetener
used ACV as well

using our little frozen chunks of aging ginger (it's so much easier to grate this way too) to make the delicious dressing. 

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microplanes rock

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dressing ready

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juilenned collards fresh from the garden

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stir them into your brown rice when it is ready

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top with all your goodies and dress, the cucumber really added a nice fresh crunch to this bowl,  Adding beans would also be great. 

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For a treat last night I had made these Winter Squash Muffins with leftover bnut squash from dinner this week.  I used 2 mashed bananas as my eggs and they turned out great, very moist and a nice treat with chocolate chips ;)  I actually ended up eating my dessert before dinner while I was getting dinner prepared, sometimes that happens here. 

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While I was in the garden getting greens I picked what will be the last of our tomatoes this year.  These will ripen up nicely in the kitchen window. 

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A new favorite Theo bar is this salted almond!  Our WF rarely carries different flavors, I was very excited to find this on sale. 

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and for back log photos of the day:  Mom had made a surprise visit to see me on my birthday back in the end of May...it was nice and sunny and I was out on a day off soaking up the sun and drinking some lemonade, not quite like today, haha. 

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super easy lemonade recipe:  water, dates, and fresh lemons.  You'll want to remember this one for the summer, you can adjust your sweetness to your liking, we use less dates and more lemon for great tartness =)

The sun may not make it through the clouds today, so I have a day of organizing in order here. 
Take good care, xo

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Happy Fall!

Happy Fall to you and a big thank you to anyone who may be out there checking into my blog yet!  I have been sorely missing the blogging world as I haven't written a post since May, nor have kept up on your lovely blogs that I so enjoy reading!!  Many things have happened in the meantime keeping us super busy, I'll catch you up on them eventually...the first for today was that summer was crunch time for school ending with graduation in September, yay =)  I unfortunately had to push the blog to the back burner while I was finishing massage therapy school (which consisted of lots of studying, class, weekend workshops, anxiety inducing practicals, and finishing my hours working in the student clinic) and also working part time for a great physical therapist as a clinic assistant.  I am proud to say that I am certified in Myofascial and Neuromuscular Therapy from the Ann Arbor Institute of Massage Therapy =)  Here's a pic from one of our Maniken classes of me with mine (this feels like forever ago already!)

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of course I had to give mine a heart, anatomically correct for sure ;)

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and a couple of quick pics from graduation.  Me and Hubby

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and Dad, me, Mom, and Hubby.  Man it felt good to be done.  I also recieved an award for highest GPA at graduation along with a classmate, pretty exciting!

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so fast forward now to fall from my last post in the middle of May it has become cool and festive here in Michigan and full of mother nature's spectacular colors.  Fall in MI is indescribable, I so love it.  Helping with the festiveness here were gifts brought by awesome friends that came to visit:  my favorite, lilies and cinnamon pine cones, mmm.

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and antique apple season is here and wrapping up.  You know we've been eating more than our share of apples around here!  A couple new favorites this year have been jonathons and wine saps.  Trying to talk the Hubby into a wine sap tree for the spring...here's a bag of bounty from our local organic farmers one day.

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and apples on our counter today (red delicious, wine sap, cortland, and jonathons).  We've been eating them all fresh and in our juices, so flippin delicious.

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if you get the chance to eat antique apples our favorites are: 
grimes golden
red delicious (as I've said before NOT a thing like the RD in the store don't worry)
pippen
wine sap
jonathons

a couple of apples this morning were used in this awesome raw vegan pudding from Baby Greens, the Waldorf Pudding

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The FP doing all my hard work =) 

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and topped with soaked raisins, chopped apple, and raw soaked and dehydrated walnuts

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yummola.

a great snack around here has been date, raw almond butter, and raw &dehyd. pecan bites.

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I have really been making an effort to tighten the belt on our spending here and one thing that I was searching for a cheaper option for was my face moisturizer.  As you know I am a big Evan Healy fan and have loved her day moisture for a couple of years now, but I was on a mission for a less expensive option that I loved just as much.  I found it in the wonderful Aubrey line, I actually may like it even a little better as my face has a bit less oil wearing it and it smells awesome and herbally.

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What is your favorite face moisture to use?

So I have this big back log of photos that haven't been blogged that I'll be adding to new posts here and there, I'd like to start with these.  Over the summer I won Pure bars from Color Wheel Meals!  We love these bars, they are much like Larabars only better since first off they are organic and they also have added protein which is awesome to have on hand in your bag when you're away from home all day for a powerpacked snack (and also created by a Michigan momma).  Thank you Color Wheel Meals for your generousity, we loved them!  Check out Samantha's awesome blog here.  The Wild Blueberry is my favorite.  Have you tried Pure Bars? 

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Wishing you a super day, hugs!