chilly Saturday!

these are the breakfasts that make me want to get out of bed in the AM.  I do like to be up early, but it's even better with a bowl of overnight oats or a green smoothie to eat =)

This green smoothie was collards, ginger nub, dates, raw almond butter, blueberries, banana



This is how I keep my ginger in the freezer when I don't use it all up fresh.  I think I actually got the idea from overhearing a Rachael Ray show ;)  I give it a little peel and cut up into nubs, lay out on a plate or something flat to freeze then add to a bag.  You can leave the peel on if it's particularly fresh, thin and shiny. 



mmmm, big glass of nutrition!



I've also been making lots of overnight chia oats.  I mean we have 15 pounds of chia around!  I've been going by Angela's Easy Vegan overnight oats on Oh She Glows.  It only takes a minute before you hit the pillow at night to stir these up.  I picked up some unsweetened coconut kefir and have been using that as my liquid, yum and probiotics! 



so I change the liquid to coconut kefir and the vanilla extract to a few dashes of vanilla powder, and I use big bananas.

mash your banana first, then stir in everything else and place in fridge overnight.  This is what it looks like in the PM



and in the AM with a scoop of raw almond butter



or a ripe champagne mango



or raw almond butter and fresh strawberries



here's about half the chia bottled up for the freezer



A few weeks ago I won these coupons from Heather Eats Almond Butter and Turtle Mountian, the makers of So Delicious.



They will be great for picking up more kefir and we do love the coconut milk ice cream as well ;)  We tried a new flavor this week and it's our favorite hands down, Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl. 

continuing with my love of all things nut/seed butter...a snacky of apples with Pepita Sun Butter.  This is a good snack for me in the afternoons or even while I'm getting dinner ready, I like my good fats!



A few weeks ago I was also able to see Gene Baur talk about Farm Sanctuary, the farmed animal rescue and sanctuary that he co-founded.  He's a really warm guy and gave such a nice talk with photos of gorgeous animals that have been saved and living a good life at Farm Sanctuary.  There were also many photos that made me cry, he talked about how his activism, how the sanctuary got started, and the factory farming industry in the US.  I did take my book that he was kind enough to sign for me.  I am in awe of his life's work already and how passionate, kind and generous he is.  It is so affirming to meet folks like this.  





Here's the horse catpower behind this blog.  Maggie loves to sit with me while I post and often lends her helping hand on my arm for extra support =) 



I met up with a great girlfriend for lunch this week on a gorgeous sunny/rainy day.  We sat outside at Panera and chatted for a couple hours and enjoyed our dose of vitamin D.  This is what I get there, I did forget to ask for the dressing on the side this time, their classic salad.



and a homemade salad with Averie's Tahini Dressing.  I LOVE this dressing.  This time I doubled it and used about 3/4 the amount of sweetener, and used maple syrup instead of agave.  I also add more ground ginger, such a great idea Averie, I love it. 



and my comfort food, brown rice noodles with mushrooms and peas and cheese sauce from  Fatfree Vegan Kitchen.  I did add the extra mustard and onion powders.



I made Dreena Burton's Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies from Vive le Vegan! to take with dinner to my brother and sister in law that just welcomed our new little niece home.  These cookies are hits each time I make them.  I used all spelt flour and they turned out great, she gives you the measurement for the switch in the book.



I know that I mentioned this on Facebook, but Glass Dharma was offering their original straws buy one get one for the month of April in celebration of Earth day.  This was too good for me to pass up ;)  I did end up ordering the wrong straws, so they're thinner than I planned on, but I'm sure we'll love them anyway. 



our glass straws, now we have enough for company to use too =)



Have a great Saturday, I'm off to meet up for the Great Strides walk this morning, must dress warm.

MI Earthday Fest 2010

A couple of weekends ago we went to one of my favorite festivals, MI Earth Day Fest.  (This has been an exciting couple of weeks of festivals for me!)  The festival is in Rochester, so as we got into town we stopped into Health Foods of Rochester for a few items.  They have such great prices on Garden of Life vitamins, and my lovely sister in law saved me a coupon from the paper too =) 



So we're walking around visiting all the booths and my hubby comes back to me and says 'your nut butter girl is up ahead'  he's so cute, but seriously I was so geeked to see that Naturally Nutty was there!  Ok, here's the recap on how I fell in love with these nut butters.  I won a jar in a giveaway on LoveVeggiesandYoga and picked the Organic Cinnamon Vanilla Sunflower Butter.  It was love at first bite which was straight up right off a spoon ;)  Here's the post about our first jar and the reasons I love this stuff!  We've since then been hooked and enjoying jars of the Organic Pepita Sunbutter which we've found at Arbor Farms Market.  Other local sightings have been the Ypsi Food Co-op, and Whole Foods on Washtenaw. 

It's always a great day when you can meet the folks that make/grow your food!  Katie and her husband were super nice too.  Yes, I am all bulked up with like 5 layers of shirts on (it was chilly).  We had our blood pressure taken (mine was 114/72) and the girl couldn't believe how many layers I had on ;)  I told her I learned it from my Grandma, which is true =)





These are the two we choose from Earthday for our stash:



ok, on to some other cool things, our cute little organic basil plant from Maple Creek Farm CSA that is now in the garden soaking up the sun.  I love that they hand out seedlings, last year we got a swiss chard that grew SO huge for us. 




Of course we stop into Mind Body and Spirits.  This day it was just to take out some dessert, they were sold out of the other vegan options so we had the fruit cup in phyllo complete with a compostable container and fork which are now in our tumbler.







As we were leaving MBS the gentleman that makes these tortillas was walking in and generously gave us a bag to try.  This was kind of serendipidous due to my husband being a corn tortilla addict lover.  I actually loved these as well, they are way less salty than most all the mass produced ones, had the perfect crunch and thickness, and I also love the ingredient list and their line "Food we make from stuff we grow".  I'm guessing the reason they look darker is from the heirloom corn, they are not burned. 





We ate a couple of times at the Rochester Mills Brewery that day.  We split another half cheese half cheeseless pizza and I had two salads with this delicious housemade basil vinaigrette.



Behind the bar they have a full size glass/plastic/paper recycling bin.  (My husband would probably like it noted that he thought I was a little goofy for taking this photo)



biodegradable and/or recycled plastic bags (I didn't investigate)  in the restrooms (just imagine if he knew I took this one ;)



another highlight of the festival was talking with a gentleman from DTE where we get our electricity and natural gas.  We signed up for the Green Currents program which is a voluntary clean energy option.  We're starting with a 100 KWH block at $2.50 a month.  So those KWH of our electricity will be supplied by the windfarms or biogas production here in MI.  This offsets about a third of our useage/month for now.  Looking on their website the 100% match at 2cents/KWH would be a better rate to offset all the energy.  Anyway, I thought this was a great start and it's something that I've had on my mental to do list, check!







They'll also give you a $10 visa card for signing up.  Ours bought TP and frozen fruit from Trader Joe's ;)

I also liked this company, MI Green Safe Products, in Detroit who distribute eco-friendly food wares.  We don't buy conventional disposable products for our home, but with some family/friend gatherings coming up (that will outnumber our placesettings and glasses)  these are a great option for us, and the prices are not bad at all.  You can stop in and pick up a sleeve or two of cups, etc.  They're also a local place for us to pick up our Biobags for cat waste.





Two other highlights that made this the best EDFest for me was a spontaneous yoga class under a tent and a free Thai massage that was like 20 minutes and rocked!

So much chatter so far and no food!  After we went and snuggled our new niece again last night we came home to some Lemon Chickpea Lentil Soup from  EDBV.



a recent breakfast



a recent dinner of salad with Liquid Gold Dressing from The Raw Food Revolution Diet



and brown rice and raw zucchini pasta with a blend of raw marinara and pesto sauces, yum, yum, yum! 



Thought for the day: (from the DTE brochure) 

Climate Change-
no one can do everything, but everyone can do something.

a sure sign of spring

Things have been busy busy around here, all great things though, but I do get a bit behind blogging, and blog reading, my Google Reader is filling up!  Yesterday finally felt like the right day to sew the garden.  I got most everything in aside from some pepper seeds that we're starting inside and I haven't put the beans in yet, waiting a little bit on those.  We have an arbor (that my hubby built and we were married under) above our garden this year.  I'm hoping that at the farmer's market somebody will have organic strawberry starts for hanging baskets on the corners of the arbor, then we'll be all set =)  All the seeds planted in the compost, yea!



our chives from last year are so pretty purple and gone to seed obviously.  This year with success we'll have cilantro, green beans, red bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots, basil, spinach, lacinto kale, romaine, zucchini, tomatoes, and leeks.  I love to grow and eat heirloom varieties, our garden is all heirloom aside from the zucchini and is all organic.



our seeds for this year.



I'm a seed saver ;)



on the topic of starts we welcomed a beautiful new baby girl niece into our family yesterday.  How's this for a proud Aunt and Uncle? of 12 now..and counting!  I just love all that hair =) 



This weekend we were in Maumee Ohio for another special little guy's birthday party.  Maumee is also home to one of our favorite bars, the Village Idiot so to the bar we went for lunch.  We ordered a pizza that they wonderfully made half with and half without cheese for us and hooked us up with the motherload of toppings of banana peppers, onion, pineapple, and mushroom.  This pizza is SO good, they have this tasty little herb blend they sprinkle on top, and it's totally our kind of place.  The bar back behind all the booze is full of stickers (good ones) and our favorite ones were 'I'm already against the next war.' and 'Be nice or please leave'  Here's our pizza.



cheesefree pizza







Before heading home we also hit up this cool coffeehouse Georgette's Grounds and Gifts which sells fairtrade coffees, foods, and gifts.  They are part of the Sunshine group and employ individuals with developmental disabilities.  This is a place to feel good about supporting.  They also recycle in store and serve drinks in compostable cups.  As seen here with my decaf soy latte.  We stopped in the morning for tea and coffee and then again before we got on the road =)

Here's their mission statment





Last week I was the lucky fish bowl winner at our local Chipotle, so Mom and I were treated to a free lunch, awesome!  David and I first came to love Chipotle when we lived in Las Vegas where there was one around the corner from our apartment and then when we moved back home they were in Michigan as well, we were so excited to find this out and have kept up our 1+ a week habit ;)



Here's Mom with her burrito bowl



and me.  I get the same thing everytime a veg bowl with peppers and onions, pico, guacamole, and romaine and sometimes a grapefruit Izze when Dave is there to help me drink half of it ;) other times I bring in my Kleen Kanteen of water.  I have recently tried the corn relish and it is delish too.  I've sent a message to Chipotle to see if they'd ever consider offering brown rice, how great would that be?





They have also started offering in store recycling of glass and plastic.  I'd also be cool if they had a bin for the burrito foils to be recycled, not a big deal though, we just bring it home with us.





We had a fun day of shopping and enjoying eachother's company that ended back at the house for dessert.  I had put two pieces of the raw mint bars in the freezer for just this purpose =) 



raw dessert makes us happy!



I'm afraid this is improper food combining, but it sounded so great.  I filled these strawberries up with peanut butter, different but delicious.



I've been eating these fabulous champagne mangos from WF.  I think they are sweeter and smoother than red mangos.  Be sure to let them get real ripe and very soft before you eat them unless you're into the holy tart and bitterness of unripe fruit  :/-



For dinner one night I made the Coconut Pie Pancakes from LaDolceVegan.  Here they are in my beloved cast iron pan.  I just love it when pancakes come out so well, it seriously makes me happy. 



I topped mine with coconut milk, thawed raspberries, and a champagne mango. 



Leftover coconut milk, mango, date, banana, almond butter, and spinach smoothie.  Now this is one of the best parts of waking up, a green smoothie in your cup ;)



I made Monica's Thumbprint cookies for a bake sale this weekend.  The bake/garage sale was a huge success raising $1300 for Great Strides, and I was told the cookies all went in the first hour =)



my inspiration and a thought for the day: 
'The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.'

~Thomas Paine