recent eats...

dessert first??? ok.

We've been having dessert snacks of this yummy ice cream from Ani's Raw Food Essentials (by the way has anyone else's book started to fall apart?, I don't mind it, just wondering if I'm rough on my books or what ;)
Anyway, I made the Lucuma Ice Kream.  You can read a bit about lucuma here, we obviously didn't have the fresh fruit, but used this powder.  I did not have yacon syrup so used agave and molasses swap Ani suggestes instead.  Very, very easy, just blend in the vita.



and freeze, no ice cream maker required (which is good since we don't have one;) 



I have been loving it, it has a great malty flavor and a different texture than what we're used to for ice creams, but I like different ;)  This has been satisfying my desire for a cold treat, I'll make it again for sure.

We've been enjoying raw zucchetti lately too.  This is really a cinch to make, full of good stuff for you, and I don't tire of it, yum, yum, yum!  Here's the raw marinara with local organic yellow toms (there's also sun-dried ones making it red) Recipe is from Alissa Cohen.



our local organic green and yellow zucchini that will be the noodles.  I didn't know there was yellow zucchini, aren't they pretty?  This is the spiralizer we use.



dinner



lunch leftovers with a 'pickle'



I have such a hard time letting go of the liquid that is left when our Bubbie's are gone, so I thought I'd toss in a cucumber that we had from the  FM (farmer's market) and see what happened.  It was in there for about two days I think, and it tasted really good, pretty sure it didn't pickle, but it definitely soaked up some yummy flavor!



I made us a big skillet of organic red potatoes and garlic from the FM, onion, olive oil, and lots of seasonings.  Hubby loves potatoes so I was just making them for him, but turns out I enjoyed them too =)



If you haven't noticed, canning jars are one of my most favorite things;)  I have been short on our glass storage containers and needed something for cleaned celery, viola!  They get used at some point for almost everything around here. 



one of the reasons we're short on containers I realize now is that our date stash is in them.  Here's our recent date order from the co-op.  We went with deglet noor this time, I had never eaten one before, but gave them a whirl in the interest of saving some money.  They are cheaper than medjool due to their shape and size they're not often used so much for presentation and stuffing.  I however have been stuffing ours with nut butters for sweet snacks...and it works just fine ;)  They are definitely dryer than the barhis we had last and not as sweet, but delicious none the less, actually I don't think I've had a date I didn't like ;)



pretty, fresh, organic dates from CA



ten pounds all tucked away in the fridge



If you're wondering why we have so many; the ways we commonly use them are in sweet smoothies, snack with nut butter, snack with cucumber, as a sweetener in various recipes (there were a couple soaked dates in the raw marinara sauce), and in raw dessert recipes for the crusts.

This was my keepin it simple green smoothie for bfast this morning. 
about 10 oz. RO water
one fresh banana
about 6 big strawberries with their greens
 a valencia orange
 head a large bunch of green curly kale from FM
( all organic )



is that another canning jar??? ;)  Our sweet glass straws are from Glass Dharma. 



Have an awesome summer day all =)

Mat Kearney in A2!

This week hubby and I went on a date to our third Mat Kearney show.  He's on the road doing an accoustic set and MI was his second stop.  He and Tyler played music and horsed around on stage and it was one of the MOST enjoyable shows we've seen.  He is really so talented and witty and comical.  This our fist time to the Ark and it was a sit down show, I took my shoes off, folded up my legs sat back and sang along, it was fun! 

Sold out of course!





showing off my sweet photo skills with the PNS ;)



A cool bonus to seeing the accoustic tour is that he does play a couple of new songs and had them put on a record, we couldn't resist and will now have to dig out the record player in my parent's basement.  Thankful that I hadn't given that away too with all my vinyl to a friend last year!



After the show we went across the street to check out the Jolly Pumpkin ( I had remembered reading a bit of a veggie review of the menu) for a beer and a bite to eat. 



We shared the vegan chocolate cake with coconut milk ice cream and boy was it delicious and just the right size too.  My taste buds say the ice cream was for sure So Delicious. 



Look who we ran into after dinner!  What a super ending to a great evening, we were pretty geeked!!!



Not sure of a good segway to this, but while I had our countertop all cleared off to give it it's maintenance waxing I took some photos.  These are cabinets that we added to our kitchen (we also took out a bit of wall and my FIL made us a nice bartop above to open the kitchen up)  so we had a decision to make about new countertop.  If anyone is questioning our patience let me tell you that these cabinets stood with no top at all for over 12 months while we searched for the countertop we wanted and could afford =)  What I started out shopping for was this bad stuff :  Vetrazzo ( I learned of it when watching Ed Begley replace his on Living with Ed), but holy crap was it too expensive, part of the expense was that it wasn't readily available in small pieces and locally...back to the drawing board.  Lots of time and a contractor or two coming to the house we ended up with the info for Origins Concrete.  I was able to visit their display in IKEA and the studio in Detroit to formulate our counter design.  It's an L shape with an inlayed towel bar (I saw the idea for this on the Concrete Network)  made of one piece of concrete with some exposed aggregate at the corners.  All in all it worked out that we supported a local artist and got a custom countertop that will be the workspace for many meals. 



We had originally wanted to put repurposed glass in, but decided with this and it turned out so great for our space, kinda even matches the walls ;)





Hope that wasn't too random, but I get pretty excited about our home stuff ;) 

Yesterday I watched this video by Sergei Boutenko making green smoothies and was reinspired to keep them simple. 



this morning's Bfast smoothie was RO water, fresh banana, valencia orange, strawberries (greens included), spinach, and parsley (all organic)  It was really refreshing and delish, I had gotten into a habit of adding nut butter and dates to each one and this was such a good reminder to keep it simple.



Anyone watched No Impact Man?  I borrowed it from the library and watched today, that was a good reminder too, to keep up the good work and to ask myself what can I do more...No Impact Man



Off to try and freestyle some lentil soup, why does that sound good on a hot humid day, I do not know, but it does!  Enjoy your day loves!

catching up with a long post...

We've really been upping the raw food intake around here, and feeling great for it!  I think most folks in the summertime feel the same with all the fresh produce and hot hot temps.  Here's my second slice of raw dream pie from Zerbo's, this one was strawberry and oh so yummy!



We've also been taking a note from Sheri at Green and Crunchy to eat a raw brazil nut daily for selenium, which is so good for our thyroids that get bombarded with stressors/toxins in our modern lifes.  I had a jar in the fridge so we munch one down each day, they're tasty =) 



This had been another afternoon snackadoodle for me lately.  Yummy organic dates with nut butter, mmmmmmmm!  And this hot afternoon I enjoyed a cold kombucha too.



Last week's trip to the farmer's market bounty was:  organic toms, cukes ( I hope our cucumbers end up tasting this great!), and red potatoes, some fruit that was not organic, but they assured me they didn't use pesticides, apricots and cherries.  He actually gave me the cherries, how kind!  It was toward the end of a hot hot day and he was looking for homes for them, they needed to be picked thru, but man were they delicious!  I've been eating tons of stone fruit, yum.



I was a lucky winner during the giveawayathon on The Daily Raw Cafe of two of Matthew Kenney's books!  Thanks Terilynn and 105 degrees!!  I have been reading through both books and am really contemplating ordering a dehydrator again...I was hoping to use the funds from our garage sale for it, but we didn't quite make enough this year ;)  I was really proud of myself when I got to buy our Vita-Mix from my lucky first try at stock trading (the stock was a sustainable energy product), I got in and out and got my glorious blender I'd been dreaming about =)



I've been enjoying the rest of the Garden Pate from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen on big salads.



another recipe from Ani's new book, Raw Food Essentials we tried was Cheddar Cheeze Sauce.  I did end up adding some nooch to it after tasting and liked it better that way, although maybe it just needed to meld together a bit before serving for more flavor, anyway it was good and the whole batch is gone now along with our sunflower seed stock ;)  Dinner that night was Carrot Angel Hair with Sun-Dried Tomatoes in Cheddar Cheeze Sauce, I pulsed in with the cheeze the sun-dried toms instead of leaving them on top. 



another night we had salads with lots of local bounty, oh and the raw olives are AWESOME and hubby loves them too. They are sort of like kalamata, but less bitter and even more delicious.




and sweets with some of the Cheddar Cheeze sauce and garden basil on top.  I like to lightly bake the sweets so they're still sort of crunchy in the middle and you have to cut them up.



I met up with a dear friend for lunch that was by a Costco, so you know I had to go in for some provisions =)  I seem to always walk the entire store and end up with just the same few things to buy.  I stood in front of the Shark steam mop that I've been debating about...still didn't buy it.  Here's what a pretty normal Costco trip looks like for us.  There are a few other things that we buy, but they last us in our two person household a looong time. 



Yes, the hubby eats cheese at home... this will get shredded, divided, and  frozen so it will last a while too.  Everything is organic aside from the avocados (they are one thing that I do unfortunately routinely buy non-organic), Costco's avocados are always so perfect.  I picked up another set of the Glasslock containers so we have enough extras for freezing pieces of our raw cheesecakes.  I thought I was all set to make the cake until I went to get out the cashews from the freezer and there wasn't any;)  I ordered more from our Co-op and hoping they'll be here tomorrow so I can use these fresh strawberries in it as well.

We've also been munching on these crackers.  This flavor we hadn't had before, Averie had talked about it here, and were on sale at the co-op (and I also had a coupon, so this box ended up being  about $1.99, pretty good!)  We both like the flavor for a change.  Costco sells the original in a bigger box with two bags inside, great for entertaining here.



do you see the most important ingredient??? L o v e .



Here's a dose of green in the form of a yummy smoothie.  Our green smoothies have been including lots of garden greens, fresh apricots, cherries, peaches, and berries.  This cute smoothie cup was a gift from a dear Aunt of mine.  I don't usually choose to use plastic, but it makes me happy that she bought it for me and that will outweigh my fear of the plastic, and it will be handwashed and not heated ;) 



Second coat painting trim is on the agenda for today, our cute little office is a few steps closer to being done =)  also hoping that some reading time fits in (stayed up late last night to do so), I'm into The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry.  If you'd like a book recommedation, check out The Lace Reader by her as well, it was one of my most favorite books.

Also Vita-Mix is having special pricing now on their reconditioned blenders if anyone has been thinking of ordering one, I just got the email about it this morning and thought I'd share =)  I would buy ours over in a heartbeat.  My only recommendation would be to be sure you get the blender container that is BPA free, you might want to check, I know that ours is and it's the 5200. 

Happy day to you all and thanks so much for reading =)

raw food and health food stores

Yesterday morning I drove to a health food store, Zerbo's, a few towns over in Livonia.  I wanted to get out before it warmed all the way up (it's been in the 90s here, which honestly after living in LasVegas is way tolerable) but since the top is down on the Jeep I wanted to get a jump on the sun.  We are super fortunate where we live to have 2 Whole Foods, Plum Market, 2 awesome food co-ops, and Arbor Farms Market all within a 5-20 minute drive of our house, but I like love to check out all the health food stores that I can!  When I travel part of checking out a new town is seeing if they have a HFS, and I always swing in when there's time (HappyCow is an awesome resource for finding hidden gems).  You never know they may be stocking that something you've been wanting to order, or have items that you don't know about, and you most always will at least meet some friendly new peeps.   Which is what happened for me yesterday =) 



My intent was hoping to find good prices on our mouthwash and raw B12, which I did, yea!  I also found some other exciting items.  Kelp noodles (I bought a bag from Andrea McNinch at VegFest this year, but haven't located them in a store yet), raw vanilla powder, organic raw olives, and some coconut nectar.  I stopped into WHole Foods in the afternoon and they had the nectar now too...and it was on sale...
Zerbo's also had Sun Warrior protein that I would like to go back and try soon, I see it on all the wonderful food blogs that I read!  Another time, it's not cheap, which is fine, just can't get everything at once. 

excited to try these guys.  Do you ever watch Alton Brown on the food channel?  We were watching how olives are made on his show and one of the common steps is to be soaked in lye, which is then soaked back out, but still...(every once in a while I think maybe I should be of the camp that ignorance is bliss ;)  Since then I haven't been able to get that out of my head as I love olives big time, so here's hoping we enjoy these =) 



I also found Ultimate Superfoods raw ground vanilla.  This is the vanilla powder that I've been using for 'sweetening' my chia puddings which is yummy, but I've been really wanting to try this raw one out.



it smells different than I expected, but yummy



I enjoyed an afternoon treat of a raw coconut dream pie from Zerbo's, so delicious with a light texture.  I'm really feeling the need for raw foods, maybe it was the weekend of eating a half of pizza (sans cheese)???  I just realized this pie is nut free, the ingredients are young coconut, organic dates, coconut butter, flakes, vanilla, sea salt, good clean living =)



Dinner last night was raw and delicious (two thumbs up from the hubby too!) Pad Thai with Kelp Noodles from Ani's Raw Food Essentials!  Ani recommends using your mandoline to slice the cabbage noodles really thin, worked great and I don't think it would have been the same with thicker slices.  Here's that cute organic baby cabbage from the farmer's market. 





the rest of the noodles, julliened red pepper (can't wait for the peppers in our garden, they're out and green now!), basil from the garden, and kelp noodles.  This is kind of surprising, but both of us loved the kelp noodles, they don't really have any taste, very neutral, but have the best texture, almost crunchy, but pliable.



Ani's delicious sauce (she is a genious with 6 ingredients it tasted complex and a whole whole lot like pad thai!) 



Raw Pad Thai dinner



And for some more Ani lovin, we've been eating the Garden Pate from ani's raw food kitchen, which is still one of my favorites, yum yum yum!

I like it best wrapped in big green leaves, but I won't pretend that I don't eat a spoonful here and there ;)



other things that have been happening in the kitchen here:  raw tahini making (if you own a food processor I can't tell you how nice it is to make your own seed and nut butters from organic raw ingredients, I also think you save quite a bit of money)  On a funny side note, we recently had friends in town, I'm not even sure what we were eating now, but he pointed out what a funny term nut butter is, and I had to laugh, I had never thought of it that way =O

before



after



the lunch I never tire of, Sunshine burger wraps with any veggies that are around



we've been loving these cherries, yea for stone fruit season!!!



summer tastes so good



I also made up a little quinoa salad recipe. Things come to me in the shower (I've had a friend say that ideas come in the water) and the moments before I fall asleep often, the latter is when this popped into my head.  (anyone resonate with this or thinking I'm a lil wacky?, it's ok if you think I'm wacky, I don't mind ;) )

cooked quinoa
lots of garden kale, basil, and cilantro
red onion
soaked sun-dried toms and raisins



dressing of Udo's oil, tahini, nooch, s+p, onion powder, agave, and water to thin as needed



I loved it and took it along camping to share. 
It's farmer's market day here, but I have lots to do that didn't get done yesterday due to a little time consumer known as TrueBlood...geez, good thing I'm like #65 on the library's list to see season 2!  Oh and I guess while we're on the topic of my mainstream consumerism, Eclipse was great and yes we went to the midnite show, why break the cycle now ;)  It was a fun girls night out with dinner before at Rojo where they make fresh guac tableside and have a yummy chopped salad that can be easily made vegan. 
Another good thing yesterday was getting to have lunch and a chat with the author of Be Verdant!  Thanks girl, always great to see ya!!!