Reset

I had a pretty rough week last week, a baby I've been working with for 10 months died (expectedly) and I'm surprised at how difficult I'm finding it.  The day after she died, I was at a (REALLY REALLY AMAZING) workshop all weekend with an adorable baby, who was crawling around and thought my water bottle was the best thing ever (he pushed it over and then all over the room).  I didn't think anything of it until I noticed he was snotting on Sunday afternoon.  Uh oh.  

So, of course, with my lack of sleep and feeling tired and sad, I get a cold.  Right at the same time as our Christmas party, so I felt like a jerk calling in sick the day after.  Oh well, what can you do...

So, I'm taking this opportunity to start my 21 day raw food reset, through the Young and Raw company.  I did a lot of thinking over this one and decided that it would be good for me.  There's no supplements (I did a Wild Rose cleanse several years ago and was so sick during it, it was awful!).  Just lots and lots of unprocessed food.  

Not a lot of blogging about that will happen, since it's a paid-for program ($40), and the material is all copyright.  

Last week I did make a couple of REALLY good meals though, I didn't manage to get pictures of either of them, so you get real live links instead.

I made a really good red lentil carrot coconut soup!  I used chicken stock instead of veggy stock, and added some zested lime, since it felt like it didn't have enough depth.  Oh, and used tamari instead of salt to season it later in the soup.  It was good!  

I also made chana masala, which was *amazing*.  I was epically lazy with my spices though, so just used the curry powder we have on hand.  And cumin.  Because there's never enough cumin.  Served it with rice or quinoa.  Really filling, will make this again.  There was lots leftover and I brought it to work with me one day.  

Hope everyone is having a good weekend/work week/etc.  :)

Busy-ness

Life has been insane! Too busy to blog (never mind that the blogger app doesn't let me do a couple of key things, which prevents me from posting more often). So, in the name of posting pictures, here we go!

Over the Remembrance Day long weekend, J and I took a short trip to Seattle, to hang out together and do a little bit of shopping. I sadly didn't take enough pictures, since we were too busy enjoying each other's company to document the occasion. Since I'm building up to my raw food cleanse, I tried to have a solid balance of whole foods vs foods I knew would make my tummy hurt. We had a juice each on Sunday morning from Whole Foods (conveniently located a block from our hotel). This meant that we went to Le Panier in Pike Place Market and stuffed ourselves with all manner of flakey, buttery, perfect pastry. We had an almond croissant, and then 3 pastries whose names I have forgotten, but one was a dauphinois, a broccoli and cheese, and a sundries tomato (which tasted more like pizza sauce). She also bought a vanilla slice (aka a Napoleon) for later. Absolutely delish. 

 

We had a late lunch back at Whole Foods courtesy of their salad bar. For dinner, we found a local-food-serving-local-sustainable-farming-supporting restaurant called Local 360. Yum!!! 

A lovely charceuterie and cheese plate for an appy, and then this amazing faro squash mushroom dish, which we added extra mushrooms and some brussel sprouts. Absolutely excellent!! 

For dessert we had these deep friend, tasty apple fritters with house made ice cream. 

Sadly I didn't think to take pictures before we devoured it.

We got home after 45 minutes in the border line up on Monday evening, starving and kinda broke. J wanted quinoa broccoli cheese casserole. So I obliged.

Um, hello yum!! I usually make my cream soup from scratch, since most canned stuff is a chemical shit storm. And I can't really eat it anyways. We ate this for lunches all week, since it makes such a huge portion.

On that Wednesday, I made black bean brownies for my knit night on the Friday. They are SO good and SO easy!! They also last forever. Plus kids would never know they are actually made with black beans instead of flour. Has. Really fudgy texture. Yum!!

 

Both recipes came off Pinterest, so if you follow me there you can find them easily. 

Other things I made this week off Pinterest, the Chana Masala chickpea curry and an amazing carrot curry coconut soup. Absolutely perfect for the weather we've had (cold, rainy, blustery). I'll post pictures of that in my next post!

Dinner, things you learn at farmers markets, and special friends

Last night we were privy to our amazing wedding-photographer-turned-friend joining us for dinner. She was in Vancouver shooting a wedding the day before, so came for dinner before heading back home.

(Picture from our wedding!!)  If you are looking for an amazing, intelligent, hard working, talented and artistic photographer (for anything, she climbs mountains for fun), we highly recommend Melissa Welsh Photography.  Each picture turned out perfectly and we were so impressed by the high quality and professionalism!  Also, she was so much fun to work with!!

We were much too busy having fun to take pictures, so instead you get leftover shots (guess what I'm having for dinner tomorrow!!).

Winter chanterelle risotto. Winter chanterelles are slightly different than regular chanterelles, smaller, more mushroomy taste, but just as buttery and delicious.

Kale and brussel sprout salad. Delish. Recipe below.

I also made chicken and roasted a kabocha squash. Yum!! 

Sour cherry pie from Her majesty's pie company, purchase at the farmers market! Aaaaaamazing! We served it with vanilla ice cream from Rocky Point Ice Cream company.

So delish.  

30 day green smoothie challenge

So, I decided to do this raw cleanse. It's not vegan because I am allowed to eat a very small amount of raw local honey if I need to.

It's a company called Young and Raw. It appeals to me because I'm kind of desperate to heal my eczema. Also I eat a lot of raw stuff to begin with, so going fully raw for 3 weeks isn't that much of a stretch. I'll post about it when I get going on it.

In the meantime, they're hosting a 30 day green smoothie challenge. They posted day 1 last night, so I prepped everything for this morning. This is a fun challenge for us because we already drink smoothies almost every day (and the same smoothie), but it's a bit boring, so 30 new smoothies sounded appealing!!

Today was day 1. It was cucumber and ginger and parsley and more, and it was pretty good! Although a little... Leafy? I added too much water and our blender couldn't blend it fine enough (it's not a vitamix).

But look how pretty it is!!

It didn't have much staying power, but it was tasty.

Tomorrow is day 2! If this interests you, look up the Young and Raw 30 Day Smoothie Challenge on Facebook. The pinned post at the top has a 5-day-at-a-time grocery list as well as the smoothie recipes (which are posted in 3 day chunks). 

In the meantime, I'm going to bed!

Lentils

I love lentils. I really do. I made my favourite dish last night for dinner (and this leftovers for my dinner at work today): baked lentils with cheese. Except I swapped out the cheese for yam tonight. Yuuuuummmmm.

This is a really great recipe that's quick to put together and you can toss it in the oven and mostly forget about it for awhile. The original recipe comes out if the More with Less cookbook, put out by the Mennonite church (association?). While I am not a Mennonite, the philosophy of this book hits the nail on the head. Mostly. But if you google it, you'll find the following recipe!

1 3/4 cup green lentils, rinsed and picked over

2 large onions (and they do mean Large)

2 cloves of garlic (yah right, try at least 7)

2 cups diced tomatoes***

2 cups water***

Salt (salt until it tastes salty, tomatoes take quite a bit of salt)

Pepper

2-3 sprigs of thyme

2-4 sage leaves

Bay leaf

(Original recipe suggests marjoram and rosemary, but I hate the latter and we never have any in our house).

Preheat oven to 375. Find a large baking dish (9x13 or larger). Mix all the above in a bowl, pour into the dish. Cover with a lid or tinfoil, bake for 30 mins.

Then add:

2 large carrots, sliced into 1/8" pieces

2 stalks of celery, diced.

Bake for another 40 mins.

Check for doneness, then top with grated cheese (2-3 cups) and broil until melted.

OR

Peel and chop 3-4 medium sized yams and steam them until they're cooked. Mash them with some butter and salt, spread on the finished lentils and toss em back in the oven for a few more minutes to dry out a bit on the top.

The secret to this dish is the insane amount of onion. No kidding. I made it once with less onion and it wasn't as exciting.

This also freezes well.

I would've taken more pictures, but alas I was too busy eating. ;)

Soup

We have had an exceptional fall. Sunshine, warm temperatures, beautiful sun which makes all the leaves glow. It's been wonderful.

I'm doing house chores today so pulled a container of tomatillo soup out of the freezer for my lunch. Chicken, tomatillos, cilantro, lime, black eyed peas. Yum!! 

Here a vague recipe... If you google it, you can get a more accurate ingredient list.

I soaked dried black eyed peas the night before.

Onion

Garlic

Black eyed peas (either canned or pre-soaked a min of 6 hrs)

Chicken or vegetable stock

1 bunch cilantro

At least 2.5lbs of tomatillos.

2 limes (or less lime, depending on how sour you like it).

2 chicken breasts (or equivalent in whatever chicken meat you have).

Cumin

Dice your onions and toss them into an oiled, heated pot. Season with salt. Dice your garlic. Remove the leafy covering from your tomatillos and rinse them (they're sticky). Cut them into half and then run them and your cilantro through the blender (you may need to add stock to help it go, or you can chop up stuff moderately fine, they do cook down quite a bit). When your onions are translucent, add 2 cups (ish) of the soaked beans to the pot, add your chicken stock, the chicken (whole is fine, you can shred it later) and the green mix out of your blender. Add some cumin. Check your seasonings and adjust as necessary. Put the lid on and let it simmer until the beans are cooked.

When the beans are cooked, pull the chicken and shred it, return to the pot. Add lime juice. Serve!

Yes there are things growing in my kitchen....

I have been fascinated with fermented things for most of the summer. Have I actually gotten to it yet? No. A couple of weeks ago one of my FB friends have me a SCOBY, which is essentially a symbiotic culture of mold and bacteria used to ferment drinks. Yes, you heard me.

No, I am not making wine on my kitchen counter.

I am (hopefully) making kombucha, a fermented tea drink.

So, in the next 7 days, hopefully this massive jar on my counter will turn into a fermented drink of goodness.

You can see the SCOBY floating around like some kind of alien creature (it really does look like an alien creature).

Why eat/drink fermented things? Well, there's lots of science behind it and far better explanations out there than I can give. Mostly it has to do with the way of eating that we have followed for our entire existence, that the bacteria produced in fermented foods is required by our guts for healthy living and helps protect us from getting sick. I have very annoying eczema which presents mostly on my hands, as well as multiple moderately annoying GI issues (bad teeth, sensitive and often upset tummy and intestines). My eczema is directly related to my gut issues. So this is part of working to heal my guts. I'll get into the other parts later. 

In 7 days I will start tasting it to see if it's ready. Then I'll mix it with some fruit juice and pop it in the fridge to drink whenever and make a new batch. If it's successful, I'll post another picture. If it moulds off and dies, the whole thing goes in the garbage. Ick.