it's so easy being (slightly) green... cookies

i'm always looking for easy to eat (and pack up) toddler snacks! tonight, while debating going to the store to get some snacks for the continuously-eating-when-not-running-around toddlers i'm watching in the morning but knowing going to the store really just means i want an excuse to buy ice cream, i remembered some 3 ingredient cookies i made (though with dried cranberry) with one of my kindergarten classes that the kids loved (though some moms were disappointed with! i.e. no chocolate. ha).
i figured i could do something similar to try out on the girls tomorrow.
well, they came out of the oven and since my daughter was snacking on shredded coconut already (hurrah for extra vacuuming tonight), we did a quick taste test. she is onto her third cookie as i type this.

here is approximately what i did/what you're welcome to do!

preheat oven to 350.

mash one banana (the riper, the better tasting and easier this is!)
add a sprinkle of cinnamon and spirulina
add oats (gf ones if you need to be careful) and shredded coconut until you have a firm, moist mixture of something!

i used basically an ice cream scoop to divide the mixture but then ended up splitting the little mounds and flattening them to make them an easier size for trying and less of a loss if dropped while walking to the park ;) i baked them for about 10 minutes - when the coconut started to brown.

looking forward to testing these on my daughter's friend tomorrow and see if she asks for more too!

family freezer meals #1 - chili

i had so much fun today making a big batch of chili! i wanted something for my friend's potluck tonight that i could also freeze batches of for when baby arrives and making good food for ourselves may not be the easiest!
chili was my first idea.

for this chili, i sauteed an onion and a couple big cloves of garlic in coconut oil. then, i added cubed turnip and some carrot, zucchini, broccoli, kale, 3 tomatoes, 4 stalks of celery, 1 baby bok choy, a few slices of red cabbage, and a can of mixed beans, about 1/2 cup of dried lentils and probably 1/2 a tablespoon of my punch-in-the-head powerful chili powder, a sprinkle of cinnamon and cumin and basil and some chopped fresh basil. let that simmer for awhile and OOOOH i am mighty pleased.

my pregnancy eats!

i have had no desire to blog lately though i continue to take photos of food and continue to read other people's blogs! sigh!
but thought maybe i should start a post on things i love to eat while pregnant. i had braced myself for comments like "oh, you will crave eggs and steak" and whatever during this new phase of my life, but i haven't gotten those! (i must surround myself with great people! hehe) i did get one comment at work that was "you eat so many vegetables, your kid is going to come out only wanting to eat candy!" which i thought was a little ignorant even as a joke and i replied, "not if she doesn't know what that is!" but i think being vegan is becoming more and more common these days and in general, most people seem to want to eat more vegetables and real foods so i don't think vegan is as confusing to people anymore, maybe?
i still can't believe that i have someone growing inside me (and somehow the 3D ultrasound and the kicking hasn't helped me make the connection either!) and that i will get to meet her by the end of this year! i can't wait to introduce her to so many things and watch her explore and figure out what she likes!
anyways! typically i have had smoothies for breakfast but i can't say i have a routine for breakfast anymore. sometimes i have cereal or toast or even dinner leftovers! this morning, however i returned to a green smoothie!

this one (serving 2) contains:
- 1 quince
- 1 pear
- mini handful of baby kale
- about 2 shots of BrainOn
- about 1.5 cups filtered water
- about 1.5 cups frozen mango
- 1 frozen banana

i added my daily liquid iron supplement to it (i generally have my iron with orange juice during my work morning break) and i'm set! super yum.

i just finished roasting some butternut squash (and currently eating the roasted seeds that roast just a wee bit faster! yum!) for lunch.

at work, i almost ALWAYS have a salad. nothing different than pre-pregnancy. i never look forward to anything as much as salad! on days that i haven't felt like chopping somehow or market shopping, i hope that it's wednesday, thursday, or friday and that i can get to christina's food cart, culver city salads. her salads are glorious!

i got a cuppow dressing cup for mason jars which makes mason jar salads all that more exciting to eat out of. i have never minded so much having dressing on the salad during transport and pre-lunch but it's still fun to add it and mix it in at lunch.


 
 hemp seeds are always a great addition to salads!
 
 i was craving corn (organic, duh!) and added some tao cafe raw burger to the top of my salad and oh goodness, it was the most delicious thing ever!
  
a delicious garden-fresh potato salad my mom made for me this summer - all backyard or CSA box ingredients except the pickles. YUM!
 
yesterday, i bought some sprouted grain wraps (i eat gluten on occasion now, mostly out of curiosity, though it is always organic, whole and/or sprouted) and plopped some collard green, kale, red cabbage, and carrot on top and then drizzled a dressing that i generally have some version of on my salads lately: sprouted chickpea miso, apple cider vinegar, flax oil, nutritional yeast. SO YUMMY!

dinner is generally a warm grain and bean/legume with steamed veg. paul has been amazing at cooking up something for when i get home around 4:30. such a treat!

so basically with this growing a baby deal and being vegan, i feel extra justified in getting any and every veg and fruit (especially seasonal ones at the farmers market) and i continue buying/ingesting organic food. i am taking a prenatal vitamin and iron supplement daily, but other than that ritual, i'm just trying to eat as many different things as possible and the least processed foods as possible. which is not anything new for me.

(i love trying new-to-me things at the farmers market, like these "mini watermelons", er, sour mexican gherkins, which are really like sour bite-sized cucumbers! so refreshing!)
i can't get over how easy pregnancy has been and how awesome i feel and how excited i am about the little growing inside me! part of me wants her to stay inside as long as possible as i'm thinking this is going to be the easiest part. but i hope that paul and i will continue to celebrate and marvel in every step of her growing up.
and i'm confident we will.

whoa, where is the time going? (plus... a green smoothie)

so, i have many unfinished posts on this thing. what is my excuse? i just had a mostly slower pace for a couple months! now as fall gets ready to start, i am de-cluttering and getting things back in gear. but back to excuses.... i'm going to blame my lack of blogging on baby brain! paul and i are expecting "the little" in december! i'm happy to say that so far pregnancy has been glorious and i have escaped first trimester with minor nausea (that was eliminated with eating) and extreme exhaustion that had me basically comatose after work or napping on the couch so that i would have the energy to go brush my teeth before bed!
second trimester has felt a lot more energetic and i'm hoping this keeps up as i'm heading into my final trimester.
i'm getting myself ready for the unwanted advice and touching that seems inevitable but i feel lucky to have only had one comment of concern about my vegan lifestyle (ie "did you hear about the vegan couple whose baby died?") and i feel really great about my diet and exercise right now! i haven't had any strange cravings. i guess the most surprising to me is that i don't want to eat coconut milk ice cream and raw chocolate as much as i usually do! and i haven't had the same urgency to go to starbucks for my unsweetened soy green tea latte as i have in busy work months. veggie brown rice sushi has been my meal of choice when i'm hungry but can't think of anything i want and in general, i'm really enjoying hunting down new vegetables and fruits to try at the farmers market and eating different grains and beans and legumes. ethiopian food has come up as a dinner craving a couple times though i don't feel like that's specific to pregnancy!
i'm taking vegan prenatal vitamins and while i was taking separate folic acid tablets, i (coincidentally?) did not feel like making my morning green smoothie! too much green leafies?
anyways, i'm finished the bottle and i feel like the folic acid in my prenatal and my food is more than sufficient and i've regained my green smoothie tendencies! hurrah! i'm taking daily iron (spatone liquid iron is my fave) and generally that is just with orange juice or a ginger/orange/frozen banana smoothie but sometimes it ends up in a green smoothie.
i made a green smoothie tonight to get some drinks in the freezer for some mid-morning energy boosts in the next couple work days and it was a nice one so i figured i should post it!

ingredients:
-about 1.5 cups filtered water
-one nub of ginger
-the tops of about 4 purple carrots
-a few sprigs of parsley
-about half or more of the tops of a bunch of radishes
-one peach
-one pear
-about 1 cup of orange juice

i got everything from the farmers market except the ginger and orange juice. maybe that's why it was so especially delicious!
anyways! i'm so excited to meet the little! but also really enjoying this time that she's been hanging out inside me. i can feel her moving around now and it's fun to feel her movements especially when me or paul are talking. i haven't had any food aversions so far and figure this means she is going to be super happy and excited to eat fruits and veggies like us! (and green smoothies, of course!)
hope your september is off to a great start and you are still enjoying farmers market goodies! i'm relieved to know ours goes into october as i was worried this was the last month!

raw pesto, minus the pesto.

late this afternoon, after only a smoothie this morning, we had suddenly realized we were hungry. paul thought of using kelp noodles and then i started imagining a raw pesto on top. i looked at food and yoga for life's recipe and realized we only needed to get some fresh basil so i headed to the store.
as soon as i got there, there was no organic basil to be found and the conventional basil, having been kept in the refrigerated produce section for however long, was now all brown and mushy. i figured we could do a pesto minus the basil which would mean something more similar to an alfredo maybe?
so i started making food and yoga's recipe without basil, but using everything else (including the sunflower seeds) but then also added an avocado! yum! then, i checked the cupboards and realized we didn't have any kelp noodles!
isn't it funny how you can start with one idea and change it completely by the end?
so paul went and got zucchini and we ended up with the most fantastic creamy zingy sauced noodles.

this recipe's a keeper! a finger-licking-the-bowl-after-you-used-a-spoon-to-scrape-excess-sauce-to-eat-after-you-ate-all-of-your-noodles recipe!
i added a fair bit of water because with all the nuts and seeds, this sauce was quite thick. (can't assure you that i measured the original recipe's ingredients! sorry!) so i'm imagining making a spreadable cheeze next time using the lemon, garlic, sunflower seeds, walnuts, avocado, nutritional yeast, rock salt and olive oil. YUM!

raw purple corn chips!

i have been vowing to use the purple corn kernels i've had in the fridge for raw chips for YEARS, i'm sure. i'm actually scared to do a search on this blog as i know it's been way too long.
well, finally i tried it! and i'm impressed.
i used this recipe from rawfullytempting.com and it was perfect.

first i needed to blend my flax seed into powder and process all the corn. i try to avoid corn in my usual day, though i am a sucker for anita's white popping corn! gah. anyways! i most definitely used organic (non-GMO!!!) yellow and purple corn for this recipe.


using my vita-mix for processing the corn and such was not ideal, but it just meant i had to take many breaks (as the motor was working overtime) and had to keep spatula-ing the sides to get everything mixing evenly. i really need to get a big food processor one of these days as my mini one is just not cutting it. it is, but not just not enough at once! ha.

the spreading part, as the recipe states, is not the easiest part. i didn't quite take my time and they are uneven. but now i know that i like the thicker parts better than the fragile thin chips!
but all sizes of chips taste awesome in the red pepper chickpea hummus paul made last night! 

hurrah for days off! (a salad.)

ok, i have salads every day. but something about slowly preparing one for lunch today made me want to post. and, well, jodie mentioning my blog last night and i admitted i have kinda abandoned this guy lately because of my annoyances with photo allowances. i'm using photobucket now and going to roll with some posts while i have the inspiration!
so, today's salad!

cut up and thrown in:
-several leaves of romaine
-an avocado
-a yellow carrot
-a small handful of pea shoots
-a stem of fennel
-a couple radishes

blended as dressing:
-splash of hemp seeds
-spoon of tahini
-a bit too much filtered water (1/4 cup? would definitely start slow next time)
-a splash of apple cider vinegar
-juice of one lemon
-half a big clove of garlic
-leaves off one stem of sage
-a few chunks of dulse (shells washed off ^_^)

delicious! 
i'm a garlic and sage fiend lately. (on top of my avocado and radish OCD). loving it!

no-pumpkin pie custard-like smoothie!

oh goodness, is this delicious!
smooth and thick like a custard, cold and refreshing as a smoothie, comforting like a pumpkin pie, though i can't remember the last time i had a pumpkin pie! the last "pumpkin" pie i had was at organic lives (last year maybe?) and it wasn't made with pumpkin either!

ingredients:
-1 cup almond milk
-1 frozen banana
-1 frozen persimmon
-1 nub of ginger
-a good-sized shake of cinnamon
-a sprinkle of lucuma
-a sprinkle of mesquite
-a small splash of maple syrup

thanksgiving sunday morning green blend.

i'm at my parents' house for the weekend and i'm on smoothie duty for the mornings! i'm so excited they have been doing their own green smoothies since my last visit. and it's exciting to come for a visit and have a stock of fresh, organic yummy things to blend up!

this morning, i blended a couple leaves of kale (kale kind of frustrates me lately as there are more bugs than usual to clean off!), 1/3 a bunch of italian parsley, 3-4 stalks of red chard, 3 pears, 2 peaches, about 2 cups of water.

thank you, my non leather life!

a few days back, victoria from my non leather life emailed to ask me some questions! i love checking her blog for inspiring words (as was especially the case the other day when she mentioned a william carlos williams poem) and inspiring shoes!

i am so excited that my recorded discoveries have inspired her to incorporate more raw foods in her life!

check out the interview here!

and for some fall inspiration, this photo... representing: one of paul's favourite snacks (raw almond butter and raisins on celery, aka "ants on a log"); some of the lovely treats anne, sheilagh, and i enjoyed ON THE BEACH the other day for 3 hours in the SEPTEMBER sun celebrating anne's birthday ^_^; and... my shoes today! ha. i add shoes to this pic because of my non-leather life! i've lived a non-leather (and silk, wool, etc.) life for at least a few years now and it feels great. it definitely helps me be a more conscious consumer and i wait longer to make clothing purchases as i look carefully at the materials assembled for my goods and when i can, i support vegan companies! (or, i clothing swap/consign/buy vintage!) these shoes are by novacas, which means "no cow" in portuguese. i got them at nice shoes! hurrah!

every day, i like to think of what i'm grateful for. and today i'm grateful for having full-time work, a cozy apartment, a most amazing and inspiring boyfriend, access to organic food (and local crops!), and people all around to inspire me and be inspired by me! hurrah for connecting with like-minded lovelies across the world! ^_^

hair product detox!

yesterday i was lamenting that my hair seemed to be greasy or heavy even right after a wash! i don't know what the deal is, i don't use or put anything on or in my hair except shampoo, but i'm grateful for stumbling across myhealthygreenfamily's post, washing my hair with baking soda.
last night, i followed her directions - 1 tablespoon baking soda mixed in 1 cup water to lather into hair and wash out and then 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar in 1 cup water for a rinse. i didn't need probably even half as much but i did the whole cup anyways.
my hair felt squeaky clean in the shower and i'm over the moon to have it super clean feeling and soft again!
i'm curious how it will feel tomorrow! it feels lighter again - in colour and weight! it's no longer dulled by shampoo build-up? it feels like when i get out of the salon chair after a wash and cut! oh and when i used to have my hair dyed - it always felt so great after that, those first couple days! (fyi, i stopped dyeing my hair a couple years ago while taking my clean sweep of chemicals out of my life)
i probably should have taken a picture of it at its weirdest and heaviest but here is today:

my happy hair!

maybe this isn't a big deal to you, but it's a huge relief to me!

i am annoyed that i still have 1/2 full bottles of my shampoo (a couple different kinds by avalon organics). can it be that i'm sick of them and so is my head? having short, fine hair like me means it takes FOREVER to go through a bottle so i think my next one(s) are going to be small bottles of super simple shampoos (organic and minus the dirty dozen, obviously) but maybe i will even start making something myself!

is there anything cleaning-related that baking soda and vinegar isn't good for? just curious!

zimt easter treats!

i feel super lucky today to have gotten to sample some zimt easter treats!

i couldn't believe these were raw organic chocolates! they tasted like conventional chocolate but without the weird "filler" taste. am i the only one that feels that some vegan chocolate tastes bland or like there is some waxy thickener in it? (but then conventional dairy chocolate is WAY worse. stomach ache AND mysterious additives? ECH!) oh and i HATE it when sugar is the first ingredient in chocolate! anyways... super exciting to know that these chocolates contain all satisfaction and no filler. ha.

 ha. i really should have taken some photos sans packaging huh. but on the left there are some unpackaged chocolate coconut crisp bars! yum! i totally know the right people ^_^ these bars are smokey tasting but i totally enjoy it. i enjoy chocolate with a "bite" and "smokey" works for me too. i don't know much about chocolate but apparently the smokey tasting beans are from bali. i'm not sure where the chocolate that made the easter shapes came from. but i guess if coffee (and well anything else, really!) can taste different depending on where it's from and how it was grown, harvested, etc., why would chocolate be any different?