It still needs some work but it’ll get there soon enough.

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Socca veggie sandwhich with basil pesto spread

I recently stumbled onto Pure2Raw where they have an entire page dedicated to socca.  Until seeing socca on their website, I had never heard of the stuff.  If you’re also not familiar with socca, it’s basically a flat bread made from garbanzo bean flour. Pure2Raw lists quite a few different socca recipes from carrot cake socca to sprouted lentil socca.  You can find the list of socca recipes here.  My favorite is their skillet socca.  I did do a couple things differently though: instead of 2 tbsp coconut oil I only used 1/2 tbsp and instead adding a bit of rosemary I adding a bit of chia seeds, hemp seeds, nutritional yeast, and pepper.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup garbanzo bean flour

1 cup water

pinch or two of sea salt

2 tbsp oil (I used coconut oil but you can also use olive oil)

a bit of chia seeds, hemp seeds, nutritional yeast, & pepper. (I didn’t measure any of these, I just sprinkled it all in)

Directions:

Preheat a lightly oiled skillet or frying pan over low medium heat. While your pan heats up, mix all the above ingredients in a bowl.  Pour batter into heated pan and cook until the edges are crispy and the top seems dry.  Socca is quite moist so it’s difficult to dry out by over cooking it.  When ready, carefully flip the socca bread and cook until both sides are looking toasted.

When my socca was done I made a veggie sandwich using basil pesto for the spread, tomatoes, lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, and cucumber.  Since I don’t normally eat bread, I never get to have sandwiches so this a very nice treat for me.  I find socca very filling plus it contains a bit of protein which is also nice.  I hope you guys like it as much as Sean and I liked it.

First let me start by saying I love the color of these shoes, which is what first attracted me to them.  I was hoping the bright colors would make me run faster, but… they don’t. I’m still just as slow as I’ve always been.  They cost more then what I’m used to spending on shoes but it was well worth it.  They’re light weight and flexible with just the right amount of cushioning. The store I bought them at didn’t have my size so I had to buy half a size bigger then what I would normally wear but even being a bit big they still feel great when I run.  Although I don’t have a lot of experience running or shopping for running shoes, I would still highly recommend these shoes to anyone.

1. They contain more omega-3 fatty acids then flax seeds and even salmon.
2. They contain more antioxidants then blueberries.
3. They can be stored for long periods of time without going bad due to their high antioxidant levels.
4. They don’t need to be ground to be digested like flax seeds do.
5. They’re higher in calcium then 2% milk.
6. Just 1 tbsp contains 3g of protein.
7. They’re higher in fibre then bran flakes.
8. They help lower cholesterol.
9. They help reduce cravings.

After discovering these things I thought I would I try making chia seed pudding.  The first bowl I made turned out terrible.  I couldn’t understand why so many people liked it but thought there had to be a reason so I decided to give it one more try.  I actually gave it a few more tries, testing out different recipes I found on-line.  Most of the recipes I tried made a firm pudding, a slimy,almost solid pudding, which I thought was rather nasty.  I finally came up with my own recipe for chia seed pudding.  It has a smoother consistency, more like real pudding, but so much healthier.  I think you’ll all like it.

Pumpkin Spice Chia Seed Pudding

Ingredients:

2 tbsp chia seeds

1 1/2 tbsp canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

1 cup almond milk (or other milk)

1-2 tsp agave or maple syrup

a pinch of all-spice (about 1/8 tsp)

a pinch of ground cloves (about 1/8 tsp)

1/2 tsp cinnamon

a pinch of salt

Directions:

Mix together the pumpkin, milk, syrup, salt and spices.  Next add chia seeds to the liquid mixture and whisk.  Let sit for at least 30 minutes before eating.  Serve cold.  Makes one serving.

One of my bad habits that I’ve tried to quite for years is eating just before bed.  I’ve heard some people say that eating before bed can contribute to weight gain and I’ve heard others say that it won’t make a difference as long as you’re still within your calorie allowance.  I’ve also heard that eating right before bed can make it difficult to sleep.  I’ve never had a problem sleeping, regardless of how much I ate before going to bed and I’ve never found enough info to back up either weight gain arguments.   What finally made sense to me was when I read that it it’s good to stop eating about three hours before bed so that your body can focus on repairing itself rather then digesting food.  This made perfect sense to me so I decided it was time to stop snacking after dinner and start eating dinner earlier.

So the first half of my second challenge will be to have my last meal before 7:30pm and no snacks or dessert afterwards.

The second half of my challenge will be to increase my workouts. I’m just not exercising enough to reach my goals. From now on I have to exercise five days a week and at each workout I have to burn a minimum of 300 calories while doing cardio and include weight lifting afterwards.

Challenge summary:

Nothing to eat after 7:30 pm and exercise five days a week, burning a minimum of 300cal with cardio and adding in weighlifting after after my cardio sessions.

Here’s the recipe I used…

Hummingbird Nectar:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup sugar, 1 cup water

Directions:

Bring water to a boil then add the sugar and remove from heat.  Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.  Let cool before filling your feeder.

If you want to attract hummingbirds to you garden there are a few things you can do as a feeder isn’t always enough to attract them and keep them coming back.  When looking for flowers for your garden check the plant information tags to see if they’ll attract hummingbirds.   Also plant both perennials and annuals.  A couple annuals I noticed that attract hummingbirds but don’t always mention it on the tags are petunias and snapdragons; both very easy to grow.  Having small trees nearby or something for them to perch on to rest and preen themselves will also help.  One more thing you can do is include some type of moving water source to your garden such as a sprinkler, mister, fountain, waterfall, or dripper.

Since we’ve  hung the feeder we’ve had two little humming birds buzzing around our patio everyday.  Now I just need my flowers to grow.

100% raw

Tonight I made Sean basil pesto pasta for dinner.  It looked so good but since I don’t usually eat pasta and I’m trying to eat more raw food I thought I’d try adding pesto to some zucchini for my dinner.  I wanted to try to make noodles but since I don’t have a spiralizer I had to make them by hand using a potato peeler and a sharp knife.  I peeled the zucchini into long strips then using a sharp knife, I sliced the peels into thin strips.  I made sure to rinse and drain the noodles before adding the pesto. Next I mixed the zucchini noodles with fresh basil pesto and fresh chopped tomatoes.  It turned out great although a spiralizer would have been nice to use.

For the basil pesto recipe click here.

Vanilla cupcake with chocolate butter-cream frosting.

Recently I read that quite a few artificial food colors are made from coal tar derivatives and can not only cause allergies but can also cause cancer.  Since I read that, I wanted to try and make my own natural food coloring and what better way to use it but in frosting and what does frosting go best with?  CUPCAKES!  Now since I’m working on eating healthier I decided that what ever I baked I would give to friends (or my husband).

Lets start with the food coloring.  I made yellow, red, and I attempted to make blue.  Here is how I did it:

Natural food color ingredients.

Yellow: yellow was the easiest.  Turmeric is all you need.  Just add this spice to your icing and you’ll have a lovely yellow.

Red: beet water was used for the red.  Peel and chop a beet.  In a small sauce pan, combine chopped beet with just enough water to cover the beets.  Over medium heat, simmer beets until they well cooked.  You may have to add more water as it cooks.  Once beets are cooked drain water into a seal-able container and let it cool.  You now have red food coloring.

Blue:  I tried using the same process as the red coloring but with red cabbage instead of beets.  I don’t think I cooked the cabbage long enough because my icing turned more of a bland grey rather then a nice blue.  Next time I’ll try cooking the cabbage until all the color is out and the cabbage itself is turns grey.

Natural food coloring.

Now for the cupcakes.

Ingredients:

1 cup cane sugar

1/2 cup vegan margarine, softened

2 tbsp ground flax see mixed with 4 tbsp water

2 tsp vanilla or almond extract

1 1/4 cup almond milk (or other vegan milk)

1 cup white flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 3/4 tsp baking powder

Ingredients.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Mix ground flax seen and water together and let it sit for 5-10 minutes or until it’s thick and goopy.

Combine sugar, margarine, flax seed goop,and vanilla, mixing until well combined.  Then stir in the milk.

In a seperate bowl stir together flours and baking powder.

Add the wet mixture to the flour mixture and stir until well mixed.

Line some muffin trays with paper cups and spoon cupcake batter into the tray.  I scooped 2 rounded tbsp into each cup but found I could have used another 1/2 tbsp of batter for the perfect sized muffin.

Bake cupcakes for 40-45 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.

Let the cupcakes cool completely before icing.

Cupcake mixing.

Butter Cream Frosting

Ingredients:

1 cup vegan icing sugar (I use Wholesome Sweetners organic icing sugar)

3 tbsp vegan margerine, softened

2.5 tsp vegan milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Combine all ingrediants and mix well.

**To make chocolate butter cream frosting, add cocoa powder until the desired chocolate flavor is reached.  You may need to add a couple tsp of milk to thin it out a bit.

**To make pink coconut, add a bit of red food coloring to shredded coconut and mix well.

Pink and yellow cupcakes.

Vanilla cupcake with chocolate butter-cream frosting.

Vanilla cupcakes with butter-cream icing topped with pink coconut.

My new favorite snack!

I made kale chips for the first time today and was surprised at how yummy they were.    They’re easy to make and so tasty.  The only downside is the time they take to bake (over an hour).  Anyway, I loved them so much, I wanted to share the recipe everyone.

Ingredients

Fresh kale

Extra virgin olive oil

salt

Nutritional yeast

Directions

Preheat oven to 225F.  Lay out kale leaves on a cookie sheet and lightly spritz with oil.

Fresh Kale

Next, sprinkle salt and nutritional yeast on kale.

Kale with salt and nutritional yeast ready to be baked.

I like to use Herbamare sea salt.  It has organic herbs and veggies added for a little extra flavor.  Plus it’s ground very fine so it tends to stick to the kale better then regular table salt.  You can find this stuff at any health food store and probably most grocery stores.

Herbamare, my favorite naturally seasoned salt!

Now that the kale is ready, bake at 225F for about 1 hour 20 minutes or until Kale is completely dried out.

Baked kale, fresh out of the oven.

Enjoy!

PS: eat over a big bowl, they’re very messy!