Archives for 2015

Make This Salad and Forget You Ever Disliked Kale

December 11, 2015 by Sarah

Miso is a long time friend of mine. I mean, c’mon check out this video from over three years ago of me living on a boat in San Diego making the good ‘ol massaged kale miso salad. It was one of the first kinds of salads I really fell in love with because of how delicious you could make the kale taste with something that’s just as beneficial for you!

Miso: so what is it and why would you want to use it?

Miso is a fermented (typically) soybean paste that is used heavily in Japanese and Asian cuisine. You can also find other types of miso like azuki bean, brown rice, barley, golden millet, and chickpea. Because it’s fermented, it’s full of antioxidants and probiotics, which are crucial for keeping you healthy. If you watched the video I shared above, I briefly discuss how miso’s strong flavor is able to stand up to Kale’s bitterness. By massaging the kale with it, not only do you break down the kale and make the texture more desirable, you’re coating it with something that is quite savory and tasty in the right proportions. You might forget you’re even eating kale!

Here is a recipe for you to try so you don’t have to take my word for it. This salad recipe is a switch up to my original Massaged Kale Miso salad in the video. I added a bit of maple syrup to bring a sweet component into the dish and different vegetables for a new take. Hemp seeds would still taste really great on this salad as well as any other protein of your choice.

As far as buying miso, a brand I really like is Miso Master Organic, but there are many other good organic brands out there as well. Check the refrigerated section of your health food store for more options. If you’re buying a soybean miso, I would for sure get organic to avoid GMOs. I used Miso Master Organic’s chickpea miso for this recipe.

Kale Miso Radish Salad

Prep time

10 mins

Total time

10 mins

This salad combines many different flavors - sweet, savory, bitter, crisp, creamy - to deliver a delicious, nutrient-dense dish that's perfect as a meal or before one.

Author: Sarah

Recipe type: Salad

Serves: 2-4 servings

Ingredients

2 green onions
6 stalks kale
1 cucumber, thinly sliced and halved
4 small radishes, thinly sliced
1 avocado, cubed
1 tbsp. miso paste
2 tsp. maple syrup

Instructions

Take kale off each stalk and cut it up into strips. Place in a bowl with the miso paste and maple syrup and massage the kale until the miso and maple syrup coat all the pieces of kale and until the kale starts to break down and become softer.
Prepare all the vegetables, mix with the kale and serve. You can either mix in the avocado with the other vegetables or just place it on top.

Enjoy!

With Love,

How to Set Yourself up for Smoothie Success

November 28, 2015 by Sarah

Is there anything not to love about a smoothie? Other than cleaning the blender, which I’ll get to later in the post, there is pretty much nothing better than a good, nutrient-dense smoothie.

Here are a few of my favorite pointers for how to set yourself up so that making a smoothie is very simple to do anytime! Having something that’s easy to make and healthy like this when you are hungry is dynamite.

Make sure you have ample options of frozen fruit. First line of business, always buy bananas when you go grocery shopping. Always. At least just a bunch. They are perfect for every smoothie because even if you are not a big banana person, they add substance and a subtle touch of sweetness to your smoothie. I like to get them a little green, set them out for a couple days to a week on the counter to enjoy fresh and then as soon as they start getting brown spots, throw those babies into the freezer. Peel them first, break them in half or quarters and place them in a container. I like to reuse the plastic salad container you get when you buy greens (like Earthbound).Here is a picture of our fruit bowl with the older bananas and new bananas. We’re always just adding new ones and putting the others in the freezer. If you are eating bananas and making smoothies regularly, you will go through them weekly no doubt. Also, extra frozen bananas are a super plus because then you can make banana ice cream whenever you please!Second, stock up on produce that is on sale or in season, bring it home, cut it up and place it right in the freezer. You can buy bags of frozen fruit if you’d like, but if you get what’s on sale or in season, you may save some money. Plus, you get to enjoy many different varieties. Good options of fruits to include are pineapples, mangos, peaches, pears, grapes and all kinds of berries.
Don’t forget the greens. Another always when you go to the grocery store. Always pick up at least one bunch of greens, whether it be kale, romaine, spinach, chard, collard greens, you name it, you get it. Greens can be used for so many other things than smoothies, but always having a fresh bunch of greens in the fridge will allow you to add a big, fresh handful to your smoothie anytime. Adding greens to your smoothie is a fabulous way to eat up greens that are on their way to wilting. If you don’t have any fresh greens, it’s nice to keep a green powder on hand. My absolute favorite is e3Live Renew Me! powder. I also like wheat grass powders as well. Adding fresh mint to your smoothie is never a bad idea either 😉
Start building your pantry to include seeds and superfoods. Here is our new wall pantry, and we LOVE it. It makes it so easy to grab ingredients right off the wall to go into our smoothie. Superfoods and seeds help add nutrition to your smoothies so they are power packed and filled with what you need to embrace your day. Some of my favorites include hemp seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds, goji berries, shredded coconut, black sesame seeds, spirulina, maca powder, camu camu, mangosteen, ashwagandha powder, aloe and turmeric powder. These foods take time to acquire so don’t get overwhelmed. Keep your eye out for them and buy them when you feel they are most affordable. Sometimes we just buy them in small amounts (like goji berries) or wait for them to go on sale. Either way, start getting them into your pantry.
Add fresh juice from lemons and/or limes. These not only add a little flavor to your smoothie, but they’re notorious for promoting healthy digestion and cleansing. They also provide vitamin C and A and have anti-cancer properties.
If you hate the clean up (like me), consider investing in a stick (or immersion) blender. We actually only use an immersion blender now because our regular blender broke, but we love it more! We have a stash of large ball canning jars we use to drink out of and these are PERFECT for smoothies using the stick blender. All you do is place all your ingredients in the jar with some liquid (to make the blending go a little faster), and then place the blender in there and blend until smooth. Once you are done, you simply detach the blade attachment from the motor and wash it. Yes, you only have to wash one piece. And the jar you’re using to drink your smoothie out of. Easiest clean up imaginable. We bought this Cuisinart one off Amazon and are very satisfied with it. It works like a charm.

What are your favorite smoothie tips? Anything you do to make the process a little easier?

This Kind of Pantry Will Help Motivate you to Eat Healthier

November 23, 2015 by Sarah

Very happy to finally be getting around to doing this post. I’ve been wanting to do it since we’ve finished because I do think it’s a really important one so here we go!

Not too long ago our pantry looked like this when ‘organized’:

And although there were many gems in there, it was so difficult to find everything! We like to buy in bulk so we had so many little plastic bags with twist ties! Now that we’re in our new place, we figured some hard core pantry organization was in order, which I believe we were able to accomplish! I really do believe that organization and variety is necessary when trying to add more whole foods to your diet.

Sooo first, I’d like to reveal our new Mason jar pantry shelf organizer. Then I’d like to share with you what everything is in the jars and what we use the ingredients for. Lastly, I’ll tell you how to get one of these in your own home!

So here it is:

What foods are in those jars?

I’m just going to do this briefly as there are endless uses for many of these. As you’ll see, many of the uses overlap, which is why this kind of pantry helps so much with eating whole food dishes. Everything is organized and very easy to grab, use, and put away.

I labeled everything in this picture so identifying which was which would be much easier. I’ll start at the top and work from left to right.

Oat Bran – Just recently got this and started adding it to things like raw cereal, baked oatmeal, or any other breakfast thing with milk. You could even add it to a smoothie to give it a little more heartiness.

Coconut Sugar – I LOVE this stuff. Used in place of conventional sugar for anything. We also have sucanat (sugar cane natural), which we use as a sweetener as well.

Hemp seeds, Black Sesame seeds and Raw Sesame Seeds – Add to salads, smoothies, dishes for lunch/dinner, energy balls/bites

Cacao Powder – Used in banana ice cream, smoothies, desserts, energy balls/bites

Millet – Grain similar to quinoa, but we haven’t really used this yet. Still looking to experiment with it, possibly for breakfast as a porridge, in baking or granola, on salads or below sautéed veggies.

Sucanat – See Coconut Sugar above.

Flax Seeds – Grind in a coffee grinder before using, but good source of Omega-3s and fiber and great for adding to smoothies, baked goods and breakfast foods

Stevia – We don’t use this a whole lot, but it’s another natural sweetener.

Polenta – (All of our corn products are organic) We’ve only ever used this as a side for dinner, but there are many tasty recipes out there.

Carob Powder – Similar to cacao powder, but is caffeine-free. Same uses though.

Brown Rice – I don’t think this needs much explaining 🙂

Chia Seeds – I use these with hemp seeds a lot. They’re also crucial for chia pudding!! You can also add them to drinks or kombucha if you don’t mind the texture. You can also mix them in when making a fruit sauce or compote.

Coconut Flour – Great for baking and used in place of whole wheat flour. It takes some experimenting with this because I’ve found it to be more absorbent than wheat flour. The best thing I’ve made with coconut flour so far are coconut flour pancakes.

Quinoa and Red Quinoa – Another grain that can be used in place of rice. Good for adding to salads or putting in soups.

Walnuts – With the other nuts, great for raw cereal, snacking, bars, baked goods and salads.

Popcorn Kernels – We loooove our homemade popcorn. We use an air popper (that was only $20), but you can also cook it stovetop too. Homemade popcorn is much, much better for you than the microwave kind, and it tastes better, in my opinion.

Shredded Coconut (sweetened is from Trader Joe’s) – Great for adding to smoothies, breakfast dishes, baked goods, energy bites/balls, banana ice cream. I like to use the sweetened one for food pictures because of how it looks compared to the other shredded coconut.

Oats – Can get these gluten-free. Very similar to shredded coconut uses above.

Cashews – In addition to walnut uses, these are good for raw cream sauces (including this addicting cheese one!) and desserts!

Rice Flour – We’ve been using this in place of whole wheat flour lately.

Hazelnuts – My boyfriend recently made a chocolate hazelnut spread and we dipped apples into it. It was very yummy so we decided to get some more!

Almonds – Like walnuts

Raw Peanuts – I tried making peanut butter with these and it didn’t turn out the best. We don’t use these a lot, but they’re great for crushing and sprinkling on any sort of thai dish we make.

Corn Flour – Just got this because we are trying to phase out of using gluten. Going to use this as an alternative to whole wheat flour again.

Baking Powder and Soda – No need to explain much.

Cacao Nibs – Great for adding to raw treats, raw cereal and banana ice cream

Arrowroot Powder – Used to thicken things like sauces and soups. Also used in homemade deodorant.

Buckwheat groats – I use these in chia pudding or raw cereal mainly.

Sunflower seeds and Raw Pumpkin Seeds – Can be used in raw dressings and on salads

Goji Berries – Great for snacking on a few or in chia pudding, raw cereal or in smoothies. You can always soak them in a little warm water to make them softer. This chocolate elixir also looks good!

Brazil Nuts – I snack on one of these from time to time. They are a good source of Selenium and other minerals. They are said to help boost testosterone.

Nutritional Yeast – Used as a vegan substitute for a cheesy flavor. This sauce is the BEST, but we also like putting it on popcorn sometimes!

Tapioca Flour – We’ve just recently started playing around with this one too. We’ve been adding it to gluten-free recipes to help with binding and texture. It’s very similar to arrowroot powder and can be used to thicken sauces and soups. Here is a great resource that explains some of the differences between the two and some recipes as well.

How do I get one?

If you’d like one of these shelf organizers for your own home, you can purchase the shelf here: Mason Jar Pantry Shelf Organizer. We also bought one case of each size Mason jar – 8 oz., 16 oz., 24 oz., and 32 oz. – to put on the shelves. There is still extra room to add more jars if need be, but a case of each is pretty sufficient for filling it up.

I so hope this post gives you some inspiration about what whole foods you can add to your pantry! How is it going for you? What’s your biggest challenge so far with acquiring these kinds of ingredients? What have been your best storage solutions? We’re still trying to think of a good way to organize all of our spices 🙂 Would love to know what success you’ve had!

Love always,

Rejuvenate Your Skin With a Drink Like This

November 4, 2015 by Sarah

The other day, my boyfriend and I were at the grocery store, and we came across a big aloe leaf in the produce section. We’ve bought aloe vera juice before but never just an aloe leaf so we thought we’d try it. When we got home, Paul went right to filleting that baby like it was a fish. He cut off all the skin and sliced the pulp in 1-inch wide pieces. I didn’t get the best pictures of the leaf and this process (my regrets) but here are a couple for visual aid.

Why would we want to consume the aloe pulp?

Aloe vera has medicinal properties and is full of vitamins and minerals, including 7 of the 8 essential amino acids. It has anti-inflammatory effects, is an adaptogen, natural detoxifier because of its gelatinous properties, may benefit the digestive and immune system, and is anti-septic, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal. Interestingly enough, these properties are also giving aloe vera a boost in popularity in dentistry because of its safe and effective nature.

*Because it’s a medicinal plant, it shouldn’t be consumed in excess and for long periods of time. A little bit of aloe can be good but that doesn’t mean a lot is better. The sap contains abundant anthraquinones, which are powerful laxatives. Take precaution if you are pregnant, menstruating, or have hemorrhoids or degeneration of the liver and gall bladder. Also, after doing some research, I would not have cut the whole leaf at once like we did. Because the plant oxidizes when cut, I would have waited and cut it as needed.

That day at the grocery store, we also picked up some pomegranates and guava. Pomegranates are good for your skin because they contain antioxidants that protect against sun damage, can hydrate the skin and combat inflammation just like aloe vera. The vitamins C and K as well as lycopene in guava help generate collagen, work against discoloration of the skin, and promote healthy skin cells.

The best part was that this drink was filled with all sorts of health benefits while being as tasty as could be!

This recipe is not precise because I don’t exactly know how much of everything we put in there. Plus, I just like the idea of you adding more of what you like depending on your taste preferences whether that be more sweet, tart, minty or fruity.

One tip for the mint: I know I never liked buying mint because it just seems so expensive in those packages and goes bad a lot of times because you don’t get a chance to use all of it. My advice: buy a mint plant (and other herbs!). It’s truly the gift that keeps on giving. They are PERFECT for adding to smoothies and great for you too! Here’s my little herb box that sits in the window.

And lastly, you can add aloe vera to any smoothie. Here is one I made the next day with aloe vera pulp, frozen aronia berries, frozen pineapple and banana, and E3 Renew Me Powder.

Aloe Guava Pomegranate Drink

Prep time

5 mins

Total time

5 mins

Author: Sarah

Serves: 1-2 servings

Ingredients

1-2 tbsp. raw honey
1½ cup water
6 mint leaves
arils from 1 pomegranate
1 guava, peeled
juice from ½ lime
a couple segments of fresh aloe vera (can use aloe vera juice or pulp if you don't have access to fresh aloe vera)

Instructions

Blend all the ingredients together. You can blend with ice if you'd like it to be frozen or you can add ice cubes later for more of a chilled drink.
Strain juice through a mesh strainer to get all of the seeds out.
Enjoy!

With love,

Easy Curried Sweet Potato Hash

September 18, 2015 by Sarah

I’M BACK!

WOO!

The last month has been absolutely nuts!

First my mom got married.Then I started a new job.Then my sister got married.THEN I moved into a new apartment.I’m so glad to have things slow down a bit now even though we’re not quite all settled into the apartment. I finally made our first home-cooked meal with lots of fresh veggies from the farm market in the new place a little bit ago, and it felt oh so good. We’re also working on a pretty great pantry, which I hope to reveal once it’s all organized!

I also got the sweet potatoes for this recipe at the farm market, which was bumpin’! I hadn’t been to it in years because I haven’t lived around there, but it’s one of the biggest ones in downtown Grand Rapids, and it was packed with people. I was so enthused to see everyone there supporting our local farmers. I sure got lots of glorious groceries!

I’ve also been on a little curry kick. So here you have it: easy curried sweet potato hash.

This sweet potato hash is not only really quick and easy, but it’s delicious by itself or mixed with other foods. I don’t know about you, but I love when sweet potato is added to a dish because it gives it a subtle sweetness and a smooth texture to whatever you’re eating. You can put it with eggs and greens for breakfast or add it to any rice or noodle dish, like I did in the picture below. There is a bed of romaine and kale with the sweet potato hash, a little sweet chili sauce, rice noodles (which were reheated so that’s why they’re all broken up), and green and yellow beans from the farm market.

Easy Curried Sweet Potato Hash

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

20 mins

Author: Sarah

Recipe type: Side Dish

Serves: 2

Ingredients

4 small or 2 large sweet potatoes, diced (cubes or the like)
1 tbsp. coconut oil (or oil of choice)
¼-1/2 tsp curry powder
½ tsp. sea salt
coconut sugar, sprinkled to taste (I did about 1 tbsp.)
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ onion, diced

Instructions

Dice up the sweet potatoes and onions.
Place oil in the pan and melt to cover pan.
Start sautéing sweet potatoes and onions on medium heat and add spices while mixing.
Continue mixing regularly for 15 minutes or so until the onions are translucent and the sweet potato is cooked (just try a piece). The time will vary depending on how big your sweet potato pieces are.

What would you put this sweet potato hash with?

Thanks for reading!

4 Outstanding Resources a Natural Foodie Will Appreciate

August 10, 2015 by Sarah

I love supporting companies that share the same values as I do as far as food goes. I’m really into farm-to-table restaurants, and I love buying stuff from local health foods stores and farmer’s markets. These resources will help you find good, local food around where you live, including places you maybe were not aware of! These websites are also great for traveling. When I visit a new city, the first thing I do before going is look up all the good places to go out to eat or get food. I seriously plan my trips around eating and which restaurants I want to try 🙂

Also, if you’re planning on moving, it’s good to know what’s in the area to help you decide where exactly you want to settle. I was thinking about moving to a different state this fall, and the first thing I researched when looking up locations was what’s in the area as far as farms, CSAs, markets, health food stores, and farm-to-table restaurants. Having those options available is something that is very important to me. I thought I would share some of the ways I find these places because if you’re anything like me, you’ll love being able to pick something nearby that you feel good about eating and supporting.

Eat Well Guide

I’ve been using this website for a little while now. It’s such an awesome resource that lets you search any city and then informs you of the local farms, markets, and hand-picked restaurants in the area. It’s very easy to navigate and color codes different pinpoints on a map to show you where everything is at.

Know Where Your Food Comes From

This is another incredible website I have recently encountered that is very comprehensive. It shares dining options, farmer’s markets, local foods and co-ops, where to get seeds, and craft bakeries. It has a section dedicated to listing all of the CSA’s in your area too. There are also other goodies you can see along the menu bar that might be fun to check out!

Local Harvest

You can utilize the search bar at the top of the page to see farms, CSAs, and farmer’s markets in your area. They also have the results color coded and pinpointed on a map. I have found that this website has the best list of CSAs in the area.

Happy Cow App

When I’m on the go, especially just in a new city for the day, I’ll do a quick search on this app to scope out some of the options that I might be interested in. The free app includes restaurants and health food stores in its listing, which is really pretty convenient.

I hope these help you on your food endeavors now and in the future. Are there any other resources that you love that I haven’t discovered yet? I’d love to know!

With love,

This is How you Can Take your Chia Pudding to the Next Level

August 7, 2015 by Sarah

Today something great happened. Banana Ice cream and chia pudding met, fell in love, and smooshed.

I’m certainly a banana ice cream and chia pudding fanatic as you may already know, but I haven’t put them together until now. And I am so glad I did. When I set out to make a batch of chia pudding layered with some fruit, I thought about making a fruit smoothie too and layering it with that. But I wanted something that was cold and more firm, and that’s when it dawned on me to add banana ice cream to it.

Chia banana ice cream pudding is what I’d like to call it.

So what kind of banana ice cream specifically?

Think more of a sorbet with this.. more fruit than banana. I went with tart fruit one, which consisted of a little bit of frozen banana, frozen cranberries and strawberries, and frozen apricots. I loved the tartness from the apricots and cranberries. I didn’t use any liquid, which made for an awesome sorbet texture. Depending on what kitchen equipment you have, you may or may not be able to do this. My Cuisinart 9-cup processor works like a charm, but it was pretty loud chopping through that frozen fruit in the beginning.

I also thought about making more of a chocolate-y banana ice cream and adding that to a chia pudding too! I don’t see that going awry so you could try that as well! I’ll report back when I get around to doing that 🙂

This treat was a success on so many levels. Here are some of the other things I did that I felt made it so enjoyable in addition to just adding the banana ice cream:

add some superfoods and spices to the chia pudding like shredded coconut, goji berries, cacao nibs or powder, carob powder, vanilla bean powder, cinnamon, allspice, powders like ashwagandha, maca, spirulina or chlorella, wheat grass, ginseng, lucuma, matcha, mesquite, camu camu, mangosteen, maqui berry
give it some crunch; add things like cacao nibs, chopped nuts or grapes
add some fresh fruit too; make your chia banana ice cream pudding a little fruit explosion by layering or just mixing in some fresh fruit – I did blueberries and halved grapes and LOVED IT!

The chia pudding was a very simple mix of chia seeds, almond milk, mashed banana, currants and cinnamon. Look below for an estimated recipe for the whole thing.

My favorite way to consume this was by mixing it all together in a bowl so that the coldness and flavor from the banana ice cream and the bits of fresh fruit could be tasted in every bite!

Berry Apricot Chia Banana Ice Cream Pudding

Prep time

30 mins

Total time

30 mins

This treat will satisfy your fruit cravings in so many ways!

Author: Sarah

Serves: 1-2

Ingredients

-Chia Pudding
2 tbsp. chia seeds
⅓ cup almond milk
1 mashed banana
dash of cinnamon
small handful of dried currants
-Berry Apricot Banana Ice Cream
small handful of frozen cranberries and strawberries
½ frozen banana
large handful of frozen apricot
-Toppings and Mix-Ins
cacao nibs
goji berries
halved grapes
fresh blueberries

Instructions

Mix the ingredients for the chia pudding and place in the fridge for at least a half hour.
Place the frozen fruit in the food processor and process until it forms a sorbet. You may need to stop it and scrape down the sides multiple times.
Add or layer the toppings and mix-ins with the banana ice cream and chia pudding.

Enjoy! Let me know if you try this and what you think of it!

Beginner’s Guide to Stuffed Energy Dates

August 1, 2015 by Sarah

So I made these quite awhile ago and never got around to posting them. I feel that they’re a little too pretty not to, so here they are!

But the only problem is that I never made a recipe for this. I actually made them and took pictures for a demonstration I was doing so I never wrote anything down because I just wanted the pictures. I know what’s in them, just not the amounts.

Buuut, I’m just going to go about this like I do with most of my beginner’s guides. I give you the ideas, you run with them.

I came across this raw stuffed dates idea and thought it was pretty rad. I really just experimented without following any sort of recipe and used inspiration from other recipes I’d seen. I also just used things I had in my cupboard, which I recommend. No need to go out and buy all sorts of stuff if you’ve got a well-stocked pantry.

Where to begin?

Start with the date. The food kind of date. As far as amounts go, it all depends on how much you stuff them, how big the dates are, how much mixture you have, and so on. My advice is to make a cup or two of the mixture and then stuff dates until you run out. Dates usually come in a container with quite a few or you can buy them in bulk. I would get at least 10-12 dates.Which variety? Doesn’t really matter. A really common and popular one to use is the medjool date because they are quite large and nice and chewy. I have also used some smaller Deglet Noor ones, and those worked fine too – they were just less sweet and can’t hold as much. The kind of date you use is dependent on your preference (sweeter, chewier, nuttier, etc.) and availability. Here is a website that talks a little bit more about different types of dates if you’d like to read about them.

Next, you’re going to want to use a food processor for best results. You could get by hand chopping and mixing all of your desired ingredients, but it takes a lot more time and the mixture may not stick to itself as well as it does when you use a food processor.

Place your choice of the following ingredients together and process until combined. It should be a chewy granola bar texture so keep in mind your wet/dry ratio. If it’s too dry, add some more ingredients from the wet category and vice versa.

Dry

Nuts and Seeds

Walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, pistachios, ground flax seeds (bring on the omega-3’s!)

Powders, Spices and Other Superfoods

Shredded coconut, cacao nibs or powder, carob powder, vanilla bean powder, cinnamon, allspice, sea salt, ashwagandha, maca, spirulina or chlorella powder, wheat grass powder, ginseng, lucuma, mesquite, camu camu, mangosteen, maqui berry, reishi, turmeric

Wet

Dried Fruits – these can be soaked to help the mixture come together more

Cranberries, blueberries, goji berries, raisins, dried mango, currants, apricots, figs, and dried cherries

Other

Small amount of lemon or orange juice, drop of essential oil (like a citrus one), vanilla extract, coconut oil or manna, cacao butter, any nut/seed butter, any liquid sweetener like raw honey or maple syrup**

**As far as the liquid sweetener, I would first determine if you’re going for more of a snack or a dessert. If it’s a snack stick with a more savory/nutty/less sweet filling, but if you’d like to make more of a dessert or a treat, I’d play around with adding a little sweetener for taste if you’d like. Be careful not to add too much though, the date itself is pretty sweet on it’s own!

Like I always say, add small handfuls/spoons/dashes at a time and taste test your mixture as you go along to make sure it’s something that you’re taking a liking too.

Next is ready, set, stuff!

Slice the date on one side, remove the pit and then take a spoon or small handful of the mixture and press it into the date. I had quite a bit of the mixture so I stuffed my dates to the brim and beyond. I also think it helped balance out the sweetness of the date by adding more of the mixture.

Keep these babies stored in the refrigerator and consume within a few days for the freshest tasting stuffed dates!

This is what I put in the ones shown in the pictures:

Soaked raisins, soaked goji berries, sunflower seeds, soaked almonds, walnuts, shredded coconut, chia seeds, allspice, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and a couple cranks of sea salt

Now over to you — do you have any other ideas I’m missing? I’m sure there are more. I’d love to hear from you!

With love,

The Best Breakfast When You’re Pinched for Time

July 15, 2015 by Sarah

We all have the mornings where we get up late or spend too much time getting ready. Breakfast is sometimes the last of our priorities when this happens, but it doesn’t have to be replaced by a Starbucks stop or a run to the drive-through. This idea is perfect for those days that you didn’t save enough time for breakfast but know that a good wholesome first meal is really going to give you the energy and nutrients you need to efficiently carry out your day.

What are they?

Trail mix bowls.

This is simply a mixture of chopped nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and other superfoods that you combine ahead of time and keep in the cupboard in a sealed container. It’s best to make a pretty large bowl so it lasts awhile. This is what the dry mixture looks like:

When you’re in a rush, you can simply transfer some to a smaller bowl (with a lid) and pour your choice of milk over it. Grab a spoon and take it right with you! The longer you let the mixture soak, the juicier the dried fruits will become. If you’re in not as much of a rush, you can do what I did in the picture below. I soaked goji berries in warm water so they became nice and plump and then put those on top!

You can also slice a banana or add different powders like I did here:

The best part about these fruit/nut bowls is that they keep indefinitely in the cupboard just as any other dried fruit, nut or seed would. Keep the large bowl on hand and you’ll be happy you have it for those crunched mornings 🙂 My favorite bowls are the Pyrex glass storage set, which come with lids. If you get a set of them, you will have different sizes that are perfect for things like this breakfast. I use my pyrex bowls and lids so much!

What kinds of things to put in the trail mix??

Here are some ideas:

Nuts – almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews

Seeds – buckwheat groats (nice and crunchy!), hemp seeds, chia seeds, ground flax seeds

Dried Fruits – currants, blueberries, apricots, pineapple rings, dates, figs, cherries, cranberries, raisins, mango, apple, papaya, goji berries

Other – coconut, cacao powder or nibs, cinnamon, mesquite powder, lucuma powder, maca poweder, ashwagandha powder, spirulina or chlorella powder, you can also add oats if you want to make it more filling!

I would do 2-4 kinds of nuts and seeds, 4 kinds of dried fruits and small amounts of anything extra. Pour just enough milk to cover the mixture when you’re ready to eat it and then enjoy!

Alright now go make up a batch so you have it on hand when you need it! 🙂

What’s your favorite breakfast when you’re in a time crunch??

I’d love to hear from you!

Are You Missing Out on this FREE Summer Treat?

July 6, 2015 by Sarah

Do not miss out on this awesome little berry this summer! I can’t tell you how excited I get when I find some free organic fruit that I can pick. Check to see if there are Mulberry trees in your area because they are in full bloom!! 🙂 I went on a walk and saw two trees at the park and then found out my dad has a huge tree right in his backyard! I went to town. I even put some in the freezer to have for smoothies.

Mulberries provide a good amount of iron and vitamin C that may help with circulation and immune function. They also contain reservatrol, which is a flavonoid antioxidant that can positively affect blood pressure. You can read more about the benefits of mulberries here. Although it’s rare, some people may be allergic to the berries so it’s always smart to consume a few and see how your body reacts.