Lemons Are Powerful Medicine!

If you don't belive me, google lemons uses & health yourself. Lemons are awesome! So many uses in the little yellow fruit too. I use lemons after a olive oil hair treatment. Helps get the oil removed from my hair without toxins or damaging it. One reason folks don't get all the health benefits from lemons that they should. Heating. Heating damages food. Processing it does too. Often times these go hand in hand. You cannot expect to get very much benefit from Grammie's baked lemon cake. That is something that is all for taste & maybe a little color.





So if you want all the healthy benefits from lemons, you're going to have to eat or drink it raw. OOOOH I can imagine your face after reading that. Puckered up sour face, right?!! What I do on a daily basis, is with an old fashioned glass lemon juicer I juice one, organic lemon & then strain out the seeds with a spoon. Then I pour it into a big old glass of water. I drink it down now, but if you would like to have some fun with it. Add in some date-water. This is just dates that have been soaked overnight in water. Just take some of the water & add to the lemon-water. Or even mix the lemon water & some of the dates. Dates are super-healthy too! Stevia is another option or perhaps use some coconut nectar crystals. NOM! Makes a great lemonaide & it won't ZOOOM up your blood sugar either. It will help level it off & keep it happy!


Taste buds happy + Blood sugar happy = Awesome!

XOXO Heather :)

JUICY!

To get me going this morning, I had fresh squeezed orange juice. Mixed with garlic, pineapple, ginger, water, mango juice in the blender.

Ahhhh! Yum!

Since yesterday was a complete bust (Thanks Storm, Saturn) as far as getting my son his Birthday present, today is the day! We are off to do some shopping & have some Birthday cake with our family. My niece also has her birthday in the beginning of March so we will party with them too! FUN! Hope everyone enjoys their Saturday! This is the life. Having kids & family is my entire life & I couldn't be happier with the way things are! I LOVE LIFE! XOXO Heather :)

Beets Beets The Magical Fruit!

Todays juice is one made from beets, ginger, garlic, celery, and a little bit of well water. I am doing a little bit of juicing now, adding it to my extra healthy regimin. I am doing it to prepare myself for doing some juice fasting. I am hoping to begin with one day & maybe even to get up to doing a 60 day juice fast. I need some serious cleansing..and this is the way they do it. Beets are a great cleanser and great for boosting the blood. You can read more about beets here.

My reason for juice fasting isn't just weight loss, I abused my body in College and for many years afterwards. I assume my liver is taxed to it's limit & it's time to get it back & healthier. Enter the beets. The ginger is also great for the liver & for cleansing. Celery is very powerful for anti-cancer & cleansing reasons. I'm basically looking up all the health benefits of all the veggies & fruits & eating and juicing them or putting them into a smoothie. I've also joined several Facebook groups on raw veganism & Juice fasting to learn from the pros! Right now I'm using a Hand-Me-Down Montel Williams Blender & straining/pressing the juice by hand. The blender tho has started to have some issues, so I'm in dire need of replacing it. I'm looking at Vita-Mix & Blendtec. Really leaning towards Blendtec due to their very fashion forward design. I'm a lazy cook & cleaning lady around here.. so I want easy when it comes to cleaning. The Blendtec does look like a winner in that department for sure. I am sure I will post when my decision has been made. I'm getting really excited about all the juicing possibilities.

--Heather :)

UnPOPCorn!

How do you make it? Super easy. You just break apart one head of white brocolli aka cauliflower. Break into teeny tiny pieces. Then rinse the pieces under water. Dry them off a little bit with a reusable hand towel & then sprinkle on nutritional yeast, turmeric, sea salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder & cayenne if you dare! You can eat it right now! Or you can place it into a dehydrator overnight & let it get crunchy. I've had it both ways & really I don't think there is a better way. Both ways are yummo! Really strict raw foodies can eliminate the nutritional yeast, if they like. As for amounts of spices?? Just use your judgement. Go easy on the salt if you are going to dehydrate it, cause once they dehydrate it concentrates the flavour. I think I am going to wait & toss mine with salt after the dehydrator. Another great recipe for this UnPopCorn is here.

Enjoy! XOXO Heather :)

Chia Pet??

FuhgetABOUTIT! I've got way better ideas on what to do with Chia seeds. This is my a number one go to pudding/cereal for chilly winter mornings to get me going.



It's very very simple. I just take a couple of Tablespoons of chia seeds add them to water & let them "gel" for a few minutes.. about 10 minutes total. Longer if you prefer is fine. Some folks like to 'stew' in the fridge overnight. Then I make some banana milk. Nanner milk is just one banana, water for the blender, cinnamon, and vanilla bean scrapings from the pod & whizz whizz whizz in the blender. You can skip the cinnamon. You can skip the vanilla. You could use date sugar or coconut sugar to sweeten it if you desire. You could soak some nuts. You could add sunflower seeds for a little crunch. Or maybe some cranberries?? Sometimes I add dried fruit. Sometimes I add chopped up apples & more bananas. All depends on what I have in my cupboards. Mango is a fav addition sometimes. Sometimes I might add a little cacao to the banana milk or perhaps some carob powder or even pomegranite powder.

{Below, more additions you could add to the Chia Pudding}


I like the addition of all kinds of berries & nuts the best! YUMMY! Chia pudding kind of reminds me of tapioca pudding, in terms of texture, with the addition of banana milk to the chia seeds. When I was a kiddo we used to have tapioca with fresh pineapple chunks in it. I might try this next time. I love pineapple, it's one of my fav fruits!!

Want to know more about chia seeds? Want to know why you should add them to your diet? {Click here} :)

XOXO Heather :)

Coconut Whipped Cream!

In an effort to get my sons to eat more fruit, I learned that whipped cream can be wildly helpful. They would be happy with Soyatoo forever, however it's not always available and it's expensive. Thirdly, it doesn't remind me of whipped cream that I grew up with. My father was a foodie & a farmer & made & grew all kinds of things from scratch. It's in my core to DIY and it comes from both sides of my gene pool. My Grandfather was really into DIY, everything from his Victorian house that was in shambles when he bought it, to his many VW bugs, and almost all the furniture he ever owned. This gene was passed onto my mom & then to me.
As you can imagine, I was really excited to find coconut whipped cream recipe on pinterest. You take a can of organic coconut milk. Yes the canned kind. Put it into the fridge, preferably overnight, and let it sit & get cold. Once it's good & cold you open the can, and spoon out the hardened coconut milk--watch it tho, there will be liquid much thinner coconut milk in there too. You don't want that stuff. Leave it in there. If you get a little of it, that will be fine, but you don't want a lot of it. Spoon the hard coconut milk into the blender, add a dash of cinnamon, a couple drops of stevia, or agave or maple syrup and turn the blender on high. It only takes seconds to have real whipped cream, just like your father used to make! With the leftover thinner coconut milk you can add some thickener, flavours and heat it on the stove and turn it into a pretty yummy pudding... add some fruit, add some of the whipped coconut cream and have an awesome snack! Also works really well for those fun brunch mornings with the family! MMMM Waffles! Brunch, it's the best part of the whole year!! --Heather :)

Monday is Meatless here.. and every other day too!

Today I made a Meatless Monday meal for the kiddies & hubby. Well everyday is Meatless Monday here, but I found a recipe & it was from their site, so I had to try it. Altho bear with me, I'm a mover & a shaker, I went my own way with the ingredients. First off, we don't eat eggs here. Haven't had a one in well over 6 years. Nor do we miss them. Same goes with cheese. Altho hubby just got off the eggs. However, he's still (UGH) back & forth on the cheese & has found Daiya might be the answer, but not the shredded Daiya, the chunky blocks they just came out with.



(Photo One: Shown here all the veggies chopped up inside the crust)



Anyhoo, first I made a flax seed-brown rice flour crust. I used a small amount (2 TBS) of vegan butter & then I used some warmed up coconut oil and some coconut milk to make the dough. Mix it till it's doughy & press into the pan. DONE. Onto step 2.


Step two: Chop up all your veggies & spice them if you'd like. I used a tiny bit of celtic sea salt here & also some raw organic garlic. Yes I cheated I used the kind that comes in a jar pre-chopped. Very handy stuff!


Step 3 of making the vegan veggy pie: make the tofu cheese from non-GMO Organic tofu. I used raw garlic, celtic sea salt, pepper, paprika, unsweetened coconut milk, water to blend it in the blender with & a little celery salt. Then bake in a 350*F oven for 20-30 minutes, if that-keep an eye on it after 15 minutes or so of cooking. When the tofu is dry on the top it's done.


(Photo Two: Shown here, veggies covered in non-gmo organic tofu & headed to the baker)





Need any questions answered about my recipes? Or have comments? Please leave them in the comments section, I'll get back to ya!


--<3 Heather :)