Spring Planting

     So E is so excited to start planting a garden this year, we already picked up all of our seed packs from the store and put down the little wire fencing stuff around where we are going to plant, but I think it's still too early for anything to survive the cold nights.. Plus just when you think the weather is starting to get nice here it seems to snow soooo :). Anyway, to help curb her excitement in the meantime we planted a strawberry plant in a big terra cotta pot we can bring in at night:

     The little guy looks so lonely in the big pot, hopefully it will take root in its new home and turn into a pretty (producing) plant.. How great would it be for her to pick fresh berries this summer while she's playing outside- all those great nutrients :).
     Tonight's dinner was a little lazy, but really good...MorningStar Farms spicy black bean burgers (just one of their veggie burgers for E) on whole wheat buns and corn on the cob:

       On a side note, I'm super excited about the premier of Jamie Oliver's second season of Food Revolution starting next week! He also has a link on his food revolution website to send an email to the USDA regarding better food in school lunches, which you can sign up for too here:

http://www.jamieoliver.com/us/foundation/jamies-food-revolution/usda

Here's to blossoming strawberry plants and food revolutions ♥

Valley

Spring Break and Spring Cleaning

So spring break had me cleaning out my house and kitchen. I decided to trash the microwave- sure it's more convenient but, it isn't really a necessity, plus, since the space where it was was free-d, I was able to fill it with these beautiful fresh herbs :). Not only are they super pretty to look at, but they smell amazing, like a natural potpourri. Also, an unanticipated bonus, Esther couldn't be more excited about popping popcorn on the stove in our glass lid pot where she can see each kernal pop. She finds it extremely entertaining :)

This week I made these super yummy personal size pizzas:



 I used pre-packaged whole wheat pizza crusts we found at Sunflower Market, pesto, mozzarella flavored rice shreds, tomato and artichoke. They came out really great and E had tons of fun 'decorating' her own pizza, she threw sliced black olives on hers and made a smiley face :).

Although yesterday was unseasonably warm (we saw record breaking high temps) and we slept with the windows opened for the first time this year (which is always refreshing), today we woke up to dropping temps and now- snow :(. So E and I made a trip to the local Ace hardware and picked up all of our seed packets for the garden we're going to plant as the temperatures normalize. We got lots of veggie seeds, and we're very excited to see if they take :).

Watercourse Denver

Yesterday we had brunch at the Watercourse restaurant in Denver.. SO awesome. The restaurant is vegetarian with some vegan options. We split the breakfast burrito, which was huge and really filling- whole wheat tortilla filled with eggs/tofu, homefries, refried beans, tempeh chorizo then topped with asadero cheese and gravy or green chile. We each had one of their delicious cinnamon rolls for dessert.. The decorations in the restaurant are so cool, the walls are filled with scenes of rabbits and forrests, and lots of windows so lots of natural light meet the wood floors and bar. If you're in Denver I highly recommend you give this place a try :)

Savory Spice Shop

Yesterday we went to the Savory Spice Shop in downtown Denver... It might just be my new favorite store! They have almost any spice you can imagine you can buy bulk or in a small pre-packaged container. It smells delicious, has gorgeous wood floors and old wood displays, and it smells absolutely AMAZING in there. We left with a jerk rub, which James threw on some chicken and we put on the grill last night... I also made some fresh green beans with ginger, garlic,onion and shallots; and some cuban style sweet potatoes (another great Kind Diet recipe) that had garlic, lime juice, salt, and fresh parsley tossed in olive oil.. super good!

We finished eating just in time for another round of snow to start falling, but at least we were filled with super yummy food that had us dreaming of warmer days :).

Daily Grind

It seems every semester as school starts back up its such a drag to get back into the grind, adjusting to new schedules. At least we have had beautiful weather to be thankful for :).. To help ease into the new routine I've been making fresh carrot juice every morning to start the day off with a healthy kick. We have a Jack Lalanne juicer (R.I.P. Jack ), which I absolutely love. Not only does it make juicing super easy, but you can make some killer fiber rich muffins with the pulps that it separates in the juicing process into a nice back section of the juicer. Also trying to get back into a cardio routine.. Walked around a frozen Sloans Lake today with Bodhi. Now, time for dinner and then a little yoga tonight to wind down from the day :)

The Kind Diet

A couple of weeks ago I purchased the book, ‘The Kind Diet’, by Alicia Silverstone. This book has great information and resources for vegetarians, vegans or anyone that is/has contemplated consuming a plant based diet. The first half of the book is reading material and the second is filled with awesome recipes. She breaks the ‘Kind Diet’ into three levels: flirt, vegan, and superhero. For each she lists meal plan ideas, and foods that should be kept on hand for cooking.  This book is a great resource, both for recipes and information for people who are considering going vegan. Last week I made the rustic pasta, caesar salad, sicilian collard greens with pine nuts and raisins, ginger pasta with zucchini, and ‘my favorite cupcakes’. All of which were really delicious... especially the cupcakes, which I just made a second batch of J.

Recipe of the week

So this week I came across a pretty aweseome cookbook:
 'RAW The UNcook Book New Vegetarian Food For Life' by Juliano
The entire book is dedicated to super delicious wholesome raw food recipes. Although the recipes seem a bit time consuming as most of the recipes call for multiple raw ingredients that require chopping, the outcome is so worth it if you are willing to put in the effort.
So the recipe I made last night was Extra Avo Soup.
Ingredients:
1 cucumber, peeled
1 cucumber, unpeeled
1/3 Cup fresh herbs (sage rosemary, oreagano, thyme, tarragon and basil)
1/3 Cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1/3 Cup fresh mint, chopped
1/3 Cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/4 Cup garlic, with peel
1 Tbsp ginger, with peel
1 1/2 tsp jalepeno
1/4 cup nama shoyu or 2 tsp sea salt
1/3 Cup olive oil
1 1/2 Cups fresh squeezed lemon juice
4 Cups fresh squeezed orange juice
4 Avocados, peeled and seeded
4 Whole tomatillos, papery husks removed

So the directions say to chop up one of the avocados, one of the cucumbers, and one of the tomatillos and place them in the bottom of two bowls to make a chunkier soup, then mix the remainder of the ingredients in your blender and serve immediately.

The modifications I made are as follows:
In regards to the sage, rosemary, oregano, thyme, tarragon, and basil I did not buy fresh herbs, I used dry for these, approx 1/2 tsp each.
I peeled the garlic and ginger and grated both of them on a cheese grater before blending to ensure there wouldn't be any huge chunks of these.
I skipped the jalepeno all together since my 6 year old would be eating this, but I'm sure that would have been a great addition to the huge mix of flavors presented in this dish.
In regards to the orange and lemon juice, firstly, I was running out of room in my blender, secondly I think with the full recommended ingredients the texture would have been too liquid, I did 1 cup of lemon juice and 1 and a half cups of orange juice
I did not read the bit about making the soup chunkier until after, so I threw them all in the blender, but it still came out delicious :)

So, again, it is a bit time consuming chopping up all the veggies and fresh herbs on this dish, but I assure you, it is compeletely worth it ... The end result is a gorgeous light green soup with speckles of dark green scattered throughout from the fresh herbs..Absolutely delicious:)
Enjoy!
Valley