My wonderful readers and friends!

I am still here, I just needed a huge break from blogging my dear friends :) I felt a little burnt out on ideas, recipes, etc... I was starting to feel like I wasn't having as much fun blogging as I had in the past, less inspired and motivated. After a nice break I am feeling so much better and I'm actually going to be putting my efforts towards this blog and another! Here is my other blog, which is dedicated to my fitness goals. At the moment I'm trying out Jillian Michael's 90 day Body revolution. I'm on day 6, so feel free to follow me as I work my butt off to try to get into better shape :) Even though I lost 44-50lbs eating clean, whole foods I still have a bit of weight I want to lose to get into a healthy, happy range. I really like structured workouts, where I know I have to set aside 30mins-1 hour to workout a day :)




We went to Saltspring Island recently where we met some wonderful organic farmers, and veggie lovers at the farmer's market. The market had only been open for it's 2nd Saturday and it was packed! For such a small island they really give local markets a run for their money! The talent, the products, the food and entertainers are amazing!!!


See for yourself, thought I'd share a few photos :)

Awesome entertainer! He did a lot of balancing with spinning bowls, at one point I think he had 8 of them going and he was hanging on to each of them. He balanced one on a tip of an umbrella! Very cool entertainer :)

Here are some sprouted peanuts that I bought from a lovely young couple. They also sold mushrooms, sprouts and rice paper sprout wraps. Their products were amazing and decently priced. The peanuts were such a different texture to regular store bought nuts that we are all used too. Moist, soft, yet crunchy with a much milder flavour. We shared this with friends :)

MMMM my lunch and goodies to take home. I had that really yummy rice paper sprout wrap with a fresh squeezed orange dip vinegrette :) My spicy sprouts are also shown in this pic! I gobbled those up when I got home mostly on salads :)

*sighs* Isn't the harbor gorgeous...loved eating lunch there. Live music playing in the background, the sun's warmth on my skin and the ocean...beautiful day!

Farmer's Market Clearance Section

I'm an avid shopper in the clearance section of the Farmer's Markets. I can usually find throw away tomatoes, onions, cantaloupe, bananas, peppers, apples..geez you name it they clearance it. I try to check on it a few times a week, some days I end up leaving with nothing and other days I have huge bags full. Yesterday I found some gems, two 10-lb bags of tomatoes 1.99/each, 2 cauliflowers .99/each, 2 cantaloupes 1.49 for the pair, 10-lb bag of green beans/1.49...yum! Nothing was damaged just needing to sold before being over ripe.

Today I sliced some chunks of cantaloupe some for the fridge and some for the freezer.We pulled these out of the freezer and snacked on them after being outside in the heat. These were great because they were only slightly frozen from only being in the freezer for an hour.

Speaking of freezers I seriously need to consider buying a deep freeze. With all the vegetables and fruits we are growing in our garden, picking at the local farms and buying at the farmer's market we won't be able to keep up with it all. Need to freeze!

As for the tomatoes..well I decided it was probably best we made a tomato sauce with spaghetti squash noodles. My son's favorite dish! I decided that this time around I would try to make sauce the proper way, which meant removing the skin, seed and core. I typically would just remove the core and throw it all into a pot to cook, but then you get skins and seeds in your sauce. I don't really mind, but I wanted to give the "correct" way a try. I discovered very quickly the easiest way to remove the peel...
Score the bottom of the tomato with a paring knife
After you remove core, let them soak in hot water in the sink.
After 10 minutes soaking you can start peeling the skin, opening the tomato and removing the seeds.
Then put in a blender or food processor
You end up with a smooth, delicious puree!
With this puree you could create dishes other than tomato sauce. Think cold or hot soups, salsas, thick tomato juice, dips, the list is endless..tomatoes are used in so many recipes! As for using it as a sauce I may have to add some store bought tomato paste because we like our sauce a bit thicker. I have the sauce cooking on low in my slow cooker to see if it will thicken. It tastes amazing though with fresh oregano, basil, sauteed onions and garlic! Oh yum, dinner is going to be good!

Lastly, there is a great contest give away happening over at Color Wheel Meals for an Ascenta Health product! Check it out!

Berries, Apples and The Fair...Oh My!

Leftover Berry Crisp! MMMMmmm
I have so much to share from this past week and weekend. First up this delicious Berry Crisp! I officially did my last blackberry pick last week. The berries were either over-ripe or a bit under-ripe, not like in August where almost every berry was perfect. The squishy over-ripe berries were great for the berry crisp though.

Before I give you the recipe I have a hilarious story to share. I was picking the berries when I started hearing voices coming from the corn field behind the blackberry patch.

I see these 12-13 year old boys destroying someones corn crop. Throwing corn, ripping the plants from the ground, stomping on them, so I had to do something! I kept thinking about what if that was my crop, my hard work and my income. I hear them talking about how "badass" they are for sneaking in to the field, so I hide behind the blackberry bushes and yell out "hey there are little boys ruining the corn! Hunny call the owner and the cops they are trespassing and destroying property." They heard me, got very quiet and then bolted. As they were running away their cool, baggy jeans started falling down. Oh it was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen! I officially felt old and awesome!

Okay back to this recipe, which was made on a whim and AMAZING! The best part about this recipe is it can either be baked or eaten raw. It's delicious both ways!

Maggie's Lovely Berry Crisp
2 cups of Blackberries
2 cups of Blueberries
2 Peaches (optional)

(Topping)
1 cup of Almond Flour
1/2 cup of Dates
1/4 cup of Coconut
1/2 cup of Sunflower Seeds
1/2 tsp of Cinnamon


Directions:
Place the fruit into a oven safe dish. Then use a food processor to blend the toppings together. The topping mixture shouldn't be a super sticky consistency, so be careful with how many dates you use. Once done use about 1/4-1/2 the topping mixture to coat the fruit. Then take the rest of the topping mixture and spread it on top of the fruit, making an even top layer. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes or until the topping becomes brown/crisp. If you choose to eat it raw, then forget about baking it and dig in or place it in the fridge for 30 minutes to let the topping mixture mingle with the berries.

Note:I also tried this recipe using Rice Krispies as an alternative to almond flour and it worked great. I was all out of almonds and Rice Krispies worked amazingly well. You can also play with these measurements, since I threw everything into my food processor and the measurements listed are estimates.

Apple Harvesting
A couple days after blackberry harvesting we went apple picking! My cousin's neighbor was generous enough to share from his tree. There were so many apples hanging off the tree we didn't have to use the ladder we had brought with us. My sister and I picked for maybe 30 minutes and were able to harvest three big boxes of apples.



We don't' know what type of variety this apple is, but they are crisp and tart, perfect for pies and dehydrating. Speaking of which I used the dehydrator for the first time!
Apple Chips
If you are going to attempt this then I recommend you read a dehydrating guide, just in case you run into problems that I do not cover in my directions. I know I had a lot of questions that needed answers when I attempted this.

Directions:
Wash, peel, core and slice apples into 1/4-1/2 inch thickness. You can do this by hand or you can use an apple peeler/slicer. It can be easier, since slicing the apples is a bit tricky in terms of keeping them a similar thickness. While processing your apples place all slices into a bowl of water/lemon juice. The lemon juice helps delay discoloration. Once done drain and rinse the apple slices. Place them on a dehydrator tray. Dehydrate for 8-12 hours at 115 degrees. I did this just before bed and woke up to apple chips! If you are unsure whether your apple chips are dry enough for storage, take a chip and tear it apart. If you see any liquid then they are not dry enough for storage. If they are crisp and/or leathery they should be fine.

Note: Some dehydration guides tell you to blanch the apples in hot water before dehydrating to cut down on the drying time. We didn't do this and they worked out fine. I might try this step next time to see if there is much of a difference. Also other recommendations are to dry the apples at a higher temperature, but I wanted to keep it lower to not kill the enzymes.

This was an experiment for me and my guy, since we had never made apple chips before. We cut about 3 Excalibur trays worth of slices, which made about 3 full mason jars for storage. As of last night they were all gone! Delicious, and flavorful!



The Fair
A playful baby goat
We had our local exhibition/fair over the weekend. We spent about 5 hours there on Saturday and had so much fun. I really think it deserves it's own post since there was so much to see and do. I'll give you a sneak peek though....
We toured the animal area and saw lots of demonstrations on how to properly care for farm animals, which was nice to see. Then it was off to the fair rides, where my lil one was fearless and tried out 5 different rides! Then we viewed the exhibition hall where there were competitions for everything and anything.
From the longest zucchini and I swear it was as long as my leg!

To the make an animal out of locally grown vegetables. I loved this teddy bear! So cute! It's made with potatoes, ripe and unripe blueberries and cherry tomatoes.

Until next post :) Enjoy!

Spring Mornings

Springtime is here, which means lots of veggies, fruits and nuts are becoming more readily available to us, and at a cheaper cost. If your into planting your own garden, then yummy food is just out your backdoor! I started my own veggie garden last year and was able to produce some really delicious veggies and recipes, so i can't wait to start planting again this year! This season my mom and I are hopefully combining forces to plant a larger garden than the one i had in her backyard. This way the work is shared, we will have tons of fun and eat lots of great food!

When I'm not eating out of my own garden, I definitely believe in being a localvore, and shopping as locally as I can. But lets face it I love pineapple and I have not found a pineapple farmer at our local farmer's markets, so I tend buy what I can afford locally and the rest is up to my taste buds and cravings :)

This morning I had a green juice! I almost forgot to take a pic before I drank it all :)


I've been starting my mornings off by drinking green :) It's been an amazing replacement to coffee, yes I just wrote "a replacement for coffee"... No seriously, I find I get just as much energy or "buzz" off drinking a green juice as I ever did drinking coffee sludge.

Green Juice Ingredients:

6 pieces of Romaine Lettuce
1/2 a Lemon
2 Apples
1/2 Cucumber
pinch of ginger

Juice it up!

Off to get this morning started, see you at lunch!
~Maggie