Very Berry Spelt Multi-Grain Muffins

Well after that sugar rush of caramel corn last night (I had a handful then had enough), I am craving muffins today.  Multi-grain berry muffins.  I am not a muffin girl and when I do eat a muffin, it’s never the fruit kind but for some reason today, I want a wholesome soft, fluffy fruit muffin. I’m looking forward to having this in the morning, cracked open, drizzled with yogurt and sprinkled with nuts and chia seeds. Perfect breakfast? I think so!

I enjoy the flavour of spelt flour along with the hard wheat red bran in this recipe. In half the batch I threw in some cacao nibs just ‘cause.  This recipe will be sure to satisfy your whole grain and sweet tooth all at the same time!

Ingredients:

2 c           spelt flour

½ c          yellow corn meal

½ c          hard wheat red bran

1/3 c      lightly ground flax seeds

¼ c          chopped walnuts

2 tbsp    sesame seeds

1 ½ tsp  baking powder

1 tsp      baking soda

1 tsp      ground cinnamon

½ tsp     pink Himalayan sea salt

Small handful of chocolate chips (optional)

2              large eggs

1 c           orange juice

½ c          organic coconut oil

½-¾ c     agave

1 tsp      vanilla extract

1 ½ c      mixed frozen berries, thawed

1 tbsp    rolled oats

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a medium-sized muffin tin with your favourite cupcake liners.

2. In a large bowl, combine the spelt flour, cornmeal, oat bran, flax seeds, chopped walnuts, sesame seeds, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.

3. In a smaller bowl, whisk the eggs lightly. To the eggs, add the orange juice, coconut oil, agave and vanilla, whisking until they are well combined. Pour the wet into the dry and whisk just until blended. Mix in the berries (and the juice they produced when defrosting) and cacao nibs (if using).

4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins, filling the muffin cups almost to the top. Top each muffin with a sprinkling of the oats. How pretty!

5. Bake for 18 to 25 minutes, or until the muffins are deep golden brown and spring back lightly when pressed gently in the center and a toothpick comes out clean.

Enjoy my friends!

Raw Food Reset – Day 5 & 6

Gotta admit. Friday was a bust.  I had sushi with rice, a chicken wing and one small beef rib for lunch.  For dinner our friends ordered awesome Chinese food and I had some cooked eggplant, peppers, 3 shrimps, some tofu and half a chicken ball.  I also had Prosecco with the girls and loved every sip. I felt a little bloated the next day from the sodium and alcohol, but it didn’t throw me off track.

Yesterday I didn’t really eat much for breakfast for lunch. I had some cauliflower with hummus in the AM and shared a small Greek salad for lunch with B in between errands. For dinner, I made a huge green salad with fennel, and Vietnamese veggie fresh spring rolls with peanut sauce. So filling and satisfying.

B roasted a whole chicken for himself to eat over the next few days. He stuffed the chicken with chickpeas, a recipe we saw earlier in the day on TV from Chef Ramsay. OMG. The roasted chickpea mash he made after with lemon and roasted garlic was INCREDIBLE. I have never tasted anything like it. The ones that fell out of the chicken roasted at the bottom of the pan became crunchy and full of garlic and chicken flavour and were awesome. You must try it.

I kind of wanted to eat the chicken but at the same time I didn’t. I tried a couple pieces of it and it was good but I wasn’t going crazy for the meat. I don’t usually eat a lot of meat anyway so it’s not my go to thing.

I was looking forward to the fresh rolls, the chickpea mash and a nice big salad.

Today I ate the leftover salad and fresh rolls for lunch, and have a super tasty treat planned for dinner. It’s already resting in the ‘fridge.

I tried a new raw power bar recipe, which was awesome. Lots of dates, so it satisfies my sweet tooth. Really loving This Rawsome Vegan Life blog by Emily. She knows how to do it right and everything I’ve tried from her site is AWESOME.  The super tasty treat for dinner I also found on her site, which Emily wrote as a guest post for Ascension Kitchen’s site. Let me tell you, these ladies are rawkstars! (See what I did there?)

Anyhoo.. here’s some pics – they are not as fab as Emily’s but I tried. I don’t have a dehydrator (Yet! I ordered it last week, woot!), and I didn’t have the patience to dehydrate the tomatoes in the oven, so I tossed them in some of the sundried tomato oil and some salt and threw them with some crushed garlic and olives in the toaster oven for 40 mins.  It made a nice cooked mush, which I just piled on top of the tart and threw it back in the fridge.

I also added some of my own home made hummus into the zucchini hummus mixture in the blender, which was SUPER garlicky so I didn’t actually add any fresh garlic to the zucchini mix. Hopefully I didn’t make it too thin and it will set. I also left the skin on the green zucchini.

Raw Power (Breakfast) Bar Recipe (For those of us who don’t like to be hangry)

Have you ever been hangry? I have.  It’s not fun for me or anyone around me.  That’s how and why I make these RAW power bars! 1-2 bars keeps me full for HOURS.  When I’m pressed for time or on the go, I have one in the AM with a banana and am good until lunch. I also eat these before or after a workout, or when I get the 3pm junk food craving at the office.  They have SAVED my hungry tummy more times than I can count over the past few weeks.

For those raw vegan foodies out there, this recipe should please you and your tummy. For those of you who don’t like to bake, this is definitely the recipe for you.  For those of you who just want something healthy and filling so you don’t grab a bag of chips in the afternoon before dinner, this will satisfy you.

Ingredients:

• 1 cups almonds
• 1 cup almonds
• 1 cup oats
• ¼ cup flax seeds
• ¼ cup chia seeds
• ¼ cup pumpkin seeds
• ½  cup dried prunes, dates, raisins or cranberries  (I like ½ cup dried prunes and ½ cup dried cranberry mix)
• ½ cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
• ½ cup peanut or almond butter
• ½ cup coconut oil (vegan) or butter (whatever you choose, melted)
• 1/4 cup honey (Use stevia or maple syrup for vegan)
• 2-3 teaspoons vanilla or almond extract
• A few squares dark chocolate, less than half a bar needed for thin layer (optional) – I melted about 1/4 bag of chocolate chips in a small saucepan for the topping

Directions:

1. Combine flax seeds, chia seeds and pumpkin seeds in a coffee grinder or blender and grind.  You want them ground up but don’t need them into powder.
2. Add ground seeds, dried fruit, shredded coconut, almond or peanut butter in a food processor and pulse briefly for about 10 seconds.
3. In a small sauce pan, melt coconut oil over very low heat. Remove coconut oil from stove, stir sweeteners and vanilla into oil.
4. Add coconut oil mixture to food processor and pulse until ingredients form a coarse paste. Press mixture firmly into an 9 x 13 baking dish.
5. In a small saucepan, melt chocolate over very low heat, stirring continuously. Spread melted chocolate over bars and refrigerate until chocolate hardens.  I like to cool overnight in the fridge. Remove from refrigerator, cut into bars and serve.

 Makes about 20-25 bars. Store in refrigerator or freeze for later enjoyment!

Sweet Potato Breakfast Pancakes (cooked in coconut oil)

I don’t eat enough sweet potatoes. Do you?

I love ’em, but I definitely don’t eat enough of them. I picked one up at the grocery store the other night with the idea of having half as a side to dinner. I didn’t feel like taking the time to bake it, so I threw it in the handy-dandy microwave (never used to use one, until we moved to the new house) and voila! It was done in like 6 minutes.

After dinner I was heating up a cup of lemon balm tea before bed (recipe here), I popped open the microwave (it’s becoming a regular kitchen appliance now) and there’s the sweet potato still on the plate, fully cooked and now cooled. Oops.

Huh. So now what to do with it. I’ve already eaten dinner. Well, I guess I’ll throw it in a container and figure it out in the AM.

The next morning I decided I was going to attempt to go for another run, later in the day (I have to pump myself up for running, it’s not an activity I particularly like). So I started to plan out my meals for the day so I would have adequate energy for the workout (I was planning on having KD for lunch, as awful as that is).

I’m not one for sweet breakfasts. You’ll usually find me having yogurt and organic seed granola, or eggs and cheese. Mmmm… cheese. But today I wanted to try something different, and I had that damn sweet potato to use.

I love pancakes, but NEVER order them when I go out for breakfast, it’s only something I’ll have at home. So off I hopped to the kitchen to figure it out.

An hour later, and I was making breakfast. (Coffee went cold TWICE during that hour, another great use for the micro-ondes, reheating that cuppa!).

Here’s what you’ll need for these tasty, filling and nutritional pancakes.

• 3/4 pound sweet potatoes
• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (Add more to taste, I love cinnamon and the health benefits!)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup butter, melted

Since I had the cooked and cooled sweet potato, the skin came right off. I didn’t have a hard time peeling it at all. I grabbed the hand blender and whipped it up. I didn’t want any chunks of potato in my pancakes.

‘Mashed’ with a hand blender to make it ultra smooth.

In a medium bowl, I sifted together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. I did not add ANY sugar to this recipe. It definitely doesn’t need more sugar. You could use all -purpose flour or peanut flour for this recipe too.

Next, in a separate medium bowl, I mixed mashed sweet potatoes, eggs, milk and butter.

Blend sweet potato mixture into the flour mixture to form a batter. The mixture took a bit to combine and I used a whisk to bring it all together. Careful of splashing that milk around! I got it all over the counter.

Next, preheat a lightly greased griddle over medium-high heat. I used organic coconut oil. Man, that was the best decision of the day. The light coconut oil flavoured the pancakes beautifully and they were not greasy at all. Perfect combination! There are not many things I like to cook in coconut oil, but this one is being added to the list. Score.

Coconut oil for greasing

Melted coconut oil

Pancake batter

The batter was a BIT thick the first time I tried to pour the pancake. I added a bit of extra milk after to thin it out. You basically just have to move the batter around in the pan with a spoon for spatula to get it to shape. Otherwise you’ll end up with a big blob.

In the pan!

Alrighty! We are making progress. My pancakes didn’t stick AT ALL. They moved around quite quickly in the pan. I waited until I saw the edges bubble then flipped. Just check the bottom of it to your desired doneness, and flip!

Flip!

Now let’s see how they turned out! I put a small dab of butter and a bit of syrup. I loooove butter. The pancakes were crispy on the edges and cooked perfectly inside. They are definitely more dense than your regular box-pancake but I’m okay with that. I think the whole-wheat flour attributed to that.

The finished product

I ate two for breakfast and cooked the rest of the batter. I stored them in a container, and popped them in the fridge. This morning (day after) I took one out, and put it in the toaster. It was perfectly warmed while still being crispy on the outside. I can’t wait to have another for lunch 🙂 Great on-the-go breakfast too!

As for my run later.. I had a really big salad for lunch with my fresh fenugreek sprouts (see post here). Ahh so tasty. I had a small sandwich later in the afternoon because I got hungry. Ended up going for a 3k run at 7pm. My shins were still really sore from my run two days ago, but I made it. I didn’t like it, but I made it. I felt I had enough energy, but probably should have eaten more during the day. Today is a rest day since I have softball tonight, that will warm my legs up! Hoping to hit the road again tomorrow, maybe I’ll try a lunch run. –

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy the pancake recipe. Do you have any fun sweet potato recipes you’d like to share? Post a comment!

Enjoy!

Thai Pork Satay & Spicy Mango Salad

We ADORE Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and Tibetan food in this house and we usually make 2-3 dishes a week from one of those cuisines. We love the flavour, scent, texture and lovely spices they incorporate. Last night, we planned to have Thai Pork Skewers with Mango Salad, or some variation of it.  I picked up a whack of mangos on Spadina on Sunday and we were just waiting for them to ripen so we could make the salad.

I turned to my favourite site, Pinterest to get inspiration for recipes. I have made mango salad before but couldn’t remember the ingredient measurements so I needed some help.  I was also looking for something a little more exotic than a soy sauce-based marinade for the pork as well, so off I went.

I came across these two recipes, which I need to share with you because they were spot on and the pork was some of the best I’ve ever had. I used fresh grated turmeric instead of ground (because I had some left over from that chicken soup I made), and used some leftover frozen grated lemongrass with chili that I had bought at the Asian market a few months ago. I had just the right amount left for this recipe. I also picked up a big jar of coconut oil yesterday because I wanted to start Oil Pulling with it (I like coconut oil MUCH better than cold pressed olive oil, coconut oil is much easier to deal with first thing in the morning).

The only addition I made to the mango salad was to add chopped up kale (from the other day when I chopped off my finger. I was too mad to eat it that night). The kale was a perfect addition which added a different texture than the salad greens (they were on sale at NoFrills for $2 for a BIG box! Woot!).  Mint is essential to this dish, it really brings out the sweetness of the mango and brightens up the colour.

These two recipes are keepers and it’s a nice way to use stuff up and incorporate some of the cheaper cuts of meat when they go on sale.

Muu Satay (Thai Pork Satay) Recipe – Saveur.com

Thai Mango Salad recipe – Canadian Living

Enjoy friends, and have a fantastic day!

How To Do Oil Pulling

Quick Vid about Oil Pulling. I love this and truly believe in the health benefits. My fav is that my teeth and tongue are so clean!! Try it!