Easy Raw Vegan Breakfast: Mango-nana Groovy Green Smoothie!

Most mornings by about 8 a.m., my beloved Blendtec has had a pretty good workout already.

A groovy-green-smoothie-workout!


I just LOVE starting off our mornings with a big glass of groovy green smoothie. After a good night's sleep, my 5 kids are usually pretty hungry and ready for a good breakfast.

And I can't think of a better way to nourish their little bodies than with a big glass of goodness-greenness. What a way to jump-start the day!

This particular morning, I headed out to the veggie garden and picked some organic chard for our breakfast smoothie. All the recent rain has resulted in some impressive garden growth -- my chard is big and lovely, and just begging to be used in a green smoothie.



I picked about 16 huge leaves and tore them up and crammed them in my Blendtec jug, stems and all.

It was a tight fit, but I was determined to pack as many leafy lovelies in there as I could.


I added some filtered water and gave it a thorough blending. It turned into a beautiful, frothy, bubbly mixture.

Just look at all that green frothy goodness! This stuff is SO good for you!

It's like liquid gold.

Only...it's green.

So, liquid green, then!



I assembled the rest of the green smoothie ingredients on the counter:

• spirulina powder
• organic golden flax seeds
• organic shelled hempseeds
• fair trade organic pure vanilla
• frozen organic mango chunks
• several nicely ripened bananas
• and the blender full of "liquid green" (just homegrown chard and filtered water, blended well)

A cute little critter lurked among the smoothie ingredients, loudly telling me to hurry up.

I think he was hungry.

Cute, hungry, bossy little critter!

And so I hurried, for by now I had FIVE hungry little critters all clustered around, bossing me about.

I added the rest of my ingredients to the blender, and here is what we ended up with.

One tall, thick groovy green smoothie.

It was mango-licious!

AND groovy.

I made two big blenderfuls to feed all 7 of us, with enough leftover for some refills.

I'm happily growing oodles of strong kids, the green smoothie way!

And they all dug in, slurping happily.

Even my littlest one!

** Go on, make yourself a green smoothie! It's easy to do, and it's a wonderful way to start the day. Enjoy!

Raw Snacks For The Movie Theatre

Earlier this month, my sweet friend invited my older daughter to go to the movies along with her and her daughter. My friend had scored free tickets to see Night At The Museum 2, and they kindly invited my girl along.

I wanted to thank my friend for the kind invitation, so I offered to make the snacks for the movies as a thank you.

Because, I ask you, WHAT is a movie without some really awesome snacks?

I am a big fan of smuggling snacks into the movie theatre, and the last time we hit the dollar theatre I posted about our smuggled snacks right here. My kids love the dollar theatre and we try to make it there whenever they are showing something appropriate for my gang. And we always haul our own healthy snacks in. Always.

Oh, yes, we are sneaky little snack smugglers!

It's very important to me to feed my children well, whether we are at home or away from home. I want to put the very best food possible into their little growing bodies. I can't grow a healthy child if I stuff them full of junk food and soda pop, so I teach and educate them why we don't eat those things. They are not missing out, they do not feel deprived whatsoever (I know because I ask them!) -- and I try to make the snacks delicious and fun, even at the movie theatre.

Yes, it's extra work and effort to make these nice snacks, and it would be easier to just grab something at the concession stand, but my punks are worth the extra effort. It is my job to take care of them and I want them to THRIVE!

Also, I had a lot of fun putting these snacks together. I just love packing food in little containers.

I'm weird like that. I'm such a food nerd.

Unlike last time, I skipped the stainless steel tiffins this time around and just packed the snacks in some plastic containers with lids. I didn't want my friend to have to worry about getting my tiffins back to me.

And also, I don't part easily with my preshus tiffins.

I just don't.

So, I set to work making some rockin' snacks for the movie theatre!

Here we have Raw Movie Snacks -- lots of sweet and crunchy goodies just right for munching on in a darkened theatre! We think this beats the snacks from the movie theatre concession stand, hands down!


Clockwise from the top, we have:

• two litle Green & Black's organic dark chocolates, a treat in our house


• one Yummy Earth organic lollipop (this one is 'very cherry' :)


• at the bottom of the lollipop stick is a chewy organic dried papaya spear


• beside the dried papaya spear is a slice or two of organic dried mango


• mixed together in a little cluster is a trio of yummy goodies: raw organic goji berries, raw organic almonds, and some raw organic cacao nibs


• those round white balls are organic raw macadamia nuts


• two plump and moist organic medjool dates


• that white clump above the two dates is the most DELICIOUS raw shredded coconut


• above the coconut is a little serving of raw organic pumpkin seeds (those are the green seeds you see)


• above the pumpkin seeds are some raw unsalted and organic sunflower seeds

I packed all those goodies in 3 separate containers so that my friend, her daughter, and my daughter could each have their own snack dish during the movies.


Then I snapped the lids on quickly because I had oodles of snack-lovin' little children grabbing and swiping at these snacks.

See the little grabby hands at the top of this picture? One little boy could not keep his paws off of these goodies!

Meanwhile, my baby was positively sobbing her little heart out (rather loudly and with MUCH drama) because she wanted those lollipops SO very badly.

Oh, the TEARS! The DRAMA! The CRYING!


And since I am a sucker ( pun intended :) for a sad faced baby, I immediately granted her wishes and gave her a sweet little organic lolly. And we shared a little square of organic dark chocolate too, as evidenced by the smears on her wee little face.

And all was right in her little world!

Tutti Fruity Vegan Breakfasts

Well, hi! We just wrapped up a lovely long visit with relatives from home (Canada) -- during their visit we enjoyed lots of chatting, board games, baby-snuggling, and many delicious shared meals. Tending to guests meant no time for blogging, but now my little blog break is over...I'm baaaaack!

And look!

I brought breakfast!

Here's a recent breakfast for my 5 little critters. Fresh, raw, juicy organic fruit. Mmmm.

It's a Tutti Fruity Breakfast Buffet!


What a great way to start the day. Such nutritious morning fuel for so many little growing bodies!

And such a delight for the kids to come to the table and be greeted with such a vibrant and colorful morning meal. With so many colors on every plate, my son announced that it was "just like eating a rainbow!"

Here's what we enjoyed for our Tutti Fruit Breakfast Buffet, clockwise from top (all ingredients are organic):

• fresh diced strawberries
• dried cherries
• crisp apple slices
• one big juicy grapefruit, all diced up, sprinkled with organic hempseeds
• one little kiwi
• a few slices of dried mango

This kept the kids full for a good while -- by mid-morning they were ready for a thick green smoothie, loaded with protein and lots of leafy greens, and a handful of homemade trail mix on the side.

My baby thoroughly enjoyed her fruity feast. I made her a baby-sized mini version of her siblings' platters and she ate every scrumptious little itty-bitty morsel.

Oh, it is GOOD to eat the rainbow!

Putting My Many Menfolk To Work

One recent afternoon, I was cleaning out our very unorganized fridge and discovered several pounds of organic apples hiding behind the kale. These apples had seen better days and I knew they needed to be used pronto.

So, I set my many menfolk to work.

With the B-52's blaring in the background (Love Shack, Baby!), my menfolk washed, cored, and sliced those apples.

My daughters and I sat with our feet up, bopping to the beat while eating bonbons and watching the boys work.

I love when that happens.

They prepped 9 trays of apple slices and popped them into the dehydrator.

That's a lotta apples!

After several hours of dehydrating, the tantalizing sweet smell of drying apples lured me into the kitchen. I decided to take a peek inside the dehydrator to check on the apples.

And maybe try a bite.

Apparently someone beat me to it, because all the trays were pretty picked over and there were lots of gaps where apples used to be.

My kids must have raided the dehydrator when I wasn't looking.

Those stinkers.


Before my little vulture-children returned to polish off the last of the apples, I filled a little bowl for myself.

Oh, they were good.

The rest went into an airtight jar and into the pantry. We gobbled up every last bit that very evening.

Good job, menfolk!

It's Been a VERY Noisy Blog-Break

Wow!

Thank you all for the many wonderful comments on my last post. You left me oodles of comments, and I loved every one of them. I'm very appreciative of all the support, thank you!

So, it's been a very productive blog-break around here. We've been getting a lot done around the house (non-stop work. ugh.).

It's also been VERY noisy.

Internet, I have a headache.



A REALLY big headache.



These little drummer boys can really rock it out.
(Especially the one looking like a mini Hugh Hefner in his snazzy robe. THAT one can REALLY bang out a beat. And I've got the headache to prove it).

Yep, a big drum-induced headache.

Please send chocolate.

.Technorati: ahwykgn7v9

Everybody Just Play Nice!

So, I shut my little blog down last week for a spell to do some bloggy-maintenance.

Betcha didn't even notice!

Recently, my little blog caught the attention of some Very Unpleasant People online. There was lots of petty chatter on several sites about my food, our vitamin intake, my kids' names, our homeschooling ways, and our choice of diet.

I'm pretty thick-skinned; they picked on my "sawdust" salads and my "grass clippings" smoothies and that doesn't bug me a bit! Say all you like about my high-raw vegan diet and my super-crunchy, hippie-dippie ways. I'm ok with that.

But PLEASE don't pick on my babies.

It brings out the Mama Bear in me. Grrr!

So I closed down this little blog to do some blog-housekeeping. I decided to make things a bit more anonymous by removing our identities.

Oooh, doesn't that sound all mysterious?

I stripped the blog of my hubby's name and my kids' names.

I will now refer to my kids as Punks 1 through 5.

Only... they dislike the label 'punks' and have asked that I refer to them as 'critters' instead.

So, CRITTERS 1 through 5, then!

And my hubby I will refer to as...well, hubby.

Or maybe Honeybunch. Or HoneyBunny.

I'll have to ask him.

So, please, everybody just play nice! No more remarks about my family.

Or else I'll hold you down and force you to drink one of my grass-clippings-smoothies.

That'll fix ya'!

** Thanks to everyone who sprinkled kind remarks about me here and there, and also to those who sent me nice emails. So sweet of you :)

Raw Vegan Ice Cream (a tasty, tasty re-post)

***This was originally posted in Feb./09, but due to oodles of ice-cream-related emails hitting my inbox lately, I'm re-posting it here for those who've asked. Enjoy!***


I scream, you scream, we all scream for....ICE CREAM!

Raw vegan ice cream, that is.

There was just one food I missed after leaving the Standard American Diet behind many years ago in favor of my vegan (and now very-high-raw vegan) diet....and that one food was ICE CREAM. Oh how I missed it so!

Not only did I miss indulging in it myself, but it was a sweet little treat that I wanted all my little vegan babies to indulge in as they grew up, and so I set about learning to make my own ice cream.

Now I know there are plenty of dairy-free ice creams on the market -- rice ice cream, and soy ice cream in many flavors and brands. But we don't eat soy products, and we try to avoid processed foods, so my only option to satisfy my ice cream craving was to make it myself.

And that's just what I did. Yum!

This homemade ice cream is raw and vegan and delicious -- and it's just as rich and creamy as the store-bought stuff. And I think it tastes WAY better ( if I do say so myself).

I made this recipe up as I went along, so my measurements aren't accurate, but this recipe is forgiving, and exact measurements aren't necessary to achieve fantastic results.

For this batch of chocolate banana ice cream, I blended approximately 2 cups or so of raw cashews in my blender, until they were a fine meal. Then I poured in approximately 1.5-2 cups of filtered water and blended til smooth. Then I added a few bananas, 2 cups spinach, a few tablespoons of raw organic cacao powder, a few medjool dates to sweeten a bit, some freshly ground flax meal, and more filtered water. I blended all the ingredients very well -- basically it was the consistency of a very thick chocolate milk, almost a chocolate milkshake consistency.

And, yes, I added spinach to my ice cream (I add leafy greens to everything).

Spinach ice cream = yum!

After blending,this mixture can be poured into an ice cream maker (that's what I do), or poured into a lidded container and frozen. Both ways will produce tasty results that will have you licking your bowl clean.

Or wait, is it just ME who does that?

If you use an ice cream maker, just follow manufacturer's instructions for your machine. My ice cream maker is a Cuisinart 2 Quart machine, and was half-price on clearance at Amazon. It has more than paid for itself -- it gets heavy use from all the wee ice cream lovers in my house (er, AND their mama. Ahem.)

If you instead make your ice cream by freezing it in a bowl in the freezer, it is best to stir it up every hour or so (or whenever you remember to) while it freezes. This helps to aerate it while it freezes, and this makes the finished product less brick-like and more scoopable. When you remove it from the freezer, you may need to thaw it for a few minutes on the counter before scooping it.

Here is a nice scoop of the raw vegan ice cream. You can see how scoopable it is. It scoops out just like the real deal. It has awesome scoopability. It's scoopalicious. Scooptastic.

Below sits a naked, unadorned little dessert bowl of raw vegan ice cream. It's just crying out for some toppings.

( I hear your cries, little bowl of ice cream! Never fear, toppings are on the way!)



Below is the same bowl, all dressed up and lookin' fine! I adorned this particular bowl with a few raw cashew pieces, some raw organic cacao nibs, and a sprinkle of hip little hempseeds. It's ready to be gobbled up by one of the many small people who live in my house.

This recipe is easily adapted to include whatever flavors and ingredients you like. The chocolate can be left out (but why would you want to?), and it can become a cashew-banana ice cream. The nuts can be left out in favor of all-fruit, or all-fruit with seeds and other add-ins. I like to stir in lots of yummy additions once it is partially frozen -- some ideas are flax seeds, hempseeds, nut pieces, dried fruit (chopped dates or goji berries....*swoon*), raw cacao nibs...there are lots of yummy possibilities, and a few additions take this ice cream from 'great' to 'wow!'

Below is a picture of the all-fruit version of raw vegan ice cream. This version was made nut-free so that my little baby girl could indulge in it.

This is not my baby's bowl. This is Mama's bowl. We shared.


The above all-fruit version was made in the blender with just berries, bananas, a bit of spinach, a few dates, filtered water, and yummy additions like fresh ground flax meal, dried cranberries, and topped with raw organic cacao nibs. It was every bit as scoopable and creamy as the nutty version.

Swoon-worthy and berry-licious! And so easy to make! Just blend, freeze, and eat!

I made a big batch of spinach-chocolate-banana raw vegan ice cream a couple of days ago, and as a treat for my kiddos I served up that spinachy-chocolate ice cream for breakfast. Packed with nuts, spinach, fruit, and seeds, it makes a wonderful, incredibly healthy and densely nutritious food...who says you can't eat it for breakfast?

Needless to say, my kids licked their bowls clean! (and just maybe I did too). Even though I serve this quite often, my gang never tires of it, and they never fail to "ooh!" and "aaah!" appropriately each and every time they get their vegan ice cream fix.

One of my little boys was standing by the front window after his tasty breakfast, and he was watching the school buses pick up the neighbourhood kids. He had a huge grin plastered on his face, so I asked him what he was smiling about. "I'm happy that I homeschool, and I'm HAPPIER that I get ice cream for breakfast!"

Homeschooling, and ice cream for breakfast...according to my son, life doesn't get any better!

Bloggy Break

**blows dust off neglected blog**

I've been enjoying a blog break lately -- I'll be back to regular posting as soon as the Spring Cleaning is done and the last of the dust bunnies in my house have been captured :)

Raw Vegan Greek Salad

A blog reader emailed me recently to tell me that she had a good look through my blog but she was left wondering if we ever eat anything besides smoothies and desserts.

Yes, sometimes we do!

I can't raise 5 healthy kids on desserts alone....

Though I am sure my all children would LOVE it if I fed them nothing but homemade raw vegan desserts all the live-long day.

So, sometimes we make salad.

Lots and lots of salad.

Here's a recent salad that my kitchen-whiz of a husband whipped up for our big hungry brood.

Raw Vegan Greek Salad.

Oh, yummers.

My husband likes to enlist a Kitchen Helper when he preps food. We've got a LOT of people to un-cook for, and it's always nice to have an extra set of little hands to fetch ingredients, mix, stir, and taste-test. This particular night was my 4 year old's turn as Kitchen Helper, and he was quite tickled about it. In fact, this was such a Big Deal to him, that he raced upstairs to put on his little tie before coming to help his daddy in the kitchen.

Because it's ALWAYS good to cook in a tie.

I could hardly stand the cuteness of my wee tie-wearing chef!



After the father-son raw chef duo were done making the greek salad, they dished up big bowls for everyone.

Everybody dug right in! This salad is SO good; it's one of our very favorite meals and everyone goes back for seconds.

Actually, it's SO good, I MAY have gone back for thirds! Ahem.

(but I kindly left a little in the bowl in case anyone ELSE wanted thirds).

(They didn't)

(So I ate it)



Raw Vegan Greek Salad:

• in a large mixing bowl, make the dressing: we added equal parts balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, and whisked them together. Then we added a generous amount of Italian seasonings (use whatever you like -- we use an italian seasoning blend that includes rosemary, oregano, marjoram, basil, and sage). We also added a handful of fresh chopped basil to this mixture. The fresh basil REALLy takes this salad up a notch or two.
• Whisk up these ingredients together in the bottom of your big mixing bowl.
• Chop all of your veggies and add them to the mixture in the mixing bowl. Our veggies vary each time we make this, but this time we used fresh tomatoes, white onion, red onion, yellow bell pepper, cucumbers, and black olives. The olives we used are not raw, but that's okay by me.
• Mix your veggies well with your salad dressing. Give everything a good toss to coat all the veggies with that flavorful dressing.
• Once the salad was very well mixed, my hubby added diced avocadoes and gave everything a gentle stir. We add the avocadoes last to avoid mushing them up into guacamole while tossing the salad.
• We like to serve this greek salad atop a bed of greens. And sometimes we sprinkle walnuts or other nuts or seeds on top of the salad. Even without the feta, it's darn good.
• The End.
  
  
  

Storing 25 Pounds of Bulk Walnuts

I've got a cup of tea in my hand, my family is all tucked in bed for the night, and the laundry is caught up! A slumbering family, a cup of good tea, and clean socks...oh, life is good.

So, it's been busy busy busy here in the Green and Crunchy house. We've been busy with playdates, homeschool classes, OAT testing (we use an online school and a couple of my kids have Spring testing this week and next week), music lessons...and dealing with a mountain of walnuts.

I've mentioned before that we shop in bulk. This is quite possibly the biggest way we save on quality raw foods to feed our family of 7. By buying our food in larger quantities, we end up paying way less per pound in the long run. I recently ordered 25 pounds of bulk raw walnuts, and by buying such a large amount, my price per pound was almost half of what I would have paid buying these in 1-5 pound amounts. I spent the better part of an afternoon packaging them up for the freezer. Since walnuts can go rancid when stored for long periods of time at room temperature, we like to keep our nuts cold. Cold nuts = fresh nuts!

So, with the help of one very tiny, very cute apprentice, I got busy dealing with my Gigantic Sack of Nuts.

Actually, my wee apprentice wasn't much help at all.

She mostly snacked and threw nuts at my head.

She thinks she's SO funny.

Cheeky baby!

(Hi! I realize these could be a choking hazard. However, while I snapped pics and staged these shots, my husband was standing right next to baby but out of camera range, ensuring that she took only tiny wee little itty-bitty broken pieces of walnut rather than larger halves.)

Here's my workstation: 25 pounds of bulk raw walnuts, a fabulous little food scale that I found at the thrift store for a dollar, and my shiny little FoodSaver.


This FoodSaver gets a heavy workout in our Raw vegan kitchen! I found it on sale at Target a year or two ago, and it has been invaluable to my food storage needs. We use it to vacuum seal everything from raw nuts, raw seeds, dried fruits, fruits and veggies, leftovers, organic produce like this kale from our garden.....it's a great tool to have for food storage and I use it regularly. Since we buy everything in large bulk amounts, the Food Saver has really been handy for packaging up bulk foods, and it helps to keep food fresher for SO much longer.

Cost-wise, the price of the bags can really add up when you use the Food Saver often (as I do), so in an effort to be frugal and re-use as much as possible, I re-use the Food Saver bags. When I open a vacuum-selaed bag, I simply slit it open right under the seal, empty out the contents of the bag, and wash the bag and air dry it. Then I can use it again. And again. These bags are thick and durable and last through multiple uses. If anyone knows of a reason why I should not re-use these, please let me know! Nothing in the instruction manual mentioned re-using the bags.

So, I weighed out a little over 2 pounds for each bag. My baby could NOT keep her hands out of the walnuts! We just recently began introducing teeny amounts of nuts into her Raw vegan diet, and she thinks nuts are pretty darn delicious.

She happily sat by that big bag of walnuts and nibbled away.

Occasionally she offered me a bite of her drool-covered nuts.

I declined.

(Too slobbery.)

She just kept diving back into that big bag, munching happily. I think she even sampled some and tossed them, drooly and half-eaten, back in the bag.


Seriously, I think her gooey, slobbery little baby hands touched every nut in there.

If you ever come over to my house and I serve you walnuts, I wouldn't eat them if I were you.



Here's a bag of walnuts, ready to have all the air sucked out of it by my handy-dandy FoodSaver:



And here's the bag of walnuts vacuum-sealed, with all the air sucked right out of it:

This is 25 pounds of raw walnuts, all portioned and ready for the freezer:



But before they could be put in the freezer, my baby took them for a little stroll around the house. She's such a nutty baby!

** The little wood doll buggy was a recent thrift store score! Only $6! It's handmade and it is as solid as can be. It's gorgeous! Being a wood-toy-junkie, I snapped it up the moment I saw it, excited to bring it home and add it to our Waldorf-ish playroom.

And it's just perfect for...walking the walnuts!

Raw Chocolate-Goji Earth Balls (and one very frustrated baby)

Nutrient-dense little goji berries are a staple in our raw foods kitchen. Those antioxidant-rich little gems get tucked into many of our raw treats, homemade trail mixes, and even our groovy green smoothies. Not only do gojis pack a HUGE nutritional punch, but they are quite tasty. Yum!

These little superfoods make for some good snacking!

I added goji berries to a recent batch of Earth Balls for a little extra oomph.

What a tasty bit of oomph that was!



Oh, how we LOVE Earth Balls in this house! I've blogged about our fondness for Earth Balls here, here, and here. We make them all the time, each batch a little different than the one before it.

The basic recipe for these little balls is 2 cups of nuts (I like to use almonds, or a combination of almonds/walnuts, or almonds/pecans), placed in the food processor and ground to a fine 'meal'. I then add pitted medjool dates, one at a time (usually between 1-1/2 and 2 cups total), with the food processor running as I add them, until the mixture reaches a sticky consistency. When it's sticky enough to be formed into balls, it's done!

As I've said before, I like to jazz up our Earth Balls with all sorts of healthy additions. You can pack a lot of nutrition into these little goodies!

For these Chocolate-Goji Earth Balls, I began with the nuts and dates, and I added some fresh ground flax meal, some sunflower seeds, hempseeds, flaxseeds, agave nectar (to help it 'stick'), raw cacao nibs, and some goji berries.

Once everything was well combined in the food processor, I rolled the delicious mixture into tiny little balls, just right for snackin'.

Behold, little Earthy Balls of Goodness! (quoting the words of my friend Stephanie, who made a batch of Earth Balls and enjoyed them so much that she sent me an email with "Earthy Balls of Goodness' in the subject line!)

These balls are goooood.

It's VERY hard to stop at just one.

Or, you know, NINE.

One lone little Chocolate-Goji Earth Ball sits waiting to be gobbled up (and I was more than happy to oblige).

I buy my organic raw goji berries through a bulk buying club, in this great big 11 pound bag (and I just noticed that Amazon has a big 10 pound bag of organic gojis on sale).

I buy absolutely EVERYTHING that I possibly can in bulk. For our big family of 7, it is more economical to skip the teeny 1 pound bags and go straight for The Big One. It is such a great way to shop -- by buying bulk, it reduces packaging (better for the earth), and it's a LOT cheaper to shop in bulk (better for my wallet). Win-win!

I am hoping to stretch this bag out to last us 8-10 months or so. They last a long time, since we only use a little scoop here and a little scoop there. A little goes a long way.

To keep the goji berries fresh, I fill a big glass jar and keep that in my kitchen pantry to use on a daily basis. Then I vacuum-seal the remainder of the bulk bag (using a Food Saver) and I store the berries in my basement pantry (which we fondly refer to as our 'General Store' because it's so well-stocked).

Here's a filled jar of gojis (headed for the pantry) and one vacuum-sealed bulk bag (headed for the basement General Store). See how shrinky the bag of berries gets after I vacuum-seal it? With the air removed, this bag will stay fresher longer.

I've shown this photo before, but I thought I'd show it again -- with the bag placed beside my baby girl, you can see just how big an 11 pound bulk bag of goji berries is!

And you can also see my super sneaky baby snagging a handful -- she LOVES goji berries. LOVES THEM! Favorite snack EVER.

She will happily eat them by the handful if I'd let her.

Which I sometimes do.




She will fondly pat and stroke her beloved bag of goji berries:




And with a sly little look on her face, she plots a way to make off with that delicious bag:




So after a quick diaper change, I set the bag of gojis and my baby on the floor so she could have her way with them:



"OOF! These are so heavy, mama! This bag won't budge!"

"Oh please, no pictures! I'm far too frustrated and upset!"

"I give up! That bag is just TOO heavy for little me to lift!"


Big Sister swoops in to soothe her treasured baby sister, and she wipes those Goji Tears away:





For all her hard work trying to lift that great big bag of gojis, my baby gets rewarded with a handful of her beloved gojis on her tray:




Happy little Goji-Loving-Baby:

Jumper's Rules

Oh, hello poor neglected blog! It's been a whole week since I've posted. The week just raced by and I had no chance to blog here.

But in my defense, I've been busy.

REALLY busy.

Busy BOUNCING!

For the past several weekends, we have been slaves to the To-Do List. Endless decluttering, painting rooms, and home improvements have made up our weekends. Ugh. I hauled load after load of unwanted stuff out of this house (and boy, that feels good!). Some of the stuff was donated to Goodwill, and much of it was sold at second-hand shops nearby.

In selling some of our unwanted clutter, I was able to make a nice little sum of money. I love turning clutter into dollars!

We decided to put tha money towards a trampoline for the kids. My husband and some of the kids set it up last weekend, and we have been happily (and safely!) bouncing ever since.

With 5 little kids, some of whom are rather, uh, enthusiastic bouncers, we decided to lay down some Jumper's Rules to keep all of our little jumpers safe.

Because the last thing I need is 5 little concussions...

Rule #1:

Always bounce alone. No jumping with a partner. Ever. I am hoping that this rule alone will save us endless clunked heads and noggin' bonks.




Rule #2:

Line up and wait your turn!




Rule #3:

ALWAYS let Mom have a turn. ALWAYS. Mom loooooves to bounce.

With those rules in place, the kids are loving the new trampoline, and they have all sorts of fancy moves.

Hey! One at a time on the trampoline! You're breaking the rules!


I'll let it slide this time, because you're cute.




It is a happy, bouncy life!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia Shakes!

Browsing some of my favorite blogs recently, I happened upon a most delicious-sounding recipe over at Kristens Raw...Pillowy Vanilla Cashew Milk.

Oooh...just the sound of it had me running to gather my ingredients, soaking cashews and dates, and looking forward to the pillowy goodness.

Because I needed me a pillowy drink!




This is NOT my recipe, but you can find the fabulous recipe here. I made it twice; the first time I stuck closely to Kristen's original recipe, and the second time I changed it up a bit. It was awesome both ways.

And so very pillowy.

For the second batch, we were wanting a chocolate shake type drink, so here's what I changed the second time 'round:

• I doubled the recipe to feed my big brood (and it STILL wasn't enough to fulfill the requests for refills!)
• I skipped the lucuma because I didn't have any
• I added 1/2 cup hempseeds to the doubled recipe
• I added 3/4 cup flax seeds to the doubled recipe
• I added LOADS of ch-ch-ch-chia, over 3/4 cup to the doubled recipe
• I added a pinch of cinnamon
• I added 1/3 cup raw organic cacao powder to the doubled recipe to make it chocolatey
  

And all the while I shouted out "Ch-Ch-Ch-CHIA!" to the great annoyance of my family.

I couldn't resist.

Ch-Ch-Ch-CHIA!

Here's what we ended up with...chocolate-chia shakes so thick that our glass straws stood up straight!

My delighted trio of cute little boys dove right in, all 3 very focused on their ch-ch-ch-chia shakes:



This guy didn't even come up for air til his glass was empty!


Doesn't that look delicious?

And pillowy?


Ch-Ch-Ch-CHIA!

**(don't forget to skip over here for the original recipe plus oodles of other rockin' recipes.)

Kale Popsicles and Kale Ice Cream. Yes, I Said Kale Ice Cream.

I am having FAR too much fun with these section plates. It's really quite ridiculous how much I enjoy filling all these wee little sections at mealtimes. I HAVE to put a different food in every section, and I CAN'T leave a section empty or it would drive me batty.

Clearly, I have issues.

I should get out more.

So, after a recent busy morning that involved numerous squabbles over Lego, more laundry loads than I care to recall, and a rockin' dance session in the family room to "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" (my baby's current favorite, and okay, mine too), it was time for lunch.

I whipped out my beloved section plates, spread them out on the counter, and got busy. I only prepped 4 plates -- all that energetic boogeying tuckered my youngest out and she was ready for a pre-lunch nap. We completely wore that little baby out, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini-Style (such a good kind of worn-out to be, isn't it?)

Here's what 4 of my children enjoyed for lunch, clockwise from top:

• one glass of homemade almond milk (which looks EERILY like cow's milk, doesn't it?)
• one big spoonful of homemade almond butter
• one diced kiwi
• a handful of dried cherries
• one kale popsicle! This stole the show and was the first thing each kid reached for (ingredients shown below).
• sharing a section are: brazilnuts, cashews, dried cranberries, and goji berries (I hate when foods share a section but I ran out of sections. See? I have ISSUES.)
• one diced orange

Here's a close-up of the colorful and organic raw feast, mere moments before being devoured by one of the many small people who live in my house:

Now, in case you're all craving your very own kale popsicles (because, who wouldn't?!), here's what I put in these frozen leafy treats (clockwise, starting with the jar at the top):

• several teaspoons of spirulina powder
• 2 cups of frozen organic wild blueberries
• several tablespoons freshly ground flax meal
• several bananas
• 8 pitted organic medjool dates
• 1/4-1/3 cup of raw organic cacao powder
• 1/4 cup raw organic cacao nibs
• 1/3 cup organic hempseeds
• one HUGE bunch of organic kale!

Lots of kale!!




I put all the ingredients in the blender, added filtered water, gave it a thorough blending, and poured it into popsicle molds. Simply freeze, and enjoy!



This tasted amazing with the combination of raw cacao (mmm, raw chocolate) and blueberries. I just looooove blueberries and chocolate together. Blueberries + Raw Chocolate = YUMMERS!!

Since I made such a huge blenderful, I had a lot of leftovers after I filled the popsicle molds. So I decided to make kale ice cream with the leftovers.

Yes, I said kale ice cream.

Mmmm, doesn't that sound yummy?

(Tastes WAY better than it sounds, promise!)

I ran the blended blueberry-kale concoction through the ice cream maker, and we ended up with a very nice, leafy-loaded dessert to enjoy together after dinner that evening.

This has two types of raw vegan ice cream -- on the top is cherry vanilla chip, and on the bottom is the blueberry-kale ice cream.



And can I just say how GOOD this ice cream is for you? Every spoonful packs a huge nutritional punch. It's so good for you that I ENCOURAGED my kids to have seconds.

They like when I say that.