Summer Foodie To-Do List: Follow-up!

Hard to believe, but summer's over. In fact, that was the first weekend of fall- can you believe it? Up here in PG, we're still sitting around waiting for summer to show its face. I'm getting close to giving up. So how did we make out with our summer list?

1. U-pick berries: Due to the (seemingly) neverending rain we endured this summer, the berries took forever to ripen up! It took patience, but August couldn't have come soon enough!

2. Can tomatoes (and maybe more!) I made 4 batches of jam including this one. I did 50lbs of Roma tomatoes in August and have a freezer full of blueberries, saskatoons & raspberries we picked plus some cherries! Preserving for the win!

3. Make homemade ice cream: I'm getting one of these for Christmas from my mama. I'm sure my magic bullet could have saved the day here, but it just didn't happen. I did make this awhile back though.

4. Cook an entire meal over campfire [link to campfire packets- & ) You shoulda' seen the burgers!

5. Go on a picnic: Not really sure why I didn't do this :( Guess I was waiting for a nice day, which clearly didn't happen often these past few months! Umm, winter picnic? If it ever stops raining!

6. Buy groceries at the farmers market as many times as I can  Did you SEE this haul?!? Not that every week was like this, but there was a definite decrease in the amount of cash spent at the grocery store these past few months.

7. Make iced tea: I drank more hot tea than anyone should have this summer... It never got hot!

8. Have 100% home made smores: Sadly the weather was not much nicer in August than it was in June & July so we weren't able to get any more camping trips in (yet). The last weekend the campgrounds were open (after the September long weekend) we went out for one last hurrah. The afternoon before we left, this happened.

Now, I'm not going to tell you whose recipe this is because it belongs to a very prominent individual in the gluten free blog world. Lets just say that if you find a recipe that has a lot of notes indicating that "such & such gluten free mix wont work" or "if you do this it wont work" etc skip it. I followed the recipe to the T :(

I hate camping in the rain.

9. Grow all kinds of fruit & veggies & herbs (not shown: swiss chard, chives, mint, basil, rhubarb...)

This guy didn't get any bigger than this & was the only survivor from the "invasion".

Some slimy bugger ate this entire plant!

We only ended up with two tomatoes on our plant, and they were both harvested green :(

10. Craft a fantastic mojito (with home grown mint of course!): This final list item was totally inspired by this, by the way! So far we have these...

A Champagne Berry Mojito:

Fresh mint leaves
1 oz White rum
3 Lime wedges
Squirt raw agave
Fresh raspberries
Ice
Champagne to top

Grapefruit Mojito:

Handful of fresh mint leaves
1oz White rum
1/4 of a fresh grapefruit, peeled & diced, pith removed
3 Lime wedges, squeezed (half a lime)
1/2 fl oz raw blue agave or to taste
Ice to fill remainder of glass
Pink Grapefruit Perrier to top

I say "so far" because it's still not going below freezing overnight, which means my mint plant is still kickin'! I always have big expectations of drinking copious amounts of minty icy drinks on hot nights every summer and never quite achieve it. I'm still holding out for summer to show it's face.

What I Ate Wednesday: September 28th, 2011

Welcome back to What I Ate Wednesday! Thank you yet again to Jenn from Peas & Crayons for getting us all together like this every week. It's like coffee with the girls!

 

Okay, so breakfast wasn't rubber... But we did start out the day with a very brief jog/walk in our New Balance Minimus trail runners. I've read all kinds of stories about people with their new minimalist runners injuring themselves after assuming that they can do a normal run in their new shoes. Not so. In shoes like these your feet are using all sorts of muscles that aren't normally used because traditional running shoes provide so much support that your body doesn't need to use them. We're starting slow. The last thing I want is to throw these to the back of the closet because I hurt myself right off the bat.  

When we got home (admittedly less than 10 minutes later) we were starving (I was hungry long before that to be honest). Mr.C whipped up an awesome scramble with 5 eggs (between the 2 of us) some chopped red onion, red pepper, leftover yak roast & feta cheese. I had a whole grain Udi's bagel along with it and a bit of OJ.

After a few hours of blog reading, housework peeling & coring apples for applesauce, I needed a bit of something before I went out to do my nutrition appointments. I had these awesome seaweed snacks from Annie Chun's for the first time- loved em'!

When I got home from my appointments & picking Mr.C up from school, we were both famished. I quickly heated up some leftover mashed potatoes & Mushroom Stroganoff and we had some of that before we started cooking dinner. What was in the books for tonight? Pizza! I had intentions of making half pizza & half breadsticks with the dough, but it was so sticky that I didn't want to fight with the second half by the time the first was on the pizza pan. I put it into globs in a muffin tin and hoped for the best. It was a good idea... pizza crust review posts coming soon!

This was totally a "clean out the fridge" pizza. Goat cheese, roasted red peppers, pasta sauce, daiya, sundried tomatoes, green & red pepper, mushrooms, black olives, artichoke hearts, capers, fresh tomato... and man was it good! 

Bitlets For You This Past Week: September 19-25, 2011

I forsee much more of this in the future.

Healthier workplaces benefit everyone

If you can tolerate (uncontaminated) oats, try PrOatina Naked Oats for free!

Here's another giveaway for gluten free lemon bar mix & cookie/muffin mix! Gotta love free stuff!

Didn't you get the memo? I love me some poached eggs for breakfast!

This is a brilliant idea I hope it makes it through & onto store shelves soon. It would make eating out for families with allergies SO much easier!

Have you seen this? The guy got fired, but made a second song anyways!

If you feel strongly about this, maybe you should rethink the other animals you eat.

A step in the right direction!

The boy who doesn't eat.

If you haven't tried Vega before, but are thinking about giving it a shot read this.

Cooking at home has completely changed our lifestyles. 

Yogurt = Asthma? Interesting!

There's a new weight loss drug wiggling itself onto the market... Sounds like bad news.

The food stamp challenge: Could you do it?

Harvard's stab at "MyPlate"- It's much better!

On why not to buy factory farmed, "cheap eggs".

Even if you're not celiac, taking wheat out of your diet probably isn't a bad idea..

The headline says it all: Processed meats declared too dangerous for human consumption. And they're not talking about a Listeriosis outbreak...

Choose prevention, not chemo.

What I Ate Wednesday: September 21, 2011

Sneaking in just under the wire.... Yes, it's that time of week again! WIAW is put on weekly by Jen of Peas & Crayons- get in on this!

For breakfast I had a little leftover Mushroom Stroganoff overtop quinoa before I headed out to a hot hatha yoga class.

When I got back, I snacked on a little jalapeno monterey jack cheese while cooking up a pot of Chicken Chipotle Tortilla Soup, which was (an enormous) dinner before I had to go off to work. Yes, that's an entire half of an avocado in there!

I took a pear with me to last through the work night "day", and chowed on the rest of the quinoa I cooked up in the morning. Nothing terribly exciting to report today sadly. Maybe something supertasty will be making an appearance next week?

What I Ate Wednesday: September 14, 2011

I started this week's What I Ate Wednesday with a smoothie made up of Olympic Organic Vanilla Probiotic Yogurt along with a dozen strawberries out of the freezer. A few hours later, after dropping by our local fruit guy to stock up, I munched on a fresh BC apple in the car.

When I headed home around 2:00 I rooted around in the fridge & managed to find some celery & the last of a jar of Adams peanut butter to hold me off until our next meal. A few craisins may have joined in on that action, oh and a little glass of Avalon chocolate milk too!

I say "meal" because it's a fumbling of shoving food into mouths in the brief window of time between picking Mr.C up at the University for 4:00, driving home and eating before I have to leave the house for work at 4:30. It's not really lunch, but too early for dinner...

We were camping on the weekend and had to go without firewood (and therefore a cooked meal) the first night, so we came home with (extra) a couple of thawed out steaks. The campfire packet we ate, the burgers we ate, but the steak? And so, tonight we had ginger beef!

Sigh, these pictures make me sad that the days of naturally lit photo's are numbered. We have terrible lighting in our house :(

What I Ate Wednesday: Spetember 7th, 2011

 

I started my day this morning with two pieces of leftover homemade pizza... the epitome of healthy, I know. I couldn't possibly let these leftovers go to waste though!

Strawberries from the garden plus farmers market cherries and a bit of organic probiotic yogurt in the Magic Bullet made for a midmorning smoothie at work. Snap peas held me through the afternoon until I finished work (a mere 4 hours, not a "real" work day). I picked the boy up from his first day of school & we headed to our seafood place to get some salmon for dinner- yum!

And then it happened. We walked in the door and I headed straight for the bathroom (as usual!). At first I didn't flick the light switch on (as usual...) but then I stepped in a puddle (very UNusual). 

Now, before I go any further let me tell you about the last few months in our house. April brought not one, but two burst pipes and a two month long fiasco involving new drywall, laminate flooring & painting. Last month we had the joy of a flooding via plugged toilet involving black water through our bedroom ceiling (fortunately with less damage, but more stink). 

And now this.

So the salmon went into the fridge and we went for dinner. And drinks. And dessert. With more drinks.

 

The washing machine upstairs leaked through the floor into our bathroom. I sure hope the damage isn't going to be as bad as last time... These things do happen in three's, right?

A Week's Worth of Plastic: Week 24 & Lush Toothy Tabs Review

So I went to Lush this week to (finally!) cash in my 5 empty black pots for a free face mask. Generally this is a store that I walk into, grab what I need & pay promptly, but for some reason Monday's visit was not this way at all. The sales girl was lonely chatty & other customers tied her up once I was ready to pay which led to me inevitably find things I had no idea existed!

 

Like Toothy Tabs. As the search continues on at My Plastic Free Life for a plastic-less toothpaste, these landed in my lap. Available in 6 flavors and packaged only in cardboard they seem like the perfect toothpaste alternative! However, at $4/40 tabs (3 weeks worth basically) they're not terribly cost effective v.s. toothpaste. The instructions direct to chew the tablet between your front teeth to break it up, then brush. The tab was softer than I had expected, but had a bit of a chalky, funny taste. Not quite as minty as I thought it would be. Baking soda is the second ingredient listed, and you can tell. It doesn't bother me much, but it's certainly there. It foamed up quite a bit (to my surprise) and gave a great clean-teeth-feel. I would say that the major deterrent is the price over anything else. Usage-wise, I could see myself using these!  

I am however, a much larger fan of the solid shampoo bars (far left in pic) than anything. Also featured in the picture (L-R) is the (free!) face mask, deodorant bar, Coco lotion, Moisturizer bar & tin (free when you buy 2 moisturizer bars!)

And now, on to this week's plastic pity list...

1. Bacon packaging
2. Face lotion tube
3. Face cleanser tube
4. Twizzlers package
5. 3 Dead/broken pens
6. Goat cheese package
7. 2 Rings from glass milk jugs
8. Deli meat bag
9. Chip bag
10. Wrapping from set of mixing bowls
11. Restaurant straws & skewer from caesar
12. Leaky Ziploc bag
13. Mixed seafood bag
14. Coocnut ice cream tub
15. Label off of old facewash bottle
16. Battery package
17. Several containers from various screws/nails (cleaned out the toolboxes)
18. Cookie package
19. Lid to container of peanuts
20. Packaging from new timer (old one doesn't ring)
21. Packaging from oven thermometer
22. Pull tab & lid from carton of coconut milk
23. Seal from bottle of local blueberry liqueur
24. Packaging from combination lock (old)
25. Daiya bag
26. 2 Lids from glass bottles of vitamins + seal & silica from new bottle
27. Battery package
28. Seal from glass jar of peanut butter
29. Shaving cream bottle
30. Pizza crust package
31. Honey stinger energy chews
32. Garbage bag (not shown)

It's like the spring cleaning bug has hit again-  I can understand going through the office/school supplies this time of year, but WHO cleans out their toolboxes!??! It's a lot of existing plastic that would just be hangin' around the house anyways if it didn't go in the trash. At least all of our screws & nails are in one place now, so we don't go out & buy more when we already have some of whatever we need in the house. It's a step in the right direction...