Worldly Baby Shower

In October I helped host a baby shower for a family friend. But, the baby is still in the belly so no cute baby pictures today. Just some pictures of a fun party.

One of the ideas for the shower was to make it as green and earth friendly as possible as to honour the Mom to be and her personal philosophies. We decided on a theme of Welcome to our World.

The invites were made using old maps from outdated map books and most of the decorations were too. We used cloth napkins and real dishes, which is actually kinda nice.

Map pinwheels and map hearts. All ideas courtesy of, you guessed it, pinterest!

My sis decorated the cake with marshmellow fondant and it was delish as well as geographically accurate.

The food was internationally themed and almost all made from scratch by my sister and my Mom.

Cool idea for the cabbage dip bowl from pinterest (where else?).

And when all was said and done the new Momma had a house full of baby things and I had these beauties left over.

More than a week later my house is still filled with flowers. Lovely.

Banana Ice Cream?

Have I mentioned my great love of pinterest? Well it's great and I love it. I see the coolest strangest things on there. This is one of them.

It is a recipe for "dairy free ice cream" made from just blended frozen bananas. So we tried it. Take slightly over ripe bananas, peel, chop and freeze. Once they are frozen then blend them up until smooth. That's pretty much it! It has the texture of soft serve. We tried it with the magic bullet but it doesn't like to blend without liquid. The hand held blender thingy worked great, but I might have overheated it....

The recipe says it doesn't really taste banana-y but it does. Good, cool, smooth, but banana-y. So we added unsweetened cocoa powder. It made choco-banana-y ice cream. Still good. I will definitely experiment with this again maybe with PB as the recipe suggests or even nutella or vanilla, who knows. Still sweet but low fat, and dairy free if that matters to you.

At least someone thought it was good!

My banana loving child (K) didn't like it. Then again he does like black coffee, rocks and cucumbers (just the outside peel). And pita bread makes him gag. I don't understand either. R and I finished off the rest after it had been in a dish in the freezer for a few hours and it was quite good too, not as soft, but still banana- choco-yummy!

Thankful!

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner here on Sunday night. Fun and relaxed. Both sides of the family hung out, the kids all played so well, and of course the food was yummy! Thankfulness flows pretty naturally from a dinner like this...

My lovely sister took care of the turkey, it was yummy!

And we had lots of room for everyone! Don't you just hate a holiday dinner where you are jammed together? Oops, I just noticed I put the lefties in the middle of the table... in stead of on the end. Sorry guys, I'll think of it next time.

And look what this handsome man made...

One pretty delish pumpkin cheesecake with graham cracker crust...

And two lovely apple pies, his specialty...

Yep, he's a keeper!

Healthy Brownies

****EDITED**********************************************************

I made these once and my hubby was the only one who wasn't thrilled with them. I made them again and even K (who ate half of the first batch) wasn't too thrilled. Not sure what I did differently but they were mighty beany the second time around. That's my warning.

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I have made some healthy brownies before, they had icing and were made with sweet potato. I liked them. A lot. So when I came upon this recipe for Black Bean & Avacado Brownies I thought it was worth a try.

Wow, taking a picture of food is harder than I thought it would be

Well, they are yummy. The kids love them. My hubby even ate some approvingly. They were super easy and are not too bad for you. You probably can tell they are not really rich, but they still taste yummy. The texture is perfect and fudgey.

When I mentioned them on facebook a ton of people responded to the fact that they were gluten free. It doesn't really make much difference in our house but you know I have a fondness for the South Beach Diet/ Zone Diet in terms of healthy eating. No flour definitely helps with less carbs and the avocado is a "good fat".

I got the link off Kalyn's Kitchen a South Beach blog. And the recipe itself came from Cara's Cravings which looks like a good source for lots of fun things.

Enough chatting here is the recipe:

Black Bean & Avocado Brownies

carascravings.blogspot.com 1 (15.5 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained 3/4 cup egg substitute 1/4 cup agave syrup 1/2 of a ripe avocado (60gm) 6 tbsp cocoa powder (30gm) pinch of salt 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 6 tablespoons white sugar (75gm) 2 teaspoons instant espresso Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8x8" pan with parchment paper. Combine black beans, egg substitute, agave syrup, and avocado in food processor. Blend for a few minutes, until completely smooth. Add remaining ingredients and continue blending until fully combined, stopping once or twice to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Spread into parchment-lined baking dish. Bake for 30-33 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the brownies comes out clean. These are best if you let them sit overnight before slicing and enjoying! Nutritional Info Servings Per Recipe: 12 Amount Per Serving Calories: 98.0 Total Fat: 1.2 g Cholesterol: 0.0 mg Sodium: 134.6 mg Total Carbs: 19.5 g Dietary Fiber: 2.7 g Protein: 4.2 g I imagine you could substitute Honey for the Agave if you don't have any/don't like it. She mentions in the post that the agave is needed for moistness. There is a bit of sugar in this one, but it is just a bit. Works out to 1/2 tbsp per serving. Enjoy!

Temping

I mentioned in my 10 + 3 update that I had been eating higher calories this last week. And boy has it been easy. Check out the goodies that were floating around this house last week.

Chocolate Pecan Torte by my sis

Apple pie by my hubby (his specialty)

Two year old Birthday cake by my sis and brother in law

It has been tasty around here!

Meatballs

I am trying to post this as part of Lindsay's FoodIsFuel Friday... we'll see how it works.

I don't really like food. If you know me at all you know I don't really cook (well). I make food for my family but I don't like to.

I am one of those people who could eat the same thing over and over and over and not really tire of it. My hubby however is not one of those people. He loves different flavours and trying new things. He does cook, especially on his days off. Sometimes he even meal plans, he often does the grocery shopping and always does the dishes. So I really don't have to think about it that much. But I feel like I should.

Before kids we were eating a lot of pasta and not a lot of veggies. We both recognized that there was not a whole lot of nutritional content in what we were making so we went to Chapters and bought the ZONE by Barry Sears. I read the science and have heard about it in the media and I ate it for 3 months. I have never felt so well in my life. No headaches, no real cravings, lost weight easily even though we were exercising 5 days a week at that time and didn't have much to loose. I still to this day think it is the healthiest way to eat.

But wow is it a lot of work. EVERYTHING is from scratch. Healthy but tedious. Everything is also measured as it is based on a ratio of 30% fat, 30% protein, 40% carbs (new research on that).

Yes it works, but for me it is not a long term solution - I just don't want to spend hours every day doing food prep.

As time has gone on I have kept a few general principals from the ZONE. Namely protein with every meal, carbs mostly from veggies or low glycemic sources. And healthy fats with every meal (olive oil, nuts, etc). I usually only drink water although when I started recording it I noticed I almost never drink the recommended 8 glasses a day. I don't do this all the time but I do keep it in mind.

One day I came across a blog called Kalyn's Kitchen. She is a foodie. She makes recipes that are yummy and creative. She also follows the South Beach Diet which is fairly similar to the Zone. Healthy fats, low glycemic carbs and more protein. I am in love. Her meals are delicious and healthy, my hubby likes the different flavours and she has a huge selection of recipes for me to search. Did I mention easy to make and the kids like it? Ya, that's what makes it great. The kids like it, they eat it!

One of my favorite of her meals is turkey meatballs. My kids don't like red sauce (well two of them don't really like it) but we make these turkey meatballs and usually steamed veggies and fruit. Yummy. Ok, I do let them dip it in ketchup, but the meatballs are so good they usually just eat them plain!

See the meatballs in the middle at the bottom? Yum.

I made a whole batch up from a mega pack of ground turkey from Costco and froze them all ready for cooking. There ya go. My fast meal idea that is healthy, real food and a family pleaser. What more could you ask for?

Turkey Meatball recipe here.

Another goal update

Last week I did pretty well, cooking about half the time, making homemade apple pie (from the Clean Eating with Kids cookbook) and getting quiet times in most days.

Healthy Apple Pie, pretty good actually but the crust wasn't right.

I'll have to play with that next time.

Still haven't made it for that prayer walk but the weather is great right now, so maybe later this week.

But the kettlebells - oh baby am I ever getting obsessed with kettlebells! I made my goal of doing 2 x 45 min workouts and they were tough. I used Lauren Brooks Ultimate Body Sculpt and Conditioning with Kettlebells.

I also did look into the snatch a bit (with the very scientific info I gleaned for youtube I decided I should master the stuff I am doing right now and work up to using my 12kg bell ( I am currently using an 8kg) before I venture into that teritory.

I used the big papa bell for part of both long workouts and it is heavy. I decided to go back to 3 small workouts for this week and try to use the heavier bell more so I can get stronger (there is no way I could use the heavy bell for the whole 45 mins, I would die, I actualy almost died using it for 4 intervals of my long workout ;^)). So that's the plan, ease into the heavier weight with 3 small workouts. I was so excited about this goal that I have already finished one workout for this current week (I am reporting a bit late). I think I am going to try one of Lauren Brooks workouts from her blog, maybe this one or the quick fat burning one.
That's it!

Sweet No Guilt Treat

If you have had a night shift with me, oh say in the last 6 months, you know I am now very much into Agave Nectar, as a replacement for sugar, honey, syrup, and all things sweet. It is sweeter than honey, it is WAY lower on the glycemic index (means it won't raise blood sugar, won't get stored as fat, is generally better for you), and it tastes good. I discovered a recipe for brownies that have no sugar, only Agave. No white flower, instead spelt and whole wheat flour. And no butter, just olive oil. Oh, and there is cooked sweet potato in there too. Sound gross? Gagging on your crunchy granola? They are not. They are good. So good that my kids love them, even the picky one (that would be K. This is L in the picture). I have to hide them so my kids can't gobble them all up, because they will!

I would give you the recipe, but I left it at work, doh!
Here is a link to someone else who likes them too and took the time to type out the recipe, you gotta try these Brownies.
PS- I just found this blog by googling clean eating brownies, I have no idea what else is on there!
PPS- I recently discovered there is some controversy over Agave brands, I am looking into the Superstore brand to see if it is ok or not. The stuff I get at Planet Organic was highly recommended, so I might go back to that just to be safe.