Our Big Holiday Sale Starts Now!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Want to get the best deals that will be available from now til Christmas? This is it! 20% off store-wide starts today and goes til Monday. Stock up on all of your favorites now by clicking on through this link to have your discount automatically applied.

Please note: Due to very low profit margins on the almonds, walnuts, cashews, and vanilla, this discount does not apply to those. If you need to order any of those items in addition to your sale items, just leave me a message and I will help you get it worked out.

Carrot Cake Waffles

Sunday, November 20, 2011

I saw this interesting recipe posted by Crystal over at Money Saving Mom, and since I just happened to have some cooked carrots left over from dinner, I decided to try it for breakfast the next day, with some healthy tweaks, of course. These were really good, so I'm excited to share this with you:

2.5 cups whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
half teaspoon sea salt
4 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
(Or if you are in a pinch like I was, use 5 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice instead of the ginger and cinnamon)
4 eggs
1 cup pureed cooked carrots
1.5 cups milk, nut milk, or milk alternative (I used fresh cashew milk)
1 cup coconut sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
6 tablespoons of melted butter (or you could use olive or coconut oil)

I used my ninja food processor to puree the carrots along with the nut milk and eggs, then mixed everything else together and cooked in our waffle maker. These smell and taste great! You don't notice the carrots at all. We used pure maple syrup on them. Perfect!

Vegetarian Alternative to Ground Meat!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

So today I have made a pretty cool discovery that will be great for vegetarians or anyone who is just looking for a plant-based and raw alternative to meat every once in awhile. Before today I have only used it as "meat" in a raw chili recipe, but today when my boys were wishing for meat with their pasta, I decided to experiment.

I got the main idea for this concept from Ani Phyo, one of my most favorite raw food recipe people, and tweaked it for my own needs. Here's the recipe:

1 cup raw walnuts--run through your food processor until they are in small little bits, like chopped up cooked ground meat would be

then add in
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Bragg's liquid aminos
2 teaspoons of ground coriander
half a teaspoon of sea salt

Mix it all up and voila! you've got a nice meat substitute! We just added it to the pasta and it definitely did the trick of giving the visual, textural, and flavor of ground meat. Mixing this stuff up takes just a minute (less than cooking meat!) and is certainly less expensive than meat. If you wanted this to taste more like taco flavored, you could add cumin and chili powder. If you wanted it less salty, leave out the Bragg's.

You could use this in salads, chili, casseroles, etc. I hope that you will tell me how it has worked for you!

Walnuts are tremendously healthy for you, especially when raw. (so I would suggest adding this to your cooked and heated foods right before eating, and not heating it, though of course you could) Even if you aren't vegetarian, this is a great way to occasionally add in a powerful nutrient into your diet. Right now we have raw walnuts for sale, so this is a perfect time to stock up.