Raw Chia Cardamom Cocoroons

I love cookies. Who doesn’t right? If they weren’t so void of nutrition I’d likely be popping them all day. I used to be able to eat like that. In fact I used to eat so poorly that I’m surprised I didn’t have a coronary by my senior year.

In high school, I’d polish off an entire medium sized dominoes pizza for dinner and about 10-12 chips ahoy cookies for dessert. All.by.my.self. This was only after my McDonalds breakfast of 2 egg, cheese and ham McMuffins with 2 hash browns and my lunch of a double quarter pounder with cheese with a large fry and soda.

Yes… I’m serious. I ate like that nearly every day until I was 18. I was an active teen, playing water polo and swimming and I have good genes so I never gained any weight, regardless of the fact that I rarely ingested anything green or with much fiber. Although I didn’t get fat externally, my organs were obviously bearing the brunt of the abuse. I suffered from rampant infections; bladder, kidney and yeast, had intense heart palpitations, crippling headaches and I was sick 6-8 times a year. All the while I was never able to connect the dots. I had no idea that what I was putting into my body was affecting my health. Nutrition finally came to my rescue after highschool. I became a more aware individual in every facet of my life; I started reading more, expanding my consciousness and quickly concluded that I would die if I kept eating this way. I completely changed my diet for good by age 22, cutting out soda, fast food and gluten and I’ve never looked back. Now when I crave cookies, I make my own.

These little babies are bursting with healthy fats, fiber, phosphorus, calcium and manganese. They are still cookies and calorically dense so try your hardest not to eat the whole batch in one sitting. I managed to keep my hand out of the cookie jar after my first two. My little one was not fond of my restraint. She unarmed all of her big guns in trying to get cookie after cookie into her little hands. She’s a master manipulator, this one. She should really teach lessons in ‘getting what you want.’

Now that I’m a mama, I hope that I can strike a balance between guiding my daughter on her own path of healthy eating and letting her indulge once in awhile. Forbidding things seems to be the surest way to get children fixated on them.  Plus, I believe that life is about pleasure. These cookies allow my girl to satisfy her sweet tooth all while I inject her with some much needed nutrition. Everybody wins. 😊

 

Ingredients – Makes about 12 golf ball sized cookies

• 1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup coconut butter
• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• 3 tbsp coconut oil
• 1/4 cup chia seeds
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 1/2 tsp almond extract
• Seeds from one cardamom pod, grinder

Process

1. Grind cardamom seeds in spice or coffee grinder
2. Throw all ingredients in a food processor and process for a few seconds, until batter starts to stick together
3. Press batter into little macaroon sized balls (or whatever shape tickles your fancy)
4. Enjoy a few now with a hot cup of tea and save the rest in an air tight container for future taste bud pleasing

XO ~ Sam

My little Marvel is 2, let’s eat cake!

Tuesday was my little love’s 2nd birthday. Yes, I had a precious little Cinco de mayo baby. Poor thing will always have large groups of adults getting wasted on her birthday, a burden she shares with my hubby, born on the 4th of July. Partiers aside, it was a beautiful day full of smiles, sweets and celebrations. 🙂 Marvel has been spoiled silly this year; the celebrations began a few weeks ago at my mother’s house in LA and continued on until last night when we sat down with my in laws for dinner and more cake. I’ve eaten more birthday cake in the last three weeks than I have this entire year. I can’t complain though, I mean really, who complains about cake? The grinch maybe, or fascists? Perhaps nazis would complain about cake. Thankfully I’m none of those things. I absolutely love me some cake.

This delectable cake is a welcome reprieve from the traditional slathered in frosting, chocolate layer cake, that most birthday parties are sporting; which I totally made this last weekend for yet another of Marvel’s birthday parties. This cake is an orange and lemon bundt cake. My mother in law made this in a big flower cake pan so technically the cake you see in the pictures is not a bundt cake but it’s meant to be one. The edges are slightly crusty and taste of caramelized sugar. The inside is moist and spongy with bursts of citrus in every bite. It is an AWESOME birthday cake. Frankly, it is an awesome anytime cake. I ate a small slice after my breakfast this morning. If you haven’t had breakfast dessert yet, let me say, you are sorely missing out. It went absolutely perfectly with my green tea. I made some coconut whipped cream to serve on top and couldn’t have been happier with the pairing. I strongly suggest you serve this cake with some sort of whipped cream. The two go together like peanut butter and jelly. 🙂

 

Triple Citrus ‘Bundt’ Cake

Adapted from a Martha Stewart Recipe

 

Ingredients

Cake

• Coconut oil for greasing
• 2 3/4 cups flour (I used a gluten free blend of sorghum, teff and white rice flour)
• 3 lemons
• 2 large oranges
• 1 cup coconut sugar, processed super fine in a spice grinder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup coconut cream
• 6 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups coconut oil

Syrup

• 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
• 1 cup coconut sugar, processed super fine in a spice grinder

Process

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Grease a bundt pan with coconut oil
3. With a sharp knife, cut away the peel and the white pith of a lemon. Holding the lemon over a bowl, cut between membranes to release segments in the bowl. Here is a handy video on how to do this. Squeeze juice from remaining membranes into another bowl. Repeat with remaining 2 lemons and 2 oranges
4. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a bowl
5. Add coconut cream and using an electric beater, beat until combined
6. Add eggs one at a time beating to combine
7. Beat in coconut oil and citrus juices
8. Add citrus segments and beat on low just to combine
9. Transfer batter to pan and bake rotating pan once until a toothpick comes out clean, about 45 minutes. (If you are using a flatter, larger pan like I did, it will take about 15 minutes less.)
10. When cake is done, set on a wire rack to cool for about 20 minutes
11. Transfer cake to a shallow dish
12. Brush top and sides of cake with syrup below
13. Add some sort of whipped cream and make your mouth happy. 🙂

Syrup

1. Bring citrus juices and processed coconut sugar to a boil in a saucepan stirring until sugar is dissolved, boil for 30 seconds more

 

 

 

 

 

Raw Energy Balls

The clan and I have been doing quite a lot of traveling around these last few weeks. Moving, visiting friends, flying to LA to spend a few days with my family, driving to the beach an hour away for some fun in the sun… all of our little excursions require that we have handy sustenance for the road. Fruit and nuts are our go to car snacks but sometimes it’s nice to have a special treat to nosh on to make that hour fly by more quickly. 

These bite sized date balls are that perfect special treat. They are sweet enough to feel like an indulgence yet healthy enough to gobble up 6 of them without feeling those all too familiar pangs of regret. I whipped these up in just under 5 minutes. How groovy is that? Groovier than bell bottoms that hug John Travolta’s perfectly sculpted butt in Saturday Night Fever, I reckon. 😉 

You can dress these up with any of your favorite extras. I rolled a few of them in raw cacao powder for an elegant antioxidant boost. You could dip them in melted chocolate if you wanted a more decadent dessert ball. I found that these satisfied my ever present sweet tooth just fine as is.

Raw Energy Balls

Ingredients

• 1 cup walnuts
• 1/2 cup Dates
• 1/4 cup almond butter
• 1/3 cup chia seeds
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup shredded coconut
• 1/4 cup cacao nibs
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1/4 tsp salt

Process

1. Place all ingredients in a food processor 
2. Process until ingredients are finely chopped and starting to stick together
3. Roll into bite sized balls and decorate however tickles your proverbial pickle. 

XO ~ Sam

Inspiration Station

Inspiration comes to me in many forms. Sometimes it’s a gentle whisper that I nearly miss, sometimes it’s a screaming fire in my belly that insists I act immediately and other times it’s a sweet nudge from a wonderful friend. This blog post was inspired by such a friend, her name is Aurore and she has nominated me for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award.

I’m honored to accept and share the love with other inspiring bloggers. Thank you for the nomination sweet friend, as I’ve said to you before, being recognized as an Inspiring blogger by such an inspirational person means a lot to me. Aurore writes a truly awesome blog, Pamplemousse, where she shares her wholesome recipes, her workouts, (she’s a badass personal trainer who has lovingly kicked my ass on more than a few occassions) and her insights on raising three children the healthy way. She is an incredibly beautiful person, in body, mind and spirit, who inspires all who has the good fortune of meeting her. She’ll inspire you too, I’d just bet on it.

So here are the rules,

1. As the recipient you should thank the person who nominated you by linking to his/her blog and displaying the award logo;

2. Nominate up to 15 other blogs. Link to their blogs and inform them about the nomination;

3. Share three things that inspired you the most this week.

I only began my journey in this blogoshpere a brief 5 months ago now, so I haven’t become intimately involved with too many blogs just yet, although I am working on broadening my horizons. 🙂 Here are 4 that I have come to love in that short time…

Story time with John – If you like to laugh, John is your man. This guy is funny, like make sure you aren’t eating while reading his posts or you may choke funny. I know this from personal experience. Fortunately I live to tell the tale. If being hilarious isn’t enough to inspire you, John also seems to be a genuinely good guy. He is a grade school teacher and you can feel how much he cares about these kids through his writing.

Bubbles and Booyah – This girl is just pure awesome sauce. Her upbeat energy is completely contagious. I’ve never met this lovely lady but I feel like I know her through her candid and detailed accounts of her awesome life as a vegetarian, champagne lover and self proclaimed running addict. Along with sharing her fun and fit lifestyle, she also shares recipes, ideas on how to best pack your carry on and her awesome workout playlists. She is pure fun and I just love reading her blog, I think you will too.

The Migrant Chef – I get hungry every time I peruse through this chef’s insanely delicious looking blog posts. He apologizes for his unprofessional looking photos but I heartily disagree. His photos are beautiful, they are well lit and nicely showcase the beauty of his food. If a photo can make you drool, then it is doing it’s job and his photos do just that. His recipes are vast and varied. With dishes ranging from minestrone soup to a decadent looking lamb shank, you will be sure to find something to suit your tastes.

The Friendly Fig – I actually just came across this gorgeous blog about a week ago. The authors are two women, Bianca and Sara who share vegetarian/vegan recipes, (vegan cherry donuts anyone?) cruelty free beauty products, fun playlists and photos of hip fashion that they love. Their pictures are high quality and visually captivating, their vibe is young, fresh and forward thinking. They are totally my style and I am thrilled to have found them. Follow them, you’ll be happy you did.

Now that the love has been spread, onto my weekly inspirations. My week has been full of inspiration so I happily have much to share with you.

Inspiration #1: Sprouts!

I am so excited to report that I started sprouting! I’ve been wanting to do it for years and I finally got down to it this week. Sprouted food is higher in enzymes, fiber, vitamin content and essential fatty acids than it’s non sprouted cohorts. Sprouts are also alkalizing to your body. An acidic body can be a host to all manner of illness, so sprouts help to bring the body to a healthier place of alkalinity. I got this really nifty sprouting tray that takes any guess work out of the process. I soak my seeds, place them in the tray, water them three times a day and within 2 days, the sprouting had already begun. By day 7 my sprouts were completely finished and ready to enjoy. Since I have so little counter/storage space in my home this upright tray makes more sense for me than having a few mason jars sprouting at a time. I love this tray, I love my sprouts and they are happily inspiring my insides as we speak. 🙂

Inspiration #2: My little Marvel.

 

This girl has blown the lid off of me. Sometimes I don’t know who I am anymore. Sometimes I don’t know how I ever breathed a breath without her. Forever I am head over heels in love with this funny little girl named Marvel. Our connection has gotten stronger this last week. With every personal stride she makes, our bond seems to strengthen along with it. She looks at me these days with the knowing look of an old soul. She runs into my arms and holds me tight, cooing as she squeezes. Sometimes she just holds me like that for 2-3 minutes, which is a veritable lifetime for a wiggly toddler. I’ve never known such heart expanding happiness. As hard as it is to be a mother, the joy that is possible in a single moment has the power to wipe all of the other bullshit away.

Inspiration #3: This gorgeous piece of art hanging in my dining room.

I love art. Who doesn’t right? It can capture about a million emotions in one frame. It has the power to illicit completely different reactions in each observer. It is timeless. It is the beauty of the human spirit translated into something tangible. This gorgeous piece was painted by my great friend, Ruby Lee. She is a work of art herself. This girl is my friend, my sister and she painted this just for me. In fact it is me, a modeling shot I did a few years ago. She painted it per request of my husband for my 30th birthday. The fact that she spent hours and hours creating art just for me brings tears to my eyes. It’s perfect and it inspires me everyday. This reminds me of the love of a great friend and of the infinite creative possibilities that live in each one of us.

Inspiration #4: The sun. (Because I couldn’t pick just 3!)

This past week the Bay Area has been enjoying absolutely perfect weather. The sun has been offering up it’s delicious rays while a slightly crisp coastal breeze has been cooling us off just when the heat gets too intense. In this sun I have been playing outdoors with Marvel and my camera, I’ve been hiking with great friends, I’ve been outside so much that I’m even sporting a little sunburn. Hello summer in February! Nothing inspires me more than playing outside in the sun. Now if I can just get myself to the beach to breathe in that ocean air, I’ll really be winning! 🙂

 

DIY Beach Day Texturizing Hair Spray

I was fortunate enough to grow up in sunny Southern California, where the weather is always perfect. During the summer, I spent most weekends at the beach, soaking up yummy rays and swimming in the ocean. My skin was always sun kissed and my hair always boasted that effortlessly tousled, perfectly set waviness. In the winter when the beaches were a chilly 60 degrees, 😉 I’d have to find alternative ways to mimic that beach day hair. The first hair product that I ever purchased was a beach blonde salt spray by John Frieda. I looooved that stuff. It really did achieve that perfect bouncy beach wave that I got organically from a day of swimming in the ocean and lounging in the salty sea air. The problem with John Frieda? I mean I’m sure he’s a nice enough guy but just look at the ingredient list for my favorite spray,

WATER, MAGNESIUM SULFATE, ALCOHOL DENAT., PROPYLENE GLYCOL, SALICYLIC ACID, SODIUM BENZOATE, FRAGRANCE, PVP, CITRIC ACID, SEA SALT, BENZYL ALCOHOL, BENZOPHENONE-4.

Water, I know that stuff! And sea salt sounds familiar, awesome. Fragrance… well that’s vague. The other stuff? Can’t pronounce it, don’t want it on my body. Period.

Although it’s raining today here in the east bay of a Northern California, I woke up craving the beach. These last few weeks have been hard for me, my mood has been low and my energy non existent. I’m going to get some thyroid testing done on Monday to investigate whether an under active thyroid may be the cause of my issues. For now, I think I just need some more Vitamin D in my life. My hair, straight and listless is begging for some bounce. I decided that some natural, chemical and preservative free hair love might turn that frown upside down. I’ll tell you, it certainly helped. John Frieda’s got nothing on this stuff. 🙂

All Natural Beach Day Texturizing Hair Spray

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup Hot filtered water
• 1 tbsp Sea salt
• 1 tsp vegetable glycerin
• 1 tbsp Meadowfoam seed oil
• 1/2 tbsp Argan oil
• 1/2 tbsp Jojoba oil
• 1/2 tsp Vitamin e
• 5 drops Rosemary essential oil
• 8 drops Lemon essential oil
• 1/4 tsp mica powder (*optional)

Process

1. Using a glass bowl on top of a tea kettle, heat up water.
2. Add sea salt and mix until dissolved
3. Add glycerine and stir until incorporated
4. Next add all oils and mix together
5. Take bowl off of the heat
6. Add in mica and essential oils and stir to incorporate
7. Using a funnel, pour contents into an airtight spray bottle and store in the refrigerator for several months.
8. Shake bottle before each use.

*The mica in this recipe gives a really beautiful pearlescent shimmer to the hair, I love it. If you don’t have it on hand and aren’t interested in purchasing it, just leave it out, it is completely optional.

Another note- Meadowfoam oil is full of long chain fatty acids. It’s great for hair because it adds moisture without that greasy feeling and adds a beautiful shine. If you don’t have it on hand however, just use melted coconut oil, more jojoba or argan.

Look at this lovely ‘just spent a day at the beach’ texture! My hair is naturally pretty stick straight so this is an awesome result.

My little Marvel just had to try some too. Her hair naturally waves due to her Daddy’s curly, absolutely luscious black hair. This spray definitely defined and enhanced what she was already graced with. Just look at those curls!! ❤

All natural healing salve – soothes diaper rash and more!

Diaper rash sucks, plain and simple. To watch your sweet little girl endure a red, inflamed, bumpy rear end is just no fun. Sucks, sucks, sucks I tell you. I let her run around most of yesterday without a diaper on to allow her skin to air out. This led to many pee soaked towels… Nothing I can’t handle. The big poo we had to remove from the kitchen floor was my favorite part though. Hey, if she had gone in her diaper we would have had to scrape the smashed poop from all over her butt cheeks, so maybe we were given a gift this time. No one ever said being a mother was glamorous, no one.

You don’t need to have wee ones to find benefits for this balm. It can be used as a calming salve for skin conditions such as psoriasis or eczema, to treat minor scrapes or rashes, soften cuticles or simply to moisturize chapped skin. If you do have little ones I would say this treatment is hands down the best way to soothe diaper rash. In the 21 months that I’ve been a mama to my Marvel she has gotten maybe 4 or 5 diaper rashes. She’s one of the lucky ones, that’s for sure. When a rash has flared up in the past I have used arrowroot powder, shea butter or even an organic store bought butt paste. This method has proven more effective than all of them. I whipped this up quicker than you can say the ingredients out loud, slathered her irritated bum with it and within a few hours it was a few bumps away from being completely cleared up. I wish I would have gotten a before and after picture for you but it totally escaped me in all that bodily function cleaning mayhem.

All you do to make this is mix 1-2 tbsp of coconut oil with a 5-10 drops of tea tree and/or lavender essential oils. That’s it. For reals! Totally effective, all natural rash soother. Like I said earlier, this mixture would be wonderful for healing minor cuts, scrapes, burns, bug bites, chapped skin, the list goes on.

Coconut oil is incredible. It contains lauric acid, which kills harmful pathogens like bacteria, viruses and fungi. Breast milk is the only other natural source that contains such a high concentration of lauric acid. So unless your boobs are secreting this miracle liquid, get yourself some coconut oil. It’s a hippies Neosporin – but you can eat it and it smells like a tropical vacation. It rocks my proverbial socks off. If you don’t keep coconut oil in your house at all times I would strongly suggest you do. It’s awesomeness knows no bounds! I get mine from Costco. The brand they carry, Nutiva is organic and responsibly farmed. It’s the cheapest organic coconut oil I’ve found at $28.00 for 78 oz. Killer deal!

XO
Sam

Zucchini Onion Bites

The battle to get my 20 month old to eat her vegetables has been waging for a few months now. There was a time not so long ago when she would eat nearly anything I put in front of her. Oh the good old days. Now that she is starting to understand her own power and her ability to choose, she is exercising it at every opportunity. The fact that she is flexing these newly formed muscles makes me happy, mostly anyway. This means that she is right on track to becoming a strong, independent girl. Fantastic! However, when it comes to making sure she is getting the proper nutrition for her little growing body, this strong will is thwarting my good intentions. It can be extremely frustrating when I work hard to prepare a meal that I know will do her body good and she doesn’t even try the green stuff. In recent desperation, I’ve been exploring new tactics to get her to eat more veggies. Turns out she is old enough to understand the concept of ‘eat your dinner and you’ll get dessert’. Before I had a child of my own, I swore up and down that I’d never bribe my kids. That went out the window as soon as I realized how powerful a tool it was. 😉 My husband got me an ice cream maker for Christmas. I foresee much more dessert bribery in my future. In the meantime, I’m always implementing the tried and true method of hiding vegetables in other food that I know she loves. Works every time.

These bites are AH-MAZING. I made the batch yesterday and we’ve already eaten nearly half of them. I’ve packed 24 bites (the equivalent of a dozen muffins) with an entire onion, 2 carrots and 1 large zucchini.

The flour I used to bind it all together is toasted quinoa flour. All you do to make it is grind 2 cups of uncooked quinoa in your coffee grinder. Spread the flour out on a baking sheet and bake in your oven on 220 degrees for 2 hours. Roasting the flour like this will take out the intense grassy flavor that plain quinoa flour can have. Store in a tightly sealed jar for months!

I’ve also added a healthy dose of turmeric, one of my favorite spices to use in my cooking. Turmeric boasts a long list of health benefits such as containing powerful antioxidants and being a potent anti-inflammatory. Inflammation in the body of any kind can be the start of a myriad of health problems. The foods we are putting in our body are either feeding disease or fighting it; turmeric is certainly in the latter category. An important bit of information about turmeric – it is fat soluble, which means that it dissolves in fat. Without fat, the active component in turmeric, curcumin, has a difficult time making it past the stomach, into the small intestine, and into the blood where it can offer the greatest benefits. So whenever I cook with turmeric, I always add a healthy fat like ghee to the recipe as well. I also always add black pepper when I’m using turmeric. Here is why,

One problem with curcumin is its low levels of bioavailability. Most of the curcumin that is ingested gets metabolized before it can get absorbed. Piperine is said to help make curcumin more bioavailable. This could be because it could inhibit certain intestinal digestive enzymes. This increases the amount of any drug or supplement that can be absorbed by the body. They also do not get degraded quickly. Hence, there are studies to test if co-administering curcumin with piperine could improve the bioavailability of the former. These studies have been conducted on humans and laboratory animals. One study found that when even 2g of curcumin was ingested, its serum levels were very low. However, when 20mg piperine was added to curcumin the bioavailability increased by 2000%. The bioavailability, serum levels and levels of absorption of curcumin all improved dramatically. Thus, if one tales turmeric, most of it is unutilized unless supplemented by addons such as black pepper.

So dear readers, if you want to up your body’s ability to reap all of the yummy benefits of this super spice, use a healthy fat and black pepper when cooking with it. I’ve done just that in my zucchini onion bites.

Zucchini Onion Bites

Ingredients

• 1 medium yellow onion finely chopped
• 2 medium carrots grated
• 1 large zucchini grated
• 3 cloves of garlic minced
• 3 eggs beaten
• 1/2 cup toasted quinoa flour
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 cup ghee
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

Process

• Set oven to 350 degrees
• Add ghee to a skillet on medium heat and cook until melted.
• Once melted, add onions and cook for a few minutes, until translucent.
• Next add garlic and let cook for another minute or so.
• Add carrot and zucchini and mix until everything is nicely combined. Cook for another two minutes or so.
• Take off heat and place in a large bowl to cool.
• Meanwhile beat eggs lightly in a medium bowl.
• Add grated Parmesan and spices to eggs as mix lightly until just combined
• Once veggie mixture is cooled, add egg mixture to it and mix until combined.
• In a small bowl mix flour and baking powder, then add to large bowl with eggs and veggies and mix together until evenly combined.
• Pour batter into greased mini muffin tin or if you don’t have a mini muffin tin, scoop out 2 tbsp worth of batter and place bites onto large greased baking sheet to cook.
• Bake in oven for 18 minutes.

My daughter, husband and I are all delighted with the yummy outcome. Look how cute she is chowing down! If she only knew how much of the yucky vegetable stuff she was eating… Muahahahahaha! 🙂