Recipe of the week: Quinoa Salad

This weeks recipe is by far one of my most favourite new simple recipes. I will say beforehand to cook a batch of quinoa (which can be used for days for salads, or breakfast dishes). I didn't have any quinoa pre-cooked, so before dinner time came, and while I was reading blogs I cooked 

• 1 cup of quinoa
• 2 cups of water
• a splash of coconut oil
• Himalayan salt. 

It cooks just like rice if you've never cooked with it before, so it takes 20 minutes in a pot with a lid. Once its cooked I will take the lid off, and use a fork to fluff up the quinoa before I let it cool a bit with the lid off.

After reading my blogs for the day I took out a nice big salad bowl, and filled it half way with salad greens that I had in my fridge.

                  

Next I took out everything I wanted for the salad

• 4 radishes
• 3 inches of cucumber
• 1 handful of blueberries
• 5 slices of turkey bacon
• 1 cup of cooked quinoa
• Extra virgian olive oil
• Balsalmic vinegar
• Himalayan salt, and my pepper grinder for some fresh pepper 

                  

Mmm, my guilty pleasure- turkey bacon!

                 

Here's my cooled quinoa

                 

                  

Once I chopped up my veggies, and cooked bacon I added it all to the bowl of greens

                  

I don't really measure how much olive oil or balsalmic I use because you either like your salad really saucy, or a bit on the drier side, so I'll leave that to your discretion. 

Salt and pepper to taste.

Here's the final product! It was incredibly yummy, and when I served it to my son he had a great big smile on his face :)

Hope you enjoy! 

                 

Quick, healthy pizza

As promised, here is the pizza recipe I was talking about earlier on in the week.

Once again, I'd like to add that you can modify any of my recipes with what suits your needs. I have a highly restricted diet that keeps me away from a lot of unhealthy options. So a part of my journey is finding quick, but also very healthy food that I can eat.

I started off with a pre-made pizza dough by Sans Gluten Free. I've used so many different types of pizza crust, and this one is by far my favourite because it caters to all of my needs.

Gluten, corn, egg, gmo, tomatoe, and dairy free. Who would think that someone could make a good pizza crust without all of those ingredients? (P.S. This package is a "pizza kit" so it does include tomato sauce if you want to use it for this quick meal). 

You can opt for any other healthy, whole grain pizza crust at your favourite grocery store if that suits you, and just buy pizza sauce for this recipe.

Next on the list is the ingredients:

• A handful of spinach
• 1-2 handfuls of mushrooms
• Pesto sauce (or tomato paste)
• Coconut oil
• Goat cheese (or cheese of your choice)
• Salt and Pepper

And sometimes I like adding turkey bacon if I have it in the house. I'm in love with turkey bacon :)

Preheat the oven at the temperature suggested on the package.

Slice up the mushrooms and cook with oil, salt and pepper. After mushrooms have cooked for about 8 minutes or so, add the spinach, season again, and cover for 2-3 minutes to let spinach wilt (I found if I just add the spinach to the pizza in the oven it doesn't taste as good so I like pre-cooking my vegetables so it tastes better).

Prepare the pizza crust with

1. Sauce
2. Spinach (should be under other ingredients so it doesn't dry out
3. Mushrooms
4. Cheese

Cook for a few minutes in the oven, and viola! Add a glass of white wine (I had Lindemans 2013 Chardonnay) for hot summer days- you've got yourself a perfect, healthy dinner that takes about 15 minutes to make with very little mess!

Road Trip!- Healthy Snack Food

Once again, we are on our way to Lytton BC for some good 'ol relax time, as well as our rescheduled rafting trip that's finally happening this Saturday which I talked about in River Rafting Excursions in Lytton BC   We are very lucky that we may actually be making the very last weekend of my favourite Nahatlatch river run with Fraser River Raft Expeditions! They may run one more time next week but it depends on river levels. 

My giddy little heart is ready, ready, READY to go! 

I think the little girl part of me is finally growing up as I made sure I was home today to finish up the last of my laundry, and prep some food for the 3 hour trip to my grandparents- usually I come home about an hour before we leave to do a stressful last minute pack for the 3 of us  :) But not today!  

I prepared fresh fruit, vegetables, hummus, almond butter, and my favourite kale chips for the trip. My heart is so fond of kale chips. They're super easy to make, and a delicious way to get some greens into a little family on the road. 

The kale bunch was bought at Save On Foods this past week on sale for .99 cents and made the amount equivalent to a big bag of Lays chips. 

Oven prepped at 350f degrees 
2 tbsp of coconut oil
Salt & Pepper to taste

Bake for 10-12 minutes

May I say YUM?!!

Another delicious healthy snack for road trips are Crunchy Roasted Cinnamon Sugar Chick Peas done by Sally's Baking Addiction. The way she makes this snack is by far my top favourite! Try it out for kids snacks etc. You can also try it with different flavours like salt and cayenne, and salt and pepper. 

For those of you who are waiting for little hints of my wedding I PROMISE I'll post tomorrow about it ;)

Baked Quinoa Burgers

I may just die a little bit on the inside after eating these! The other day I found this recipe through Super Healthy Kids who has AMAZING recipes for kids of all ages- but I knew that if I made these I'd be eating them too, they just looked so good!

Super Healthy Kids found the original by Vegetarian Times who did the Crunchy Quinoa Cake recipe.

I had to tinker with it because I can't eat eggs or flour, and I didn't have any red/ white vinegar in my cupboard so I used what  I had at hand (a usual in this household).

• 1 tbsp of chai seeds with 3 tbsp water (egg replacement)- stir and let this sit for 6-7 minutes to thicken into egg consistency
• 2 tbsp rice flour
• 1 1/2 tsp tahini
• 1 1/2 tsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa (I boiled mine in a vegetable broth which I think gave it amazing flavour)
• 1/2 cup finely grated yam
• 1 handful of fresh spinach diced
• 2 oz. regular cheese
• 2 tbsp finely diced onion
• 1/2 tsp salt

If you don't want to sub the rice flour or chia seeds you can follow the original recipe from their website Crunchy Quinoa Cakes

The method to follow this recipe is all just taken from their site. What an easy dish to make!

"Preheat oven to 400°F. Coat baking sheet with cooking spray. Combine egg (or chai seed mix), flour, tahini, and vinegar (I used olive oil) in bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients, then mash together until mixture is firm enough to shape into cakes. Shape mixture into 1/4-cup patties with wet hands. Bake on prepared baking sheet 25 minutes, turning once, or until cakes are browned."

I must say, this dish was a HIT! We even had a friend drop by to help us move some boxes into our new place, and he loved them too! Toli was a bit wary at first and started on the spinach, yes, every mothers dream. He started with the spinach! It didn't take long for him to try them out though, and once he started he didn't stop until he was full :) He even brought some to his Dada who came home full already- such a little sweet pea he is!

For the sauce I used a little dollop of mayo (yes, I know I said I can't eat eggs, but I'm a tad obsessed with mayo for burgers especially so I eat just a little).

I think this dish is going to become a staple in my home. Our friend said it would make a nice side to some protein (even though quinoa already has protein- I can see his point).

Back in Vancouver

Well, now that we're back home it's time to feel healthy again. I'll admit I had one, or two burgers sent to my room for dinner (I ate maybe just a tiny smidgen of the bread), and a few margaritas for Cinco De Mayo during the days with lunch (that's a complete excuse). I will also admit to feeling nutritionally depleted on one day -so I had a salad. 

Still, I'm ready for some good ol' smoothies, and dark leafy greens to feel energized. I'm happy as can be back home with my baby. How much I missed his face, hugs, kisses and snuggles. Nothing will ever beat being with this kid. 

I was listening to Marie Forleo on a Super Soul Sunday episode before I left Las Vegas. She talked about doing EVERYTHING with passion. We think we need to find it, and that's just not the case -according to Marie- she says to exercise it like a muscle, and put passion into everything that we do, so I vowed that day, as we left Vegas, to do just that. 

I must admit, I started off really strong. I passionately ironed the last clean, wrinkled dress I had for the trip, and brushed my teeth as passionately as I could, but as the day went on I got tired. It IS like exercising a muscle!

To be passionate, you must exercise that feeling like a MUSCLE!
- Thanks Marie!

So I will keep up this fantastic practice and put forth more passion to my morning. Because I usually wake up with the first thought of 

"uuhhh, I'm tired" 

And of course, I figured this out after reading some good ol' "The Desire Map". How did I wake up? Feeling exhausted. What did that do to me? It took me a looong time to wake up and get my ass outta bed every morning. How do I WANT to feel? Alive, refreshed, rested, and ready for the day! So tomorrow morning I will wake up with enthusiasm and passionately start off my day by making my bed, and preparing breakfast for Toli and I before we head out for a walk, and go to his toddler dance class.

Here's a smoothie that is one of my current favourites that I've been obsessed with for the past few weeks- so I'm gonna stay simple, and hop back on the health train with a smoothie.
I call this one my

Simple Green Energizing Smoothie

1 banana 
1 cup of blueberries
1 rib of celery
1 tsp of spirulina
1 cup of water
2 tbsp of hemp protien
2 tbsp of chia seeds

Try it out, and let me know what you think!