Recipes, Fruit Flies & Garden Update

Ahhh, I felt wealthier today. Do you ever just sit back for a few minutes and count your blessings, only to realize how truly blessed you are? Well, I definitely had a moment like that. We spent the day doing yard work: mowing, weeding, weed-eating, gardening, etc. It was in the 90s, so we were pretty crispy burnt by the time it was over, but looking around at the backyard, seeing how much plenty our garden is producing, and how grateful my family is for this adventure called life...and how rich we truly are in blessings! Here are a few pictures that my husband took after it was all done. I think the trellises will do really nicely for the greenie beanies and cucumbers.

Look in the back of the 1st picture: compost bins ready to go and......rainbarrels! Woo Hoo! Let's use the water from the sky before using the water from the tap! I'm excited for this added feature!
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So, a few tips: if you have a plethora of fruit flies at your house, put a small amount of apple cider vinegar in a cup, along with a drop of soap. Mix it, and then watch the flies DIE! Bahahaha! I hate pesky fruit flies, bleh! We do this once a week just after grocery shopping and our kitchen is pretty much free of the little buggers.
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I have been making some super fun recipes, compliments of Simple Healthy Tasty-see the link to the right, she is FABULOUS!!  First of all, CHEEZY SAUCE! We are really trying to stay away from dairy, so imagine my giddiness when I found this little baby, and it is so YUMMY! We had sloppy joes, healthy style. I have adjusted the recipe a bit because I didn't like the original very much. It's more like a "Taco Joe". :)

First of all, I made homemade whole wheat jumbo rolls instead of buying them at the store.

Then, I made the following:

Mushroom and Rice Cheezy-Q's

6-8 ounces fresh mushrooms, chopped small

1/2 onion chopped

3 cups cooked brown rice

Olive Oil to taste

Large can of tomato sauce

Taco Seasoning to taste

Place some oil and the onion in a large frying pan, chop up the fresh mushrooms add to the pan saute for a minute then add the rice, sauce and seasoing, stir until it is hot remove from heat. Put your roll/bun on your plate and spoon some Mushroom concoction, followed by Cheezy Sauce. Eat open-faced style.

Cheezy Sauce

1 ½ cup raw cashews

3/4 cup chopped red bell pepper

2 garlic cloves

1/2 cup nutritional yeast

3 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

½ teaspoon chili powder

½ cup water

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Place all ingredients in blender. (Wet ingredients first!) Blend until smooth. Use as a sandwich spread, a dip for crackers or veggies, for nacho cheese, or anything else you want to use it for.

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Sunday Dessert night was chocolate cake, coconut cream sauce and fresh berries.  Here is the recipe:

Super Moist German Chocolate Cake

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

3 T. sifted cocoa powder

1 t. baking soda

1 c. Sucanat

1/2 t. sea salt

5 T. coconut oil

1 T. apple cider vinegar

1 T. vanilla

1 cup cold water

Put your flour into mixing bowl, add cocoa, baking soda, sugar and salt and mix well.Make three deep holes in the dry mixture. Into one, pour the oil, into the next, pour the vinegar, into the next, pour the vanilla.Pour the water into the bowl, over all of this.Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until there aren't any more lumps and pour into a 9x9 inch baking pan.Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, test with fork.Can also be made into cupcakes, bake for 15 minutes.

Top with whipped Creme and fresh berries

Whipped Creme

Take a can of coconut milk (not light kind) and get cold in fridge. Open the can and with a spoon, spoon out only the thick stuff. Put into a small food processor or blender, and add about 3-4 Tablespoons Sucanut and ½ teaspoon vanilla.

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So, a local health food's store is going out of business (sad!), but yay for 50-75% off of their products! I've never bought vanilla bean before, and have never even seen it, but when I saw it was 50% off, I had to snag some. I went home and made these little babies to go with the super hot day we were having.
Here is a picture of vanilla bean, if you've never seen it. They smell sooooo good!!!!

Healthy Vanilla Milkshake

2 cans coconut milk
2 frozen bananas
1 Tablespoon melted coconut oil
2 Tablespoons Agave
1 small handful macadamia nuts (I used raw cashews)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Vanilla bean, just the inside scraped out (optional)
4 cups ice

In blender blend everything but ice until smooth.  Add ice blend again until smooth.  Drink right away or if you like a really thick milkshake, place in freezer for 1-2 hours then stir well and drink!