REVIEWS: French Meadow Bakery and Miessence certified organics

It's Monday and I hope all of you moms out there had a wonderful day with your families yesterday.
My mother-in-law came up on Saturday and we hung out Sunday morning, it was a bit chilly, and watched It's Complicated, very cute and funny movie.  Then my father-in-law and grandma drove up and we all went to dinner.  Very nice.  Oh and check this out!

My mother-in-law designed this gorgeous necklace and earrings.  She picked out and bought the crystals, etc. and her friend put it together for me.  It's even more beatiful in person. Now Dave and I just need somewhere special to go so I can wear it.  

Now for the reviews.

I've been lucky enough to get the chance to review a couple of products from some fabulous companies.  One company is French Meadow Bakery which uses certified organic grains and non-GMO ingredients.  Their baked goods include, breads, bagels and tortillas and range from vegan-kosher-low glycemic and gluten free products. So there is something for everyone!  Most of their breads/bagels are vegan and they are labeled very clearly.  The gluten free products do contain egg whites which was a bummer to us.  I'm hoping they try to come up with a good gf vegan bread.   

  

If you love hemp you will love these!  These Hemp Bagels have a very earthy and hearty taste.  Loaded with hemp, flax, pumpkin seeds, poppy seeds, quinoa..the list goes on, it's just amazing how they pack so much nutrition into these things!  Next was the Spelt Bread which is delicious!  It kind of has a sourdough taste to it, well to us anyways, and the family loves sourdough so this was a winner. We will be buying this bread again. I can't wait to try more of their breads.  My next buy will be their tortillas.  If you go to their website French Meadow Bakery  you can print out a $1 coupon.  Hope you give them a try! 

 I was very excited when I won the Miessence giveaway from Green and Crunchy because I have been wanting to try some of their products for a long time.  Miessence is an Australian based company that uses 100% natural and organic ingredients and is completely free of synthetics.  So Stephanie from Organicology sent me over these wonderful products.  Toothpaste, lip balm and a sample of coconut body milk.  This toothpaste is fantastic! There is no flouride, aluminum, artificial sweeteners or other harsh ingredients. So there  I was sitting on the couch and all of a sudden I realized that I kept rubbing my tongue over my teeth because they were feeling so smooth.  If you ever had braces and then when the braces are taken off and your teeth feel so smooth, well that's the feeling you get after using this stuff.   I know it sounds kind of weird but it's true. The toothpaste has sodium bicarbonate(baking soda)in it, so although you do taste it, it's mild compared to other brands who use it.  Also there isn't a long after taste.  After the first time using this toothpaste I was worried my coffee wasn't going to taste very good but the baking soda taste was already gone.  You are just left with a refreshing and clean taste in your mouth.  Keaton and my mother-in-law also had the same results.  The lipbalm smells lovely and works great as well.  The sample of the tropical body milk is a nice treat to put on the skin.  The smell has a lovely, subtle smell of  coconut with a hint of plumeria and feels so nice.  I think I'm going to try some of their perfumes out.  I haven't been wearing perfume due to the synthetics in them so I've been on the look out for a nice one I could wear.  If you have any you've tried I'd love to hear about them.  

So to some everything up, I had some great success in trying both food and body products from some wonderful companies that care about the environment and our health.

I hope you enjoyed the reviews and try some of them. 

   

I couldn't leave ya'll without a delicious treat now could I?  This is one of the most moist cakes I have ever made and eaten.  It's the lemon coconut bundt cake from VCON.  I made a lemon glaze which I drizzled over the top to balance the sweetness of the cake out.  You have to make this cake!!! 

Have a wonderful day!

Raw Strawberry "Cheesecake"

You know when the alarm clock goes off  and you are still sleepy and you tell yourself, "just 5 more minutes."  Next thing you know it's 40minutes later!!!!  That's what happened this morning.  20min. to get the kid fed, lunch made and in the car to take to school.  I'm still tired...the night before I was letting my dog Cleo in and out of the house all night long because she was sick, must of ate something she shouldn't have...those labs!
Moving on to sweeter things.

I finally made a raw strawberry cheesecake or I should say almost raw because I did add some chunks of dark chocolate in the crust that weren't raw.   I can't wait to try another one...maybe lemon or chocolate?  We scarfed it down.  It was real easy to make, the longest part was the waiting around for it to set up.  I put it in the freezer to set...a little too long cuz then I had to let it defrost a bit. Next time, when I make it earlier in the day, I will chll it in the refrigerator.   It tasted more like a whipped strawberry dessert with an amazing crust.  Keaton and Dave really liked it.  This is a must on a hot summer night!  I adapted the recipe from GLIVING.COM, so you can see the original recipe by clicking here.  All of the ingredients are raw(obviously except the dark chocolate).  I also used coconut oil instead of cocoa butter because I didn't have any.  Below is the recipe of my version of this awesome dessert!

Raw Strawberry Cheescake

1 6-inch cheesecake or 9-inch (for a thinner filling)

For the Crust:

1/2 C. pecans

2 medjool dates

1/4 C. shredded coconut

pinch of salt*

3 oz. dark vegan chocolate, coarsly chopped

1.  In a food processor, process pecans, dates, coconut and salt until mixture resembles fine crumbs

2.  Next add in the chocolate and process a few time just to mix in.  You want some good chunks of chocolate in there.

3. Coat the pan with raw coconut oil. Press mixture into a springform pan.  (I wanted a really thick filling so I used a 6-inch springform pan.)

4. Set aside.

For the Filling:

1 C. cashews, soaked overnight

2 C. strawberries, sliced

1 Oz. coconut oil, melted

1/4 C. agave

1 T. lemon juice

1/2 vanilla bean seeds

1/8 salt*

1.  In a food processor add cashews and pulse until crumbly.

2.  Add the strawberries, agave, lemon juice, vanilla bean and salt until smooth. 

3.  Slowly pour in the coconut oil while the processor is blending until incorporated.

4.  Pour filling onto crust.

5.  Cover with plastic or aluminum foil and chill until set.  4-6 hrs.

Note* the salt I used is called HimalaSalt  .  I have a chunk of it and it came with the grater.

Roasted tomato basil soup and raw nut oatmeal treats

I hope everyone is enjoying there beautiful weekend!  We are just kind of hanging out and enjoying the great weather.

So I know it's not tomoto season yet but I have really had the taste for tomato

 soup.  You see I had it all planned out as when to make this because it was really cold and raining one day last week and I thought, "how perfect to make this on a stormy night."  That's what I did!

I swear this is the absolute best tasting tomato soup.   Years ago I was watching the Barefoot Contessa on t.v. and saw her make this and it looked so easy to make and I absolutely love roasted tomatoes!  You can click here to get the recipe.  I used ripe plum tomatoes for this but sometimes I mix in cherry tomatoes as well.  When the tomatoes are done roasting, break off a piece of  rustic bread and put a tomato on it and it's tastes oh...so...good!  You'll want to save some for the soup though so don't eat all of them. lol!

I also threw in some sliced garlic to be roasted with the tomatoes.  It calls for butter but I didn't use any EB, just olive oil.  I also think fresh thyme is better than the dried for this and the red pepper, I cut back on too.

Hope you try it, you won't be dissapointed.

 

I'm trying to make more raw nut treats to have around so Keaton can just grab them and get his sweet fix.  I tried to make these more like an oatmeal cookie.  These ones have 1/2C. raw almonds, 1/2C. raw cashews, 8/9 dates, 1/2 C. oatmeal, 2Tbsp. shredded coconut, 2Tbsp. flax seed and dark chocolate chunks.  I shaped them into squares.

I'm looking forward to making a raw strawberry cheesecake with Keaton tomorrow.

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Carmelized Onion and Kale Quiche

Happy Wednesday!  Four more episodes of LOST!  For those of you who are fellow LOST fans,

are any of you going to have a party for the finaly?    I still can't believe it's going to end.  Oh well, I just hope the writers don't let us down!

So here is another juice.  Another pretty pic, it looks like sherbert doesn't it?

I juiced carrots, celery, pink lady apple and a beet.

The other night I made another quiche/tart but instead of using firm water packed tofu I used silken firm tofu.  The results are more of any eggy, custard texture which I must say was really, really, really good.  This is a carmelized onion and kale quiche.  I love onions anyways, especially carmelized, yum!  What's so great about these quiches are that everyone loves them and they can't tell it's missing the eggs.  I thought it would be fun to make a nutritional comparisan between a vegan quiche and a non-vegan one. I found a carmelized onion tart online that seems to be on alot of different sites so I went with that one.   The cool thing is on this particular site they already had the nutritional info, easier for me because I only had to calculate  my quiche. The one I found is a carmelized onion tarte  and it's here at http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/caramelized-onion-tart-recipe.  I added kale to mine. 

I actually got 6 servings from my quiche but the one on delish.com says 4 servings so I adjusted my nutritional info accordingly to 4 servings.

                                       Nutritional Information

Egg and dairy version          My recipe                                                    
                                                                 
by delish.com                                                                          
(per serving)

Calories 495                                        Calories 306.25
Total Fat 32g                                       Total Fat  18g
Saturated Fat 13g                                Sat. Fat  2.75g
Cholesterol 204mg                               Cholesterol    0
Sodium 510mg                                     Sodium 444mg
Total Carbohydrate 36g                       Carbs  21g
Dietary Fiber 3g                                  Dietary Fiber 4.75g
Sugars --                                             Sugars --
Protein 15g                                          Protein 15.5 g
Calcium  268                                      Calcium  237

So you can see the difference here, the vegan quiche has 0 cholesterol and less fat. I tried to calculate the calcium content of the egg/dairy tart and came up with 268g of calcium.  The body actually absorbs more calcium from plant foods than from animal products so even though the egg/dairy version has a bit more you are absorbing more from the vegan quiche.  Down below is my recipe.

Carmelized Onion and Kale Quiche
 vegan version

2-3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 medium/lg sweet onions or 2 cups, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups chopped kale, or to your liking (you can skip the kale if it's  not your thing)
1 12.3 oz. box mori-nu extra firm tofu
2 tsp. low sodium white miso
2 tsp. arrowroot powder or 1 T. cornstarch
1/4 c. nutritional yeast
1/4 cup unsweetened soymilk
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of nutmeg

Crust
(This is a crust for one pie but  I only used half of the dough, just so the crust was thin)

1/2 C. +2 T. spelt flour
1/2 C. sorghum flour
1/8 tsp salt
2 T. Earth Balance original whipped(or your choice)
2 T. cold water

I used a 6-inch round stoneware pan so the tart would be thicker.  Oil the pan and I lined mine with parchment paper so when it's done I could take the whole quiche out and then cut into slices.

For the crust:
 In a food processor add the flour, salt and Earth Balance and pulse until crumbly.  Next pour in the cold water and pulse until smooth.  Take out, make a ball, then make a flat disk and wrap in plastic  and put in refrigerator for about an hour. 


Heat oven to 350.

1. When crust is firm, roll out half the dough, or for a thicker crust roll out all of it.  Press into pan, make a few pricks on the bottom and bake for about 10min.  Take out and set aside.

2.  Heat a saute pan and add the olive oil to it.  Next add in the onions and let cook until just beginning to brown, this can take up to half an hour so keep watch and stir every so often.

3.  While onions are carmelizing in a food processor blend until smooth the tofu, garlic, miso, arrowroot, nutritional yeast, soymilk, lemon juice, salt and nutmeg.  Set aside.

4. When the onions are brown and sweet add the kale and cook until tender.

5. Take the onion and kale mixture and spoon it into the processor mixture.  Pulse a few times to combine.
Season to tast with more salt and pepper if wanted.

Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes until firm and lightly brown on top.

Serve warm and along with a crisp salad or cold the next day is really good too.
Enjoy!

It tastes like Brioche and weekend wrap up

Hello to you all and happy Monday!  Hope everyone is having a nice start to their week.

This past weekend Dave had off so that was nice because he only gets a weekend off every 4 weeks. Keaton is still getting over an ear infection, he can't hear out of one ear. He is now on his second set of meds because the first go around didn't work.  I just don't like that he has to be on medication for this long, luckily he hasn't been on any kind of medication in like 5 or 6 years.  So that being said we kind of played it mellow over the weekend.

I started Saturday morning out making french toast for breakfast, Keaton has been begging me to make it for weeks. The bread I used for this a Coconut Cream Bread, the recipe is from Celine just click here or recipe is below.  Just so you know Celine and Joni are in the process of yet another cookbook, this will be the third one they have done together, so I've been testing out recipes for this one as well.

 Anyhooo, back to the bread. This bread is absolutely the most delicious bread I've tasted. No coconut taste here, although I do love coconut, instead a light and buttery tasting brioche like bread. No joke! I can't say enough about this bread. I love it!!!! I left the raisins out because the boys don't care for raisins in their stuff. Now the French Toast Recipe using the bread, well you'll just have to wait a while until the cookbook comes out.

Coconut Cream Bread

by Celine
Have Cake Will Travel

1/2 cup (80 g) raisins
1 tablespoon (15 ml) dark rum
2/3 cup (160 ml) coconut cream, such as Kara™, or full-fat coconut milk
1/3 cup (80 ml) water
1/4 cup (48 g) Sucanat
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 cups (375 g) all-purpose flour, more if needed
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon any oil, to coat bowl
Non-stick cooking spray

Combine raisins and rum. Heat for about 30 seconds in the microwave. Let stand.

Combine cream and water; heat to 100°F (38°C). Add Sucanat and yeast: let stand a few minutes to let the yeast bloom.

In a large bowl, combine 2 cups (250 g) flour and salt.

Add wet ingredients into the flour, and start mixing. Add the remaining flour, as needed.

Transfer to a lightly floured surface and start kneading for about 8 to 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and pliable. Add more flour, a little at a time, if the dough is too wet. Knead in the raisins/rum preparation toward the end of kneading time, until well incorporated. Shape into a ball.

Lightly coat a large bowl with oil. Turn dough around to coat, cover, and let rise for 90 minutes.

Punch down dough,

Lightly coat an 8 x 4-inch (20 x 10-cm) loaf pan with spray. Place dough into pan.

Let rise in a warm place for another hour.

Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C, or gas mark 5). Loosely cover bread with aluminum foil.

Bake for 25 minutes, remove foil. Spray top with non-stick cooking spray, oil, or water. Bake for another 10 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

Remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack. Let cool completely before slicing and storing.

Yield: One 8-inch (20-cm) loaf

The actual recipe for this is called Malibu French Toast, it has a great sauce recipe and a couple other ones for toppings but I only had time to make the French toast part.  Dave said he only wanted a bite of Keaton's to try, well he ended up asking for some after that.  We all really loved this.  The bread really makes for a delicious tasting french toast.

After breakfast we walked to town and hung out there for a while then later we went to see Clash of the Titans.  We were very entertained by it but I think I liked the original movie better.  I mean that cute metal owl flying around and stuff in the original one.  I need to go rent it!

For dinner I made a veggie meatloaf, mashed potatoes and brocollini.  The recipe is from VegNews.  I love trying different veggie loaves and once I started making this loaf I remembered I have made it once before. Mine isn't as thick looking and I think it's because I have a bigger loaf pan.   It's tasty but I think I like it the next day in a salad, sandwich or a chard wrap like I had below.

One chard leaf, shmear of hummus, slice of the veggie loaf, avocado, tomato and cucumber.  Yum!

Sunday we just hung out and let Keaton go play for a while with his friends.  Then in the late afternoon we all went up to Cold Springs Tavern to watch Keaton's guitar teacher's band play.  Can't wait for more of that type of stuff this summer. 

Afterwards we headed back towards home to eat at Grappolo's.  Keaton and I usually order the penne pasta with mixed mushrooms, olive oil and garlic.

That's it for now.  Enjoy your day!

!!! TWEET NOW for FARM SANCTURARY !!!

Hello everyone!  USA TODAY is launching a campaign for charity, check out the article here, and the one with the most tweets gets a one full page colored ad.  So Farm Sanctuary needs us to tweet the following  in these exact words "#AmericaWants @FarmSanctuary to get a full-page ad in USA TODAY."

Just thought I would share what's going on in our house right now.  This is Peanut and Merlin.  We are dog sitting while my in-laws are enjoying a tropical Hawaiian vacation until the end of the month.  What you are seeing is love, well it's totally one sided, Peanut is completely in love with our Merlin.  I swear this dog is completley obsessed!  Merlin tries so hard to ignore Peanut and he does a pretty good job at it. Merlin is probably thinking that Peanut is never going away and I think he is secretly pissed off at us. 

You can't see him but Peanut is standing below Merlin.  Being a cat has it's advantages.

Take a hike and Quinoa Salad

Happy Saturday morning to you.  I hope you are all having a great weekend.  It's supposed to rain tomorrow.  I'd rather it be sunny but I know the more rain we have the better it is for us out here in California.

Lots to catch up on and I have some real pretty pics to share from a hike Dave and I took a week ago.
First let me say my wrist is better, yay!

 Also my son got home safe from his 6th grade trip and he had a great time.  They went to Camp Ocean Pines in Cambria.  One of the first things he said was how good the food was and the head chef was really nice.  The chef told Keaton that he was the first vegan to cook for.  Every night when Keaton went into the kitchen to get his dinner the chef would ask Keaton questions about being vegan.  Also the last two mornings he was served pancakes and french toast( which I was told had bananas in it)so anyways, he thought that was pretty cool.  So being vegan has it's perks! hee hee. Last year in 5th grade and for summer camp he went to Rancho Allegre, which is close to us, and the "Naturalists" there are either vegetarian or vegan so Keaton would eat what they did.  So for dinner he would go to the kitchen to get his meal, which he thought was pretty cool and special.  He ate like, stuffed acorn squash and portobello mushrooms and pasta, sound like meals and a nice restaurant doesn't it?  It's so nice to know that when my kid is at camp he isn't going hungry.

So here are some pic's of the hike we took up in the Figueroa Mountains.  The cool thing about many of the areas where we hike, there are parts that are shady and those grow tons of ferns all those pretty shade plants.  This one to the right looks kind of lilypad like, it felt a bit on the rubbery side. Then when you get into the sunny parts of the hike the plants change.  There is alot of water coming down from those mountains. 

Before heading up the mountain.

This is a view from the highest point we hiked to.  We want to go to the top which is probably an hour longer to get to.

There are california poppies everywhere right now!

The beginning of a pine cone.

There were a few of these pretty blue butterflies in this certain area. 

I must finish the post with a tasty quinoa salad.  The ingredients are listed below.

In a small bowl mix together

2 C. quinoa, cooked

1 small red bell pepper, diced,

3 scallions, chopped

1/2 C. celery, diced

black olives, chopped

1/2 C. sprouted firm tofu, diced

then pour the vinegarette over and mix well

vinegarette:

extra virgin oilive oil

rice vinegar

agave

s&p

Eat at room temp or cold.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!