Beef Stew and blueberry icebox dessert

This morning I got busy in the kitchen. I haven't used my slow cooker in a while and asked my hubby if there was something he would like me to make and he suggested a beef stew. Therefore I pulled out a cookbook that I have had for years, and made the beef stew from the eat clean diet

In a zip lock bag, add 1/3 cup of flour (I used spelt), 1 tbsp of Oregano, 1 tbsp of basil, and 1/2 tsp of Salt and pepper. Add your beef cubes in the bag and shake it up till it's all coated. In a pan, add olive oil, and brown the beef cubes, then add to the slow cooker.

Chop up the following vegetables:
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic (minced)
2 carrots
2 parsnip (I used turnip instead)
4 celery stalks
2 sweet potatoes
Water chestnuts (1 cup)

Add all vegetables to the slow cooker, then add 3 cups of beef stock and 1 tbsp of tomato paste. I also use some of the left over flour and herbs (3 tbsp) mix it in a bit of beef broth and add to slow cooker to help thicken it up more. I have put mine on high for 2 hours, then brought it down to low to continue to cook until supper. I got up a bit late this morning, so decided to cook it on high for a few hours.

I also prepared a dessert that I haven't made in a long time, but it's one of our favorites. This is a raw dessert, from Ani's Raw Food desserts

She puts Pineapple for hers, but I put blueberry. I have tried it with pineapples and it is very good, but I have plenty of frozen blueberries in my freezer. This dessert is very easy to make, and no cooking involved, which makes it great for a very warm day. Here's how you make it:

Crust:
2 cups cashews
Seeds from 1 vanilla bean or 1 tbsp alcohol-free vanilla extract
2 tbsp agave syrup

Put all the ingredients in a food processor and mix well. You will need to stop it and scrap the sides a few times. Take half and put it at the bottom of a loaf pan, I used a glass container with a lid for easy storage in the fridge. Press down to form a crust at the bottom.

Filling:
1 1/2 cups cashews
1/3 cup agave syrup
1/4 cup liquid coconut oil
1/4 cup filtered water, as needed
2 1/2 cups chopped cored pineapple (or any fruit of choice)

Combine all the filling ingredients except the fruit into a high speed blender and blend until smooth, adding water as needed to create a creamy texture. In a mixing bowl, add your filling and fruit and stir to mix well. Spoon the filling into the loaf pan and sprinkle the remaining crust on top. Freeze for 2 hours, or until chilled.

Will keep for 4-6 days in the fridge or for several weeks in the freezer.

This is before I put the crust on top.

Something I have found out recently is that agave syrup is apparently not so healthy for us, it is processed, and we should use either raw honey, maple syrup, dates, stevia, yacon, coconut sugar, or molasses. I do have a big jar of agave syrup so I will use it up here and there, but once it's gone I will stick to maple syrup, I find it does taste similar to agave syrup.

Also, for the above recipe, you may be thinking that is a lot of cashews, but know that nuts are healthy for us, and if your not a fan of cashews you can use something else. I have used almonds before, for this recipe, or a mix of almonds and cashews. It's all about having fun in the kitchen and with changing it up, you create new flavors.

Joy McCarthy (Joyous Health Cookbook)

I'm still excited about my night so decided to post it now. I got to meet Joy McCarthy tonight, the author of Joyous Health. I went with a friend, and had a wonderful night. My friend made this delicious pasta, and we had a yummy apple caramel pie for dessert, then we went to the book signing. I of course got my book signed

She did a wonderful presentation on health. I'm learning that having a healthy gut is really important, and she talked quite a bit about that, and mentioned about the Greens + and Greens Whole body, the difference is Greens + is just vegetables and fruits (powder form), but the whole body is fermented vegetables which helps to have a healthier gut because there are a lot of good bacteria that our gut needs. She talked about drinking water with lemon every morning, which I already do, but she said to make it even healthier, is to add the Green + or whole body, so I did buy the whole body, which I got to try both tonight and they really don't taste bad at all. She also talked about all the bad toxins we take in on a daily basis, like pollution, cleaning products, beauty products, and the wonderful pesticides they put on food, and how it's important to eat healthy and to get as much nutrients as we can. And to eat as organic as possible, especially the dirty dozens. So much great information, and I even had a chance to talk to her for a little while, and I asked about endometriosis, and she suggests a diet free of dairy, sugar, caffeine, and to have a gluten free diet, as all of these cause inflammation. I mentioned meat, and she said that yes that can also cause inflammation. I actually never heard of going gluten free before for endometriosis. I would have loved to talk to her for a lot longer, but there was others that wanted the opportunity.

I also got the opportunity to take a picture with her

She's such a wonderful person, and you can tell that she's healthy. She just has this glow and I hope to get to that point. Now that I have met her, she's truly a person I look up to, and will finish reading her cookbook so I can get all the wonderful information she has shared. She also mentioned that she's working on another book about detoxing, which she mentioned we should detox every day, and one of those things is starting with a glass of water with lemon, and if you can to add Greens + or whole body. As well, she talked about how important it is to take time for ourselves on a daily basis, even if it's just 5 minutes, and yoga and meditations are also great things for us.

Tonight really got me motivated to work harder at being healthy. For a while I wasn't doing so good with everything going on, but working on getting back on track, and so far I'm doing pretty good.

Thank you Joy for a wonderful evening, and very happy you came to Ottawa and that I got to meet you.

Health

This week has been about health, even some Joyous Health. A friend of mine told me how Joy McCarthy will be in Ottawa this coming week, and I'm going with a friend tomorrow to meet her and I hope to get her to autograph my book. I will let you know about my night.

This week I have been getting back into exercising. During my lunch hour I went to the gym, been running a bit more and feels great to be moving again. Although the last 2 days I haven't done much thanks to twisting my knee while playing baseball but it's gettiing there, and will get to the gym tomorrow.

Since I'm going to the book signing, I thought I would try a few more of her recipes. I made the Goji Berry Glory muffins, and they are awesome. They are loaded with so many things like carrots, coconut, apple, goji berries, and other amazing ingredients, they are a must try!

This morning I made the coconut flour banana panckaes, although instead of banana I put blueberries. My hubby didn't like them so much but I did. The first attempt at cooking them I made it to big and it was hard to flip the pancake over so made a mess with it, but the second round turned out better. It made quite a few pancakes so now I have them in the freezer for a quick healthy breakfast. Next time I make them I will try it with a banana,

I also realized that I haven't taken the time to read her cookbook and so far there's some great information. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow night. Will post about it very soon.

Organization

Yesterday I decided to get myself organized by chopping vegetables. First I grabbed the lettuce and chopped it up with my plastic knife (can use a metal knife but the greens tend to brown more quickly). Once all chopped up, I put it in my trusty salad spinner to give them a good wash

Then I put it all into a large zip lock bag. I also cleaned and chopped my radishes, celery and broccoli. You'll notice in the picture below that I kept the stems of the broccoli, they are great to put threw the juicer, or even to chop up and add to salads, soups or stews. They have lots of nutrients in the stems as well, and why throw away something that you can eat.

 With chopping your vegetables ahead of time, it makes it easier to grab when your in a rush. With those vegetables all prepared, I can easily put together a salad, or just grab some to snack on. Since I was having fun in the kitchen, I also prepared a coleslaw, and made some chocolate chip cookies. For supper we enjoyed small steaks on the BBQ with the coleslaw and some mashed potatoes.

Yesterday I took out some dough from the freezer, and will roll it out, create squares, and then put fruit in the middle and fold it over and bake those in the oven. Will be a great dessert, and for supper I am making macaroni (I use brown rice pasta) with tomato sauce, and will of course add lots of vegetables. If there's left over, it will make a great lunch at work.

It only takes a bit of time to get yourself organized in the kitchen over the weekend, and then it makes things a lot easier during the work week to put together lunches, snacks and suppers.

Camping

My hubby and I took 2 weeks off work, and left last week on Monday to go camping in Sudbury. He was able to help out his dad around camp, and I did a lot of reading. I had read the first 2 books of hunger games, so brought the third book with me and was able to read it all. Weather during the week wasn't so nice, it was cold and rainy, but time still went by really fast, and it was nice being out in nature.

Wednesday of last week, I decided to head out for a run, and it was great. Ran 3 km which took me 20 minutes. Not my best time, but not bad considering I haven't been running much lately. What made it even better is jumping into the river once I was done my run, it was a great way to cool down. We had time to play cards, and I even got to feed the chipmunk

I even got him up into my hand a few times. He's so cute! Most nights we would cuddle up around a fire, which this one night, my father in law put in this awesome log, there was a hole in the middle so the fire was coming out of it, it was cool to see

Over the weekend it was finally nice outside, so got to go swimming again, and we went out on the boat and did some fishing. I caught a very tiny pike, so it got thrown back in, and my hubby got three, but only one was a good size to keep. His aunt came along as well, and she caught one, but not big enough to keep. For supper his dad cooked up the one fish, and we had steak and potatoes for supper, it was all delicious!

Before going home, we stopped at his aunt's camp to wish his godson a happy birthday, and we went out on the boat. For the first time I went onto a tube pulled by the boat, it could fit 4, and I was on it for a while. The first group, the tube ended up flipping over, not sure how I landed exactly but my head hit the water hard cause I had quite the headache, and my neck muscles are a bit sore. I had fun though, and would do it again.

Now that we are back home, I am working on catching up on laundry, did groceries since we had no more food left in the house, and been relaxing. It's nice having a few days at home before going back to work. It's going by so fast though and it's sad that it's coming to an end.

Do you love camping? If so, what's your favorite thing to do?