It's been a really great long weekend, to bad we don't always have a 3 day weekend because I would get so much more done! Friday night we went out with friends and unfortunately saw the Senators lose. Saturday I spent many hours downtown. I had helped a friend move a few weeks ago, so went to see how the unpacking was going and we then went for lunch at our favorite Italian place called Mama Grazzi's. I love how their pasta and bread is freshly made and it's not big portions which is also great. We then walked along the canal since it was such a beautiful day, then stopped in for a chai latte and dessert, then did a bit of shopping which included lots of vegetables, some fruit and got new herbs for my garden.
I did put my herbs in the basement with lights to act like sun, and they were doing well till towards the end of winter they started to die off quickly, except my rosemary, thyme and sage. Well my sage is looking a bit sad but I'm hoping it comes back to life now that it's outside. I had to replace everything else. I got chives, basil, parsley, cilantro and mint. My other pots, I had kale, which survived as well, the other two did not, so I have the cilantro in one, and regular lettuce in the other, I fixed it all yesterday since it was another nice day. I've been also busy doing some spring cleaning and it feels good to get done. The stove and fridge really needed it! I always feel so much better when spring cleaning is done. It's nice working in the kitchen when it's really clean. Mid week I did do a smoothie bowl
It's called chocolate beet smoothie bowl, which I got the recipe from
Joyous Health. I topped it with some cacao nibs and a granola that I made last weekend. I got the idea from Ricardo, it's a mix of nuts, half a cup each (cashews, pumpkin, sunflower and sliced almonds), half cup of quinoa (rinsed), 2 tbsp of coconut oil and 6 tbsp of maple syrup. Mix all together, add to a cookie sheet and roast them in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes. It makes a lot, so I put it in mason jars, which will be great to use up on yogurt (regular, Greek or coconut), or if you make a smoothie bowl.
Today I also made another healthy dessert, a sweet potato brownie, which
Joyous Health talks about it on her blog, and like her I made a few changes to the recipe.
So the cookbook with the sweet potato brownie recipe is in the Greenhouse cookbook, it has a lot of other great recipes I would like to try. So the changes I made to the brownie is I did half natural peanut butter, only because I didn't have enough almond butter. I didn't think to check see how much I had left and I really wanted to try this recipe so figure brownie with some peanut butter can't be terrible. I also made my own "apple sauce", I took two apples, peel removed, and put them in my vitamix and purred it into "apple sauce". It calls for agave syrup and I used maple syrup. I did try a piece and it's not quite the same as an unhealthy brownie, but it is really good.
The other books you see above is thanks to a friend of mine giving me gift cards to Chapters, I was able to buy the books above. I haven't read them yet, I have quite a few books to read through but I tend to read more over the summer so I'm looking forward to reading them.
I know spring cleaning isn't fun, but it's great when it's done. I just need to clean our small fridge, and would like to go through the pantry. I hope to get some de-cluttering done over the summer, which also includes organizing things better to have a nicer looking home. Hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend!
