My Love of Hemp

It is no secret in my house that I LOVE hemp- hearts that is.  And it is no secret either that a Manitoba girl such as I am can boast that these tasty little babies are home grown in my province.

Hemp hearts are so tasty and can be used in everything.  I use them in oatmeal, cookies, on yogurt, pancakes, power bars and in smoothies.  I also use them in main coarse meals like in meatloaf or lasagna or sprinkled on top of baked salmon.
 My latest hemp spotting happened when I needed to satisfy my desire for my favourite sweet; apple crisp.  What a winner I created!  The crew must have agreed as the pan was almost cleaned out 2 hours later.  I hid the last bit for lunch for myself tomorrow.  Don't judge; when there is 5 in the family sometimes a girl just has to be sneaky.

Hemp Heart Loving Apple Crisp

spray a 9 x 13 pan with spray and set oven to 350 degrees

ADD to pan:

7 apples, peeled and sliced thinly
Sprinkle of xylitol
healthy sprinkle of cinnamon (2-3 tsp cinnamon)
1/2 cup water

in a separate bowl mix together

1 cup quick oats
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 hemp hearts
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp coconut sugar

Cut in 1/2 cup coconut oil (mine is in solid form so I used my pastry blended and cut it in but you could use liquid coconut oil also) If too many crumbs, add a bit more oil.
Spread on apples and bake about 35 min until bubbly and slightly brown.
Enjoy with a scoop of vanilla ice cream




Anyway, if you haven't tried Hemp Hearts, I encourage you to grab yourself a bag.  They can be purchased through manitoba harvest.  @ManitobaHarvest (IG and Twitter), #hemplove, #hemphearts #sweatpink

I was sent a bag (the smaller one in the picture above) as a sample but the other bag and the protein powder are my own.  Opinions expressed are clearly those of love!
Enjoy your day and insert some HEART!

Happy Easter

Hey, hope everyone is having a great Easter weekend.

Friday morning started with a fabulous 7 mile run.  No real plan for anything (which may be bad) but a great run with hubby (which is good)  It was a few degrees below freezing but I actually really like running with morning temps just around 0.  Our roads are still kinda muddy in places (our normal runs are mostly on gravel) so the road is a bit firm but the temp just perfect with tights and long sleeve shirt.

We attended a bursting to the seams community church service on Good Friday.  It was an awesome service!

Roaring runner and I went to our cabin about a half an hour away to pick up our 2 kayaks.  The river behind our house is flowing so we are anxious to get on it.  At the lake, there was soo much snow.  I didn't expect so much, it was completely winter up there.  Wow, what 30 miles can change.   We did put the kayaks in back at home and went upstream for a bit until our arms and shoulders (well mine really) were screaming then turned around for an easy trip back.  Can't wait to put on some serious miles!



A cold front moved through Friday night and dumped a huge amount of snow on us again.  It was the trainer once again for the long ride.  I went 42 miles, roaring runner 45.  I was trying to make 45 but just couldn't.  I have been fighting a cold all week and am not really sick, just suffering with a runny nose a bit of a sore throat, but I'm not really my normal self either.  I am finding my heart rate is sure elevated at rest and during exercise.  I am going with the idea that all those miles of sweating will fry the virus.



 



Fry the virus!! Ya.  Doesn't help that I haven't slept well for 2 out of 3 nights.  What's going on with that?

After my bike ride, I was so hungry I walked straight from my bike, sweaty, stinky and wet to the fridge and proceeded to stuff my face with this!

A carrot cake oatmeal bake recipe from Angela at Oh She Glows.  You should really try this.  I was dipping it in coconut cream mixed with bit of vanilla stevia.  It was heavenly. I ate it warm on Friday but it was seriously good cold.  Think I liked it better actually.

Then I manage to shovel this in.  A paleo pumpkin muffin from PaleOMG.  I didn't add chocolate chips to mine but wow!  So yummy and lasted a whole 2 days in my house.



My kids had their cousin (from out of town) over from Sat to Sun and got a great visit in.  Roaring runner's family gathering was Sat night.  We were celebrating 2 April birthdays, Easter and the fact that his sister just got married the week before without any of us knowing about it.  They send us a picture that said, "Guess what we did today" and when we saw her in a white dress, well figured it out pretty quickly.  They are an awesome pair so it was great to celebrate with them.  Took some family pictures but with our oldest son not home (still writing University exams) it felt incomplete.

Sunday dawned an another great morning for a run.  Left a bit later than we should have and to get our 9 miles in, we needed to pick up the pace quite seriously on the way back.  Had 20 min to get ourselves in the vehicle to get to town for Easter breakfast at church followed by the Easter Service.

Out of town family is now gone and we have supper tonight with my side of the family.  I made a pumpkin triffle to take.  Gingerbread men all sitting in some seriously delicious pumpkin custard.  Can't wait to dig into it.



I am thinking of all who are running Boston tomorrow. There are so many blogs I read of people who are running tomorrow and it is strange but cool that I kinda know them and am wishing them well and they really don't know me or my good wishes.  So cool.

Well a nice, sunny afternoon here to find some adventures.  Wishing you great memories and adventures too!

We have had a bald eagle at our house this past week.  This is not a usual occurrence.  They are rarely seen around here but I have seen him 3 times this past week, perched up on a high tree across the river.  Even from a distance, you can see the magnificence.  I am reminded of my favourite encouragement.



 

 

 

Random Things

Random things and events from the past week.

1. Received this in the mail because my oldest son took my old road bike and trainer to the city with him after Christmas.  My old trainer was a magnetic trainer.  This fluid trainer is very different.



2. Visited with the oldest son in the city last weekend and roaring river runner and I went for a long run along the river path.  Beautiful morning -10 Celcius and great scenery.





3. Oldest son couldn't wait for breakfast and raided the grocery bag.



4. Yummy brunch of oatmeal with fruit, scrambled eggs, sausages and fruit.  I had to remind myself to stop and breath.



5. Going to the watch a movie tonight being shown by the school my daughter goes to.  Can't remember the title- something to do with cloudy and a chance of meatballs?  I'm not as up on my movies as I would like to be.  There are a couple movies that have perked my attention and I have made a note of when they are (March) but for the life of me, I can't remember what they are called.

6.  Made 2 amazing recipes the past couple of day.  The first one was a coconut macaroon granola which doesn't exactly taste like real macaroons yet (but will) but tastes  more like a coconut cookie.  It is gluten free and sugar free and is totally amazing on yogurt.  I seriously need to hide it or I will need to pull the maternity pants with the elastic front panel out of storage. (lol)  Reminds me of my favourite episode of "Friends" at Thanksgiving when Joey is committed to eating the whole turkey and wears Phoebe's maternity pants.  It is totally my favourite. The second recipe was a spinach pesto chicken pizza.  It is a gluten free crust spread with pesto then topped with cherry tomatoes, sliced mushrooms, chopped chicken, spinach and shredded cheese.  So yummy.  I also made coconut butter for the first time in my food processor.  It was unbelievable in my morning oatmeal.

7.  My next food experiment (hopefully tomorrow) will be to make "chips" in my dehydrator with the pulp from my juicer.  I have booked myself as math tutor tomorrow to both kids so hopefully can squeeze in a bit of time.  I am also booked for a long bike ride of 40 miles tomorrow with the roaring runner on the trainers.  I still need to pick out my movie entertainment for the close to 3 hours my butt will be on the bike.

Will keep you posted!  Have a great weekend.

p.s Anyone have any advice with the dehydrator and great recipes?

Are you a Friend's fan and if so what is your favourite episode?

Something "New"

No big New Year's posts from me as I am not much into formal resolutions.  I do have goals for myself and things I want to do to challenge myself physically, spiritually, intellectually and mentally. With that said, I hope you all had a great New Year's and this week has been great. It has certainly had its challenges getting everyone back in the swing of school and routine.  The morning are sure the biggest challenge.

With the theme of "new", I thought I would share some things that I love to encourage you to start something new.

I am starting with my 3 favourite juice recipes.  If you missed my post about my new Breville Fountain Crush, check it out here.  I absolutely LOVE my juicer.  We had a houseful of friends over just a few days prior to Christmas and if they didn't think we were strange before, they do now.  We spent quite some time talking about juicing, sampling it, testing it on a refractometer (don't ask, I don't quite understand it yet myself).  Everyone went home with literally food for thought.  The crazy things you do.  Anyway, my 3 favs!

Mean Green (from Reboot with Joe)

2 cucumbers

8 celery stalks

4 green apples

10-12 kale leaves

1 lemon

 1 1/2 inches of ginger root

This makes about 2 quart sealers of juice.  I mix it all together in a large juice pitcher then pour into my jars so it is very full.  Store in the fridge.  It serves my husband and myself for about 2 days (drinking about 2X each per day)

Blazing Beets (from Juicing Bible second edition)*

3 beets

1/2 inch piece of ginger root

2 green apples

2-3 cloves of garlic

2 celery stalks

3-4 handfuls of spinach

Blend together and pour into a juice pitcher to mix, then divide into jars.  Will fill a quart jar and a pint jar.  Store in the fridge.  Tastes super good cold just after a hard run!

*I have made some adaptation from the original recipe

Purple Power ( Juicing Bible second edition)

2 pitted plums

1 cup purple grapes

1 cup blackberries

1 tsp cod liver oil

Juice the fruit then whisk in the cod liver oil.

Hope you enjoy and happy juicing!

Oatmeal and cake

Good morning! It is so great that it is Saturday, and a semi free one at that.

My day started with a run because this was my view


and this was the temperature.

Yep treadmill run.  That's what I thought also.  It just seemed like too much for me mentally today to do a long run (13-15 miles) in those temperatures with the wind on top of that.  Getting soft I am.

Come on Spring, show your face.  Pretty please with a cherry on top.

Well if spring isn't coming yet to us, we might go looking for it.  More to come about this in another post.

Going 14.5 miles on the treadmill has been my longest mill run to date.  I am just preparing myself for another long run on the treadmill because, though I think the temperature will improve, I'm not counting on it.  This time last year, the river that is behind our house was flowing already and the snow mostly gone. Nothing has even started MELTING yet.

After my run and shower, I had a great bowl of oatmeal, my main breakfast staple .  I don't tend to be too hungry after a long run. The next day is a different story. I wanted to share a recipe that I add to my oatmeal each day.

Oatmeal Power Plus

2 cups chia (can use either light or dark)

2 cups hemp hearts

2 cups buckwheat ( I put mine in a coffee grinder for just a few pulses to get smaller chunks)

1/2 cup ground flax

2 tsp cinnamon

1-2 cups dried cranberries, cherries or blueberries

Mix all ingredients together and store in glass jar.

To use:  1/3 cup of oatmeal, 3 Tbsp of power mixture then about 2 cups of water (I put mine in the microwave for 3 min at med power then add Udo's oil and almond milk)


I love this mixture because it adds more punch to my oatmeal and gives me a whole lot more energy. Try it out and let me know what you think.

 

 

 

 

 

I am without a doubt very challenged in the creative area when it comes to certain things.  I  struggle with fashion styles, home interior decorating (most of my walls are still picture-less after 10 years, ouch) and just generally making things look put together.  That is why I am so proud of my assisting efforts with this:

A diaper cake- about 120 diapers with socks, spoons, rattle, blanket, soother, stuffed teddy, bib, washcloth and anything else that caught our eye.

Pretty cool I thought.  My youngest daughter is taking a babysitting course with 4 other girls and today the group is going for their first lesson since the instructor had a baby 3 weeks ago.  My daughter and I thought they should have a baby shower for her so we invited her friends over yesterday and made a cake.  Not the edible kind but such a sweet smelling kind.  Brought back way too many memories. I saw the baby girl when I dropped my daughter off and she sure is a sweetheart.  Now, I giggle to myself as I think of 5, 11 year olds having a baby shower.  Kinda cool.

What is your favourite addition to oatmeal?