Two New Raw Salads

Hello Hello Hello! It has been so long since Bianca and I posted we are so sorry and we promise to be better about blogging. We were actually just listening to Holly Becker, a professional blogger give an interview about her blog, decor8. If you haven't checked it out be sure to she has some beautiful pictures, I'm sure Bianca has mentioned it before. Anyways, Holly mentioned how key it is to be consistent and at least post once a week on the same day so your followers know when to check up on your blog. Taking advice from a someone more experienced I'm going to commit to blogging every Monday night. And of course, if there's more going on that week I will add more but Tuesdays will be a great day to view the blog and not be disappointed :)

While at home, I realized my grandparents had given me this cookbook a couple years back that I kinda shoved off but now I love it! It's called How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman and is so great because it goes through every vegetable, fruit grain, etc and talks about the best ways to eat it or cook it and then lists a few recipes using it. It's fabulous! I really love it because it always lists numerous variations of the recipe and with a fridge full of veggies your bound to have the necessary ingredients for one of them. I made one of the versions of the Raw Beet Salad. It was very refreshing and looked very pretty. Of course, don't this if you don't like beets, a lot :)















Raw Beet Salad with Carrot and Ginger
5 small red beets
1 large carrot
1 medium shallot
1 t dijon mustard
1 T fresh ginger
1/4 c cilantro, chopped
lemon
pepper and salt

In a food processor chop the beets, carrots, shallot, and ginger. Add the cilantro, dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Fresh lemon to taste.

Another salad that I love making is similar in how its prepared but instead of beets you use parsnips. I had never had parsnips before I started using them to make this recipe but now I love them.
















Parsnip Salad
6 or so small parsnips
1 large carrot
3 T chopped red onion
1/4 C chopped parsley
1-2 T salad dressing or veganese (I used Rhonda's Raw Salad Dressing from the Hallelujah Diet)
1/2 lemon juiced fresh

In a food processor, combine parsnips and carrot and pulse. Once chopped well toss in a bowl with parsley, onion and dressing. Squeeze fresh lemon over top. Enjoy!

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

When Bianca first introduced these to me I knew there were going to be a favorite. Sure enough, I crave them almost every week. They're simple, cheap, fun and satisfying! Just dip the rice paper in water, take it out, wait for it to soften, layer with all the fresh ingredients, roll it up, and enjoy with peanut dipping sauce! People are always intrigued by what we are doing when we make this and always want a try.

For the Spring Rolls
Traditional Ingredients:
Rice Paper
Vermicelli Noodles
Mung Bean Sprouts
Carrots, shredded
Fresh cilantro, basil, mint
Scallions, diced
Lettuce, thinly sliced
**Optional Ingredients:
Avocado
Ginger
For the Peanut Sauce
Ingredients:
Peanuts, raw is best
Hoisen Sauce

The rice paper and vermicelli noodles will probably need to be bought at your local Asian market. The noddles just need to be boiled for about 2-3 minutes. For the peanut sauce, toast the peanuts on a skillet til there golden brown, then throw in a food processor with hoisin sauce. There's no need for measurements here just use about a handful nuts and add the hoisin til it's creamy. There also delicious dipped in soy sauce!

Food, Fellowship, Flowers and Farmer's

We truly had a blessed weekend of "breaking bread" with family and in taking pleasure in the joy of real, honest fellowship with one another. Friday was our dinner with the boys and then on Sunday at IVC we had "Ladies Night". While the men went out for pizza all the ladies stayed behind for a special dinner of home made dishes. It was a great time to meet with the woman of IVC and love on each other.

The Quinoa, Lentil, Coconut Stew Bianca mentioned that we had on Friday at the family dinner recipe was taken from a blog I am a fan of; Two Blue Lemons. Here is the link: http://www.twobluelemons.com/2009/06/coconut-quinoa-stew.html. Enjoy!

Also, this weekend, though we had rain on Saturday our pot of daffodils came into full bloom bringing in the Spring! Annalisa's mom, whom Bianca and I just adore planted a whole pot of daffodils for us, there must be at least fifteen of them! They came to us after President's Day weekend with strict orders not to be watered by both Annalisa and I, so they would not end up drowning. I have the joy of watering them with our other plants and watching slowly as one by one they begin blooming. They are just so beautiful, thank you so much Cathy!



For our usual Sabbath outing we browse the Farmer's and get all our weeks produce. Lina and Marissa have ventured into the world of whole, raw and delicious foods and joined us this week to find out all the best deals. It's so great to have a whole crew now. At one of the Asian vegetable stands they had purple sweet potatoes- solid purple all the way through! Lindsay had gotten one at the beginning of the year and I had been waiting to see them there again! We also stopped by another of our favorite places, the Oriental Market near Camino Real to pick up the ingredients for Vietnamese Spring Rolls that Bianca learned how to make from a friend. These are the real deal, look for out for a post this week.



It's so funny to see us pull up from the Farmer's, between Lindsay, Bianca and I we usually have about 6 or 7 bags full of green vegetables, fruits and flowers. Then we pile into the kitchen to unload and our fridges begin to look as if a garden was growing! It's crazy how fast it all goes and by the end of the week we're always scrounging to make something out of whatever we have left.

Now, the weekends over and here we are starting out dead week. Only one more week til finals and then back to Santa Cruz!

Family Dinner

We have started a new tradition where on Friday nights we have a family dinner with our house of girls and with the guys downstairs and next door. Last night we all brought our own food and had a lovely time together, while taking bites of the variety of delectable creations including Mallory's swedish pancakes, Annalisa's sausage pasta, Clay's chicken bake with carrots and yogurt (interesting combo), some crazy, amazing Armenian dish that Daniel's grandma made, and our sweet potato, coconut, quinoa dish. Hopefully, Dani will post the recipe because it is fantastic. We ended up playing a round of charades (girls vs. boys) where we sadly lost when Clay won the tie-breaker by acting out "spider monkey" to a tee. Funny thing is Clay has never even played charades before yet he took the win for his team...beginners luck if I've ever seen it. We finished the night singing and worshipping the Lord in the prayer shed. It was truly a blessed evening. Below are some pictures that Annalisa took of our food. Love you all!

DIY: Heart Shadow Box

I have been meaning to show you all this heart box that I made around Valentine’s Day. Even though it has a bunch of hearts, I think it is something that I can leave up in my room, even when it is not February. I got the idea from sarah & bendrix on etsy, and while mine did not turn out nearly as cute as her’s, it’s a start. I borrowed my friend’s “cricket” which is a gnarly scrapbooking tool. For those of you who are not scrapbooking queens, it looks like a printer with a blade. It has a key pad where you can choose shape and then the cricket cuts out as many as you want on a sheet of paper. It cut out all of these hearts in about 3 minutes.

Supplies:

Shadow box

Paper for backing

Paper for hearts

Heart paper punch, or cricket if you have one

Rubber cement

Directions: I think it is pretty self-explanatory how you would execute this project. But after you have all of the hearts cut out, fold them in half and glue them down on one side in a random order, or however you would like. I glued some of them flat as well. I thought that these heart boxes would be cute gifts for friends and family too! What do you think?