Getting The Garden Ready

Growing food is something I really want to expand and learn about. Going beyond the typical tomatoes / cucumbers range, I am committed to expanding the food growing aspect of my life to new standards. It can be, after all, an important part of preparing food... and as such, pictures of progress will be occasionally posted under the new category "Gardening."

Now mind you, I am learning all this so if I am doing something in the garden and you know better, do feel free to leave me comments on how it's done. :D

Veggy Tacos

I like to browse other foodie blogs just for the fun of it. Off course I look for the vegetarian types, being generally uninterested in meat of any kind.
This time I found what sounded like a great idea from a blog I follow called Frugal Homesteads, and that is to make Taco "meat" by cooking lentils and brown rice together. Who would have thought?

Chia Power Pudding

When I saw these little chia seed bags at our local food cottage, I could not believe my luck and grabbed one on the spot. In the back of my mind was this very dish: Chia seed pudding (similar to tapioca pudding), which I had been thinking about of late.

The first time I had heard of chia seeds was at one of Dr. Ritamarie's monthly potlucks and it was incredible. It's really as simple as it gets to make, and so well within my range... ha, ha.

Here is a great article on the Living and Raw Food site. It's a bit long and worth your time.

Chia seeds are very versatile and can be added to a number of every day food, like hot or cold cereal, yogurt, jam and jellies. This site recommends a 9:1 as water to seed ratio when soaking. In 30 mn the seeds will have turned into a chia gel that keeps in the refrigerator for a couple weeks. 1 pound of seeds makes 10 pounds of gel...

Vegetable Crackers

Sunday is often times cooking day for me. Not sure why, other than it's an easy going day from the start, being Sunday, and a leisure pace naturally sets in as soon as I get up.
It's also a good time to take a break from all the projects I continually work on the rest of the week.

Today was definitively a cooking day! I made crackers (see below), home-sprouted wheat berry banana cookies and have hummus, celery, carrots, and big green salad ready to go with the crackers for dinner tonight. I love Sundays like this!

Earlier, feeling a bit like something new to play with in the kitchen, I reached for Brendan Brazier's The Thrive Diet for a fun as yet un-tried recipe, and all it took was opening the book and there they were, two words: vegetable crackers. Yep, really, that's all it took. You might wonder what's all the excitement about, but for me -and most people in my household- veggie crackers always sound wonderful.