:)

Just a quick post to say I had our baby! She was born on May 1 and it went pretty well. Bitsy is beautiful! She's a pretty good baby and things are fine :)

Telemarketers

Hmm... I was just told by a telemarketer that they couldn't take me off their calling list, that they'd have to either register me with the national Do Not Call list, or I could do it myself. Is this true? It just didn't sound right to me... I knew that was an option, but I don't want to go so far as to be on the national do not call list, I'd rather they just take me off their list! I've worked in three different call centres, and there was always a way to remove a number from our list (maybe not perfect) outside of just referring the person to the Do Not Call list. Maybe that's the trouble... crossing a name off a list, or selecting the option Do Not Call on the dialer, isn't 100%, so they can't do it anymore? :(

More sprouts!

I love sprouts! Garbanzo bean (chick pea) sprouts, lentil sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, red clover sprouts. They are DELICIOUS! I think I like the smaller ones better (the last two kinds). YUM.

I have three jars going at all times now. It takes about three days for sprouts to be ready... you're supposed to refrigerate them once they're done and you've drained them. Ha! So far I just eat them right away.

:)

Sprouts!

Unsure if I blogged about my attempts to make sprouts in the past... but since my husband gave me a proper sprouter (glass jar with a plastic strainer lid that props it up on an angle) I've had much more success! So exciting!

A couple weeks ago at the Organic Conference we got a bag of sprouting seeds from our friend for me to try with, and I just used a mason jar leaning on something, propped up, straining through a tea strainer into a bowl. It worked okay, but this new set-up is much less precarious and works GREAT!

I have not actually made anything with the sprouts... because they're so yummy I just eat them straight from the jar!! :) :) :) :) :) I LOVE SPROUTS! If anyone wants to know more feel free to ask! It's SO easy, only thing is it takes a couple days before they're ready... so until I get more sprouters or learn to pace myself and not eat them all at once, I only get sprouts every couple days!

PS I highly recommend getting a sprouter, it seemed silly to me since it's pretty much a jar, with a prop on the lid, but it makes the whole thing easier, there are no accidents where you spill half the partly sprouted seeds in your sink (or on your floor...)

what I made today

I made myself a smoothie with organic whipping cream, milk, a container of Bio-K, bit of ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon, vanilla, organic sugar and a raw egg (that's right!). It was pretty yummy! So eggnog with probiotics.

In the slow-cooker right now I have half an onion, half a clove of garlic (halves, because I find those two ingredients develop overpowering flavours when slow-cooked), about a cup of whipping cream, a cup of water, sea salt, celery, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, shitake mushrooms, a cup of mixed rice, and two chicken breasts. I read and combined recipes from my "fix-it and forget-it cookbook" to make this thing up. I hope the rice gets cooked (some recipes said to use cooked rice, others said you could put it in raw).

Coming up in the new year, at the View from Here (my peer health and community nutrition program) we will be doing more cooking, and I am excited about that!

The other day I made healthy(er) spice cookies from a recipe booklet I got online through work; they turned out pretty well! They used whole wheat flour, bran cereal, brown sugar (but we don't have that, so I just used organic evaporated cane juice sugar), butter, molasses and applesauce. I was pleased with how they turned out, the whole wheat flour and bran cereal did not take away from the flavour whatsoever, and it's nice to have them around as an alternative to shortbread! I sometimes prefer crispier/chewier cookies, but I don't know that there's a healthy way to obtain that texture.

Winter day

It is cold out there! Not nice at all. It wasn't a snow day though, and buses weren't cancelled...

On my way to work this morning I 'tested' the brakes (wanted to see how slippery it was)... car does not stop so well on ice! Snow tires or not :)

This morning at The View from Here (the Peer Health/Community Nutrition Program I run at the community centre) we made pizza, first time I had ever made it from scratch. Not bad, especially for a first try.

Today is Princess Muffin's Xmas party at school... that's right I said Xmas... I used to object when others used that form, but someone else posted a blog about it that made sense. Princess Muffin (who has recently expressed to me that she prefers NOT to be called Muffin... gotta try to remember that!) is excited, we made cards for everyone (she has a small class, under 10 people) and she signed all of them and put stickers on them.

Back to work!

Keeping salad greens fresh in the refrigerator

I'm making salad to go with the pizza we're having for supper, and wanted to share a tip I've figured out. Maybe others know this already.

The salad greens you buy in a box go slimy if kept sealed in the airtight container they come in.

Last time we got some I cut holes in the top of the container they came in, but that didn't seem to work the greatest.

This time I put the greens in a grocery bag. I will leave it open in the fridge. I've done this in the past and it seems to be the best way to keep them.

I am considering setting up a small grow-op in our basement, for lettuce.