Merry Christmas

Allan created this wonderful video to serve as our Christmas letter this year. I am so proud of it that I wanted to share it with all of you!

2010 // Peters Christmas from Allan Peters on Vimeo.

2010 was a good year for the Peters family. We were blessed with a baby boy, Matthew. Instead of a Christmas letter, this year we decided to make this video since it's so hard to capture the true joy of a child in a still image.

Wishing you all happiness this Christmas season and into the New Year.

Music: David Crowder Band // How He Loves

Pumpkin Love

I have been completely in LOVE with pumpkin lately.

The other day I made these lovely pumpkin donuts.

AMAZING! We gobbled these up while they were still warm.

To clean up the recipe, I subbed the brown sugar for sucanat, butter for coconut butter, nutmeg for pumpkin pie spice and white flour for white whole wheat flour. I accidentally forgot the buttermilk on the countertop, so it didn't make it into the recipe, but the donuts turned out delicious... just a little denser and chewier.

Here is my cleaned up version of Polly's recipe:

Pumpkin Donuts


1 cup pumpkin
1/4 c sucanat
1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 c skim milk + 1 tbsp lemon juice, let sit for a couple minutes)
1 tbsp coconut butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 egg whites, lightly beaten
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 cup white whole wheat flour


Preheat oven to 350°. Prep donut pan by spraying with cooking spray. In a medium sized bowl combine all ingredients with a whisk. Pour into gallon sized zip lock bag. Cut tip off one of the corners and squeeze into a donut pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Let donuts cool for 5 minutes. Loosen the edges with a knife and invert the pan onto a plate. The donuts should pop right out of the pan. Sprinkle with pumpkin pie spice. Enjoy!

Makes 6 donuts.

A Perfect Waffle

A perfectly crisped waffle covered in strawberries
and a light drizzle of pure maple syrup

For the last few days I have been craving waffles! So, last night I indulged my craving by making whole wheat & oatmeal waffles accompanied by a simple, yet delicious egg bake.

Look at all of those nooks and crannies! :)

This meal was so delectable that it doubled as my lunch today!


Whole Grain Waffles

Preheat your waffle iron.

In a large bowl whisk together dry ingredients:

2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 cups oat flour (grind up rolled oats in a blender)
4 tbsp ground flaxseeds
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp sucanat
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt

Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the wet ingredients:

2 cups skim milk
4 egg whites, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp maple extract

Whisk together until just moistened. Do not over mix, batter should be lumpy.

If desired, add 1 cup of berries.

Pour 1/2 c waffle batter onto preheated waffle iron and cook according to manufacturer's guidelines.

Makes 8 waffles.

Farmer's Markets

This morning I woke up to the dreary, damp, gray weather that can be common as Fall transitions to Winter in Minnesota and I was reminded of a beautiful Saturday morning that we spent at the Mill City Farmer's Market this Summer.






Unfortunately, this coming weekend marks the end to most of the regular Farmer's Markets in Minnesota. We love attending the Farmer's Market on Saturday and Sunday mornings and I am always saddened by the end of the season.

Here is a glimpse into the wonderful day that we spent as a family at our favorite Farmer's Market.

Hazelnut Ice Cream

This weekend Matthew is getting baptized. As you can imagine, we are super excited and cannot wait for the service. Afterwards, we are hosting a lunch/BBQ at our house for 20+ relatives. Here's what is on the clean eating menu (pictures to come early next week):

• Turkey Burgers
• Turkey Brats
• Steak Burgers
• Bakery Buns
• Burger toppings: pineapple, avocado, romaine, tomato, red onion, etc.
• Spinach and mixed greens topped with chevre, dried cranberries and walnuts with balsamic vinaigrette
• Yukon golds, sweet potatoes and onions, seasoned and grilled
• Guacamole, salsa and hummus with chips, baby carrots and celery
• Fruit
• Homemade Apple Pie
• Homemade Ice Cream

Thinking about ice cream made me relive a recent delicious homemade ice cream experience. A couple weeks ago I made the Raw Hazelnut Ice Cream from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. It was super creamy and ultra delicious.

The hazelnuts gave it a really cool cream soda color and an amazingly complex and rich taste. In fact, this ice cream was so flavorful and rich that I could only eat 1 scoop per sitting - which was perfect for me because I tend to overeat ice cream if I have it in the house.

Chocolate Cravings

Most nights I get completely ravenous around 8:30 PM. Usually Allan grabs a bowl of Panda Puffs and organic 1% milk and sometimes I follow suit and grab a bowl of homemade granola. But some nights granola will just not do - all I want is chocolate.

However, my desire to loose the rest of the baby weight (13 lbs) is usually much stronger than my desire for chocolate, so I came up with the following compromise:

1 cup of fresh raspberries

+

I took 1/4 square of Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate and melted it in the microwave for 15 seconds. Then added a little drizzle of agave nectar and stirred it up. Raspberries with dark chocolate sauce... HEAVENLY!

Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate is 100% cacao and needs a tiny bit of agave or maple syrup to balance out the bitterness. But the combination is a beautiful evening snack.

Homemade Applesauce

On Sunday after church, my parents and sister came over to watch the Vikings game, make applesauce, bake apple crisp and eat chili and cornbread. 

We peeled, cored and sliced 3 pecks of local MacIntosh, Cortland and Jonathan apples to make two big batches of applesauce and 2 pans of apple crisp.

One batch of applesauce was just apples for the apple of my eye to enjoy some day soon.

The other was spiked with apple juice concentrate and cinnamon sticks.

Do you mash up your applesauce once it has cooked or do you enjoy it chunky? We love chunky cinnamony applesauce around here.

Purple Pride Smoothie

In honor of the official start to the Vikings regular season, Matt and I made the following super simple smoothie, which I quickly gobbled up. Can you gobble up a smoothie? Anyways, I sure did. :) Even if you are not a Vikings fan, you will certainly enjoy this beautifully filling smoothie.

Purple Pride Smoothie

1/2 c cottage cheese

1/2 c milk

dash cinnamon

dash vanilla extract

1 tsp maca powder

1/4 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 tsp guar gum

1 banana

1 c frozen blueberries

Place all ingredients in your VitaMix or other high speed blender and blend on high until smooth, about 30 seconds. Pour into a tall glass, preferably one donning a snazzy Vikings logo, and enjoy!

Do you sip your smoothies through a straw or straight up? I know that I personally love to use a straw with cold drinks.

Kingfield Farmer's Market

Compared to other areas of the country, Minnesota has a relatively short growing season with most crops being available between the months of July and September. During the summer months, we enjoy shopping at local farmer's markets as a family. Fortunately there is an abundance of nearby markets to visit.

This past weekend we felt like visiting a small farmer's market that offers a bunch of organic produce, live music and yummy sustainable eats from a food truck. The Kingfield Farmer's Market is my favorite farmer's market. This week we picked up tomatoes, sweet corn, spaghetti squash, plums and pears.

We also shared watermelon tomato gazpacho and a greek salad from Chef Shack.

Minnesota State Fair

This past Sunday was my 27th birthday. Matthew, Allan and I spent it at the Great Minnesota Get Together. The Minnesota State Fair is all about the food, animals and people watching.



Here are some pics of the food that we enjoyed, the animals that we met and the crowds of people that joined us...

Lots of people

Pulled Turkey Sandwich

Roast Corn on the Cob

Enjoying my first beer since last year

Mister Matt in the Ergo

Pulled Pork Tenderloin Sandwich with Organic BBQ

First time seeing a horse

In the Horticulture Building

Checking out veggies and giant pumpkins

Enjoying local honey ice cream: sunflower and chocolate flavors

It was a long day for all of us, but we had a lot of fun!

Piel de Sapo Melon

Our family LOVES melon. It seems we always have diced melon in the fridge ready to devour. Usually it's a simple cantaloupe or seedless watermelon; however, recently we tried yellow watermelon - our conclusion was that it was good, but not as yummy as traditional red watermelon.

A couple weeks ago I picked up this bad boy at the local Kowalski's...

Piel de Sapo Melon

Piel de Sapo translated means toad skin, which is exactly what the skin of this melon resembles.

  

The interior flesh was very soft and delicate with the sweet smell of cantaloupe but the taste of an extremely ripe and flavorful honeydew melon. It kind of reminded me of the Galia melon that I tried last year, but with a much smoother texture - almost melt in your mouth.

In other news, we will be visiting Santa Monica because Allan is shooting a commercial in South Pasadena and would love suggestions on fun places to visit and great (healthy) places to eat - preferably within walking distance of the Miramar hotel.

What fun new Summer foods have you tried this year?