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?

Celebrate Eat Local Month

August just so happens to be Eat Local Month. So, in honor of this wonderful occasion Allan and I enjoyed the following delightful salads for supper. Not all of the ingredients were local to MN, but some of the veggies were grown by our friends and in our own backyard.

A yummy summer salad

This salad was a mixture of baby lettuce, japanese cucumber, orange bell pepper, red onion, baby carrots, tomatoes, avocado, grilled chicken breast and long grain brown rice all drizzled with Annie's Lite Raspberry dressing (Maria) and Drew's All Natural Rosemary Balsamic dressing (Allan).

If you enjoyed my What It Means to Eat Clean post from earlier this week, you should check out my guest blog post on Wellness Daily: 5 Simple Ways to Clean Up Your Diet.

Are you participating in the Eat Local Challenge? If so, what fun things have you been eating lately?

Have a fabulous weekend!

What does it mean to eat clean?

I am often asked what I did to lose weight successfully. When I answer that the secret to my body transformation is simply clean eating and vigorous exercise I am greeted by three distinct reactions:

The honest and inquisitive, What exactly is clean eating?

The judgmental and know-it-all, Really? That’s it.

The well-intentioned and interested, I would really like to eat clean, but don’t know how to start. Do you have any advice?

Today I will address the question, What does it mean to eat clean?

Cantaloupe and Blueberries

Clean eating is a thoughtful way of nourishing your body. Our bodies are designed to consume foods that are whole, natural and bursting with nutrients; however, most of us do not consume foods that respect these needs. Clean eating replaces processed, refined, toxic and nutritionally devoid foods with those that are as close to nature as possible. This creates a diet that will transform you into your best self: healthy, vibrant and lean.

By combining natural, whole foods into 5-6 small meals a day, each consisting of lean proteins, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats, clean eating will transform your body into an energetic powerhouse.

Grilled Chicken on Bibb Lettuce topped with Almond Butter

Eating clean is also good for the World. It is a preservationist approach to making smart food choices that respect the land, animals and your health. The core values of clean eating focus on making local, sustainable, eco-friendly choices that minimize waste and conserve resources.

Eating close to nature translates to shopping the outer aisles at the supermarket, especially the produce, bulk bin, dairy and meat departments, visiting farmer’s markets and making contact with local farmers and suppliers using sites like localharvest.org.

Quinoa Mango Salad

The following are some examples of easy swaps that you can make to clean up your diet, please note that this is not a comprehensive list:

Category of food	Conventional choice	Clean choice
Sweetener	Refined, white sugar Corn Syrup High Fructose Corn Syrup Dextrose Artificial Sweeteners (Splenda, Aspartame, etc.) Sugar Alcohols (Xylitol, sorbitol, etc.)	SuCaNat (Sugar Cane Natural) Agave Nectar Raw Honey Maple Syrup Maple Sugar Flakes Dates
Grains/Flour	Enriched White Flour White Rice Flour Unbleached white flour White Rice Quick Cooking Oats Semolina (white) Pasta	Whole Wheat Flour White Whole Wheat Flour Brown Rice Flour Kamut Flour Spelt Flour Brown Rice Wild Rice Rolled Oats Steel Cut Oats Whole Grain Malt O Meal Whole Wheat Pasta Brown Rice Pasta Multi-grain Pasta
Produce	Conventionally Grown Produce	Organic Produce, specifically those you intend to eat the skin of and the “Dirty Dozen”: Apples Cherries Imported Grapes Nectarines Peaches Berries Peppers Celery Spinach Kale Potatoes
Dairy and Eggs	Milk from cows treated with rBST Conventional Cheese Conventional Yogurt Conventional Eggs	Organic Milk Cheese that is free of hormones and antibiotics Organic Yogurt Cage-free or Organic Eggs
Meat	Conventional meat from animals treated with hormones and antibiotics Processed, cured and preserved meats (bacon, hot dogs, brats, deli meat)	Meat from animals not treated with hormones and antibiotics, preferably allowed to roam in their natural environment Uncured meats that do not contain added nitrates, nitrites, preservatives and sodium

In future posts I will explore the topics of how to start eating clean, the importance of reading nutrition labels, and how to shop each grocery store department. Also, check out a previous post that gave you a glimpse into my Simply Clean Fridge.

Homemade Vanilla Extract

Quality pure vanilla extract is a clean eating kitchen staple. I personally use it several times a day. Vanilla extract adds a distinct dimension of flavor to my morning oatmeal, post-workout smoothies, mid-morning greek yogurt, homemade protein bars, the list goes on and on. However, at $7.60 per 4 oz bottle, this fabulous kitchen staple can really put a dent in our clean eating grocery budgets. So, when my dear friend, Melissa, told me that she was making her own homemade vanilla extract for a fraction of the cost of store bought I was all ears.

Vanilla Extract one of those items that never occurred to me could be so simple to make at home. I feel slightly embarrassed even calling this a recipe. Had I known that I could easily make my own vanilla extract I would have started saving money years ago!

Vanilla Extract


1 cup good quality organic vodka (I use Phillips Organic Prairie Vodka)
2 organic vanilla beans, split in half lengthwise


Combine the vodka and vanilla beans in a glass mason jar. Cover and shake vigorously. Store in a cool, dark place to steep.


Give the mason jar a good vigorous shake daily for 1 week. Vanilla extract will be ready to use.


At this point you can remove the vanilla beans; however, I let them steep until I use up all of the vanilla extract and it is time to make a new batch.


Tip: Look in the bulk spice section of your local co-op for BIG savings on vanilla beans. Local grocery stores usually charge upwards of $7 a piece for pre-packaged organic vanilla beans; however, I can pick up 2 vanilla beans at Valley Natural Foods for $3-$4 total. In addition, I have found that the bulk vanilla beans are softer and have more flavor than the pre-packaged vanilla beans.

Which kitchen staples do you make at home to save money?