Healthy Home | Make Your Own Date Paste

Have you heard of date paste before?

After seeing this nutrition video, I was determined to find some date sugar to be a whole food, healthy alternative to sweeteners in my house. Alas, date sugar was nowhere to be found in stores. Dates? Those I could find. So, I've been using dates to sweeten and add texture to a multitude of recipes for about 6 months or so, and one could call us BFF's.

I buy my medjool dates (the sweeter, tastier kind) at Costco and have found they have by far the best price around. I also buy Parnoosh honey dates in a big container at our grocery store. Although they aren't quite as sweet and decadent as the medjool, they are still sweet, more affordable, and work well for certain recipes. And if all else fails, check your bulk food aisle, because I see dates there all the time.

Now to the paste part. Dates are fantastic and I use them whole frequently, but they do require processing in either a food processor or high speed blender like a Nutribullet or Vitamix for use in most recipes. Many recipes I make with dates I'm already using one of these appliances so it's not a hassel, but sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I just want a quick and easy purreed date to use on the spot. And so that is where date paste comes in.

In a way, it should almost be called "date butter" because the process and end result are very similar to that of a nut butter. Soak, purree, store in a jar. But maybe date paste sounds healthier. Perhaps we should just call it"daste"? No?

Making date paste is ridiculously easy.

1. Stuff your pitted dates into a mason jar
2. Cover with boiling water and soak overnight
3. Drain excess water, and puree in a food processor until smooth consistency
4. Add cinnamon, vanilla bean and/or vanilla extract to taste if you prefer
5. Store in an airtight container in the freezer for anytime use

What can you use dates/ date paste for? Currently, my go to oil/fat-free salad dressing is as easy as 1-2-3 with some of my pre-blended date paste. It is so very tasty and easy to make.

3 parts acid (lemon or lime juice, or apple cider/red wine vinegar)

1 part date paste

Seasoning/herbs to taste

The date paste desolves beautifully in the acidic base and adds a thicker texture to your dressing, not to mention cuts the acidity and adds a nice flavourful sweeteness to your dressing. 

Date paste also makes a welcome substitution for many ingredients in baked goods. Because it freeezes SO well (it doesn't freeze solid), it's easier to have on hand all of the time, so things that call for apple sauce, honey, agave nectar, syrup, sugars etc, I often replace partly or entirely with date paste. The result in a much healthier, whole food sweetened recipe that you can feel better about.

Have you given date paste a try? Or found date sugar anywhere?

Healthy Home | Nut Butter Cinnamon Cookies [ full of the good stuff, free of the bad stuff ]

The more I experiment with plant based recipes, the more I've come to realize how ridiculously easy it is to replace dairy. Last night I made a strawberry banana "milkshake" for dessert: fresh strawberries, frozen bananas, soy milk, vanilla extract, blended to perfection. It was creamy and delightful and not a scoop of ice cream in sight.

Today was another one of those moments. I am attending a "dessert and wine" birthday party for a friend this evening and decided to make some healthy cookies to bring with me. A lot of the vegan recipes I searched for included oil and flour, and I was just not in the mood to make a cookie cookie. I wanted to make an easy, healthy cookie with few ingredients.

I stumbled across this recipe from the Unrefined Kitchen and it mostly fit the bill. I modified it to make it dairy-free and changed the flavour a bit with some cinnamon. Oh my goodness gracious, they are DIVINE. I was hoping to just "test" half a cookie, and ended up eating four. Oopsies, there goes my lunch. I was completely surprised with how much these look and feel and taste like a traditional cookie, but have no oil, no flour, no grain, no refined sugars, and no dairy. And almost better than that, they were super easy to make with minimal clean up.

Nut Butter Cinnamon Cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup almond butter
1/2 cup agave nectar, honey or maple syrup
1 Ener-g Egg Replacer "Egg" (could try a flax or chia egg but I'm not sure of the results)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of sea salt
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Line baking sheet with parchment paper
3. Mix all ingredients but the coconut until well mixed.
4. Add coconut (and optional, add chocolate chips, dried fruit, or nuts)
4. Roll dough into balls slightly smaller than a golf ball, space on cookie sheet and bake for 13 minutes until lightly browned.

Makes about 20 cookies.

Thanks to the Unrefined Kitchen for the inspiration! These are DEFINITELY going in my recipe box and will now be my go-to cookie recipe. They even passed my "meat and potatoes" husband test!

If you have a spare 30 minutes this week, give this recipe a try! You will be happy you did :)

Smoothie Saturday: "Wake Up" Choco Latte

I would be lying if I told you I make smoothies everyday for their taste over their health benefits. Truth be told, I sometimes pack in so many greens and other random ingredients (like beets and pumpkin) that it is sometimes a challenge to finish the whole thing.

It's not that I don't believe in enjoying food and smoothies, I just find it such a lost opportunity to pack in nutritious produce if I don't take it to that next level. I find it difficult to get in my veggies and salad in the winter months especially, so I just feel so much better about my day when I start it with a greens packed smoothie.

That said, every once in a while, I indulge in a smoothie that is more tasty than healthy.  I leave out the greens, I use soy milk instead of water, add extra banana and some peanut butter and or cocoa, and in the end the thing tastes more like a milkshake than a smoothie. Mmmmmmm mmmmm good...

Well, today was the perfect day to try out a smoothie in the middle of the road. It's not PACKED with greens (although it could be), but it's also not overloaded with calorically dense, nutritionally light foods either. Since I was out of soy milk and unable to make my daily double latte, it was the perfect excuse to sneak some espresso into my smoothie. Coffee and breakfast in one- cha ching!

"Wake Up" Choco-Latte Smoothie

1 frozen banana (peeled, sectioned, frozen at least the night before) OR 1/2 an avocado + ice cubes
2 shots of espresso (or, 1 cup brewed coffee - just reduce other liquid)
water or milk or choice to thin to desired consistency

1 teaspoon coconut oil (use only if using water as thinner over milk)

2 tablespoons "power" mix (I use chia seeds, hemp hearts, buckewheat, and flax seeds)
2 tablespoons cocoa powder (regular is more antioxidant packed, but dutch processed is tastier)
2 frozen "green cubes" (pureed spinach/kale frozen in ice cube tray)
1 tablespoon almonds or almond butter
Optional: I added some frozen berries in for some more antioxidants, but not enough to affect the flavour.

Blend until creamy, and enjoy!

Fit Friday: iPhone Workout One

Ok friends, welcome to my first edition of Fit Friday, which will occur every third Friday from this one on, and should hopefully spice up your life enough to make you want to come back for more.

 I used to kill myself at the gym in university, and once I graduated and moved off campus, I just stopped. I hate gyms. I just hate them. Working out is not in my blood. There are so many other things I'd rather do. Hating gyms and conventional workouts and the time involved in both scared me away to the point of not exercising at all. Does this sound familiar, or are you one of those people blessed with an innate love of working out?

Anyways, things started to click for me in 2011, and then clicked even more in 2012. I finally feel like I've figured out the best way for *me* (and, maybe for you, too!) to stay active without hating it.

They key is home workouts. Without equipment. Without DVDs. Without any knick knacks or trinkets or whosits or whatsits galore. You want thingamabobs? There's twenty at the gym. I want moooooore! (Please excuse my very rando Ariel serenade there).

Working out at home means no excuses. It means if it's rainy and you don't want to get in your car and drive in a down pour to the gym, you don't have to. If you look like absolute crap and don't want to go out in public with your bags under your eyes and a pimply face, you don't have to. You don't have to set anything up. Heck, you could even work out in your PJ's.

These are formatted for iPhone 4 and 5, however if you just save it as an image to any cell phone, it should work. Save it as a wallpaper, or just access it in your photo album when you're ready to work out. Throw on some good tunes while you're at it! This workout was totally inspired by these at Back on Pointe, I just modified it to make it work better for me.

iPhone 5 above

iPhone 4a above

If you're struggling with staying active or finding the time to workout, commit yourself to doing this 10 minute workout once a day. Sure, it's just 10 minutes, but you'll be sweating and you'll feel a heckuva lot better than if you did nothing.

If you've got more time on your hands, or have mastered the once a day workout, do it two or three times. To challenge myself, I add weights to all leg exercises so instead of just a calf raise, I do a calf raise with bicep curl. Just do what works for you! It's also a great warm up for a run. And because it's so short, you can do it once in the morning and again at night, and if you can get 20 minutes of quality exercise in a day, I'd say you're golden! Working out isn't about how much time you can spend in the gym, it's about how long you can commit to being active. And unfortunately for us workout haters out there, we really need to commit to being active for the rest of our lives. It's not just something you do for a couple months or until you reach your goal and stop. But, hopefully with short home workouts, it won't be too hard to make it a lifestyle change and not a temporary fix!

PS- If you are unsure of what some of the specific workouts above entail, just go visit dear friend Youtube and he will tell you! Once you know what the moves are, it's easy as pie!

Now go on and do it, and GOOD LUCK!

xo Jen

Healthy Home | Superfood Valentine's Pancakes!

Happy Valentine's Day lovelies!

I woke up with an idea this morning, and popped out of bed to give a whirl.

I was inspired by the lovely Jennifer of Chronicles of Home and her delish looking pancake recipe. I was eager to try it, but decided to give it a little Valentine's kick, and alter it a bit to make it vegan and as healthy as it could be.

Enter The Healthy Heart Triple Berry Pancake, or as I wanted to call it: "Love in a Pan(Cake)". Spread the love by making these for someone special today, and feel good that you're feeding them something full of superfoods that will make them healthier than they were yesterday. Yesiree, that sounds good to me! If you use the right ingredients this recipe can be VEGAN, GLUTEN FREE, SUGAR FREE, OIL FREE, and 100% HEALTHY FOR YOU full of fiber, antioxidants, protein and nutrients!

These jacks are not going to taste like traditional pancakes, well, because almost every ingredient is different than a traditional pancake. They are dense and hearty, and almost feel like eating a bowl of oatmeal. They taste acceptable on their own, but they really serve the greater purpose of being a fantastically healthy bed for some delicious toppings. I used a quick and easy berry coulis (recipe below) shredded coconut and berries, and on one I even spread a little almond butter. Feel free to load up on the fresh fruit and nut butters and I promise you'll be full til dinner! If you just want to have a tasty and still very healthy pancake that will taste delightful on it's own, I definitely recommend making Jennifer's original recipe over here. I'm sure you could sub some of the bananas for raspberries, or use food colouring to make them a special treat for today!

Healthy Heart (Superfood) Pancakes

Dry:
3/4 cup Power Flour*
1/8 cup walnuts, milled to a powder (this is the "fat" for the recipe, so sub away with other fats like coconut oil etc)
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp coconut

* You can use whatever flour you like, but my Power Flour is a mix of: Oats, Flaxseed, Chia Seeds, Buckwheat and Quinoa milled in my NutriBullet. You can mill other grains and make your own Power Flour easily!

Wet:
1/2 cup of apple butter or apple sauce (I was out of bananas sadly, but 1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas would be divine)

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp date paste or agave nectar (or honey or maple syrup)
3/4 cup mixed berries (raspberries, strawberries, blueberries)

1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 water
OPTIONAL: If you want more colourful pancakes, add in some red food colouring. I prefer just to use the berries as colour, but they don't stay as deep a red as one would get from food colouring.

1 flax egg (1 tbsp flax meal (ground flax) mixed with 3 tbsp water, refrigerated for 15 minutes)

Coulis:

1/2 cup mixed berries

1/4 cup apple butter or ripe mashed bananas

1 tbsp date paste or agave nectar (or honey or maple syrup)

As you can see, lots of subs can be made depending on what you have on hand. It's hard to go wrong as long as you're subbing with category (fat for fat, sweet for sweet etc).

Directions:

Place all wet ingredients in blender and pulse to blend.

Place dry ingredients in bowl, mix in wet ingredients and flax egg. Stir, and add more water if needed. 

Consistency will be more or a sticky thick muffin batter than a runny pancake batter.

Pre-heat your skillet over medium heat, oil it, and spoon out your batter. For these pancakes it's better to cook them slower at a lower temp than quick at a high temp, so keep a watchful eye and when they easily slide under a spatula, time to flip them and cook a few more minutes.

The coulis is super easy, just blend it all together, add some water if you would like a runnier consistency. Pour over pancakes, sprinkle with coconut or nuts, and top with fresh fruit.

Makes 3- 4 small pancakes or 2 jumbo pancakes (because they are so dense and filling I suggest going with the smaller!)

And enjoy! Make sure to top off with lots of yummy toppings. I was really sad I had used my last banana yesterday because it would have been so tasty topped with bananas. Next time!

Smoothie Saturday | Mango Acai Super Smoothie

Wow, you'd think I'm writing a food blog with all the posts I've had this week. As it probably should be, blog imitates life, and currently my life is very focused on nutrition and whole foods and cooking. I have some very exciting house news coming up though, so I'm sure to change gears from food to decor in the next month (and no, we aren't moving unless we win the dream home we bought tickets for).

Anyways, as luck would have it, I ran out of my "pre-bagged" frozen smoothie mix, and so this post which was supposed to show you the 10+ different goodies in my go-to smoothie has now resulted in a smoothie du-jour recipe. Nonetheless, it's tasty and healthy and still super easy to whip up with a little prep.

Mango Acai Super Smoothie

From top, clockwise

• Frozen Organic Mango Chunks (Costco)
• Organic Black Kale (aka Dinosaur Kale) -(Thrifty's Foods)
• Frozen Bananas
• Dried Mint (Bulk Spice section at Grocer)
• Acai Mango Zinger Tea (Bag cut open) - (Celestial Seasonings brand- bought at Walmart)
• Organic Spinach Cubes (Made from pureed spinach and water) - (Costco)
• Power Mix (made from hemp hearts, chia, flax and buckwheat) - (Costco and Bulk)
• Acai Juice Supplement (frozen into cubes)- (Costco)

I never thought of cutting up tea bags to use the tea insides until I realized what matcha green tea is. Yup, just ground up green tea. So, I've started including green tea or hibiscus tea (zinger) in every smoothie for an extra flavour kick and a huge amount of nutrient dense leafies and antioxidants. Dried mint is also a very inexpensive and tasty way to rev up the nutrition in your smoothie.

I just discovered black kale last month and it is now the only kind I buy. It has a much more buttery texture than regular old kale, I find it stays fresh and crisp in the fridge for much longer (no need to make kale cubes if it's gone within the week) and it tastes SO GOOD cut up in soups and stir frys.

The rest of the ingredients are pretty self explanatory. Give it a go!

Any great ingredients you've put in your smoothie lately?

Healthy Home | Eggnog Smoothie

I'm not sure what jingles my bells more; hearing Mariah's "All I want for Christmas" for the first time of the season, or chugging an iced cold glass of eggnog.

Preferably I'd be doing both simultaneously.

Unfortunately, my new found interest in healthful living (and subsequent plant-based eating) ultimately tossed a wrench in 50% of that plan. A couple of years ago (before even being a soy milk drinker) I tried a Soynog alternative hoping for a healthier version. Not so much. It didn't even compare, so why bother?

So I decided to make my own....

And then I took it one step further, and I thought, why not try and make it into a delicious smoothie, and one with natural, healthful ingredients?

And SmoothieNog was born.

I'm not big on tooting my own horn, but goodness gracious this smoothie is delcious. Thick, creamy, frosty and, for me, as eggnogy as it gets without using real eggnog or even eggs for that matter.

So here it is, a vegan, no-refined-sugar, healthy fat and fibre full smoothie that you can enjoy guilt-free all season long!

• 1 cup soy milk (or milk beverage of your choice)
• 1 large frozen banana (freeze at least the day before, peeled and cut into chunks)
• 3-4 small pitted dates or 2 large*
• Approx 3 - 5 almonds
• 1 tbsp healthy seed mix (my go to is flax, chia, hemp hearts and buckwheat, but just chia or flax would work great for this)
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 - 1/2 tsp rum extract (depending on how rummy you like it!)
• pinch cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg (save some to sprinkle on top)

(*not required, but definitely kicks this drink up a notch- if you don't have dates in your house I fully suggest adding them to your pantry- I use them EVERY day and they make a great alternative to many sweeteners.)

For bonus points, add a cup of spinach. It'll up the nutritional benefits and you won't even taste it!

Note: I made mine in my NutriBullet (love it!). A Vita Mix would be wonderful for this, but if you only have a Magic Bullet or blender you still should be fine. I would recommend milling the almonds and seeds separately first and then adding that mixture when you blend the rest of the ingredients for the best consistency.

Good luck and happy nogging!