Vegan Ice Cream

I am currently having my mind blown at how easy it is to make delicious, healthy vegan ice cream.

Do as I say!

Blend:
1 cup (3 large leaves) kale, chopped
2 ripe, frozen bananas
2 cups ice
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup pistachios
1/4 cup chopped, pitted dates
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp minced ginger
pinch of sea salt

Wow!

Say hello to salted maple

Salted caramel has been overdone but - now - introducing its more Canadian, more sophisticated, all natural brother: salted maple.

Try this rich and decadent yet utterly easy recipe for a chocolate torte. It's 100% gluten free.


Preheat oven to 350.

Ingredients

• 6 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

For Glaze:

• 2 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 1 1/2 T butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoon almond milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons maple syrup
• 1/8 teaspoon maple extract

• Sea salt

 

Line the bottom of a 7 inch springform removable bottom pan with parchment paper and spray the paper.

1. Melt 6 ounces of chopped chocolate and butter in a heavy saucepan over medium low heat. Stir until chocolate and butter are melted and smooth.
2. Add sugar, maple syrup and salt and reduce heat to low. Cook while stirring for about one minute, until sugar starts to dissolve.
3. Remove pan from heat. Whisk in eggs, one at a time. The mixture will look smooth and glossy.
4. Use a mesh hand sieve to sift cocoa into mixture. This prevents lumps. Whisk until the cake batter is smooth.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for about 25 minutes. The center of the cake should be just firm to the touch, but be careful to not overbake the cake or it will be dry.
6. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Invert the cake on a plate.
7. To prepare the glaze, melt 2 ounces of chopped chocolate and 1 1/2 tablespoons ofbutter in the same saucepan you used to make the cake. When melted and smooth, remove the pan from heat. Add milk and maple syrup and extract and stir until smooth and glossy. Let the glaze cool for about 3 minutes before pouring it on the cake.
8. Pour all of the glaze in the middle of the cake. Use a silicone or rubber spatula to spread the glaze evenly over the cake, allowing the glaze to evenly run down the sides of the cake. Sprinkle with sea salt.
   
   

You Know You're the Mom of a 1 Year Old When...

Next weekend one of my very best friends gets married and the weekend after that is Thanksgiving, but it's also...

Oliver's 14 month birthday!

Okay, I'm not a dork enough to celebrate every single month. "Celebrate" in my mind maybe but I'm not going to bore you with - OMG, He's 475 days old today! OMG, He officially has 5 freckles! OMG, He said his 20th word this morning! I am not that mom.

But as time goes on I do realize some hilarious changes to my life, so here goes nothing: You Know You're the Mom of a 1 Year Old When...

* You get 28 extra minutes of sleep on Saturday morning and you cheer like a baseball fan (This happened an hour ago)
* You think a healthy breakfast is coffee and whatever Cheerios fall on the floor (or sometimes Goldfish)
* You purposefully volunteer to change the pee-only diapers because you know a dirty one's coming soon and you wanna pass it off to someone else
* You type the first letter of you email address hoping it will auto-fill to sign in and what comes up is this: (an actual list of mine)
aaa
amyj88898978;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
amyjoyaaaaasas

amyjoyharrison
amyjoyharrison@gmail.com
sdrfsdfsdf
z           (Sorry, childless friends, but signing into email is in fact a challenge when you are a parent. Don't let that scare you, there's always the stay signed in button.)
* The last viewed video on YouTube is Jason Mraz on Sesame Street
* You have personally penned such hit songs as "We're Gunna Eat Our Banana Today", "If I'm Mad I Can Just Say No", "Mama is Peeing But She'll Be Right Back", "I am So Careful, Yes I Am" and "That is Daddy's PS3 So I Can't Touch"
* You get stoked for dinner containing sriracha or hot chili flakes because the spicy-factor of family meals has dropped to dangerously low
* You've kind of convinced yourself that the fireplace is hot even when it's not running (Consistency!)

And last but not least,

* You can't imagine what you did to be so blessed with this incredible young person who literally changes, and makes better, every molecule of your life. You wake up in the morning and think - God, thank you for letting me be his mother. You have a constant source of joy through any challenge or struggle. You laugh harder, smile more and get shivers at the thought that you have an open invitation to spend the rest of your life in relationship with someone so wonderful.

OH, AND I LOVE CALVIN TOO!

Ecover Review AND New Challenge

So the good people at www.naturallysavvy.com recently hooked me up with some Ecover powder laundry detergent.

Here are the stats:

• This stuff is free of optical brighteners! (That's the yucky stuff they add to make your laundry look artificially better, while making your health look naturally worse.)

  It smells great because it doesn't contain any fragrances. Believe it or not your laundry can smell clean*. *Clean does not mean "like mountains or lemons", think about it.

  The ingredients are plant- and mineral-based.

  It can easily get through my pile of laundry. My pile of laundry by the way is made up of clothes worn by 1) a dietary planner of a day care  (food, kids, sweat) 2) a high-stakes banker (okay, that sounds dramatic, but the guy does sweat) and 3) a dirt-lovin' Mogli-type 13 month old. If this stuff works for me - it will work for you!

  
  

  
  
   

Most people don't realize how harmful their detergent is for their skin, lungs and, worst of all, children. Please consider switching to something more kind. It works just as well. :)

I want to provide you with full disclosure that I was able to get this product for free.

And now, ANNOUNCING, my newest project.

The good people at Dr. Bronner's have challenged me to use ONLY Dr. Bronner's pure castile soap for 18 different purposes for 18 full days. That means if I want to ... brush my teeth ... remove my make up ... wash my dishes ... I can't grab my usual products, or whatever's around depending where I am, I MUST use Dr. Bronner's. I'm excited about it and I hope you'll follow my journey as good or bad as it goes!

Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie

GLUTEN-FREE By Rose's Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving. 

*Pre-order now.* 

$11 for a large or $5 for an individual size to bring along to non-GF family meals (you know how it is.)

Cheap Solution for a Wine and Cheese Party

Recently my younger sister turned 22 and hosted a wine and cheese party in her backyard.

Everything was set. She bottled her own riesling. She stocked the outdoor tables with grapes, crackers, charcuterie and every imaginable cheese. String lights lined the fences and patio canopy. Guests were on their way in their finest threads.

My mom, an avid maple sapper, came up with an awesome alternative to the $100 wine chilling buckets sold in gourmet food stores: a sapping bucket to chill wine.

A few years ago we began making our own maple syrup by collecting sap and boiling it down to 1/40th its volume.

These buckets cost less than $3 each! You can find them in any hardware store.

Make sure to sanitize them just in case and get them chilling well in advance.