welcoming an old pal; new eats;walking baby

On my shopping trip this week, I picked up a few new eats: Trader Joe's green plant drink and Ezekiel bread. The juice has all kinds of fruits and veggies in it and the color isn't that appealing, but the taste was good - aftertaste was sweet. Helen recommended the Ezekiel bread which is flourless, organic, and made from grains and legumes. It is a complete protein, just like eating eggs and milk (from the website). It contains 18 amino acids. Helen was my Dana Farber teammate last year for Boston and if you check out her blog, she is 10+ years cancer free and training for Boston in 9 weeks! I wish I was training too! The bread is not as soft as your normal whole wheat bread, but it is tasty! Good for croutons and grilling.

On the left here, I received 8 POM juices from one of my favorite companies, POM. I'll remind you of the benefits - tons of antioxidants, improved blood flow, slows onset of prostate problems and on and on. It is tart and refreshing! Check out my full post on that here. It rocks. And helps me to get in some fruit, along with green plant juice !





And then - it had been a while since I purchased store bought peanut butter. Well, I bought Trader Joe's natural creamy and I'm back in love. Welcome back, my peanut butter love! I spent yesterday eating PB & J on crackers, and adding the peanut butter to everything I was eating. I don't need it - definitely not as bad as before, but it's so good! Love the creamy non thick texture (my homemade ones seem to be dry).

Then! Have you heard about the protein ice cream recipes going around? I first saw this on HEAB's blog where I then found Mae's blog and I am impressed as ever. I had been making smoothies which were turning out to be like icees at 7-11. I asked Mae for some advice and my "ice cream" (scroll down to the bottom of post for Mae's recipe) was delicious this morning for breakfast! I put it atop a delicious whole wheat/sweet potato/peanut butter flax pancake with a dollop of cream cheese (one of my latest loves). The "ice cream" to me is like a mousse consistency and tasted like cocoa.




Here was my recipe adapted from Mae's with what I had on hand:

• 4 cubes of ice
  
• 1 tbs protein powder (hemp chocolate)
  
• 1.5 tsp nutritional yeast
• 1/2 tsp xanthen gum
• 1/4 cup sweet potaton
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 c almond milk + 1/2 cup skim milk

Toppings: unsw. coconut,chocolate chips and a dollop of peanut butter and squirt of agave.



I made Bill some non - wheat pancakes with peanut butter agave on top for some love.
Pancakes:

• 1/2 cup flour of your choice
  
• cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 c sweet potato
• 1 TBS ground flax
  
• 1/2 c milk (almond + skim was tasty)
  

And last, HUMNUT(cheese) sauce ala Mae. I took a scoop of hummus, a tbs or so of nutritional yeast and water, mixed them together and added them to my black bean burgers this weekend for a delicious nutritious treat. If you haven't tried the humnut sauce yet - delicious. I've been adding to my tortilla pizza every Friday!



Nick walks! 1 year and 1 week old - he took his first steps on Saturday night just before we headed out to dinner. We thought his balance was great so we have been playing "Pass Nick" - usually he would just give into us and think it was funny and be silly. This is from yesterday - he was so happy.'