Almond Butter, Applesauce, and Weekend Work

Do I have an exciting week of recipes planned out for you! I've been doing a lot of creating in the kitchen and this week will release them to you! I wish I could share the food with you, but alas, it is only a wish. Looks like I'll be forced to reap the benefits of food-makin' and picture taking.

From my backyard

I hope you had a great weekend filled with cleaning, cleansing, reflecting, sharing, and loving. Spring is now upon us. Time to create a sun filled lives (now that the sun is out!).

Keeping with the body, mind, and soul spring cleaning, I've got a few Soul cleaning tips to share with you.

Five Tips: How to Start Designing Your Life
by Johanna Sawalha

1. Dream of how you want it to be.
     Sustains your vision for your life
2. Track your excuses.

      Then do the opposite

3. Account for what you are doing.
     Plan ahead + account for things = preforming better
4. Purge your disappointments.
     This helps you distinguish between your personal bogeymen and the real issues to tackle
5. Communicate your grumblings.

     Let out your opinions, verbally or written.

These are great things to try to put into place in your own life. I love this list because it is 100% doable... if you actually do it.

Ok, enough of the serious stuff... how 'bout a recipe?

Two things I would never think to put together (in the kitchen). Almond butter and applesauce...? That just sounds weird, right? Well, it is weird but the combination is out of this world. Let me proudly present, based on this recipe (genius):

Creamy Applesauce Almond Butter Cookies
Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup unsweetended applesauce 
• 1/4 cup almond flour (I used almond pulp left over from making almond milk, still a bit moist)
• 3 heaping tbsp raw almond butter (or any nut butter of choice)
• 2 tbsp chia seeds, ground
• 2 tbsp maca powder
• 3 tsp yacon syrup (or sweetener of choice)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• few drops of Stevia extract (optional)
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 2-3 tbsp flour (I used amaranth flour) if batter is a bit too wet

Mix all in a bowl and spoon onto a cookie or dehydrator sheet and bake or dehydrate. Baking would be done at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. Dehydrating is long, as long as you'd like until "baked." Or you could be cool like me and bake half of the batter and eat the rest raw. Delicious. Oh, I also added, last minute, some carob chips. My goodness, these were TASTY. Not only tasty but a guilt free dessert. There is barely any sugar in these babies and they still taste sweet to satisfy your dessert craving.
I think The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen knows exactly what they are doing... second recipe I've tried (with variations) that I'd give a 10.

Productive was my first, middle, and last name this weekend. I got so much done around the house. Three (or four, can't remember) loads of laundry, lots of food creations, bbq'ed, spent some time with my sister, cleaned the kitchen (about 3 times), and did a lot of necessary yard work. The yard work included creating our garden! (So excited!!!!)

The boyfriend and I have a garden from last year that needed a little work as winter/nature took it over.

 That is called neglect.

We spent a few hours pulling weeds, tilling the soil, and planing some zucchini, cucumbers, and kale.

Then, we got to work creating a raised bed garden. We have a huge problem with gophers. They somehow dig their way into our garden even with poultry wire set down. If the above garden fails, we have a new (and better) gopher-stopper garden:

Garden #2

Our "professional" garden.

Raised bed, two layers of poultry wire, secured posts and sides, and soon to have a lining of rocks.

This took 4 hours to fabricate and a lot of work. Hard work does pay off. This is the best looking garden (or will be) I've ever created.

We dug out SO MUCH dirt. The garden box was to be set into a large slope in the backyard so we had to dig out 1 yard (or more) of dirt to lay the posts and sides, and make sure the whole box would sit level (instead of at a slope).

It doesn't look like it, but it was much more work than you would think. 

I'm just lucky to have an incredibly handy boyfriend that knows how to make anything (and makes it perfect).

I'll be showing you the "How To" guide of pictures tomorrow. Oh don't you worry.

Have a fantastic, warm, sunny Monday!