Milk and Honey on the Run

Do you ever just want a snack that'll take 5 minutes to prepare. Especially something healthy? There's nothing easier than hummus :P

My friends were coming over right before I left for my trip so I wanted them to try homemade hummus. It took like 5 min to prepare... no less probably.

Alright let's do this Gordon Ramsay Style!

1. Open a can of chickpeas (540mL)
2. Drain half of the water
3. Pour left overs into a food processor
4. Begin grinding
5. Meanwhile grab extra virgin olive oil, lemon, dried parsley, black pepper, and red chili pepper
6. Stop the food processor 
7. Add 3 tbsp olive oil
8. Cut 1/6 of a lemon, remove the outside skin, add to the hummus
9. Add 1 heaping tbsp of drier parsley
10. Grind
11. Adjust salt, black pepper, and red chili pepper to your taste
12. Pour into a dish
13. Grab baby carrots
14. Done!

So I should be in Paris right now, hence the Eiffel Tower :) YaY! I'll tell you all about it once I get back. Now on with the recipe....

Honestly, I love my steel cut oats but I mean a serving is only 1 little cup :( Don't you ever have those cold morning when you just want a really nice and massive bowl of oats. Well you can!

• 2 cups oats
• 5 cups water
• 1 cup original soya milk
• 2 finely grated apples
• 2 tbsp honey (or agave)
• 1 tbsp cinnamon

I was randomly wondering about Whole Foods and taste tasting whatever I could. One of the things was hummus chips, basically chips make out of chickpeas. They were being promoted so I probably had 5 chips out of that tasting bowl. They were that good :) I kind of felt bad about it and decided to buy a pack since it was on sale for $2 anyway (originally almost $4 Yikes!). My friends were coming over that day so I though, ooh I'll treat them to hummus chips :D 

Source: http://www.bouldercanyonfoods.com/uncategorized/lightly-salted-tortilla-chips-with-hummus-and-sesame-seed

Who knew you could do so much with oatgurt. Ahh! There're so many flavours :D I should be in Amsterdam right now... don't know much about their food but hopefully I'll find out more ^^

The week before I left I've been going crazy with the oatgurt theme also because I wanted to use up my bacteria stock. Why waste my precious little babies? Here're some ideas...

Classic Banana Soft Serve
There is something about the oatgurt that makes it very thick. Almost as if there're gluten strands being formed as when you make dough. Funky ha? Well it makes it taste so delicious!

Here's the deal. Take half cup of oats, a cup of water, a banana, a teaspoon of peanut butter, a tablespoon of bacteria stock and blend. Then wait about 10 hours and eat! It made a nice big two cup serving. So delish and creammmyyy!

Green Tea Chia Pudding
Remember my love for chia seeds? Well now it's been doubled with the addition of oatgurt! It's double trouble...

So here is what you do. Brew slightly more than a cup (the teabag will soak up some water) of green tea with two packets of stevia (or less if you prefer the bitterish taste of green tea or if you don't steep it as much). Then take the green tea, half cup of oats, 1 tablespoons of chia seeds, 1 tablespoon of bacteria stock, and blend. Consume in the morning.

First off I'd like to thank Vicky from Sweet & Healthy Living for introducing me to Oatgurt... Oats turned into yogurt. I know it sounds crazy! Well not so according to my little friends Lactobaccilus!

I'm sure you've all heard a gazillion times about probiotics. These are bacteria that are said to have a positive effect of our bodies when consumed in sufficient quantities. They work by inhabiting our gut thus decreasing the amount of food and space available for bad bacteria. Hey, there're 10 times more bacteria cells in our bodies than out own cells (our cells are much larger in size though).

The problem I find with yogurt is that the cheap kinds (aka the ones my dad always buy) have very long expiry dates which I find sketchy. Also, you never see any bubbling action in the yogurts meaning that the bacteria is dead. Even if yogurts do have probiotics left, I learned in my naturopathy class that the amount of probiotics in those yogurts is insufficient to have a health benefit.

So what do we do? Make own yogurt. That's right... using oats! Oats have plenty of carbs which make a suitable environment for the Lactobaccilus and the fat content gives it a nice creamy dairy taste.

To start off, I made a bacteria reservoir. Simply take oats (can be oat groats, steel cut oats, or simple rolled oats) and soak them with water overnight. In the morning grind it up in a blender and leave in a warm spot for about 3-4 days. You will see lots of bubbles in the mixture and it should have a slightly sour smell without smelling like it's off. By now the mixture will be sour and unpleasant to eat, however it makes an awesome bacteria reserve. Keep in the fridge for storage. If you want your reservoir to proliferate you will have to add more oats to eat because they'll need something to eat :)

Then whenever you wish to have oatgurt for breakfast just use the already built up stock of bacteria. Just check out the bubbles on top of the yogurt. That's bacteria in action! How often do you see that in a commercially bought yogurt?

Now introducing:



Date & Spice Oatgurt
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbsp of bacteria reservoir
• 4 dates
• Pinch of cinnamon

Only 12 more hours and I'll be on the plane. Aah! Hopefully I'll be able to see Toronto in the dark because it's so pretty! Mississauga too :P I love seeing the Marilyn Monroe buildings as I walk to the mall but seeing them from the sky is another story. 

Source: http://stephenweirarticles.blogspot.ca/2010/09/factoids-about-marilyn-monroe-building.html

Yesterday was a sentimental day for my family. It was May 9, AKA Victory Day. Back on May 8, 1945 Nazi Germany finally surrendered and World War II was officially over. Ever since then May 9th has been Victory Day in Russia/ Ukraine and is actually a statutory holiday.

I remember there being parades, concerts, and parties on this day. Families would get together to commemorate this day and hope that their generations to come do not have to go through the experience of war.

I know that living in an Americanized society Russia always gets a bad name and people think of it as inhumane. The thing is Russia was not prepared for war at all, that's why they signed the Non-Aggression Pact. They needed to stall for time. Russia just underwent the Bolshevik Revolution that was as bloody as hell (but F'n sake aren't all revolutions? unless we're talking about Canada's Confederation...) and did not have the resources for war. So what was it left to do but to use manpower... and yes that did end up costing Russia millions of lives. I'm just going to go off on a little rant here... I love how America makes Stalin sound cruel in movies and media but gosh bombing Japan was the most inhumane thing one can possibly do. How many innocent lives have those bombs killed? What possessed them to do such a cruel act? To show the world that they're not to be messed with? I mean if they wanted to stop the war, they could have just gone for the Japanese officials. You did not have to show off your superpower by killing civilians like you and I who had nothing to do with the war. So I don't know which country is valued human life less at that time...

Any way the fact is that 2 of my great grandfathers died in WWII and another one got completely separated from our family. The post-war period was no joke either. My grandma would tell me how she was always hungry, grew up without a dad, all while her mom was never home because she had to do double shifts. My cousin's grandma apparently would pick crumbs up off the street. Makes me feel kind of guilty to blog about food and be picky about eating the "healthier" foods while my grandparents just wanted to eat something...

Enough of that! I have a confession :P I've been a quinoa virgin... Until now! I wanted to introduce my family to it so I cooked it in a very Russian style. So here we go...

Quinoa Stuffed Peppers, Russian Style


Ingredients

• 1 cup dry quinoa
• 2 cups water
• salt
• oil for frying
• 2 carrots, grated
• 1 big onion, finely chopped
• 4 bell peppers
• 1/4 cup raisins
• black pepper
• handful of shredded dill
• sour creme and dill for garnish (optional)

1. Cook the quinoa until almost done, should take about 20 min
2. Add salt as the quinoa cooks, I like to slightly over salt mine for this recipe
3. Meanwhile cut out the top of the bell peppers and remove the insides
4. Bake the bell peppers at 350F for 25 min
5. Grate the carrots and chop the onions
6. When quinoa is almost done, start frying the carrots and onions in a pan with a good quantity of oil
7. The carrots and onions should begin to brown but make sure they don't burn, should take about 5 min
8. Add in the quinoa and mix 
9. Add in the raisins, cook for 2-3 minutes more minutes
10. Shred dill and add it to the mixture, cook for another 2 min
11. Take the half cooked bell peppers from the oven and stuff them with the mixture
12. Then place them back into the over for another 20 min
13. Serve warm with a bit of sour creme and dill on top (just use dill if vegan)