How’s your weekend going? I’m sad that it’s almost over and that I’m on call for work next week – ick. But I’m also taking a day off for my birthday and the heat is supposed to mellow out just slightly. This weekend has been intolerably hot outside, not fun weather to be outdoors in, so we kept most of our activities in the wonderful AC, such as seeing Inception yesterday (amazing!) and hanging inside most of today loading my dehydrator while my poor bored ladies soaked up the sunshine from the comfort of the AC.
My mom is working hard to get into a high raw diet and orders any products I recommend from Amazon. She ordered a 5 lb. jug of hemp seeds from Amazon, but they were back-ordered and she decided to order the 5 lb. bag I usually get. But she didn’t cancel the other order and received the other 5 lb. container a week later. Since I seem to be consuming more hemp seeds lately doing homemade hemp milk and I actually have space in my freezer, I bought the jug from her.
This one cheaper than the Nutiva seeds I usually get, but every time I try to order it from Amazon, it’s not in stock. I will try to order it in the future because it comes in a better container while being cheaper. Anyway, with such a overflow of hemp seeds, I had to make cinnamon hemp butter!
Pretty much just throw hemp seeds, a little agave nectar and cinnamon into a food processed and run until desired texture is reached, which for me is thick and chunky and goes great with my favorite bread.
Gotta love bread with just 4 ingredients and that it tastes so amazingly moist and sweet. It’s not cheap and I’ve only found it in the Whole Foods freezer section, but worth it to create a wonderful post-run snack.
A thick slice of Carrot Raisin Manna Bread topped with chunky, homemade cinnamon hemp butter – yum!
Saturday we had a little family BBQ at my sister’s house where the raw and cooked vegan options were plentiful for a change!
Hemp alfredo salad with zucchini noodles I took, fingering potatoes which I haven’t had in ages, garlic roasted asparagus and a BBQ’d corn-on-the-cob. It was a splurging vegan feast for me that was maybe accompanied by a fresh watermelon/vodka cocktail my sister was whipping up in her Vita-Mix. :-P
Last week I picked up the largest, most-beautiful artichoke I’ve ever seen at the farmer’s market, it was $3 – but totally worth it being plenty for both hubby and I. After trimming the sharp ends to the leaves, I chopped in have to be steamed on stove top.
I usually fill our spaghetti pot with about 3 inches of water, set the steamer tray on top and steam the artichokes covered for about 20 minutes or so, removing from the heat when the leaves are tender enough.
It had amazing flavor by itself and the leaves were the perfect, tender texture and the heart of it was just perfect. Artichokes are one of my favorite steamed veggies and after trying to grow one, I understand why they’re so expensive – they’re hard to grow wanting the perfect humid conditions and one plant only produces one artichoke at a time – like pineapples. Anyway, it went perfectly with a salad of kale, zucchini, carrots, avocado and tomatoes coated with Kristen Suzanne’s Nacho Hemp sauce.
Manna bread, have heard it truly is, manna :)
Hemp seeds, pretty soon your THC levels are gonna come back positive (kidding!) haha!
That IS THE MOST BEAUT artichoke ive ever seen too!!!
I used to RUIN so many arti’s from my CSA. Under or over cooking them and i find them hard to clean properly. It’s one of those foods i actually prefer canned/frozen b/c at least then I have 95% of the work done. I would LOVE a personal tutorial from you!
Happy early bday too!!!!!
I’ve never had fresh artichoke before! I need to give it a try!