Veggie Sandwich

Hello! I made a really yummy dinner this evening and I can't help but share it here on B@M. This past week, I have been kind of leaning towards more veggie based meals, I'm not saying I've gone full on vegetarian mode, but I'm definitely being more mindful about how much meat I eat. I watched a documentary about salmon recently (prime example of exam procrastination) and it really got me thinking about what we eat. That, paired with the phrase "is this good for my body" that my mom heard at yoga, has got me thinking exactly what am I consuming?
... How cheesy it that ;)

So if anybody has any good documentaries, websites, or advice about eating less meat I'm all ears!!

This is more of a compilation than anything but please enjoy these recipes I've found because they were MOUTHWATERING (and bonus: meatless)!!

Kale Caesar Salad from A Cup of Jo (the only blog I read daily). I've made this caesar vinaigrette countless times but this was the first time I used a food processor to blend it. It honestly made ALL the difference!

Ingredients
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 Tbsp mustard powder
- 1½ Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 3 Tbsp lemon juice
- ½ cup olive oil

✿ Blend all together in a food processor or mix by hand. Toss into washed, relaxed kale.

Chickpea Avocado & Pesto Sandwich from Two Peas & Their Pod. This mix is also great for eating with tortilla chips.

Ingredients
- 1 can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 1 large avocado
- 2 Tbsp pesto
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice

✿ Smash all ingredients together and spread on toast!

Grilled Veggies
My mom just bought one of these as seen on TV Yoshi BBQ mats and they are AMAZING! I could go on for days or you could watch the informercial. Who's ever tried to fry an egg on a barbecue??? That's my question after watching the "before" part of the video clip. Hahaha!

Enjoy your night! xox

Raspberry Scones

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Breakfast at Midnight!!! It was on this fateful day two years ago that I started my blog and I can't believe I'm still at it! Last night we had a couple of friends over for games and some much needed drinks to celebrate the end of exams (for most of us) and we ate a huge pile of chocolate chunk waffles... at midnight. So we had breakfast at midnight to celebrate Breakfast at Midnight!! I'm so lucky to have friends that put up with my wacky ideas :)

Today, I'm going to give you guys the best raspberry scone recipe, which is fitting because my girlfriends and I just came back from an afternoon sipping tea, munching on scones, and chit chatting at a little old heritage house right in Lennoxville! Apparently they have pictures of our house archived at the museum there, so I'm booking an appointment sometime this week to go uncover some hidden gems. Our house is right on the train tracks, so wayyyyyy back when it used to be some sort of rest stop/little train station. I can't wait to find out more about its history!

Raspberry Scones

Straight from my girl Martha.

Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups flour
- ¼ cup sugar, and then 1 Tbsp for topping
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp salt
- ½ cold unsalted butter grated 
- ¾ cup buttermilk (I never buy buttermilk, I just use Joy's trick!)
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 ½ cup raspberries. Martha says that you should use fresh, but I used frozen and that was okay)

Directions
✿ Preheat oven to 400ºF.
✿ Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Grate in the cold butter and mix until pea-size pieces form.
✿ In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and egg yolk. Slowly pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture and mix until dough just comes together.
✿ Transfer to a lightly floured surface and sprinkle raspberries on top. Knead three times to fold in the raspberries and then pat down the dough to 1 inch thick. Use a cup to cut circles out of the dough or pull apart pieces. Place scones about 2 inches apart, on a parchment-lined baking sheet and sprinkle tops with one tablespoon of sugar.
✿ Bake until just golden, about 15-18 minutes.

Enjoy!

...and a gif of me blowing out the candles of one giant stack of waffles.

My Dream Smoothie

Hello!

I want to say a BIG happy Easter to all of the people that read this silly little thing!! I am in the middle of exam prep/term paper season but I can honestly not wipe the smile off my face. With the end of the school year approaching faster than a moose in heat I'm spending as much time as I can with my friends. It's so nice to live in a little town where you're a ten minute walk from just about every person you know! Since a lot of my friends are graduating this year, I am giving them extra hugs and convincing them all to just camp out in our spare bedroom for one more year. If I think about it too much I get all sad, so instead of moping around I decided to throw an Easter extravaganza!! If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know that I absolutely love throwing dinner parties, so that's exactly what I did—a dinner party on steroids. There was a house-wide egg hunt (yes, the basement too...), egg dying, easter trivia, and a photo booth. It was amazing. We didn't have too many people over and it was great because we just sat around our big dinner booth and laughed and ate and laughed and ate. It was exactly where I wanted to be for the holidays. 

Here are a few pictures if you'd like to see:

From waking up in the morning and making myself a dippy egg and soldiers, to going all out preparing for the party and moving the gigantic TV to make room for the photo booth, and then having Al's cake that had about seventeen fire hazards on it, it was a hoot!!!

Now that I have eaten my weight in carbs, cheese, and chocolate I'm more than ready to take a step away from the pile of leftovers in my fridge and eat something a little more low key. In come smoothies!!! 

I love smoothies because they're so pretty and there are hundreds of variations. I never measure out my smoothie ingredients so I get a different flavour and texture every time. Lately, I've been experimenting with toppings and when I was Skyping with my Scottish friend Kate across the pond (hooray for technology!!), she was dying to know what I had done to make the masterpiece in the biggest picture below:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a tropical smoothie topped with homemade rawnola, greek yogurt, and fresh juicy medjool dates. A.k.a. My dream smoothie.

My Dream Smoothie

Smoothie
- Frozen mangoes
- Frozen raspberries
- 1 fresh or frozen banana (don't forget to take the peel off before freezing)
- Couple spoonfuls of greek yogurt or some type of milk if you like it less thick.
- 1 teaspoon of maca powder*
- 1/2 tablespoon of ground flax seed
- 1/2 tablespoon of hemp hearts

✿ Blend all ingredients and consume immediately!

*Okay, confession time. Last Christmas, my sister Brigitte gave me a jar of maca powder to increase my energy levels (I can sleep on any surface) and balance out my hormones. So, like the good sister I am, I used it all the time in my smoothies. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago when I was eating banana-only ice cream and trolling the internet for recipes that I came across this quotation "[maca]is known to be 'Nature's Viagra'", the author of Wake the Wolves then proceeded to warn us with immense caution that it is "powerful stuff". So once I realized I had been practically shovelling nature's #1 libido booster into my daily smoothies, I decided to do a little more googling (not a good idea. like ever.) and found out that they sell it in pill form at sex stores *insert shocked emoji face*.  So if you're like me and want a little more balance and want to turn to superfoods to help with your insides, proceed with caution and take it one teaspoon at a time!!!

Rawnola- This stuff is great on soooo many things. Yogurt, smoothie bowls, plain old snacking... you name it! Maggie made it a lot on exchange for day trips and it was so so good AND easy!
- 1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
- 1/2 cups oats
- 7 juicy dates**

✿ Pulse in a food processor and enjoy!

**Dates are my splurge item. I make a special trip into our local health food store—yes, we have a health food store in Lennoxville, but no movie theater or dollar store—and pick up a box of refrigerated dates FOTB. They are so juicy and fresh and they make ALL the difference when compared to the block of dried sugary stuff they call dates at the grocery store.


Other Toppings
- Fresh chopped dates
- Yogurt
- Raw cashews and almonds
- Fresh fruit
- Oats
- Coconut
- Pepita seeds
- Chia seeds
- Goji berries
- Bee pollen
- Raw Cacao nibs
... and many more!

xox G