Fig Nation

Figs are delicious so let's discuss.

Aside from their beautiful colors, sweet taste and adorable shape, figs are great to add to a meal or to snack on by themselves. They contain a good amount of nutrients too...so what's not to love?! (Rhetorical question but the simple answer would be nothing.)

~ When should you eat them?
They're best during the summer and autumn seasons.

~ Lower your blood pressure!
Figs help to naturally increase potassium in the body, which in turn helps lower blood pressure. Score.

~ Watching your weight?
Due to the high fibre content, figs help you feel fuller faster. Your food cravings will subside and they'll help with digestive wellness. Double score!

~ Get rid of acne!
If you have acne, try mashing a fig and applying it to your skin. The high water content makes figs a perfect cleanser.

~ Increase your bone density!
You can thank all of the Calcium and Potassium found in figs for this one.

~ Beast mode kidney function!
Have some fig leaf extract to help lower fat levels in your kidneys...therefore helping them to function better.

*Enjoy in moderation because too many tend to have a laxative effect on the body due to all of the oxalates. ;)

How I like them:

I like to cut these little guys in half and broil them with some agave or maple syrup (if you aren't feeling the agave and you aren't vegan, honey will do) on top for 8-10 minutes, or until the tops start to bubble. Serve warm by themselves or if you're a cheese eater, try some goat cheese. They're also great on vanilla ice cream (or banana ice cream), in a fresh salad (kale, anyone?), with baked sweet potato, pomegranate, or anything else you think up. Figs rock.

(As you can see, I was running extremely low on tinfoil.)

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Orange Cranberry Coconut Bites

I am a big fan of making bite sized snacks like this because they're easy and require minimum work. All you have to do is put the ingredients in your blender and the machine does the rest. The most exciting part (in my opinion) is that although they are raw, they don't need to be frozen! It's nice to have a treat every once in a while that isn't freezing cold. Otherwise I would eat banana ice cream every day!

These little guys are soft to the touch and refreshingly zesty. Eat up!

Orange Cranberry Coconut Bites

Ingredients:

~ Dates - 1 cup

~ Unsweetened desiccated coconut - 1/2 cup + 1/4 cup for rolling

~ Orange juice - 1/4 cup

~ Dried cranberries - 1/4 cup

Instructions:

1. Blend the dates in your food processor until they are finally chopped.

2. Add the coconut and blend until just combined.

3. Add the orange juice and cranberries. Blend until well combined.

5. Roll into bite sized balls and cover in the remaining coconut.

6. Munch munch, chomp chomp.

Refrigerate these little guys if you aren't planning on eating them all at once. These keeps them more firm - plus there's some OJ in there so let's keep it fre$h.

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WTF: What's That Food?

Introducing the newest portion of the blog! Biweekly I'll be posting about a weird food that's either underrated, unheard of or unappreciated. First impressions, nutrition facts and recipes will all be posted along with some pretty pictures.

THE DRAGON FRUIT.

This is a badass fruit.

~It's hot pink
~It has polkadots
~It has leafy spikes
~It's fine
~It's fresh
~It's fierce
~It looks like a hand grenade

It's a shame more people don't eat this bad ass fruit. Maybe it's a little off-putting in all of its hot-pink-polkadot glory...that's why I'm bringing you some solid facts, a few inspiring pictures and a ridiculously easy recipe to introduce you to your new favorite food.

Which part of it is edible?:

~ Eat the black and white part as shown in the picture. (Dragon fruits can also be a deep red with black polkadots.)

~ The skin is not edible.

~ There is a thin white layer between the skin and the flesh. This is bitter and gross. Avoid at all costs.

How should a dragon fruit be cut?:

~ Cut vertically down the center of the fruit as shown above.

~ The flesh can be scooped out with a spoon, an ice cream scooper, or diced.



What does it taste like?:

~ The colors may be bold but the taste is mild.

~ Very juicy.

~ Think of a cross between a kiwi and a pear.



How should it be served?:

~ On it's own

~ In a fruit cup

~ In a smoothie bowl

~ As a sorbet

~ In a smoothie

~ With oatmeal

~ With cake

~ With rice pudding (healthy recipe coming soon)

~ The possibilities are endless

RECIPE
Dragon fruit sorbet

Ingredients:

1. Dragon fruit - frozen for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight

2. Coconut milk - 2 tbsp (optional)


Directions:

1. I wasn't kidding when I said this was easy. Put the dragon fruit in your food processor and blend until a sorbet-like consistency has been reached. Adding coconut milk will make the sorbet creamier.

2. I served mine with a scoop of banana ice cream. Enjoy!

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Lazy Lunch - Coconut quinoa with almonds and cranberries

Making food in the middle of the day can be a pain. What are we supposed to do if we're hungry, need some good nutrients, but don't want to cook up a big meal or spend our hard earned money? I'll tell you what we do. We make coconut quinoa!

This takes about 15 minutes but you're only preparing food for a solid 60 seconds.

Coconut quinoa with almonds and cranberries:

You will need:

~ Quinoa - However much

~ Coconut milk - 1 part milk for every 1 part water

~ Almonds - 1 handful

~ Cranberries - 1 handful


Instructions:

1. Begin by cooking the quinoa with 1 part water, 1 part coconut milk.

2. When quinoa is ready, prepare in bowl and mix in almonds and cranberries.

3. Drizzle a little more coconut milk if desired.

And then we feast.

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Lazy dinners - Vegetarian coconut fried rice

To be honest, I'd say all of the dinners I prepare are lazy dinners. My goal is to make the tastiest dinner possible while doing the least amount of work possible - and keeping it healthy of course. A lazy dinner doesn't have to be a bad one. This lazy dinner is seriously delicious. It's also seriously beautiful with all those vibrant colors mixed together!

Vegetarian coconut fried rice:

Ingredients:

Jasmine rice - 1/2 cup

Coconut milk - 1/2 cup

Water - 1/2 cup

Spinach - 1 overflowing handful

Egg - 2

Broccoli - 1/2 handful

Tomato - 1/2 handful chopped

Onion - 3 tbsp chopped

Salt - 1 tsp

Coconut oil - 1 tbsp



Directions:

1. Cook rice with a 1/2 cup water and a 1/2 cup coconut milk. When the rice has almost completed cooking, add in 1 beautifully overflowing handful of spinach. The spinach will wilt and become a lot less overwhelming to look at. Eating your greens is not as hard as it seems.

2. While the rice is cooking, chop up all of the other ingredients. Crack 2 eggs and whisk. Add a little coconut milk and scramble the eggs in a lightly oiled pan until just cooked.

3. Once rice has finished add rice with spinach, broccoli, tomato and onion to the scrambled eggs. Continue to cook all the ingredients. Drizzle a little coconut oil to the mix. When the broccoli has turned a slightly darker color your fried rice is just about ready.

4. Add 1 tbsp salt and push ingredients around. Transfer to a bowl. Devour all food.

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Healthy cookie dough greek yogurt

Healthy and dessert are two of my favorite things. It's not often you hear them in a sentence together. It's really not often you hear them in a sentence together and actually believe it will taste good - a healthy dessert? Believe me. This healthy dessert tastes good. I had this a few nights ago and I was more than pleased. This will definitely be made again, sooner than later.

Cookie dough greek yogurt:

Ingredients

Plain greek yogurt - 1/2 cup

Almond butter - 2 tbsp

Honey - 1 tbsp

Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

Sea salt - 1 pinch

Dark chocolate chips - 1 tbsp (or 10)

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together. Eat. Rejoice.

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Bartabelle's Butters - Sunflower butter

I have a thing for making butters. It's so fun, so simple, extremely easy and half the price of buying it from a store. Why anybody would ever buy butter really baffles me. I don't think people realize how simple it is!

I've made a few different kinds of butters; Almond, macadamia, chocolate macadamia, hazelnut, chocolate hazelnut (do you see a pattern?) and now sunflower seed butter. The beauty of making butters yourself is there are no added preservatives or other unnecessary ingredients. You know exactly where the nuts are coming from, you're saving money, it's probably healthy than what you're buying in the store and you can store it in cute jars!

I hadn't actually had sunflower seed butter before but I always see it as ingredients needed for recipes I want to try. It can be a pricey butter to buy in stores and I decided to make it myself. It has a nice sweet taste with a touch of salt. I think it tastes great in oat meal or just on a slice of toast, also on it's own with a spoon. ;)

Homemade Sunflower Seed Butter:

Ingredients:
~ Raw or roasted sunflower seeds - 1 cup
~ Coconut oil - Give or take 1 tablespoon
~ Salt - 1 pinch

1. Pour the sunflower seeds into your blender and blend until the seeds begin to clump together in a slightly powdered buttery form. This can take a while so be patient. You may need to occasionally scrape the side of the blender.

2. Add 1 tablespoon of coconut oil and blend some more. The extra bit of oil will help the butter get to a delicious creamy consistency. Next mix in a pinch of salt.

3. When the sunflower seeds have turned to butter (Trust me, it will. Just be patient.) you can now take a taste! Add a little more salt if you'd like, maybe a little honey if you want it sweeter but I don't think it needs any. Whatever floats your boat.

4. Pour into a jar and keep stored in your pantry! No refrigeration required. The butter lasts about 2 1/2 weeks but I wouldn't been surprised if you finish it sooner than that. Enjoy :)

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Rainy Sunday Breakfasts - 3 ingredient pancakes

I woke up this morning with my sister, Maddie, packing her things to leave Toronto. She was here for 3 days and everybody - and everything - was sad she was going. While she was here we made lots of delicious foods that I really should have taken pictures of for this blog. We also went to the Beyonce and Jay Z On The Run tour (which was one of the most beautiful things I've ever witnessed in my life) and we explored all over the city. We went to the downtown, to china town and to hippie town. We covered it all, basically. I was sad to see her go this morning and so was the sky. It was raining - no, it was pouring tears. Once Maddie was out the door I really didn't feel like doing much. It was early morning and the sky was grey and it was a Sunday. I think I can speak for everybody when I say that Sundays are for being lazy. I wasn't really in the mood to make some extravagant breakfast and to make sure I got every nutrient I needed to fuel my body throughout the day. I decided on making 3 ingredient pancakes. Quick and simple. But wait! These pancakes DO have the ingredients I need to fuel my boy throughout the day! Protein and fruit! All I needed extra was a side of toast!

3 ingredient pancakes:

Ingredients:
~Banana - 1
~Eggs - 2
~Baking powder - 1 tsp

The simple instructions:

Step 1 : Mash a banana to complete mush with a fork.

Step 2: Whisk 2 eggs, add a teaspoon of baking powder.

Step 3: Mix the eggs, banana and baking powder together.

Step 4: Heat on a pan. Poor the mix into circles about the size of your fist. They are ready to flip when bubbles start to form on top, just the same way you would wait to flip a 'normal' pancake.

Enjoy!

Feel free to add anything your heart desires to the pancakes. Blueberries, dark chocolate, milk chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, the list goes on and on.

I made a couple with blueberries and a couple plain. Then as toppings I used a number of different things such as almond butter, cacao butter, macadamia nut butter and maple syrup. My favorite combination is the almond butter and maple syrup. That's really my favorite combination on everything. It never fails.

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