Almond Milk Banana Milkshake

Inspired by this post yesterday, I really felt I wanted to make banana and date milkshakes! I decided to use almond milk instead of dairy as we are all slightly allergic to dairy here. So I put some almonds into a basin of water to soak overnight to soften up nicely and used them today to make the milk. 

We put the 2 cups of soaked almonds in the blender with 2 cups of water. Blended it on medium for about a minute and then we had lovely creamed almonds.

I put a sieve over a bowl and placed some cheesecloth over the sieve, poured the blended almonds onto the cheesecloth and squeezed as much of the milk out of the blended almonds as possible.

Now to make the milkshakes...

We poured the almond milk into the blender with 4 bananas, the inside of 1 vanilla pod and about 5 dates to sweeten the milkshake.
Blended everything until it was lovely and smooth... Yum, everyone enjoyed their milkshakes and were asking for more:)

Visitors in our Wood Pile...

The other night Richard and I went out into the yard to fetch some firewood because it is freezing here at night at the moment! We got such a fright, something flew out of the wood pile. We soon discovered it was this beautiful mama Rock Pigeon. They are such beautiful, large birds with red rings surrounding their wise eyes.

We are not sure when her little ones will hatch but we will leave this wood pile until next year so she can raise her family...

It has been really cold here and last week while I was talking on the phone, I noticed water started to drip and then run really fast from out of the ceiling! When we opened the trap door, it was spraying out like a sprinker was on up there. Luckily, someone was able to come out and fix our pipes that morning. When they took the burst pipes out of the roof they showed me that the water was frozen inside!

Frozen birdbaths...

Can you believe it! It doesn't usually get this cold here in sunny South Africa.

And now a smoothie recipe for you:

2 babanas (peeled)

1 handfull of pak choi leaves

2 kiwi fruits (peeled)

200 mml water

half a vanilla pod

Blend all the ingredients in your blender and enjoy:) (This is a yummy one!)

I built a Natural Kids Treasury on Etsy today, such wonderful creative artists in it:)

Happy Thursday

Linda

Green Smoothies and Face Packs?

There have been quite a few changes going on around here... I am not the greatest one for change, but I must admit these have been great changes! We have been starting to slowly introduce more raw food into our diet and it really is tasty:) Jenna has taken an interest in raw food preparation and has been helping me make all sorts of yummy dishes, on Sunday we tried raw spaghetti and a white sauce, I had no idea it would taste SO good! Every morning we make a smoothie and we are always coming up with different recipes to enjoy:)  Here is one below that we have been making:

Smoothie:

1 Pineapple

2 Pears

1 Apple

1 Orange (peeled)

4 Seedless dates (to sweeten)

1 Handful of Pak Choi

Cut up your fruit and blend it all together and if it is too thick, just add a little water:) Enjoy

A few posts back I asked asked if anyone could share raw food links and some amazing links were shared, their blogs are also wonderful too:

Dawn sent in   http://happyfoody.com/

Sarah sent in http://muckbootsnaprons.blogspot.com/

Jen sent in http://catherine-et-les-fees.blogspot.com/

The other day when Richard took Erin to baseball, Jen and I had some mama daughter time together:) We decided to make a face pack. It was wonderful and gooey and once we washed it off, our skin felt amazing! Life is so incredibly hectic most of the time, it is really important to pamper yourself when you can, to plan time for yourself, and to honour who you are... So face packs it was for us!

Here is what we did:

1 Avo
2 Tablespoons of honey
4 drops of Jojoba Oil

Mix it all together and when it is lovely and smooth, rub it all over your face. Sit and relax for about 20 minutes to half and hour and then wash off with warm water. Your skin will feel amazing!

A few people have asked me to share how I added a 3rd column to my blog, it was really easy, Blogger has an editing website called Blogger In Draft, where you can edit your blog and make all the changes you want without affecting your current blog:) Once you have made all the changes you want, you can apply them to your blog, just make sure you save a copy of the template you are using at the moment, just in case you want to revert back to it:)

Here is the link, it really is wonderful.

Here is a peek at a new pattern I will be sharing soon: Sunner Ladybug:)

I have also been featured over at the Rhythm of the Home Blog, for How to Make a Sun Tea, pop over and have a look see:)

Happy Tuesday to all,

Warmly

Linda

Portrait Saturday, Red Hot Pokers and Raw Food

Our Red Hot Pokers (Kniphofia uvaria), indigenous to South Africa are in full bloom, they are quite spectacular to look at and attract an amazing amount of bird life, bees and insects to our garden:)

Today we went shopping for a juicer and a blender, we are slowly incorporating raw foods into our diet. If anyone has any suggestions on a dehydrator or appliances that they use and love, please could you let me know. It is quite a pricey purchase, so I want to buy the right ones:) We started our day with wheat grass that had been juiced. Jen has planted a large tray of it and today it was ready to juice. She cut all the grass just above the soil and juiced it with some lemons and apples, it tasted really great and is so wonderfully good for you too:) I think we will have to plant more trays of it so we have enough for every morning :)
Oh and I almost forgot, if you know of ANY awesome raw recipes online, please, please redirect me there, thank you kindly:)

When we started looking at a raw food diet, it was like learning a whole new language! Completely different ingredients etc... Now we have been trying different recipes and I must say I feel so much lighter, I have much more energy and I just feel amazing! So onward we go on this journey...

Have a wonderful weekend friends:)
Linda