Two Years of Blogging!

Hi guys! I cannot believe that it has already been two years since I began my blogging adventure.

I took a screenshot of my dashboard last December, partially because I thought it was cool that the numbers were all 7's! However, it is really cool to compare the difference in numbers of posts and pageviews from December to the end of July!

During these times, the blog itself has certainly changed a lot! I remember when I began it as a food blog in the summer of 2011, and how I have continued to add a variety of posts about a lot of random topics!

So, I am looking forward to another great year of blogging and embracing passions! There are no guarantees to how often I will post, or what the content will be, but as always, I really appreciate your readership, and thanks for stopping by! Enjoy your day!

Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies are one of my absolutely favorite treats, and I love munching on them, hot out of the oven, with a glass of milk! It is especially fun to make them with friends or family, and when everyone can enjoy them together!

When people often talk about making cookies "healthier", they look at reducing the sugar, fat, or other "bad for you" aspects of cookies. While this is great, why not also add ingredients that are good for your health, so you have both a cookie with less fat and sugar as the regular alternative, but also one that is healthy for your heart, mind, skin, and blood sugar levels?

The four superfood ingredients in these cookies are ground flax, algae powder, cinnamon, and coconut oil, in addition to whole wheat flour! Flax seed has been around for thousands of years; in fact, in the 8th century, King Charlemagne required his empire consume flax seeds because of the health benefits! If only we could do the same today haha! :) Anyways, flax contains omega 3 fatty acids and fiber, protects against breast and prostate cancer and diabetes.

The health benefits of cinnamon are incredible, since it lowers blood sugar levels, reduces cholesterol levels, contains fiber, calcium, magnesium, and iron, helps regulate hormones, and reduces pain linked to arthritis! Spirulina algae helps reduce hypertension, prevent cancer, reduce stress, prevent diabetes, and can be used to "detox". For this recipe, I had a jar of HealthForce SuperFoods Vitamineral Green, which is a green powder that has spirulina and chlorella algae, in addition to a lot of other superfoods!

While coconut oil may not be as well known, it is excellent to cook and bake with, since it can withstand high temperatures and won't reach it's smoke point (at which oils can become toxic), but it has an amazing array of benefits! It helps burn fat, prevent infection, reduces hunger, reduces seizures, and improves cholesterol, for starters.  You might be thinking, doesn't coconut oil have a lot of saturated fat? Well, yes, it does. But, did you know that the way our bodies metabolize saturated fat from animals (like those in cheese and meat) and saturated fat from plants (like those in coconut oil) is completely different? Saturated fats from plants are not unhealthy at all! In fact, these saturated fats are broken down like fatty acids, and can even have healthful impacts on the brain. It can even be applied topically as a moisturizer and mild sunscreen, or even used as a mouthwash!

Anyways, now let's get to the good stuff!

This recipe made about 20 cookies, but you can make more with smaller cookies!

You will need:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
1 tablespoon algae powder (you can put in more if you like, I didn't want my family to be too grossed out by a green color!)(I used this!)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Mix together the sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, and coconut oil. Then, mix together the flour, ground flaxseed, baking soda, sea salt, cinnamon, and algae powder.
3. Combine both the wet and dry ingredients, add the chocolate chips, and mix until incorporated. Do not over-mix.
4. Spoon the cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes, or until golden brown.
Enjoy!!

Top 12 Eats in San Francisco and Sausalito

For anyone who knows me, it's no secret that I LOVE food! Over my five weeks in San Francisco and Sausalito, I ate a lot of yummy foods! Here are my top 12!

1. The Plant Cafe California Veggie Burger
I am constantly in search of the best veggie burger, and I found it here! So much deliciousness, with patty made from organic lentils, beets, mushrooms, cashews and bulgur, topped with avocado, grilled onion, tomato and white cheddar cheese!
 
I got it twice, and both times were amazing!! I am definitely going to try to recreate this one!

2. Good Earth Pizza
The slices of pizza from Good Earth Natural Foods Store (picture the next step up from Whole Foods in terms of environmental impact), were always soo delicious! It was always tempting to pick up a slice when we stopped by!

This was called "Medicinal Mushroom", and was vegan, gluten-free, and Ashley's absolute favorite, so I had to try it! It was good!

This one was my absolute favorite, and I loved the amount of veggies!

3. The Plant Cafe Dino Kale Salad
Other than homemade kale chips, I had never been a huge fan of kale, despite it's superfood qualities. However, this salad changed my mind! The flavors were amazing together, with the red quinoa, toasted almonds, avocado, arugula, cherry tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, and tossed in a lemon-cumin vinaigrette! I hope to attempt to recreate my own version of this salad!

4. Sol Food Veggie Deluxe Sandwich
I had this yummy sandwich two ways, both with bread, and one time with tostones, or fried plantains, instead of bread. It was topped with avocado (notice a trend? haha), roasted red pepper, white cheddar cheese, tomato, and a chipotle lime mayo. Here it is pictured with the tostones.

5. Straus Creamery Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

As I am on the search for the perfect veggie burger, I have been on a quest to find the best vanilla ice cream ever as well! This organic, local dairy is incredible, and I ate lots of their yummy products throughout the summer! I also enjoyed topping it with fruit from the farmer's market, 

I even tried topping it with olive oil and himalayan salt (I'm not trying to sound fancy, this is just a pink salt that the person we lived with had in her house), and that was a really cool flavor combination!

6. Farmer's Market produce

While this is general, I loved our weekly visit to the farmer's market in Mill Valley. This picture is from the first week, when I bought the most!

7. Homemade Stovetop Popcorn with Coconut Oil
Prior to this summer, I hadn't made stovetop popcorn, but it was really fun! We used mixed colored corn kernals from the bulk section of Good Earth, and used some of Dr. Bronner's Coconut Oil to cook them in, which gave it a mild coconut flavor!

8. The Plant Cafe Lemon-Blackberry Cupcake
This cupcake was a wonderful surprise! When I saw that the flavor was lemon-blueberry, I didn't know it would be filled! The buttercream frosting itself was incredible!

9. Hemp Pancakes and smoothies!
Following my discovery of hemp, I bought some vanilla hemp milk to make hemp milk pancakes! They were very yummy! Also, I loved making smoothies every morning, and it's something I hope to continue in the future!

10. Good Earth Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies

11. Whole Foods Vegan Donut
This was a fun discovery on my second to last day in San Fran! I had been craving donuts earlier (well, really craving all sweets haha), and this donut really delivered! I'm always impressed when vegan treats taste no different than their conventional counterparts.

12. Bi-Rite Ice Cream
When my family visited me and while my sister attended a fashion camp in San Francisco, we indulged in this wonderful ice cream and I had a hot fudge sundae with a scoop of lavender-vanilla and a scoop of brown sugar ice cream with a ginger caramel swirl, in honor of my boyfriend's love of brown sugar!

12. Salads!
While my salads never looked this beautiful (I took a picture of Ashley's), I actually really enjoyed making salads, especially with farmer's market heirloom tomatoes, avocado, carrot, shredded white cheddar cheese, and olive oil!

Yum! That was a fun post to write! I think I might love taking pictures of food a little bit too much :)
As always, thanks for reading! Enjoy your day!

Homecoming

Hello everyone! I cannot believe how quickly the time has gone, and that the summer is already winding down. This summer has been a whirlwind with very few days of rest in between, as I spent time in Japan, Phoenix, San Francisco, and just came back from Indianapolis! Each of these experiences was wonderful in its own way, but I think more than ever, I am thrilled to be home. My homebody self is looking forward to a little bit of sleeping in and some relaxation before the upcoming year begins. What I most learned from the busiest summer of my life is that the love of family and friends is really what life is about. The toughest part of the past few months was definitely missing my family and my incredible boyfriend, Jake. I had always known these people meant the world to me, but have also learned that even the most beautiful places in the world or the most meaningful experiences can't compare to big hugs or a feeling of belonging.

That being said, I did love spending my summer in San Francisco. The weather was gorgeous, and I had the opportunity to look out at the bay every single day! I now have a much deeper understanding with how non-profit organizations operate, and I have a much deeper respect for the ethical, awesome companies who were our partners, and an appreciation for their support, since that is often the only way we are able to do anything. I ate a lot of yummy food, gained new cooking knowledge and healthy recipes, and had fun at the biggest farmer's market I have ever been to! I enjoyed working both on the environmental curriculum based upon Project Green Challenge content, but also enjoyed working on many of the random projects that came up during the summer, as we are constantly "dreaming and doing", as our executive director. I didn't expect to learn as much as did about a wide variety of issues, two being hemp and GMOs. Before, I knew only bare bones definitions about these two topics, but now I feel like a well-informed citizen ready to action in regards to both topics! I made several wonderful friends with the other interns as well! Here is a picture of the other girls and I on our way back to Sausalito from our visit to San Francisco.

Now that I am home, I am continuing work on the curriculum, as well as video making, and hopefully a lot of posting, although I still have plenty of catch up left :) Enjoy your day!

Updates

Hey everyone! I know it has been forever since I have posted. My summer internship with Teens Turning Green has been intensely busy, but also has taught me a lot and given me the opportunity to participate in many really cool projects! 

I don't really have time to post pictures right now, but I have been taking a lot of pictures, so here is a link to some that are on the summer interns page for the organization: http://pinterest.com/teensturngreen/summer-fun-with-our-interns/

Also, we are currently in the midst of fundraising for an incredible school lunch transformation program. The poorest elementary school and middle school in the county (95% of the students are on free and reduced lunch) have low quality food in their school cafeteria, so we are trying to host the first ever school dining hall with all organic and non-GMO, that features healthy, local, and seasonal menus for both breakfast, lunch, and a snack. We are trying to raise the money to renovate one of the kitchens and to hire a chef. It is a really cool program, and as a future educator, it has been exciting to get involved with this project behind the scenes. If you want to learn more or see the info video I helped out with, you can click here.

Finally, I have been working with one of the other interns on a mini documentary and also a song about GMOs. We watched a wonderful and eye-opening film called GMO OMG and after I have done more research about the topic, it is definitely an issue that I care about! Check out the trailer if you are interested!

That is all for now! Not too exciting of a post, I suppose, but thanks again for your loyal reading! Hope you had a happy 4th of July! :)