Oh My! So Good!

...and crazy simple! Last month, the family went to the Eastern States Exposition - better known as The Big E. The weather was fantastic, it was great family time, and it planted a seed (pun intended) for the new path on My Journey to Wellness.

The seed that was planted was my discovery of the booth of Hempfully Green Healing House on the Vermont property of The Big E. While hemp is closely related to marijuana - like cauliflower is to broccoli - hemp lacks the quantity of the psychotropic compound "THC" that marijuana has but still has the compound "CBD" that provides the primary benefits of hemp! It's kind of like comparing kombucha to vodka - both have alcohol, but you won't get drunk from kombucha.

The next step on the path was to find a good source of hemp seeds/products to add to my diet. This was a big step! My focus was to find viable hemp seeds that I could sprout to gain the additional benefits. While there are organic sources, everything that I could find was hulled and can't be sprouted. I did find a potential source for viable seeds, the cost was too high - 2 oz. for $20! If my interest was to plant and grow hemp, that might not be so bad. That's not my goal, though. I simply want to gain the additional benefits of the sprouted seeds and there is no way that I can afford a daily 'snack' for $20 each! So, until I can find a good source of viable, sprout-able hemp seeds, I'll go with the organic, shelled seeds.

Call it faith or fate... my next step came from Ocean State Job Lot. Last week, they had a 40th anniversary sale - everything priced less than $10 was on sale for 40% off - so, we went shopping! Ocean State Job Lot has an amazing selection of Bob's Red Mill products - most of which qualified for the sale. I picked up the Hulled Hemp Seed Hearts and the Hemp Protein Powder.

Last night, it took another step on the path - and, the source of the title of this post... Certainly not a great recipe but it was so good! I made a simple mix of the seeds, protein powder and ...drum roll, please... peanut butter!

Today, while composing this post, I took a relatively short step on the path. I made the same mix that I did last night but added a tablespoon of coconut oil. I'm thinking that I am going to cut out the peanut butter from the mix...

Feelin' Groovy!

"Slow down, you move too fast..."  How true.  The lyrics, of course, are taken from Simon & Garfunkel's 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy).  When the song was originally recorded in 1967, there was no such thing as the internet, cell phones, microwave ovens, and while McDonald's existed, their drive-thru service had not yet been born.  Things were still moving relatively fast in 1967, but no where near the speed of life that we see today.

We are constantly looking for ways to speed things up, to be more efficient, and to earn more money while spending less on necessities so that we can spend more on frivolities.  What are we doing to our quality of life - not the superficial, material quality but the emotional, physical, and spiritual quality - with these pursuits?  People are behind the wheel of their car while talking on the cell phone and eating that fast food meal that they picked up at the drive-thru.  I am all for multitasking, but that is just dangerous in more ways than one!

Today I have already spent quite a bit of time on 'slowing down.'  For almost a week, I have been working on making my own kefir.  Each morning, I have been straining raw milk to recover the kefir grains that have been soaking for the previous 24 hours.  The process of revitalizing the grains in order to produce kefir takes 5-7 days.  This morning started in similar fashion. 
My next project was to make my own peanut butter.  On Wednesday, I had purchased some raw peanuts at It's Only Natural and started soaking them in sea salt and filtered water.  After suitable soaking time, I transferred the peanuts to the dehydrator and started soaking the raw filberts (hazelnuts) that I had also gotten at I.O.N. with the peanuts (did you know that shelled, raw filberts float?).  When the filberts were done soaking, I added them to the dehydrator on a second tray.  I suppose that the difference in density between the peanuts and filberts is the reason, but both were completed drying yesterday.  I pulled out the food processor and loaded the peanuts into the bowl and stored the hazelnuts in a container for snacking.  Along with the peanuts, I added a Tbsp. of coconut oil and a dash of sea salt and turned on the processor.  Once the peanuts started to turn into a nice, creamy butter, I added a Tbsp. of raw honey and some flax seeds and let the processor run for another 30 seconds to mix it all well.
The third project of this morning was to transform two avocados, onion, green pepper, sea salt, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper into guacamole.  Only as I type this do I realize that I forgot to add cilantro to the mix.  No problem, though.  I can always add it later...
Fourth project - to make some more vegetable stock.  Actually, I was somewhat efficient on this project.  While dicing the onion green pepper for the guacamole, I also chopped the onion and green pepper for the stock.  I filled the Crock Pot with filtered water and turned it on while preheating the oven to roast the onion and green pepper.  To the roasting vegetables, I added some coconut oil and sea salt.  While they roasted, I coarsely chopped some cabbage, carrots, and celery and added them to the Crock Pot.
Time for clean-up!  With these projects, I certainly created a fair amount of dirty utensils so while the onion and green pepper roasted, I cleaned up.  Having just run a cycle, the dishwasher was full of clean dishes.  Rather than waste the electricity to have the dishwasher dry the dishes, we simply let them air dry before putting them away.  As the food processor parts would present a bit of a challenge for the dishwasher anyway, I decided to hand wash everything that I had used.


Out of all of these projects, the guacamole took the least amount of time from start to finish.  Had I been responsible for growing the ingredients, that would have been a different story.  The kefir project began almost a week ago and still isn't completed.  The peanut butter (and hazelnut) project(s) began on Wednesday and was completed today.  The vegetable stock project began today (aside from shopping for ingredients) and will be completed on Tuesday.  All of these things take time but the benefits far outweigh the time spent completing them.


To paraphrase the song, slow down, don't move so fast.