The Creative Salad – Page 40 – Crafty fun and homeschool adventures in Sonoma County, California.

Handmade Watercolor Thank You Notes

You may be wondering where all of our craft project posts have gone. Well, instead of our typical morning craft project (that we LOVE to share with you here on the blog!), we’ve been writing birthday thank you notes.

Many, many birthday thank you notes.

Our daughter surprised us by announcing that she was going to hand-write her thank you notes. She’s doing a beautiful job, but because she’s, well, four years old, it’s taking a rather long time. She can only write about one thank you note a day. Make that, one note every other day. I don’t want to rush her, but that means we haven’t been doing that much else in the sit-still-while-we-do-a-project department.

We have many more notes to write. (Thank you all for your generous presents!)

Aren’t her notes precious?!

See our budget-friendly watercolor postcards tutorial for instructions on how we made the cards.

New Gluten-Free Goodies

Our family has been enjoying two new(ish) gluten-free products:

Jovial Rice Pasta truly tastes better, much better, than the competition and comes in a variety of shapes. (I particularly like their capellini that cooks in seven minutes flat.) In addition to being organic, whole grain, and incredibly tasty (I honestly feel this is the best gluten-free pasta on the market!), I love that the inner bag of their packaging is compostable:

How cool is that?! Eco-groovy and tasty, you can’t go wrong with this pasta.

FYI: If you get hooked on the Jovial pasta and, like us, exclusively eat it, then know that Jovial pasta is much more affordable at Amazon than in the grocery store. I try to pick it up locally when it’s on sale, but even then the price can be 50 cents to a dollar more per box than the price Amazon is offering.

The other product we recently found and adore are WholeVine Gluten-Free Cookies made right here in Sonoma County. While I feel that totting health benefits from grape-extracts in the cookies may be a bit gimmicky, their product is first rate. David and I both enjoyed this batch of 2-Chocolate Chips cookies.

If you don’t live in Sonoma county (where they’re available at a growing number of stores), you can order from them directly at their website. I’m excited to try their other flavors… not that I should be eating sugar or anything. Whoops!

p.s. You don’t have to exclusively eat gluten-free to enjoy these products! My husband particularly likes these cookies and he’s a hard sale on any cookies. Bon appétit!

Oh, the Energy! Yeah, I’m Eating Meat Now.

If you had told me a year ago that I would be eating meat, I would have laughed in your face. I’ve been a vegetarian for almost all of my life. My husband and I met because we were vegetarians (thrust together at one end of the table at Thanksgiving dinner nine years ago).

Yet here we are, hoping to stay pregnant (when we start trying again in the future!), and so after decades of vegetarianism, I’m eating meat. Not just any meat, but red meat.

Frequently.

Lamb kabobs,
lentil soup with bone broth,
french onion soup,
lamb patties,
turkey sausage…

The list goes on.

I don’t particularly like its taste yet, but my body evidently adores when I consume it: within hours of eating meat, I feel incredible! (Dammit!)

I have energy! Stamina!
I become oh-so productive!

Who needs caffeine?! I’m eating meat!

I find it truly astonishing, and makes me think I will probably be an omnivore for the rest of my life.

My sister just texted me, “I want to officially welcome you to the dark side!” Oh, geez. I’m no longer a vegetarian… but I feel great!

Healthy Chocolate Pudding Recipe

This chocolate pudding tastes decadent, but is actually quite healthy! You’ll never guess what’s in it…

… chia seeds!

I’ve heard for years that chia seeds are good for you — they’re rich in omega-3 fatty acids and once soaked in water they can help with hydration. While David drinks a cup full every morning, I have never been able to get past their texture… until now!

David added his own spin to this chia seeds chocolate pudding recipe I found on Pinterest, adding a banana to the mix and blending the chia mixture in the Vitamix to create a smooth texture.

Here’s how to make this rich tasting, yet healthy dessert:

In a medium sized bowl, add 1/4 cup chia seeds, 3/4 cup milk, 1 heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder, and a splash of vanilla extract (optional):

Thoroughly stir the mixture, then allow it to sit for at least 10 minutes so the chia seeds can absorb the chocolate milk. Look how it thickens during that time:

Add this mixture to your blender with a banana, sweetener of your choice (we used 2 tablespoons of maple syrup since our banana was barely ripe), and enough milk to thin the mixture so it moves freely in your blender (we used about 1/2 a cup):

Blend on high until smooth:

Serve and enjoy!

Yum!

New Website Features

Well, hello there, dear readers. Boy did we take an unexpected break! After a week away from the blog, and some much needed R&R after our trip to Monterey, we’re back with lots to say.

First, a few housekeeping tidbits before our regular post goes live tomorrow morning.

You can now subscribe to our posts via email which means that any time we update the site we’ll send you an email (from The Creative Salad) with our entire post in it. No need to open a web browser, just click on the email and our whole post is there for you to read and enjoy.

Here’s how to subscribe:
Click here to be redirected in a new browser window to FeedBurner. Then click on “Get The Creative Salad delivered by email” link shown below:

I’ve also added a “Pin it” button at the end of posts for easy pinning to Pinterest:
Unfortunately you can’t see this button on the main page, but if you click through to the actual post (either by clicking on the post title at the top of each post or by clicking on the “Comments” link at the end of each post), you will see the “Pin it” button. (Thanks to kevin & amanda for the “Pin-it” how-to!)

I have a number of other website design related projects up my sleeve, but that’s enough for one afternoon.

We’ll see you back here tomorrow morning with a delicious and healthy chocolate pudding recipe. I know, that sounds like an oxymoron. Wait til you see the surprise ingredient! (And, no, it’s not tofu or avocado.) Ah, the suspense…