I know, I know. Being a locavore is so “in” right now that singing the praises of “buying local” might sound like a silly plea from yet another [...]]]> Thank you to California Grown for encouraging me to connect with California growers and encouraging California consumers to “Choose California Grown” when they can.

I know, I know. Being a locavore is so “in” right now that singing the praises of “buying local” might sound like a silly plea from yet another foodie-type blogger. But here’s the deal. I don’t belong to a CSA. And I don’t shop exclusively at the farmer’s market (but I do like to visit every few weeks!). Instead, I’d consider myself a pretty normal foodie consumer who buys the majority of her produce at the regular ‘ol grocery store and Costco… but I do like to be informed of where my fruits and veggies and meat are sourced from. For me, it’s both a consumer choice and a taste choice.

I know that when I buy California Grown fruits/veggies, that they were shipped to my market from the farm within the week. They’re fresh from the farm, even if they’re from San Diego, because that’s only an 8 hour drive from my store. And being from the “Salad Bowl of the World” … I like to support California farmers when I can. And I’m incredibly lucky that our local markets take note of that preference that many California consumers have and label where everything comes from… even in the weekly ads:

And if your market doesn’t do this already – ask them to add signs to the produce section – or just bug your produce section managers to tell you where everything comes from until they do it!

So when I was offered to sample some “fresh from the farm” California Grown avocados delivered straight to my house from the California Avocado Grill, I jumped at the chance to taste the farm goodness of one of our family’s favorite fruits.

Not only were these avocados extremely large, but they were absolutely smooth and delicious and ripened within the week they arrived. It almost made me forget that we were nearing the winter crops here in Northern California… and that I used to live in that Southern California climate that grew these awesome fruits year-round!

[p.s. Did you know California produces 90% of all of the country’s avocados?!?]

And look how amazing the farm is where these beautiful fruits came from:

Now you might remember why avocados hold such a fun place in our household… remember this?

Well… instead of squishing them all over herself in whole fruit form, she now devours (and demands) her favorite snack while watching football in the form of guacamole.

(When we say we’re going to watch football, the next thing she asks for is “chips” … followed very shortly by “dip.” We once tried to have a Sunday without guac and it was tragic for everyone involved)

And making guacamole at home is so darn easy (you might remember me singing the praises of my handy dandy avocado tool before) and is great when you have kiddos that might not like the spices of store-made fresh guacamole.

Miss L’s Guacamole:

• 2       ripe avocados, peeled, pitted and mashed

• 2 tsp  honey

• 2  T    lemon juice

• 1/4     cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

• a pinch of sea salt

Combine everything in a bowl and serve! And if you want to keep some for later, remember to sprinkle lemon juice on top and then wrap it tightly in the fridge.

Just remember to eat the chip you used to dip… and don’t put it back in the chip bag/bowl after eating a whole bowl of guacamole. Don’t worry… all visitor’s to the M household on Sundays get fair warning to check for soggy chips before munching.

Thank you again to California Grown for sponsoring this blog post. Please click here to learn more about all of California Grown growers. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own. #CleverCAGrown #spon

Miss L has her first “school Thanksgiving” today at lunch. There was a sign-up on the door to bring in certain elements of a normal Turkey Day meal… like turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, etc. Being the sweets lover that I am, I signed up to bring pumpkin pie and whipped cream.

Is your city/town home to a storefront selling designer donuts? If it does… you are oh so lucky to indulge in the goodness of mixing really decadent things into donut batter. If it doesn’t have one yet, but it has a cupcake shop… you might be in for a treat in a [...]]]>

Is your city/town home to a storefront selling designer donuts? If it does… you are oh so lucky to indulge in the goodness of mixing really decadent things into donut batter. If it doesn’t have one yet, but it has a cupcake shop… you might be in for a treat in a short while.

Our designer donut shop just opened a few months ago: Doughbot Donuts. Every day, they post their menu of ridiculously yummy and non-standard donut flavors on their facebook page and twitter feed… and almost every day they sell out of all of their stock before closing time at noon.

This Sunday, Mr. M woke up with a craving for donuts. And somehow, with my puppy dog eyes and carefully placed morning pout, I managed to convince him to drive an extra mile (over the river too!) past our normal donut haunt and pick up some “new” flavors for us to try.

He came home with multiples of the following:

       Bacon Maple Bacon – speckled dough with maple glaze, topped with bacon

       The Dude – White Russian Bavarian creme-filled, sprinkled with coffee bean

        S’Mores – Cinnamon sugar donut filled with chocolate and locally sourced 
        handmade marshmallow, glazed with cinnamon and graham cracker

        Bacon Maple Apple Fritter – Apple cinnamon filling, maple glaze topped with apples & bacon

Do I really need to tell you that they were ridiculously good… or can you just know from the description that anything with those ingredients won’t taste bad? The only downside… the cost… $15 for a morning donut run. But I don’t blame them for charging $2 for an wonderous new creation that I’m not frying my deep fryer at home and that the local donut shop will never ever carry.

But bacon in donuts? The next best thing to bacon in pancakes!

Have you indulged in the latest sweets craze of designer donuts? And… ??

Back in my teaching days, I relied on a stockpile of snacks in my car and in my desk at school to [...]]]> Thank you to LUNA Protein for providing me a LUNA Protein sample pack to review. The opinions I’ve expressed here are solely my own and represent my honest viewpoint.

Back in my teaching days, I relied on a stockpile of snacks in my car and in my desk at school to keep me going from 6am to 5:30pm day in and day out. I rarely got to escape to eat lunch, and almost always forgot to pack one, so those snacks became the energy I relied upon every few hours without fail. And let me tell you… I ate my weight in LUNA LemonZest bars that I purchased in bulk from Costco. I’m pretty certain I went through a phase where I ate at least two a day, but it kept me from crashing or getting cranky and giving 110% to everything I had on my plate at the time.

Then, when I became a super boring and totally lazy graduate student (no really – grad school was a vacation compared to the previous 3 years) with a super nice student apartment kitchen, I had a bit more time, and less of a caloric-stress need to snack constantly and keep going from dawn to dusk. And away went my love of energy bars.

But then came pregnancy. And that whole phase where you need to eat something in the second you are hungry or else you might rip someone’s heart out? Well, mine was all about protein and I had to have peanut butter at the ready or else I would literally run my belly down the bike path to the student union’s Taco Bell for beans. I quickly learned again how instant protein can be a body’s best friend in times of need… and I’ve been noshing on the protein bars ever since.

I’m not sure if this happens to all working moms, but my sense of time has gotten completely out of whack when I’ve in the middle of doing something. That usually means I skip or delay meals… and usually work right through them in favor of a deadline. I mean, at home, if something needs to get done with Miss L, then that’s the priority and it gets done despite my hunger or other needs. So I think I just seem to carry that through everything now, to the despair of my tummy. So having protein bars on hand at work seems to be the easiest way to quell my insanity… and the raging cravings that I’m having!

So when I happened upon a chance to try out these (thanks Clever Girls Collective!) new protein bars from Luna, I was all over it!

I tried out all of the flavors (Chocolate Peanut Butter, Chocolate, Chocolate Cherry Almond, Mint Chocolate Chip, and Cookie Dough), and let me just tell you that these are by far the best tasting protein bars I’ve had. Really. Especially if you’re used to chowing down on PowerBars or something else that’s ooey and gooey in a bar form… you’ll adore these!

Out of all the flavors, I really liked the Mint Chocolate Chip and Cookie Dough bars the best, but I can see myself stowing a bunch of the Chocolate Peanut Butter ones in my desk as well! I go through handfuls of trail mix weekly, so I know that having these on hand will make my 5:00pm drive home a bit less crazy and perhaps I’ll be a bit nicer to Mr. M when I’m making dinner because I won’t be starving and going mad!

And just in case you wanted to see what all the fuss is about…

YOU CAN WIN A CHANCE TO TASTE THEM YOURSELF!

I’m giving away 5 LUNA Protein Prizes: each one includes a sample pack of LUNA Protein as well as a bonus treat from LUNA!

[The giveaway is sadly only open to U.S. residents]

To win: leave a comment about what your favorite satisfying desk/glovebox snack is… and you’re entered to win!

I’ll pick the 5 winners on September 2nd and they’ll be notified by email and posted on this blog entry!

Please click here to learn more about LUNA Protein. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own. #cleverLUNA

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And the winners are….

Congratulations and thank you to everyone that entered!!!!

Kusmi teas have been [...]]]> Remember when I made that awesome hibiscus mint iced tea a few weeks back? Well, ever since, I’ve gotten myself completely hooked on iced tea! This time around, I decided to try brewing some tea that was intended for ice, and opted for the new Iced Teas from Kusmi.

Kusmi teas have been around for over 140 years, but are just now becoming a more globally recognized brand. You may have heard or seen their “I love Detox” teas in stores… as that’s what always catches my eye in the tea aisle at Nugget.

The mixed box comes with 12 different varieties [Detox (Mate, green tea and lemongrass); Anastasia (Bergamot, lemon and orange blossom); Genmaicha (Japanese green tea with popped rice and corn); Label Imperial (Green tea, orange and cinnamon); Kashmir Tchai (Black tea and spices); Strawberry Green Tea; Ginger-lemon green tea; Spearmint green tea with Nanah mint leaves; Sweet Love (Black tea, guarana, spices and pink pepper); Be Cool (Caffeine free blend, liquorice and peppermint); Green tea scented with rose petals] but I quickly chose the Strawberry Green Tea as my first test case!

Friends… believe me when I tell you that “smell-o-web” should be invented just for me to share the amazing fragrance of this tea with you! Opening the envelope was an absolute explosion of freshly picked strawberry fields… and I think I even got a little sad when I realized that this was my only dose of strawberry iced tea in the box.

The instructions for brewing are quite simple – but in metric units, so don’t be alarmed. Simply place 2 tea bags in 1/4 L of simmering water (aka. 8.5 fl oz.).

Then add that mixture to 1 L of water (aka 34 fl oz) and add ice as needed to dilute it to your preferred taste!

I also whipped up a batch of simple syrup, and added about 2 T of it to the tea to sweeten things up. Efficient and yummy and perfectly sweet!

I’m not quite sure what the next flavor to try will be… but I’m thinking either the Label Imperial (Green tea, orange and cinnamon) or Ginger-lemon green tea.

What flavor would you want to try?

Giveaway: Kusmi Iced Teas

Just follow the Rafflecopter widget below to enter to win your own package of Kusmi Iced Teas (retail value: $21.99) to try for yourself!

To enter, just leave a comment with the Kusmi Iced Tea flavor you’d like to enjoy sipping on a hot summer day! Then click on the widget box and you’re entered! (If you’re confused, just visit this 45-second video to see how to enter!)

You can also receive one extra entry for following me on twitter, like-ing this page, like-ing the FB page. If you already do all of those things, then you’re good to go with 4 extra entries!

And, you can get one extra entry daily for tweeting about the giveaway! (just remember you have to tweet from this page using rafflecopter).

The winner will be announced on Friday August 12th at 9am PST!

GOOD LUCK!!!

As a side note, I think I don’t think I’ll be using PunchTab’s giveaway mechanism in the future, but instead opting to use Rafflecopter instead. Stay tuned for the next giveaway for a chance to try it out!

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