Thank-You Slow-Cooker!

Have you ever had those days when you get home from a busy day at work and you are craving something warm and wholesome? I have them all of the time, especially during the winter months. I get home, unbundle myself, and stare into the fridge, pondering what I can cook up to keep me warm. Those are the days when I wish that I could snap my fingers and have a nice homemade soup on my table. The slow-cooker may not be magic, but it is something wonderful.

I love cooking whole chickens in my slow-cooker. I pick up a fresh organic free-range chicken from the Calgary Farmer’s Market and throw it in into the pot along with some water and a touch of drizzled olive oil. I add basil, thyme and oregano and freshly cut garlic. I chop green onions and sprinkle them in. You can’t forget the carrots, cut in long slices. Dinner that has simmered for hours creates a lovely aroma in my house, and when I get home I can’t wait to start eating. For me, chicken is a food that gives me strength and energy for the next few days.

Soups are fantastic to make in the slow-cooker. I soak one cup of a dry bean mix over night, and the next morning I add the beans to 1L of low sodium vegetable broth. I put in all my favorite vegetables and simmer for the entire day along with bay leaves, thyme, parsley, cumin, fresh basil, and some dill. Soup is my comfort food: a nice warm bowl makes all my problems seem far away. For a great bean soup try Bob's Red Mill 13 bean soup mix.

I would love to hear your favorite slow-cooker meals!

I love Emily!

Emily is one of my very dearest friends. Last night, she took the long drive South from Calgary to High River to bring me dinner- What a gal!

What she prepared was a super simple, beautiful and healthy roasted vegetable salad that knocked my socks off. Some of your everyday roasted veggies were in it.........

-carrots

-beets

-potatoes

-sweet potatoes; which combined would have made a wicked little meal, but Emily added

-Eggplant

-Fennel

-Parsnips!!!!

So yummy, so creative! Creativity is what good cooking is all about. I would never have though to add fennel to a dish like this.

Can anyone share any other interesting ingredients with me?

Dinner For One

A few of the wonderful members of our team are always focused on providing healthy meals and snacks for their families; I am not one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I have an excellent family, just not the immediate husband and kids situation, at least not yet. I am 23 years old and live with my two roommates, a similar living situation to many of my friends around my age. For us the challenges around meal planning often involves being motivated to create healthy and exciting meals for one.

The biggest struggle for me was to change my mentality of “meal time”; this was typically viewed as time being shared with family, friends, love and laughter. So the thought of eating dinner alone over the sink is enough to steer anyone clear from that part of their day.

Embrace these meals; start to look forward to them instead of dreading them. For this to work it has to start with the groceries! Grocery shopping should be a fun time, not a rushed get in and out affair. I like to buy my groceries on my day off, enjoying my time alone and walking slowly through the aisles of my local grocery store or farmers market. This is when I allow myself to feel inspired by my food and excited about my purchases, this way I am much more likely to want to cook them.

Always make extra everything, leftovers are your friend. One of my favourite things to cook in the winter is to buy vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, red onion, beets and zucchini and roast them covered in olive oil, garlic and lemon. The next afternoon I add them to some spinach for a yummy roasted veggie salad. Keep things simple, fresh fruit and vegetables can taste great on their own. A little lemon and some fresh herbs go a long way, and can add some powerful antioxidants and flavour to almost any meal.

Intention is always my final ingredient. I believe my mother’s homemade chilli always tasted so good because of the love she cooked it with. I try to always cook for myself for the same reason I would cook for anyone, out of love.

I now consider meals alone as part of my “me time”, they fit right up there with baths, good books and personal playlists. They require zero accommodation for anyone else’s taste buds, no complaints and you are free to eat any odd combination you find tasty without any weird looks. So next time you sit down for dinner for one be sure to honour your alone time, enjoy the silence and Bon Appetite!

For more info check out our web site, Bundles Of Energy is a great resource for new recipes, support, information and inspiration. Sign up for our newsletter today.

I am sitting in my office today, watching the beautiful sunny day pass me by. It always hurts me to be inside on days like this. During the winter months, it often seems like there is never enough sun. When it is out, I want to make the most of it! Being stuck inside today has got me thinking about how I can bring the sunshine inside with me.........

I believe that one of the best ways to get sun energy into my body when I can't be directly out in it's rays, is to consume foods which harness it's energy- Plants! Plants receive all of their energy/food from the sun, and trap it. Eating a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, is a fantastic way to bring more brilliant sun energy into your life on a day that you can't make it outside!

What do you think?

A Healthy Diet Needs Variety

My life has been very busy for this last while. It seems like the New Year brings lots of new challenges that keep me active and demand a lot of my time. I found myself getting into an ‘eating rut’. When things get hectic I tend to eat the similar things every day. It seems easier to buy the same groceries and prepare the same foods, but I didn’t feel satisfied with what I was eating. While munching on the vegetables that I packed for lunch for the last five days, I stopped and thought about how an important component of healthy eating is variety. Eating a diversity of foods will help provide a mixture of nutrients, and it will make meal preparation more enjoyable. I asked myself, “How can I get out of this slump?”

I knew that I had a goal in mind – to eat a variety of foods. I met this challenge head-on and set out to change my ways. I resolved that I would buy a new fruit or vegetable, something that I did not normally eat, once a month. Instead of always buying cucumbers, I used zucchini for my salads and casseroles. I used bok choy in stir-fries instead of always using celery. I made a resolution to try Brussels sprouts again, even after convincing myself for years that I did not enjoy them. Much to my amazement my steamed Brussels sprouts added a beautiful green colour and a wholesome flavor to my dishes, as well as providing my body with vitamin A, vitamin C, sulfur and iron.

Eating a variety of foods brought my taste buds back to life! My morning shake was not just another meal I had to consume. Instead, each day it was a different colour from the different fruits I would add. The deep blue shake with blueberries was for the morning before a good workout: I needed those powerful antioxidants. The pink shake with strawberries was for a mellow morning and provided my body with a high amount of vitamin C to keep my immune system healthy.

This new goal of mine opened up conversation about food. While shopping at the Farmer’s Market one day I saw an interesting cabbage-like vegetable that I was curious to try. I have found that a great way to learn about food preparation is to ask someone who is buying that food. Another shopper, delighted with my interest, informed me the vegetable was a kohlrabi. If you come across this vegetable you are in for a treat: not only is it high in fiber but it tastes delicious! Cut it up and eat it raw, or steam it, and enjoy the variety of nutrients it provides. I realized that it is easier to try a new food if someone helps you understand how to prepare it. That is where Bundles of Energy comes in.

Eating a medley of foods makes eating fun. I think trying new foods is both an adventure and nutritiously rewarding. Have you tried anything new lately? We would love to hear about it! Please comment below.

Healthful Eating; a want or a need?

I listened to a radio broadcast today that spoke about business and launching the right kind of product that your market needs as opposed to wants. The idea was that people think a lot of things are great but are really only willing to spend money on something they need. I thought about this in reference to our business at Bundles of Energy. Are our offerings wants or needs?

According to the broadcast, our service is a want. We teach and support people on a journey, a gentle shift to amazing health. It sounds great but it also sounds hard, expensive and something that can easily be put off. Now what? I could think that nobody will sign up. I could give up. Well I don’t want to do either of those things.

The whole idea of Bundles of Energy is to be proactive. Do you need to eat organic food? No. A body gets by on processed, fast, cheap food. How many of us lived off of Kraft Dinner in university? I guess the question then becomes, are you okay with just getting by?

• How are your energy levels?
• How fit and agile are you in your extracurricular activities?
• How many times have you been sick this year?
• Are you the best you can be?
• Do you want to change these answers or do you need to change these answers?

I decided last year that I needed to change these answers. It was a slow process. It was hard. I did not have the Bundles of Energy nutritionists to help me. I had no idea how to change our diet to wheat and dairy free. It would have been so nice to have help! So I am not going to change our service. I am happy to offer you the help you need, at your pace… the gentle shift to amazing health…

Please comment below. Let us know what you most need help with! We would love to hear from you!

Organic Spotlight

Think eating organic doesn't make a difference? Think again...What you eat today makes a difference in your body today, tomorrow and 20 years from now.

I am not suggesting you suddenly start buying everything organic-the shift required to great eating should be gentle and long lasting. Awareness is the first step, starting with 1 or 2 ingredients each shopping trip is enough to begin making a significant impact. The food choices you make matter to the health of others and to the health of the planet; to you and beyond you. Our futures could depend on it....But don't take my word for this. Follow the link below to an article in today's Calgary Herald:

http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Honeybees+modern+canary+coal+mine/2462940/story.html

This is an eye opening article about the direct link between honeybees, the billion dollar economic impact they have, and what we choose to eat. It is an excellent look at why what we eat matters on a scale well beyond our own bodies and health.