Cleanse with Your Friends - Day 12

Onion Spread

I'm meeting with the group of women shortly for our 3rd night of Cleanse with Your Friends. We've been cleansing around 12 days so far. I hope everyone is still doing well!

Here is a recipe for a dip I've made to bring to class tonight. It's from a book that is no longer in print called "CCNM's Simply Healthy Cookbook." This book was put together by students and staff from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in 2002. It's a great resource at home for me and I'm sorry that it's no longer in print. I will share some recipes from time to time to share the wisdom of my peers.

Cold Onion Spread

4 large onions, diced
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
water
1 bay leaf
1 tsp dill weed
salt

- In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, cook and stir for 1 minute.
- Add enough water to cover the onions
- Add the bay leaf, dill weed and salt according to taste
- Cover the pan and cook at medium-low for 35 minutes, or until onions are cooked.
- When onion is tender, uncover and increase temperature to medium-high. Allow onions to cook until they turn a golden-brown (mine didn't turn colour but I cooked it until a lot of the water evaporated
- Remove bay leaf
- At this point I decided to blend it with my hand blender.

Eat hot as a side dist or cold as a spread on rice crackers or cucumbers and carrots.

March Break Fun Skate

WOW!! What a fun time we had on Friday evening. Everyone at The Healing Oasis would like to thank our friends and family for coming out and sharing in some fun and light activity.

Not only did we have an amazing ice rink all to ourselves for an hour, we had an entire party room filled with kids and parents and friends...and SNACKS! All of which were a hit!! And we had SO many people ask us for our recipes we thought we'd share them with you to enjoy with your own friends and families. (Look for the recipes in our next blogs.)

We hope everyone had as much fun as we did and we look forward to seeing even more of you at our next client appreciation event....perhaps a summer BBQ!?

To view the entire photo album from our fun skate day simply find us on Facebook and become a fan.

With sincere thanks,

Lee Anne, Whitney, Jessy,
Anna, & Leslie
(The Healing Oasis Team)

Munchies for Munchkins

Tonight I will be instructing the Meals and Nutrition for Munchkins with The City of Barrie. I've had a lot of fun preparing for this seminar while looking at cookbooks, which are my favourite type of book. I love trying new recipes and this gave me a great opportunity to check out new books and recipes to share with the parents attending.

Here I have made the "Hale and Hearty Fruit Dip" from The Kid-Friendly Food Allergy Cookbook by Leslie Hammond and Lyne Marie Rominger. F.Y.I. This book is available at the Barrie Public Library.

For the smiley snack:

I used a plain rice cake for the face, spread the fruit dip on the face, orange slice for the mouth, dried cranberry for the nose and 2 whole, natural almonds for the eyes. The hair is unsweetened coconut flakes. Steve, my guinea pig, loved it!

For those of you who missed the class, stay tuned for more of my informative sessions with The City of Barrie.

Fruit Dip:

1 cup cottage cheese (or yogurt)

1 tbsp honey (optional, local honey is the best)

1/2 firm banana

1/3 cup fresh or frozen berries (I used raspberries)

Squeezed juice from 1/2 fresh orange

1. Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.

2. Refridgerate for 30 minutes and serve with fruit or rice cakes and crackers.

After-School or At-Work Treats!

These were a hit at my latest Go Venture meeting. (Go Venture is a business course for new businesses).

Pecan-Raisin Balls

2 cups pecan halves

1/4 cup rolled oats or millet flour

10 large pitted dates or 8 pitted prunes

2 tbsp tahini or macadamia nut butter

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup raisins

Finely grind pecans and oats (or millet flour) in a food processor. Place in a mixing bowl and set aside. Put dates, tahini, cinnamon, and vanilla into the processor and blend into a paste. Stir paste into pecan-oat mixture and blend well. Add raisins and blend well. Roll into 1" balls. Refridgerate and enjoy.

For more info about Go Venture visit www.donnadouglas.com