The Hemp Connection [Search results for fig] 

It was fun to see that our virtual grocery shopping tour was so popular! Here are some things to look for, either in your local grocery store, or through the provided links.

Bob's Red Mill Soup Mix, Veggie, 28-Ounce Units (Pack of 4) Bob's Red Mill is one of my favorite companies. Practically everything they sell is worth your consideration. Here's a soup mix you can throw into your slow cooker, with some favorite veggies.

Sensible Foods Organic Crunch Dried Snacks, Apple Harvest, 0.75-Ounce, 12-Count Pouches A great substitute for a bag of chips!

Tinkyada Brown Rice Penne Pasta with Rice Bran, 16-Ounce Packages (Pack of 12) Some high-fiber, gluten free pasta.

Kavli Crispbread, Garlic, 5.29-Ounce Boxes (Pack of 12) Crackers are a hard one. Here's one of my favorites.

Roland Feng Shui Edamamee Edamame is a type of tofu with lower potential to throw your hormones out of balance. It's great to throw on a salad or toss into a pilaf.

Bob's Red Mill Fig Nuggets, 18-Ounce Packages (Pack of 4) If you like Fig Newtons, why not figs? They are a great dried fruit to keep on hand!

Sahale Snacks Variety Pack of 3 Flavors, 0.75-Ounce Pouch (Pack of 30) Nuts, nuts, nuts…great source of healthy fats.

Westbrae Natural Vegetarian Organic Kidney Beans, 15 Ounce Cans (Pack of 12) A can of beans is a great basis for a quick dinner.in a salad, a quick soup or chili, or a burrito.

Honest Foods Granola Planks, Blueberry Vanilla Crackle, 3-Ounce Bars (Pack of 6) Just another"bar", but one with a nice combination of ingredients.

All things quinoa One of my favorite grains, it's high protein, low glycemic, and great for helping to balance hormones.

Happy Eating!

One of the reasons I always have trouble providing menus, is because I am a farmer's market and sale rack shopper. My inspiration never comes from sitting at the computer poring over recipes…I totally love the challenge of figuring out what to create given certain limitations. So rather than provide a menu, I'll walk you through how I came up with a fantastic lunch today.

I walked over to Fresh and Easy's sale rack, where I found pomegranate seeds and figs on sale. I still had the taste of the figs Ivonne and I made for a Moroccan potluck on my mind, so those had to go in my bag. The pomegranate seeds were beautiful so I bought those too.

But what to do with them? I had almost bought hummous, so I knew I was in the mood for something spreadable on crackers.

Ricotta cheese came to mind! So that went into the shopping basket too.

Here is how I put them together for lunch.

Took half a container of ricotta cheese and stirred in two packets of True Orange (dehyrated orange powder, no sugar, a great flavor aid for all kinds of beverages and cooking!)

Chopped up three figs…aren't they beautiful on the inside?

Stirred the figs along with a couple of spoonfuls of pomegranate seeds into the orange ricotta.

Noticed some sunflower seeds on the back of the counter, so I added them too.

Served on canola oil-baked pita chips.

I never would have come up with that if I'd been riveted to a shopping list. It happened because I was practicing"mindful grocery shopping", that is, noticing what was around me, taking the cues, and being creative. Of course I use lists, too. But sometimes, a lot of the time, actually, I like to go the market and wing it.

And usually the times I go off the list…are the times I enjoy my meals the most.

Give it a whirl!

I recently befriended the folks at True Citrus over Twitter. They sent me a large box of samples that arrived just before our Marina del Rey fundraiser. So I took it to let people try them out.

In a nutshell, True Citrus is a collection of dehydrated, powdered citrus, packaged in single serving packets. That is it! One package is the equivalent of a section of orange, grapefruit, lemon, or lime, and it also contains 25% of your daily requirement for vitamin C.

Of course, a slice of the real thing is what I would prefer, but there is always that situation, like when I'm at the gym, or on the road, or in a restaurant, where it's not feasible to extract a slice of fruit from a whole piece to add to my beverage. This is the perfect alternative. (It also keeps you from being exposed to the microbes that have been found on 70% of those ubiquitous lemon slices that restaurants like to put in your water. Eeeuuwww!!!)

Move along, Monika…

Angela, one of our fundraiser participants, took a couple of boxes of samples to try, to see if it was something she would use. She shared,

The packets for me are convenient to bring along with me in my purse to add a little something to a bottle of water I buy on the go. But it should be stated somewhere that it's a LOT of flavour for one little bottle of water. Maybe it is on the box (it's at home, I'm at work). It's just SO concentrated it's almost too tart to use the whole packet and once I learned that, I was very pleased! It gives just the right flavor.

Another use I found for it, strangely, was to add a little flavour to guacamole or to a taco salad. I can use it just like a lime when there isn't always some around!

I'm more of a nontaster and tend to prefer the whole packet. So be sure when you try it, to try different concentrations to see what works best for you.

As Angela did, I experimented outside the water bottle. If you read my post on the pomegranate/fig spread, I sweetened the ricotta cheese with True Orange. I have also come to love Greek yogurt with True Orange, sprinkled with nuts, as an after workout snack.

True Citrus products are also available in shaker bottles, giving them potential to become a regular condiment on the dinner table.

Sarah Jones and I taught Antioxidant University yesterday. What a blast! Did you know certain yoga poses have been shown to increase your body's antioxidant levels? That's what we practiced with Sarah.

I talked about antioxidants a bit.

Thought I'd share all the antioxidants I found in my own backyard, while walking over to the yoga studio.

With all this at my fingertips… who needs goji and acai?

Rosehips

Pomegranate 

Grapefruit 

Nuts 

Pears

Sunflowers 

Rosemary

Fig 

Kumquats

Eucalyptus 

Dates