Pure Indian Foods

                          Pure Fat Deliciousness!
Love this an absolutely lovely, healthy fat source.  Perfect for those on a ketogenic, Paleo, Primal, gluten-free diet, or anyone just trying to maintain a healthier lifestyle!

"A 50/50 blend of Organic Grass-fed Ghee and Organic Virgin Coconut Oil. This is truly a delicious, powerfully nutritious natural cooking and baking blend that we think you’ll love. Coconut oil has a low smoke point, limiting its uses in cooking. Blending with ghee naturally increases the smoke point, making our Coconut Ghee ideal for higher-heat cooking. Ideal for baking, sauteing, stir-frying, and more. It adds delicate, exquisite flavor to all of your favorite foods and recipes without an overpowering coconut flavor. Best fat/oil for all of your cooking!"-pureindianfoods.com

I love how Pure Indian Foods pays great attention to the quality and detail of each product.  Made with all organic products, this is a delicious addition to any meal.  I personally enjoyed this as a part of my Thanksgiving meal.  It tasted lovely on the Turkey and Broccoli.

I highly recommend this wonderful product.  It is lovely!

They even have Spice Ghee in many flavors.  Here are some of the other flavors available:

Flavored Ghee | Organic Ghee with Added Herbs & Spices

"Ghee, Indian-Style Butter, With a Kick "

"At Pure Indian Foods, our Spiced Ghee is made with the same care and passion as our original ghee. In fact, we use the same main ingredient and processes as our original ghee – clean, certified organic milk from grassfed, humanely treated cows, slowly simmered down to leave only the best flavors in the remaining Ayurvedic ghee.
The only change made to our flavored ghee is the addition of a special blend of herbs and spices, prepared and added during the preparation process (not after!) to the Ayurveda ghee. The spices add the perfect undertone of mouth-watering flavor to the ghee without being overpowering. Flavors include Garlic, Herbes de Provence, Italian, Indian Dessert, Niter Kebbeh (an Ethiopian blend), and Digestive ghee. Ayurveda recommends using ghee to improve digestive fire (Agni), and this last flavor is perfect for that purpose. If you can’t seem to pick just one ghee flavor, try our sampler pack.
Our Spiced Ghee products are prepared by adding a combination of beneficial herbs and spices in to ghee while the ghee is being made, using ancient Ayurvedic methods. This allows the lipid and water soluble active ingredients of these herbs & spices to bind with the ghee molecules. When you eat such a ghee, you get the maximum benefits of the added spices and herbs."-pureindianfoods.com

Living Libations Chocolate

"Our Chocolate is the love-child of Willy Wonka and Mary Poppins dancing in the rain forest, singing “a spoonful of chocolate helps the plant- medicine go down in the most delightful way”. This raw organic chocolate is created and ground by hand so that all abundant vitality and rich minerals are present. This forest grown, heirloom seed, whole cacao, artisan chocolate and is liberated from dairy, roasting, soy, nuts, refined butter and sugar. Alas, there is nothing to inhibit the gifts of this primordial chocolate packed with nutrient botanical super-foods."-livinglibations.com

"Unique." "Healthy." "Makes you feel good about eating chocolate." "Raw." "Full of nutrients." "It's dark chocolate benefits on steroids!"  These are some of the comments we had on this great resource for healthy chocolate.  Check out their website for more products!

Here are some of their chocolate lavors:

" Taste: Classic 'Peppermint Patty' with a real to the feel twist
This Chocolate Bar is made with: Brilliant organic raw cacao wow beans, maca root, hemp seeds, ginko leaf, spirulina, camu-camu berries, vanilla beans, raw honey, peppermint, grapefruit and a dash virgin coconut creme."-livinglibations.com
 

"Vanilla Vibhutti Chocolate Yoga Bar: A VanillaBean Sutra of Samadhi Yogi-Glee
Taste: A cinnamon triple vanilla bean embrace.
This Chocolate Bar is made with organic raw cacao beans, maca root, hemp seeds, camu-camu berries, purple maize, pau d'arco, vanilla beans, raw honey, cinnamon and a dash of coconut creme."-livinglibations.com

These are just two of the great flavors of chocolate available over at livinglibations.com.
 

India Tree

              Naturally Vibrant Colors and Decorating Accessories
                   "...quality ingredients for creative cooks"-indiatree.com
"We offer
an exciting assortment of
quality ingredients for
cooking and baking, ranging
from pantry essentials to
party decoratifs--
all carefully selected with the creative cook
in mind."-indiatree.com

Would you like to check out more of these great products?  Check out indiatree.com to order some today!

I love how baking and cooking is much like art (to me).  Sometimes, for people (like myself) who have allergies or intolerances to food, it we can't always eat the finished product of what we bake or create, but for me, I find I enjoy the process of creating beautiful food just as much (if not more) than eating it.  India Tree makes this type of art so much prettier and natural...something I really love.

 

These gorgeous colors are all from India Tree's lovely Decorating Set.  I had so much fun making some gluten-free cookies this Thanksgiving week and then getting to photograph the beautiful, vibrant colors.  

The Powdered Cane Sugar was excellent for making the icing for these cookies.  It helped make it look a bit more professional than what my cookies usually look like.

I love that India Tree uses only natural food extracts to create such beautiful colors.   

" INDIA TREE Decorating Colors are made from concentrated vegetable colorants. They contain no corn syrup or synthetic dyes. Use them to color icing in rich jewel tones or soft pastels. With three colors -- red, yellow and blue--you can create a full spectrum."-indiatree.com

The sprinkles were equally lovely and perfect for the fall theme I was going for.  They have this lovely glossiness...you can tell that indiatree.com pays attention to detail.  Love it!

Since India Tree uses natural ingredients, I feel good about using their colors to hide the spinach in a favorite smoothie we've been trying out.  Even with berries, smoothies can tend to be a bit to green for our boys, so I use the red coloring to add this beautiful hue that helps hide the green.  

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LARABARS!

                   The GREAT gluten-free, paleo-friendly bars!
                               www.larabar.com
This is one of the greatest companies that provides paleo-friendly and gluten-free bars in a simple and yummy way!  LARABARs fame has spread all across the Paleo "Blogosphere", but they seem to be a huge favorite everywhere I go!

Every felt like you don't have much to choose from in terms of flavors in a healthy bar?  Look no further!
LARABAR offers so many delicious flavors to enjoy.  Here are some examples:

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Yeah, they have just a few. : )  But that is not all they offer!

The LARABAR uber was one of the ones I was super interested in because of it's simple and wholesome ingredients.  Perfect to have on hand during the holidays as many of us find ourselves traveling long hours, or for those long work days, after a workout, for sports trips, and also great for hungry kids!

Below is some great information about the care LARABAR dedicates to providing products for people on special diets that many of us (me included) must stick to very strictly to feel OK.  For those who have to (or chose to) follow such diets, it can be really difficult to take the great portable (but smelly) sardines for a car snack (although those would be a great, "superfood" choice). It is so nice to have something that looks normal and tasty...these bars can go a long way to making someone on a special diet feel more "normal".

"GLUTEN FREE/CELIACS LÄRABAR®, über®, Jŏcalat®, and ALT® bars are Gluten Free. They have no gluten-containing ingredients, and we have manufacturing controls in place to ensure that there are no cross-contact concerns. We also periodically verify our practices using Gliadin gluten testing.

MORE INFORMATION ON GLUTEN FREE

KOSHER  All LÄRABAR products are certified Kosher by the Orthodox Union (symbolized by the "U" within a circle). Because both our chocolate chip flavors and our über® bars are produced in a facility that also produces chocolate containing dairy, they are classified as Kosher Dairy (symbolized by the "U" within a circle, followed by a "D").

LOW CARBOHYDRATE DIETS  LÄRABAR products contain 23-32 grams of carbohydrates per bar.

COMPLETE NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION ON INDIVIDUAL PRODUCTS

NUT ALLERGIES  We make the following products that contain peanuts: LÄRABAR Peanut Butter Cookie, Peanut Butter & Jelly, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip; über Roasted Nut Roll; and ALT Peanut Butter Cookie. If you have questions regarding specific nut allergies, please call 800-543-2147.

RAW DIET  Many raw foodists enjoy our products as part of their diet.  However, because there is no consistent definition for what can be labeled as “raw,” we have chosen to take the word raw off our label.  LÄRABAR products are made by a simple process in which fruit, nuts, and spices are ground and mixed together. They are not baked or cooked. We use simple ingredients, as close to their natural state as possible.  Practitioners of the Raw Diet should be aware that to ensure the safety of our products some of our nut ingredients are steamed or roasted and our few juice concentrates are pasteurized.

VEGAN/VEGETARIAN  LÄRABAR, Jŏcalat, and ALT are made entirely from plant-based foods. Though the vast majority of chocolate chips in the world are made with dairy, soy or both, we specifically asked our supplier to provide us with chocolate chips which are Vegan—containing no dairy. While no dairy products are used to make our chocolate chips, they are made on a line which also produces chocolate chips made with dairy products.  Due to the potential for cross-contact between the types of chocolate chips made at the facility, the chips we use may contain trace amounts of dairy from those other chips; thus we cannot claim that our chocolate chip flavor varieties are Vegan.

Due to the use of honey, über is not certified as Vegan.

SOY  With the exception of our chocolate chip varieties, LÄRABAR bars do not contain soy or soy derivatives.  We do not claim soy-free on the flavors containing chocolate chips because our chocolate chips are made on a line which also produces chips made with soy.  Due to possible cross-contact, the chips we use may contain trace amounts of soy from other chips made at the facility."-larabar.com

LÄRABAR über® is a unique sweet and salty snack made from whole fruits and nuts. It’s big texture with big taste!

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That's not all though...here is a new another great bar type:

Jocalat

Jŏcalat® is an organic chocolate food bar made from fruits, nuts and Fair Trade Certified™ chocolate. Each flavor contains no more than seven simple, organic ingredients that are deliciously rich, without added sugars, and free of dairy, soy, and gluten.

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You can't find all these great choices at your local store though, so check out their website to order some today!

Needing some more protein?  Allergic/Intolerant to dairy as I am?  These protein bars are for you!  As a runner, I am constantly reading about how important healthy protein is.  These bars can go a long way in helping you get enough protein when adequate sources are scarce.  These bars would be a great post-race treat to help recharge those muscles. 

ALT®, the Alternative Protein Bar™, is the first-ever bar with added protein from LÄRABAR! Many bar brands use soy or whey protein, but ALT uses an alternative protein source: peas. Vegan, gluten free, dairy free, and non-GMO.

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Thanksgiving Fun!

I may now be an adult in every definition of the word, but I confess that I have not yet lost my kid-like tendency to love holidays.  Here are a few things I love about Thanksgiving:

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• family being together...no matter how many can make it...even just a few is nice.
• preparing with my family and specifically helping mom.
• decorating/making things look like they are actually in an orderly form instead of tornadoed [I know it just happens, esp. with kids in the house still (me included), but I still love a organized and clean house].
• rekindling the art of cooking: always loved helping Mom with that big ole' Turkey.  Call me gross, but I love deboning a chicken (or turkey this time), but since we want it to look nice and not managed (oops...sorry Mom!) I shall wait till after the meal to do my "science experiment".  Yea, I am just a bit geeky.
• Candles: only the kind that smell nice.  I like Sparkly Cinnamon the best.  I just won't be lighting the kind that makes my poor nosy never want to suck oxygen again! Beware if you are going candle shopping.
• Time with family: did I already say that...oh yea, but I think I can say it twice. : )
• Games with friends!  I love having different people over for Thanksgiving almost as much as I love having the family together.  Some of our favorite games include Balderdash, Apples to Apples, Scrabble, and one more I just can't seem to remember.

 

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