No Bake Energy Bites

My hubby and I have been hiking several days a week on our local mountain, Bradbury Mountain.  We always hike before dinner, so we are pretty hungry!  I made up these (and several versions of) No Bake Energy Bites to carry us through the hunger.

 

Find the basic recipe here: http://bakinginsaskatoon.com/2012/10/23/no-bake-energy-bites-by-lynne/ Then, make it your own!  I have added all different nuts and seeds, some chocolate covered sunflower seeds, chocolate chips and more. 

 

 

No-Bake Energy Bites - makes about 25 1-inch balls

 

1 cup old fashioned oats

2/3 cup toasted coconut (I didn't use coconut, hubby doesn't care for it)

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup flax seed meal

1/3 cup dried cranberries, chopped

1/3 cup raw almonds, chopped

1/3 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla (I left out the vanilla, I didn't think it needed it)

 

Place all ingredients into a large bowl.

 

With a rubber spatula, mix ingredients together until thoroughly combined.  You could use your hands since you’ll be rolling the dough anyway, but I thought it was just too sticky when first combining the ingredients to do so.

 

Roll dough into 1-inch balls.

Easy peasy!

Store in an air-tight container.

 

Strawberry Sauce

The CSA that I belong to has pick-your-own strawberry fields.  Yay!!   

 

 

And while I didn't have the time to take full advantage of the berry season, I did manage to pick about 9 pounds.  Some I ate straight up, some I made into Strawberry Shortcake and some I made into Strawberry Sauce.  I froze this Strawberry Sauce with dreams of a dinner party where I serve homemade vanilla ice-cream and my own fresh strawberry sauce poured over the top. Super easy and delicious, I think I will try it with the raspberries that are coming out soon too.

 

I found the recipe over here: The Kitchn.com (the below picture is courtesy of the site as well)

Easy Strawberry Sauce

1 pound strawberries, hulled and cut into quarters
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Combine the quartered strawberries, granulated sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until sugar has dissolved and the liquid at the bottom of the pan is simmering. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Using a blender or food processor, process the fruit into a smooth sauce. Transfer to a covered container and refrigerate until cool. (Sauce can be made and refrigerated up to 3 days in advance.)

Pea Picking Time!

I had a couple of extra hours....why not?  Fellow Maine business Northern Girl had a project.  They needed help picking peas and the pea patch was only 3 minutes from my house!  I volunteered, I showed up, I picked peas!  They are working hard to bring back commercial Peas to Maine and created The Pea Project.  The pea patch we picked today was a test patch.   They have more test patches up North, where they are located, but the farmers on New Leaf Farm here in Durham offered to plant this test patch for them.  So peas needed to be harvested and the call was put out for volunteers.  We were "paid" in peas!

 

I enjoyed myself.  We picked whole plants so it was very easy to just pull up the plants.  It has been pretty wet here lately, so I my boots, jeans and hands were covered in a good layer of mud when I finished.  And I have never worked on a farm or picked more than a few tomatoes off my garden plants before.  7 rows of lots and lots of peas and my body felt it even thought I tried not to do the lean over and more of the squat and pick. 

 

Here are some pictures from my morning of picking peas.

 

We picked over 10 large black garbage bags chock full of pea plants.

 

A foggy morning at the pea patch.  BUT that meant no hot sun beating down on us.

 

My dirty hands and a handful of pea plants.

 

My fellow pickers!  That is Chris on the right and he is the general manager.  He drove over 4 hours down to Durham from "up in the County" to supervise the pea picking.

Soap For Bug Bites?

I got bit pretty good over the weekend.  I can tell you right now exactly where I have 5 good size, very sore and red bug bites.  Even though I had on some bug repellent, they managed to find a few spots that I missed. I even think that one bug just bit me and moved a 1/4" to the left and bit again, it's now a double bite!   I have sensitive skin and bug bites just seem to last and last!  I came across something on the web and gave it a try....rub a dry bar of soap on your bug bites and it will help with the itch.  Well, I have a lot of soap hanging around here, so I gave it a try.  And yes, it worked!  After the initial soreness of rubbing a hard bar of soap on my sensitive bug bites, I waited patently for about 5 minutes and realized that yes I was not itching anymore!

 

Give it a try!!

 

Another interesting use for soap.

 

 

Maine State Shaped Soaps

I have them at the market with me.....I have only a few in stock right now, but soon they will be added to the website.

 

Available in a few different popular Maine fragrance (like Maine Pine, Sea Mist etc.) they are cute soaps shaped like the State of Main marbled with blue, white and green coloring.  Tucked inside a white organza bag so you can still smell and see them and tied off with a sweet little tag that has some fun Maine State facts on it (like that Maine is the largest produced of Blueberries).

 

Stop and check them out in person at market with me every Friday from 1:00-5:00 at L.L.Bean, Freeport!