Time for Goodbyes

Our last move brought us back to the same neighbourhood we lived in when we were just a young family. In the first few months of living in our current home, I'd often walk down our old street and pause for a moment at our first Waterloo house, somehow (illogically) expecting it to be exactly the same as I remembered it. It startled me at first to notice how the slender stick of a linden tree we had planted in the backyard when Noah was only a baby was suddenly towering, full and green, over the faded boards of the fence we had built years before.  Of course, this change was not really sudden; it had happened gradually while we were building our life elsewhere.

I'm sometimes caught off-guard by how much we, too, have grown and changed over these years. There are moments during the hectic, full stage of life we're in now where I look up, expecting (illogically) to still find two curious young boys playing Lego in a heap on the floor by my feet.  But the teenaged boys who smile back at me don't play Lego anymore; they're eagerly building futures for themselves, ones that are filled with fascinating ideas and bright promise now that they're almost close enough to touch. It's strange that I feel surprised by all of this growing when it has happened right before my eyes.

We know time is always passing, causing continuous subtle shifts that eventually result in significant changes from how things once were. I suppose it takes an absence of some kind to be able to really see them. I know now, after being elsewhere for awhile in my writing life, that I've grown away from this blog. I kept thinking one day I would come back to it and it would all feel the same, that I'd just pick up writing about our lives and my thoughts again when I had time. But when I stop in here now, I feel more like a nostalgic visitor, peering through windows to catch a glimpse of a place that I loved, and that we all have moved on from.

As the boys have grown older, I've felt less and less that the stories that involve them are mine to tell. I've shifted my writing energy in recent years to focus on one of my earliest loves: children's books. I'm thrilled to have recently signed my first author's contract -- Kids Can Press is publishing a non-fiction book I've written for young people. I feel it's time to say goodbye to this blog, along with the sweet stage of our life that fit within it.

I'm glad for the many joys I've found here since Pocketfuls' beginning: a personal creative outlet and a way to grow in writing and recipe development, the chance to record moments in our family's life, the opportunity to help others, the sense of community that grew from people sharing their own experiences and thoughts in comments. Thank you for coming and reading. Though I won't write in this space any longer, I plan to keep the old posts here. They're a touching (sometimes embarrassing!) reminder of who and where we once were.

I hope people who are now living in the stages we've grown out of might still come and feel at home here.

xo Lisa

Easter Basket Ideas for Teen Boys

Signs of spring are everywhere this week. The grass is beginning to green up and tiny buds are bursting open on the trees in our neigbourhood. Kids are reappearing on the street in the light hours of the evening, on bicycles and skateboards and in front of driveway basketball nets. Matt and the boys and I are enjoying experiencing the season for the first time in this home, as there are always new surprises popping up before us: the spiky green shoots of spring bulbs in unexpected places, bunnies and chipmunks darting about the backyard, birds of all kinds flying in and out of the conservation area just behind us and stopping in our yard to visit for awhile.

Knowing that we have a busy month ahead of us (after several equally hectic ones behind us!), I've been doing some advance preparations for Easter weekend -- meal planning, treat making, and figuring out what the Easter Bunny might bring this year for the thirteen and fifteen year old boys in our house. (Our Bunny believes that even big kids still enjoy a few sweet and small surprises tucked into a basket on Easter morning!) I've noticed that many Pinterest users recently have been pinning my last year's post about Easter basket ideas for tween and teen boys, so I thought I'd share a second collection of teen-approved suggestions for this year. These small-sized, useful, and fun items are all things that my boys do or would enjoy, but of course, any of them would be great Easter basket ideas for teen girls, too!

First column

Converse key chain: Give them their favourite sneaker in miniature size, just right for holding a house or bike lock key or for attaching to a backpack. These key chains come in an assortment of colours.

Artist pens: Teens who love to draw their own comics might appreciate this set of four black artist pens of different thicknesses (extra-superfine, superfine, fine, and broad).

Fidget cube: The unique sides of this small cube offer six different ways to fidget -- flipping, clicking, spinning, and more. It's a great little gadget for teens who like something for their hands to do while their mind is focused on school work or creative projects.

Second column

The Science of Why book: Teens will find fascinating, witty answers to thirty-nine questions in this science book for all ages, including why Tyrannosaurus Rex's arms were so short and whether or not we dream in colour.

S'well insulated water bottle: Encourage your teens to stay healthily hydrated throughout the day with a practical and stylish bottle that keeps water cold for 24 hours.

Third column

Dark chocolate bunny: An Easter basket favourite, this tasty version is made from organic, fair-trade dark chocolate, and is nut-free.

Gear ties: These three inch rubber twist ties are great for helping keep teens' many gadget cords organized and tangle-free.

Dark chocolate coconut butter cups: Dark chocolate cups filled with coconut butter are a delicious treat for anyone. They come in four flavours: classic, banana cream, mint cream, and caramel + sea salt.

Fourth column

Whoosh! screen shine: A portable bottle of non-toxic screen cleaner and a cloth come in handy for keeping phone, tablet, and laptop screens smudge-free.

Nike ball pump: This pocket-sized pump is a great choice for on-the-go teens who love a good pick-up basketball game.

Fifth column

SpokeLit wheel light: Keep your bike-riding teens safe in the dark with these LED lights that attach easily to wheel spokes and increase the rider's visibility.

Herschel wallet: These nicely designed, sturdy wallets have ample space for a teen boy's essentials, and they come in a variety of appealing styles and colours.

Clip-on camera lens kit: If you have teens who are budding photographers, this set of 3-in-1 clip-on camera lenses would be a fun gift. The set comes with a fish-eye lens, a wide angle lens, and a macro lens, each of which clips easily onto a phone to capture different types of images. These lenses are compatible with a wide variety of phone types (Apple and Android).


We'll be spending most of our Easter weekend at a robotics competition (the high school team Noah and Will are part of made it to the Ontario District Championships - hooray!), but we'll be back just in time for the boys to find their Easter morning surprises. The first Easter in a new home makes for a whole new batch of extra-tricky hiding spots for the Bunny to choose from. Good luck, boys! :)

The Kindness of Strangers

I lost one of my favourite mittens in the grocery store yesterday morning. I had the pair of them stuffed in my jacket pocket while I shopped, and when I reached the last store aisle, I looked down and noticed there was only one remaining there. The mittens were relatively new, having been a Christmas gift from Matt, and it upset me that I had somehow separated the pair. Even though I was pressed for time because I was supposed to pick up Noah at school, I backtracked through the entire store, pushing my heavy cart in front of me and scouring the floor and shelves for a hopeful sign of familiar chunky-knit gray and white wool with a jaunty stripe in red. My search turned up nothing useful, so I resignedly headed to the checkout counter and prepared to leave the store.

On my way out, I decided to pass by the customer service desk, hoping I could ask someone there if the store had a lost and found box where my mitten might have (luckily) ended up. But before I even reached the customer service person, I spotted my mitten lying right there in plain sight on the counter. Some thoughtful person had placed it there, hoping its owner might see it and retrieve it as she passed by. (My mitten was lying next to a random block of cheese, and I wondered if someone had lost that, too, and if so, I hoped they'd be reunited with it!) The little, but meaningful, good deed by a stranger completely made my day.

***  

This morning I picked up Noah from his last exam and took him to the nearby Starbucks for a celebratory hot drink. While we were there, I noticed an elderly woman approach a middle-aged woman in the lineup and initiate a conversation, though it was clear that the two women didn't know each other. The elderly woman was asking for directions to a street that doesn't even exist in our city, and the other woman was kindly trying to clarify where exactly she wanted to go. When the elderly woman said she thought she might have a doctor's appointment on a certain street today and wasn't sure how to get there, the other woman offered to help her, first by having the elderly woman follow her in her car, and then, when she realized the elderly woman didn't have a car, by personally driving her there. The middle-aged woman found out the name of the doctor from the elderly woman and called that medical office, just to confirm that she was going to the right place. From what I could gather from the one-sided phone conversation, the elderly woman did not actually have an appointment there, and in fact, was not even a patient at that office. It was heartbreaking to realize the extent to which this elderly woman was confused.

After a little more chit chat, the elderly woman said goodbye, headed out of the coffee shop and began walking down the street. The middle-aged woman, still visibly concerned, decided to notify the police in an effort to ensure the elderly woman's safety. She wondered aloud afterwards whether she had done the right thing, but she felt that she had to help somehow. Noah and I were both touched to see such care shown to a complete stranger.

***

What is the point of telling small stories of lost mittens and Starbucks encounters? Because I think in our current climate of political upheaval, hurt, hatred, violence, division, and outrage, it's important to know that there are still good things happening around us. Fear and anger about the state of our world make us want to look away, to shut ourselves off from the constant stream of overwhelming news and focus only on the relative safety of ourselves and those close to us. But there is hope to be found in the tiny acts of kindness towards strangers that are still everywhere, if we're willing to keep our eyes and hearts open to experience them.

I think acknowledging and trying to understand the challenges, misfortunes, and suffering of others is necessary; it is empathy that often compels us to be our most loving and giving selves. But we also need to be heartened by continuing to notice the good, whether it be in small, local gestures or in grand ones happening on a more global scale. We need to notice, and then join our unique voices or hands or brains to the many others that are working, in their own positive ways, to crowd out cruelty, ignorance, indifference, and hatred. We need to keep believing that we each have it in us to make our shared spaces and experiences better for one another.

Love Letters

I did a lot of rummaging and sorting through storage boxes when we were packing to move houses back in the fall. Many long forgotten keepsakes turned up in that process -- old photographs and small handmade articles of clothing, travel trinkets and stacks of eager school projects --  stirring poignant memories from the quiet inner corners where I'd tucked them away years earlier.

One found item was a letter I had handwritten and mailed to my Grandma Atkinson back when I was a university student at Queen's. (The letter came into my hands again years later when my aunt and I tenderly sorted and packed up my grandma's apartment for her move into a nursing home.) There was nothing out of the ordinary in this letter; it was one of many notes I had written to her to say hello and to share tidbits of my daily life as a student living far from home, at a time when the cost of long distance phone calls was prohibitive. But that letter, written in my tiny, even cursive, was a very physical reminder of a long ago self that has faded and fallen further beyond my current reach as the years have passed. Reading it again had a powerful emotional effect on me.

I don't remember exactly when I stopped regularly writing letters to people by hand. I'm assuming my letter writing activity, like many other people's, simply tapered off as email took over, and it became easier to connect with others by sending off a few quickly typed lines of text any time I wanted to. But I'm reminded every time I receive a piece of handwritten mail from a loved one of just how touching this kind of correspondence can be. My Grandma Deresti's cursive takes me back into her warm, familiar kitchen when she sends me a handwritten recipe in an envelope, and a note from my parents, faintly scented by my mom's handcream as she looped her pen along the page, allows me to be happily closer to them for a moment, even though they're an eight hour drive away. A handwritten message somehow reaches the brain and the heart in a different way, I think, than a text or an emoji sent from a keyboard can.

I was glad yesterday to read about InCoWriMo, a "vintage social media" movement that encourages people to handwrite and mail or deliver one letter, card, note, or postcard to someone each day for the month of February. I still send handwritten cards to family and friends for special occasions, but I love the idea of sending a non-typewritten letter or note to someone "just because". February can be a tough and lonely month for people, as the gray, cold days of winter drag on. It seems a perfect time to dust off the cute stationery that's been hiding on a shelf somewhere and use it to brighten someone's day (and maybe redevelop a lovely habit for the longer term). If the idea of writing a letter a day seems too much, perhaps InCoWriMo can inspire us to send off a cheerful, leisurely written note to someone even a couple of times next month. This would be a great little project to involve the kids in, too -- who doesn't love receiving a few creatively spelled words scrawled in crayon by a little one in their mailbox?

Will sometimes tells me I'm a dinosaur, because I'm often reluctant to embrace the latest tech trends and I still cling hopefully to my paper and pens. Call me a dinosaur if you like, but the act of slowing down for a few minutes and sending thoughtful messages to loved ones the old-fashioned way appeals to the sentimentalist in me. Some outdated practices just seem too nice to become extinct.

Winter Wondering

Well hello, long-neglected blog space! Nice to see you again. I'm not even sure what I've come here to write about today (everything and nothing seems like a good topic when I've left so many gaps to fill in), but I was starting to feel like if I didn't come back soon, I just might never again, and so here I am. Happy January!

We had a lovely holiday season, Matt and the boys and I, one that was everything we always hope for when we have some time off together to celebrate and recharge: a couple of weeks filled with family, favourite foods, laughter, fun and relaxation, cozy moments spent at home, and lively moments spent outdoors enjoying Mother Nature's most beautiful seasonal displays. We hosted dinners and went to relatives' houses, decorated a gingerbread house, played board games and ping pong, read new books and magazines, did a giant puzzle, went walking in the nearby conservation area after a pretty snowfall, and went sledding down a deserted hill on the coldest night of the winter so far. (This was the boys' idea, and though Matt and I didn't really appreciate it at first suggestion, hearing the boys' laughter ring out as they flew down the hill under a starry winter's night sky later made the frozen toes and fingers feel worth it.)

The down time was very welcome; it was a good period of restfulness and togetherness before we headed into what now feels like the busiest season we've ever experienced.

Our family calendar is bursting right now, to the point of almost being ridiculous. Both Noah and Will are currently involved in an assortment of worthwhile, but demanding, activities. Noah coaches swimming at his old swim club four days a week and has meets to go to some weekends; he also practices a couple of days a week in the pool with his high school swim team. (He had a very successful season before Christmas and is moving on to the CWOSSA championships).

Noah made the local newspaper! :)

He has also kicked it into high gear with Team Dave, the high school robotics team, which is in its hectic six-week build season right now. What this basically means is that Noah is at the school doing something related to robots any moment of the day/evening/weekend that he is not doing something else.

Will is gearing up for competitive dance season, with extra practices and events on top of his regular three days a week of training, and he made his school basketball team this season (something he was really proud of considering his relative height disadvantage!), so he has games now after school. His Lego robotics team made provincials at the qualifying tournament back in December, so he is still hard at work with his teammates several days a week, improving their robot, missions, and project in preparation for the next round, plus, he has also joined the high school robotics team that Noah is on (which means that he is also at the school doing something related to robots any moment of the day/evening/weekend that he is not doing something else.)

It is really wonderful to see them both so happily engaged and learning in so many different areas, but it's also hard not to feel like my head is going to explode trying to keep all of their schedules straight and make sure they are fed well before we need to dash off to the next thing. I need to keep reminding myself to take it one day at a time, and to enjoy this richly full period of our lives, because like so many other phases of the boys' youth, it too will one day suddenly be behind us and I'll look back on it with a sense of wistfulness that it's over.

In the midst of all of the busyness of life with two very involved teen boys, I also need to remember to keep myself and my own interests front of mind. I've been thinking recently about where I want to direct my creative energies in the coming months. The process of moving houses, and then getting ready for Christmas, were the focus of almost all of my free time and attention throughout the fall and early winter, but now that I've spent a week wrapping my head around the new schedules and gathering new recipes that will work for healthy, hurried meals (see my personal Facebook page for a great collection of slow cooker recipe suggestions from friends!), I feel that if I put off starting a meaningful project of my own any longer, I'm just making excuses. I've missed writing; I can feel myself getting frustrated and antsy when I've been away from it too long, and each additional day away makes it easier and easier to keep procrastinating. As a means of getting back into a regular writing habit, I'm going to start using Lynda Barry's suggestions for keeping a daily journal. (Thanks to local writer Carrie Snyder for introducing me to Barry's work.)

I hope the new year has been kind to all of you so far, and that you, too, are finding everyday life to be an adventure worth experiencing fully (even if it sometimes feels overwhelming). xo

Holiday Treats: Seven Sweet Recipes Free of Gluten, Dairy, and Eggs

These early weeks of December are some of my favourite weeks of the year. All of our preparations for Christmas seem to naturally bring the family together, especially on the afternoons when I start baking and the sweet smells draw everyone toward the warm, cozy kitchen. We chat and laugh as we mix and roll and decorate cookies, while Christmas music plays and tree lights twinkle cheerfully in the background. All four of us look forward to the evenings after our baking afternoons; we know we'll gather around our kitchen table for steaming mugs of tea and a few freshly baked treats before we tuck the rest of them away to share with family and friends over the holidays. I'm glad that even though my boys keep growing, they never seem to grow too old to have fun helping with this tradition.

Often during the weeks leading up to the holidays, people ask me about gluten-free or dairy-free baking ideas, because they'd like to be able make something for a family member or friend who has special dietary needs. Today seems like a good time, then, to post an updated collection of our family's favourite gluten, dairy, and egg-free holiday recipes, all made many times in our kitchen and given two thumbs up by expert resident taste testers.  :)  Most of these recipes have already appeared in some form on this blog before, but because I'm always tweaking recipes over the years to make them just a little bit better, these ones are all more current, improved versions.

Clockwise from the top:

Gingerbread Cookies

Chocolate Coconut Triple Layer Bars

Star Cookies

Cashew Butter Balls

Thumbprint Cookies

Candy Cane Brownies

Chocolate Hazelnut Snowballs

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Gingerbread Cookies 

(adapted from this recipe from Elana's Pantry)

5 cups blanched almond flour
2 tbsp arrowroot flour
1 tbsp coconut flour
1 tbsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
6 tbsp water
1 tbsp vanilla extract

candy confetti for decorating

Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, arrowroot flour, coconut flour, spices, salt and baking powder. 

In a smaller bowl, whisk together the grapeseed oil, maple syrup, water, and  vanilla. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ones, and mix well until a uniform dough forms. Divide the dough into two parts. Form each part into a ball, flatten it slightly, and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill the dough in the freezer for 1 to 2 hours.

Roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment paper, to a quarter of an inch thick. Remove the top sheet of parchment paper and cut out cookies using gingerbread cookie cutters. Place the cut-outs on parchment paper lined baking sheets.

Decorate the cut-outs with candy confetti. (We like to add faces and buttons to ours.) Bake in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly browned. Cool and serve, or store in tightly sealed containers in the freezer for later.

Chocolate Coconut Triple Layer Bars

1 400ml can of coconut milk
1/2 cup coconut sugar

2 1/4 cups blanched almond flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
3 tbsp melted coconut oil
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut

2 85g bars of dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa), chopped
1/2 cup cashew butter

To make your own dairy-free sweetened condensed milk, pour a can of coconut milk into a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk in the coconut sugar, and bring the mixture to a low simmer.  Be sure to keep an eye on the pot, as the mixture could boil over very easily.  Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer the mixture for 15 to 20 minutes, whisking occasionally, until it thickens slightly.  Remove the mixture from the heat and let it cool while you're preparing the crust.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Line a 9x13 inch baking pan with two pieces of parchment paper, one going over the other in a perpendicular fashion, leaving some overhang all the way around.  In a mixing bowl, combine the almond flour and sea salt.  Whisk together the melted coconut oil, maple syrup, and vanilla in a smaller bowl, and then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.  Stir until well-combined and crumbly.  Press the almond flour mixture into the prepared baking pan, being sure to push down firmly so your crust will hold together well once it's baked.

Sprinkle the shredded coconut in an even layer over top of the almond flour crust.  Carefully pour the sweetened condensed milk over top of the whole coconut layer, and use a fork if necessary to help spread it out uniformly, pressing the coconut and milk mixture down onto the crust.  Place in the preheated oven and bake for 25 minutes.  

During the last 5 minutes of baking time, melt the chopped dark chocolate and cashew butter together in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally.  As soon as you remove the baking pan from the oven, pour the melted chocolate mixture over the hot coconut layer and spread it out evenly with a spatula.  Let cool for about 30 minutes, and then place the pan in the freezer for a few hours to allow the baked goods to firm up.

Once they're firm, remove the baked goods from the pan by simply lifting up the parchment paper edges.  Place the whole thing on a cutting board and slice into squares with a large, sharp knife.  Let the squares thaw a little longer, then serve and enjoy (or freeze the squares to save them for a later date).

Star Cookies

(adapted from this recipe from Elana's Pantry)

5 cups blanched almond flour
1 tbsp coconut flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla extract

candy sprinkles for decorating

Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a large mixing bowl, combine the almond flour, coconut flour, sea salt, baking powder, and cinnamon.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together the melted coconut oil, maple syrup, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. (The dough will appear quite crumbly at first.)

Use your hands to further mix the dough, then divide it into two equal parts. Form each part into a ball and flatten it slightly. Wrap each part in plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator to chill for at least an hour.

Roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment paper, to about a quarter of an inch thick. Cut out stars from the dough using a cookie cutter, and place the stars on parchment paper lined baking sheets. Scatter a pinch of candy sprinkles the top of each star. Bake stars in the preheated oven for 6 to 8 minutes, or until they are lightly golden around the edges.

Cool cookies completely and serve, or store them in tightly sealed containers in the freezer for later.

Cashew Butter Balls

(adapted from this recipe from Oh She Glows)

1 500g jar of natural cashew butter
5 tbsp pure maple syrup
2 tbsp coconut flour
a pinch of sea salt

2 85g bars of dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa), chopped
1 tbsp coconut oil

Scrape the contents of the jar of cashew butter into a mixing bowl, and stir it to blend in any oil that has separated.  Add the maple syrup, coconut flour, and sea salt to the cashew butter and mix all ingredients well. The mixture should be firm enough to roll into balls, but not too dry looking.

Roll a spoonful of the mixture in your hands to form a ball that is about one inch in diameter.  Place the ball on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, and repeat this process until all of the nut butter mixture is rolled.

In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the dark chocolate and coconut oil together, stirring often. Once the chocolate mixture is melted, remove it from the heat immediately, then coat the cashew butter balls in the chocolate by placing them on a fork one at a time and dipping them into the pot. Remove any excess chocolate by tapping the fork on the side of the pot, and then carefully place the dipped cashew butter balls back on the baking sheet.

Once all of the nut butter balls are dipped, place the baking sheet in the freezer for about 15 minutes, or until the chocolate is firm.  Remove the pan from the freezer, and decorate the top of each cashew butter ball by drizzling a little of the leftover melted chocolate across it using a small spoon or fork. Return the cashew butter balls to the freezer again to firm up the drizzled chocolate. 

Serve at room temperature in holiday themed mini cupcake papers, or store the cashew butter balls in a tightly sealed container in the freezer for later.

Thumbprint Cookies

(adapted from this recipe from Elana's Pantry)

5 cups blanched almond flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
raspberry jam (I use Crofter's Organic Just Fruit Spread, with no added refined sugar)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a large bowl, combine the almond flour and sea salt. 

In a smaller bowl, whisk together the grapeseed oil, maple syrup, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mix until well combined. Cover the dough and chill it in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Roll the chilled dough into 1 1/2 inch diameter balls and place them on parchment paper lined baking sheets. Flatten each ball to about a half inch thickness with the palm of your hand. Using a finger or thumb, make an indentation in the centre of each cookie. 

Sprinkle the top of each cookie with finely chopped walnuts, then carefully fill each indentation with a small spoonful of raspberry jam.

Bake cookies in the preheated oven for 5-7 minutes, or until they are golden brown around the edges. Cool and serve, or store them in a tightly sealed container in the freezer for later.

Candy Cane Brownies

one 500g jar of natural cashew butter
2 tbsp ground chia seeds mixed with 6 tbsp water (stir and let stand for a minute to form a gel)
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup blanched almond flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp sea salt

1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup unsweetened large flake coconut
1/4 cup chopped dark chocolate
4 candy canes, crushed (I use TruJoy Sweets ones, which have no artificial colours or flavours.)

Preheat the oven to 325 F.  Line a 9 by 13 inch baking pan with two pieces of parchment paper, one placed over the other in opposite directions.

Add the cashew butter, chia seed mixture, maple syrup, and vanilla to a large mixing bowl and beat these ingredients with an electric mixer until they are well combined.

In a smaller bowl, combine the almond flour, cocoa powder, and sea salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the cashew butter mixture, beating with the electric mixer after each addition.

Spread the batter into the prepared baking pan, using the back of a spoon to press it down and smooth it out evenly. Sprinkle the chopped walnuts, coconut flakes, dark chocolate bits, and crushed candy canes on top of the batter. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Let the brownies cool completely. Lift the edges of the parchment paper to remove the cooled brownies from the pan, place them on a large cutting board, and cut them into squares using a sharp knife. Serve, or store the brownies in a tightly sealed container in the freezer for later. 

Chocolate Hazelnut Snowballs

1 500g jar of natural hazelnut butter (or almond hazelnut butter)
1/4 cup of honey
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
1 tbsp coconut flour
1/2 cup of finely chopped raw hazelnuts
unsweetened shredded coconut (for coating)

In a bowl, stir together the nut butter, honey, cocoa powder, coconut flour, and chopped hazelnuts until well combined.  Cover and chill the mixture in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Roll the mixture into bite-sized balls, then roll each ball in shredded coconut to cover.  Chill the snowballs before serving, and store any leftovers in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator, or in the freezer to enjoy later.

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I hope having all of these yummy recipes in one place will make your holiday baking easier! 

Everything Etsy: A Holiday Gift Guide

Winter weather arrived suddenly this past weekend, and the chilly air had all four of us eager to embrace the cozy comforts of the winter season: warm socks and mitts, time spent sitting near the fireplace, homecooked meals that roasted all afternoon in a hot oven. The shift in seasons also has us looking forward now to the approaching holidays, when we'll have the chance to share time and favourite traditions with much loved family members and friends.

Every year around this time I get great enjoyment out of finding thoughtful gifts for the many wonderful people in my life. I've been turning again and again this month to Etsy to browse (from the quiet comfort of my own couch!) for unique and beautiful handmade items that seem just right for each of them. It's always a sweet feeling to see familiar eyes shine with delight over a one-of-a-kind gift that was made and chosen for them with heart.

Today I'm sharing with you an Etsy Holiday Gift Guide that features some of the many lovely items I've come across in my own browsing. Whether you're looking for a special gift or some cheerful holiday decor to warm up your home, you'll find plenty of creative options here. For even more holiday inspiration, take a look at these gift guides created by the Etsy editors.

For the Home

Snowflake Embossing Rolling Pin from Rolling Pin Collection

Monogrammed Faux Fur Christmas Stockings from Davie and Chiyo 607

White and Gold Deer Decor from White Faux Taxidermy

Red Lantern Lamp from The Slumber Jack Baby

For Her

Red Plaid Flannel Scarf from Janny's Girl

Silver Branch Initial Necklace from Kate Szabone

Crochet Flower Slippers from Eva's Studio

Pebble Art Family Picture from Juniper Avery Sea Glass

For Him

Leather Travel Cord Organizer from INSIDE Gift

Rocket Science Necktie from Cyberoptix

Papa Mug from Milk and Honey Luxuries

Laptop Table and Portable Workstation from LapPad

For Teens and Tweens

Felt Bag from Green Sheep PL

Bacon Hoodie from My Cool TShirt

Lumberjack Faux Fur and Plaid Throw Blanket from The Cozy Tot

Crochet Cat Beanie from 2 Mice

Hockey Medal Hanger from AKRO Boutique

For Little Ones

Upcycled Newborn Hat from Rowan's Tree House

Suede Moccasins from Threads and Arrows

Toddler Apron from Sable et Mer

Lumberjack Mini Hockey Stick from des Enfantillages

Small Surprises for Anyone

Natural Lip Balms: Sweet Honey, Mint, and Morning Coffee from LONE WOODS

Linen Holiday Napkins from Kitch Studios

Harris Tweed Coin Pouches from Life Covers

Bear Fridge Magnets from Stoats and Weasels

If you live in Waterloo Region and would enjoy browsing beautiful handmade gifts from over 60 different local Etsy artisans in person, head on over to the Holiday Market being held this Saturday, November 26th, from 10am until 5pm at RIM Park. Parking and admission are free. I'm excited to take a peek myself --  maybe I'll see you there!

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