Vegan Avocado Cilantro Ranch Dressing

Tonight for dinner I wanted to eat something that "felt clean." I feel like Valentines Day junked me all up. I mean, heavens, I made a Candy Poster for the hubs. We have had treats galore! I needed a little detox. I wanted a salad, and I love the taste of Ranch, but really, we all know its not that healthy for you and if you buy it from the store it most likely has lots of chemicals and weird stuff in it that you can't pronounce and have no idea what it is. I have been trying really hard lately to make most of my food from scratch, or buy food with food ingredients in it. For example, have you ever made bread? it has like 4 ingredients. Water, flour, oil, yeast. Next time youre at the grocery store, look at the ingredients of your favorite bread, if it has "bread ingredients" yay! If not, reconsider. I'm not perfect at it yet, but I'm trying.  

For tonight's salad I made up a recipe, based off of the flavors I knew I wanted in my dressing, and boy is it delicious!!!

1.5 cups roasted unsalted cashews

1 large avocado

1/2 bunch of cilantro

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

3/4 tsp salt

1tsp garlic powder

2tsp dill

1/4 tsp black pepper

Juice of 2 limes

2 cups water

Whipped it all up in the blendtec!

I poured it over some romaine, chips, black beans, and tomato. Best of all, i didnt feel guilty licking the bowl, literally. Hubs asked to put this salad into the rotation. Success. Um, btw, this would be pretty perfect if you added grilled chicken to the mix too! This is so tasty, you could put it on burritos, with steak, enchiladas, fish tacos, it would even be amazing as a veggie dip. You get the point. Friends, don't be surprised if you see this on the table when you come over for dinner! So easy, and delicious!! Enjoy!

xoxo, Janean

DIY Restoration Hardware Dresser

Sometimes, ok, pretty much ALL the time, I am quite impressed with my husbands handyman skills. A while ago I asked him if he could make the Restoration Hardware Tatum dresser. Here is a picture:

And voila!

Ask and ye shall receive (sometimes)

Down to the very details, this guy got it! I'm going to make the boys room kind of industrial so I opted for a dark gray color for the dresser and more manly handles, as opposed to the ring pulls. I am just in LOVE with the way it turned out.

I also asked him to make a mirror. We bought the wood from Home Depot, the stain is Jacobean, I totally recommend it, and love it . And the mirror glass we bought from IKEA for $10... Um , amazing. 

Talk about  a fantastic custom mirror for less than 20 dollars. Oh, and the dolls? Don't worry, I had my extremely talented Mother In Law copy some Bla Bla Dolls for me. 

No pattern, she just winged it. Pretty amazing for winging it, right?! I'm so lucky. I couldn't be happier with these things if I tried! Here's to putting your talents to work and saving yourself some money. My talent would in this case, be surrounding myself with extremely talented people. Oh, and btw, this is what motherhood looks like while you're trying to blog.

A VERY hungry baby. So hungry, he cried himself into hives.... Awesome.

But after he ate he was pretty happy. 

XO, Janean

Green Smoothie Recipes for Kids

I just made a page on here now for Blendtec Blender recipes that I have made and that my kids BEG for, daily. This is not a joke people. It is a constant page instead of a post, so that the recipes are always readily available and you can check it out here.
Or click on the page from the top tabs. These are recipes your kids will LOVE. Trust me.
xoxo, Janean