There's No Taste Like Home

One week in hot, bountiful heaven. If you haven't guessed from the title of this entry (if the slogan hasn't been ingrained in your brain from childhood), I am talking about southern Ontario. Kahshe Lake, Gravenhurst, Muskoka to be exact.

I had an unlimited amount of organic tomatoes available to me from my dad's garden waiting to be paired with fresh picked basil, parsley, rosemary or jalapenos all sitting in the garden getting massaged by tent caterpillars.


On the third day of vacation, the mom and I set out on the cottage road and into the forest with a 3L "Fresh Ontario Fruit" basket to get scratched by thorns...er pick wild blackberries.

After a couple hours of photographing nature things and searching for berries we managed to fill the whole basket. Heck yea! We had so many I made a pie and only used 1/3 of them.

Here are some pretty flowers along the way

and some more...

...and some more?...


As I have always been aware, from living in a tourist town, when you go on vacation your brain spends most of the time drinking wine and listening to the crickets. There were a lot of crickets outside the cottage so I can't blame my brain for not remembering how my hands made the pie.

Perhaps brain was subconsciously paying attention...lets ask it.

Pie Crust?
6 dates
splash o.j
blend in food processor until mostly a paste then add:
some almonds and walnuts (a bunch)
about 1/8 cup chia seeds, maybe less, like a tablespoon
some large coconut flakes/chips (not a ton, maybe a handful)
vanilla bean powder (maybe a 1/2 teaspoon)
about a tablespoon or maybe about 3 tablespoons of coconut oil
some sea salt
pulse all together in food processor until well combined and nuts are broken down to a pretty small size. You want this to be dough-like, easily spreadable in a pie dish.

Blackberry & Cream Filling:
Place a whole bunch of blackberries on the crust and then make the cream.
The cream was made from one cup of raw cashews (soaked for a few hours), the meat from two young thai coconuts and some of the coconut water, 2-4 drops liquid stevia, some vanilla bean, a touch of sea salt, maybe about a 1/4 or 1/3 cup of coconut oil and some lucuma powder (about a tbsp). I think that was it. Cream should be quite thick but pourable.

Once the cream ingredients are blended and smooth, pour the cream into the pie crust speckled with blackberries. Place more berries on top and place in fridge to set for a few hours.

Pie will be easy to slice with a knife and hold its shape on the plate.




It was so good!

Did you know that wintergreen mint is a berry? I just blew your mind didn't I?
Also available in this flower and blackberry forest is wintergreen! I picked some of these berries, along with the leaves and muddled myself a fantastic elixir.

Wintergreen MoVito
10 or so fresh wintergreen berries
6 wintergreen leaves
1 oz vodka
1 drop liquid stevia (I used vanilla) or agave syrup to taste
ice
soda to top it off

Muddle the berries and leaves with the vodka, sweetener and ice. Top with soda.
Amazing and so refreshing when it is 34 degrees out!