Happy Mardi Gras!

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Another day, another festival! Happy Mardi Gras to all! In preparation for the Christian season of Lent, Mardi Gras is something like an ultimate celebration of indulgence to kick off 40 days of reflection, austerity, and growth ending at Easter. Because most people choose to fast or abstain from something during the period of Lent, Mardi Gras (as the name would suggest) is mostly about the food and the revelries. Costumes, masks, parades, and baked goodies, it is colorful, cheerful and oh so sweet!

One of the most quintessential French traditions on Mardi Gras is to make crêpes, the wonderful treat that does not translate as 'pancake'. The sweet ones are usually filled with Nutella, sugar and lemon juice, Grand Marnier, bananas, or jams, while the salty ones are usually some permutation of a vehicle for ham, eggs, mushrooms, and cheese. If you've ever been to Paris (or plan to go) I highly suggest you go to a traditional crêpes vendor to have your own piece of French culinary culture (my personal favourite is Le Sarasin, at 86 Rue Saint Louis en l'Ile, you can't miss in it's on an island the size of our current apartment building).

My challenge as always: how to keep traditions alive while making them raw. Easy! There are plenty of yummy looking raw crêpe recipes and here is mine:

Raw Mardi Gras Crêpes
4 bananas
juice of 1/2 a meyer lemon (or more to taste)
pinch of salt
tsp of vanilla (or beans of 1 vanilla pod)

1. Blend all together
2. Spoon rounds onto dehydrator sheets and dehydrate for about 8 hours. You know they're ready when they peel of the sheets like fruit roll-up.
3. Fill with goodness.

For our meal, I laid out peanut butter & jelly, raw chocolate sauce, raw honey, and blueberries. We took a whole bunch of really gorgeous pictures of how well it turned out, but to test my patience and sanity right before Lent, I found out too late that I hadn't actually put the memory card in the camera. @#($*%(!!!! I guess that just means I'll have to make more sometime!

Workout of the Day
20 minutes HIIT + 5 minute cooldown
1 minute plank + 30 second for each side
5 minutes of stretching

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