Prince Edward Island--woohoo!

Even if you're American, you may have heard of Prince Edward Island, or PEI, as most people call it. I have heard it described in a way that people usually reserve for really exceptional destinations; lots of extended sighs and dreamy stares off into the distance. Needless to say, I set my expectations VERY HIGH on what this trip to "Anne's Land" would be.

You have to be careful when you get off at the tourist info center on the way in (if you have kids, especially girls). It's full of Anne of Green Gables souvenirs and tons of "made in China" trinkets.

PEI, is a 3-3.5 hour hop, skip, and a jump from Fundy National Park, so we were looking forward to getting in early and having the afternoon to set up our campsite and explore the PEI National Park a little. 

As soon as we drove across the 8 mile Confederation Bridge, which connects the mainland of New Brunswick to PEI, the gentle landscape made me feel immediately relaxed. Maybe it's intrinsic to island geography...the water lapping against the shoreline, the rhythmic ascent and descent of the hills, rolling farmland, and small towns lacking any kind of big box stores. 

I was particularly impressed by the farms, especially since I love gardening. Potatoes everywhere, corn, and shocking yellow fields of something mysterious. I'm guessing it was rapeseed for making canola oil, which I had once seen in England.

We had to laugh at this! It looks like a giant mechanical grasshopper.

Trail Mix Cookie Recipe

Trail Mix Cookies. Yumm! These are chock full of healthy ingredients to keep up your energy when you need a little afternoon snack or continued energy on a longer hike.

They are dairy, egg, sugar, and gluten free! Yay! Why do so many Jews have food allergies? Maybe it is just my friends.

You'll have to make them ahead of time unless you have a camping oven.



Trail Mix Cookies [adapted from 101 Cookbooks] yields ~20 ping pong sized cookies

• 1.5 large bananas
• 1t vanilla
• 2T unrefined coconut oil, softened 
• 3/4c rolled oats
• 1/4c buckwheat flour [can grind buckwheat groats]
• 1/4c almond meal [finely ground almonds]
• 2T ground flax meal
• 2T raw buckwheat groats
• 1/4c chopped almonds
• 2T almond milk
• 3T unsweetened finely shredded coconut
• 1/4c currants [or raisins]
• 1/4c apricots, finely chopped
• 1/2t cinnamon
• 1/4t salt
• 1/2t baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 350*
2. In a large bowl mash bananas with a fork, until very wet and egg-like.
3. Mash in coconut oil, vanilla, and almond milk until well combined.
4. Add oats, buckwheat flour, almond meal, flax meal, coconut, cinnamon, salt and baking powder.
5. Stir until just combined.
6. Add buckwheat groats, chopped almonds, chopped apricots and currants.
7. Fold in until combined.
8. Spoon dough into ping pong size balls and place on a parchment lined pan.  The dough will be quite wet, but they should be able to hold a ball shape.
9. Bake for 12-14min.  For a soft interior bake 12min.
10. Let cool on pan for 5min, then transfer to a cooling rack.
11. Let fully cool, before storing in an airtight container.

*No need to buy expensive almond flour.  You can grind almonds to a fine powder in a blender, coffee grinder or food processor.  The same goes for buckwheat groats.  Just be careful not to over-process the almonds, or you will get almond butter!

*Feel free to add 1-3T of pure cane sugar if you want a sweeter cookie.  Honestly though, with the dried fruit, this was quite sweet.

*If you want to add chocolate, add about 1/4c chocolate chips.

Oh…and if you put coconut butter on the hot cookies, it melts and then hardens when it cools.  So you have a nice little coconut shell on top.  How perfect.  Breakfast, snack, lunch or dinner…you can’t go wrong with these.

recipe source: EdiblePerspective.com
photo credit: 101Cookbooks.com

Alma: highest Tides in the World

Welcome to Alma, New Brunswick. They are the closest town to Fundy National Park. As you can see, they claim to be home to the highest tides in the world.

We only went to Alma to buy some groceries and have a little ice cream break, but I did hope that we would get a chance to see Alma at low tide. And guess what? Hashem didn't disappoint us!

I could already see that the water was slowly coming back to the shore, and in just a few hours, these colorful boats would be floating at pier level again.