Cinnamon Muffins

The thing about whole food eating is that sometimes it is difficult to fit all the food we need into the budget. Lately, it has been an enormous challenge. With little one on a severely restricted diet, and trying to pay for chiropractor visits, I am at the end of the rope. We are out of budget, out of meat, out of fresh fruit, and nearly out of eggs. I do, however, have a huge stockpile of grains, beans, and homemade chicken broth. I also have a teenager that needs to pack a lunch today for classes he attends once a week. Why do I always forget about that until late Sunday evening, and then freak out? There's that organization and procrastination thing again. Thankfully, this time change thing has me waking up at 5am again. I was able to get up and make some fantastic muffins for him to put in his lunch. I also put a frozen banana and some frozen strawberries in there. That should thaw out and be sufficiently mushy by the time he eats it. Sorry sweetie, it's either that or cold mashed potatoes. I taste tested one of the muffins, and they are really delicious.

I really only have one muffin recipe, that I continually adapt to various ingredients I have on hand. Today, it was about using grains that are not as toxic for little one and trying to make them without eggs. Little one showed very sensitive to wheat, but not as much to spelt and barley (even though those are forms of wheat). I used chia seeds as an egg replacer. I am not vegan, but I do read a lot of fantastic vegan blogs because they have tons of great ideas and recipes on them. I've seen the idea many times, but just never got around to trying it. It's true, necessity really is the mother of invention. Here's your muffin recipe.

Step 1: Mix 3 Tbsp of ground chia seeds with 9 Tbsp of water. Mix well and let sit for about 10 minutes to form a goopy gel. (1 Tbsp chia/3 Tbsp water = one egg) If you do the math, you can use 3 eggs instead of chia seeds. I hear flax seed meal makes a good egg substitute as well. Same ratio as the chia.

Step 2: I had to melt the coconut oil this morning. It is 2/3 cup of liquid coconut oil.

Step 3: Mix the dry ingredients.

• 1 cup spelt flour
• 1 cup barley flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup raw sugar
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Step 4: Mix the dry ingredients with the coconut oil and the chia seed gel.

Step 5: Scoop into greased muffin pan (about 12 muffins). Bake at 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes. I use a stone muffin pan, so I don't use paper liners, but that would work too. 
 

Pancakes

I tried to come up with a really cool alliteration for the title of this entry. However, these pancakes were so good, I just couldn't come up with a fitting "P" word to describe them. I have been experimenting with different flours lately. I have this great grain mill that I was only using for grinding wheat. I felt like there was so much more that I could do.

Not long ago, I got some oat groats and started making oat flour. If you don't know, oat flour has a very low level of gluten, which can be either good or bad. In a scientific sense, gluten is what makes for good yeast bread. It makes the dough sticky and respond properly to the yeast. Different kinds of grains, even different kinds of wheat have differing amounts of gluten. Therefore, oat flour, because of its low levels of gluten does not make for great yeast bread on its own. I can be great for quick breads, cakes, or muffins that use baking soda/baking powder. I thought it would be fun to try in pancakes. I started with a combo of wheat and oat flour. I followed the recipe exactly, just substituting oat flour for part of the wheat flour. They tasted fine, but came out more like crepes than pancakes. The batter was way too runny, and they did not fluff up at all. It was a very good lesson in the texture of oat flour and how it works.

That brings me to last Friday. I've been wanting to try spelt for quite some time. Spelt is an ancient variety of wheat. It has a higher level of gluten than oats, but for some people that have a gluten intolerance, they are able to tolerate spelt, I've read. The problem with spelt is the cost. The same bucket of wheat that I can get for around $40, costs about $100 for spelt. Definitely not something I want to pay for on a regular basis. However, I did want to try it. I splurged for a small one gallon bucket, and it came in on Friday. I decided to give it a go making pancakes again. I mixed it with the oat flour to make a nutritionally packed pancake. I had no idea how they were going to turn out, or what they were going to taste like. However, taking my lesson from my first attempt with oat flour, I changed the recipe a bit to adjust the amount of liquid. The pancakes came out really light, fluffy, and delicious. DH and I are both very particular about how we like our pancakes. However, those particulars are very different. In this case, we both agreed that these pancakes were fabulous. The 12yo said, "For some reason, these pancakes are really good." The picky 8yo, who doesn't like much of anything, ate them without complaint.

The Recipe:

• 2 cups spelt flour


• 2 cups oat flour


• 2 Tbsp plus 1 tsp baking powder


• 6 Tbsp sucanat


• 1 tsp sea salt


• 4 eggs


• 2 cups almond milk

I also added a smidge of vanilla and cinnamon. I can't tell you how much though, because I didn't measure.

For those of you who don't have a grain mill, you can buy both spelt and oat flour at the store or health market. The next day I also made bread substituting spelt for 1/2 the wheat in my normal recipe. The bread came out really soft and yummy. I am starting to think that spelt may be worth the splurge.

"Green Eggs and Ham"burger

I am not Irish. Well, at least I don't think so. Not that that really matters. St. Patrick's day is really more of an American celebration of a non-Irishman who happened to go to Ireland. Of course, if St. Patrick saw how he was being remembered by most, he would probably be very broken hearted. That is not really my point. My point is that I don't like corned beef. I'm not all that crazy about cooked cabbage either. The kids, however, like to do a little celebrating of the greenness of St. Patrick's day. Therefore, I decided to give St. Patrick's day a little Dr. Seuss flair, since we missed his birthday a little more than a week ago.

"Green Eggs and Ham". I'm sure you can already guess the multitude of problems I have with that. First, ham is a severely processed meat that is not part of my balanced diet. Second, I am trying to avoid any kind of artificial food coloring. The first problem was an easy one, I just turned ham into hamburger. The second problem was pretty easy too. I just added some lovely green vegetables. The eggs were not really green. They were still very yellow, but the dish as a whole was a lovely green color. I probably could've baked it and turned it into a quiche, but I didn't think about that until just now. Oh well, it was a very delicious meal anyway, and my 12yo actually ate his green vegetables. That hardly ever happens, unless I mix them into a smoothie. The 8yo did not eat it, but that doesn't surprise me. He is still in that phase of not eating anything. He had an apple, some grapes, and some baby carrots for dinner.

How I made the green eggs and hamburger:

1. brown 1 lb of ground beef, remove from pan
2. saute about 1/2 an onion and 1/2 a green pepper both finely chopped (the smaller the better in my opinion)
3. add in a bunch of kale, cook until wilted which only takes about 30-60 seconds (I prefer to just use the leaves for cooking. I hear the stems are good for juicing, but I just fed them to the rabbit. He's got to eat too. I have been blessed with an overflowing of kale lately, from a friend's garden. I have been looking for creative new ways to use it. This was perfect.)
4. In a bowl, whip up about 6 eggs with whatever liquid you would normally add to make scrambled eggs. I also added a bit of sea salt and black pepper. Add this once the kale is wilted. Cook until eggs are well scrambled.
5. Add beef back into pan, and mix well, just making sure everything is warm.

After it was done, I thought it would be good on a tortilla. Of course, I didn't have any. I wrapped mine in lettuce instead. The 12yo just ate it with a fork, covered in ketchup. The important thing is that he actually ate it. DH at it in a very large bowl, adding a dash of cayenne pepper. His sense of smell and taste are not very good. Therefore, he prefers to eat things that are on fire.

I had a difficult time coming up with a green dessert that didn't involve artificial color of some kind. I finally found some directions online for natural food coloring, so I decided on chocolate cupcakes with a mint frosting.

Chocolate Cake/Cupcake Recipe:

1. Mix together 1 3/4 cup fresh milled flour (use soft white wheat for cakes, or if you are buying the flour you can look for whole wheat pastry flour, or if you prefer all-purpose flour will work too), 3/4 cup cocoa powder, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt
2. In a separate bowl, mix together 2 eggs, 1 cup milk (I used almond milk), 1/2 cup grapeseed oil, 1 cup honey. Add to dry ingredients.
3. Mix for about 2 minutes.
4. Slowly add in 1 cup of boiling water. This will make the batter really runny. It's ok, it's supposed to look like that.
5. Bake at 350*F for about 25 minutes for cupcakes, 30-35 minutes for cake

For the frosting, I read that you can mix in about 1/2 of an avocado to get a nice green color. Start with 1 stick of butter, beat until fluffy. Mash the avocado and mix in with the butter. At this point, I added about 1/2 tsp of mint extract. Add powdered sugar about 1/2 a cup at a time. You can add in a little milk in between, if necessary. Keep adding until you get the desired consistency. I think I ended up using about 2 1/2 or 3 cups of powdered sugar. It came out a lovely off white color. It was so not green. Not even close. So, I caved and added a dash of green food coloring. Oh well, I will try again with something else next time. On the bright side, it did get my kids to eat avocado. I may continue mixing it into the frosting just for that purpose.

Chicken Coleslaw Wraps

This one started as a crazy post online. I said, "What can I make for dinner with a head of cabbage and two leftover pieces of chicken?" Here is the surprisingly tasty result.

What you need:
2 cups shredded red cabbage
2 cups diced (cooked) chicken
1 cup diced apple
1 cup red grapes, halved
1 diced jalapeno pepper
1/2 cup organic yogurt
1/4 cup mayonnaise (I made that from scratch too, but you probably don't want that recipe. It wasn't too good on its own)
1 Tbsp lime juice

Combine cabbage, chicken, apple, grapes and jalapeno in a large bowl. Stir in yogurt, mayo, and juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper. I don't think it needed any, but hubby had to add some.

We had this on fresh ground wheat tortillas. It would also be great wrapped in butter lettuce. One day, I would love to figure out how to make a spinach tortilla or something like that.

For dessert, we had tortillas. Brush tortillas with melted butter. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar and cinnamon. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 10-12 minutes.

Banana Muffins

My son has been begging for banana muffins since last week. I made blueberry muffins one day, and he liked them a lot, but said that banana muffins would be even better because of how much he likes bananas. I don't exactly have a recipe for banana muffins, but I was able to adapt my mom's banana bread recipe, with a twist.

4 bananas
2 eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
2 cups flour (I use fresh milled soft wheat, but am going to experiment with some different grains next time)
1 tsp baking soda

Mix together liquids first, then add flour and baking soda. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Then I topped with a crumb topping of hemp seed coated with cinnamon and nutmeg. Bake at 350F for about 25 minutes. It made 18 muffins.

Finally Successful Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have been having a horrible time trying to make chocolate chip cookies over the last year. I want to make them substituting better ingredients than processed sugar, shortening, etc. For some reason, this is the one recipe that I could never get to come out right. The cookies would end up running all over the pan. I could make them into bars, and it would taste good, but I just couldn't get the cookies to come out right. At Christmas time, I made a discovery about substituting coconut oil for butter. You have to use less. I've also learned the same about honey. When you substitute honey for sugar, you can usually get by with about half the amount. I finally got the nerve to try again. The dough is much stickier than what you might be used to, but the cookies came out perfectly. Here is what I came up with.

1.5 cups coconut oil
1 cup Sucanat (evaporated cane juice)
3/4 cup honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp water
4 eggs
5 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 cups chocolate chips

Mix the first six liquid ingredients, then add the flour and baking soda. Add chocolate chips last. Bake at 350F for anywhere from 8-14 minutes depending on oven, pan, etc. I bake on stone, so it takes a little longer, but comes out much better. I baked mine for 12 minutes.

Zuppa Toscana

I thought I had posted this before on here, but I guess not. I started my "What's for Dinner?" series, but then got caught up in a dental nightmare. We are back to "normal" this week, so I will need to start posting again. This is what we are having this evening. I absolutely love Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana Soup, but shouldn't really eat it for several ingredients on the list. Here is my version.

Ingredients:
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper use only if a spicier flavor is desired
1 pound Italian Sausage (see below)
1 onion diced
2 cloves garlic
about a gallon of broth (I am making some veggie broth in the crock pot right now. It should be ready by the time I go to make dinner.)
2 large potatoes scrubbed, and cubed (or 4 small potatoes)
1/2 cup milk (I am using coconut milk today)
1 bunch kale lightly chopped (do not add stalks)


Preparation:
In a large pot, add broth and bring to boil on medium high heat. Add potatoes and kale, cover, and cook on Medium High. While cooking prepare sausage as directed below. Finally, add sausage mixture to pot and continue cooking until potatoes are soft. Total cooking time should be about 30 minutes.


Directions for sausage:

I use one pound of ground turkey. To that I add:
1 clove garlic
some sea salt
a bunch of black pepper
a bit of crushed red pepper flakes
some oregano
(sorry, I don't measure it)
Mush it all together then brown it, as you would hamburger.

Next, add the onions and garlic and saute for about 5-10 minutes.

Friday Dinner

It's Friday!!! Today was kind of a crazy day in our little world. We had an all day outing for dental chaos. It was great fun!? The wise thing to do would've been to plan ahead to throw something in the crock pot, premake something, or plan something quick and simple. I did not do any of that. I didn't really want to think about the dental appointments, so I didn't really want to plan ahead. Plus, it's Friday. I decided, on the way home, that we would stop at the store and get some fried chicken. Yup, you read that right, fried chicken. I told you, I'm not perfect. I was tempted to get some chips or french fries to go with it, but decided to only be half bad. I made some mashed potatoes to go with the chicken. Well, I guess you would have to call it potatoes/cauliflower. I steam and puree cauliflower, then mash it in with the potatoes. I use a bit of almond milk and coconut oil. We also had some fresh oranges for dessert. My mom brought over some oranges yesterday from her neighbor's tree. It was very yummy.

Crock Pot Chicken and Bok Choy

I wasn't sure what tonight's dinner was going to taste like. It was definitely what you'd call experimental. I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually pretty good. I had to find something to do with my bok choy that I got in my organic goodies box this week. When I found something that could go in the crock pot, that was a bonus. The crock pot has got to be one of the most fabulous inventions ever. The only thing I had to make extra was a side of rice.

Chicken and Bok Choy:

• bok choy - chopped (I used one whole head, it was large, not baby bok choy. You could use baby too, you'd just have to use more of it.)
• 1 large green pepper - chopped, sliced, or diced
• 1 pound chicken breasts (I actually used 1.65 lbs, or 3 breasts)
• sea salt and black pepper
• 1/2 cup chicken broth (I used turkey broth, because that's what I had in my freezer from Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys. Vegetable broth would work too.)
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 Tbsp ginger
• 1 Tbsp red curry paste (see below)

Chop and throw the bok choy and bell pepper into the crock pot. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and arrange on top of the green stuff.

In a bowl, mix broth, rice vinegar, sesame oil, ginger and curry paste. Pour over chicken. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours. If you get started late, you can cook on high for 3-4 hours.

Curry Paste:

I was going to just buy curry paste. Honestly, I wasn't quite sure what curry was. I got to the store, and read the ingredients on the jar. That's what I do. I don't count calories, but I do read ingredients. I was surprised to find that it was really just tomato puree and a blend of spices. I could have looked online to find a recipe, and I'm sure could have found one. However, I had some surprise guests this morning and just wanted to get done. I remembered the best I could from the jar at the store, and just kind of made it up. I ended up with slightly more than a Tbsp when I was done. I took about 1.5 Tbsp of tomato puree, 1 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp sea salt, 1/2 tsp turmeric, and 1/4 tsp chili powder. I'm not sure if it tasted like curry paste or not, because I've never used curry paste before. It was good, whatever it tasted like.

Coconut Rice:

This is the part of the meal I was really unsure about. I've never cooked rice in anything but water before. Two cans of coconut milk seemed like a lot of liquid for one cup of brown rice. I cooked it anyway, and prayed that it would turn out. It did, for the most part. Only a little bit of the rice stuck to the bottom of the sauce pan and overcooked. The rest of the rice was just fine. It was more moist than plain rice, though. It really was almost like a rice pudding, but not quite that liquidy.

My 12yo devoured the rice and wanted seconds. He wasn't a big fan of the chicken but did eat it. The 8yo had a pear. I can't wait until he outgrows this phase of not liking everything. Hubby and I really liked all of it. I am not a big fan of cooked green stuff, but the bok choy was quite tasty. The rice in coconut milk was really sweet, and almost could be eaten for dessert.

Fried Rice

Fried rice is a very versatile meal. It's cheap and easy. It's a great way to use up leftovers. It's also great for nights like tonight. You see, I am out of meat. I found a really great recipe for chicken to go with my bok choy, but it is a crock pot recipe. I didn't find it until 3:00 in the afternoon. We have places to be tonight. I decided to wait until morning to head to the store for chicken. That's what lead me to fried rice. It has protein without meat.

How to make fried rice:

• Take one cup of uncooked rice and cook it. The thing I love about rice is that you can put one cup into the pot and it's more like 3-4 cups when it is done cooking. Rice is a very frugal food. I use organic brown rice. I have read conflicting information as to which rice is best for you. I've had no issues with the brown rice, so I'm sticking with it. Also, the rice can be cooked ahead of time and kept in the fridge for a quick throw together dinner.
• Meanwhile, I take out my large stir fry skillet and heat about 2 Tbsp of coconut oil.
• This is where you get creative and throw in whatever you have on hand. Tonight I will use about 1/2 of a chopped red onion, some green beans, and some green bell pepper (I think I have a half pepper to use up).
• Add the cooked rice and mix well.
• Then comes the fun part. Move everything off to the side and add 2-3 eggs. I usually beat them in a bowl first. You are going to kind of scramble the eggs a bit before mixing everything together.
• Heat until warm. I usually do not completely cook the veggies.

It's also fun to throw in leftover chicken or turkey. If you eat pork, you could add that. I recommend you don't eat pork though. Don't believe me? Read up on it. I even used lamb one time. That was really good. Whatever you do, have fun with it. I don't think I've ever made fried rice the same way twice.

Taco Tuesday

Everyone keeps asking me what I eat. I am going to try to post daily (or as close as I can get) for a couple of weeks to inspire you. Today was Taco Tuesday. My family loves tacos. Well, except for my 8yo. He only eats the tortillas. I gave him an apple with his tortillas. He is at that age where all his food has to be just so, and he will only eat about 10 things. I just do the best I can to fill him up. I know he will outgrow this stage. His brother did. Now my 12yo is on the see food diet. You know, the one where you see food and eat it. Though he still has a bit of an aversion to green vegetables. We are still working on that. What does Taco Tuesday consist of? Three things for which you need a recipe. The rest you can just add what you like.

Taco Meat:
For my family, I use two pounds of meat. That ensures we are all full, and a little extra for lunch the next day. Tonight it was beef. I usually use ground turkey. One time, hubby even ran some chicken breasts through the meat grinder attachment for my stand mixer. That was quite tasty. Just brown the meat. When the meat is browned, you are ready to add your seasoning. Don't drain all the fat, it will give your tacos a better texture.

Seasoning for the Meat:
I make my own. Most commercial season mixes contain some form of MSG, which should be avoided. Actually, it took me a while to find a good chili powder that didn't contain MSG. I finally found a good organic chili powder from a co-op. Wal-mart has some in the Latin section that are just dried chiles. If you use that, I would suggest using a bit less and adding more cumin. My recipe is as follows for 2 lbs of meat: 1/4 cup chili powder, 1 Tbsp cumin, 1 tsp sea salt, 2 tsp garlic powder, 2 tsp onion powder, 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 to 1 cup water. Mix all ingredients together before adding to the meat. One time I tried just adding each ingredient to the meat, it turned into a runny mess. About the flour, do not use whole wheat flour from the store. There is no reason other than taste. It does not taste good. I use my fresh ground wheat. If you don't have that available to you, go with an all purpose flour. I wouldn't recommend that for anything else. We all know white processed flour is not good for us.

Salsa:
This is really a preference thing. I will post what we do, but you will need to adjust the recipe to your taste (especially the heat of the peppers).

• 3 Tomatoes (the bigger, the better)
• 2 bell peppers (any color will do, but I like to switch it up to make it look pretty)
• 5 jalapenos (this used to be really hot for me, but I've worked up to it. If you are not a spicy lover, start with 2)
• handful of cilantro
• juice of one lemon and one lime
• garlic to taste (I think I usually use about 3 cloves)
• one onion (I usually use white or yellow, but I really like red onion)

It's not hard to make. I pretty much just chop everything up and throw it in a bowl. I prefer to use my food chopper for the onion and bell peppers. I use the food processor for the tomatoes, jalapenos, and cilantro. For the garlic, I just use the press. A professional chef, I am not.

The Tortillas:

Yes, I even make those from scratch. Though, it would be much easier if I had a tortilla press. I just use a rolling pin and my pancake griddle. I cannot share the recipe, because it is from a book. I did not alter it in any way. Visit here to view the cookbook. This happens to be the same book where I get one of my bread recipes, and much more. This is also one of the sources I use to order my grain.

Tonight, I ate my tacos on the shell and threw in a bit of lettuce, spinach, and broccoli slaw. Sometimes, I'll just make it a salad and throw in a bunch more stuff. I like corn, kidney beans, tortilla chips, or whatever is in my refrigerator.

New Year Recipes

This year, I would like to take some time to post more recipe and meal ideas on my blog. Many of my friends keep asking me, "What do you eat?" I want to be able to share some of those things with you.

Really, I eat the same things I ate before. Now, I just have to substitute some ingredients and make everything from scratch. I think the best way I can help you, is for you to tell me what you eat. I want to know your family's favorite meals. I will make it my mission to come up with a recipe that I would eat.

A few notes:

1. I am not a doctor.
2. The things that are healthy for me, may not be the best option for you.
3. I am just a mom trying to feed my family the best food I can, based on the information I have at the time.
4. I am not a chef, but spend a lot of time watching them on TV. I find it very helpful to understand the science behind cooking.
5. If your favorite meal is lasagna, I will probably not be able to come up with a recipe for that. You may just have to use your recipe, but limit it to once a month.

There you have it. Tell me your favorite meals. Tell your friends to post their favorite meals. Oh, and not just meals, but desserts too. I love to bake. Even more than that, I love eating what I bake. Maybe you shouldn't send me desserts.

Homemade "Granola" Bars

OK, it's not really granola, but that's the easiest way I can think to describe these. I don't know if you know this, but boys love to eat. Even more than that, they love to snack. Well, you probably know that. The problem is finding stuff to keep them satisfied, but still be healthy. I have one that loves to eat fruits and veggies, but the other one doesn't. He would prefer things like cookies and candy. Granola bars are a simple snack, but most of them that are in the store are loaded with high fructose corn syrup or other not so good for you ingredients. It is easy to find recipes online, but a lot of those don't have the best ingredients either. After some research, here is my adaptation.

Begin by "greasing" a 9x13 pan. I would probably use coconut oil, but because I was almost out, I used butter.

In a small saucepan over medium heat combine:

• 1/2 c. honey
• 1/2 c. peanut butter (I made my own)
• 2 Tbsp. Pure Maple Syrup
• 1 Tbsp. coconut oil (again since I was almost out of coconut oil, I used grapeseed oil)
• 1/4 c. Sucanat
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Heat until mixture just begins to bubble. Remove from heat and add 1 tsp vanilla.

In a large bowl combine:

• 2 cups oats
• 2 cups crisp brown rice cereal
• 1/4 milled flax seed
• 1/2 cup roasted peanuts
• 1/2 raisins
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries

Pour peanut butter mixture over oatmeal mixture and stir. Press into baking dish, cover with parchment paper and press firmly into dish. Cool in fridge.

Warning, it did not get very sticky, and does fall apart a bit. They taste great, though. I will be doing some experimenting with ingredients like sunflower seeds, hemp seed, almonds, and other dried fruits. I will post the ones that work. If you have any suggestions for other ingredients, I will try that too.

Really Yummy 'Not so bad for you' Milkshake

My son wanted a banana smoothie for an afternoon snack. I discovered that I was out of orange juice (which I normally make his smoothies with). At that point, I got a little creative. Here's what I used.

• 1 cup vanilla almond milk
• 1 small container vanilla yogurt
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 Tbsp coconut oil
• 1/2 Tbsp local raw honey (to help fight allergies)

Mix it all up in the blender. It makes about 2 servings. It was seriously like drinking a milkshake made with ice cream.

Egg Veggie Salad Wrap

My freezer and pantry stock piles are seriously dwindled. I am still not used to making everything from scratch. I really need to work on getting a schedule made up so that I can plan my shopping accordingly. Coming up with last minute dinner ideas is really getting difficult. When you make things from scratch, you cannot do it at the last minute. I did come up with a pretty good option though. I did use store bought tortillas tonight, though. I can't wait to get my grain and a tortilla press. Really, tortillas should have like two ingredients. There is no need for them to have all that other junk that they put in the store bought ones.

Mix the following ingredients together in a bowl:

• 6 hard-boiled eggs chopped (farm fresh of course)
• 1/2 c. chopped cucumber
• 1/2 c. chopped zucchini
• 1/4 c. shredded carrot
• 2 Tbsp. chopped red onion

Stir together the following, then pour over the egg mixture and combine:

• 1/4 c. organic greek yogurt (plain)
• 2 Tbsp. dijon mustard
• 1 Tbsp. almond milk
• 1/4 tsp basil
• 1/4 tsp paprika

Layer one whole wheat tortilla, romaine lettuce leaf, chopped plum tomato, egg mixture. Roll up and enjoy. It should make about 6.

More On Getting Healthy

In all my writing last night about getting healthy, I forgot to talk about my dh. Ever since I've known him, he has struggled with acid reflux. At age 28, he had his gall bladder removed. After that, the reflux got even worse. He was taking a prescription for a while, but then switched to OTC meds. He was taking them nearly every day. Since we've made the switch, he is completely off any kind of acid meds, PTL.

Part of the inspiration to make changes came from my 7yo. He was suffering from severe constipation. We had already been changing his diet significantly, because I knew I couldn't keep him on the prescription from the doctor forever. We had also found a few foods that helped him just as well as the Rx. One of them was a cookie recipe from a nutrition book I reviewed a while back. See that review here.

My whole life, breakfast has been about cereal and milk. There were the weekend days that my dad would cook eggs and bacon, or when I was old enough, I would get up first and make pancakes. Yes, I have always been a morning person. It's just how I'm wired, and I can't help it. What do you do for breakfast if you do not do cereal and milk. That has been a tough thing to get used to. All the options take more work than cereal. The kids really like oatmeal, and I have not totally transitioned them from the instant variety. I do try to sneak in some flax seed and/or coconut oil. My oldest also enjoys scrambled eggs. We love our farm fresh eggs that we get from our friend's chickens. Much cheaper than buying them from the store. Eggs are cheap, but if you want the good farm fresh ones you are going to pay. Finding a local chicken farmer is a much more affordable option. Of course, the best option would be to have your own chickens, but that doesn't really work for us at the present time.

My other favorite breakfast option is smoothies. They are very easily tailored for each person's tastes and health needs. Here's what I had this morning:
I made fresh juice in the juicer. I used one pineapple, three plums and a few grapes.
For a smoothie I use about 1 c. of juice.
I add about a handful of fresh spinach.
1/2 frozen banana (to freeze banana's I peel them, break them in half, and put in a freezer baggie)
1/2 container of greek yogurt (I used blueberry this morning)
1 Tbsp coconut oil
about a handful of frozen blueberries (we picked these last year from my friend's blueberry farm, we are almost out and I can't wait until we can go pick some more).

Really, you can put almost anything in a smoothie. It works best to use frozen fruits, because it give it a much better consistency. If you don't have frozen fruit you can throw in a few ice cubes to help thicken it and make it colder.

Colcannon

OK, two posts in one day. Sorry, I don't want to overwhelm you, but the other post was just getting too long and I really wanted to post this recipe. For a food obsessed family this going healthy thing has been a bit of a challenge. We use food for everything. When we study geography, we like to have food from the country we are studying. We bake cookies to study math. We ate soup and bread for 3 days straight to get an idea of what life was like in the dark ages. So of course, when St. Patrick's day comes along we have to have food to go along with it. Well, last year the corn beef and cabbage did not go over very well. I don't even think the dh liked it, and he likes everything. However, cabbage is in season right now so I had some fresh cabbage from the organic co-op. What to do? What to do? My fb news feed popped up with the perfect solution, healthy Irish recipes. However, their definition of healthy did not quite fit in our currently dairy free house. So here is the modified recipe for Colcannon (which is a fancy Irish word for mashed potatoes and cabbage).

1 lb small red potatoes scrubbed and cut in half (It was so handy to have our new food scale that I had to buy for Chemistry class)
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1/2 onion, thinly sliced (we always use the PC food chopper for this job to get them really small and unnoticeable)
6 cups cabbage, thinly sliced (about 1/2 head)
1 c. almond milk
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp pepper

1. Cook the potatoes like you would to make mashed potatoes, but do not mash yet.
2. Meanwhile, heat coconut oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and cook until translucent (about 2 min), add cabbage and continue cooking, stirring occasionally until the cabbage begins to brown (about 5 min).
3. Reduce heat to low. Stir in almond milk, salt and pepper. Cover and cook until cabbage is tender (about 8 min). Add the cabbage mixture to the potatoes and mash.

Monster Mouth Pasta

So, we had a party today. We were celebrating Evan's 6th birthday, my wonderful husband's 36th birthday, and their favorite halloween. We had the party 2 days after halloween, so we could get all the decorations at half off. OK, that's not really why. It just kind of worked out that way. We got a book halloween food and crafts from the grocery store a while back. I thought it would be kind of fun to try out some of the cool ideas. A few of them ended up being really good, so I will be adding the recipes into my meal rotation. My favorite was the pasta. I will not add all the decorating steps. I'll leave that up to your imagination. Here's the recipe:

1 tsp of vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
4 slices of bacon
1 lb ground beef
2 medium plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped
4 slices American cheese, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 pkg jumbo pasta shells (about 18 shells), cooked and drained

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease 13x9 baking dish. Heat oil in large skillet over medium. Add onion and bacon; cook until onion is tender. Add beef; cook and stir until beef is no longer pink. Stir in tomatoes, cheese, salt and pepper. Spoon mixture into cooked shells; place in prepared baking dish. Bake 3 to 5 minutes or until hot.

Shrimp Ceviche

Yesterday, we went to a 4th of July party. Chris made a Shrimp Ceviche that was very popular. Here is the recipe.

Shrimp Ceviche
1 batch of Tomato/Citrus Marinade (see below)
1 batch of Marinated Onions (see below)
4 cups Water
1 1/2 lbs shrimp (peeled and deveined)
2 Tbsp cilantro
pinch salt/pepper
Hot Sauce to taste
2 Scallions (the white part plus one inch of the green)

Prepare Tomato/Citrus Marinade (can be done the day before). About 4 hours before serving prepare Marinated Onions, use half in the recipe and half for garnish. In a large sauce pan, combine water and scallions, bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium, simmer 2 minutes. Add shrimp. Remove from heat and let stand a few seconds until shrimp turns pink. Drain and discard scallions. Rinse shrimp under cold water. Cut shrimp in half crosswise. Add shrimp and cilantro to Tomato Marinade. Stir to mix. Cover with plastic and refridgerate 2 to 3 hours. Season with salt, pepper and hot sauce.

Tomato/Citrus Marinade
1 cup Water
1 lb medium sized tomatoes
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup lime juice
3/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tsp worcestershire
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp EVOO
1 tsp black pepper
1 - 2 tsp hot sauce

Bring water and whole tomatoes to boil. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 5 minutes. Remove and cool. Remove tomatoes with slotted spoon and let cool. Slip off skin of tomatoes. Put tomatoes in blender and blend until smooth. Strain out seeds. In medium glass bowl, mix tomato puree, citrus juices, ketchup, worcestershire, mustard, oil, pepper, and hot sauce. Stir. Cover and refridgerate up to one day.


Marinated Onions
hot water
1 medium red onion halved and sliced lengthwise into paper thin half moons
juice of one lemon
1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Pour hot water over onions. Let stand 15 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. In small mixing bowl, combine onion, juice, salt, and pepper. Cover and let stand at room temp until onions turn pink, about 3 hours. It is best to make the day you are going to serve.

Peanut Butter Round 2

Here is how to make yummy peanut butter.

Start with one cup of shelled, ROASTED peanuts.
Add 2 TBSP of oil.
I added just a smidgen of honey for sweetness, but not necessary.

The roasting is the important step that I missed before. To roast peanuts, simply put in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes (laid out flat on a baking sheet).

Have Fun!!!