Keeping the tradition while losing the nutrition

My husband has been sick for the past week. He got hit with the flu and then while still recovering from that he caught some sort of stomach bug. He's had a hard time eating much of anything. I've been trying to feed him nourishing foods but he doesn't always find them appetizing. So, I offered to make him cinnamon toast which is what my mom always made us when we were sick growing up.

This got me thinking about the tradition of giving certain foods while sick. When someone is sick we tend to feed them chicken soup, ginger ale, and cinnamon toast. Your list may be different but these were all things I remember being fed when I was a child and became sick. These were probably things that were traditionally given to sick people but while the tradition has remained we seem to have lost the the nutritional reason for giving these foods. For example, traditionally this would have been sourdough bread which is easier to digest and contains beneficial yeast and bacteria. Slather that with vitamin D rich raw pastured butter and top with antioxidant rich cinnamon and raw honey loaded with antiviral properties. Compare that to today's processed bread slathered with conventional pasteurized butter and refined sugar mixed with cinnamon. Totally different picture right? Then you have homemade chicken soup made from mineral rich homemade stock compared to today's Campbell soup...and the ginger ale? Well the idea is great since ginger is wonderful for stomach upset but today's ginger ale is simply refined sugar with a little ginger if any at all. Are you beginning to get the picture?

I think the tradition of these of foods can be a wonderful source of healing if done right!

Really good paleo pancakes!

With two preschoolers on my hands pancakes are a breakfast item that gets requested quite often around here. Before going grain free I had an amazing gluten free pancake recipe I used, even my gluten loving husband loved my gluten free pancakes :) But since going grain free almost 2 years ago (I think that's how long it's been, I lose track of time!) I have been on the quest for a really good pancake recipe. We have tried so many different ones, some pretty good and some not so good at all! Well, while I think these are probably not quite perfect, this is probably the best grain free and nut free pancake recipe I have tried so far. I know my girls really liked them! Sorry I do not have a good picture to share, with Christmas quickly approaching I have a lot of catch up stuff to do right now.
 So here you go, because of copyright laws I won't be posting the recipe here but head on over to PaleOMG and check out all her other awesome recipes while you're there! I hope you enjoy these pancakes as much as we did!

Truth in the Tinsel: Day 1

Today was our first day celebrating advent! Although I grew up in a christian home advent was not something we did as a holiday tradition. As my girls are getting older my desire to teach them about Jesus gets stronger and stronger, and what better time to teach this than the holiday season as we get closer to celebrating the day our Savior was born!
I looked at several different advent books for children but one that stuck out to me was Truth in the Tinsel by Amanda. It seemed to get really good reviews and I loved how simple it was. I knew my girls would love doing a craft everyday and I loved that I could print out simple ornaments for those days that we were just a little too busy to complete a whole craft.

So here we are! We were a little late getting started so I'm going to double up and we should be caught up by Friday. We'll also be doing some of the simple cutout ornaments this week since I still need to get some supplies and need to wait until payday on Friday. Today went really well and I'm super excited about the upcoming days!

Printed out and placed in a simple binder.

Each day's supplies including the cutout for the advent chain. Inspired by this.

Super excited :)

One whole year...so many thoughts!

Wow! It has been about a year since my last blog post. I guess my aspirations of becoming a great blogger are a little far fetched :p Blogging has been on the back burner as we have settled into our crazy world of food intolerances and struggles. What once was a constant consuming source of stress for us has now become second nature. Yes we still are limited in our food choices and we still are a little uneasy when it comes to food and social situations but we are starting to feel a little more normal now. Those who once thought we were crazy, and most likely still do :p, have gotten used to the idea of me carrying a bag full of previously prepared food every time I walk through the door. Lol :) For once I feel like I'm able to put some of my energy into not just nourishing our physical well being but nourishing our emotional needs as well. And this feels VERY good! So, as we enter this new stage of our lives I will still be offering up our experiences when it relates to food (after all, food is very important to keep us going every day) but I also hope to share our much more important experiences when it comes to parenting and life as a homeschooling mother of  a preschooler and a soon to be kindergartner. I hope that you can look past my random babbling and less than technical writing skills and share in this precious journey with me!

Our Fall camping trip this year :)

Finding my medium...

I have always felt like an artist. I've always felt inspired to create. Despite this I have struggled to find my medium. I can look at a drawing, a painting, or a photograph and feel inspired but I have struggled to use any of these mediums to translate my own inspiration into works.
Artistic medium according to Wikipedia: "In the arts, a media or medium is a material used by an artist or designer to create a work."

I was cleaning up today and I realized that the kitchen has become my art studio. Instead of paintbrushes I have spoons and spatulas. Instead of paint I have various ingredients that I blend together to form muffins, and cakes, and breads.
When I am in the kitchen I feel inspired and I am able to translate that inspiration into works that are pleasing to others.

And with that I find peace and satisfaction.

The Artist.

My not so traditional grain free Thanksgiving...

So I know turkey is the traditional thanksgiving meat but I don't really want to cook a whole turkey just for the 3 of us, and I've had a hard time finding turkey that all 3 of us tolerate. If we had a wholefoods close by I probably could find some but all the turkey around here has stuff added to it. So, chicken it is! I'm just going to roast a whole chicken with thyme and rosemary, seems appropriate for thanksgiving :)

Next on the list is cranberry jello. I bought some 100% cranberry juice and plan to make jello using the juice, knox gelatin, and honey. Just follow the recipe on the back of the knox box.

Our side is going to be broccoli and cauliflower casserole using the recipe from this blog.

I wanted to make this carrot souffle but we don't have chicken stock and have already exhausted our food budget for the week so it will have to wait.

We are missing stuffing here but making a grain free version would be very labor intensive and the girls are so young I don't think they'll miss it...maybe next year! Instead we're going to have coconut flour biscuits.

For dessert I'm making these cheesecake swirl brownies using this dairy free cream cheese recipe for the swirl.

So, that's how I plan to keep my family happy and healthy this Thanksgiving!









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My little secret ;-)

Right now, outside my house, it is 66 degrees and cloudy. Inside my house it is 74 degrees and very comfortable, and we have yet to turn our heat on. So here's my little secret...

A while ago I read an article that talked about different ways to save money and energy around your house. I wish I could reference the article but can't seem to find it, all I can say is this was not my original idea :p One of the things they mentioned was heating your house with your dryer while it is drying clothes. At the time I thought this was a great idea but kind of pushed it to the back of my mind. Well, there are two reasons I decided to finally give this a try.
#1, last year our heating bill was out of this world! We couldn't afford it last year and we most certainly can't this year.
#2, our dryer vent goes up through the attic and out the side of the house. Not only is this highly inefficient (it's been taking WAY too long to dry our clothes) but it also can be a fire hazard.

So, you ask, how can I heat my house with my dryer!? It's so simple!
Take your dryer hose where it connects to the wall and unhook it. Take a pantyhose sock (or a pair of pantyhose and cut the foot out of it) and slip it over the end of the dryer hose where it would normally connect to the wall. It should fit snugly over it but if not just use a rubber band to secure it. Place it so that the air points out the door of your laundry room. When you use your dryer the heat will blow into your house and the pantyhose will filter the lint out! Just make sure to clean it out regularly so this won't create a fire hazard as well.
Not only is this efficient and cost saving but you are also heating your house with a more humid heat as opposed to the very dry heat that your heater produces.

One thing I would caution, if you are going to use this method to heat your house I would suggest making sure your laundry supplies (detergent, softener, dryer sheets, etc.) are non toxic. We don't typically think about how toxic these things can be. If you use this method and continue to use these toxic laundry products than those toxins are being heated up and blown into your home. Just something to think about before you try this experiment for yourself :)