My Grain Free Breakfast

I know that I need to take the time to write a post about why I am grain free and on this crazy diet, but the explanation is a lengthy one, and I would like to take my time and explain it the right way. If you are really interested go over to gapsdiet.com and check it out for yourself, but for now just trust that I know what I am doing, and roll with me on this one. Finding a variety of grain free breakfast recipes is really hard. I love eggs and could eat them all the time, I am really not sick of them, and I know that they nourish my growing baby, however sometimes something else sounds good too. This morning I snapped a few shots of my breakfast and really it looks pretty good! It tasted pretty good too!  I made tomato egg cups with cheese on top, and butternut squash pancakes ( totally grain free)  They really were very good! I love fresh tomato, I happen to find a few good ones at the store, and that's hard to find this time of year. My kids loved the pancakes, Andrew however, thought the texture was a bit off.  They really can't complain to much, the pancakes were smothered in cultured butter, and real maple syrup.

All the photos are before baking and cooking, everything was gone before
I could snap any after photos.  

Look how beautifully orange my butternut squash pancakes are!

Almond Flour Cranberry Orange Scones

Being on a restricted diet is really hard, but I do have a few tricks up my sleeve. I am not eating any grain right now, so when I want something that is bread like, I have turned to coconut or almond flour. Almond flour really makes a great bread product. In fact my husband has a hard time telling the difference. So I thought that I would share some of the recipes that I come up with in case you want to give them a try.  If you want to know where to get some of the ingredients I use check out my resource page.


3 c. blanched almond flour
1/4 t. sea salt
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1/4 c coconut oil or melted butter
1/4 c honey
3 large eggs
1/2 c dried cranberries
1/4 c freshly squeezed orange juice
zest of one orange

Preheat the oven to 350
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl combine almond flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, orange zest.
In a separate bowl, combing eggs, honey, oil, orange juice
combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix well, add cranberries and mix well.
Scoop scant 1/4 c, 2 inches apart on baking sheet.  Bake 10 - 15 min.  until golden brown.
enjoy!

Merry Christmas

Before the day ends, I wanted to hope on my blog and post a merry Christmas greeting to everyone who reads or follows my blog! I hope and pray that you are having a wonderful time with your family and enjoying all the wonderful gifts that you have been given.  We have had a wonderful Christmas day. We did all our running around in the three days leading up to Christmas, and have been able to stay home with our children and play games, and watch movies, and really just enjoy each other all day today!  I love watching my kids open their gifts, I was so in the moment this morning that I forgot to grab my camera and snap some shots. I really like it when you hit the nail on the head, and get that perfect gift for your children. I also enjoyed finding the perfect gift for my husband, and of course I myself made out like a bandit!  I know that Christmas is not about the presents, however, to me it seems like I celebrate Jesus all year round. Through out the year, I think about what a gift Christ is to us, and how awesome our creator is to have stepped into human flesh and join us down here. I like to think of not just his birth, but his life and his death. He is the greatest gift of all, and the real reason for Christmas!
 I managed to snap off some pictures of some of the day, Here is what I have so far. This was breakfast.

Part of our breakfast this morning, fruit salad.

Grass fed, Organic, Beef Sausage Sliders from
U.S Wellness Meats.
There website is in my link section

Farm fresh scrambled eggs, thank you Shrum family!

Here were some of the kids before bed last night, in the new pj's they got from Grandma, and Aunt Aura. The girls had so much fun matching! 

How sweet they are!

To all of you, my readers, friends and family, have a blessed day, and enjoy what is left of Christmas! 

Popcorn

When we sit down for a movie with the kids, the snack of choice is usually popcorn. I am not sure when the popcorn movie connection happened, but we all know that movies and popcorn go together hand in hand.  When I was growing up, you would not find a bag of microwave popcorn in our house. I think because of the cost difference. I remember standing on a stool and watching the air pop machine that my mom had spit out the golden goodness. Mom poured melted real butter all over the top, some salt, and a glass of ice water ( you get thirsty eating popcorn ) When I first got married, I did not have an air pop machine, and grew out of the habit of having popcorn with movies, then I found microwave popcorn, and started buying that. Then of course as our diet evolved to a healthy way of eating, and I became increasingly interested in how my food was prepared, throwing away the microwave popcorn was a given. I started buying whole organic popping corn. I did not have an air pop machine or one of those whirly pop pots, but it turns out you don't need any of that. Just a pot, a lid, some oil ( we use coconut oil, a very healthy choice ) some popping corn, and heat.
It takes about 5 min total, and the kids love watching it pop. You can't walk away from it because you could burn your popcorn pretty fast, but it really is not hard at all.   Here is some quick info about microwave popcorn that I bet you did not know.

popcorn bags contain chemicals such as perflourooctonoic acid(PFOA) which is present in the lining of the bags which vaporize on microwaving and studies have shown the chemical being linked to infertility and causing cancers.

That is just two of the major problems with microwave pop corn, I am not going to go into the ingredients list, and the fact the the corn in genetically modified.  By the way stove top taste much better anyway! Try it out.

Use about 1/3 c  coconut oil
Because we live in Ohio, this time of year our coconut oil is solid at room temp, so you will need to let that melt in the pot, before adding the popping corn.
Use a little over 1/2 c popping corn
Pour that in the pot, and turn the heat up to med high, put a lid on it, and watch it go.
You will know that it is done when you hear the popping slow down and you see the pan fill up!
Make sure you pour lots of real butter on top of that, we also like lots of sea salt.
Here are some other ideas, try using a homemade taco seasoning mix sprinkled over the popcorn, or while it is hot, grate fresh Parmesan cheese over the top of it, or sometimes for a treat, I will drizzle real butter, and then real maple syrup over it. Yum!

Homemade Crackers

I don't know about you, but it seems really difficult to me to keep healthy snacks on hand for my kids. I usually don't like the ingredients in store bought crackers and snacks, even the organic ones have oils, or sugars I don't like. I started a very restrictive grain free diet, and try finding any cracker that is grain free. Gluten free products are all over the place in the store, but grain free? You aren't finding any!  I miss crackers! I like to eat my chicken salad on crackers, or spread peanut butter on them. There great to have around for some salty crunchy snack. My kids can go thought a whole store bought box in one sitting which really makes them cost prohibitive. So I have been experimenting with recipes, and thought I would share one of them with you.  All the recipes I have used have started with someone else recipe that I just adapted to our liking, so after the recipe, I will name the source so that you can look up the original recipe.

The crackers above are pumpkin seed crackers
1c pumpkin seeds
1/2 hulled sesame seeds
1/2 sunflower seeds
( Its best to soak the seeds for a few hours, and dehydrate them in the oven or dehydrator, it makes them more digestible, if you don't feel like going to that trouble, the recipe will work fine with out that step. )
3 cloves fresh garlic
1 tea sea salt
up to 1/4c water

In a food processor with the blade attachment, process pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, garlic and sea salt, into a course flour, add sesame seeds and process a bit longer, its ok to have whole sesame seeds. Little by little add water a tablespoon at a time until mixture forms a ball.  once mixture has formed a ball, remove from food processor, and knead for a minute to blend it all together a bit more. take the mixture, and roll it out between two sheets of parchment paper, ( do not use wax paper for this ) roll to about 1/4 inch thick. using a pizza cutter, cut the flattened dough into squares, but do not separate, the crackers will break apart after baking.  transfer bottom parchment paper with squares onto baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven 350 for about 10 -15 min.  remove from oven and allow to cool.  The crackers crisp up after they have cooled a bit.  If you have any left over, store them in an air tight container for up to a week.
Enjoy!

The original recipe came from Health, home and happiness, a blog I follow.  

Daily Insperations from Joseph Prince Ministries

Everyday in my inbox I get an email from Joseph Prince Ministries. I enjoy these emails, and have often gone to his website and downloaded free audio teachings or watched free video of his messages. What I like about Josephs ministry is that he focuses on the Person of Jesus Christ. He often times is speaking of Gods grace for us. His love and mercy.  After listen to him for some time now, and really all he is doing is presenting the word of God through the scripture in the bible, I have really come to think of God differently. I now see his mercy and grace, above all else. I use to only see what I did wrong all the time, and how I was not measuring up.  I learned through his word that after he sent Jesus to die for me, and pay the pentalty for all my sin, that he sees me as right standing with him. When I feel guilt and condemnation over a situation, I now try to make it my habit to remind my accuser that he has no right anymore, and if he wants to look at me, he needs to take a closer look at Jesus. I have his right standing! God gifted it to me. This really excites me, and I enjoy talking about the details of my freedom, it builds my faith.  The Bible says in Hebrews 11 that with out faith it is impossible to please God. Here is that verse from biblegateway.com  Taken directly from the King James Version of the Bible. 
Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

This tells me that its not what we do, so much as what we believe that pleases God!  He loves us so much and really just wants us to trust him like a father!  Here is another wonderful verse.

Romans 3:28
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

This tells me that the law has been fulfilled by Jesus the one and only, and all that is left to do is believe that he has got your back!  The bible also tells us that  the law was given by Moses but that Grace and Truth came by the person of Jesus Christ. The law was given, but Grace came. Grace is a person, his name is Jesus. This is exciting new, good news, gospel new in fact!
This is the perfect time of the year to be dwelling on this subject, although I think it will do everyone good to remember this everyday, but Christmas time is a time of celebrating that Jesus was sent, and we don't have to wait until Easter Sunday to enjoy that fact that on the cross he died to take our place. He did it anyhow, you might as well thank him and accept his free gift!  Merry Christmas!

I have put a link to Joseph Prince's website over in my link section at the top right hand of this page, take a look around his site, and see if it does not encourage you! 

What do you think of my new design?

To be honest, I really don't know what I am doing when it comes to blogging, the content I know what to do with, but the settings and how to make recipe tabs and change the layout, that kinda stuff I am lost on. I fiddled around with it last night a bit and this was the result. Tell me what you think? Do you love it? Does it overwhelm you? Do you hate it? Its always subject to change, especially when I learn more about what I am doing.
SO... Comment please!

Why we like our milk raw

Many of you who know me, know that for some time now, gosh over 5 years now, my family and I have been drinking raw milk. I know for some of you this topic is not even something you would consider, you have heard something about raw milk that would make you uncomfortable drinking it. However I thought that some of you might not know enough about it to give it much thought. I would like to share with you why my family and I love raw real milk!  This will be a two part series because there will be to much to share in just one post.
Right now I will give you just a few facts about raw vs. pasteurized milk.  Keep in mind that not all milk is equal.
In fact there is a lot of milk out there that I would never dream of consuming raw. Cows that live on commercial feed lots, are generally not healthy beasts.  If the cow is not healthy, the milk is not healthy. You can't drink unhealthy milk raw.  Raw milk is very different from pasteurized milk. 

*Raw milk has all it Enzymes available. Phosphatase the enzyme responsible for calcium absorption. Lipase the enzyme responsible for fat digestion, Lactase if you want to digest Lactose, and Galactase if you want to digest Galactose.  I would be happy to tell you what each and every enzyme is but I don't have the room for that in this post, but please leave your questions in the comment section.
* In Pasteurized milk less than 10% of the enzymes remain.
( in other words all the good stuff for you in milk, you can't digest and your body can't use, if you are drinking pasteurized milk. )

* The Protein in Raw milk is 100% available. All 22 amino acids as well as 8 that are essential.
* With Pasteurized milk, amino acids lysine and tyrosine are altered by the heat, and we lose the availability of them. This results in making the whole protein complex less available for tissue repair, and rebuilding.

* In raw milk, all fat-soluble and water-soluble Vitamins are 100% available.
*  As for pasteurized milk, there is a loss of vitamins A, D, E, and F  up to 66%, Vitamin C loss usually exceeds 50%   Vitamins B6 and B12 are virtually destroyed. 

*In raw milk all Minerals are 100% available. Calcium, Chlorine, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sodium and Sulphur  and vital trace minerals.
* Pasteurized milk ... Calcium availability is altered by heat. the loss may be 50% or more. Because minerals work together synergisticlly, other minerals are less available. The loss of  enzymes hurts the assimilation of minerals.

* The friendly acid forming Bacteria in raw milk retard the growth of pathogenic bacteria. In fact many times I have read about e coli and other harmful bacteria being introduced to raw milk, and watched and within 24 hours the good and beneficial bacteria totally taking over and eliminating it!
* with pasteurized milk no bacteria good or bad survive the pasteurization process. Its a dead food!

If after reading all this your not completly convenced, ( or your eyes are gazed over with boredom ) hang with me for a while , and check out some videos I have posted. They preach!  Also for more info you can visit
www.realmilk.com

our pop dumping party.

Some of you might think that I am a health food snob, that I am over the top, and not living in reality. That's ok, most of you still love me anyway. At our house we don't drink any pop. We call it pop, but I have read that in other parts of the country people call it Soda, or Cola.  What ever you call it, you know what I am talking about. that sugary, chemical laden, caffeine containing, carbonated beverage. ( I often refer to it as death in a bottle ) Our culture is so in love with the stuff. And it never fails that we host a get together around this time of the year, everyone brings a bottle of pop. My children have yet to adopt my hatred of the stuff, and of course want to guzzle it down by the bottle full. This is a problem for me, because I really don't even think one glass a year is ok. Some well meaning relatives will give my poor deprived children a glass behind my back, and well I agree to turn the other way, but at the end of the night when everyone has left the party, we are left with several bottles of pop. That's what happened after everyone left our house Saturday night. I let the pop sit there on the counter until Sunday night when my kids begged me for some of it with our dinner. Trying to make them understand why it was so bad for them to drink pop, reasoning with them about how their growing bodies did not need all that sugar, not to mention High Fructose Corn Syrup ( I don't care what commercials the corn refiners industry puts out ). My Children were not getting the picture, they just wanted a drink of something sweet. So I firmly and lovingly said " NO WAY"  and decided to dump the stuff out right then and there so that it would not be a temptation for them any longer. Rather than having them sit there and watch me pour the pop out, I asked them if they wanted to. Much to my surprise they wanted to, even got excited to open and dump full bottles of pop down the sink. So That took the sting out of not getting to drink it, and I snapped some cute photos.

 

This is just some of the pop that we had leftover

Clearly it has a hold on her.

See that big grin on his face, I am not a mean mom, right?

And that is how we officially deal with pop!

This is an eye opening video about pop consumption, take the time to
watch it, I promise you will learn something.

Pregnant

 
                                                                

Well Many of you know already that I am expecting our 5th child. On the way to Florida this past October I was very nauseous and did not quite feel right. So I had a hunch during the 16 + hour drive that I needed to pick up a pregnancy test once we arrived. Picking up diapers on the same trip that you pick up a pregnancy test is something I have gotten use to. Say what you will about it, we view our children, born and unborn as huge blessing to us. We love and enjoy each and every one of them.  Our last baby who is now almost 3 yrs. old was born at home assisted by my mom and husband, and shortly after her birth our midwife. It was a wonderful experience to be at home and I learned a lot about myself.  I learned that I can have a baby without any pain medicine. I learned that its was wonderful to have a baby in a tub of warm water. ( it really helps the pain ) I learned that an hour and half is apparently enough time for labor. I also learned that you really need more iron in your blood if you want to be somewhat safe.  See I was quite anemic going into labor and delivery, and while I will not bore you with all the details of what happened, I learned that a home birth can lead you to the hospital visit  that you were trying to avoid. I ended up needing a blood transfusion and received  two units of blood. ( now I know how much blood is worth or at least what its priced at. $500 a unit ) Not sure if you wanted to know all that.
I believe that most of my friends and family would prefer that we have our baby safely in a hospital this time. But I would like to give a few thoughts on this matter. First let me say that while I probably would have been a little better off in a hospital for the birth of Clara, I really believe that had I tried to make it to a hospital I would have had her in my mini van, and not have had all the help that I had at home. I really feel like God put it in my heart to stay home, because of that very reason. Second I do very much still believe in home birth and my heart will always want that for my births. I believe that home birth is a safe and wonderful option for many woman. We have to remember that pregnancy is not a condition but rather a natural process that happens to our bodies. Its not an illness. Women's bodies were created by God to do the job of bringing babies into the world. And in their homes are where most of them gave birth to their babies until the medical establishment felt that it was their job to bring babies into the world.  A great movie ( I think netflix has it ) is the business of being born, check it out. Even if you never intend to have a baby at home, it is very informative, and can warn you of some of the pitfalls to avoid in a hospital birth experience. I learned a lot!
with all that being said, in evaluating my current situation, I really don't have an answer for those of you who are dying to know my plans for this birth. I have been in communication with both my home birth midwife and my doctors office where I see my midwife that would deliver in a hospital. I will continue to monitor very closely my lab work. Eric and I are both praying that God would give us the wisdom to make this choice. And I will keep you posted.