Nutritional Yeast Cheezy Sauce

 I know "nutritional yeast" doesn't sound very good, but it's awesome! It's powdery flakey yellow stuff that is filled with B vitamins, especially B12, which can be hard for vegetarians to get from other sources. It tastes kind of cheesy and kind of nutty. You can sprinkle it on popcorn or make vegan cheese sauce with it.

We make this sauce often and put it over various things such as baked potatoes, broccoli, tortilla chips, pasta, etc. It's another one of our favorites.

Over quinoa pasta with broccoli and peas.

The original recipe came from The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook. I've tweaked it of course. We use butter, but you can make a vegan version by using coconut oil. We tried it that way once and it was still good, just a little sweeter and coconutty. :)  Just don't use margarine...that stuff is crap.

This recipe makes a lot of sauce, so if you are not sure you will like it or if you just want a little, cut it in half.

1/2 cup (one stick) butter or coconut oil
1/2 cup flour
3 1/2 cups boiling water
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs soy sauce (Braggs)
2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp turmeric (doesn't really add flavor, just yellow color, optional)
2 cups nutritional yeast flakes

Melt the butter or coconut oil in a sauce pan. Beat in the flour with a wire whisk. Slowly add the boiling water, whisking as you go. Add the salt, soy sauce, garlic powder, and turmeric. Keep whisking over low heat until it is all mixed up. Let it cook on low for a bit until it thickens and bubbles. Stir in the nutritional yeast and voila! Pour it over something delicious.

Purple cabbage, collard green,s and bok choy. Aren't the colors stunning?

Here it is over a mixture of veggies. The cabbage and greens from above, carrots, broccoli, onions.

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Evie's Easter Basket

I figured some of you might be wondering what we did about Evie's Easter basket, since they are usually filled to the brim with candy that is full of genetically modified ingredients. Even if all candy was non-gmo, there is no child in the world who needs that much sugar!

Evie's basket was stuffed with little toys...a light up chick ball, bubble solution, bangle bracelets, a lizard hand puppet that squirts water from his mouth, a stuffed wuzzle, and best of all....new books! Well, new to us. We got dozens of awesome kid books from the thrift store for about $8.

She did have some chocolate. We are lucky enough to have a local business called O'Chocolate that makes an all organic candy bar. I also had bought her Justin's Organic Peanut Butter Cups, but she found them in the diaper bag on Saturday, so she got those early.

Unfortunately many candy bars that claim to be organic still contain non-organic soy lecithin, which is likely to be derived from GMO soy. Remember, packaged foods only have to be 95% organic to legally be allowed to claim "Organic" on the package. That other 5% can still be filled with scary crap, so always read the ingredient labels.

I forgot to take a picture of her Easter loot before she broke into it, but here is the aftermath:

See the chocolate on her mouth and shirt?

 

I hope everyone had a great Easter filled with good food and family!




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Lentil Loaf

Lentil loaf doesn't sound very appealing, or look very appealing for that matter, but it's one of our favorite dishes. We love it so much that we ate almost all of it before I could take pictures. This is actually a picture of the one slice that was leftover the next morning.

The recipe is from The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook but I have modified it quite a bit. It doesn't really stick together like a loaf is supposed to unless you let it cool completely before you cut it. But trust me, it tastes so good you won't care how it slices.

Lentil Loaf

1 1/2 cups dry brown or green lentils
3 cups water
2 onions
1 cup diced celery
2 cups of cooked brown rice
1/4 cup ketchup or bbq sauce
2 tsp. ground sage
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp marjoram
2 tsp fennel seeds or ground fennel

Cook the lentils in the 3 cups of water until tender (about 20-30 minutes). Chop and saute the onions and celery until translucent. Add all other spices to the onion mixture and saute another minute or so.

Once the lentils are soft, partially mash them with a fork or potato masher. Add the cooked rice and ketchup or bbq sauce. Mix everything together really well and then put it in an oiled loaf pan. Press the mixture down into the pan firmly. Spread more ketchup or bbq sauce on top. Bake for one hour at 350. Eat.



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Whole Foods Grocery Store to Label GMOs!

The grocery chain Whole Foods recently announced plans to label all genetically modified food in their stores by 2018. This is an awesome step in the right direction, and it's all thanks to us! We demanded it. There was a huge backlash when Whole Foods wrote a letter to their customers basically stating that it was time to "work with" the GMO companies instead of fighting against them. Whole Foods social media accounts blew up with angry customer comments. It seems that they finally got the point. We WANT to know what is in our food.

Why is it going to take 5 years to get there? Well, in my opinion, Whole Foods knows that it is only a matter of time before GMO labeling laws become commonplace in America and they are hoping the companies are legally forced to label themselves before Whole Foods has to make them do it and potentially burn business bridges.

Whatever their true motives are, I commend them for being the first major grocery chain to put customers' interests above their corporate buddies on the priority list.

Here is a short video about the announcement and a reminder about why GMOs matter.




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Pineapple Peanut Stew

I know it sounds like a weird combo, but it is delicious. I generally do not like fruit in my savory foods, but this is an exception. This is one of our favorite meals. We have it at least twice a month. We would have it every other day if it were up to Jon! The best part is that it's fairly quick and very easy.

Here it is!

1 chopped onion
several chopped garlic cloves
any other chopped veggies you want-sweet potato and carrot are good
1 28 oz can tomatoes or 2 small cans
1 cup water
1 can pineapple or 2 cups fresh chopped
1 cup peanut butter

Saute the onions and garlic in a large pot until tender. Add the sweet potatoes, carrots, or whatever veggies you are using and saute for a few more minutes. Add the cup of water, tomatoes with liquid, and pineapple with juice. Stir it up, cover it, and simmer on low until the sweet potatoes and carrots are soft. This usually takes 20 to 30 minutes. Right before serving, stir in the cup of peanut butter. You can add green onions, sour cream, and/or chopped peanuts to the top if you want. Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper and serve over any kind of grain (rice, quinoa, buckwheat, etc.) or over a bed of greens. Or you can just eat it on its own. It's even good cold the next day. Enjoy. :)

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Zuchini Pasta

We have been trying to cut back on our wheat consumption. I will go into reasons in a future blog post, but for now if you want an idea, check out this article.

The problem is that we love pasta and bread and all things wheat. So we've been trying to find alternatives. There is a spiral pasta made from organic corn and quinoa at the local health food store that is pretty good, but still quite processed.

Before cooking

Since we have also been trying to increase our veggie intake, we decided to try cutting zucchini and squash into very fine strips and using them like noodles. I have one of those Vidalia Chop Wizards that were popular a few years ago, and we just ran the raw vegetables through the small dicing chopper and dropped them in boiling water for a few minutes until tender. Dumped a jar of organic pasta sauce on that stuff and ate it up. We were surprised at how well it turned out. It tastes better than it looks! It would have been excellent with some organic cheese melted on top. Next time we will definitely add that.

Piping hot! Yum.

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Bean Dip Soup

I figure people are probably sick of hearing me say "Don't eat this! Don't eat that!" Maybe you are wondering what the heck you CAN eat. Well, I'm going to start sharing more recipes and try to stop being such a downer all the time. Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot to complain about, but I'll give ya a break for now.

I love bean dip and I love soup, so this combo is awesome. It's smokey and a little bit spicy and thick and chunky. The best part is that it's quick and easy to make and the recipe is very forgiving, so if you don't have what it calls for, just wing it! Adjust the seasonings to your liking, this is just a rough guide. Remember, cooking is fun and intuitive so do what feels right. The smoked paprika is what gives it the smokey flavor and is the only spice I would not skip. But you do what you want, I trust you.

Bean Dip Soup

several cups of cooked pinto beans
bean cooking liquid or broth or water
1 onion
4-7 garlic cloves
fresh chopped or canned tomatoes
any other veggies you wanna add (corn, red or green peppers, turnips, etc)
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/8 tsp chipotle chili powder

Chop the onion and garlic and any other veggies and saute them in a large pot for a few minutes until they start to become translucent. Add the spices and cook another 2 minutes or so. Blend about a cup of pinto beans in the blender until smooth. Add the blended pinto beans, the rest of the whole pinto beans, tomatoes (liquid too if using canned) and water/broth/bean liquid to the pot. Stir it up really well, cover it, and simmer it for at least 20 minutes to let the flavors blend. You could also do this in a slow cooker and leave it on low for several hours.

Now pour a bowl of soup and see what magic you have created with your own hands! If you're not doing the vegan thing, plop a dollop of organic sour cream and a sprinkle of shredded cheese on top. Enjoy!

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Why We Don't Drink Juice

Juice is another one of those things that we have been tricked into believing is good for us. The reality is that it's not. Here are a few of the reasons we don't drink juice (even 100% real fruit juice).

1. Pesticides- If your juice isn't organic, it's likely loaded with pesticides and fungicides. Do you remember hearing about arsenic in apple juice? The EPA allows levels of up to 10 parts per billion in drinking water. Here is a glimpse of the levels found in 3 major brands:

Mott’s 
Lowest Sample for Arsenic: 4 parts per billion
Highest Sample for Arsenic: 16 parts per billion

Juicy Juice 
Lowest Sample for Arsenic: 2 parts per billion
Highest Sample for Arsenic: 22 parts per billion

Gerber
Lowest Sample for Arsenic: 3 parts per billion
Highest Sample for Arsenic: 36 parts per billion

That's right, some samples of GERBER Apple Juice, which is meant for babies, had 3 times the legal level of arsenic. You can read the full study here.

2. Our good old friends the GMOs. Apples and papaya are now being genetically modified. Who knows what else is? 

3. Sugar and calories- Juice is basically sugar water. It's packed with calories and sugar, almost as bad as soda. Yes, it's a natural form of sugar, but that doesn't mean we should be drinking it every day.

4. Lack of nutrients- Juices are pasturized to kill bacteria before being bottled, which means they are heated to such high temperatures that all the good stuff is killed as well. So then companies add "extra" vitamin C and other artificial vitamins which are hard on your body. Juicing also throws away all the bulk and fiber of the fruit and leaves only the sweet liquid.

5. Yuck factor- Companies buy up all the leftover fruit that is too "ugly" to be sold in grocery stores. Bruised, half rotten, unsellable fruit. While I certainly don't demand gorgeous, unblemished fruit, I also don't trust corporate factories to decide how rotten is too rotten when profits are on the line.

6. We are led to believe that juice is fresh fruit being squeezed and going straight into the bottle. Nothing could be further from the truth. The process of making juice can be mind boggling. I heard a story on NPR about giant warehouses where different batches of juice are stored and mixed together to get uniform taste and fruit is artificially ripened by being sprayed with gas. Hmmm. I tried to make it through this article about how Simply Orange Juice is concocted and eventually just gave up. There is currently a lawsuit against Simply Orange Juice for false advertising, since it claims to be 100% squeezed juice but actually goes through extensive processing and is "reflavored" with flavor packs.

So what about organic juice? Well, points 3 & 4 still apply and 5 & six 6 might. Juice can be a once in awhile treat like anything else, but there is no need to drink it all the time and call it a health food. If you really can't live without juice, buy a juicer and make your own. Or better yet, use a high powered blender to make smoothies. That way you keep all the fiber.

Now for my disclaimer: I still drink juice sometimes, but only if there's a little vodka in it. :)



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Virus Found in GMO Crops

If you haven't started making a serious effort to avoid genetically modified crops, this should be your wake up call. See my previous post on GMO's for a thorough explanation, but for now, you can start by throwing out anything in your kitchen that has non-organic soy, corn, or canola listed as an ingredient.

Check out the first video to learn about the virus gene scientists recently found in GMO crops which may not be safe for human consumption. Here is a link to an article which provides more in-depth information if you want to do more research after you watch the video about the virus.

Below the short virus clip, I have posted the entire documentary "Genetic Roulette." It's the one I keep telling everyone is free to watch for a week at a time....for some reason the whole thing is now up on Youtube. Take an hour and a half to watch it. Remember, this documentary was made BEFORE the virus gene was discovered, so it doesn't even contain that information. It's time to wake up. It's time to give a damn. I will walk you through the grocery store and help you do this. Please, please wake up.






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Homemade Cashew Milk and Why Almond Milk is Dangerous

We have tried every kind of milk known to mankind. We don't drink soymilk anymore because of the many health concerns surrounding soy. Rice milk is gross, coconut milk is...coconutty. Hemp milk is weird, but not bad. It's just too expensive. While I sometimes use organic half and half in my coffee, as a former vegan I just can't bring myself to actually drink a glass of cow milk. It creeps me out.

Almond milk is definitely our favorite. However, there are so many additives in it that we only drink it occasionally, as a treat with cookies or for cereal. After doing some research for this article, I don't think we will be drinking it at all anymore. Do you want to know why? Well I'm going to tell you anyway. Carrageenan is a food additive that is an ingredient in many "health" and organic foods. It's safety has been a hot topic for awhile now, but recent studies have found a definite link between carrageenan and cancer. You can read all about it here.

So, it will be homemade nut milks for us from now on. We have made almond milk before, but it always seems a little bitter to me. I've read that it's better if you blanch the almonds first and peel the skins off, but I'm just too lazy to do that. The best alternative we have found so far is cashew milk.

Making cashew milk is super easy. Soak some cashews overnight to soften them and start the sprouting process, which increases the nutrient content. This step is not essential, so f you forget to soak them, don't worry. Put them in the blender with just enough water to cover them. Blend on high for a minute or so until you have cashew cream. Then slowly add more water and blend, repeating until you have your desired thickness. We usually end up with about 1 cup cashews to 3 cups water. The bubbles will settle after it sits for awhile. You can strain it through a fine sieve or nut bag if you want, but I usually don't. Shake it up each time before you use it. Sometimes I make it pretty thick and use it for coffee creamer. It's fabulous. It tastes nutty and sweet and if you use it right after blending, it leaves foam on top just like a coffee shop cappuccino. Yum!

We had scraped the bottom of the barrel of bulk cashews, so we had lots of crumbs.

This is the cashew cream.

Milk!

Coffee

Yum.

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Green Smoothies

If you haven't heard of green smoothies, you must have been living under a rock for the past few years!    A green smoothie is basically a regular smoothie with a handful of lettuce, spinach, or other "greens" thrown in. It makes the smoothie bright green but has almost no effect on the taste. Smoothies are better than juicing because all of the fiber is retained. If you drink your smoothie first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, your body will be able to easily absorb all of the nutrients because it won't be working on digesting anything else.

The best part about green smoothies is that you can use whatever fruits and veggies you have, so no special trip to the store. (Please tell me you keep a decent stock of produce...) I usually use spinach and whatever variety of lettuce is cheapest at the time, whatever fruit we have, and I always add a banana to improve the texture. I love to add frozen berries and mango, but since they are so expensive this time of year, I only buy them occasionally. Pineapple is good and usually cheap, as are apples. If you are not worried about fat and calories, you can add some plain yogurt.

If you are really afraid to just wing it, google "green smoothie" and a million recipes will come up. I never follow a recipe so I don't have one to share, but here is one that sounds good.

            

Evie loves her smoothies, as you can see. When she was going through a really bad teething period and wouldn't eat much, I froze the smoothies into popcicles and she was wild about them. They eased the pain and tasted yummy, while helping ensure her nutritional needs were being met.

I usually make a big batch and freeze several servings so I don't have to make one every day. It works out great, as long as I remember to take one out of the freezer every night!

If you haven't tried green smoothies yet, give it a shot and let me know how you like it. If you are a green smoothie veteran, share your favorite fruit and veggie combo below!



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Marley's Magic Soup and Other Healing Foods

Man, were we sick! We are just now starting to feel better. It has been a very long week. I decided to do a post on healing and immune boosting foods because that nasty flu is getting a lot of people down.

A few years ago when I got sick, my dear friend Marley made me some soup and left it on the porch so she didn't have to be exposed to my germs. It was delicious and made me feel so much better. I don't know if it was psychological or what, but I kind of think it was magic. There is actually some scientific evidence that soup heals the sick and you can read about it here.

I didn't think to ask her how she made it until we were already on the mend this time around, but hopefully it can help some of you. Here is what Marley said about her soup:

"Magic soup is different every time i make it because i just use whatever is available in my kitchen. I use herbs and veggies with protective/healing properties (I used lists in books I have, but you can find same info by googling) and/or that are recommended by traditional medicine/science because they're especially nutritious or helpful for sick people. Things you might have: onions and garlic (think of the circular layers protecting the inner sprout), sage (purifying), basil (strengthening/activating/enlivening), lavender (soothing/protecting and also antimicrobial!). The most important part isn't the ingredients you choose, though - the crucial thing is to wish it full of healing and love while you make it. See a big warm hug in the way the onion's layers fit together, think of all the love you have for the people youre making soup for and kinda feel it AT the soup, if that makes sense." 

Don't you just love her?

Up until about a year ago, I had never in my life made soup from scratch. I always bought canned soup (which, I'm sure you know by now, is nasty vile stuff you should never eat!). I don't know why it seemed like such a big task to make it myself. Now I make soup all the time. I don't even use boullion cubes anymore (they ALL have MSG in them!) and rarely use store bought broth (too expensive). I've read lots of info about saving all your veggie scraps in the freezer and making homemade broth, but so far I've been too lazy to attempt this.

Some tricks I've learned by experimenting with soup making:

• Use lots of onion and garlic, and always saute them before adding other ingredients. It somehow improves the flavor. A few times I have just thrown them in to the pot without sauteing first and I ended up with some not so good soup. Same goes for cabbage! I haven't had trouble with any other veggies though. Corn, potatoes, green beans, peas, tomatoes...you can just throw those right in to the water and let them all simmer.
• Use a lot of spices. If you are not familiar with much other than salt, pepper, and garlic powder, get yourself to a bulk food store and experiment! Buy an assortment of spices and try them out. Spices can add a wonderful variety of flavors to your meals. Oregano, thyme, rosemary, and sage are the ones I use most often in soup. I usually add them near the end of the garlic and onion sauteing and stir them around a bit. I'm not sure why, but the flavor seems better if the spices are sauteed instead of just added to the pot of water.
• Save the left over liquid from cooking beans or steaming veggies to use as a base for your broth.
• For more flavorful broth if you are just using water, add some nutritional yeast (not brewer's yeast or bread yeast) and Braggs Liquid Aminos. Nutritional yeast tastes slightly nutty or cheesy and has lots of B vitamins. Braggs is a healthy version of soy sauce.
• If you like a thick soup and yours turns out thin, you can put about a cupful at a time in the blender, puree it, and then add it back to your soup until it thickens up to your liking.

Other than soup, honey and garlic are my top picks for the sick. Garlic is amazing, plain and simple. If you don't like it, you're just going to have to learn to like it! 

"Garlic has been used for centuries as an effective preventive treatment for colds and flu. Medical science considered the old folk tale a superstition and an 'old wives tale' of ignorant peasants. Finally, Dr J. Klosa, M.D. scientifically tested the effectiveness of garlic as a cold remedy, and reported in the Medical Monthly in March 1950. The report stated: 'cold symptoms like grippe, sore throats, runny nose, fever, cough, and rhinitis were cut short in every case'. All patients showed a distinct lessening of the period of the disease as well as of convalescence required." This article will tell you about all the wonderful properties of garlic. 

You can either be totally hardcore and eat it raw like my cousin Christi, or you can make garlic tea by chopping up one or two cloves per cup of boiling water, steeping for 20 minutes, and drinking. You can do this as often as you want. Even if you are well, garlic will boost your immune system to help keep you from getting sick!

What about honey? You can add it to your garlic tea if you want, or just drink a delicious spoonful. It is especially helpful with helping you sleep through the night if you have a cough that keeps waking you. Just remember not to give honey to children under one year old. 

"Drinking tea or warm lemon water mixed with honey is a time-honored way to soothe a sore throat. But honey may be an effective cough suppressant, too. In one study, children age 2 and older with upper respiratory tract infections were given up to 2 teaspoons (10 milliliters) of honey at bedtime. The honey seemed to reduce nighttime coughing and improve sleep. In fact, in the study, honey appeared to be as effective as a common cough suppressant ingredient, dextromethorphan, in typical over-the-counter doses." -James M. Steckelberg, M.D., The Mayo Clinic

So that's all I have for you. Magic soup, garlic tea, and honey for everyone! If you have any home remedies or immune boosters, please share them below. Stay well.

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Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies with Naturally Dyed Icing

  
      I'm happy to report that our cookies turned out even better than I expected. Take a look!

We did have some issues making icing, but the colors were bright and beautiful. I was trying to follow our traditional icing recipe, which calls for powdered sugar. We didn't have any organic powdered sugar so we tried to powder regular organic sugar in the Vitamix and something went horribly wrong. Both times the icing came out brown and tasted nasty. The only explanation I can come up with is that the Vitamix got so hot it burned the sugar. So we had to whip up some cream cheese frosting instead, which ended up being quite runny. Next time we will find powdered sugar first!

Anyway, for the red we used beets. Just chopped them up and blended them and then strained the liquid out. It was so bright that when some splattered on the floor, of course, Evie stepped in it and her toes were stained red for a week!

For the yellow I tried to cook down some pineapple but it never really got concentrated so I ended up just using turmeric powder. It gave the icing a little spicy kick which I didn't mind, but next time I will use mango like I did for the icing on Evie's birthday cake. (See previous post for details)

Green was made from a handful of raw spinach thrown in the blender with the icing. You couldn't taste it at all! My mind was blown.

 Purple was boiled red cabbage put in the blender. Blue was that same cabbage with a bit of baking soda mixed in, which cause some kind of amazing chemical reaction and turns the purple to blue. I put too much in the first batch and it was really salty, so I suggest just adding a tiny bit at a time until you get the right shade. The blue was the least successful of all the colors so next time I might try a different approach.

This is what it looked like when I sprinkled baking soda on top of a spoon of the purple dye. Crazy!

Please note that our cookies always look like they were iced by a bunch of drunken preschoolers. So the fact that this year's cookies don't look like Martha Stewart's is a result of serious lack in cookie decorating skills, not quality of icing colors!

Overall I would call this adventure a huge success. Yes, it was more work. Yes, it was more expensive. Yes, it was more mess. But who cares, really? We ended up with beautiful, delicious, and most importantly not poisonous cookies that I feel comfortable giving to children. Now I know it can be done every Christmas from now on! What a weight off my shoulders.

The whole wheat sugar cookies were so delicious that we ate the first batch before we even iced them! 

Here is a link to the original recipe which I tweaked a bit.

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoons baking powder*
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
6 tbsp butter, softened
1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 


* Make sure your baking powder is aluminum free and the corn starch in it is non-gmo. We use Rumford brand.

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the dry ingredients. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with a round cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on lined cookie sheets. Bake 6 to 8 minutes.

 

 

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Taking Holiday Break

Hi, everyone. Hope you have had a wonderful holiday season so far. I've decided to take a couple of weeks off from blogging. I will start back up next Monday with the results of our whole wheat sugar cookies with naturally dyed icing!

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Whole Grain Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Speaking of cookies....these oatmeal raisin cookies are the best! I didn't even think I liked oatmeal cookies until I had these bad boys. The first time we made them, we followed a normal recipe, and then we started to tinker. We ended up with the best tasting whole grain, low sugar, organic cookie out there. They are dynamite! Chewy, gooey, a tad crispy on the edges. I could eat them every day. They might not be health food, but they are pretty good for you as far as cookies go. If you use coconut oil instead of butter and substitute all maple syrup for the sugar like we did the last time we made them, I think they could actually be classified as health food. 

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter OR 1/2 cup coconut oil
1 egg
3/4 cup sweetener (can be any combination of sugar, maple syrup, molasses, agave, etc)
1 cup whole wheat flour (regular, pastry, or white whole wheat)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
splash of vanilla
1/4 cup of raisins (or more!)

Preheat oven to 350. Cream the butter, vanilla, egg, and sugar and/or maple syrup and/or molasses together in one bowl. Mix all the dry ingredients in another bowl.

Then combine the two bowls.

Plop some blobs onto a baking sheet and put them in the oven for  10-15 minutes.

 
This is what you end up with. Yum yum!

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But I Can't Cook!

If I had a dollar for every time I've ever heard someone say "I can't cook," I'd be a wealthy momma.  Anyone can cook! Anyone who can read can follow a recipe. What people usually mean when they claim otherwise is "I'm afraid to cook."

It can be intimidating. You have to being willing to utterly miserably fail and able to laugh it off. I have had my fair share of dinner disasters, and some of them have been really bad! Recently there was a casserole where the noodles swelled and soaked up all the sauce, leaving it dry and somehow still kind of slimy...ick... and a crock pot dish where I didn't cook the beans long enough so Jon and I ended up with horrible stomachaches. (Evie was smart enough to refuse to eat it!) Try to remember that if something you make is awful, 95% of the time it was the recipe and not something you did. Especially if you got it from a food blog where every Tom, Dick, and Harry is posting recipes with no editor and potentially making errors that could totally mess up your meal.

Sometimes, oftentimes even, the food you prepare turns out so wonderful you won't believe you created it. There is something magical about combining random things in your kitchen and ending up with a delicious, nutritious meal. It gives me a sense of pride that is different than what I've felt before. It can be very empowering to take back control over what you are eating. Right now most of us are dependent on giant processed food corporations, and that's how they want it. I promise you can live without Kraft. And believe it or not, you will even come to a point where you don't miss it.

I keep lists of recipes I want to try, both online on Pinterest and in a spiral bound notebook where I put clipped magazine recipes or photocopied cookbook pages. When it's time to go grocery shopping, I sit down and pick seven or so recipes that I want to try and make my grocery list based on the ingredients. I try to pick things I already have most of the ingredients to make, and recipes that have overlapping ingredients. For instance, I will pick two meals that use black beans so I can cook up one big pot and save time on the second meal. There are a few favorites which we eat over and over again, but I try to put new things on the list every week to keep meal time from getting boring.

I still don't pick any really complicated recipes or ones that call for a bunch of crazy ingredients. One thing that is awesome about cooking is that most recipes are very forgiving. If you don't have white flour you can use wheat. You can skip spices if you don't have them. You can use other spices once you get comfortable with how each one tastes and know what will work well. If you don't like red pepper, use yellow. It will still be delicious! One of my favorite tricks is to google search "cornstarch substitute" or whatever it is I don't have. I can almost always find a suitable sub! The great thing about finding recipes on the internet is that you can search through dozens of recipes until you find one that uses ingredients you have.

Cooking isn't something you are born good at, it's something you learn. And you can teach yourself! I fondly remember the months of baked potatoes, white flour spaghetti, and take out when I first moved out on my own. That was literally all I knew how to prepare. I remember the first cookbook I ever used. I believe vegan brownies was my first dish, made for a potluck at work. Everyone kept telling me how great they were and I was amazed. I went on to make many of the simple recipes in that book and slowly started cooking more and more. Even so, most of the cooking I did up until about a year ago consisted of mainly several processed prepackaged foods thrown together (beans and rice box mixes, fake meat and mac and cheese, etc.)

When we started this whole healthy eating venture, everything changed drastically. For a couple of months I was overwhelmed and felt like it was impossible to make everything that I couldn't find a good store bought version of from scratch. It seemed like it took me literally all day to prepare dinner. I'm not gonna lie, it sucked.

These days I think I've pretty much got it down. I have many brands memorized and don't have to spend 20 minutes reading ingredients every time I want a jar of pasta sauce. I have my favorite recipes for things we make from scratch (pancakes, tortilla shells, gravy) so I don't have to search for one each time we make it, and we try to keep the kitchen stocked with our most frequently used ingredients, some of which were totally foreign to me not long ago. You can do this too! It doesn't happen overnight, it happens slowly but surely.

Start small and be brave. It's so worth it.

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Give Artificial Dyes The Boot for Christmas

Artificial food dyes are derived from petroleum. Yuck. Red dye 40 is made from crushed beetles. Double yuck. Food dyes have been linked to hyperactivity in children, and yes, once again, to cancer. The FDA even lists Red 3 as a known carcinogen but has made no move to ban it from our food supply. In Europe, a warning label is required to be placed on all foods containing artificial dyes. (It's not just in Fruity Pebbles...read your ingredient labels. You might be surprised to find dye in all sorts of savory foods as well!)

From the website of Dr. Mercola:

“This is why if you eat a Nutri-Grain strawberry cereal bar in the United States, it will contain Red 40, Yellow 6 and Blue 1. But that same bar in the UK contains only the natural colorings beetroot red, annatto and paprika extract. In fact, the UK branches of Wal-Mart, Kraft, Coca-Cola and Mars have removed artificial colors, sodium benzoate and aspartame from their product lines as a result of consumer demand and government recommendations. In the United States, however, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to allow these toxic ingredients in countless popular foods, including those marketed directly to children.”-Source

It's hard to connect something as innocent looking as a Christmas cookie with poison but that's what it boils down to. Making and decorating sugar cookies with the little bottles of food dye has been a family tradition of ours for as long as I've been alive. Actually we used food dye all the time. I can remember my mom dumping loads of that stuff into our food...yellow to make our homemade egg noodles brighter, green and red mashed potatoes on Christmas, and everything we ate on Saint Patrick's day glowed a sickly green.
This year marks a new beginning. Christmas cookies safe for my baby to eat. It feels like a tall order and to be honest, I'm pretty nervous about it. I know I can please her little pallet and eyes but what about the rest of the family? Bucking the way we have been doing things for at least 30 years and doing so at the most special time of the year feels almost sacrilegious. What's the worst that could happen? Well, I can't think of much that would be worse than seeing my little girl chowing down on some crushed bug petroleum cancer cookies, so I guess whatever alternative we come up with will be just fine.
So what are our other options? The rich among us can simply shell out more money (and I mean a lot more) for natural stuff such as Williams Sonoma Sprinkles and India Tree Natural Food Coloring.
The rest of us poor schmucks will be slaving away in the kitchen as usual, making our colors from scratch. I haven't decided yet if I'm just going to do the fruit syrups like I did with Evie's birthday cake icing or actually try to make concentrated dye yet. I will, of course, post the results of our grand experiment. I don't know about you, but I feel a Christmas miracle coming!

Concentrated Dyes
Fruit Syrups
Homemade Sprinkles
Organic Dyes

This is a great video about making your own dyes. It's a little hard to watch because the camera is jiggly, it made me a little car sick, but it was worth it. I tried to go to the Crunchy Housewife site to see the written directions, but for some reason the page wouldn't load. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Please let me know how it works out for you if you try any of these natural dyes!



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Snacks and Packed Lunches

A reader recently requested help with ideas for healthy snacks and lunches. For us, the key to lunches is planning ahead and being able to fly by the seat of your pants when you have forgotten to plan ahead. Double your dinner recipes as often as you can and freeze the leftovers in serving size portions to use for future lunches. Almost anything can be frozen, and it doesn't take any more time to boil two pounds of pasta than it does to boil one.

I found a BPA free divided lunch container at Aldi a few months ago for $2.50 and it has held Jon's lunches ever since. I love the challenge of filling up all three pockets. It's much more fun than just throwing a sandwich into a baggie. Sometimes I sneak and buy some snacks that he loves, like roasted peanuts or garlic sesame sticks. I seriously get a kick out of hiding them and then sneaking them into his lunch box for a surprise. Maybe I'm a nerd or maybe I just have too much time on my hands, but I have found that preparing his lunches is something quick and simple I can do to show him that he is special to me. Sometimes I have nothing prepared and have no idea what to pack and end up with a random mix of foods. I'm quite sure he has opened his lunch with a raised eyebrow a few times, but the surprise is part of the fun.

Here are some lunch and snack ideas which work for adults or toddlers. They are all quick and easy to whip up the night before. Remember, don't be afraid to mix and match. If you don't know how to make something, google it!

• hummus with veggies or chips (homemade hummus is far tastier and less expensive than store bought)
• baba ganoush (eggplant dip) and veggies or chips
• hard boiled eggs with hot sauce
• salad (duh!) (put the dressing in the bottom of a large jar and the salad on top, then shake it up when it's time to eat and your lettuce won't get all slimy!)
• whole wheat muffins
• whole wheat pancakes or tortillas with cream cheese or peanut butter
• ants on a log
• apples and peanut butter
• cottage cheese and pinapple
• fruit salad
• nuts
• pumpkin seeds
• sunflower seeds
• leftovers from dinners
• smoothies (you can make big batches and freeze)
• soup (don't you dare buy that crap in a can!)
• fresh fruit- apples, bananas, mangoes, peaches, pineapple, berries, kiwi, etc. Try something different every time you go to the store. 
• rice cakes with cream cheese and bananas
• chips and salsa
• pinto or black bean dip and chips or veggies
• guacamole and chips or veggies
• raisins and sunflower seeds (my mom and I used to eat this when I was little. Looking back, I realize it was one of my favorite snacks and I was so excited when we had it. I can even remember the container she kept it in. Even though we usually ate cookies and donuts and other terrible stuff, that snack was my favorite.)
• plain yogurt and fruit sauce
• sliced apples and cheese (another favorite from my childhood) 
• nut butters (you can make a butter from any nut or seed...just grind up in a food processor or high speed blender. that's how peanut butter is made! you may have to add a little extra oil or water to get it to mix up completely. try almonds, pumpkin seeds with garlic, cashews, etc)
• applesauce
• homemade granola bars
• dried fruit
• whole wheat sandwhiches with peanut butter or other nut butter and banana slices
• trail mix or granola (buying ingredients in bulk and mixing your own is usually cheaper, and you don't have to pick out the things you don't like)

I'm not going to get into the details right now, but I have to say a word about cottage cheese, yogurt, etc. I know this seems insane, but you DO NOT want to buy the low fat or fat free versions of any food. You want the regular old full fat stuff. Why? Well, the low fat and fat free foods are often pumped full of chemicals and flavor enhancers to make up for the missing fat. These chemicals make you gain weight and poison your body. I know we have all been raised to believe fat is evil, but that's just not true. Of course you don't want to eat it all day every day, but in moderation, fat is really good for you...especially for your brain! Refined oils and trans fats are bad, but the natural fats that occur in dairy, nuts, avocados, olives, etc. are our friends. Mind blown? Welcome to the club. You can read more about this here.

Also, the 100 Days of Real Food blog has awesome lunch tips and pictures of several packed lunches. I love the visual inspiration. She always makes the food look so cute, which I'm sure helps encourage the kids to eat it. I love this whole blog, it really helped us when we first started our healthy eating.

What are your favorite snacks and sack lunches?




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Evie's First Birthday and Whole Wheat Organic Sugar Free Cake

Whew. What a week! I am glad birthdays only come once a year. Now I know why my mom always looked like she'd been hit by a bus in my birthday party pictures.

I was getting a lot of pressure about how first birthdays are "supposed" to be. An entire cake for the baby to smash and eat all by herself, (a "real" cake!) and brightly colored icing to smear all over her face. Okay, but in my world, it also has to be whole wheat, no sugar, and no artificial dyes. Hmmm.

I ended up tweaking this carrot cake recipe to my liking and it was delicious. For the icing, I just put a block of organic cream cheese in the blender with a couple tablespoons of maple syrup and voila! I made two fruit syrups for the colors, one from mango and pineapple for yellow and one from blackberries which turned out kind of dark red. They yellow wasn't quite bright enough once I mixed it with icing so I added a bit of the spice turmeric, which worked like a charm and you couldn't taste it at all. You can read how to make the syrups here.

Here is the final recipe I came up with:

2 cups organic whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon baking powder (make sure your brand is aluminum free!)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 cup organic unrefined coconut oil
3/4 cup maple syrup
4 organic free range eggs
2 cups grated organic carrots
1 cup organic raisins

Combine the first 5 ingredients in a large bowl. Add the eggs, maple syrup, and coconut oil. (Coconut oil becomes a solid at normal room temperatures. If yours is solid, you will have to melt it over very low heat before you can mix it in.) Lastly, add the carrots and raisins and mix again. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

For the party, I cut this recipe in half by 1/4 because I was just making a small heart shaped cake.

I seriously stressed myself out over what to feed the adults. It was going to cost a bajillion dollars to make enough of the above recipe to feed all our guests. I thought maybe I would just get an organic cake mix but then I read the ingredients and it was basically just white flour, white sugar, and baking powder and I would still have to add the expensive stuff myself so that was no help. I decided to just make a normal cake from scratch with as many organic ingredients as we already had in our pantry. So it ended up that everything was organic except the flour, and I did use white flour that we had left from our white bread days. I used organic cane sugar. A cake is a treat, not something you expect to meet your nutritional needs, so having white flour at a birthday party is not going to kill you. I didn't have enough time to perfect a whole wheat recipe with ingredients I could afford and I was honestly terrified that everyone would be standing around choking my crappy cake down thinking to themselves "I knew healthy meant gross." Hopefully next year I will be able to pull it off, but for now I just take comfort in the fact that at least my cake didn't have any bogus food additives or genetically modified ingredients. It was a cake my grandma would have been proud of. (Even though I burned the bottom a little!)

I got to thinking about the evolution of birthday cakes. Back in the day, they were baked from scratch by someone who loved and cherished you. Then along came cake mixes, which were also made with love, just less effort and time. Now, we have store bought cakes. Almost all of the cakes I have seen recently have been made in a store bakery. I know this sounds like some corny hippie crap, but there is something so sad about a Walmart birthday cake. Aside from the horrifying ingredients... something deeper. A cake is a symbol of love, a celebration of your existence. Something someone made in order to say "I am so glad you were born." The people working in the bakery at Walmart are probably getting paid minimum wage and hate their jobs. I can hear them thinking "If I have to make one more Sponge Bob cake I'm going to shoot myself." Maybe store bought cake contains some residual resentment. Maybe that's totally stupid, but I don't think so. I think it's just one example of what is wrong with what we eat. Corporations who care about profits, not people, mix and box most of the food we eat today. They are more concerned about sales and preventing spoilage and profit loss than they are about nourishing the people who buy their products. There is no love in our food.

 This is where buying locally, buying organic, and buying from small family owned companies can make a difference. Small organic farmers and companies take pride in making healthy food and carry the intention of making a nourishing product. Of course they want to make money too, but without putting profits before people. Cook from scratch whenever possible. It is so worth it.

Follow @FeedingEvie