Cassaroles for Diabetics

I made up a dish last night and I have to say it was quiet yumm! It's a little hard trying to find something low carb that the whole family enjoys. Everyone seemed to like this except my non veggie eaters, Adrian and Jonathan.

First I half cooked some frozen broccoli and cauliflower. I did this to try to release some of the moisture so the casserole would not be too watery. It worked.
Then we took some tomato sauce and added seasoning. Onions, garlic powder, and my go to spices, Basil and Parsley.
I layered in a casserole dish the sauce, some go to precooked meat, a layer of broccoli and cauliflower, more sauce, mozzarella cheese, meat, b and c, sauce and then last cheese.
I then baked it for about 30m at 350 degrees.
Oh it was so good! I had some for lunch today.
The best part is that it did not affect my blood sugar at all.
I'm sorry the recipe is not more scientific. I kind of make stuff up as I go along. I have finally taught Roy not to ask how much of a spice goes into the dish. I always just say, "Eyeball it!" Which of course he hates. LOL He's getting better at it though! :)
I will have a baby update in the next few days. I have a busy weekend planned.
Be Blessed!

Real Food For Mother and Baby

Click on the book for an amazon link.

I just finished this book. It was a fun read. Lots of the stuff I already knew because she follows Weston Price pretty closely, but it was nice to see it broken down for mom and baby. I love the foods she fed her baby/toddler. I loved reading about what he liked and gravitated to for taste. It was really eye opening. I'd already decided that Lily would not be getting the old cereal and rice routine at 6m. Whole grains will be coming later for her. We also already knew she would get Mother's Milk for the whole first year of her life. Our goal is at least 18-24m, but we'll see how it goes.
I was happy to see that I was already doing most of the stuff she recommends (or had at least restarted to do). I have tried to eat fish, but other than tuna in a can I can't stomach it so I am taking CLO daily. I have researched it a lot and I feel comfortable taking a small dose of CLO even though I live in FL.

I liked that it was not full of recipes and purees. I used to give Jonathan more whole food as a toddler then most people thought was appropriate, but I was always right there and he did a great job chewing. Don't worry I was paranoid enough with some food that I cut it up for him, but some things he just enjoyed gnawing on. LOL

Anyway, I just wanted to recommend this book as a book that was fun to read and informative.

I bought the book from Amazon with my own money. It was well spent!

In the kitchen again..sort of

I have been researching and researching and researching... did I mention researching? I KNOW how I am supposed to eat. I KNOW how I am supposed to feed my family. I keep getting off to bumpy starts. I did great eliminating somethings for awhile. My kids were not sick at all this winter. At. All.
Since getting pregnant we have switched to more boxed food and processed stuff. Allergies are flaring up, noses are constantly running, coughing is a continuous chorus in our house. What?
No major illnesses. I attribute that to lots of water, sticking with whole grains, and lot of veggies.
The other stuff I attribute to the fact that cereal and (gasp) hamburger helper actually made it into my kitchen and was being used regularly for a few weeks.
Maybe I'm just weird but I'm going to go with my gut and think, maybe, just maybe, the food is causing some of the illness.
So to my Internet friends I turned.
Kelly the Kitchen Kop has been up on my computer for days now. Reteaching me, re motivating me. I also found Naturally Knocked Up. What a fun website. GNOWFLGINS has been very helpful in the learning process as well. Can't forget Cheeseslave either. One of my first real food blogger reads. The Nourishing Cook has offered inspiration as she takes us through Nourishing Traditions. And of course Kitchen Stewardship. She keeps me on my toes! Love her blog.
I have been reading bits and pieces here and there from their blogs. Really assessing what I am doing. Lord willing I will be nourishing Lily for the next year or so mostly with my body. I have not been the best about her nourishment up til now. It was just easier to follow the advice of the "experts" on what to eat. I KNOW better. I am an intelligent person (well at least a little bit). I have read and reread and researched enough to understand.
My big rule used to be, "Eat it as close to the way God made it as possible". When did that rule change for me? Seriously why do I have a tub of fake butter in my fridge? Why do I have a 1/2 gallon of Splenda sweetened ice cream in the freezer? Because I got lazy (although I prefer the term pregnant) :)
Well, I sat down with my pen and notebook today and wrote down three changes I am making. Simple changes.
1. Back to the coconut oil. Why do I have a jar sitting in my pantry that is still half full from a few months ago? Why? It's a good healthy fat. Something I really need right now. Something my kids need. We use to have some somehow at least once a day!
2. Goodbye sugar free. What do you really have going for you besides not making my blood sugar go crazy? Not to much honestly. I know you are poison to my body and to my baby! Goodbye.
3. Hello real fat. Hello butter and whole milk. I am sorry that I put you aside. It was crazy. Yes, I know better. I have seen the health benefits of both of you. I wish you were real milk. Yes, I do. But I know that Whole is better than 2%. I'm sorry I left you. Real I will get you back soon I promise. Right now we can't afford your $4 a half gallon price.

So for now those are the big changes I am making. Going back to is a better word. I have tried these things before and I have seen the difference in my families health. I don't know what I was thinking. I am a Nourishing Traditions/Weston A Price believer. Though somethings I do compromise on. We will not be eating Liver in this house any time soon. LOL I'm just sayin'. I have looked at different things and this is the one I feel most comfortable with. This is the one I have seen actual results with. Every time I stray I notice more runny noses, more allergies, and more overall wakiness in this house.
Those are just some of my reasons for jumping back in. I have another big one that I will share later.
Be Blessed!

Cooking with kids

I have been eating up these videos lately. She has even more at her website Greenlitebites. Some great cooking videos with Ryan and they are always taste testing new fruits. It gave me some great ideas for not only cooking with my big kids (ONE AT A TIME!) but also with little Jonathan.

I hope you enjoy.

Be Blessed

In the garden

My garden is doing just as poorly this year as last.. oh well. I will keep trying and keep learning. I think it was still lack of bees.
Here are some squash, zucchini and tomato plants. The tomato plants actually look a lot bigger now and I have staked them. We will see. The squash looks bad and no results.

Here you see pepper plants and my gynormous cucumber plant. The cucumber plant just keeps going and going and going. My pepper plants look beautiful but nothing. Last year they bloomed and fruited really late in the summer though so I have not given up hope yet. With all the rain we had in the past few weeks the weeds are totally out of control. I pull and pull and pull, but they just keep coming back. Here it's not so bad. Of course this picture was pre rain!

And here it is, boys and girls, my big garden bounty so far this year. Yum-O they are good!

I really believe in growing my own food so I will just keep trying. Someone suggested a humming bird feeder for the back yard so that is on my list of things to try.

I thank God for the cucumbers though. It's nice to see something for my labors. :)

Be Blessed!

Roasted Chicken

In trying to better follow the Nourishing Traditions lifestyle we have been eating a lot of good food lately.
My all time favorite for the past few weeks was roasted chicken.
It was so good and easy.
Basically I took a chicken. Washed it inside and out. Stuck some Thyme sprigs inside. Rubbed the chicken down with melted butter and garlic. Roasted it on one side for an hour and then the other side for another hour. It was perfect!
We also had steamed cabbage and steamed cauliflower and broccoli. The secret to these yummy treats? Lots of butter.
Everyone ate and enjoyed!
We also noticed that because the chicken was $3.00, the broccoli and cauliflower mix was $1.00, and the cabbage was $2.00 we fed our whole family on $6.00. YAY!
If I ever get another camera I would love to show you some of the foods we are eating. Nourishing Traditions is not nearly as hard as I used to think it would be.

Be Blessed

Essentials

OK well, maybe not essentials, but these are definatly some of my favorite Christmas/Birthday presents.

First you have the biggest essential. A bookshelf. This looks nothing like the one I got for Christmas. I could not find that one online for anything. The bookshelf was really needed. I have tons of books stored in plastic containers. Im a book junkie. I admit it. Of course I wanted more books for Christmas and more books I got....
This book was tops on my Christmas list. See this month starts our two year plan for real. We are moving full force ahead. This book was a must for learning some of the essentials for our new lifestyle. The first chapter had me enthralled. It talked about buying land and setting up your homestead. Lots of great ideas. This city girl needs all the help she can get. We also have planned to learn as much as we can here and now. Which leads me to my next gift..

I have read two chapters in this book and Im so excited. I can do this. This was one of my birthday presents. My sweet guy listens when I talk. He found it at Target and was so excited.
Growing up my mom worked a lot. She also had hayfever really bad so we never worked in the yard. This is a whole new experience for me.

On our way to a more self sufficient lifestyle I have to start at square one. God started us off on a need to eat healthier. He pointed me towards a natural whole foods lifestyle. While Im still struggling with it, I do see some improvement.
We went the whole month of December eating whatever was put in front of us. We have paid dearly for it as our whole family has spent the whole month of December being sick and tired. Now the burden on my heart is budgeting and saving money. Its a part of my prayer every morning. We are about $2000 dollars in debt right now. Its all little stuff that should not be a problem, but the little stuff adds up. We have paid off our car and once we get these other things cleared up we will be debt free except our mortgage. We have a plan for that as well. While I dont think we will pay off our mortgage in the next two years we will be able to put a dent in it.
This month will be lean trying to keep up with our regular bills but by the first of Feb. we should be able to pay off most of our remaining debt. Thats an exciting prospect.
I will have more to write on that later.
Well, I guess I better get going. Lots to do today. Im not sure why this post took me two days to write. LOL

Be Blessed

Health Challenge

I am participating in a challenge at Lori's blog. She came up with the idea to challenge ourselves to change 6 things about our health habits for the next 6 weeks.
Here are my six:

1. Take my medicine everyday. I am so bad about this. For right now I am on medication to regulate my blood sugar. Even though I am working to get off of it, I need to be diligent about taking it. I also need to take my supplements daily.

2. Read with my babies everyday. This is for my calming, emotional health. I always feel so guilty that we don't read together enough.

3. Raw foods (fruits and veggies with yogurt) at lunch time. I will post more on the why of this later.

4. Soup or salad with dinner. Getting in more of those raw veggies (salad) or mixture of veggies (soup). I am hoping to make the soup with homemade stock and the salad's homemade dressing.
5. Get back to making our bread 2-3x a week.

6. In bed by 11pm.

These are the things I hope to accomplish in the coming weeks.
I finished the introduction and mastering the basics section of Nourishing Traditions and I am preparing to start implementing. We wont do everything, but there is enough we can change to make a difference. Babysteps!!


Be Blessed!

Give us this day..

Once again searching for just the right title and it would not come to me. No wonder I never win any of the Pioneer Woman's contests.
I was talking with hubby about ways I have strayed these past few months from our healthy living goals. It also brought up ways we have continued making wise choices in that area. So here is a list of what we kept doing through the slump.
Brown Rice
Whole Wheat/Grain bread or no bread at all
Real butter
Extra Virgin olive oil (though the quality left a lot to be desired)
Oatmeal instead of cereal
Whole grain pancakes (only on Saturdays!)
Publix Organic milk (though I cant wait to get back to Raw milk)
Limited snacks of processed junk (though I am working my way back to none)
No Hormones/No Antibiotics Omega 3 eggs (not organic or free range, but its what we can afford right now)
Still avoided cooking with processed foods.
Lots of fruits and veggies

Now, what bad habits did we go back to?
Sodas, sodas, sodas! We went from having an occasional soda on a night out to buying them everytime we stopped at the store. We had bottled water in the house, but really who wants to drink water when you have yummy soda? Now that we dont have soda in the house as much the water is going back to being pretty yummy!
Eating out a lot. When I failed to plan healthy, delicious meals it was easy to justify stopping to grab something while we were out. Our budget felt this as well.
Some processed snack food that would be gone within a couple of days.
I put away my NT cookbook and stopped learning from welltellme. I thought maybe all of that stuff was not really necessary. While for some it might not be, but God has given me a vision for my family in the coming years.

I'm so glad that God has restored my vision of a more healthy lifestyle for our family. He has called us to a grand undertaking in the coming years and we have to be prepared. Everyday something has happened in our lives to confirm it just a little more. I will expound on some of those things in another blog post.
As for now I am studying my NT book, prayerfully. I want the Lord's leading on the changes in our lives. He wants us to change of that I have no doubt.

Be Blessed!

Monday...

I could not come up with a clever title.
We got a late start on today. The children are just now finishing up their morning glass of kefir. I really need to get serious about finding some grains. Right now I use the Lifeway brand from Publix, but we go through about two bottles of that in two to three days. They also had oatmeal for breakfast. One of the changes I hope to make in the coming weeks is to begin soaking our oatmeal overnight. I'm still reading up on the whys of it and I will blog about it the more I understand it.
I am also going to talk to hubby about taking the kids off of tap water. It will mean our grocery bill goes up slightly because all we drink is water so that would mean at least one maybe two more cases of bottled water every two weeks. Once again still working through most of the whys of this change and will blog about it when I understand it better.
For lunch today we will have plain yogurt with honey and cinnamon. I will slice some apples up as well. The kids love that.
For dinner we are having the Perfect Pot Roast, with steamed broccoli and salad. I have been using the book Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely for the past month and we have loved it. She has a low carb addition I am thinking about exploring.
We have some extra homeschooling to get done today so I'm going to skip Latin again this week. I skipped it last week also. Its ok, we just take Latin at our own pace. The kids enjoy it and I try not to make it a tedious, have to do thing.
I want to get into the girls' closet and start decluttering and organizing. Today is wash day for all of our bedding. I start with the girls' quilts because they have to hang dry. I do my comforter second because it takes two turns in the dryer. Then I do the boys' comforters and lastly the sheets and pillowcases. It takes all day. LOL. I have to scrub the floor around our toilet. We have a leak or something so it is going to take some extra cleaning. I also need to make some bread today.
I am going to stick to my way of making bread for the time being. I am reading up on soaking grains and sour dough and other stuff in NT, but its not a change I'm going to make right now.
Well, I better get going. Its time to start our morning chores...at 12pm. Yes, we are way off this morning. LOL.

Be Blessed!

Nourishing Traditions and My Health

I'm not at church right now. My family is, but I'm at home. I could tell you why.... but that might be way too much information. I'm always trying to be transparent on this blog, but trust me, transparency should have limits. Let's just say my stomach is really hurting and leave it at that. Oh and I can assure everyone that I am not pregnant this month! LOL
I figured while the house was quiet I would focus on reading through the Nourishing Traditions thread on the welltellme site. I am very intrigued with the experiences of cooking NT. They range from "Yuck" to "Yum". But most people have said that even if they never made another recipe from NT they would never part with the book, because of all the other benefits and information. I will admit my eyes glaze over when I'm reading the information part of the book. I have to take that in small doses. But I am noticing that it is easier to understand and comprehend as I read a little bit at a time. I have been reading through some of the recipes. I'm still debating on where to start in the implementation process. I have not been able to buy raw milk for a few months now because it's $5 for a half gallon and money has been tight. I miss it though. We are finally getting back on budget and I'm looking forward to picking up my milk again next month. I think I will spend the rest of this month coming up with a plan for next month. I will note some of the things I would like to start out with in the book and work from there. Its definatly not a book you can just open and start making stuff. It takes planning. I'm also going to use the rest of this month to get my kitchen ready to roll. I have some cleaning and organizing and decluttering to do in there. I can't function in a cluttered kitchen. Thats why we have not had any bread for about 2 months now. My kitchen is out of control. I have some ideas for ways to improve it, but thats another blog post.
My blood sugar has been pretty good the past few weeks. Though I have been taking the Glucophage. I really need to focus on diet, excercise and natural supplements to get off of this drug. My Dr. wants to put me on another drug in addition to the Glucophage, but I am holding off on that for the time being. I have to go get some lab work done and I did not see my Dr. last month. I did not make the appt on the way out of the office and then never thought about it again until the end of the month. I have to call and set up an appt for this month...soon I guess. I decided to drop my diabetes class I was supposed to go to every month. For starters it was going to cost me $150.00 for every class and then the first meeting the lady was very skeptical of my goal to get off of the medicine with diet, excercise and natural supplements. She actually laughed when I told her I use Stevia and not Splenda and that I take Cinnamon to help regulate my blood sugar. She said that she could not approve of either of those things. I figured I was not going to waste $150 every month for 6 months to be lied to, did not seem worth it.
The good news is, they think I am still in the early stages, so I do not have a lot of damage. My goal is to keep it that way.
Well, I have written a lot and now I'm going to lie down. I think we are going to take a hike this afternoon at one of the state parks if my stomach calms down, which it will in the afternoon. It always does. The excercise and fresh air will be good as well. I want to rest for awhile. I'm going to post more on changes in our diet in the next few days.

Be Blessed!

Beans will never be the same

So for awhile now I have been trying to learn how to cook dried beans. They never came out right. It was frustrating. I could pick up packs of dried beans for less than 50 cents but could not make them come out right. Well friends I have tasted success and it is YUMMY. I got my new crockpot out the other day and decided to try the bean thing. I rinsed off the dry beans and sorted through them, then I threw them in the crockpot, filled the pot with water and cooked on low for 8 hours. PERFECT. We mixed about half of them with chicken, diced tomatoes, corn and taco seasoning and had black bean and chicken tacos the other night. MMMM. I dont think I will ever cook my beans a different way again. It was so easy and it came out great. I have a ziplock bag full of cooked black beans in the fridge which I will mix with turkey sausage, rice, cheese and tomato sauce tonight for a differnt meal. I will let you know how it comes out.

I will try to post some of my favorite recipes involving beans next week. They are so cheap and so incredibly good for you.

Be Blessed.

Smooth Smooth Smoothies

MMMMMMMMMM we love our smoothies. We start with vanilla or strawberry yogurt, add some frozen fruit, whatever we have on hand, then some milk, and either honey or stevia. Its so good. I dont measure just throw, throw, throw. Its delish.


Be Blessed.

The Incredible Edible Egg

We love eggs. Unfortunatly it takes almost a whole 18 pack for breakfast around here. Its a not oft had treat for the littles. Hubby and I try to have them often though. I like to scramble two up in some coconut oil. I heat the pan with coconut oil though you have to be careful because coconut oil has a low heat point. Too hot and it will start smoking. I dump two eggs in a measuring cup with a little bit of milk and some seasoning, our favorite is parsley, and then dump then in the pan and cook for just a couple of minutes. Then I plate the eggs in a heap and they finish cooking. We usually have whole grain toast with coconut oil and honey and then an apple or a pear. Its a very filling breakfast. We finish off with a glass of good creamy raw milk. YUM.

Be Blessed.

Breakfast Day 2

Ok so todays breakfast idea is not the healthiest, but it is what we do on Tuesdays.
On Tuesday mornings my mom and I and two of our friends meet for breakfast at a small restaurant before we go to Bible Study. It is so much fun.
You can eat better at the restaurant though.
My kids either have eggs and whole wheat toast or oatmeal. I always get eggs. The restaurant has real butter and honey so we always request that for our toast or oatmeal. We also use real butter on our grits and eggs. Yes, I live in the south I always have to have grits. LOL


Be Blessed.

Lets Talk About Breakfast

Ahh.. one of the most important meals of the day, breakfast. This week I will be sharing some of our tried and true tips for breakfasts. As we move towards eating healthier I have noticed that breakfast is a very important part of our day.
Oatmeal. We use the old fashioned rolled oats. Its more filling and just as easy to prepare. I fill a pan with some water and dump the oats in. I dont measure, because if I make too much we can always have it another morning. Then I add sea salt and a sweetener. Usually either honey or organic cane juice crystals. When its cooked for a few minutes I add some milk and turn it down. Then I go get the baby up and dressed. By the time thats done so is the oatmeal. If Im feeling like a generous mommy I will add fruit and cinnamon. If the morning is already hectic I just dump it in bowls and let them eat it. I add a TBLSP of coconut oil to my bowl so I can get this into my diet.
Thats our morning oatmeal routine.
I will use this week to talk about healthy easy breakfasts you can fix for your crew.

The Infamous Bread Post...Finally!!

The recipe. I found this at The Family Homestead. Crystal has a ton of great healthy recipes. I taped this to the inside of my cabinet door for easy access. The cast of characters. Salt, extra virgin olive oil, whole wheat flour, yeast, gluten flour, and raw honey.
In a large bowl combine 2c warm water, 1/3c honey, and 1T yeast. Let sit for a few minutes to let the yeast start working. I keep my yeast in the freezer so a little while before I make the bread I pull the yeast out and allow it to warm up a little.

Add 2t salt, 1/3c olive oil, 1/3c gluten flour (you can find this on the bread aisle. I get mine at Walmart. It makes the bread softer), and 3-4c of whole wheat flour. I keep my gluten and my ww flour in the fridge. I take them out to warm up a little before making the bread.

Here is a pic of my measuring cups. I think I need to organize them a bit, huh?
This is me trying to show the 1/3c of gluten. Too bad you cant see the 1/3 markings.

I measure flour by spooning it into the cup and then leveling with the back of the spoon.


With 3 cups of flour I had a gloppy mess still, so I needed to add 1 more cup of flour.

You add flour until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and it it not sticky to the touch.
Move onto a floured surface. Now most people say lightly floured but I have never had any luck with lightly floured. Unfortunatly I have to use quiet a bit of white flour to knead the dough.

Now the hard part. If you have a Bosch mixer, which I will have in my golden years, forget the RV Im getting a Bosch, you can let your Bosch mixer knead the dough for 4 minutes. Mrs. Miller says in another mixer knead for 7-10 minutes. Now, my Kitchen Aid never kneaded very well, so I just hand knead. Hand knead for 10-15 minutes. WOW! thats a long time. I usually am done around 8-10 minutes. I use this time to either talk to the kids or do some oral review work with them.

Plop the dough in a bowl, cover and let rise to double. I usually let rise for 30-45 minutes.


Remove to floured surface.


Cut dough in half. I use my trusty pizza cutter, works perfect every time!

Roll out one half of dough. I just roll until its flat enough to roll up. By the way this is my Pampared Chef roller and I L.O.V.E. it. Oh its awesome. I will never use a different roller.
Roll up starting at small end and tucking in as you go.
Grease two loaf pans. I use a stick of butter and rub it on the bottom and sides.

Place in warm oven for about 15 minutes. Now warm is you turn the oven on until you can feel the heat and then turn it off. After 15 minutes turn the oven on to 350 degrees without taking the bread out. Bake for about 30m.

Here is the finished product. Ummm... I used a little too much white flour to roll out the loaf on the right but it was still very yummy!

My two best friends for bread making. My electric knife and my bread slicer.
The bread slicer helps me to make even size cuts and the knife makes for less crumbs. Its a beautiful thing!
Put some butter on and watch it melt!
ENJOY!!




Here is the whole recipe:

2 cups warm water

1/3 cup honey

1 tablespoon yeast

1/3 cup olive oil

2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup gluten flour

5-7 cups whole wheat flour

In a large bowl or in a large mixer combine the water, yeast, and honey. Let sit for a few minutes to give the yeast a chance to start working. Add salt, oil, gluten flour, and 3-4 cups of whole wheat flour. Continue to add more flour until the dough does not stick to the side of the bowl and does not feel sticky to the touch. Knead for 4 minutes in Bosch mixer or 7 to 10 minutes in other mixers or 10 to 15 minutes by hand.

When dough has finished kneading let it rise once until doubled in bulk (unless you are using a Bosch type mixer and in this case you can skip the 1st rising). Punch down dough and divide it into 2 pieces and form into loaves and set in bread pans.

Let it rise in a slightly wam oven ( this means that you turn the oven on for just 2 or 3 min or until you can feel the heat and then turn it off, if it is too hot then it will kill the yeast) for 15-25 minutes or until the dough is 1/2 inch above top of pan. (Julie: my bread never rises above the pan. I gave up trying to get it to.) Turn oven to 350 (without taking bread out) and bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Warning: My family never liked whole wheat bread. Until we found this. The first two times I made it the loaves turned out AWFUL, but now its tried and true!! We can eat two loaves in two days easy!

Healthy Eating Update

The other day I went to the local health food grocery store. I picked up four pounds of brown rice, because it was on sale, a jar of cocounut oil, a bottle of olive oil, a box of sea salt, a bag of whole wheat pastry flour, a jar of local honey and a box of stevia. At Walmart yesterday I bought two boxes of whole wheat spaghetti, two boxes of whole wheat lasagna noodles, and two boxes of whole wheat rotini noodles. I picked up a few bags of beans and two more boxes of brown rice. I also picked up some Florida Cane Juice sugar crystals. We cant afford organice meat right now, but I figure every change counts. I picked up a some ground beef and three bags of chicken breasts, I also picked up about 5 pounds of turkey sausage and 5 pounds of ground turkey. There was other stuff too, but this was the bulk of my purchase.
Last night we had brown rice, yellow squash, and zuchinni. I cooked the squash and zuchinni in some olive oil and garlic. I mixed it all together and put some mozzerella cheese on top of each bowl. The kids were not impressed because they dont like squash and zuchinni, but I loved it! Hubby thought it was ok, but he likes meat so when I serve dishes like this he eats them, but I darn skippy sure better have some meat for the next meal! :) Actually he is not that bad because he knows he needs a meatless dish every now and then, just not too often!
Tonight the kids and I will be having spaghetti, what they dont know is Im going to sneak some zuchinni into the sauce I also plan on shredding some carrots and putting them in the sauce as well. Hubby has a dinner meeting tonight so he wont be home. Too bad because I plan on putting meat in the spaghetti sauce! LOL.
Im loving our whole foods co-op. I got about 12 pounds of squash and zuchinni from them right before Thanksgiving and we are just now finishing it up. We have another order coming in next week. We also just finished up the raw milk. We did decide that while hubby and I are drinking the raw milk we will switch the kids to organic milk. It just seems the right thing to do the more we read about milk. I noticed a little girl the other day almost the same age as my oldest daughter and she was developing RAPIDLY. Now, I know some of this is just the way she is made, but come on where do we think the growth hormones they inject in cows go???? I will just feel better about it.
Ok I need to go our break is up and I have to get busy with some schooling we have missed this week.

Healthy changes

Just thought I would update on the changes around here.
We are drinking water almost all the time now. Occasionally we will brew up some cold brew tea from Lipton, but thats only when we get a craving. LOL
We are drinking at least a cup of Kefir a day. We get ours at Publix. Its the Lifeway brand. I have been searching ebay and a few other places to look for some starter grains.
Hubby and I are drinking raw milk. We are not comfortable giving it to the children yet and I dont know if I will say when we do, because some people might twist it around and try to accuse us of being negligent. I will report on how hubby and I do on the raw milk. We did a ton of research before we decided to go for it. We read alot of pro and a lot of con and eventually decided to try it. Taking the kefir daily will help any stomach problems we might encounter. I will tell you this about the milk its the best stuff ever. Its so yummy. Its thick and creamy and very filling.
Im reading through the Maker's Diet by Jordan Rubin. Im preparing to start ridding my body of yeast and I need to follow a pretty strict diet the first few weeks, so that the Yeast Assasin can do its work. A lot of people have suggested the Maker's Diet as a great way to go. I also have some books about yeast on hold at the library if I ever get down there.
We eat oatmeal and honey every day for breakfast and plain yogurt with fruit and either honey or maple syrup for lunch almost every day. We are eating beans and rice at least once a week. I just finished my first batch of chicken broth. I made like two gallons of the stuff with some chicken thighs that I got on sale. I threw those in with water, carrots, onions, garlic and basil. It smells so good and cost me pennies to make. I know everything that went into it and I feel like I accomplished something.
I made whole wheat bread for my family most of last week. I still need to tweak it a bit, but the kids liked it.
Im amazed at the energy I have. We went for walks almost everyday last week, in the morning. Im looking forward to incorporating another walk in the evening soon.
I was amazed at all that I accomplished last week around the house, in spite of being very ill a few days because of the time of month it was. And I can not recommend peppermint tea enough for this time period!! Im loving the new healthy lifestyle. Its funny all the verses I have run across in my daily Bible reading that deal with food. One day I will have to post about all of the interesting things God says about food. Of course I want to post some of the information I found out about raw milk to. Im also hoping to perfect some recipes and share them as well.
Ok I have to go, the kids are ready to read. :)

Benefits of healthy living

Well one of the benefits I have noticed over the past week is more energy. I dont want to sit and play on the computer as much. LOL I have not changed much, just tried to cut out some of our white sugar and drink more water. Today I feel like I am coming down with a cold so I have been popping vitamin C and drinking hot lemon and honey tea. Im making some now for hubby and I. He has a cough that wont go away. Im looking into garlic remedies as well.
We have been buying Keifer at Publix lately. We tried the cherry kind which was way to sour for me and now we have the peach kind which we all like. I am hoping to get some starter and make my own keifer soon. Check out the benefits of keifer, you'll be amazed.
I just ordered Yeast Assasin and Tummy Tuneup Original blend from beeyoutiful. Im hoping to do the water cure also. Just to try it out. I have not been able to make bread yet... but thats another post. WOW the areas Im convicted in right now.
OK well just wanted to update. Now I have to go back and add all these links *sigh*. :)


Be Blessed