Even Happier In The Kitchen!!

When I started this blog my desire was to help women find joy and satisfaction in the kitchen. I truly believe that the kitchen is the heart of the home. It's where we gather naturally as a family. If mama is happy in her kitchen everything else seems to just run better!

My last post was all about herbs and my gratitude for them. Look back at the picture of my herb cupboard. There are bottles and bags full of my favorite herbs. I expressed my pleasure at being able to care for my family's basic medical needs using these herbs.

I am excited to report that I have hardly touched an herb or used a tincture since the end of October! I haven't had ONE CUP of peppermint infusion (tea) or slathered on any St. John's oil either!

Have I changed my mind and started using pharmaceuticals? NOPE! I have discovered essential oils! Actually discovered is the wrong word. I started using a few essential oils about a year ago. I bought several from the health food store and used them here and there, but I always felt disappointed that they didn't do just what the books and websites I read said they would.

In October an amazing string of events lead me to a doTERRA essential oils class. I walked in to the class very sceptically. The woman teaching the class taught that a certain combination of oils could help heal depression. As I sat there listening the Spirit bore a strong witness to my heart that my family needed these oils.

FLASH FORWARD THREE MONTHS -

My herb cupboard is now my oils cupboard. I use oils every day that DO WHAT THEY SAY THEY WILL! They are so pure that you can ingest them! Even little kids can take them internally. I got out the old bottles I bought at the health food store and read the labels. They all say not to ingest them! They all say they are 100% pure. If they are really 100% pure why do some of them advise you to seek medical attention if you swallow them?

I love my new oils! We really do use them every day. They have greatly added to my happiness and my confidence that I can be a healer in my own home!

Every time I find something great I just can't help but want to share it! I would love for you to experience these oils for yourself. My friend Tamara is opening her home for a class that teaches you how to use the oils and be your own family physician. Cherie Burton, the amazing woman who first taught me, will also be there to answer your personal questions about health issues your family is experiencing. I am going to help with the class as well. We are holding it on February 15th at 7PM. Everyone who comes will leave with a free sample bottle of one of the oils and the confidence that you can use doTERRA oils to heal in your home!

I can't wait to see you there!

Please email me for the address for the class.

I Love Herbs!

What a great blessing plants are! Not only do they nourish our bodies, they can heal our bodies too!

This is the time of year when my heart turns to herbal remedies. My garden is slowing down, we are settling into a routine for school, and the weather is turning cold.

This is a picture of the section of shelves in my kitchen that are (mostly) dedicated to herbs, oils, tinctures, etc. I feel so happy knowing that I can naturally treat the coughs, colds, aches, and pains that happen in our family.

The most common thing I mix are herbal infusions. Our favorite are peppermint and a blend of comfrey and echinacea. I boil up a pot of water and steep the herbs for
15 -20 minutes, add a big plop of honey and let it cool down some. SO GOOD!

A quick list of herbs I always keep around:
Comfrey - for infusions
Echinacea - for infusions and capsules
Peppermint - oil and dried leaves for infusions
St. John's Wort - oil and dried plant for infusions and capsules
Chamomile - dried flower for infusions
Garlic - for SO much! It's a great anti-microbial.
Clove Bud Oil
Lavender Oil
Wintergreen Oil

A great source for all of these is Mountain Rose Herbs. They have great prices!

Last fall I took an herbal remedy class. I learned so much! I paid $50 dollars for the class and it was worth it! Yesterday I found a website that has a FREE webinar that covers some of the same information. It was great! I think every mother should watch it! It taught about how to use 17 common herbs to treat many different problems. All of the herbs are probably in your kitchen or pantry right now. The recipes are easy! Click here for the link. The people who teach the class are from a website called learningherbs.com. I signed up for their newsletter and I have learned a lot just exploring their site. I highly recommend it!

Learning to care for your family in times of *sickness and in health! What a great way to be happy in the kitchen!


*Always seek professional medical attention for serious wounds and injuries!

My Best Friend and a New Recipe

This is a picture of my best friend! Oh how I love my dehydrator! My Dear Hubby bought this for me for Christmas many years ago and it has been an invaluable member of our household! I use it to dry pecans and cashews every other week. It blesses me with yogurt too! So far this year I have also dried:

Zucchini chips
St. John's Wort
Peppermint
Pumpkin seeds
Chamomile
Parsley

By the end of the harvesting season I should also have quite a lot of apples and pears dried and ready to eat in the winter! (A big THANK YOU to the awesome ladies who share their fruit with me!) I am planning to make lots of apple and pear butter this winter. The recipe is from Nourishing Traditions. I'm going to make my first batch of apple butter today. It's lacto-fermented! I'll let you know how it turns out!

Apple Butter - 2 quarts

4 cups dried apples (or pears)
1 TBLS Real Salt
1/4 cup whey
1/4 - 1/2 cup honey
water

Place apples in a pan and add just enough water to cover them. Simmer until they are soft. Transfer them with a slotted spoon to your blender or food processor. Let them cool for a few minutes. Add the salt, whey and honey. Taste to see if it's sweet enough for you. Add more honey if needed. Pour into 2 quart-sized jars. Leave at least 1 inch between the mixture and the top of the jar. Cover tightly. Keep at room temperature for 2 days. Transfer to the refrigerator. Eat within 2 months. Try this on top of oatmeal or ice cream!

Happy Harvest!

Learn to Lacto-ferment! It's Class Time Again!

Where Has The Summer Gone?

I can't believe it's the first day of fall! Summer flew by! I hope your summer was as happy and productive as mine. My garden is still overflowing with produce! That beautiful patch of dirt in my back yard has given me so many blessings this year! Here is a list of what we've harvested so far:
Peppermint, chamomile, St. John's Wart, carrots, beets, spinach, peas, lettuce, zucchini, more zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash bugs, grasshoppers and about a million tomatoes! Whew! Just writing that list makes me tired! It's been a lot of hard work! I think it's time for something easy!

Easy? Anyone interested in an easy way to preserve your produce? Lacto-fermenting to the rescue! Look at the picture below. The big jar on the left is full of beet kvass. It's my favorite thing to lacto-ferment! In front of that is a jar of cherry chutney. It runs a close second.



There are many reasons to lacto-ferment. The number one reason being that the end product is full of enzymes that are so good for you! Most foods today are devoid of enzymes and we need them to digest food properly and to heal and nourish our bodies! Sound like something you are interested in? Join me this Saturday for fun class and leave knowing how to lacto-ferment! We will also learn how to make other condiments like mayo, salad dressing, and ketchup.

Email me if you are interested! I'd love to have you with me again!


My Birthday Cake



Making Tomato Juice!

What A Wonderful Day!

I had such a fabulous afternoon at the first Happy In The Kitchen Class! It's such an amazing feeling to be surrounded by like-minded women. It boosted my spirits and gladdened my heart! Thank you SO much ladies for sharing the afternoon with me!

I'm going to spend the next week or so posting the recipes for the food we made and links for the articles and websites we talked about. First up is the recipe for Mexican Rice.

Step 1
Start your brown rice soaking 24 hours before you plan to make the dish. Put 2 cups of rice and a few TBLS of whey in a mason jar. Cover the rice with very warm water. (About 90 degrees) Twist a lid onto the jar tightly. Let the rice soak in a warm place for 24 hours. After 24 hours remove the lid and carefully pour off some of the soaking water. (Reserve this liquid in the fridge to use the next time you soak rice. This is now your culture and you won't need to add whey.) Pour the rice and any liquid remaining into a pan. Add about four cups of fresh water or stock to this. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to simmer. Cover the pan with a lid and let the rice simmer for about 40 minutes. Check to see that the rice is soft and all the liquid had been absorbed. It might take a few tries to get this just right. Keep trying!

Step 2
Measure 4 cups cooked rice into a skillet. Add 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup of tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes. Heat this on med/high until the butter melts. Add 1 TBLS of each of the following: chili powder, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, and Real Salt. Stir well. Cover the pan, reduce the heat a little, and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Serve this on fresh tortillas with cheese, beans, salsa, spicy dip and lettuce!

The recipe for the dough we used can be found here, or you can visit my friend Caralee's blog. She created this great recipe. You will love her blog!

I also found a blog that has the story of Jenny that I told you about. It is a little long, but worth the read! Please let me know what you think after you read it.

Raw Milk Safety

The Story

I was over at my friend's house the other night picking up some their delicious RAW MILK. I was talking and laughing with my friend when their 10 year old came into the kitchen and said to her husband, "Dad, Peter (name has been changed) next door says we shouldn't drink our milk because it'll make us sick. He said his mom told him it's not clean." My friend and her husband handled the situation with grace and style. They didn't get upset, they just confirmed to him that everything was okay. I was fuming inside, though! I wanted to march over to the neighbor's house and set his mama straight! I've been stewing over it for a while now and I just had to post about it.

I truly believe that raw milk is clean and safe! I love the fresh taste of it and I love knowing that it is alive and REAL! Not dead, devoid of enzymes and two or three weeks old.

I found a few great links in defense of raw milk that I think you will really enjoy reading.

Link 1
Link 2

Thanks for letting me vent!

Tara's 12 Step Program

It's True, I'm Addicted!
Have I confessed here that I am a sugar addict? It's true! I've spent most of my life moving from one sugar fix to the next. As a teen I would spend my lunch money on candy and soda. (Sorry Mom! I'll pay you back!) As an adult I pigged out on sugary cold cereals, deserts and candy. I always bought myself a candy bar at the end of each shopping trip. After all, I had just done the hard work of grocery shopping, I deserved a treat! I usually had a bowl (or two) of cereal at the end of each day. I had just spent a day caring for little ones, I deserved a treat. I often mixed up a little bowl of powdered sugar frosting, because I deserved a treat! Two months after Halloween I would usually find myself combing the cupboards for any leftover candy. So sad! Sugar had me in her grasp and did not want to let me go! I finally started suffering from severe hypoglycemia and knew I had to make changes. I just didn't know where to start.

Thankfully the Lord led me down a path to recovery. That might sound a little silly, (does the Lord care if we eat white sugar?)but it's true. The path started with education! I learned why white sugar was so bad for me. Here are 146 reasons! Don't read any further until you've clicked the link and scanned the list. Even brands that claim to be "pure" and "natural" are not good for you! Don't fall for it!

Good Advice
"The average American now consumes 175 pounds of sugar per year! That's 46 teaspoons a day! If we pretend that sugar actually had some benefits, eating one-half pound every day would not seem like such a bad idea. But the truth is that sugar has absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever. Not only does it totally lack nutrients, but when you eat sugar it actually robs your body of nutrients-- vitamins, minerals and even enzymes.

Sure sugar may be temporarily pleasing to the taste buds, but the rest of the body suffers for it. The sad thing is that most people are not aware of the devastating effects that excess sugar consumption has on the body."

(CLICK ON THAT LINK ABOVE IF HAVEN'T YET!)

"Get in the habit of reading labels and avoid products made with white sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, dextrose, fructose, and ALL artificial sweeteners. Instead use natural sweeteners, including pure maple syrup, molasses, stevia, Rapadura (dehydrated cane sugar juice - Sucanat) or raw unfiltered honey. Many health food stores offer products made with natural sweeteners, like cookies and ice cream, and even licorice, although it is better to make your own."

Read the entire article at the Weston A. Price Foundation website.

It's Still a Battle!
I love sweets! I think I always will. White sugar no longer controls me though. I can go through the check-out line at the store without my palms breaking into a sweat over the sight of all the candy bars! The trick is to learn how to make tasty treats at home. I have several recipes you can try. Click here for cookies and here for a delicious cake!

Tara's 12 Step Sugar Addiction Recovery Program
Step 1. Go buy some Sucanat or honey at your local health food store.
Step 2. Read and try my cookie recipe.
Step 3. Read and try my cake recipe.
Step 4. Read through the "Desserts" section of Nourishing Traditions.
(If you don't own a copy of NT go to Amazon.com and order one right now! That's step 4 and a 1/2!)
Step 5. Try one of the ice cream recipes from NT. I like the berry one!

The next steps are hard, but you can do it!

Step 6. Open your pantry and toss the bag of white sugar into the trash.
Step 7. Take a deep breath and toss all the food CONTAINING white sugar.
Step 8. Stop thinking about all the money you just wasted!
Step 9. Start thinking about the health you will be building!
Step 10. Put on your prettiest apron and make my cookies again.
Step 11. Don't buy any more white sugar or products with sugar in them.
Step 12. ENJOY YOUR FREEDOM!