Saturday Snapshot

I just "discovered" a new blog this morning. It's Alyce's blog,
At Home With Books.

I knew I would like it because, what's a home without books? When I saw her snapshot of a fossilized fern, I knew I had found a follow-worthy blog.
So, here's my Saturday Snapshot:

As always, click on any photos for a closer look.
We have just had our killing frost this morning.
My strawberries were still blooming.


One good thing about the killing frost is that now the persimmons are ready to eat. Mmmmm. Persimmon bread. I do love autumn.

-Susan

miscellany monday and No Mom Talk Monday

Well, as is my typical Monday routine, I stopped by One Mom's Perfect Imperfection this morning. I'm drinking coffee and trying to wake up enough to write my Miscellany Monday post. And what do I find, but a new Monday meme! Click No Mom Talk Monday to check it out. I think I'm up for the challenge. Like Courtney @OMPI, I think I'll combine it with Carissa's Miscellany Monday . So, without any mention of my precious children, here we go:

1. Blogger is irritating. I was attempting to begin this post and “service unavailable” was their response. I've been seeing that more lately. Argh!

2. I need a new hard drive. I'm afraid my little picture-taking hobby is starting to take it's toll. I have less than two gigs free and I haven't downloaded the weekend's pictures yet. Yikes!

3. I hate deleting pictures. Even bad and blurry ones. Anyone else? I think number two may be related to number three.
   

4. For the few months, I have been reading a “new” author. New to me at any rate. I had never read mysteries before this year. I feel this blog is the perfect venue for expressing myself. I am in love with Agatha Christie. There. I said it. I feel better. If any of you are slightly fond of that genre, please try her. I doubt you will be disappointed. Try Murder on the Orient Express or And Then There Were None. There is something wonderful about "discovering" an author who has written 80+ books.
   

5. I'm trying to encourage Batman to start blogging. I think he'd enjoy it. I also know that he would learn the computer aspects really quickly and then he could help me. I hope he doesn't mind my dual motive.

6. I'm glad autumn weather is finally here. One of my favorite things to do this time of year, is sit on the deck and drink coffee. I got to do this on Saturday. Maybe tomorrow. This kind of weather also makes me what to bake and make chili.

That's enough for one day. I'm looking forward to a great week.
I hope you are, too!
-Susan

miscellany monday

Happy Monday morning, everyone!
I'll head straight to my miscellany Monday.

(one) My baby is one year old! I can't believe that the first year has gone so quickly!
Hug your babies while they are still babies!

(two) We are very selective about television viewing for Stinkerbaby, but Batman and I are both quite happy that one of her favorite DVD's is Schoolhouse Rock. It's even nice for the grown-ups in the room! And, boy, does it bring back memories!

(three) Now for my restau-RANT: Why do most restaurants assume that you are at the restaurant to ignore the people you are dining with and that the sole purpose of being there is to watch television? I recently went to a new place in town and it was so loud conversation was difficult. There were four televisions on withing my viewing. Why?! This wasn't a sports bar. That I understand. For those of us attempting to prevent our babies from watching any television before two, it's especially tough! I won't be back to that particular restaurant, but most of the sit-down places locally have not simply a television at the bar,
but 3-5 throughout the place!
Don't these people have T.V.'s at home? I thought the purpose of restaurants was to enjoy the company of friends and family and have some good food. The food wasn't even that great.

I very much appreciated being taken out to the aforementioned food establishment, but I suppose this is just further proof that I am not mainstream!

(four) This past month, I rediscovered my love of budgeting. Before kids, we always used a budget. Since kids, that has not been as regular. And when we did budget, we didn't do it honestly, some things "didn't count." Last month, we budgeted for real. It was so nice telling all our money where to go and watching it behave! Budgeting really makes me feel wealthy, when really we are financially in about the same boat as most families with small kids and a stay-at-home mom.

(five) I have discovered the best yellow cake recipe. Ever. Seriously. How could it not be good with two sticks of butter and eight egg yolks?
David's Yellow Cake
I even made it with half whole wheat flour, and it's still light and yummy!

(six) Time for more coffee. Stock up; the price of coffee is climbing.


Have a great week, and don't forget to check out lowercase letters and link up your own random Monday thoughts!



-Susan

Coconutty Coffee Cake

I figured it was about time to blog about a recipe again. I cook all the time, but mostly, I don't use recipes. Cooking free-style is convenient except if I want to duplicate something we liked or if I want to tell someone else how I made something. I'm told that my great-grandmother was the same way. In trying to rid my husband of his donuts-for-breakfast fixation, I have been trying many different coffee cake and muffin recipes. It's difficult to find many that are totally devoid of fruits and nuts. This started out as a muffin recipe, but has been adapted to a 9x13 inch pan because I'm too lazy to mess with muffin papers. We've all enjoyed this recipe, even the picky toddler. While technically not a dessert, it's got a lot of sugar and certainly isn't health food. But it does have a goodly amount of good fat and whole grains and some eggs, so it is tremendously better that a boughten dough nut.

Coconutty Coffee Cake
2/3 cup virgin coconut oil (preferably in it's liquid state)
1 cup sugar- I use about half sucanat and half evaporated cane juice
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups fresh ground wheat flour (I usually sub 1/4 cup of the flour with coconut flour)
1 TBSP aluminum free baking powder
1 tsp unrefined sea salt
1/2 to 1 TBSP ginger powder
1 cup whole milk, preferably organic
1 tsp vanilla extract

Topping:
4 TBSP room temperature butter, preferably organic
1/2 cup sucanat or brown sugar
2- 2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
pecans and shredded coconut are optional

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Blend flour(s), baking powder, salt, and ginger in a medium sized bowl. Cream the coconut oil, sugar, and eggs. Add flour and milk to oil mixture a little at a time. Add vanilla. This will be a thick batter. Spoon out into a greased 9x13" pan. In a small cup mix the additional sucanat or brown sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle this over batter. Cut butter into small pieces and dot batter liberally. Add more or less butter to suit your tastes. Add shredded coconut and/or pecans. Or not, if cooking for my husband.

Bake for 30-35 minutes and try to let it cool enough before you eat it that you don't burn your tongue!

Now, a word about some of the ingredients.
I love Tropical Traditions virgin coconut oil. It's very tasty and is truly a health-promoting food. There are quite a few good unrefined (virgin) coconut oils out there, but I really do like Tropical Traditions best. To get a free copy of the book, Virgin Coconut Oil, How it has changed people's lives, and how it can change yours with your first order from Tropical Traditions, tell them I referred you. My referral code is 5967402. The book has a lot of information on uses of coconut oil as well as some of the facts about saturated fats that health magazines never mention. They have a lot of great coconut products. I especially like the oils- refined and unrefined and the coconut cream concentrate. I'm just starting to experiment with coconut flour. It smells divine!
Besides the products, the other thing I really like about Tropical Traditions is the specials they have. Every now and again they have free shipping for any sized order and free products with a small purchase. Sometimes the virgin coconut oil goes on sale buy one get one free.They will send new customers the free book I mentioned by using my referral code and I'll get free items when the new customers order. It's really a win-win situation. Their customer service is also great. I received a package that the carrier damaged. They pack stuff well and was in no way Tropical Traditions' fault. I contacted them to let them know and they gave me a substantial coupon for my next purchase! I didn't ask for that, they just took care of me for my trouble! Anyway, I am not being paid by Tropical Traditions for this, I just am not often this impressed with a company, so I thought I'd tell y'all.

I get my eggs from my friendly, neighborhood egg lady. They are ridiculously cheap ($1.50/ dozen) and have delicious, orange yolks. Miss Lucille loves "her girls" and really takes good care of them. No salmonella scare for us.

I use and love Prairie Gold wheat. You can buy it from Wheat Montana, but for my area, it's much cheaper from the local Mennonite bulk foods store. I also love my Nutrimill grain mill.

I make my own vanilla extract. It's much better tasting than store-bought, if I do say so myself. I'll tell you all about that another time. Any real vanilla extract is an improvement over the imitation vanilla that is in most foods.

I only use aluminum-free baking powder. There are probably aluminum-free varieties at the grocery store, but I get mine cheaply from the aforementioned Mennonite food store.

Mountain Rose Herbs is another company I want to tell you about. They have good quality coconut oil, too. And depending on where in the country you live, they may be a good deal cheaper than Tropical Traditions, depending on shipping. But what I like best about Mountain Rose Herbs, is the inexpensive, super-high quality spices! I'm not a fan of cinnamon, as a rule, but MRH has THE BEST organic ground cinnamon I have ever tasted! Their garlic powder is superb. The powdered cacao nibs is a really delicious substitute for good ol' Hershey's cocoa powder. My only complaint is that they are on the west coast and shipping can be brutal. I wonder if they'd like to move their base of operations to Louisville? Probably not. But they are a good place to know just the same.

Well, I'm going to go have another piece of that yummy coffee cake. I'll have mine with coconut and pecans. I may just have to make coffee to go with it. . .

If any of you try this recipe, please let me know what you think.

-Susan

miscellany monday

I'm feeling quite random this morning, so I thought I'd play along.

(1) I need to do better about eating breakfast in a timely manner. I wake up hungry, but the kids get up when I do, so it's difficult to feed myself. A brilliant friend of mine recently told me that if it's five hours after you wake up, it's not really breakfast. Thanks, Gini!

(2) I'm dying to do some sewing. There are many projects I'm anxious to start. Another quilt, a skirt for me, a dress for my niece, another mei tai baby carrier or two. . . Maybe today is the day!

(3) The start of the week always gets me excited about the possibilities. I know most people moan about Monday's, but I don't usually. I'm a SAHM, and I love my job!

(4) The hummingbirds have been reckless and abundant around here lately. If I can ever get a decent picture of them, I'll post it.

(5) Typing is significantly more complicated with a baby in your lap "helping."
I know I'm not alone in this observation.

(6) In a town the size of mine, it's always wise to assume when going to Walmart that you will, in fact, run into about half a dozen people that you both know and haven't seen in 8-25 years. It happens. Often. Ask me how I know. Maybe next time, I'll clean up a bit after housecleaning before Wal-marting.



Have a great week, and don't forget to check out lowercase letters and link up your own random Monday thoughts!



-Susan

Summer

I love summer. It has always been my favorite season. Part of it has to do with the fact that, although I was a good student, I always hated school, so any time off was good time. Yes, it is hot enough I could bake bread on the deck, but we have air conditioning, so I have no right to complain.

I know memories are not accurate representations, but as I recall every summer day was spent either at the VFW pool or at Grandma and Grandpa's or at the park or playing in the creek or picking blackberries.

Mostly, I remember going swimming. We'd get up early enough that it was still pleasant outside and be at the pool when they opened. My sister and I would swim until we were so hungry we could hardly stand it. Then we'd eat the not very good sausage pizzas sold by the snack shop at the pool. We'd swim some more and then go to Grandma's for lemon ice cream and a nap. Most days, Grandma came with us to the pool. Some times, we even picked blackberries from the parking lot by the pool.

The only thing better than going swimming at the pool was putting on our swim suits and going down to the creek. We'd splash and play in the shallow pools of water and catch frogs and crayfish. Sometimes the crayfish would catch us instead, but we always had fun.



Picking blackberries was always an adventure. We were aware that we might meet up with a snake. Thorns, ticks, and chiggers were no joke either, but they were all worth it for real, wild blackberries with sugar and cream. Grandma always came along for blackberry picking.

Summertime is all about good memories for me. The same can't be said about the rest of the year. I didn't have a horrible childhood, but the rest of the year was more real. Good things mixed in with some bad things. Summer was always good.

I hope I can give my kids good summer memories. We've been swimming twice this week at a friend's pool. It's wonderful, but it's just not the same without the bad pizza. Too bad the VFW pool is no more.

All Organic Lime Pudding

I really do cook things besides desserts. Desserts are just my favorite. My most recent order from Tropical Traditions came in today. In it was something I had never tried before- Heavenly Organics sweetened condensed milk. Sweetened condensed milk is certainly not heath food, but I figure I get some points for it being organic.

It says on the label, "our heavenly cows are treated reverently and lovingly."
Pretty cool, huh?

So, I decided to make a pie. Then I remembered that I have to pre-made pie crusts in the house and I'm too lazy today to make one, so I made pudding instead.

This pudding is really yummy and could not be easier to make. You'll think I left something out in the recipe, but I didn't.

Okay, here it is:
One 14 oz. can Heavenly Organics sweetened condensed milk
between 1/3 and 1/2 cup organic lime juice- to taste

Mix and refrigerate. This is also good with lemon juice.

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

A couple of years ago, I got a Cuisinart ice cream maker as a gift. Boy, what a difference this thing makes over my salt and ice kind of ice cream maker! It's so quick and easy! If I could regularly get raw cream or pasturized, organic cream without carrageenan, I'd make ice cream much more often. Carrageenan is a seaweed-derived additive that is on my list of yucky stuff in food I avoid. According to Dr. Russell Blaylock in his book, Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life, carrageenan is used as an agent to induce intense inflammation in experimental animals. It has also been implicated as a carcinogen. I don't believe I want any of that!

Anyway, carrageenan is found in every brand of locally available organic cream. It's not in the organic half and half, but that stuff is ultra-pasturized which is something else I try to avoid.

Last week, that changed. My local farm market got in some low-temperature pasturized cream with no other ingregients! It may not be raw, but it sure is good! Produced here in Kentucky by farmers who are not certified organic, but use the same practices, it meets three of my four main food goals:
it's local
it's virtually organic
and it's delicious

It's not raw, but that's to be expected in a state that doesn't allow raw milk sales.

So, I came home with two quarts of this delicious cream last week. My intention was to make ice cream, but I was sidetracked by strawberries. Strawberries, organic evaporated cane juice, and cream is a treat no one should miss. So, that's where the first quart went. Stinkerbaby even liked it and normally she doesn't like milk or fruit.

I did manage to get ice cream made out of the second quart. This is easily the best ice cream I have ever made! In addition to the great cream, it's a new recipe. This recipe is scaled for the little Cuisinart ICE-20 Ice Cream maker.

1 1/2 cup cream
1 1/2 cup whole milk
5 raw, pastured egg yolks (for those squeamish about raw eggs, see http://www.westonaprice.org/)
3/4 cup evaporated cane juice (or sugar)
1 TBSP vanilla
1 TBSP arrowroot powder (cornstarch is an acceptable substitute)

Combine all ingredients and blend with a stick blender or mixer. Add to ice cream maker and let it go for about 35 minutes. Transfer to another container to ripen overnight. Lick the bowl and wait until tomorrow.

I have issues with food.

I know I am not alone in this. I want my family to eat well. I really do. Some days we succeed better than others. My dear and wonderful husband is what I would call "open-minded picky." He's not totally, irrationally, irretrievably picky. He will try new foods. His diet has changed a great deal since we have been married. But he is picky. Really picky. It's no wonder Stinkerbaby is picky, too. It's a constant battle. After reading Sally Fallon's book, Nourishing Traditions, I have tried to feed my family more nutrient dense foods and fewer highly processed ones. Growing up, I fell into the low-fat, vegetarian trap. My body has paid the price for that. I became lactose intolerant, I feel, as a direct result of the damaging low-fat, high-soy diet for so many years. Thankfully, after eight years lactose intolerant, I found a cure that worked wonders for me. I only wish I had found it sooner.

Nourishing my body and the bodies of those I care for has become a high priority. Beyond the difficulties in preparing meals, pickiness is my biggest problem. Whole, locally-grown, organic chicken with gravy made from bone broth- they will gladly eat. Any vegetables besides corn or potatoes- not so great. I have been learning some tricks to deal with my picky eaters.

In the case of the hubby, they are mostly work arounds since I figure he's the head of the household and if he wants something sweet for breakfast that's his right. I just try to make it something healthier sweet. For example, doughnuts are his ultimate breakfast. So sometimes I make homemade doughnuts from home-ground whole wheat flour fried in coconut oil and sometimes I make cinnamon coffee cake with eggs and whole milk and part sucanat and part xylitol.

Stinkerbaby is a different story altogether. What worked last week seldom does this week. She used to love mushrooms and salmon and spaghetti with meat sauce (not all in one meal! Yuk!). Now she won't eat any of these. Sometimes making baby-sized whatever works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes unusual presentation works (salmon salad in an ice cream cone- I know the cone's not great, but I'm trying here!). Sometimes it doesn't work. The best method consistently for Stinkerbaby is to let her help me prepare foods. This, of course, takes far longer and wastes some food, but it generally works. She won't eat eggs. But green eggs and ham that she gets to mix up- oh, yeah! Does anyone know of a good, natural blue food coloring? It's just a drop or two, but I hate using the petrochemical stuff in her eggs.

At least the baby is easy since he's still exclusively breast fed.

What works for you? Do you have picky eaters? Are you the picky eater in your family?