So I have decided to venture into the crazy land of homeschool. I am not quite sure how our adventure will go. I'm sure some days will be smooth and others will be quite rocky. However, I am super excited to start nonetheless.
One of the most common questions I get when people find out we are going to homeschool is, "Are you going to go all the way through high school?!?" Wow, I don't even know if I am going to go all the way through this month! When I was first toying with the idea of homeschooling B and Z, I was nervous about that myself. Was I going to homeschool all the way through high school? How was that going to work? Blah blah. But I have come to realize that this isn't an all or nothing venture. I don't have to have it all figured out right this second. Maybe it'll work out well for one child but not another. Maybe we'll do homeschool this year, public next year and homeschool the next. I do not feel that popping them in and out of homeschool will affect them negatively because in life we all need to be versatile. How many children these days aren't able to accept when something doesn't go their way? How many adults have a hard time with that concept, and with change, for that matter? I feel that we will take this as it comes and we will do what is best for us at the time. After all, what more can I do? I cannot predict the future. I cannot see the outcomes for the way I am raising my children until it happens.
I know that there are a few family members that are against this decision and I hope that over time I can show them that my children will not be weird, they will learn something, and that they will be able to function just fine as adults. These are not my objections against homeschool, but rather, some I have heard in the past few months.
The other question I hear the most is "Why?" Well, there are a lot of factors. The most important being my childrens' individuality. B is simultaneously the most mature and the most immature 6 year old I have ever met. I had the opportunity this past year of hanging out with quite a few 4-6 year olds in a private school setting and it just amazes me how different and unique they all are. They have many similarities, but our differences as people really does start right away. I love it. B got into a lot of trouble this past year for simply being himself. Many times when he was in trouble it was fully his fault. I, by no means, feel that my child is a saint. In fact, truth be told, he's an asshole much of the time. However, he sees the world in black and white. There is no grey area in his mind. This leads him to be overly serious and emotional much of the time. Thus, since his birthday is just a few days from the cutoff, we decided to hold him back to 4K instead of putting him in Kindergarten this past year. I feel that academically that was a mistake. When I assess him now, he is very much in first grade material much of the time. He understands concepts that are far beyond that level. His one lack of understanding is with reading. So, where to put him? When he's doing simple multiplication at age 6 but cannot read cat?
Zahra is a wildcard. She learns nothing but knows much more then we are ever privy to. Doing her math with her the other day she rattled off her numbers, counted and even did simple addition. This is a far cry from working with her last week when she couldn't even point out the number 1. She knows things when she wants to, and doesn't when she doesn't. I am over the moon excited to see what she can do this year. We don't give her credit for enough.
Our family situation also is a bit different then most. J has to work weekends, and has days off in the middle of the week. The regular school week just doesn't let us be together as a family. That is one thing that is so very important to us. J and I can rarely ever be apart. Most of our jobs throughout life have been together! We feel the same way about each other as we do the kids. Family time, us together, is very important.
Lastly, I felt I was losing B last year in public school. My child runs around wearing ties and fedoras. He looks at the world in a different way. He spends his time filling obligations he puts upon himself. He is my little helper. He would rather weed the garden than play. He would rather craft and create something out of cardboard than drive cars. I just can't explain it, but I saw him losing that last year. I saw the happiness floating out of him. He was depressed. He was always told to stop helping and worry about himself and what he was told to do. He told me he was different then the other kids and he was always in trouble for it. He just lost his light. I mean he really did. Some kids don't lose their light. Others, like my brother, like my husband, like me, Do.
Anyway, what this post was really inspired by is that I FINALLY have narrowed down all my curriculum! I. am. so. excited! I had originally planned to do it all myself. To piece together my whole program and after 2 weeks of testing it out, I just can't. I don't have the willpower. Or the awesomeness, or whatever it is. So...YAY!! Here's to getting my curriculum next week and getting started with the year! I'm sure I'll post about what we are using and how it's going. I cannot explain how excited and nervous I am to start this adventure with my children. I know we are all ramping up for the school year, public, private, homeschool, whatever. So here's to a new year!!
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Disconnects
This is me. Drinking alcohol. My silly intention after my super stressful day was to post a random silly photo on Facebook with a cutsie caption about "OMG look what I'm doing!" Except...it wouldn't make sense to anyone. Because really, no one besides my husband knows me enough, really, to know I don't drink. To know I haven't had alcohol in over two years. And even before that I didn't really drink. No one knows me really to know any facts about me. In fact, according to the only me most people know, I have two kids and, since I rarely want my public profile to have a negative feel, am always smiling and happy. So it was wasted. My silly stressful rant was wasted. And I had no one to tell that I was stressed, that I needed an ear.
While I'm sure it seems silly, it dawned on me just how darn disconnected in a world where it's so easy to connect we are. We have hundreds of friends on Facebook but many of us are lacking what we really need: just one that knows who we are through and through and that we really know too. Oh sure, I know how many kids you have, where you went on vacay last week and when you got back. I even know what the inside of your house looks like, how your doctor appointment went. But truly, I don't know a damn thing about you, and you don't know a damn thing about me.
I'm sick of fake. Fake friends, fake photos, fake breasts, fake food, fake plants, fake charities, fake smiles, fake interest, fake small talk, fake and plastic through and through.
I'm sincere, I'm blunt, I'm bitchy, I'm whiney, I'm exuberant at times. And I am done with fake. I'm making over my life one real and true thing at a time. My likes, hugs, friends, time and love will be real. And if I don't mesh with you and you don't mesh with me, let's handle this third grade style and just not play together anymore. I promise, you don't need to Facebook friend me as a consolation prize.
Join me?
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
When the world is puddle wonderful...
This.
Is all that matters in life.
And one day I hope that both I and my son can always feel the joy that this photo gives me. I love these little people so much. And moments, just like this, steal my heart away and make me feel like crying and jumping for joy, and just cuddling my children and keeping them forever with me, and yet, helping them learn and letting them go into the world to give the world what they are, all at the same time.
Love, it's such a crazy thing. It's impossible to ever fathom the love of a parent before you are one. It's impossible to realize how emotions can mix together: happiness, adoration, frustration, anger, exhaustion, pride, into a slew of mud. And then those children, that cause all those emotions, play and jump in that mud and have the time of their lives. And that, is what being a parent is.
[in Just-]
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
UGH...The Pessimistic Mother to the Pessimistic Child
I've been having a hard time lately. Just a darn hard time. I was under the impression that once my children were no longer infants or toddlers that life was just going to magically be easier. Well, I. Was. Mistaken. I have to admit, I both hate and love 5 years old. Life isn't easier. In fact, it seems much harder and a lot more frustrating. I have read so many blog posts lately about parenting simultaneously being the best and most horrible thing at the same time. And for me, it is. I mean I ADORE my children. I ADORE being a parent. And each moment with my children is the best thing that has ever happened to me.
After putting that out there, I have to say, that I feel so damn guilty all the time. I feel that I'm not doing enough, giving them enough, spending enough quality time with them. I'm so sick of this pinterest, super parent culture because it is yet another thing I cannot live up to. I just can't. I can't make sure they only watch 30 minutes of TV a day. I can't read to them for hours. I can't make sure that each moment in their life is educational. I can't force my kids to learn to read at age 5 even though his peers are, because, he isn't there yet. I can't justify homeschooling when my kids are "academically behind." I feel so inadequate. So inept.
Right now, at this moment, my child is yelling at me. Because he thinks he is right. Because he is super intelligent and is able to justify everything. Because at age 5 he should be a lawyer. If his sister is hitting him and I put her in a time out, he will come over to me and argue that she was simply being a child and that there is no need to place her in time out. After hitting the dog, and getting into trouble, he will not stop talking until he has the last word. Just this morning after getting a talking to from his teacher about fighting with another child he told her that their talk took up 40 minutes and its as a waste of his school morning. THE. LAST. WORD. ALL. THE. DAMN. TIME!!! He is the same child that after a day of going to the zoo, getting ice cream, having a picnic, playing all afternoon on the trampoline, and getting his favorite supper, will forget all the fun happenings of the day and declare it absolute shit because I won't let him sleep in a tent outside that night. There is nothing I can do to show this child he has a good life. There is no "perfect day" that is perfect enough. And it saddens me because I see my depression. I SEE IT. He cannot look past one bad thing and fixates on it so heavily that all is shit. He doesn't understand how his sister can find a penny on the ground and her day is the best day ever. I don't feel that it's the product of spoiling my child as I say no much more than I say yes. My child does not have a room full of toys. In fact, we went through his things and donated much of it. I don't know what it is, but to me it's a parenting fail.
And this frustration leads to me pulling away. I can't do it all, so I do what I can, I feel it's not enough. This theme hits me over and over again. It's a me fail. It's me. I cannot live up to the expectations of myself that I have built up in my head. So I try and do it all and I can't and so I make stricter expectations and the cycle repeats. I expect too much of myself and don't know how to stop. And this, this is what my child does to himself.
In a talk we had the other day, we worked on this phrase: "It's okay to be wrong, because that's how I learn things." And I feel that I, ME, Elisa, needs to learn this also. "It's okay not to be everything. I am just a human. If I love, if I do my best, that is all that is needed." We'll see how my pessimistic child and his pessimistic mother pan out.
After putting that out there, I have to say, that I feel so damn guilty all the time. I feel that I'm not doing enough, giving them enough, spending enough quality time with them. I'm so sick of this pinterest, super parent culture because it is yet another thing I cannot live up to. I just can't. I can't make sure they only watch 30 minutes of TV a day. I can't read to them for hours. I can't make sure that each moment in their life is educational. I can't force my kids to learn to read at age 5 even though his peers are, because, he isn't there yet. I can't justify homeschooling when my kids are "academically behind." I feel so inadequate. So inept.
Right now, at this moment, my child is yelling at me. Because he thinks he is right. Because he is super intelligent and is able to justify everything. Because at age 5 he should be a lawyer. If his sister is hitting him and I put her in a time out, he will come over to me and argue that she was simply being a child and that there is no need to place her in time out. After hitting the dog, and getting into trouble, he will not stop talking until he has the last word. Just this morning after getting a talking to from his teacher about fighting with another child he told her that their talk took up 40 minutes and its as a waste of his school morning. THE. LAST. WORD. ALL. THE. DAMN. TIME!!! He is the same child that after a day of going to the zoo, getting ice cream, having a picnic, playing all afternoon on the trampoline, and getting his favorite supper, will forget all the fun happenings of the day and declare it absolute shit because I won't let him sleep in a tent outside that night. There is nothing I can do to show this child he has a good life. There is no "perfect day" that is perfect enough. And it saddens me because I see my depression. I SEE IT. He cannot look past one bad thing and fixates on it so heavily that all is shit. He doesn't understand how his sister can find a penny on the ground and her day is the best day ever. I don't feel that it's the product of spoiling my child as I say no much more than I say yes. My child does not have a room full of toys. In fact, we went through his things and donated much of it. I don't know what it is, but to me it's a parenting fail.
And this frustration leads to me pulling away. I can't do it all, so I do what I can, I feel it's not enough. This theme hits me over and over again. It's a me fail. It's me. I cannot live up to the expectations of myself that I have built up in my head. So I try and do it all and I can't and so I make stricter expectations and the cycle repeats. I expect too much of myself and don't know how to stop. And this, this is what my child does to himself.
In a talk we had the other day, we worked on this phrase: "It's okay to be wrong, because that's how I learn things." And I feel that I, ME, Elisa, needs to learn this also. "It's okay not to be everything. I am just a human. If I love, if I do my best, that is all that is needed." We'll see how my pessimistic child and his pessimistic mother pan out.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
A Couple Raw Favorites & a cooked oddball
Tonight we are going to use a raw recipe that has become one of my ultimate favorites. Raw, vegan taco "meat". It's super nummy and pretty easy. As long as you have a dehydrator that is. If you don't have one, I think you can turn your oven down to it's lowest setting and dehydrate a bit that way. Not sure how that changes the cooking time or if it kills the living enzymes in the food or not. We have an Excalibur dehydrator and really love it. This recipe is adapted from Going Raw by Judita Wignall. Lots of her recipes use mushrooms which we can't have so I had to adopt it a bit. If you eat meat you can still make this and serve it up with your meat. Why not? It tastes taco-y and has lots of veggies in it.
Taco Seasoned Veggie Meat
2 cups unsoaked raw brazil nuts
4 cups finely diced zucchini
1/2 cup minced onion
1/2 minced celery
1/2 cup chili powder
1/4 cup lemon juice
1-2 tsp. sea salt. Make sure to use less if there is salt in your chili powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Place nuts in food processor and grind into a flour. Combine nut flour with rest of ingredients. Spread mixture onto 2 dehydrator trays with non stick sheets. Dry at 110F for 1 1/2 hrs. Transfer to mesh dehydrator sheet and dry for another hour. Do not over dry. Enjoy!
We use this in flax taco shells, in a taco salad, for nachos, whatever. Tonight we are being non-raw, non-vegans and I am breaking out the eggs for the kids and we are making a super veggie scramble, mostly veggies, little egg, combining that with our "taco meat" and wrapping it all in a homemade raw red pepper wrap with some salsa. MMM. I'm not sure on the rules of posting recipes straight out of cookbooks, that you don't alter or change in anyway, so I'm not posting the wrap recipe today.
One of our favorites desserts these days is a raw apple cobbler with maple cream. We alter it a bit to be consistent with our dietary guidelines and tastes. If you are reading this as a raw food interested party, I'm hoping it'll have enough sweetness for you. We go easy on the sweets around here. If you are an anti-fungal interested party, this is kind of phase 2 friendly. Raisins and dates aren't allowed. But we figure if we eat it once every couple months and don't cheat otherwise at least both raisins and dates are a whole food instead of empty sugar. Plus, we all gotta live a little. I'll post our version here. If you'd like the original, which includes more sweetness and uses can sugar, please refer to Judita's cookbook.
Topping
1 cup pecans, soaked 2-4 hours
2 Tbsp xylitol
2 Tbsp raisins
2 Tbsp Medjool dates
1/8 tsp salt
Filling
1 Tbsp agave nectar (raw preferred)
1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
3 cups (2-3 large) apples, cored and thinly sliced (We like the peels since we feel they have a lot of nutrition in them. Feel free to peel if you don't like them).
Maple cream (we use this very, very sparingly)
1 cup cashews, soaked 2 hours
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup water
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
Topping: Combine pecans with xylitol in a food processor and process till you get a course meal. Add raisins, dates and process until it all kind of sticks together. Don't over process or it'll become too oily.
Filling: Combine nectar, lemon juice and pumpkin pie spice. Toss apples in the mixture.
Maple Cream: Process all ingredients in a high speed blender till smooth.
Assemble: Put apples in a 9 inch round pie dish or 1 qt. baking dish. Place apples in dish and sprinkle with topping. Warm in dehydrator at 145 for 1 hour. Top each serving with a touch of maple cream and enjoy.
Store cobbler and cream separate in refrigerator. Cobbler will keep for 3 days. Cream will keep for 2 weeks. Our kids like to use leftover cream as apple dip.
Lastly, I kind of sort of made up a recipe for a phase 1 friendly stir fry, cooked. If you have no idea what I mean by phase 1 and phase 2 and such, pay no attention to it. Either way, this is nummy and pretty healthy. This is also extremely versatile. Everyone likes more sauce or less sauce, more salt or less salt. So please just use this as a base and go from there. Take a look at how many ingredients go into something and then assess how much you need to make for your family. I'll post the actual recipe for the sauce and just give you serving suggestions for the rest.
Sauce:
2 Tbsp unrefined cold pressed coconut oil (you can use butter if you eat it)
Dash of salt (omit if using salted butter)
2 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp coconut aminos
1 Tbsp xylitol
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 Tbsp-1/4 cup cashews
Melt coconut oil in small sauce pan. Add 2 cloves of garlic and cook slightly. Add rest of ingredients besides cashews and whisk together. Cook long enough to heat through. Add cashews just before serving.
Serving suggestions: Steam broccoli, carrots, asparagus, etc. Serve veggies over bed of quinoa cooked with 1/2 water, 1/2 veggie broth (make sure it's MSG and icky stuff free. Either make it yourself or actually find a good brand without all the gross crap in it), 2 cloves garlic, & parsley. Fresh parsley is best, but dried works fine too. Start with 1-2 Tbsp fresh or 1-2 tsp dried. Follow liquid directions specific to your brand of quinoa and how much you are making. Drizzle sauce over veggies and quinoa, enjoy! If you eat meat feel free to add some chicken or whatever you would like with it.
I'm the kind of cook that always looks a recipe and alters it to my liking. So for the recipe above I just make as much as I feel we are going to use for the night. My kids don't eat stir fry. So cooking up the amount stated is more than enough sauce for us. But if your whole family is going to partake, you might want to double it.
Well, off to make my veggie meat. If you have any recipes to share, please let me know! Or if you think some of these suck or are amazing, please feel free to also let me know. :)
Taco Seasoned Veggie Meat
2 cups unsoaked raw brazil nuts
4 cups finely diced zucchini
1/2 cup minced onion
1/2 minced celery
1/2 cup chili powder
1/4 cup lemon juice
1-2 tsp. sea salt. Make sure to use less if there is salt in your chili powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Place nuts in food processor and grind into a flour. Combine nut flour with rest of ingredients. Spread mixture onto 2 dehydrator trays with non stick sheets. Dry at 110F for 1 1/2 hrs. Transfer to mesh dehydrator sheet and dry for another hour. Do not over dry. Enjoy!
We use this in flax taco shells, in a taco salad, for nachos, whatever. Tonight we are being non-raw, non-vegans and I am breaking out the eggs for the kids and we are making a super veggie scramble, mostly veggies, little egg, combining that with our "taco meat" and wrapping it all in a homemade raw red pepper wrap with some salsa. MMM. I'm not sure on the rules of posting recipes straight out of cookbooks, that you don't alter or change in anyway, so I'm not posting the wrap recipe today.
One of our favorites desserts these days is a raw apple cobbler with maple cream. We alter it a bit to be consistent with our dietary guidelines and tastes. If you are reading this as a raw food interested party, I'm hoping it'll have enough sweetness for you. We go easy on the sweets around here. If you are an anti-fungal interested party, this is kind of phase 2 friendly. Raisins and dates aren't allowed. But we figure if we eat it once every couple months and don't cheat otherwise at least both raisins and dates are a whole food instead of empty sugar. Plus, we all gotta live a little. I'll post our version here. If you'd like the original, which includes more sweetness and uses can sugar, please refer to Judita's cookbook.
Topping
1 cup pecans, soaked 2-4 hours
2 Tbsp xylitol
2 Tbsp raisins
2 Tbsp Medjool dates
1/8 tsp salt
Filling
1 Tbsp agave nectar (raw preferred)
1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
3 cups (2-3 large) apples, cored and thinly sliced (We like the peels since we feel they have a lot of nutrition in them. Feel free to peel if you don't like them).
Maple cream (we use this very, very sparingly)
1 cup cashews, soaked 2 hours
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup water
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
Topping: Combine pecans with xylitol in a food processor and process till you get a course meal. Add raisins, dates and process until it all kind of sticks together. Don't over process or it'll become too oily.
Filling: Combine nectar, lemon juice and pumpkin pie spice. Toss apples in the mixture.
Maple Cream: Process all ingredients in a high speed blender till smooth.
Assemble: Put apples in a 9 inch round pie dish or 1 qt. baking dish. Place apples in dish and sprinkle with topping. Warm in dehydrator at 145 for 1 hour. Top each serving with a touch of maple cream and enjoy.
Store cobbler and cream separate in refrigerator. Cobbler will keep for 3 days. Cream will keep for 2 weeks. Our kids like to use leftover cream as apple dip.
Lastly, I kind of sort of made up a recipe for a phase 1 friendly stir fry, cooked. If you have no idea what I mean by phase 1 and phase 2 and such, pay no attention to it. Either way, this is nummy and pretty healthy. This is also extremely versatile. Everyone likes more sauce or less sauce, more salt or less salt. So please just use this as a base and go from there. Take a look at how many ingredients go into something and then assess how much you need to make for your family. I'll post the actual recipe for the sauce and just give you serving suggestions for the rest.
Sauce:
2 Tbsp unrefined cold pressed coconut oil (you can use butter if you eat it)
Dash of salt (omit if using salted butter)
2 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp coconut aminos
1 Tbsp xylitol
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 Tbsp-1/4 cup cashews
Melt coconut oil in small sauce pan. Add 2 cloves of garlic and cook slightly. Add rest of ingredients besides cashews and whisk together. Cook long enough to heat through. Add cashews just before serving.
Serving suggestions: Steam broccoli, carrots, asparagus, etc. Serve veggies over bed of quinoa cooked with 1/2 water, 1/2 veggie broth (make sure it's MSG and icky stuff free. Either make it yourself or actually find a good brand without all the gross crap in it), 2 cloves garlic, & parsley. Fresh parsley is best, but dried works fine too. Start with 1-2 Tbsp fresh or 1-2 tsp dried. Follow liquid directions specific to your brand of quinoa and how much you are making. Drizzle sauce over veggies and quinoa, enjoy! If you eat meat feel free to add some chicken or whatever you would like with it.
I'm the kind of cook that always looks a recipe and alters it to my liking. So for the recipe above I just make as much as I feel we are going to use for the night. My kids don't eat stir fry. So cooking up the amount stated is more than enough sauce for us. But if your whole family is going to partake, you might want to double it.
Well, off to make my veggie meat. If you have any recipes to share, please let me know! Or if you think some of these suck or are amazing, please feel free to also let me know. :)
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Just a couple recipes. Gluten free, anti-fungal diet friendly.
Just a quick stop off today to post some recipes. My cousin and a few other people have recently asked me for recipes. Most of these will be following the anti-fungal part of our diet since I'm posting mainly for my cousin Heather. But I'll make sure to post some vegan and raw ones in the future. These are a few transitional recipes that my kids take kindly to. So hopefully yours will too. For my cousin Heather, make sure to look at labels in everything. Sugar, corn and soy bean is hiding everywhere. If you don't know what a name is in the ingredients, google it. Chances are it's some form of one of those three things.
We don't eat meat, but I'm going to add in a few meat suggestions since a majority of people do. :)
Wheat Free, Anti Fungal, Sugar Free Pizza (has some dairy in it since we occasionally eat organic plain yogurt, cream cheese or sour cream)
Crust: Simple Flatbread Pizza
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups almond flour
3/4 cup tapioca flour
1/3 cup ground flax or ground chia seeds (you can also grind seeds in a coffee grinder)
1 tsp. xylitol
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
3 organic eggs
1/3 cup plain yogurt
Any dried herbs with sea salt (Italian seasoning, etc)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl combine almond flour, tapioca, ground flax or chia, xylitol, baking soda and salt. In a small bowl, blend eggs and yogurt with an electric mixer for about 30 seconds. Add the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and use mixer to stir to combine until it forms a sticky, wet dough. Pour batter into a 12x16 jelly roll pan/cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Smooth batter out with a spatula so it's thin and even. Sprinkle herbs and sea salt. On center rack of oven bake at 350 for 8 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Don't over bake or it'll be too dry.
Pizza Sauce- Uses canned ingredients but it's fast and good. Use organic if possible. You can also heat some up on the stove to use for dipping.
15 oz. can tomato sauce
6 oz. can tomato paste
1 Tbsp ground oregano
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp xylitol
1/2 tsp baking soda
dash onion powder
1 1/2 tsp basil
Mix all and put over baked crust. Top pizza with toppings of your choice. We LOVE green, red and yellow peppers, onions, zucchini, spinach. If you are a meat eater add meats of your choice. Just make sure to slather on lots of sauce, lots of veggies. You won't miss the cheese at all. If your kiddos do, go ahead and put a little bit of cream cheese in a baggie, cut the corner off and pipe a little "frosting" on the pizza. Cook for 15 minutes in oven at 350.
Amaranth Pancakes
-We combine these with strawberry, blueberry, mixed berry or green apple syrup. Whichever one we feel like on a given day. For example: If we want strawberry syrup, I take a bunch of frozen strawberries, throw them in a pan with about 2 Tbsp water and about 1 Tbsp xylitol, and a cap full of lemon juice. I cook them on medium high heat just to get it unfrozen a touch and then turn it down till the strawberries are soft and there is a bit of juice. We just throw that on the pancakes and it's super easy. We skip the butter and just put on the syrup.
2 eggs beaten
1/2 cup almond milk
2 tsp oil (we just grape seed for this)
1/2 cup amaranth flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/3 cup arrowroot starch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
In a medium bowl beat eggs. Then add almond milk and oil. Add remaining ingredients, mix well. Heat griddle or pan to medium high and cook until bubbly, flip and cook till done.
Almond Pancakes. Also good.
1 1/2 cup almond flour
3 eggs
1/4 cup almond milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp xylitol
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon.
Mix and cook.
Smoothies: We start each morning off with a whole food smoothie. Meaning we throw a couple carrots, some grapefruit, 2 green apples, spinach or other green like parsley, chard, etc, and perhaps some frozen berries into a blender. Our vitamix blends this just fine but a normal blender will probably need some water or unsweetened coconut milk to get it going. These smoothies are thick but will give you a great start to the day. If you can't stand them right away go ahead and add a bit of xylitol or stevia to sweeten it a little.
Avocado Pudding:
2 ripe avocados1/2 cup cocoa powder1/2 cup raw agave nectar (phase 2. Phase 1: use 1/4 cup xylitol and see if it's sweet enough for you. If not, add 1/4 tsp of liquid stevia and test again. Xylitol can have a laxative effect so I personally wouldn't add 1/2 cup of it. But you can do as you wish)1/2cup almond milk2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cut avocados in half, discard seed and scoop meat into blender. Add rest of ingredients. Blend, enjoy.
Ok, that's it for now. Off to get some work done. :)
We don't eat meat, but I'm going to add in a few meat suggestions since a majority of people do. :)
Wheat Free, Anti Fungal, Sugar Free Pizza (has some dairy in it since we occasionally eat organic plain yogurt, cream cheese or sour cream)
Crust: Simple Flatbread Pizza
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups almond flour
3/4 cup tapioca flour
1/3 cup ground flax or ground chia seeds (you can also grind seeds in a coffee grinder)
1 tsp. xylitol
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
3 organic eggs
1/3 cup plain yogurt
Any dried herbs with sea salt (Italian seasoning, etc)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl combine almond flour, tapioca, ground flax or chia, xylitol, baking soda and salt. In a small bowl, blend eggs and yogurt with an electric mixer for about 30 seconds. Add the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and use mixer to stir to combine until it forms a sticky, wet dough. Pour batter into a 12x16 jelly roll pan/cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Smooth batter out with a spatula so it's thin and even. Sprinkle herbs and sea salt. On center rack of oven bake at 350 for 8 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Don't over bake or it'll be too dry.
Pizza Sauce- Uses canned ingredients but it's fast and good. Use organic if possible. You can also heat some up on the stove to use for dipping.
15 oz. can tomato sauce
6 oz. can tomato paste
1 Tbsp ground oregano
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp xylitol
1/2 tsp baking soda
dash onion powder
1 1/2 tsp basil
Mix all and put over baked crust. Top pizza with toppings of your choice. We LOVE green, red and yellow peppers, onions, zucchini, spinach. If you are a meat eater add meats of your choice. Just make sure to slather on lots of sauce, lots of veggies. You won't miss the cheese at all. If your kiddos do, go ahead and put a little bit of cream cheese in a baggie, cut the corner off and pipe a little "frosting" on the pizza. Cook for 15 minutes in oven at 350.
Try making a taco salad.
If you are doing anti-fungal there aren't really any chips that will work. Possibilities: Taco meat (we use zucchini meat but you can use real if you eat meat), seasoned with 3 Tbsp. of taco seasoning (recipe below), lettuce, pico or salsa without vinegar or sugar (it's tough), fresh peppers, onions, fresh (not canned) jalapeños, avocado, cilantro, a small touch of lime, guacamole, a small, dab of sour cream if you are eating it. You can eat your veggies raw or sauté them. It's up to you. I do have recipes for flax taco chips but you need a dehydrator for them.
Taco seasoning: You can buy huge containers of spices at Sams club or if you know of a place where you can buy spices in bulk, great.
1/4 cup chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp paprika
2 Tbsp cumin
3/4 tsp sea salt (We don't like things super salty. Try this first but if after your first batch you feel it's not salty enough, you can add a touch more)
Combine. It's real easy to shake it all together in a ziplock back. Store in airtight container.
Creamy Berry Buckwheat: Found here: http://www.knowthecause.com/OurDailyBlog/tabid/96/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1190/Creamy-Berry-Buckwheat.aspx
-We combine these with strawberry, blueberry, mixed berry or green apple syrup. Whichever one we feel like on a given day. For example: If we want strawberry syrup, I take a bunch of frozen strawberries, throw them in a pan with about 2 Tbsp water and about 1 Tbsp xylitol, and a cap full of lemon juice. I cook them on medium high heat just to get it unfrozen a touch and then turn it down till the strawberries are soft and there is a bit of juice. We just throw that on the pancakes and it's super easy. We skip the butter and just put on the syrup.
2 eggs beaten
1/2 cup almond milk
2 tsp oil (we just grape seed for this)
1/2 cup amaranth flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/3 cup arrowroot starch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
In a medium bowl beat eggs. Then add almond milk and oil. Add remaining ingredients, mix well. Heat griddle or pan to medium high and cook until bubbly, flip and cook till done.
Almond Pancakes. Also good.
1 1/2 cup almond flour
3 eggs
1/4 cup almond milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp xylitol
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon.
Mix and cook.
Smoothies: We start each morning off with a whole food smoothie. Meaning we throw a couple carrots, some grapefruit, 2 green apples, spinach or other green like parsley, chard, etc, and perhaps some frozen berries into a blender. Our vitamix blends this just fine but a normal blender will probably need some water or unsweetened coconut milk to get it going. These smoothies are thick but will give you a great start to the day. If you can't stand them right away go ahead and add a bit of xylitol or stevia to sweeten it a little.
Avocado Pudding:
2 ripe avocados1/2 cup cocoa powder1/2 cup raw agave nectar (phase 2. Phase 1: use 1/4 cup xylitol and see if it's sweet enough for you. If not, add 1/4 tsp of liquid stevia and test again. Xylitol can have a laxative effect so I personally wouldn't add 1/2 cup of it. But you can do as you wish)1/2cup almond milk2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cut avocados in half, discard seed and scoop meat into blender. Add rest of ingredients. Blend, enjoy.
Ok, that's it for now. Off to get some work done. :)
Monday, April 23, 2012
Our ever evolving diet (as in, what we actually eat)
Wow. Well needless to say, blogging is not my strong suit. Then again, it all boils down to time management and THAT is really my weakness. There are not enough hours in the day to do near the amount of things I'd like, especially sleep! People out there with schedules that work please, please share your wisdom with me.
Well, on to what I came here to post about. Food, food and more food. It's no secret to people that know us that J and I are the weirdoes in the Wisconsin Northwoods when it comes to food. And lately it's gotten even more weird. My parents a few months ago decided to get these books and change their life by changing what they eat. J and I have long known that what you eat has a direct link to how you feel so we just kind of ignored it. However, my mom pushed and pushed till we finally read The Fungus Link series of books by Doug Kaufmann. If you search out this guy, some people say it makes sense, others say he is a quack. So decide for yourself. J and I decided that since we already knew a bit about fungus, at least candida that we'd try it and see how things went. After all, a few years back I had done a candida detox with the help of a holistic nutritionist and things worked out quite well for me. I felt amazing, so there was no reason not to try this, and we really did feel that the reasoning made a lot of sense. Especially given the fact that I don't even know anyone who doesn't have acid reflux issues, weight issues, etc.
Let me first prep by saying this. Under this LIFESTYLE change, you cut out sugar, corn, wheat, most forms of dairy, most fruits, etc. There is a REASON for this but it took this guy 3 books to explain why so I'm not getting into it. But notice I didn't say MEAT. Well, J and I don't eat meat and haven't for years and so adding it back in to follow some guys' advice wasn't really an option. So, after eating the 3 recipes that didn't include meat in Doug's cookbook, we decided to take a different route. We started eating more Raw foods. Really, it's 11 p.m. and this is the only time I can find to blog, so I'm not going to go into details and perhaps I can keep blogging so that people can understand my children really do eat well. But I figured I'd give an overview of how things are going.
For the most part in any given week we go through about 4-5 cookbooks and a few online recipes to plan our meals for the week. We have completely cut out normal sugar and the above mentioned things. So what the hell do we eat? Well, we started out with a few cookbooks. Out of all the ones we have, I use Going Raw by Judita Wignall the most. Recipes we love: We love to use her zucchini taco meat, combine that with a whole bunch of veggies, peppers, lettuce, etc., and place it in her red pepper tortilla and have tacos. We have also loved her spaghetti bolognese, burgers (skip the bun hassle and eat it in a romaine leaf), etc. We can't eat any yeast or mushrooms or soy though, so we leave out the nutritional yeasts & shrooms and sub coconut aminos for any soy product.
But on a given week we don't just eat raw. We do feel that our kids need a bit more so we make sure to have a touch of organic cream cheese, organic eggs, and occasionally sour cream. Why? Well, we feel it's the best of both worlds. In nature animals like gorillas and orangutans get bugs in with their food and eat them. Am I going to eat bugs? No. Do I think it makes sense for humans to be the only animal to eat the milk of another animal or even milk at all past infancy? No. But am I a nutritionist and can I understand how cave men ate and what exactly humans need when doctors can't even agree? No. So I'll eat a bit of dairy, at least the stuff that is in accordance with my anti-fungal part of my diet. We also cook things in any given week. We did have a few cooked soups this week. We sometimes cook wheat free, rice free, corn free pancakes. Etc. We used to do a lot of vegan recipes and use a lot of the vegan substitutes for things like cream cheese and stuff, but my thinking on that has changed a bit. I feel that the more natural the better. I couldn't even pronounce some of those ingredients and it dawned on me that who cares if it's animal free, it's not chemical free. I don't want to feed my kids draino just because it's vegan.
So what am I trying to say with all this blathering? DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY. When we first started with raw foodism we kept reading about people who were so far that their kids were losing their teeth and they kept referring to it as a detox symptom. UM no. I will not sacrifice the health of my kids for any dogma. If they aren't thriving well on a mostly vegan 3/4 of the time raw diet, then it's time to reassess. And fast.
So onto a few of our simple favorites:
We LOVE fruit leather. Puree any fruits you have. J and I can only have berries and green apples. So I take 2 green apples, skins on, and a whole bunch of berries, frozen or fresh, puree, dump and spread on a dehydrator sheet, dehydrate at 110 for maybe 9 hours and eat. The kids get all kinds of fruit leathers though. Banana pear mango. Apple Orange. Whatever. You can even add some spinach into the mix and you'll never know. And YOU DON'T need to add sugar, so don't!
Replace xylitol in recipes asking for sugar. We can't have agave, maple syrup or honey (only on special occasions), but xylitol works amazing. Try it, use it, mmmm. We are getting used to less sugary tastes so I sometimes use 1/2 the xylitol that the recipe calls for. Xylitol can have a laxative effect if you consume tons, so just use your judgement.
Popped amaranth works awesome for a breakfast cereal. It's not raw but it's nummy. Put a pan on stove and heat on high, quickly spray with some cooking spray and pop it just like popcorn. Serve with some fresh berries, and some almond milk. My kids love it. (PS: There is a learning curve. Don't get upset if you burn some and maybe even google how to do it if you are having trouble)
Raw sorbet: Take 1/2 lime, 1 lb of frozen strawberries, 1 cup of water and 1/4 cup of xylitol (or agave if you choose). I only put in 2 Tbsp of xylitol and we think it's amazing but the original recipe calls for 1/4 cup agave. You probably need a high speed blender for this to get creamy enough. We use a Vitamix.
For special occasions any of the raw food desserts are amazing. Be careful though. Just because agave nectar is the sweetheart sweetener of the raw world, doesn't mean it's always ok and amazing. Most of the desserts we've tried we find are too sweet. I feel that making super duper sweet desserts just sets us all up to need the taste of sugar. Berries are sweet enough by themselves, we don't need to add 2 Tbsp of agave nectar to them. Use your own judgement. Once you get used to less sugar you will be amazed how cloyingly gross certain traditional desserts can seem. I usually keep it a rule to use 1/2 the amount called for. And they always turn out amazing.
Our supper food menu last week:
Nachos using flax chips, lettuce, raw taco "meat", jalapeños, peppers, fresh pico. Added a touch of cream cheese and sour cream to the kids'.
Tomato fettuchini using zucchini spiraled into noodles
Pizza using a raw pizza crust, lots of peppers, onions, raw sun dried tomato sauce.
Banana crepes filled with fresh fruit, cashew cream and a strawberry sauce with lots of fruit on side.
Raw veggie burgers, kale chips (chips were cooked)
Scrambled eggs with lots of peppers and onions wrapped in homemade raw red pepper wraps with rutabaga "hash browns".
Raw "falafel" wrapped in lettuce leaves with zucchini hummus, carrots, cucumber dill yogurt sauce (homemade).
I have amazing recipes (cooked) for carrot & apple muffins, cooked and uncooked desserts, and just food, but let's take one step at a time.
I hope to get some actual recipes up sometime soon. But for now it's late and I'm off to bed. ;)
Well, on to what I came here to post about. Food, food and more food. It's no secret to people that know us that J and I are the weirdoes in the Wisconsin Northwoods when it comes to food. And lately it's gotten even more weird. My parents a few months ago decided to get these books and change their life by changing what they eat. J and I have long known that what you eat has a direct link to how you feel so we just kind of ignored it. However, my mom pushed and pushed till we finally read The Fungus Link series of books by Doug Kaufmann. If you search out this guy, some people say it makes sense, others say he is a quack. So decide for yourself. J and I decided that since we already knew a bit about fungus, at least candida that we'd try it and see how things went. After all, a few years back I had done a candida detox with the help of a holistic nutritionist and things worked out quite well for me. I felt amazing, so there was no reason not to try this, and we really did feel that the reasoning made a lot of sense. Especially given the fact that I don't even know anyone who doesn't have acid reflux issues, weight issues, etc.
Let me first prep by saying this. Under this LIFESTYLE change, you cut out sugar, corn, wheat, most forms of dairy, most fruits, etc. There is a REASON for this but it took this guy 3 books to explain why so I'm not getting into it. But notice I didn't say MEAT. Well, J and I don't eat meat and haven't for years and so adding it back in to follow some guys' advice wasn't really an option. So, after eating the 3 recipes that didn't include meat in Doug's cookbook, we decided to take a different route. We started eating more Raw foods. Really, it's 11 p.m. and this is the only time I can find to blog, so I'm not going to go into details and perhaps I can keep blogging so that people can understand my children really do eat well. But I figured I'd give an overview of how things are going.
For the most part in any given week we go through about 4-5 cookbooks and a few online recipes to plan our meals for the week. We have completely cut out normal sugar and the above mentioned things. So what the hell do we eat? Well, we started out with a few cookbooks. Out of all the ones we have, I use Going Raw by Judita Wignall the most. Recipes we love: We love to use her zucchini taco meat, combine that with a whole bunch of veggies, peppers, lettuce, etc., and place it in her red pepper tortilla and have tacos. We have also loved her spaghetti bolognese, burgers (skip the bun hassle and eat it in a romaine leaf), etc. We can't eat any yeast or mushrooms or soy though, so we leave out the nutritional yeasts & shrooms and sub coconut aminos for any soy product.
But on a given week we don't just eat raw. We do feel that our kids need a bit more so we make sure to have a touch of organic cream cheese, organic eggs, and occasionally sour cream. Why? Well, we feel it's the best of both worlds. In nature animals like gorillas and orangutans get bugs in with their food and eat them. Am I going to eat bugs? No. Do I think it makes sense for humans to be the only animal to eat the milk of another animal or even milk at all past infancy? No. But am I a nutritionist and can I understand how cave men ate and what exactly humans need when doctors can't even agree? No. So I'll eat a bit of dairy, at least the stuff that is in accordance with my anti-fungal part of my diet. We also cook things in any given week. We did have a few cooked soups this week. We sometimes cook wheat free, rice free, corn free pancakes. Etc. We used to do a lot of vegan recipes and use a lot of the vegan substitutes for things like cream cheese and stuff, but my thinking on that has changed a bit. I feel that the more natural the better. I couldn't even pronounce some of those ingredients and it dawned on me that who cares if it's animal free, it's not chemical free. I don't want to feed my kids draino just because it's vegan.
So what am I trying to say with all this blathering? DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY. When we first started with raw foodism we kept reading about people who were so far that their kids were losing their teeth and they kept referring to it as a detox symptom. UM no. I will not sacrifice the health of my kids for any dogma. If they aren't thriving well on a mostly vegan 3/4 of the time raw diet, then it's time to reassess. And fast.
So onto a few of our simple favorites:
We LOVE fruit leather. Puree any fruits you have. J and I can only have berries and green apples. So I take 2 green apples, skins on, and a whole bunch of berries, frozen or fresh, puree, dump and spread on a dehydrator sheet, dehydrate at 110 for maybe 9 hours and eat. The kids get all kinds of fruit leathers though. Banana pear mango. Apple Orange. Whatever. You can even add some spinach into the mix and you'll never know. And YOU DON'T need to add sugar, so don't!
Replace xylitol in recipes asking for sugar. We can't have agave, maple syrup or honey (only on special occasions), but xylitol works amazing. Try it, use it, mmmm. We are getting used to less sugary tastes so I sometimes use 1/2 the xylitol that the recipe calls for. Xylitol can have a laxative effect if you consume tons, so just use your judgement.
Popped amaranth works awesome for a breakfast cereal. It's not raw but it's nummy. Put a pan on stove and heat on high, quickly spray with some cooking spray and pop it just like popcorn. Serve with some fresh berries, and some almond milk. My kids love it. (PS: There is a learning curve. Don't get upset if you burn some and maybe even google how to do it if you are having trouble)
Raw sorbet: Take 1/2 lime, 1 lb of frozen strawberries, 1 cup of water and 1/4 cup of xylitol (or agave if you choose). I only put in 2 Tbsp of xylitol and we think it's amazing but the original recipe calls for 1/4 cup agave. You probably need a high speed blender for this to get creamy enough. We use a Vitamix.
For special occasions any of the raw food desserts are amazing. Be careful though. Just because agave nectar is the sweetheart sweetener of the raw world, doesn't mean it's always ok and amazing. Most of the desserts we've tried we find are too sweet. I feel that making super duper sweet desserts just sets us all up to need the taste of sugar. Berries are sweet enough by themselves, we don't need to add 2 Tbsp of agave nectar to them. Use your own judgement. Once you get used to less sugar you will be amazed how cloyingly gross certain traditional desserts can seem. I usually keep it a rule to use 1/2 the amount called for. And they always turn out amazing.
Our supper food menu last week:
Nachos using flax chips, lettuce, raw taco "meat", jalapeños, peppers, fresh pico. Added a touch of cream cheese and sour cream to the kids'.
Tomato fettuchini using zucchini spiraled into noodles
Pizza using a raw pizza crust, lots of peppers, onions, raw sun dried tomato sauce.
Banana crepes filled with fresh fruit, cashew cream and a strawberry sauce with lots of fruit on side.
Raw veggie burgers, kale chips (chips were cooked)
Scrambled eggs with lots of peppers and onions wrapped in homemade raw red pepper wraps with rutabaga "hash browns".
Raw "falafel" wrapped in lettuce leaves with zucchini hummus, carrots, cucumber dill yogurt sauce (homemade).
I have amazing recipes (cooked) for carrot & apple muffins, cooked and uncooked desserts, and just food, but let's take one step at a time.
I hope to get some actual recipes up sometime soon. But for now it's late and I'm off to bed. ;)
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