2 Bigs + 4 Littles under 1 Midsize Roof = Life As We Know It

Goodwin children (from left: Brenda, Nora, Sonya and Kenneth); Safford, Arizona; 1974.

Hemmings children (from left: Keillor, Kerrick, Kennah and Kellen); Tempe, Arizona; 2010.

I thought it would be fun to show my sisters and I wearing the coordinating Easter dresses my mom made for us when we were young, and then show Kennah wearing the dress I made for her this year. (My brother and my sons had to settle for store-bought attire in these photos, but I’ve promised my boys that I’ll try to at least give their Easter shirts some mom-made attention next year.) Here are a few more fun shots of Kennah (and her baby doll, Mary) wearing their matching dresses. (I don’t know how my mom made three whole dresses for her daughters several years in a row! It was all I could manage to put together one dress—plus a quarter-size replica—in the weeks leading up to today!)

Kennah in her "sparkly pink butterfly" confection—because it reminds me of cotton candy—of an Easter dress.

Perfect match: Kennah and Mary.

I have been busy in the kitchen lately—just haven’t had a lot of time to write about it! So I’ll attempt today to catch you up on what’s been cooking, culturing and otherwise coming together (or not) around our house.

First, I finally made homemade fermented mayonnaise, following the recipe in Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon. It turned out a beautiful yellow color because of the pastured eggs, small amount of grainy mustard and extra-virgin olive oil in the mixture. To both ferment the mayo and allow it to keep for a longer period, I added liquid whey that I had kept from a batch of yogurt cheese I’d made a few weeks earlier. The mayonnaise has a wonderful, tangy flavor, and we’ve especially enjoyed it in egg-salad and tuna-salad sandwiches. (I toned down the taste at first by mixing it with our usual store-bought safflower mayonnaise. Nobody even noticed!)

My next new adventure was making water kefir. I had been wanting to try this for a long time, but I finally got motivated to make water kefir when I needed it as an ingredient in a gluten-free sourdough starter (more on that later). Water kefir is a probiotic beverage cultured with kefir grains specifically dedicated to that purpose. After culturing, it can be flavored with fruit or juice and even carbonated for a healthy soda-pop-like drink. I made strawberry lemonade from my first batch of water kefir. I loved it, but it was a little on the tart side (too much lemon juice, not enough pureed strawberries) for the kids. And it did get slightly carbonated after I stored it in an airtight, flip-top bottle, but not as much as I’d thought it might. I’m continuing the experimentation with each new batch, trying out different flavors to see what the family likes best.

The rest of my Kitchen Life lately has revolved around the lessons in Wardeh Harmon’s GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse. So far, I’ve soaked and dehydrated almonds (the first thing I made in my new Excalibur dehydrator!), soaked and cooked brown rice, and made soaked muffins and pancakes. Next on my list is soaked biscuits and pasta, plus soaked beans. If you’re wondering what all of the soaking is about, I’m learning about the importance of soaking grains, nuts and legumes with a small amount of acid, such as apple cider vinegar, to eliminate phytic acid (which prevents mineral absorption) and enzyme inhibitors (which make foods difficult to digest). Wardeh will be offering the eCourse again later this year, and if you missed it this first time around, I encourage you to sign up and see how easy it really is to adapt your cooking to traditional, real-food methods.

Finally, I’ll mention my not-so-successful attempt to make a loaf of gluten-free sourdough bread. I got off to a good start with my starter (brown rice flour boosted by water kefir), which I fed for five days before mixing up the bread ingredients. Unfortunately, my bread didn’t rise at all, and the loaf turned out to be a flat brick that was chewy and unbearably sour. I e-mailed the author of the recipe, and together we determined that my starter might have become overfermented, and that my substitution of a half cup of millet flour for chickpea flour was apparently detrimental. I’ve heard that sourdough can be tough to master—and that gluten-free sourdough is even trickier. Still, I’m undeterred and will keep trying until I get it right one of these days. I have a different recipe to try, and I hope I can get to it this week. Stay tuned!

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister blog carnival hosted by www.gnowfglins.com. To link to today’s Tuesday Twister on that site, click here.

Shawn has always been a big fan of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, so when I saw a healthier homemade version of this treat circulating on some of the blogs I follow, I knew I had to try it. My friend Wardeh Harmon wrote about it two weeks ago (click here to see her results at www.gnowfglins.com), and she found the original recipe here, on a blog called Oceans of Joy.

First, I soaked raw organic peanuts overnight in salted water to neutralize the nuts’ enzyme inhibitors. Then I dehydrated them almost completely in the oven the next day. (I didn’t get them quite as crispy as I would have otherwise because I planned to grind them into peanut butter. Next time, I think I will crisp them up all the way to impart a more roasted flavor.) I placed them in my Vita-Mix (another blender or food processor would work, too) with a bit of sea salt and ground them until they were smooth. It wasn’t what I would call creamy peanut butter—it was a bit crumbly, actually. But I knew that I would be adding coconut oil, honey and vanilla to it to make the peanut-butter cups, so I decided that was OK. And it was. Next I made the chocolate mixture, and then I began layering the chocolate and peanut-butter filling into heart-shaped candy molds. It was a little time-consuming, but not difficult. I popped the filled molds into the freezer, and after dinner I surprised Shawn with his Valentine’s Day treat.

We both liked the peanut-butter cups, although the chocolate layers were the tiniest bit bitter. Next time, I think I’ll add a touch more honey—or maybe even melt in some Enjoy Life brand (dairy-free and soy-free) chocolate chips—to make the sweets just a little sweeter.

Nothing else in my Kitchen Life was new this past week, but that, I’m excited to say, is about to change. I enrolled in the GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse (which I wrote about here), and I’ve been preparing for the lessons that will begin after the enrollment period ends Feb. 22. I ordered a free sourdough starter (which I hope will arrive before Lesson 12: How to Make Sourdough Bread!). I’ve lurked a little in the forum, where other enrollees have written introductions and shared resources. And I watched instructor Wardeh Harmon’s sneak-peak video detailing how to make her basic soaked muffins. You can tune in, too, by clicking here.

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister blog carnival hosted by www.gnowfglins.com. To link to today’s Tuesday Twister on that site, click here.

…from Kellen (who created an army of candy-covered robots)…

…from Kerrick (who assembled button-candy cell phones with sweet text messages)…

…and from Kennah (who combined beauty and brains—in the form of fancy folded cardstock rings wrapped around rolls of Smarties) in her creations.

Handmade valentines are a tradition at our house (though I admit that sometimes we all look longingly at the hassle-free boxed cards at the store—complete with elaborate treats or cute tattoos). These are the designs the kids chose this year (from one of the places we usually look for ideas, www.familyfun.com). With a little (OK, a lot of) encouragement from me, they worked really hard for several days to cut out, color, glue or tape and address each one. Kellen, Kerrick and Kennah were so proud of their painstaking efforts and excited to give the end results to their friends. And the projects did kick some character-building qualities—creativity, problem-solving and stick-to-it-iveness—into high gear for each of them. It was enough to warm this crafty mom’s heart—at least until this time next year, when we get set to do it all again. Gotta L-O-V-E it!

My Kitchen Life got off to a great start this past week with something that I hope will get a lot of my mornings off to a great start over the coming weeks: a Grapefruit Smoothie, inspired by several dozen grapefruits my friend Juli supplied me with after she read my recent post about our backyard lemons and oranges (click here to read about our citrus supply). As we dug into the grapefruits—eating some and juicing some—I decided to look for some recipes that would help me use them more creatively. A Web search yielded a couple of good ideas, which I cobbled together to make a healthy and delicious blended drink. We’ve been enjoying it for breakfast, but it would make a great treat anytime of the day! (Click here to see the recipe.)

This week I also used some of the pecan butter I made last week in a batch of Pecan Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. I used a recipe that I had previously adapted to make dairy-free, egg-free and gluten-free almond butter cookies. They came out darker than usual (probably because the pecan butter is darker than almond butter), but soft and chewy and amazing. (Click here for that recipe.)

A question posed by Wendy in the comments about my Kitchen Life post last week prompted me to include some details here about two of the kitchen items I use and write about regularly but haven’t ever really explained. The first is Rapadura, a brand name for the dehydrated cane-sugar juice supplied by organic food company Rapunzel. As an unrefined sweetener, Rapadura’s mineral content remains intact and lends it a hint of molasses flavor. It can be substituted in equal amounts for white sugar in recipes. Another brand name for it is Sucanat, distributed by Wholesome Sweeteners. I have used both brands with much success—especially in cookies, cakes and muffins. Sometimes, when I don’t want as much molasses flavor (as in the case of say, ice cream), I blend it half and half with a slightly more refined organic sugar. And although it’s not always necessary, I tend to grind the large granules of Rapadura/Sucanat to a finer powder in my Vita-Mix.

Which brings me to the next kitchen item I want to mention. A Vita-Mix is a high-performance blender, food processor and grain grinder. I was first introduced to one about five years ago, when my parents bought one. After seeing what it could do, I begged to borrow it to make baby food and grind gluten-free grains into flour. They graciously agreed, and I’ve been hooked ever since. When my parents hinted that they would like their Vita-Mix back, I purchased my own machine. It’s a pricey piece of kitchen equipment (starting at $450), but it has a seven-year warranty and, along with its top competitor Blendtec, has helped set the industry standard for high-power, multifunctional blenders. The only drawback is that it is SO LOUD when it operates that I have to warn everyone to plug their ears or leave the vicinity. Still, I’m not exaggerating when I say I use it daily—often many times a day—to make everything from soup to nut butters. I puree pizza sauce, make hummus and churn butter in it, too. While I no longer need to make baby food, I’m definitely still at the task of grinding grains. And you can bet that I’ll be using it—while wearing the hearing-protection ear muffs I occasionally borrow from my husband’s wood-working shop in the garage—the next time I whip up a Grapefruit Smoothie.

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister blog carnival hosted by www.gnowfglins.com. To link to today’s Tuesday Twister on that site, click here. And if you’d like information about the GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse offered by real-food blogger Wardeh Harmon, click on the affiliate link below.

…you were wondering whether Wardeh Harmon’s GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse will work for you if you have a special or limited diet, she has answered that question in a post that features both audio and print explanations about how her lessons in traditional food-preparation methods can work in your kitchen. Whether food allergies or personal preferences have you avoiding such things as dairy, eggs, gluten, soy, corn, nuts or refined sweeteners, most of the lessons include techniques and recipes that allow for substitutions. And the step-by-step methods she’ll be sharing will likely make your diet much less limited and even more special.

To read and/or hear Wardeh address this question in her own words, click on the banner below to be directed to her post. Enrollment in the eCourse opens today and closes on Feb. 22.

Please note: It is my goal to provide a top-quality, content-driven, ad-free blog. That said, I do occasionally include affiliate links in some of my posts. For example, if you click on the banner above, you’ll link to a site where you can learn much more about the GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse. And if you decide to enroll after clicking through from my site, I’ll receive a commission—for which I thank you. But even if I didn’t stand to benefit in any way from sharing what I’ve written here, I honestly wouldn’t change a word.

. . .(or freezing, in one case) in my kitchen this week: sprouted lentils, pecan butter, strawberry ice cream with strawberry sauce, and a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free version of soaked muffins.

I got the idea from my friend Wardeh Harmon at www.gnowfglins.com to sprout some lentils and add them to grass-fed ground beef as a way to make the meat stretch and add some extra nutrition to our usual taco filling. I wasn’t sure whether it would alter the taste too much—or what my family would think of the idea. But the lentils blended right into the meat and spices (cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, oregano, salt and pepper) without any noticeable taste or texture differences. And after questioning the appearance of the filling initially, my family had no problem heaping it onto their plates. What I loved best of all was that sprouting 1 1/2 cups of lentils and adding it to 1 pound of ground beef made enough filling to feed our family of six for two whole dinners!

After trying my hand at almond butter a couple of weeks ago, I decided I might want to try the same process with some of the pecans that have been stored in my freezer for awhile. I wasn’t sure what to expect, having never seen pecans made into a butter. What I got (after following the soaking and dehydrating process outlined in Nourishing Traditions) was a rich, dark spread—more earthy than the sweeter-tasting almond butter, but really good. I’ve tried it on pancakes and, as pictured here, packed into a halved and cored apple.

Inspired by Wardeh’s recent posts featuring Best Chocolate Ice Cream and Basic Chocolate Syrup—and by a desire to use the frozen organic strawberries I recently got from Azure Standard—I made dairy-free strawberry ice cream and topped it with strawberry sauce. I used coconut milk as the base for the ice cream, plus about two cups of strawberries and a 1/2-cup mixture of Rapadura and organic sugar (powdered in the Vita-Mix). The sauce was simply more strawberries pureed with a little sugar in the Vita-Mix and drizzled over the top. The ice cream froze to a firmer consistency than my past attempts, thanks to Wardeh’s tip not to overfill the freezing canister. It could have used a bit more sweetening, and my husband felt like the coconut flavor overpowered the strawberry flavor, but as it disappeared pretty quickly, I’d say nobody really minded.

I’d been wanting to try Wardeh’s Basic Soaked Muffins for awhile, and I finally got around to making her version (using soft white wheat) as well as a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free version (using an all-purpose blend of gluten-free flours—buckwheat, millet, sorghum and sweet rice) that Kellen could eat (pictured here). I added raisins to both batches, and was really pleased with the results. We had them for breakfast for several days before they, too, were all gone.

It’s probably pretty evident from this post—as well as many others I’ve written—that Wardeh Harmon is a real inspiration in my real-food endeavors. And she can be for yours, too. If you need basic recipes and techniques—as well as encouragement and ideas—for converting your kitchen to traditional food-preparation methods, I hope you’ll consider enrolling in her GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse. (I wrote about it in this post.) You can also click on the “Simple Plan, Healthy Food” image below to read more about what the course will include. Enrollment begins Friday, Feb. 5!

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister blog carnival hosted by www.gnowfglins.com. To link to today’s Tuesday Twister on that site, click here.

. . .what do you make? Our answer: As much as we can! When Shawn and I first moved into our little house in 1997, we were fortunate to find our lot already graced with established and producing trees: one orange, one lemon and one pecan. We didn’t know a lot about how to care for them and ensure that they would continue to thrive, but we’ve made some mistakes and learned a lot during the past 13 years—and while we apparently still have a lot to learn (such as how to keep the heavily laden branches of our lemon tree from breaking under the weight of all the fruit, and why some of our oranges aren’t as juicy as others), we somehow manage to have a pretty decent harvest each year. Right now, the citrus is in its prime and ready to be picked. Though our trees are about the same size (and presumable the same age), the orange tree yields probably about 100 to 150 pieces of fruit each season, while its proliferous neighbor gives us about two or three times as many lemons.

So what do we do with it all? Well, we give some of it away and trade more of it with neighbors and friends who grow other fruit (grapefruits, tangerines). But most of it we keep! For the next few weeks, we’ll be picking, zesting, juicing and freezing what we can to use throughout the year. Sure, we drink some of the orange juice and make plenty of lemonade. But we try to keep plenty on hand for use in a few of our favorite recipes, too—including a batch or two of bite-size lemon tarts (from a recipe in The Lemon Lovers Cookbook, by Peg Bailey) to citrus-roasted chicken, flavored by stuffing halved lemons and oranges into the cavity before cooking (a method recently shared by a friend).

Right now, lemons, oranges and pecans are the only foods we grow—although we hope to expand on that in the coming years. I’d love to know what you grow—and how you handle all that you harvest!

And speaking of growing, I’m also hoping to expand on my knowledge of traditional food-preparation methods by enrolling in the GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse offered by my friend Wardeh Harmon, who has planned a 15-week online class to teach simple methods for making healthy foods. I hope you’ll read what I wrote about the eCourse by clicking here, and consider joining us! And you have until next Wednesday (Feb. 3) to enter a giveaway for free enrollment. Click here for details!

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister blog carnival hosted by www.gnowfglins.com. To link to today’s Tuesday Twister on that site, click here.

Please note: It is my goal to provide a top-quality, content-driven, ad-free blog. That said, I do occasionally include affiliate links in some of my posts. For example, if you click on the book cover above, you will link to Amazon.com, where you will have an opportunity to purchase it—and if you do buy it after clicking through from my site, I will receive a small commission to support my work here, as well as my own book-buying habit. Seriously, though, I’d be just as happy if my recommendations inspired you to check out the title from your local library or borrow it from a friend. And the banner for the GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse is also an affiliate link to much more information about the eCourse and its offerings, as well as an opportunity to sign up when enrollment begins.

. . .reasons why you’ll want to enroll in the GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse scheduled to begin next month and developed by my friend Wardeh Harmon at www.gnowfglins.com:

1. Health. Whether you’ve recently become interested in the real-food movement or you’ve been committed for awhile now to preparing real, whole foods for your family, you’re no doubt aware of the health benefits that go along with eliminating processed, industrial foods from your diet and replacing them with what Wardeh calls GNOWFGLINS—God’s Natural, Organic, Whole Foods, Grown Locally, In Season. In each of the 15 lessons included in the eCourse, Wardeh will answer three basic questions about the nourishing, traditional foods she explores:
• What is this food and/or technique? What ingredients do I need?
• Why should we eat a certain food or prepare it a certain way?
• How is the technique carried out or how is this food prepared?

2. Time. Maybe you’ve watched the documentary Food, Inc. and read all of the real-food best-sellers (Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle; Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma; Nina Planck’s Real Food) but you have no idea where to start when it comes to implementing the ideas they present in a practical way that fits your busy schedule. Or, perhaps the mere thought of having to wade through every sidebar and recipe on the 675 pages of the weightiest real-food tome of all—Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions—is enough to give you a migraine. Why not learn the basics—in a simple, methodical way—from someone who’s done the research and has a wealth of practical experience to share? Wardeh promises you won’t be overwhelmed by her simple plan that will take you through one step at a time.

3. Quality. I’ve had a chance to preview some of the things in store for those who enroll in this eCourse, and the attention to detail and multimedia presentation setup is incredible. Each lesson will be available 24/7 on a private Web site in print, audio and video formats to accommodate the learning style that works best for you—and so that you won’t miss a thing, whether you choose to read, listen, watch or do all three! I have followed Wardeh’s blog for about three years now, and I can vouch for her ability to present information in a thorough, down-to-earth way.

4. Quantity. You’re going to get an amazing amount of advice, ideas, recipes and techniques here—including printable guides you’ll refer to time and again, as well as access to freebies and resources that won’t be available on Wardeh’s blog. Among other things, she’ll teach you how to sprout beans and grains, cook pastured chickens and make stock, bake sourdough bread and brew water kefir (a probiotic beverage that can help you kick a soda habit).

5. Money. The eCourse costs $27 per month for five months (a total of $135)—a bargain considering the wealth of information you’ll obtain toward converting your kitchen into a real-food haven. And Wardeh offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can’t go wrong by trying it for a month to see whether it’s something that will work for you.

6. Mentorship. Whether you’ve read my blog since The Beginning (my first post) or this is the first post you’ve perused, you’ve probably gathered that Wardeh Harmon—though she doesn’t know it—has been my unofficial mentor as I’ve explored and experimented with real food. (Actually, she’s probably guessed that that’s the case, as I’ve asked her at least 1,095 questions—that’s one a day for the past three years—all of which she has graciously, patiently and satisfactorily answered!) And, as someone who’s got the heart of a teacher, she’ll do the same for you. Seriously, IMHO, you won’t get better guidance from anyone else for making these changes in the way you cook and eat. And if you sign up for the eCourse, Wardeh won’t be your only mentor: Everyone who’s enrolled can exchange ideas and share recipe results in a special forum. I’m planning to be there! How about you?

Please note: It is my goal to provide a top-quality, content-driven, ad-free blog. That said, I do occasionally include affiliate links in some of my posts. For example, if you click on the banner above, you’ll link to a site where you can learn much more about the GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse. And if you decide to enroll after clicking through from my site, I’ll receive a commission—for which I thank you. But even if I didn’t stand to benefit in any way from sharing what I’ve written here, I honestly wouldn’t change a word.