Animal Fat Skin Creme!
The winter issue of Wise Traditions contains a wonderful article on making skin creme from beef or sheep tallow and Radiant Life sells a soothing tallow body balm. See The Prairie Homestead for instructions on how to render beef tallow.
Kombucha Mushroom Snack!
Keeping children fed can be a full time job and sometimes full of surprises! We made salmon jerky today, using the recipe from Nourishing Traditions. Bedtime snack was a kombucha mushroom!
Don’t forget to register for the Healthy Life Summit. It’s a free online conference with 35 talks on real food, farming, kids’ health and sustainable living.
Congratulations to Sarabeth Matilsky for her devoted process of healing her family! Her latest blog describes what her family eats three years after embarking on the GAPS diet. Sarabeth lives in upstate NY and is an inspiring reminder that change is possible! I encourage you to check out her blog that includes some great recipes:
http://www.lifeisapalindrome.com/updates/what-we-eat-recipes
I also recommend Machaelle Small Wright’s book/e-book, The Perelandra Garden Workbook. This link includes times for the coming equinox and solstice cycle and an excerpt that explains why we recognize and celebrate solstice and equinox days with nature. She has a very simple but profound ceremony.
It’s pussy willow time!
and the equinox arrived this morning March 20th around 7 am.
Lately, my girls have snubbed alot of my food. Is it the age (they are seven, almost 8)? Is it that my food is not very tasty lately due to stress and distraction? Is it some imbalance in their gut flora? Or are their bodies wanting/needing something I haven’t figured out yet? All these issues follow me around and haunt me in the kitchen, everyday. I do not like to hear my children say they don’t like what I just made for them. I love it when they say “this is delicious soup, Mommy!” and thankfully, I do get both. Tonight I got the thumbs up:
Left over lentils (originally soaked overnight and slow cooked in half broth, half water)
Hijiki, parboiled
Broccolli bits and shredded carrots
Sauteed celery and red onions
Zesty organic tomato sauce
Cream
Chicken stock that was very rich in gelatin
Served over rice noodles, or plain with some yogurt
Grilled cheese sandwich (sourdough bread with raw cheddar).
Bingo!
Tomato sauce and cream are life savers that add flavor and satisfying fats to a soup. We also like cake. And we like New York. So, we created a…
New York Chocolate Cake! (gluten free)
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 cup grated beets (or carrots)
4 eggs
1 cup grated apples (2 large or 3 small apples)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup melted butter (melted lard to make these dairy free-it’s just as good!)
1 cup cocoa powder
½ cup sugar of choice (optional, the apples and beets provide enough sugar)
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Shred apples and beets or carrots
Mix dry ingredients into a bowl: (coconut flour, baking soda, salt, shredded coconut, cocoa)
Whisk eggs in a separate bowl to combine the yolks and whites
Mix in the vanilla extract
Stir in the grated apples and beets and the butter
Mix wet ingredients into dry and stir well
Taste for sweetness and add optional sugar if needed for your taste)
Pour into buttered 9 inch cake pan
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until knife pulls out clean.
Ice with cream cheese/honey icing:
1 lb cream cheese, 1/2/ cup butter, add honey to taste.
Mix in food processor.
Decorate with fresh strawberries and blueberries.
It would make a good 4th of July cake too!
