Many Paths, One Journey to Health

So, I can not believe that I haven't flipped through this book sooner. The Holistic Moms Network has had a cookbook out for a few years and just recently published a second one. Well, on Wednesday Mary brought both with her to our leaders meeting to help give me some ideas for my topic of "Living Green on a Budget" at the next meeting. So once nap time finally rolled around that afternoon I sat down and flipped through both of the books and all I have to say is WOW!!! I think these books are going to be the most useful of all of my cookbooks (and trust me there are many). First of all they aren't just about one way of cooking, the are almost all inclusive with vegan and vegetarian, raw, macrobiotic and even an awesome section on fermented foods. Not only does this book contain many, many yummy looking recipes (even many that I think my kids would even eat) but there is also an entire section for remedies and other recipes.

Seriously, I had never even thought to make my own Elderberry Syrup. If you have never heard of this, it is a great immune boosting syrup that I give to my entire family religiously through the fall and winter. Well, at about $13 per 4oz. bottle of Sambucol passed out to a family 6 (well, only 5 take it) equals not lasting long and costing A LOT of money. The money that is going to be saved this fall/winter will be great.

Well anyway, I have been watching "Julie & Julia" a lot on one of the movie channels the past few weeks and this has given me an idea...I am going to work my way through the second HMN cookbook "Many Paths, One Journey to Health" and write about how it tasted or worked for my family.

The first item on the list was window cleaner. I was out of my natural brand of cleaner and was just thinking about googling a homemade batch when this book fell into my hands.

The ingredients are water, vinegar and a drop of dish soap (or Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap), I mixed it up in a spray bottle (I just rinsed out the empty one I had from the natural brand) and went about spraying the windows. This window cleaner gets an A+ in my book!!!! I sprayed and wiped down the windows with a micro fiber cloth and my windows have never been cleaner. I have sliding glass doors by my kitchen table that seem to always have toddler hand prints all over them. This stuff cut right through those nasty prints and left my windows clearer than ever. They might have even been perfectly crystal clear if I had some old crumpled news paper to wipe them with, but oh well we do not get one.

All I can say is that "window cleaner" will never be on my grocery list ever again.