Better Brownies

I do not have enough space in my house to store the hundreds of cookbooks that I would love to have so I rely heavily on the library and the internet for new and exciting recipes for my family. My only issue with searching the internet is that when you put in a dish it is hard to search through the hundreds and even thousands of recipes to find one that has healthy ingredients. It seems that one after another has yucky cream of something, vegetable oil, corn syrup and my list goes on. Also, I am very much an impromptu cook. I never plan for anything and I very rarely have all of the ingredients that are needed so I am always trying to find something that will work in its place. Sometimes it turns out fantastic and sometimes it goes straight into the trash.

Well, today I typed in "brownies" as I was appointed the task of making brownies for a play date tomorrow. I clicked on the first recipe that came up and I was disappointed to see the first ingredient be vegetable oil. What I did like though was the simplicity of it though. So I was looking around wondering what I could substitute for the vegetable oil. At first my eyes went to my very expensive bottle of grapeseed oil but considering that I needed a half of a cup from my small 12 oz. bottle I was less than thrilled. Then I remembered the 54 oz. tub of organic coconut oil in my pantry (thanks again Liz!!), I thought the nutty sweetness would be perfect for brownies. Next on the list, white sugar...that's a no brainer, throw in organic evaporated sugar cane juice plus some organic, pastured eggs. As for the vanilla extract, I have been out for months and trying to use up my bottle of almond extract and it is so yummy. Whole wheat flour is pretty much always used in place of all purpose flour in our house. Unsweetened cocoa powder is something I just never remember to pick up when I am stocking my pantry for baking items but carob powder is always in there. Also, having a really good quality salt is extremely important. I really urge you to look into Real Salt, which is the only salt that we ever use in our home. Now look at that...boring not so great for your body ingredients all replaced with interesting ones that are a much better choice.

I will admit that it took some work to get the coconut oil to cooperate. If you try this recipe please remember to liquify your oil before trying to mix. I did not and had to heat up the outside of my mixer bowl with hot water and then move on to mixing everything together. After getting everything mixed together I took a quick little taste test before pouring it into the pan and I was blown away!!!! The batter was so good! I think that the next time I make these I may even try and go egg free and use the flax seed egg replacer.

Next, what came out of the oven were some of the yummiest tasting brownies I have had in a long time. So yummy that the ladies will be lucky if I even have any left for the play date tomorrow.

If you are looking for a new brownie recipe please try this and be sure to let me know what you think.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup organic evaporated sugar cane juice
  
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 organic, pastured eggs
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup carob powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder (aluminum free)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon Real salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease (with coconut oil) a 9x9 inch baking pan.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the oil, sugar, and vanilla. Beat in eggs. Combine flour, carob, baking powder, and salt; gradually stir into the egg mixture until well blended. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the brownie begins to pull away from edges of pan. Let cool on a wire rack before cutting into squares.

Rethinking Meat

For about 7 years of my life I was a very strict vegetarian. I guess you could say that I became a bit of a hippy when I went off to college, I certainly dressed the part and I decided that giving up meat was the right way to go. Though I have to admit it was difficult coming home for Thanksgiving telling my parents that I gave up meat because of all of the chemicals while smoking a Marlboro Light, but I digress. For the most part I was very content with my decision.

In 2002 I became pregnant with Zola and I started to be more concerned about my diet because now I had a whole other life that I needed to feed. So after talking with a fellow student at my massage therapy school and doing some research I decided that I would start to incorporate some fish into my life. I started to notice that just by adding a portion of fish about once a week that I was feeling better and had a little more energy through the pregnancy. I continued on with eating occasional fish after the pregnancy.

Ten months after Zola was born I discovered that I was pregnant with Ajay. I was really craving meat through this pregnancy. I used to go out on my lunch break from work to a deli that served an amazing ham pot pie (pot pie in PA is much different from other places, it is like a thick, creamy, doughy stew), it had huge hunks of ham that I would pick out and toss and I tried to calm my cravings with just the flavors of the ham.

It was the same way when I was pregnant with Taj, any time I had the chance I would have beef gravy on my food to once again try to calm my cravings for meat.

As the years have gone on and I have researched different types of diets I have started to rethink my vegetarian ways. Perry used to be into eating for your blood type and the books said that type O (me) should not be vegetarian and that a little red meat was good for our bodies.
But knowing what I know about meat there was no way that I could eat just any old meat.

One of the biggest factors for making the switch was reading the cookbook Nourishing Traditions and my introduction to the Weston A. Price Foundation.

Last fall I was talking with Perry about how I was thinking about slowly incorporating some meat back into my diet, but it would strictly have to be organic meat. So he put me in contact with a customer at the co-op that raises organic free range chickens. She was just about to butcher so I bought 3.

I thought that I was going to cook these and feed them to my family and reserve the bones to make broth for myself to eat. At the time I really didn't have any intention on eating the meat. It was kind of scary how when that 1st chicken came out of the oven how easily I dove into it. Perry sat there staring at me as I tore the meat off of the bones enjoying every bite. A few weeks later I was given a pound of local grass fed organic beef. I decided to make meat balls with it for Perry and the kids, once again when they came out of the oven they smelled too good to resist. So now about once per week I have been enjoying a big plate of meat for dinner.

I believe that is where the answer lies for a great way to eat. Listen to your body. Give your body what it is craving but in the healthiest form possible.

Not as Yummy, but Healthier!!!

Homemade "Doritos"

Ok, so they don't taste exactly like a Dorito (though I want to make these again when I have some Wildtree taco seasoning) they are still very yummy.

Ingredients:
Corn Tortillas (organic)
Grape Seed Oil
Seasoning and Salt
(I had Cajun and Fajita on hand)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil both sides of the tortilla, stack all of them and cut with a pizza cutter. Arrange in a single layer on your baking sheet and season. Bake for about 9 minutes or until a nice golden brown. Enjoy!!!

I have made these before, but I had only salted them. Having these healthy seasonings in my cupboard has opened a brand new door to my homemade chips. The next time I make these I think that a garlic blend could be really yummy.

So, maybe I really bit the big one when it came to selling Wildtree, but maybe I could get a job in their test kitchen.

I have been trying to make more and more of our food from scratch and my reasons were certainly validated at our recent Holistic Moms Network meeting! This was the first time that I had heard about Morgellons Disease and it's link to GMO's. It really is frightening and I don't understand why we aren't standing up as a nation and fighting for our food!!!! Here is a great site and source for foods to avoid and foods that are safe.

Now, I am off to the store to buy a GM free baking powder, ugh.

Fun with Flax

I think that this was probably one of the coolest things I have made in a while. Who know that you could make an egg replacer from flax seeds. I do have to say that it does slightly resemble that thing from the movie "Flubber." It does work though, I made banana bread later that day and I think it was probably the tastiest loaf that I have made to date. I think that flax seed egg replacer will be a staple in my baking for now on.

After this cool experiment I decided to try another recipe that called for ground flax seed. The kids and I made a batch of raw cookies. Well, ours were semi raw since I didn't have raw carob chips or agave (I used regular chocolate chips and maple syrup). We mashed all of the ingredients together and rolled them into little balls. They were a little hesitant to try them, but the four of us managed to eat them all up by that evening and they have been asking for more ever since.

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.