Hamburger Helper

I actually don't like hamburger helper - it just tastes kinda gross and makes me feel sick afterwards. But a homemade hamburger helper? Now that's actually pretty good! It came to me a few weeks ago when I was making the kids macaroni and cheese that a little meat would make the meal a little better. I love eating it with leftover roast beef but alas we didn't have any. But we did have some cooked ground beef leftover from something else.

So here's my "recipe"

Cooked noodles
Epicures Macaroni and Cheese powder
Butter & whipping cream
Cooked ground beef
Cheese to sprinkle on

Mix together and voila! How easy is that?! Certainly just as easy as the boxed version - but way better :)

Bread Day!

T0day was bread day. Always a very busy day! I make my bread using organic wheat that grows near here. I buy the grains from the farmer and grind them myself. Usually I make 5 batches of bread but today I made 6. Each batch has 5 cups of flour in it - so today I used 30 cups of flour! Here is the recipe that I am currently using:

Start the grinder. Measure 8 cups of grains into the hopper. (today I did this 3 times)

Sift the flour 3 times. (I remove a lot of the germ and bran as it is hard to digest without sprouting or fermenting (like sourdough) and it just makes my bread really dense)

Measure 2 cups of warm water - pour into bread machine.


Add 2 tsp. of salt.


Add 1 large tablespoon of honey.


Melt coconut oil on the stove. Pour 1/2 cup of melted oil into machine.


Add 5 cups of sifted flour.


Add 1 1/4 tbsp of instant dry yeast.

Put tired baby to bed :)



Once the machine starts mixing put the timer on for 8 minutes. Turn machine off and put into an oiled bowl to rise.



After about an hour punch the dough down and form into loaves or buns.


(this bowl holds three recipes of bread - or 15 cups of flour)

Let rise until doubled - about an hour or so.



Bake at 350 F. 45 minutes for bread. 20 minutes for buns.



Clean up the kitchen - then enjoy :)

When you can't swallow pills

When TR and I were first married he had to have a drink with absolutely EVERYTHING. Nothing could be swallowed without some liquid close by. I would give him a plate of supper and forget the drinks and he would just look at me - "Where's the juice?"

And even with the drink nearby he would still choke. Not often - but enough to be scarey.
I remember driving to the hospital with a little patch of ice scraped off the window, hardly able to see rushing to the hospital because he was choking.

I remember camping - several hours away from any hospitals - and him choking.
Just remembering these moments is enough to bring the fear back.
He has a narrow throat. Has from the time he was just a toddler. He would choke on everything.

Dairy products make it worse and if he stayed off of dairy he wouldn't choke nearly so much. It actually got to the point that he would even eat without a drink nearby! Hurray!

But then it slowly was coming back.

I went on a trip to P.R. with my sisters and while we were there shopping he calls me and says that he is on his way to G.P. because he has a pill stuck in his throat and the hospital at home couldn't do anything about it. Luckily for him it went down shortly after and he didn't have to go. But scarey nonetheless.

A few years after that when he was getting some tests done we found out why he always chokes and why he can still breath even though he is choking.

He has a narrowed throat. Close to his stomach it gets smaller. They call it a hiatus hernia.
Anyway to make a long story shorter this hernia was the reason he was choking. He had his throat stretched a few times, and that does help. But he still can't swallow pills. Even little itty bitty ones that looks so easy to me are hard for him. But with his colitis he needs vitamins. Right now he isn't on any prescription drugs (Praise the Lord!!!!!!!!!!) but without the vitamins he takes he gets sick. So . . . . all of that to say this. He opens the capsules and empties them into orange juice. And then he swallows it in a few big swigs.

I am just so proud of him! His multi-vitamin is awful. It smells gross and it taste even grosser. But he takes it and I just feel so thankful that he does it even though it is hard.

And in case you were curious here is what he takes:
~ Liquid multi-vitamin from Garden of Life
~ Vitamin D from Garden of Life
~ Alfafa - from Solar-Ray
~ Kambucha - from Garden of Life

Honey Mustard Chicken

Okay - so it has been a LONG time! Yikes! But I will try to start adding some ways that we eat healthier on this blog. And I'll start with a re-made recipe!

In the cookbook (Health and Hospitality) it is called Honey Baked Chicken but we always called it
Honey Mustard Chicken

1 3/4 pound chicken, cut up
1/3 cup margarine
1/3 cup honey
2 tbsp. mustard
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. curry powder

Prepare oven to 350 F. Arrange chicken in shallow pan, skin side up. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over chicken.Bake for 1 and 1/4 hours, basting every 15 minutes until nicely brown and tender. Good served with rice.

Growing up this was one of my favourite meals and it still is - but definitely not the healthiest. And not the quickest either. And who has time to baste every 15 minutes? Since we switched over to butter I've used butter in place of margarine - which makes it a little healthier, but expensive. I love the sauce so I often double or triple the sauce and that adds up to a lot of butter. So I decided to try to substitute it again and it worked great! I couldn't even tell! And I felt much better eating it knowing that I wasn't just spooning butter into my mouth :) I tripled the recipe, so I will give you those amounts:

1 cup honey
1/3 cup butter
2/3 cup homemade chicken broth (or store bought if that's what you have)
Canned Chicken with all bones removed (I used my homemade canned chicken, but even leftover cooked chicken would work great!)
6 large squirts of mustard
1 tsp salt (I don't like adding too much salt so I often do less than it calls for)
3/4 tsp curry. (I like the curry taste but find that the amount of the original recipe is a little strong for our family's tastes)
Turmeric powder mixed in olive oil (turmeric is a great anti-inflammatory and very healthy. It's taste is not very strong and we couldn't even tell I had added it. I maybe did 1/2 tsp or so. The olive oil stabilizes it and your body gets more from the turmeric that way.)
Black pepper

It was great! If I hadn't said anything TR would not have even known and I hadn't done it myself I never would have known either!

Amalgam

Lately TR has been suffering from his Colitis again. Having a 'flair up'. We've definitely been more relaxed in our diet and not being as careful when at other people's homes, but TR discovered some information yesterday that makes us question whether there's more than just our diet at fault.

His discovery?

Some people have connected mercury poisoning with colitis (along with several other diseases/disorders.).

Where are we exposed to mercury?

Teeth. More specifically, the silver fillings to fix cavities. They are almost 50% mercury.

Please join us in prayer as we try to find a specialist who can answer our questions and perform the removals.

And take a look at this if you're interested in a first-hand account:

http://www.mercurypoisoned.com/rob_sherwood.html


TR found from everything he was reading yesterday that all those with Colitis who had their fillings removed and replaced with other kinds of non-mercury fillings became colitis free! From everything I've read about mercury this doesn't surprise me at all. Mercury is very damaging to the body, even in small amounts. Anyway, please pray for us as we look into this. It would be a very expensive and time consuming ordeal, we want to make sure it would work.

Thankful

I am so thankful that my eyes have been opened in the last year. It's hard to face the truth about what you're eating and breathing. Hard to make changes. Hard to pay more. Hard to realize that no matter what you do, it will never be perfect. In fact the more I learn, the more I realize how much more I could change.

And yet, I'd rather have that then ignorance. I want to do what I can to live cleaner, healthier, to protect and care for this earth - to be a good steward of what God has entrusted to my care. I want to pass this on to my children.

I read a very good book recently that opened my eyes a little more. It's called "Having Faith" by Sandra Steingraber. She talks about unborn babies and the chemicals/pollutions that cause them harm in the womb. She also talks about breastfeeding and the toxins in breast milk. A lot of things are hard to control - but ignorance won't change anything. A great read - a little scary. But we should be scared! Hiding our heads in the sand won't do anything but cause more harm.

Anyway, just wanted to share. Here's the link if you want to read a bit about the book.

http://steingraber.com/books/having-faith/

Broccoli Beef Stir Fry

I was reading this blog the other day and this recipe caught my attention. Super good!!!!! We had it with rice noodles and I added onions, red peppers and mushrooms.

http://www.lynnskitchenadventures.com/2011/05/broccoli-beef-stir-fry.html