Allergen-Free Thanksgiving

photo by Deiru

Two years ago I had my first allergen-free Thanksgiving, and I blogged my recipe list here. I'm so glad that I did, because I've been able to refer to the list for the past two years to remind me what I wanted to tackle. Last year's Thanksgiving was up in Indiana, and if I remember correctly, I just made my stuffing and made sure the turkey and sweet potato casserole were safe for me to eat, and otherwise just admired all the other amazing dishes.

Well, this year Thanksgiving is back here, and my Grandma and my Aunt Deb are coming down for it! We'll also have one or two other friends over who didn't have anywhere to go for the holiday. My grandma is bringing a couple of very gluten filled dishes for her and Chris to enjoy, but my aunt can't have wheat OR dairy OR - eggs, OR get this one - POULTRY. So I'm making some modifications to a couple of my recipes to remove eggs and dairy, and we're going to have some adventures in allergen-free cooking. I've got a couple of pork tenderloins for my aunt to have while the rest of us eat turkey, and I'll use veggie broth in any recipes calling for turkey or chicken broth. Luckily Deb can tolerate some dairy, because my stuffing recipe won't be very good without the cottage cheese, but I've got almond milk to try out for the cream of mushroom soup.

I'm looking forward to all the good times ahead! Thanksgiving just might be my favorite holiday. What's not to love about a holiday that is centered around food, family, and fellowship?

Pumpkin Stew

My husband scored us some free pumpkins a few days ago. I have baked and made pumpkin puree out of two of them. I got a friend to help me cube and peel the third, and most of it is in the freezer. But 5 cups of it went into making Talitha's Vegan Pumpkin Stew today. Sooo good. I had to make my own garam masala because I had most of the ingredients but no time to get to a grocery store. That made my house smell oh-so-yummy.

What I did different: I just boiled the pumpkin / broth mix for about 90 minutes before pureeing because I didn't have the time for a slow 4-hour simmer. Then I threw it all in a crock pot with the pre-soaked beans for 8 hours. It wound up being a little spicier than we normally do (and we like spice!) but maybe that was because it was homemade garam masala. And it was a bit too thick for my tastes, so next time I will probably try 5 cups of broth instead of 3. But trust me, there WILL be a next time. Very tasty stuff. I am excited about my leftovers... I didn't think to garnish it with kefir or anything for dinner, but I plan to add some homemade kefir to it for my leftovers.

Adventures in ... Kefir! Part 2 - Coconut Kefir FAIL.

While my milk kefir has been a very easy and successful project, I also have been trying to start a batch of coconut kefir. The process is the same, and from all my research, all I needed to do was take some of my kefir grains, and cover it with coconut milk instead of cow's milk. Apparently it can take a couple of tries before the culture "figures out" what to do with the coconut milk, so for a week I would cover the grains with a cup of coconut milk, let it sit overnight, pour out the failed kefir the next day, and add fresh coconut milk. By the end of the week I would just have sour coconut milk the next day instead of coconut kefir, so I gave up trying. My last batch smelled so bad that I dumped the culture as well, figuring it had probably gone bad.

I'm not sure what I was doing wrong. I guess when I have an abundance of kefir grains again, I will do some more research and try again. I was really looking forward to mixing up my kefir smoothies so that I wasn't always eating cow's milk each time.

Anyone out there have any experience with this?

Adventures in ... Kefir! Part 1 - Cow's Milk Kefir = Success!

Kefir Grains

Kefir "cheese"

I finally scored myself some kefir grains a couple weeks ago, and have since been healing my gut with some probiotic goodness from homemade kefir. 


The process is super simple. Literally, the hardest part of starting to make my own kefir was locating some grains. You see, the kefir culture multiplies over time, so anyone who is culturing kefir will wind up with more culture than they need. So if you know someone who is already making kefir and who has some extra grains, that's a cheap and easy way to get started. Otherwise you will need to order some online, or check your local craigslist to see if someone has some to sell or give away. 


Once you've got the grains it's an easy-peasy process. All I do each morning is put my tablespoon of grains in a glass and cover it with about a cup of milk. Then I put a towel over the glass to keep bugs out, and stick it in a cupboard for the next 24 hours. The next morning, I put the kefir in the blender for my smoothie, and scoop out the grains to repeat the process. 


If I decide that I don't want to drink the kefir right away, I can stick it in the fridge and it will keep for a couple of weeks there. I can also put the grains in the fridge with some milk if I don't want to make any more kefir for a couple of weeks. 


I've also been straining some of it to make the thicker spread and mixing it with a couple of tablespoons of nutritional yeast for a spread. I've also used kefir cheese in place of mayonaisse for deviled eggs (which garnered rave reviews), and I could use it for a veggie dip, too. So many options, so much healthy probiotic goodness!

Adventures in Budgeting

So with the demise of our savings (see the last post), we've gone full speed ahead into budget mode. I'm still struggling it, though, to be honest. We've been "at it" for a little over a month now, and after budgeting for all the necessities, we don't have much left over for paying off the other loan, giving, and preparing for the holiday season. I keep trying to figure out how to cut down on some of the necessities, but I'm not having ANY luck.

We cut down Chris's cell phone plan recently, but Chris is having a really tough time sticking within the limited minutes. Apparently we ARE paying the least amount possible on car insurance for our two 10 year old cars. Removing our less-than-basic cable will not actually reduce our cable bill since that just means Comcast will change the price for our cable internet (might I remind you that I'm a web designer, so internet is a work necessity, not a luxury). So I keep trying to figure out how to cut our grocery bill, because that's what we spend the most on that we have some control over.

However, the combination of my food allergies and my unwillingness to compromise our physical health for our financial health are making that much harder than I expected. We are still doing all the things we started last year to keep grocery costs down. But a handful of things are making it harder to stay within budget. Primarily, we have a toddler who eats a LOT (and throws more of it on the floor). Secondarily, I've been having some health issues lately that I suspect are food related, and I'm trying to put my finger on it... right now I suspect that our attempts to eat less meat have taken a negative toll on my body. And, as I mentioned before, it's really important to me that we buy organic for our dairy and essential vegetables.

We also have been having guests over for dinner pretty frequently, and this is another thing I am not willing to compromise on. We are blessed to be able to have friends over for meals, and when we're hosting the meal, I don't feel like I'm burdening someone else with my crazy food issues (or potentially getting glutened). Add to that the fact that we're hosting Thanksgiving AND Christmas this year - something I am very excited about.

So I am left with the idea that, we will try for one more month to stay within what should be a VERY reasonable food budget. If we can't do it, then I will just have to decide to bump up the food budget and figure out another place to make a cut. We DO have some wiggle room in the amount we put towards the loan every month, so that's good.

That, and I just need to trust that enough freelance work will keep coming our way to fill in the gaps. So far so good, but this is where I have a tough time with trusting... I start worrying whenever a project ends that another one won't come along. So with that in mind... anyone need a web designer, a print designer, a videographer, or a photographer? I'm only half joking. ;-)

Adventures in Getting Debt Free, or, Will this make me lose more sleep or less?

This little note greeted me the last time I logged into one of Chris's student loan websites. "Paid in Full." Granted, it's only one of two school loans we are paying off from his 3 years at SCAD. But it was the larger loan, with a higher interest rate. We recently met with a financial advisor who recommended that we use all of our savings to get these loans paid down as much as possible, and then continue to throw all of our money at them until they're gone. THEN we worry about saving up after these are paid off. He recommended this because, with the economy what it is, our savings was gaining basically zero interest, while the loans, of course, continue to accumulate. Before this meeting, I had us "on track" to pay off these loans by 2015. Now we have one paid and - if we keep paying off the other one at the rate we were previously paying off two - we should have the other paid off by the end of 2011 or so.

When we first made the big transfer out of the savings account and off to Ending Debt Land, I had mixed feelings... a bit of relief that this loan was GONE, but a bit of fear that the savings was also GONE. What are we going to do if I lose my job? What if someone totals our car? What if Zeke spills smoothie all over my laptop and I have to buy a new machine? Chris was worried that, rather than reducing my stress level, paying off this debt would increase my stress because I would worry more about not having any sort of safety net. And to be honest, I was a little concerned about that, too. I still am.

But a nearly month has passed an so far I'm still pretty excited about the prospect of saying "Bye Bye," to the debt. Now, I am a little more concerned about us staying within budget for each month, but for now that is probably a good thing.

We've also heard some timely sermons at church about being thankful for what we have, and recognizing that we - all of us with a roof over our heads - are rich, and that what we have is a blessing. So this season may mean trusting for the Lord to get us through every month a little more than we had to before... but that is a GOOD thing. That's where our trust should be in the first place, not in the dollar signs in a savings account. Ultimately, getting out of debt is biblical, and trusting in the Lord for everything is biblical, and I'm feeling like we're on the right track.

Not to say all of this is easy. I'm still struggling with some aspects of the budget, and with fear of not making ends meet, but ultimately, overall, when all is said and done, we're on the right track and I'm feeling good about that. The rest shall be left to other posts, or, more likely, left out of the public space that is the interwebs.

Zeke’s Butternut Squash Muffins

I started making these muffins soon after Zeke started eating enough solids that we needed to bring snacks with us so he had finger foods to munch on. They're still one of his favorite foods, months later. Gluten free and vegan (if you omit the eggs), and relatively healthy! I wouldn't let Zeke eat them all day long, but a couple muffin bites a day keeps the little man happy.

I've passed along this recipe a number of times, so I thought it was time I put it up online.

Remember, this is all easily adaptable. For instance, If you don't have tapioca starch, you can use another kind of starch that you have in the house. If you want dried cranberries in yours, go wild. This is just a start.

Zeke's Butternut Squash Muffins.

Adapted from Tova's Chia Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 cups steamed and pureed butternut squash (or pumpkin, or sweet potato)
• 1 cup gluten-free flour of choice (I use 1/2 cup brown rice and 1/2 cup sorghum)
• 1/2 cup tapioc starch (or arrowroot)
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tbsp ground flax mixed with 6 tbsp warm water (or 2 eggs)
• 1/4 cup high-quality extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup or honey
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla
• Optional: nutmeg, cinnamon, and/or crushed nuts.

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350°
2. Mix all ingredients together
3. Spoon into muffin tray or muffin bites tray. (If pouring into a muffin tray, only fill each cup about 1/3 to 1/2 full).
4. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until tooth pick insterted comes out clean (often takes longer than this to cook)

I usually make these in a "brownie bites" tray so that they're pretty small, but there's more batter than what fits into that tray so I pour whatever is left into normal sized muffin tins. I only fill them about 1/2 way full, and they do not rise much. After they bake and cool, I stick a couple in the fridge and freeze the rest. Then I'll pull out as much as I plan to let Zeke have early in the morning and put it in the refrigerator. Once I'm ready to give him some, it's thawed out and I can cut it into bite-sized chunks. If I'm taking them "on the go" with me, I will cut them into chunks before we leave the house, and store them in a small tupperware. Then they're ready whenever the little bug needs a snack.

Here's a printer-friendly PDF.

Crochet Octopus

I bought this crochet octopus pattern back in January. I started crocheting it, piece by piece, tentacle by tentacle, sucker by sucker in May or so. I wasn't in a hurry, I just wanted to work on it whenever I had a little bit of time. You know, during lunch breaks, long car rides, church service, whatever. The cool thing about a pattern like this is that you really can just bring a little bit of yarn with you and just work on one piece of it at a time and then put them all together at home later.

And last night I finally finished him! I haven't named him yet. I think he will be Zeke's Christmas gift from me. So maybe I'll let Zeke name him.

I love how realistic he looks, and how easy the pattern is. I recommend it to anyone wanting to get into crochet. I've actually taught a few people how to crochet recently, and plan to do another craft night at my house in a couple of months to do a "refresher" course for anyone who needs it. Crochet is just too enjoyable to keep it all to myself.

Amazake Experiment on hold

Okay, so I've been doing more research on making koji rice from spores (if you're having a tough time keeping up, koji rice is the moldy rice that is mixed with cooked rice to make sake and, in my case, amazake. I have koji rice SPORES that I need to innoculate into koji rice, which I will THEN be able to use to mix a cup of koji rice with a couple cups of brown rice to make a fermented rice beverage that is ALSO a handy ingredient for gluten-free baking). I finally found a couple of websites that have instructions on making koji rice, and one that is AMAZINGLY detailed, AND contains the holy grail - instructions on how to convert some of the koji rice into spores that can be used to make MORE koji rice later... which would mean if I get it right next time, I won't have to buy more spores online in order to make more koji rice.

What I figured out from reading his tutorial is that the instructions that came with my spores were sorely lacking, AND lacking in caution. Turns out you need to be really careful with the spores because you don't want to breath them in. Uh, what? So now I've got a graphic image of mold spores covering my esophagus. Let's pray that's not the case. He also has a whole page devoted to how to steam the rice, and what it should look like at the end, which was my biggest issue.

While I do feel much better informed to make my next batch of koji rice, I am also a bit unprepared by way of equipment. While I think I can mainly get by with what I have on hand to create an incubation area, my biggest problem there was that I don't have a food thermometer that falls below 100 degrees... and I need to keep the koji rice incubated in the 90s. I think this all-in-one cooking timer/thermometer would do the trick, but... well, we've put the lock-down on our spending. Starting this month we are on a strict budget and I can't just drop $20 on a thermometer because I think it would be fun to do this koji rice experiment. So I basically need to wait until the end of the month and see if there's anything left in the budget for this little goody. If not, there's always next month... and if we really get in a bind, then there's always my birthday in December!

Also, now that I found that fantastic tutorial, I may not put up an Instructable on koji rice... I'm a big proponent of the "no need to reinvent the wheel" philosophy. But we'll see... maybe I'll still put one up there just so the information is in more than one place, and make sure to reference the original.

Next up, I need to find someone with extra kefir grains so I can get my culture fix that way. Anyone know someone with extras?

Can a girl really have too many kitchen appliances?

My little man, Zeke, is 16 months old and has really gotten into the habit of asking me what everything is, ALL THE TIME. All day long, he points to things and says, "Dat?" This means, basically, "What is that called?" He knows the answers most of the time, but he asks anyways. Usually it takes the form of pointing out every light in a room, or that he can see two clocks, or two fans, or that mommy, daddy, and Zeke eat have their own cup on the table. It's kind of neat watching him draw connections between similar things.

Yesterday he got really interested in the appliances in the kitchen. So I'm preparing his morning smoothie, all the while identifying each appliance as Zeke runs around the kitchen pointing to items and saying, "Dat?" It went a little like this:

"Toaster.

Ice cream maker.

Blender.

That's a rice cooker.

That's the crock pot.

That's still the rice cooker.

That's still the crock pot.

Still the rice cooker.

Yes Zeke, I know the rice cooker and the crock pot look similar but they're different items."

I suddenly felt very extravagant to have all these different convenience appliances at my disposal. What he did not see were my tea maker, george foreman grill, large food processor, hand mixer, and small food processor. I started to wonder, am I wasteful and extravagant to have all this stuff? Then I realized, first of all, that I have used every one of these appliances at least once in the last two weeks... some of them I use daily or every couple of days. I also realized that every single one of these was either a Christmas gift or birthday gift within the past handful of years. I mean, my family members want to get me SOMETHING for holidays, and at least I asked for stuff I would use often instead of just taking up space, right? And I love them and they save us so much time in the kitchen! So then I just felt blessed instead of extravagant.

Sprouting...

If you're not so interested in my ramblings, go ahead and jump right on down to my quick instructions on sprouting your beans.

Yesterday I cooked my black beans that had been soaked overnight in whey for the first time, rather than just soaked without an acidic medium. I am happy to report that we did notice a difference in how we digested the beans... the household was less stinky than it would typically be.

Last night I soaked kidney beans and chick peas with vinegar for the Millet Garden Medley we had tonight, and I must say that I don't think the results were quite as good, but I still think it was worthwhile.

But typically, if we're planning far enough in advance, I prefer to sprout my beans to increase their nutritional value. So as I began setting out 4 types of beans in a bowl to soak for Thursday's dinner, I realized that I didn't know if I was supposed to still use an acid in the water if I was SPROUTING the beans rather than just soaking them. A quick google search later, and I came across a number of useful blogs covering this topic of soaking and sprouting, such as this one. I can tell you pretty definitively that I do NOT need to use an acid if we're sprouting them, as the sprouting process naturally removes the phytic acid that soaking with whey does.

I started learning about sprouting about 5 years ago. It started innocently enough, because I wanted to make my own mung bean sprouts to put in a salad. The next thing I new, I was soaking all our beans and making things like sprouted black beans and rice. While sprouting black beans and rice alters their flavor, sprouting a ton of other beans doesn't really change their flavor but really enhances their nutrition, so we make a habit of doing that whenever we plan ahead enough to know what we're having for dinner in 2 or 3 days... which is relatively often, actually. (I don't manage a week of meal planning, but we can usually manage to plan for a sprouted bean crock pot meal that will happen in a couple days).

At any rate, now I don't feel so late to the party since we've been doing this method of removing phytic acid for a while now. Can't say I notice the same "aiding in digestion" results, though. So I'm not sure what that's all about.

If you have never tried sprouting beans, I highly recommend you give it a shot! It is sooo easy. I learned for starters from The Sprout People, but to be honest their methods got too complicated for me. Let me tell you what I do.

How to Sprout Beans

What you need:

• A large bowl
• A tea towel or cloth napkin
• A colander
• Dry beans (I'm not picky about what kind. I even get good results from the cheap Hurst's HamBeens 15 bean mix that you find in a bag from the grocery store).

What you do:

1. Before bed, put your beans (however many you need) in your bowl and fill the bowl with water, to at least an inch and a half above the beans. You want the bowl to be able to hold at least 3 times as many dry beans as you're filling it with.
2. Cover the bowl with a towel and set it on a counter, away from direct sunlight, and go to bed.
3. When you wake up (8 or so hours later), dump the beans into a colander and rinse well. Put the beans back in the bowl. Do not refill with water. Cover them and set them back on the counter.
4. 8 hours later, rinse the beans in a colander, and put them back in the bowl, cover, set on counter.
5. Repeat step 5 every 8 hours or so (when you wake up in the morning, before dinner, and right before bed) until the beans have sprouted as much as you want them to. This varies by type of bean, but 2 - 3 days is a good guestimate.
6. If your beans are sprouted enough and you're not ready to cook them, put the bowl in the fridge to stop the sprouting process. If you're ready to cook them, go ahead and prepare them the same way you would prepare unsprouted beans.

I find that most legumes require the same amount of cooking time they would normally, but they do NOT need as much water as unsprouted beans need to cook. This part you just need to play by ear. I usually throw them in a crock pot that I'm going to cook for 8 hours on low. But I also sprout garbanzo beans and then boil them in a big pot on the stove until they're soft, and proceed to use them for hummus, garbanzo bean salad, or roasted for a snack.

You can find more tips from Living Foods, but they're only interested in eating raw foods, not cooked beans. I actually always cook my beans. Although technically you can eat garbanzos, mung beans, and lentils raw, I just don't like their taste raw. I especially hate raw garbanzo beans. And then a lot of beans, like black, pinto, and kidney beans should not be eaten raw.

On Kefir "cheese," and soaking beans with whey

Although my koji rice adventures didn't go so well this weekend (and neither did my bread making, actually), I did try a couple of new things that I'm pretty happy about.

I had a coupon for kefir about a week ago, so I got a couple bottles of plain kefir at the store the other day, and have been slowly going through it, mostly with fruit. I also decided to try using kefir instead of mayonnaise for deviled eggs, which I thought worked out very well. Then I decided to strain the whey out of my kefir to make a thicker spread that I could put on bread or use as a veggie dip or whatever. So far I have tried the following combinations with my kefir "cheese"

• 3 parts kefir cheese to 1 part nutritional yeast and a sprinkle of dill to make a savory spread = yum!
• Plain kefir cheese in place of sour cream on my tempeh and veggie wrap also = yum!
• Kefir cheese mixed with a bit of honey and a big dash of cinnamon on my (gluten-free chia seed) muffin = yum x 2!

Of course, straining the whey out of my kefir also means I have to figure out what to do with all this whey. When I made greek yogurt over a year ago, I wound up with a lot of whey and no CLUE what to do with it. Well, this time around my dear friend Jen's blog steered me in the direction of using the whey when soaking dried beans to aid in digestion. So tonight I did a bit of google action and learned that if you want to get all the goodness out of your beans, it's almost essential to add an acid such as whey (or lemon juice) to the soaking water. It helps your body absorb all the good nutrients you're eating the beans for in the first place, and cuts down on the pesky gas issue that makes beans the, errr, butt of the joke.

So now I've got my big batch of black beans soaking my some of my leftover whey, and I'm pretty darned excited about it, although I kind of feel like I'm late to the party! But now that I'm at the bean-soaking party, I just wanted to make sure the rest of you join me! To make it less complicated, I found this nifty soaking guide. I plan to format it for my recipe box so I always have the cheat sheet on hand.

This concludes your healthy eating lesson for the day. Class dismissed!

Amazake, Take 1 = FAIL

Okay, so my first attempt at making koji rice resulted in an utter failure. But that's okay! I think I at least know the places where I went wrong, so I plan to try again next week. The starter packet I bought had enough spores to make 2 batches of 6 cups of rice each, and my only real regret is that I actually tried to make one full batch my first try. Next time I will make a batch of 3 cups, so I have enough for one more 3 cup batch if this one goes awry.

My main problem this time around was at the VERY BEGINNING... one of the instructions is to STEAM the rice for 50 minutes, with the explanation that at the end of 50 minutes the rice will be "a hot rubbery lump." Well, at the end of 50 minutes (and 2 hours, and 2 1/2 hours...) the rice was NOT a rubbery lump, so I kept steaming it thinking I wasn't cooking it correctly because it seemed barely cooked. I cooked it until it was, indeed, a hot rubbery lump of rice. BUT then my problem throughout the rest of the 2 days was that instructions kept talking about breaking up any clumps that stick together, and that at the end of 2 days I should be able to crack open a grain of rice to check it... but I had one huge gooey lump of rice. So next time around, I think I'll have an easier time of steaming my rice with half as much in the pot, and then I am going to stick with that 50 minute window and whatever my rice looks like at the end of 50 minutes will be what I am going to assume it should look like, and we'll just move forward from there.

But I also think I learned this time around what works and what doesn't as far as my methods for incubating the rice to keep it at the right temperature, which is really only about 85 degrees... it turns out it was surprisingly difficult for me to keep the rice at just a few degrees above room temperature, but I think I've got it worked out now.

At first I felt pretty crummy about having such a massive failure on my hands after telling "Teh Internets" about my big plans. But then I happened upon this clip from Sesame Street (completely on accident) and now I feel alright about my practice run. :-)

Adventures in... Kombucha.

I got a kombucha culture about a month ago, and so I've been rocking this fermented tea ever since. Once you start making something like kombucha you kind of have to keep it up, because the culture always needs to be sitting in its "food source." So once a big batch of kombucha is ready to be bottled and enjoyed, I only have a short while before I need to brew up a new batch of sweet tea and start over. When I was making kombucha a couple years back, I wasn't having much success in making it taste GOOD. I liked it, but anyone else who was curious to try it didn't drink more than a sip. So this time around, I've been having fun experimenting with different flavors of tea, different quantities of sugar, and different fermenting times, and pulling my batches while they're still sweeter than I normally would. It's kind of like a fun science experiment. And the results have been pretty tasty. One cool thing about the kombucha is that when you bottle it, it starts to get fizzy. So this is the closest I get to having a soda.

And the cost? Well, one 16 oz bottle of kombucha at a health food store will run you between $3 and $4. Remembering that the culture is free (it replicates like CRAZY so people making kombucha have to either throw out scobys or give them away pretty regularly), when I make my own, I get about 64oz worth for the cost of a couple cusp of sugar and tea leaves. Even getting organic tea and sugar, it's still under $2 for the whole batch. DEFINITELY worth the experimenting and the time investment!

Since I've had so much fun with the kombucha, I've decided to try a couple more that have piqued my interest. Specifically, making my own kefir and my own amazake. Those are coming up next!

Adventures in... Amazake!

AMAZAKE! Even the name sounds awesome. I ran across this little gem randomly a couple months ago... some recipe in the blogosphere recommended using amazake in place of milk for gluten-free baking that is fluffier than the typical gluten-free fare. Since I love to hear about new stuff, I immediately started googling it.

As it happens, amazake is a fermented rice beverage, that is fermented for a much shorter time than the sake you think of when you think of fermented rice. With amazake, you use the same starter culture as sake, but only ferment said rice for a day or less. The culture breaks the rice down into simple sugars, which makes it sweet and tasty. Apparently this Japanese drink is a holiday beverage; from what I gathered at the Japanese grocery store, they drink it over the winter holidays, the same way we think of eggnog as a winter treat.

I love anything made with rice because it's one of the few grains I can tolerate, and I just loved the idea of a cultured rice that would make my gluten-free cooking more fun. But it turns out that amazake is still in the "underground" here in the US. I found ONE brand of it at a health food store, and it was super expensive for a 12 oz bottle. And when I went to Japanese grocery stores around town and asked if they had either amazake OR the koji rice starter needed to make it, I was greeted with blank stares. I was a LITTLE surprised by this, because the koji starter is used to ferment miso, too, and my internet searches suggested I could find koji light rice starter at my neighborhood japanese grocer. Alas, the ATL is clueless about amazake.

So, to the internet I went, and I purchased a koji spore starter pack. That was the cheapest option I could find. It came in the mail on Thursday, and I was so excited! It turns out, this is more complicated than I initially expected. All I got was little pack of spores, with instructions on a 48 hour process of combining these spores with rice to create koji rice. THEN I store the koji rice, and I can mix THAT cultured rice with other cooked rice in a 24 hour process to make some amazake. Phew! This is going to be intense. Luckily, I will be home for the next 4 days, three of which make up a long weekend. Perfect timing for an insane culturing project!

Since the internets seem pretty oblivious to culturing koji rice and making amazake, I think I will need to document this process and, if it's successful, post about it so that there's some more info out there for the culture-loving internets. I mean, even Instructables doesn't have a tutorial on making amazake. I guess I'll have to be the first!

Tonight my task is just to rinse 6 cups of white rice VERY WELL, then soak it in water overnight. Tomorrow the more intense process of making koji rice begins. I will probably save it all up until my amazake is made, then put together a good tutorial post or two after all is said and done. Let the adventure begin!

Culture Happy

I've been reading lots of blogs about healthy eating lately, so my thoughts have been on building up a healthy body lately. Basically, the idea is that there are no "neutral" foods. Anything you eat will either heal or harm your body in some small (or not so small) way. I've learned this the hard way, as foods like wheat and potatoes harm my body in a VERY noticeable way. But this has made me mindful of the not so noticeable ways that the food choices we make either heal or harm our bodies, and not just in a "gain weight" versus "lose weight" kind of way.

So while I am still one to grab a bowl of haagen dazs chocolate ice cream when the craving strikes (as it did tonight), I am also trying to consider what other food choices I can make consistently that heal rather than harm.

One of the ways we can do this is with eating foods with probiotics. We get probiotics from a number of fermented foods. The one you hear about on all the TV commercials is yogurt, but there are other types of fermented beverages that are chock full of beneficial active cultures... although most of them are pretty expensive if you buy them prepackaged at the store. Their benefits have often been overhyped, but ultimately they are tasty beverages that can be used for cooking and baking as well as drinking, and that work to heal and build up your body rather than tear it down.

I am not going to go into all the benefits of these things. There are plenty of excellent bloggers who have already done it and that's where I learned it from anyways. Below, I've provided a "recommended reading" list for those of you who want to learn more.

But in the next few days I'm going to tell you about my adventures in culturing. I'm getting pretty excited about it so I wanted you share in my excitement! Also, although this stuff is pretty common in the world of healthy food bloggers (at least, all the ones I read), most people don't know what this stuff is or that you can make it at home. So my goal is to spread the knowledge outside of that realm a little bit.

Recommended Reading:

• Health Benefits of Yogurt from Kitchen Stewardship
• Kombucha-licious from Making Love in the Kitchen
• Kefir from Cultures for Health (scroll down for the details)
• How to make Amazake from Homegrown Evolution

Fatten up your Baby

This one is short and sweet and for all you mommas out there whose pediatricians are a little concerned because your baby is in a lower weight percentile.

This is what I fed Zeke when our doc was concerned about his weight when he was 6 months old. What can I say, the kid has a high metabolism, and his momma produces 2% milk instead of cream. When I needed to get some more fat in my little man's diet, pretty much the only solid he would eat was bananas. So this is what I came up with:

Zeke's Chubby Cheek Breakfast Mush:

• 1/2 of 1 banana
• 1/4 of 1 fresh avacado
• 1 tbsp flax meal
• dash of cinnamon (optional, only if you know your baby can handle cinnamon. Turns out mine is allergic to it.)

That's it! Mash it all up together and then serve. Flax and avacado are both full of healthy fats, and omega 3s. Fantastic for brain development along with being a great way to add some chub to those cheeks.

When Zeke got chubby enough (after some time, people actually started remarking how he'd put on some some pounds!), I started easing off the avacado. I would cut it into chunks and freeze the chunks, then set down one chunk to thaw every night so it was ready for breakfast in the morning.

Now that Zeke is older, I put the avacado chunk, banana, and flax in his daily smoothie (along with extra goodies like blueberry, spinach, and carrots).

Let the chub begin!

Green Smoothie weekend - belated reflections

Wow, I've been meaning to add more reflections on the green smoothie cleanse, but life just keeps... well, you know, happening. I pretty much only get to reflect in the car, the kitchen, or the shower. And my laptop just isn't too handy in either of these places. But tonight the boy is asleep, the hubby is away, and I've got another night or two before freelance will take over my life again, so here I am.

(If you don't care about my rambling but do care for the recipe for my rich tasting superfood snackalicious smoothie, jump on down to the bottom of the post).

So I think what I was really hoping to get out of the weekend was some sort of noticeable health improvement. More specifically, my hands have been breaking out for a LONG while now, and nothing I do seems to help. I've got my cleaning regimen down to very few, all-natural ingredients, and the only soap I use is homemade, unscented, organic goats milk castile soap. Yet my hands still itch and crack and drive me crazy. So I was hoping that they would clear up some over the weekend and I'd be able to use that starting point to figure out a food that's doing it. No such luck.

In fact, from the second day of the cleanse and straight through the next 10 days or so while I was still having a smoothie a day, my throat was sore and weird. So if anything I've discovered that I'm INTOLERANT to something I was putting into smoothies... and with so many ingredients in them, it was impossible to figure out what was doing it.

So I have officially gotten off the green smoothie bandwagon for a while. Gotta slowly keep an eye on what I eat and figure out what's doing the throat stuff.

Zeke, on the other hand, is still rocking about 16-20 oz of smoothie a day. He loves it and I love that he loves it. I'm slowly modifying his recipe to get an optimal mix that doesn't break the bank, and isn't too sweet. For instance, I'm trying to cut down on how much blueberry goes into them, but it seems he won't drink them without blueberries. (In case you haven't noticed, blueberries aren't cheap!) And since likes to eat his bananas, I don't want to put another whole banana in his smoothie... I've been dropping about a cup of frozen organic spinach in each day's smoothie for the high calcium value. But again, that ain't cheap. So now I'm experimenting with adding two tbsp of hulled sesame seeds and chia seeds for their high calcium content. And since these are for Zeke and not me, the high fat value of the seeds isn't a problem at all... in fact, I'm always looking for ways to bulk this skinny minnie up a little bit. So the Zeke smoothie is still going strong.

I also realized that when I'm making smoothies, I basically put all the same food in it that I would eat in installments throughout my day as snacks (a banana, some greek yogurt with fruit and honey, some almonds... you get the picture). Only now they're all packed into my morning smoothie and it doesn't fill me up and so then I'm eating MORE food throughout the day. Not really what I'm going for. Plus it takes more prep time in the morning than just throwing those items whole into containers and taking them to work to much on slowly throughout my day.

So there you have it. I'm an oddball and smoothies don't work for me. However, I will say that I am kind of hooked on the not-quite-so-green dessert smoothie I came up with during the cleanse. It's a good alternative to ice cream or a chocolate bar when I need something chocolatey and sweet....

Kendra's Not-So-Green Superfood Smoothie

• 1 cup almond milk (preferably made from scratch)
• 2 tbsp raw cacao (not to be confused with cocoa)
• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• 4-5 sprigs of fresh mint (yummy yummy yummy!)
• 4 soaked dates (or 1 tbsp honey if you don't want to wait on soaking the dates)
• 2 dashes cinnamon
• 1 banana
• 1 tbsp almond butter
• (optionals: 1 tbsp almond butter, 1/2 zucchini, 1/2 cup decaf coffee)

Blend it all up in your blender, transfer to a cup and sip away!

Remember that this is a rough template. I always go with what you have on hand and what I think I "need" from said smoothie.

While we're at it, Meghan's got a recipe for a chocolate pudding with a similar ingredient list.

Green Smoothie weekend

This weekend is my Green Smoothie Cleanse weekend! It actually kinda started Tuesday, which was "vegan" day. Wednesday was grain-free, and Thursday was all raw... which led me to Friday and the beginning of the all-smoothie, all the time weekend.

Since this has been taking up quite a bit of my thought process for the week, I thought I'd talk about it a little bit.

I should begin by saying that as long as I am using ingredients I like in a good combination and blending them up sufficiently, not only do I enjoy green smoothies, but I feel like I'm doing something good for my body and getting some good nutrients and energy for the day when I drink one. I also love that Zeke enjoys them (again, as long as they contain some essential ingredients such as a banana, blueberries, and spinach or kale). I have enjoyed getting the two of us into the habit of each drinking a nutrient rich, calcium rich green smoothie every morning (well, Zeke's 16 oz is stretched between breakfast and a mid-morning snack). So even in preparing for the cleanse, I learned a lot, and I've been inspired to make one major change in our daily eating habits.

The other thing I like about this cleanse is that I'm not starving myself for it... I can eat as many smoothies as I need (which it turns out is about one less than I expected to need, for a total of 4 a day).

Now for my whining! First off, along with the general rule to eat at least three green smoothies a day (and ONLY eating smoothies), the cleanse also has a schedule of other activities that you SHOULD do, including getting 8 hours of sleep, drinking lemon water an hour before the breakfast smoothie, spending time meditating, exercising, etc. HA! This is all the stuff that I sort of laughed at. Sure, without a 15 month old I might be able to dedicate my whole 3 days to this cleanse and force myself to do all this stuff I normally don't do, but... even 8 straight hours of sleep is still unrealistic for me. Still, I tried to do any of the items that seemed reasonable. I even TRIED to get 8 hours of sleep, although my first 2 days of that have been unsuccessful.

But pretty much, aside from eating smoothies, I've only managed to get about 30 minutes of exercise each day, drank plenty of water and herbal tea, and took psyllium before bed. Oh, and I did the dry skin brushing. Yep, that is all. Alas, I do the best I can.

And oh man, I gotta say this green smoothie thing takes more of an investment in TIME and CASH than I imagined. I'm sticking with it and happy to be doing so, but my wallet is hurting... it costs a whole lot more to eat all veggies, fruits, nuts, and superfoods than it does to eat lots of rice, legumes, and beans supplemented with the veggies, fruits, and nuts. And the food prep and smoothie blending both seem to take more time than just cooking up some meals. Sticking with it, but to be honest I'm glad it's only 3 days of smoothies, 5 days of raw total... my wallet couldn't sustain it any more than that. And time... Thursday night I got Chris to help me prep my veggies (washing, cutting, soaking, etc... getting things organized in the fridge so I can just toss stuff in the blender when it's time to make them), and it took the two of us about an hour to do. Then each night I've made two smoothies for the next day's lunch and snack, and THAT has taken about an hour each night. Not to mention I think I'm seriously wearing out my cheap blender.

So those are my main takeaways from this experiment. That doing green smoothies requires more of a time and cash investment that I have on a regular basis. It's more of an upper middle class event, it seems. Even the time and energy investment is a bit more taxing than I like. But as I said, I'm still glad I'm doing it, and I hope it helps me feel better and gets me back in good eating habits overall. And I do love that making one a day for Zeke ensures that he gets the nutrients his needs, even if he feels like being picky over the rest of the day's meals.

Raw goodies

In a couple of weeks, I'll be participating in a 3 day Green Smoothie Cleanse (tutorial available Jul 20), to try and get my eating habits back on track, and just do some general good things for my body. I've been feeling pretty cruddy lately and I'm hoping that will help.

So the same girl who is hosting the Green Smoothie Cleanse (I already got my tutorial, and man is it JAM PACKED with goodness), is doing a promo for a raw snacks company in Canada. I can't buy any of their tasty snacks being way down here in GA (they don't sell them down here yet), but I am hoping to win some with her giveaway. She's also giving away all her other tutorials... now that I have the Green Smoothie Cleanse tutorial, I know I would love the others, too!

Speaking of which, anyone want to join me doing the smoothie cleanse, Aug 6-8? It's always good to have moral support.

Glass Straws?

For those of you who are big fans of straws, I just learned about a company who makes glass straws that you can carry with you. Kind of an interesting idea, from a conservation and anti-plastic standpoint.

One of my favorite bloggers is hosting a giveaway now, in case you want to check it out. And let me know in the comments if you do!

Gardening Update

left to right: basil, tomato, parsley, dill

If I had read my blog feed yesterday before potting my tomato plant, I would have seen this excellent post on how to plant the best tomato plants, and I wouldn't be back out there re-potting it this morning while Zeke napped. I didn't do ALL the stuff in the blog post, but I did plant the stem down farther, throw a banana peel in there, and put the plastic container around it to keep worms away. It already had composted manure and some organic fish fertilizer in it. While I was at it, I also replanted my basil in a better pot, and added the aquaglobes for watering that I got super-cheap on woot.com.

I'm particularly hopeful about getting some tomatoes this year, because growing my own is pretty much my only hope for pain-free tomatoes. You see, I suspect that my intolerance to nightshade veggies stem from a sensitivity to the alkaloids they contain. If that's the case, then I wouldn't have a problem with tomatoes that had ripened on the vine for three days. But pretty much the only way to get three-day vine ripened tomatoes is to grow 'em yourself. So when I saw these tips for great tomatoes, I figured I should put them to good use. At least, the ones that were fairly easy to execute. Here's hoping for a tasty harvest!

Oh yeah, and I made a little bird feeder with a couple pine cones, peanut butter, and millet (upper right, it's a bit dark in the photo). I thought it would be neat for Zeke to see the birds up closer. If this works well we might buy a bird feeder eventually.

Plants!

As spring came along, I was pretty jealous of all my friends with space and time to plant a garden. I figured next year I'd try my hand at some container gardening again, but I just didn't have the time to go looking for organic plants (forget about trying to grow things from seed, I just don't have the skills!)

So imagine my excitement that I have 6 plants this year, and all I've paid for is the dirt! Friends from church have passed along some extra plants they had growing, so now I have parsley, dill, basil, rosemary, and a sweetie tomato plant. And my awesome sister-in-law got me started with a sweet potato plant. I'm so excited to have some fresh herbs more immediately, and hopeful about the tomato and sweet potatoes to come.

Georgia Aquarium

This past weekend was a BIG weekend - Chris's birthday, Mother's Day, and a surprise (for Chris) visit from my sister-in-law, Emily!

Some of the things we did to celebrate include going to the Georgia Aquarium, eating sushi, going to see Iron Man 2, eating salmon, planting a sweet potato plant, and napping. The only part we took pictures for is the aquarium.

Hooray for home made baby food!

Butternut squash is one of Zeke's ultimate favorite foods. Even as we're moving away from purees and into more solid foods, Zeke is pretty picky about the texture of his food, and we find that mixing grains and such with some butternut makes it more palatable. I also use butternut puree to bake Zeke's butternut squash muffin bites, which are a most healthy snack that he LOVES like it's candy.

Since we always make our own baby food, I don't usually give it much thought, but today I was curious how much it would cost to buy baby food jars of butternut squash if we didn't have time to make our own. The cost difference shocked me. I bought 3 organic butternut squashes from the farmer's market yesterday. My total cost was just over $10. I baked them in the oven last night, scooped out the cooked squash, pureed it in a food processor, and transferred it to storage containers. I wound up with close to 100 oz of puree. That's 10 cents an ounce for organic butternut squash.

Next I looked up baby food on Amazon.com. Amazon tends to have decent prices on things so I thought that would be a good comparison. One thing I discovered is that most baby food manufacturers don't offer straight butternut squash. It's butternut and apples, or butternut and corn. When I finally found a straight butternut squash, I found 2.5 Ounce Jars (Pack of 12) for $12.50. That's 42 cents an ounce. 4 times the cost of my homemade, and theirs isn't even organic! Now for a secondary comparison, I did find Canned Organic Butternut Squash in 15-Ounce Cans (Pack of 12) for $28.32. That's 16 cents an ounce for large cans, which is a much better price. But canned goods are lined with BPA, so we would be feeding him a hefty dose of BPA with his butternut. And it's still a good deal more expensive than the tasty homemade stuff. So I will have to say I'm feeling pretty good about my efforts today.

If you want to make your own pureed squash (butternut, acorn, pumpkin), wholesome baby foods has a good tutorial.

Happy Pi Day!

Here I am with my obligatory Pi Day post for 2010. This Pi Day is much different from last year's for me. Last year I was pregnant with my first child, wearing a pi shirt that Chris made for me, and making gluten-free pies for a pi day party. This year I have a 10 month old son, and to celebrate pi day I am ... wearing the pi shirt. And that is all. This mamma has too much going on to bake a gluten-free pie, or even to notice when the clock hits 1:59 on 3/14.

So since I have little to say about the holiday this year, I will leave you in better hands than mine, with Instructables' guide to Pi Day. For those of you who are able, eat a piece of pizza pi or a slice of apple pi for me, 'kay?

The new life of the baby mobile

As you probably know, before Zeke was born, I crocheted him a sea creature baby mobile. It didn't actually make its way to hanging above the crib until we actually got him a crib around 6 months, but he has had it there for a few months now, and he enjoyed swatting at the goldfish. Well, Zeke grew two inches in under two weeks, and suddenly was able to get a good grip on it (unbeknownst to us) and pull the whole mobile down. When I saw it on the floor, I picked it up and set it on top of the dresser, planning to rehang it later. Well, Zeke caught a glimpse of it and started reaching for it... for two days anywhere I moved it, he would see it and cry for it, until we finally just handed it to him to see what he would do with it. What he did was carry the whole thing around with him for days, until he finally managed to detach a goldfish and the octopus. At first I was thinking I should take it away from him before he messes them up. But then I decided, I made it for Zeke to enjoy, and he's enjoying it, so who cares if he drools all over them?

So here he is at 10 months old, and for a week now he's been carrying around the individual creatures, as well as sometimes carrying around the coral with the jellyfish attached. I would have to say this is currently his favorite toy... and since he never seems to care about any of his toys, I've really been enjoying watching him get excited over the sea creatures I made for him. The mobile has taken on new life. I don't think we'll be hanging it back up.

dodecahedron

I finished the dodecahedron. I think it turned out pretty well! It took much longer than I expected though... I think each point took me about an hour, how absurd is that?! I put a bell in each point, too, so it will jingle. I'm going to give it to Zeke tonight. He saw me working on it the other night and was all excited about it, so I hope to get the same excitement when I hand it over... and I really hope he plays with it, considering it took me at least 12 hours to complete! (Am I just a super slow crocheter?)

Booties

A friend of mine from work is having twins soon - a boy and a girl - so I made these booties for them using my two favorite free patterns for baby booties. I think the boy shoes are bigger than the girl shoes but that couldn't really be helped. Maybe we'll be lucky and the boy will have bigger feet so they can still wear them at the same time.

Foamies...

I love this idea for crocheted bath toys / scrubbers. So I got a couple of skeins of organic cotton yarn on sale and made one for Zeke. My yarn was a bit thicker than the one from Carrie used, I think, so I wound up making a smaller version, and used different eyes. But it's nice and soft and I'm looking forward to using him at bath time!

Octopus Crochet Pattern

I just bought my first crochet pattern. Usually I make up my own or find free ones and modify them to my purposes. And in the past 8 months I've had very little time to crochet, thanks to the awesome little man that requires my attention.

But yesterday I was browsing around crochet patterns and happened upon this awesome Octopus pattern. I tried once or twice to crochet my own realistic looking octopus, but wasn't having much luck. I searched in vain for patterns that weren't cutesy... I at least wanted some realistic looking tentacles! Alas, I finally found what I was looking for, and for just $3 on ravelry. I saved it as a favorite so if I ever have time to make it I could look it up and buy it. I told Chris and he said, "You should just buy in now in case you can't find it later." So I did. I have no idea when I will have time to make this 3-foot long bugger, but I am super excited to now have the option to do so!

Too Freaking Cool.

This one goes right up there next to this tree frog in my "Patterns I want to make for myself if I ever get around to it" list. Of course maybe now it will be made for that awesome little guy that takes up my time.

The next thing I plan to actually make, though, is this dodecahedron for Zeke. I will put bells in it. Then I will hope he actually wants to play with it.