Nutrition woes

I can’t remember if I’ve posted about this before, but I know I haven’t in a long time, and it is still bugging me, so if you don’t want to hear it, DEAL!

Hehehe

I’m really angry with food and my immune system right now.

You see, I’m allergic to a lot of stuff. A lot of healthy stuff. Which makes it really difficult to eat in a nutritionally rich way. So far, the list of things I’m officially allergic to is as follows:

• Almost all fresh fruit, except pears, blueberries, and citrus.
• Carrots
• Milk
• Soy

You see what I mean?

And those are just the foods that are confirmed allergens.When i got tested, I also tested high (3 on a scale of 0-5) for eggs and wheat. I did an elimination diet for wheat, but I should probably do it again.

So I feel SO MUCH better since I’ve cut out my allergens, but I tend to get into food ruts. I can only eat so many salads, and fresh blueberries are EXPENSIVE!

I always have veggies at dinner, but incorporating them throughout my day is difficult. I love all these green smoothie ideas that I keep reading about, but they require fruit!

Anywho, I need ideas, people! IDEAS! I’m in a total carb rut right now, and I know it’s not a good thing. We are finally coming out of a major stress season, or at least dropping to a lower level of stress, so I finally CARE about how I feel again. I actually want to take care of my body! IMAGINE THAT!

So all you crunchy, healthful-eating friends of mine, I need you! Point me to resources, send me recipes and ideas, or whatever you can think of! Help me de-rut!

Blessings!

Hannah

Leave a comment | 3 comments so far (is that a lot?) | Tags: cooking, health, Living with allergies

What did I do yesterday?

Hey, I missed a day of blogging.  Sorry about that.

I had to think for a few moments longer than I would like to admit about what I actually did yesterday.

Oh, yeah! I spent the day with two amazing ladies jabbering away as we worked on random projects.

Every month or so, a group of my amazing lady friends and I get together at the incredible Miss Angie’s (no, not the uber-cool Christian punk rocker from the 90′s) for a “craft day”. Normally this results in a lot more yakking getting done than crafts, but we enjoy it all the same. Yesterday nearly everyone bailed out, (wimps!) so it was just the three of us. Amazingly, we actually got some stuff done!

I brought a box of my dad’s paper keepsakes that I’ve been sorting through, as well as a file box where I am neatly cataloging items that might be significant to various family members. I even remembered a paper bag to put the discarded items in. I was very proud of myself! Miss Sherry brought her sewing machine, which she admirably fixed herself after the foot fell off, and worked on a pocket advent calendar. Miss Angie made us all hungry as she attempted (successfully?) to make her first pumpkin pie from scratch. Okay, the filling was from scratch.

Although I was glad to get some sorting done, the fellowship was, as always, the most valuable part. We talked about so many different subjects, and I got to know my friends so much better. These women, even the wimps that weren’t there, are such a blessing in my life. For years I prayed for female friends that I could truly get close to and share life with, and God has truly answered my prayer with these women. We support each other, pray for each other, and are blatantly honest with each other when necessary. We laugh a lot, cry a lot, and sometimes even laugh till we cry. Plus, we love each other’s kiddos, which is very important, because there are a lot of little ones in our church family right now.

Anywho, it was a very worthwhile way to spend the day. I left my pitifully ill hubby in the good hands of my FIL, and brought home pizza at the end of the day, so all was well. And the gals were amazed at how happy and content Baby E was while we worked. Her healing amazes me every day.

What relationships outside of your family are you most thankful for? What do you do, or pretend to do, on the days that you need to get away with those who lift you up?

Blessings!

Hannah

p.s. To all the wimps, I LOVE YOU! I was just speaking out of pure disappointment that I didn’t get to be in your wonderful presence.

Leave a comment | No comments yet | Tags: Being set apart, cooking, Crafty Stuff, The SAHM Adventure

Is it weird?

Is it weird that I am living vicariously through my friends and their babies?

A lot of my friends are pregnant. A LOT. A lot of them are on their second round, which means that the ones they were pregnant with 1.5 to 3 years ago are getting so big, and cute, and fun! FUN! I am especially enjoying the little girls. Have I mentioned that I WANT A GIRL??? No? Well, I do.

And my sweet hubby was mean enough to remind me that I need to not give up hope on this dream. Darn you, Hubby! Why couldn’t you let me have at least one moment of cynicism?

Anywho, I have really been enjoying living vicariously through these special little ones. I love their little outfits, and their cute little earrings, and doing their hair. OH, HOW I LOVE DOING THEIR HAIR! I love how they are already discovering the beauty of being a girl, and even developing their own style. I love these girls.

Is it weird that I am enjoying my domestic-ness so much?

I am hoping that I am becoming part of a generation that is going to re-learn, re-capture what our great-grandparents just plainly knew. I’ve read many times that we tend to surround ourselves with people who think the same way we do so that we feel normal. I have very domestic friends. Friends that want to do things the best way, not necessarily the easy way. Friends that delight in their woman-hood and are following that calling with their whole hearts.

Are we weird?

In a world that is getting smaller, and smaller, and faster, and faster, is it weird for me to want to slow things down, and in many ways go back to the old ways? The ways of our great-grandparents? Is it weird for me to want to forgo convenience to capture the finer things in life? Finer things like freshly baked bread where I know every ingredient and the beautiful fragrance fills my kitchen, line dried towels washed in laundry soap I made, and homemade yogurt topped with freshly baked granola.

I feel weird at times in many ways. I’m a 6’1″ tall woman. Weird. I’m one of the most feminine, maternal women ever, and yet my ovaries and uterus have yet to produce a child. Weird. I crave breast-feeding. Very weird? Yes.

Ah, don’t you love those middle-school insecurities? (Not that middle-schoolers typically crave breastfeeding.)

Don’t get me wrong, I think I’m pretty darn amazing, I mean, I KNOW that God made me UNIQUE for many reasons. Trust me, that height and girth come in handy when my getting-bigger-every-day-11-almost-12-year-old is having one of those moments. I haven’t figured out all the reasons yet for all my weirdness-es, but here I am!

And you love my weirdness, RIGHT?

Blessings!

Hannah

Leave a comment | 1 comment so far | Tags: Being set apart, cooking, infertility, The SAHM Adventure

Bread, and Chickens, and Gardens! Oh my!

“Wow! This home-making thing is getting a little obsessive. I like it!”My sweet hubby said as I kneaded bread dough after dinner tonight.

I am on a new adventure.

I’ve always been the domestic one of my sisters. Although I viewed my older sister as more glamorous, I’ve always considered myself the more “girly.” I have always loved babies, and my pretend play mostly consisted of keeping house and raising my babies, with the occasional safari or spy adventure thrown in for good measure.

Now, I am really loving learning more of what I’ve considered “complex” domestic skills. As gas prices rise, our rural-ness is hitting our budget hard. We live 35 miles from the closest “shopping town,” so trips are having to come fewer and farther between. Everything I am choosing to do is about making our family less dependent and our resources more sustainable.

I have been making our own bread for about 2 weeks now, and I’ve noticed how that $3+  per loaf really adds up. Making it myself, it only costs about $.90 per loaf, and it is SO YUMMY! I’ve perfected it over the past two weeks, and I can now produce a loaf that is sandwich and toast friendly.

I made my first batch of laundry soap from this recipe last week. I used Dr. Bronner’s citrus soap, which is a little pricey, but I wanted something that smelled good, cuz I like natural smell goods. I wanted to be ENCOURAGED to use it, and even opening the container is like a ray of sunshine. I will let you know after more use what I think of it. I have noticed that it doesn’t lather like regular detergent, but maybe it doesn’t need to. Any comments on that?

The next step on my domestic adventure is my garden. A good friend has offered to be my garden mentor, more or less, and she and I are meeting next week after church to plan everything out. The plan is to use raised beds in our backyard, which has a very nice southern exposure. We are getting soil from hubby’s family’s homestead farm, and there is also lumber available there to make the beds. I want to make sure I grow things that I can preserve and stretch throughout the year, so I am making my choices carefully and doing as much research as I can. Ideas?

Finally, Hubby and I are discussing the idea of having backyard egg-laying chickens (as opposed to fryers). A good friend has offered us the coop that he had made for his first batch of chickens last year. What a blessing! I told him not to tease me, and he repeated that we could HAVE IT! AMAZING! Ask and you shall receive, seriously! I am planning on getting 6 New Hampshire Red hens, or the breed that is closest to that that our local feed mill sells, which the “man” assures me are excellent layers. Feed prices have gone up majorly, but the “profit” will still be about $30/month, as opposed to paying $3+/dozen eggs. Sounds good to me! Plus, I love birds. And NO, I am not planning on eating MY chickens. It would be too much like having Juji for dinner, and I just could not do that.

Anywho, the adventure continues. I am really trying to listen to the Lord and be everything he has called me to be, and be open to every skill adventure he has for me. The sewing thing is still not happening…partly because I have been too lazy to get my power pedal fixed…that has been broken for 2 years. I will get there.

Blessings!

Hannah

Leave a comment | 3 comments so far (is that a lot?) | Tags: cooking, finances, Gardening, The SAHM Adventure

Feeling organized and responsible

I made a menu for the week, looking through my  favorite cook books, and choosing all new recipes that I’ve been wanting to try.

• Cranberry Beef Brisket
• Make your own salad with yummy chicken.
• Mexican casserole (My MIL brought this recipe over last night. One less idea to come up with.)
• Ginger Beef and Broccoli with brown rice

I had Gabe help me do inventory and I made a categorized grocery list.

I got out my coupons that I had ordered from coupon clippers and took out the ones I will specifically be using tomorrow and put them with my list. (Note: I only order coupons on things that we use regularly.)

I am feeling very organized and responsible. I feel like this process is more necessary than before since I am only making 2 trips to town a week. I am hoping that it cuts down on runs to our local coop, which can be very expensive. It’s just one more thing on my mama and wifey adventure.

Blessings!

Hannah

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Food

As I write this, I have just finished cleaning banana chunks out of my hair. If you are a trauma mama, you don’t even need to ask how they got in my hair.

Anywho, as I posted last week, I’ve been trying to hone my cooking skills and have been enjoying exploring traditional recipes from Barbara Swells books. I tried one last night called “Bonnie’s Chicken,” and it was such a hit that Hubby was coming up with creative ways for me to make it AGAIN very soon.

It’s so easy, I can tell it to you from memory.

Chicken (I bought a whole chicken already cut up. The recipe says that legs and thighs are best, but the breasts turned out so moist and tender.)
1 cup soy sauce (I used Worcestershire sauce.)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white wine or sherry ( I used white wine.)
1 Tbs dry mustard
garlic ( I used about a table spoon minced)
ginger (The recipe called for fresh grated, I used powdered and it turned out just fine.)
Combine sauce ingredients and pour over chicken in a roasting pan. Bake at 300 for 2 hours.
Drool.
I served it with spring mix salad and loaded au gratin potatoes. We found a really yummy strawberry vinegrette dressing for the salad that complemented the chicken really well. To me, the chicken had an almost Asian BBQ flavor. So, so yummy. I will be making this one again soon.

And again, these are just books I enjoy. I’m not being compensated to review them.

Blessings!

Hannah

Leave a comment | 2 comments so far (is that a lot?) | Tags: behavior challenges, cooking, The SAHM Adventure

Old Fashioned Food: Update

I am an old-timey kind of gal.

I’m married to one of the most gadgety men on earth, but we have been talking lately about how much simpler it would have been to live during the pioneer days. Notice, I said simpler, not easier.

Anywho, I’ve been really into this wonderful series by Lauraine Snelling about life in North Dakota in the late 1800′s – early 1900′s.  I LOVE IT! Everything about it! The life style, the culture, and the sense of community just fascinates me.

So, my step-mama gave me some books a few years back by Barbara Swell all about old-time cooking. I’ve been delving into them the past few days and am so excited to try some of the new, old recipes I’ve found. I’ve already made an amazing pie crust from this book, and Hubby can’t stop raving about it. Tonight or tomorrow I will be using the same crust to make chicken pot pie. I’m thinking of serving some sweet potato roles along with it.

What I love about the recipes is that they were designed to feed a family with good, fresh, seasonal ingredients. They are intended to be flexible to use whatever produce or meat is available. There is some prep time involved, but most of it is walk away type stuff, like letting dough rise.

Anywho, I will let you know as I try some of these goodies, so you might be  tempted to cook old-timey too!

Update:

I made chicken pot pie from scratch last night. My pie crust fell apart, but it was still delicious. I called it “patchwork pot pie.” I also made sweet potato buns. I LOVE sweet potatoes, but the recipe was vague in the timing, and I don’t think I let them cook long enough. They were a little doughy, but I can tell they would have been really good. A really good way to use up sweet potatoes.

Today I made oatmeal no-knead bread. I was looking through ANOTHER one of the cookbooks and found this recipe and realized I had everything I needed on hand, so I decided “Why not?” Plus, making bread from scratch gives a really good opportunity for a science lesson. Jeremiah finds yeast absolutely fascinating. Okay, so I kind of used the phrase “yeast farts” to describe the gas bubbles, but he was really into the whole process. The bread contained molasses, which I found really strong in the crust, but otherwise it was absolutley delightful. It will be really good toasted with tea tomorrow morning.

Blessings!

Hannah

BTW, these are just books I’ve really enjoyed. I’m not receiving any compensation for my reviews.

Leave a comment | 3 comments so far (is that a lot?) | Tags: cooking, Family Traditions, The SAHM Adventure

Better eating…week 1

Week 1 of our familiy’s better eating is done. Phew! Besides the fact that I am having to be a lot more creative and spend more time planning our menus, I have come out relatively stress free. The other members of the family are adjusting surprisingly well, but they are still skeptical about making this a long term plan. Hubby person expressed last night that changing our eating seems like another stress on top of everything else right now. I bought him no sugar added fudge-sicles today.

So here are the major changes we have made on our road to healthier bodies and minds.

• No white sugar….and ESPECIALLY no high fructose corn syrup. Sorry corn industry, but your commercials lie. My boys brains have enough challenges without having to figure out how to process your corn product. Our substitutes at this point include honey, stevia,  and sweet n low (I know, I know, but even my nurtition teacher said that if you choose an artificial sweetner, this is the safest. And don’t even get me started on the evils of sple*da) I am looking into agave nectar etc…and still trying to figure out how to convert to healthy baking for treats. The biggest change for the boys has been letting go of their sugary breakfast cereal, but I am making my amazing home made granola tonight, so I suspect they will forget all about their cocoa-whatevers.
• No white flour or potatoes. This one was really easy because we eat a lot of whole grain things anyways. I’ve started making our own bread in our handy dandy bread machine, and even found a great recipe to make our own hamburger buns. We are also already huge fans of sweet potatoes, so I am finding all kinds of new ways to use them. Do you have any favorite sweet potatoe recipes that don’t call for a butt-load of extra sugar?
• Replacing unnecessary carbs with vegetables whenever possible. This one we are still working on. We do eat a lot of salads though, and I found out that our local restraunt supply store sells baby spinach for a ridiculously low price. Like $5.99 for a 3 lb bag. You can’t even get a lb for that at the local grocery store. That’s a whole lot of spinach. I’m trying to like green smoothies, but…ick. Trying to figure that out.
• Choosing lean proteins instead of red meats. Again, this was not difficult because we eat a lot of chicken already and were already choosing ground turkey for things like sloppy joes and spaghetti.

So that’s the general plan. I am so thankful that I love all kinds of veggies and fruits already. Good job, Mom and Dad!

A huge help for creative ideas has been Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. There’s a recipe in there for home made ketchup, which, sadly, is a huge source of HFCS. Ick. But I LOVE ketchup!!! I’ll let you know how it is. Anywho, I love that book.

So, all you healthy eating families out there, share the wealth of knowledge. What do your meals look like?

Blessings!

Hannah

Leave a comment | 3 comments so far (is that a lot?) | Tags: cooking, The SAHM Adventure

If you don’t like healthy food…

…don’t come to the Stubborn House.

Starting tomorrow, this families eating style is totally changing. We are starting out with some simple rules, and trying to add in more and more good as we eliminate the not so good.

So we have cut out all white sugars and grains. We already eat a lot of veggies, but we are going to try to replace grains with veggies whenever possible. This will be easier in the summer because fresh produce is very hard to come by in the U.P. in the winter. My personal goal is to keep things as low glycemic as possible to help with my body’s particular needs.

Hubby Person is really excited for this change….mostly. He knows I have the will power to make sure that nothing gets into the house that shouldn’t be, which is both good and bad. He was just asking me about cookies. Does this mean no cookies, like, forever? I told him that maybe we can put a day on the calendar every month or so when we can have a cookie day.

How do all you health conscious mamas do it?

My 16 year old’s reaction in the grocery store was quite funny.

“Mom. We are out of bagels. We only have like 1 onion one left.”

“Okay, well we can get these whole grain ones. They look really good.”

“What? What do you mean? We can’t get the other bagels any more?”

“What part of ‘no white flour or sugar’ was confusing to you?”

His mouth dropped open and stayed that way for quite a while. Hehehe.

Anywho, any tips or veggie-full recipes would be AWESOME! We aren’t cutting out meat, although we are replacing red meat when ever possible, so recipes with meat but lots of veggies would rock!

Blessings!

Hannah

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The Fire Bug in Me

I’ve always loved fire…the controlled kind: Fireplaces, bonfires, wood stoves. There is nothing more comforting or enticing than the smell of good wood smoke, especially on a cold UP night. The kind that freezes your nostrils when you take a sniff.

One of my favorite parts of our house is our fireplace. It’s huge, for one, and made of beautiful sunset-colored sandstone. Spring in the UP means you never know if you are getting a 70 degree day or a 40 degree one. Today is the one of the later. So, with the help of the boxes left over from my hubby’s latest technology venture, I have a blazing, beautiful fire.

Our next door neighbor is a logger and has unlimited supply to wood. He cuts it himself and said that if we ever want any, to feel free and take some, he just needs money for the gas for his chainsaw. It’s AWESOME!!! Wonderful hardwood logs at my fingertips.

So, another Hannah tidbit is that the American frontier in the 1800′s is my favorite period of history. I LOVE frontier living. One of my favorite things to watch on TV is the annual Chuck Wagon Cookoff on Food Network. I love to see how people made really good food out of such simple ingredients and without any of our modern technology.

So, I did a little searching on the old Internet on what kinds of yummy things I could make in my fireplace. What I can up with was mostly discouraging how about labor-some and dangerous this kind of cooking is. I was nearly discouraged until I remembered these cool little devices that my MIL always takes on her camping trips. There are recipes galore for these things. They are easy, mostly safe, and VERSATILE!!! YAY!!! I’m inspired to order a few. It is summer time, right? (Although our weather hasn’t figured it out yet.) We WILL have bonfires!

Anywho, check them out and let me know of any other ideas on how I can best utilize this wonderful wood-burning resource.

Leave a comment | 1 comment so far | Tags: cooking