Dyno-mom

Cupcakes, freaky hippy style...

2013-05-15T19:27:00.002-06:00

Tonight was my children's last dance class before we move, it is also my son's birthday and we have a daughter with a birthday on next Monday. What better way to celebrate than cupcakes? I don't buy cupcakes; I personally cannot stand cheap store-bought soy shortening frostings but I love either American buttercream or meringue buttercreams. I also refuse to shell out for quality cupcakes when they really aren't that hard to make. I mean, they are only cupcakes, after all.

Today, despite having a needy nine week old, I managed to bake four dozen cupcakes. I used the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (the Cook's Illustrated people) yellow cupcake recipe but swapped out the flour for homemade sprouted pastry wheat and switched sucanat for the sugar which I reduced by 25%. I have found that the rich, complex flavor of sucanant hides the more nutty flavor of sprouted whole grains and I always make sure to tell people that the baked goods are "caramel" or "butterscotch" which makes them less weird. They taste great even if not like fluffy white cupcakes. I used a killer frosting, a dark chocolate American buttercream from the same cookbook which uses not only cocoa powder but melted chocolate. I also used all organic ingredients so the final product was as healthy as a chocolate frosted cupcake can be. We used a giant star tip and each of put classic swirls on the tops of the cupcakes which were then sprinkled with coarse cane sugar (I didn't want to do food dyes).

Each of the kids got to participate and pipe some frosting, from the rising college sophomore down to the two year old. The baby was in someone's arms at all times which means she kind of helped. They got to share them with all their friend's at the dance studio and say goodbye to all their friends. And I got to sneak some freaky hippy style cupcakes past all the kids, right under their noses. The best part? That one of the kids liked them so much, he wanted me to tell his mom how to make them.

Linking up to Real Food Wednesday!

Oinkment...

2013-05-14T21:03:00.005-06:00

Lately I have been using homemade tallow balm for my family's skin care. I have used it on a diaper rash following a six hour sleep in a dirty diaper by the newborn, on a patch of eczema on myself, on my crow's feet, on my feet (getting ready for sandal weather, on every inch of my kiddos who tend to have dry skin in the dry Colorado air. I made a batch for my godson who has a bad patch of skin. So far, so good and I am liking this stuff. There was recently a great article in the Weston A. Price journal about it (see HERE) that got me on board after first reading about it in the DIY Organic Beauty Recipes (see my review HERE). My balm is made with organic extra virgin olive oil and pastured tallow from our side of beef as well as lavender essential oil. My husband calls it "oink-ment" which even though it is not made with lard is a completely awesome name.

Oinkment

1 Cup rendered and cool (but still liquid) tallow

1-2 Tb organic extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp liquid vitamin E (acts both as preservative as well as is nourishing to the skin)

1/2 tsp mild essential oil (vanilla, lavender)

If you have never rendered tallow, the link above to the Wise Traditions Journal shows you how. Combine and pour into glass containers and cool completely in the fridge. The essential oils are not absolutely necessary but are helpful to create a more skincare scent. The tallow smells like tallow and this is oddly reminiscent of mashed potatoes and while the aroma is not unpleasant it is a little confusing. As for the amount of olive oil, I think I prefer it at a firmer consistency but if you want it creamer go with the higher amount. Just a tiny amount goes a very long way and if you use too much it will sit on rather than be absorbed into the skin. It really is amazing on rough skin and I have to tell you I think that my crow's feet look better.

Have you made tallow balm before? Let me know what you think of it!

Linking up to the party at Fat Tuesday!

Stand up mama...

2013-05-13T21:34:00.000-06:00

This beautiful little cloth diaper modeled by my chubby seven week old baby was made by a stay at home mama. I love mothers. The things that mothers can do amaze me. The power that they hold because they send their hearts out into the world is profound. I have the utmost respect for mothers and I think they are undervalued. Yet, I don't like the modern celebration of Mother's Day. Here in the United States, Congress adopted the second Saturday of May as Mother's Day after Anna Jarvis successfully lobbied to have the holiday enacted in honor of her own mother, Ann Jarvis (read more about her HERE). Soured and embittered by the heavy commercialism pushed by the greeting card company crushed the younger Jarvis who, with her sister, sought to abolish the holiday she fought to enact. Mother'd Day should not be about cards and forced pressure to recognize women ad naseum, it should however, be a deep and abiding sense of gratitude for what mothers do as mothers.

Today, most women feel the pressure to be useful and productive. They are told they need to write their names in the stars and bring home a big paycheck. They tell themselves that changing diapers, kissing scraped knees and cooking dinner is somehow not enough. Not only is it enough, it is life changing. How many Olympic athletes accept their medals while thanking their accountants? The owner of their favorite coffee shop? The president of their bank? Or the president of the country? They thank their mothers. They do it because their mothers deserve it. When mothers go out into the world and make it better, safer, cleaner and happier they do it because their heart aches as mothers for their own children and the children of other mothers.

Ann Jarvis (see link above) started nursing organizations run by mothers which not only treated soldiers of both sides of the American Civil War, but found ways to soothe hostilities and tensions after the war. If that wasn't enough she also started inspection programs to perform health inspections on dairies to make healthful, properly produced milk available. At one time distillery waste was fed to milk cows to produce a secondary income stream, ultimately poisoning both the children and the cows (see HERE).
Mothers controlling feeding behaviors can reduce the chance that their children suffer from malnutrition even when food security is unstable and other children in the community suffer. How they select and feed their children can mean the difference between life and death (read more HERE at The Healthy Home Economist).
The Healthy Child, Healthy World campaign is fueled by the energy of mothers (and fathers) who want to see children world wide live vibrant lives unaffected by toxins, malnutrition and environmental destruction. If you don't know who they are or what they do, you need to stop by their site HERE.

So, Mama. Stand up. Let me give you a high five instead of a greeting card. You deserve it, today and everyday. And like Anna Jarvis wanted, I am not doing it on Mother's Day, because really, everyday a mother cares for her children and those children of other women is really a mother's day.

Ten tips for cooking mamas...

2013-05-09T21:27:00.000-06:00

This is my little one, Claudia, when she was two weeks old. She was so new and so exciting that the kids took all sorts of photos. Eyes open, eyes closed, yawning, crying, sleeping, sneezing...you name it, they shot it. Things are easier with baby number eleven than they ever were when all the kids were little and there was no one to hold the baby while I cooked. There was a time when I juggled dinner and protecting the baby from being loved to death and I remember it well. When you have a new baby or one who is just a little on the young side, making dinner can be an exercise in futility. Here are ten tips for making it happen...

10. Do all the prep for a few meals worth at a time when you do have help from a friend, neighbor, relative or the other parent. If you chop several onions, carrots, celery and garlic cloves all at once, you can keep them in the fridge for two days with no problems. If you skip the garlic, they will last the week (garlic is prone to botulism so keep it only three days max).

9. Rely on large roasts which can be assembled at any time in the day and popped quickly into the oven when you have two free hands. Toss some veggies in oil and salt and pepper liberally and lay around the roast so that you kill two birds with one stone. You can rely on "planned-overs" for a couple of days or for lunches and not have to go through the effort as often.

8. Get a swing or a vibrating bouncing seat (or a high chair for the older crew) for those moments when you have to put the baby down for a minute. Make sure you keep baby in full view at all times and sing or talk while you work to remind baby that he is not alone. There are many things you can do with baby in a carrier that works for you but when you are at a hot stove or working with a sharp knife, it is better not to risk it.

7. Don't brown your meats for stews or ragus. It sounds impossible, but you toss the whole mess into a Dutch oven and braise it with the lid off and about 30% more liquid. The meat will color nicely and the sauce thicken and be delicious with much less hands on time. Just remember to save all the salt for the end because it will intensify as the liquid cooks off.

6. Let alcohol do the work when tenderizing meat. Brown your roast, or not, and then cook it in wine or beer half way up the sides. Throw in some spices like bay leaves or stems of rosemary if you have the time and will. Flip your meat every 30-45 minutes and cook covered until falling apart. You will have a delicious au jus and no real effort.

5. Start supper earlier than you can possible imagine is necessary. If you start at one in the afternoon, the meal will keep well in a well insulated Dutch oven in a warm oven and as long as you leave the lid on it will not dry out. Then dinner will be ready whenever you are and you won't have the stress of playing "beat the clock" while the baby screams at you.

4. Spend a few minutes the night before making a plan for the next day while you have help available. You can think about what you have on hand or might need to use up and make any preparations (like thawing meat) when you can have the baby cared for by someone else. When you are tired and the baby is fussing and it is 5:30 in the evening, your brain is shutting down and you not only will have zero ideas but your ability to deal with stress is nil. Plan now, eat later, no tears required.

3. At a time when you and other members of the household can think, brainstorm some menu ideas. These are not cast in stone but rather can give you ideas when you need to think of nutritious foods you can eat. Mommy brain is real, fight back.

2. Don't regulate supper meals for supper. If you need to eat, you need to eat and whatever you can put out is good enough, no matter what time of day it is usually reserved for. Baked eggs, soaked oatmeal, fruit and yogurt are all perfectly acceptable meals when baby is young.

...and my number one tip...

1. Do not expect or allow others to expect Martha Stewart perfect meals when you have a new born. Cut yourself some slack. Pregnancy and childbirth are an intense marathon and beyond the rigors of recovery are the adjustments to a new baby and cray-cray hormones of new motherhood. You need a break. If no one gives it to you, take it yourself. I stupidly planned a five course meal (with soup and cheese course) for Thanksgiving the year I had a six week old. What was I thinking? Well, I thought I had a reputation to keep up and I wanted everyone to still think I was totally organized and a fantastic cook despite having a six week old and having six kids in eight years. Why? In the end no one was impressed, they just remember how shrill and hysterical I was. And it was soul killing for me. It would have been better to let it go. Live and learn and you really should learn from me because the School of Hard Knocks is brutal. I want to save you the pain and hassle.

What are your best tips for getting through the newborn period with a full belly?

Teaching my children about loss...

2013-05-08T21:46:00.001-06:00

We just picked up the oldest from college and brought him home for the summer. Sort of home, we move in a couple of weeks to the farm, but he is with us nonetheless.We miss him deeply when he is gone; especially the two year old. She cries for him for days each time he goes back after a visit. I am deeply, profoundly grateful to have him back home right now. Especially right now.

Last night, while we had dinner with friends one of Joey's classmates died after a fall during a hike with her family. She was a freshman, well, just finished her freshman year at the same college where her sister is a rising senior. She and her family were heading back home for the summer and enjoying an evening hike when she died. This morning when we heard what happened, there was the palpable sense of shock in our whole house. I didn't tell my younger children at first what had happened as my oldest and I dealt with a flurry of phone calls and texts and emails from friends, students, staff and other families from the small, private school they attended together. Children are both sensitive and alert and so they were keenly aware that something significant had happened. I finally told them. My son, the one who turns ten in less than a week, said very quietly to me, "Why did no one catch her when she fell? Why did no one grab her? If they had, she wouldn't have died."

I didn't know how to respond at first. This spring the mother of my children's friends lost her battle with cancer and the mother of a friend of mine also lost hers. These deaths were painful and left an open wound, a place that gaped and we were not sure how to fill. Still, they were the deaths of adults and for my children it made a difference. The world that they live in is large and complex and sometimes frightening but it is held in place by the care and attention of adults. Adults make the children and the world that they live in safe and secure. This beautiful young girl's death was a failure in their eyes, someone who should have been able to stop this failed to keep the fragile world in balance and her absence was not just a gap or a void, it was a rupture in their sense of world. I needed to repair their sense of trust. I leaned forward and said, "Her parents would have caught her if they could. There was nothing they could do.Sometimes there just isn't anything we can do to catch people. Sometimes we have to let God catch people. He never fails." The idea might not make much sense right now, but I hope that someday it does.

As for the oldest, his thoughts are more guarded. He mentioned dancing with her at the school dances. He mentioned her height. He mentioned hugging her goodbye and telling her he looked forwarded to seeing her next semester.Then they parted ways. She left with her family and he left with his. What he has mentioned is that he wished he knew her better, that there were opportunities to share in life that he let slip past him. I can only assure him that this is a natural feeling, that sense that there were things left unsaid and that there is pain and guilt when we realize that they are here, in our hearts, and not in theirs. I also told him that it will hard for a while, but over the summer it will get easier before it gets much, much worse when they report in August.

Over the summer, he has left all his friends and classmates behind. In a way they are each and all a memory and not really real right now. This fall, when they all come back together, there will a void, that empty space that shows up now and again to remind us of the person who left it behind. Then this pain will be deeper and sharper. He needs to be ready for that and allow it. Growing in and through and then past this pain is a step will all must take and a skill we must learn. Otherwise we will always be stunted in life. I think the best way is to remember that this world is not our home and that death is not the final say. She is still real, just far away. She can still hear even if she cannot speak to him as clearly. The things that should be said, that must be said, still can be. Death is not an end, it is a wide and burgeoning distance, but never an end. As Catholics, we know and have solace in the fact that we can still speak to her and that she can do great good beyond her death. Not merely accepting it, but knowing this in the depths of our bones, makes us a hopeful people. I cannot imagine how those without faith cope with such things.

I find myself looking at her picture on my phone, wishing I had also known her better. She is another one of the bright, beautiful faces I see in emails and texts and trips back and forth to the college. She is a face that melts into so many others as I think of all the wonderful young men and women at that college whom I have had the opportunity to meet but never know. I have never met a student from this college I did not like, and each is very much the same even though each is very much unique. It is being the same that makes me feel as if I experience the same loss her family, friends and classmates feel and that uniqueness which makes me know that I cannot. I can sense the depth of loss, but never fathom it, never know how truly deep it goes.

Death is a strange horse. We live in a world where people are constantly snatched back from death because of intense medical intervention. We have this sense that in this world, people become very ill, crippled and maimed even, but that they survive terrible diseases or injuries. Not a hundred years ago. People feared that others would die, they considered the possibility of death constantly. It was a looming threat. Now, we see it coming and cannot recognize it. We stare at it and desperately try to make sense of it, like a Rorschach print that never really comes into focus. And so my family and I stare into the death of the beautiful girl and try to bring it into focus, to make sense of what we see. So far we have not succeeded but we will, given time.

Real food breakfasts...

2013-05-02T21:27:00.003-06:00

I just had a baby and mornings are a bit rough. I am often sleepy and nursing and my husband is out the door at dark-thirty because he has to be in the city and at his desk by 6:30 or so. And oddly enough, the children want to be fed in the mornings. Go figure. While it would be easier in the short-run to feed the kids cereal, it is definitely not in their best interests. So here is what a busy mother of eleven with a seven week old baby serves up:

When the baby is fussy and time and tempers are short:

Viili with fruit and nuts
Hard boiled eggs and fruit
Dinner leftovers, like soup (everybody gets a different dish depending on what might be left)

When there is a bit more time, but not a lot:

scrambled eggs
fried eggs
other more complicated egg dishes, see my list of recipes and links HERE
soaked oats with whipped cream (if your kids won't eat soaked oats, try topping them with fresh whipped cream, they will devour it)

When baby is happy and someone else is holding her:

Farro cereal, cooked like rice
Rice cereal, see HERE
Biscuits, see Cream Biscuits HERE and Southern Style HERE
Butterscotch tapioca, see HERE
Chocolate tapioca, see HERE (we've had three birthdays since March and have two more this month)

When you find your back against the wall, sit down when you have a minute and make a list of the things that you think you can make and that you will eat. Get the family to add their thoughts to the process so everyone helps fill out the list and broaden your options. Post the list where you can look at it when you have no idea what to make and eat. Pull from that list rather than panic and eat something that will make you feel sluggish and worse off.

What if you are feeling overwhelmed and not sure how to keep on the real food journey? I have written about this before and if this is the place you are in, you might want to check out that post. You can find it HERE.

In the meanwhile, give me some of your quick breakfast ideas!

Linking up to Pennywise Platter!

Random-ness...

2013-05-01T21:35:00.004-06:00

This is a photo of an all-in-one diaper handmade for my sweet baby Claudia by my friend, Katrina, in the Pacific Northwest. Are those veggies? Yes. I love it. It is my only AIO and it makes heading out the door a breeze. But it is not to last as in the near future Miss Chubby-pants won't even fit in it. Note to self: get a couple more.

Katrina is a sister-in-arms and now we have even more in common because she is now blogging, too, over here at Burbank Homestead. She has just started and does not have a lot up yet but she's gonna be fun. She is into cloth diapers, real food, natural parenting, faith, craft homebrew (like my hubs) and she is my connection for Lilla Rose hair clips. She has just started selling them and I am hosting a virtual party to get her started. You can wonder over and take a peek at it HERE. If you have a couple of bucks and are looking to support a stay-at-home-mama she does diapers and clips and is all around awesome.

Just so you know, we are closing on our house at the end of the month. This is great and scary. Apparently I am waving my dirty hippy flag a bit too high. My water kefir has gone into hiding since it freaks people out and smells "sour" and the inspection is this Friday. We are working hard to be normal people here but won't use commercial chemically cleaners and air "fresheners". Vanilla and lavender essential oils are my new best friends. They smell normal but are dirty hippy for me.

In additional randomness...

Claudia is darling but has been fussy in the evenings and has some pretty harsh reflux. This means I sit up and hold her after she nurses because waking with her vomit all over my neck is less than fun. I am using gripe water but considering a visit to the homeopath for a little more intensive work. A friend has suggested her great chiro and I am considering that route, too.

I have to use up my remaining beef bones in the freezer before we move at the end of the month. This means lots of soup and stews. I am trying a new technique which is awesome, but don't have a photo because we were starved after dance and scarfed down dinner before I thought to photo it. Good news is, there are more bones going. I am sauteeing the aromatics and then adding in the meat and root veggies before adding 30% more liquid than usual and popping it in the oven uncovered. The flavors intensify just like I browned everything separately but it takes far less time. You need to be very, very careful to avoid adding salt until the end because the evaporation will intensify that, too.

And lastly, once I was at the park with the kids enjoying a picnic lunch when a friend's mother accused me of boozing with the kids since we were drinking water kefir. Her heart was in the right place but not everyone is well intentioned. So, I am super happy that Kelly the Kitchen Kop has worked out just how much alcohol is in her kefir (I ferment mine longer so mine is probably higher). You totally need to head over there and read all about it. The post is an oldie but a goodie, find it HERE.

Linking up to Real Food Wednesday!

Real food when you just don't have time...

2013-04-26T11:29:00.001-06:00

I have written about this all before and I am writing about it again because no matter how often I tell people that real food is really possible, there is always someone who tells me they don't have time. The time is the biggee. People always tell me that they do not have time. Really think about this one before you tell me that. I am not trying to be mean and call anyone out but I have eleven children, ten at home. What does this mean? Two preschool aged kids to keep out of the toilet, seven kids home schooling from kindergarten to high school, eight kids who take dance lessons, and a newborn baby who is only six weeks old. And my husband works fifty hours a week. And I blog. Somehow I manage to cook meals that are bigger than most people's Thanksgiving supper and I do it three times a day. If I can do this, you can make dinner. You will be fine. You just have to figure out where you are spending your time and decide to spend it differently. Maybe you spend a lot of time on the internet, or on the phone, or playing games on Facebook, or watching television. Take some of that time and make food instead or at the same time as.

There are a lot of things that you can do at the same time as you cook. My mother loves the news and she watches it while she cooks. A good friend loves audiobooks and she listens while she is cooking. I have watched documentaries while cooking in order to preview them for the teens school. And everyone knows that there are plenty of times I put the phone on speaker while I am cooking. This way I can talk to my sister. All. The. Time. Now, admittedly this is easier because I have older kids who keep the younger kids from running amok while I am busy but, here is the thing, there was a time when I had all little kids. All close together. We didn't stop eating, not even when I had three kids in 27 months. No twins.

If your children are small, bring them into the kitchen. Strap the baby in the high chair or set them in Moses basket or bouncy chair and give them a carrot to chew on or toy to play with. I used to keep a plastic bin with a lid that held loud musical toys (tambourine, etc.) that I could not tolerate out for long periods but could handle for the 30 minutes while I cooked. The kids only got this bin when I was cooking so it was a treat and it kept them from drawing on the walls or flushing things down the toilet while I was busy. Move the play kitchen close by so they can cook while you cook. Kids love imitation and it instills in them a value of food and of the time spent cooking.

If your children are at least six, make them help with the meal preparation. They can wash veggies, they can peel, they can pulse the food processor, they can fetch ingredients and they can put things in the dishwasher or sink. If they are old enough to reach the sink easily, they can wash dishes. This is critical in big families. The dishes can pile up because the large pots and pans and bowls do not fit. I keep the sink filled with soapy water so that when I cook, I can wash as I go. All those jokes about real food and dishes are true and this way I keep from drowning under the weight. Once my kids are tweens and teens they are chopping, dicing, sauteeing, baking and even preparing whole meals by themselves. While we worked on taxes this year, the fourteen year old made meatloaf and veggies for dinner. No help from mom. When my daughter broke her arm last summer, the oldest roasted chicken and vegetables and served the younger children. While I was in the hospital after the birth of my eleventh, my thirteen year old baked cookies and muffins and coffee cake and used all the sprouted flour I had made. They started one technique at a time, one recipe at time, one meal at a time and now they can all cook. They will have an easier time out in the world because they developed the values and skills at home, in my kitchen with me as I cooked their meals.

You can do this, I promise. Just start. And pat yourself on the back often. It will make sticking to the real food plan easier if you feel encouraged and if no one else does it, you need to do it. Need some ideas for real food that can be made really fast? Check out the ideas in HERE for foods that can assembled or prepped in no time as well as HERE for ideas for foods that do not require soaking and allow you to just dive in.

I feel inspired...

2013-04-24T21:32:00.000-06:00

I have been blessed to get to know some amazing people while blogging. I have decided that I need to take some time over the next few busy weeks to talk about amazing people who inspire me. I was inspired to write about inspiration by a member of the staff (Bev, you know who you are) at my maternal-fetal medicine specialist's office. She rocks. Anyway, today I decided to give a shout out to my friend, Sarah, who blogs HERE. She made the amazing onsie you see to the left. Because she is cool. And sweet. And when I got it in the mail all the kids screamed. Because it is as cool as she is.

Sarah has a full house, seven kids and counting, and sews dresses on the side while home schooling, making real food and even diving into new projects like machine embroidery. She tackles real food like she tackles everything, with optimism and a can-do spirit. I like it. I like it when people who have a lot of kids say no to Handi-snacks because it makes others see that real food is really possible and not just something for the independently wealthy and perpetually less than busy. To check out her posts having to do with real food you can click HERE.

In other news:

We have a buyer! Yes, our house is under contract to a lovely family with three kids. I am thrilled and relieved. We close in 30 days. Tomorrow I may be panicked but today I feel great.
I have been reading more on essential oils and have decided to branch out from our little glass and bamboo reed diffuser. What are your favorite blends? Do you have a favorite diffuser? Any book suggestions?
I have been reading and researching on Zinc for a month in preparation for a post and then the Weston A. Price journal had two whole articles on it. So, I will be piecing together a post on it. Keep your weather eye out.
I have also been thinking about broadening my understanding of homeopathy. I like the look of Joelle Calabrese's set of digital materials HERE. Have you used them? I am pretty much set on them and look forward to learning more. I'd love to hear what you think, though.

..and...that is pretty much it. The baby is six weeks old. Things are getting easier. And busier. So actually, they will get harder. But for now, it's all good.

Babymoon book reviews...

2013-04-23T21:07:00.003-06:00

What does this picture have to do with anything? Um, nothing. But it was taken by my son's godmother this weekend and I love it. Because it is awesome. I was going to use with some sneaky tricks for getting kids to eat things but I liked it too much to wait. You get to look at it. Anyway, I am doing book reviews today. I read three books during my babymoon, the first one is Rebuild From Depression and is reviewed HERE. The other two are reviewed below.

First up, The Nursing Mother's Companion. This book is more than just the how-to nuts and bolts of breastfeeding but one which seeks to find answers to any challenges a mom could encounter. It covers a plethora of obstacles to breastfeeding and offers real solutions, even for tricky ones like women who have psychological hang-ups from sexual abuse or who have complicated medical conditions requiring intense medications. I have twice breastfed babies while on blood thinners (Coumadin with baby number ten and Lovenox with current lovebug) and because of my lung death from blood clots in the lung with number ten, I sometimes need asthma medications. Do I like it? No. But it is better than dead. One of the great things is that I can check this book and even bring it to doctor's appointments making me a better advocate for myself and my babies.

I had a terrible medical complication with a c-section which resulted in a large volume of blood clots in both lungs and lung death. When I was first prescribed blood thinners, I told the doctor that I was breastfeeding and refused the drugs and he basically flipped. If it had not been for an amazing breastfeeding nurse who chased down the pharmacist to discuss my medications, I would have been hard pressed to find common ground with him. He was panicked over my well being and I was panicked over my four week old baby's. This book, that nurse and that pharmacist made all the difference and I made a good recovery. I know that when I have a concern, Huggins has my back. Whatever issues you are concerned with whether it is breastfeeding twins, worries about low-carb diets, vegetarian and even vegan eating, breast health, working, and even *romance* this book covers it all. I received a copy as a gift after baby number two and it has been my favorite breastfeeding book of all time. It is the one I buy as baby gifts (including to a mother of twins due next month) and anytime someone tells me they had trouble with feeding in the past, I trot out this book.

We live in a world where we no longer have experienced mothers at our sides, let alone as examples in our communities. The most experienced mothers we know often only have one or two children and only know other women who have only one or two children and we have to seek out experts to help us with things like breastfeeding. If you do not have a mother who or grandmother who fed a half dozen or more children who can be with you for the first weeks of feeding a child, you need this book. There are illustrations to show proper technique and loads of helpful hints such as listening for clicking sounds which you might not even know to be aware of. Get the book and get support.

Secondly, I am reviewing a book I heard about from my oldest son, who is at college. It was written by the mother a friend of his. She was more than happy to talk to me about her book and now I have it to review for you. It might not appeal to everyone who reads my blog because it arrives from our shared Catholic perspective but it is a very interesting read no less. It is called Parables of the Flesh and it is an exploration of how to use physical illness and symptoms to explore spiritual and emotional conditions in order to address healing in a multifaceted approach. The author is a chiropractor in private practice here in Colorado and this book outlines her approach with her patients, see her page HERE. While it is a book written by a doctor and concerns her methodology it is not primarily a book about physical treatments and physical healing. It is difficult to explain the book because it is really a complicated workbook explaining how to interpret physical signs from the body and use them to explore our spiritual selves. I have never read anything like this.

This book is an all new approach to wellness and healing and addresses multiple levels of the body's functions. Our bodies are an integral part of ourselves and not just containers for who we really are and an appreciation of the significance of our bodies is very present in this book. Dr. Schmidt pulls from her personal experiences as well as from her clinical practice to help people understand the deep value that their bodies hold and the profound meaning that the body holds as the manner in which we engage the world. We live and move in the world not as a spirits but as bodies. This does not mean that the spiritual self has no significance because clearly it does and Dr. Schmidt knows this on a deep and fundamental level, rather it is that both hold importance for our lives.

Dr. Schmidt relies heavily on the analogy of the bride and bridegroom for our encounter with God. He seeks us out, finds beauty and value in us, but speaks to us through the vehicle of our bodies. Frequently she pulls threads out of this theme to shed light on the interpretation of our spiritual ailments translated through the lens of the physical symptoms. Her goal is not just the elimination of symptoms but the greater depth of the relationship with God as well as a holistic understanding of ourselves. I have never read anything like this, as I said before. While it is written from a specifically Catholic perspective I don't think that it would interest only Catholics or that only Catholics could benefit from it. It is well worth reading for any who want to explore the spiritual side of themselves.

I am always looking for great new books to read. Have you read anything you recommend?

Less than fun things...

2013-04-21T21:17:00.001-06:00

Selling a house stinks. I think of myself as a tidy, organized person but when our Realtor walked through the house helping us to prep and taking photos, suddenly I felt like a filthy pig. With hoarding tendencies. After she left the first time, I looked at my husband in abject horror and yelled, "What kind of animals are we?! How can you stand living here, I have never washed the sliding glass door track in the two years since it was installed!!" In retrospect, the standard for home staging just isn't realistic and my fears that I was allowing my children to wallow in filth really were unjustified. But still, I did and still do walk through the house thinking, "How did I let it sink to this level?"

On another note, staging just plain stinks because all my things are in storage and we have de-cluttered and de-personalized the house to an uncomfortable level of hotel-austerity. It feels weird and foreign here. But hopefully it will work out. These photos in the post were taken after I washed the dinner dishes. You can see my herbal tea and the Dutch oven with oats soaking for tomorrow's breakfast. I am constantly cleaning up in fear of my real estate agent and any potential buyers who will walk through here. Did I tidy up for you? Uh, no. But then again, we're friends, right? If you could not remember what my kitchen looked like before, HERE is a tour of my kitchen from before it got all naked. And it is really naked.

On a lighter note, there are some good things on the horizon, for one, I have a book review coming tomorrow. The book was meatier than I had anticipated and my life busier than I had anticipated so it took longer. But it will be up tomorrow and tomorrow should be good because in the interest of warding off serious psychosis over clean perfection I am going out to birthday lunch (for both of our birthdays) with my friend who blogs over HERE. Just mamas and babies, no kids. And Lord help them if the people who looked at the house Saturday and want a second showing make that showing for lunch!

Well, maybe I won't be too upset. After all, if they buy the house, then I get to the farm sooner. And sooner is good. And so is the farm. In case you missed my exciting summer, we spent three weeks at my husband's family farm (to which we are moving this summer). The kitchen is awesome. My purgatory in my naked kitchen will be worth every minute of it. Check it out.

Yes, there is another oven there, but this one has to stay because being out in the middle of nowhere on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan means often there is no electricity and even though the boiler is wood-fired, the baseboard radiators need electricity. This bad boy both heats and cooks and it amazingly cool looking. Makes me feel like Laura Ingalls. Well, maybe Ma Ingalls. I cannot wait to get in there and make it my own. All my packed up things like the dehydrator and juicer will come out and play it will make me happy indeed. So, do me a favor and say a little prayer and cross your fingers that someone buys my house. Soon. Officially we go on the market Tuesday but the people who have looked at it once are clients of our agent and they are getting a sneak peak. A second showing is a good thing, even if they do not make an offer it means that the house is looking good and my frantic scrubbing of the water spout on the fridge and window tracks is paying off. Or at least this is what I tell myself.

More coolness which makes up for the less than fun stress is that my friend, Katrina, is now selling Lilla Rose hair clips. I had a baby five weeks ago and the only thing that looks reasonably like it did before I was is my hair. So, the more attention I draw to it (and away from my lack of a waist) the better I feel. She gave me a couple of hair sticks and a mini clip for my hair in red (my favorite) and it makes me feel better. So, now I am having a party. I am sharing the love, people. So, if you have been looking for some hair clips, Katrina has the hooks-ups and she is real people. Fours kids, real foodie, super sweet. I am sending out the link to my friends who are not local, and because we are friends, I am giving it to you, too. So, HERE it is. My local friends will understand that I am not having anything in my house at this point, in fact, I am will be running away from it as often as it shows, which means I will probably be at your house.

Trying to pass for "normal"...

2013-04-18T21:33:00.001-06:00

If you did not know, we are selling our suburban home in Colorado to move to my husband's family farm in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is pretty exciting and my kids are thrilled and so are we, though the logistics are something to be considered. I am selling my house which means showing my house and I have eleven children (one at college). Oh, and I had a baby five weeks ago. Yeah, and I home school which means all the kids are always at home. And did we mention that I cook all our meals from scratch? So, I am trying to pass for normal and even look a little glitzy and not so, uh, homemade. This makes food prep a pain.

I am trying to remember to take meat out with enough time for it to thaw in the fridge because though we have a microwave, it is mostly just a box used to store baked goods and warm rice socks. I will try to avoid making cultured milks like viili and yogurt and will just have to buy them for a while so that there is less unfamiliar jars in my kitchen. I also put away the juicer, dehydrator and convection toaster oven in the basement in order to make more room in the kitchen for, well, room. Apparently people want to see room in a kitchen and not just my freaky foodie kitchen appliances. So for the time being there is no fresh juice, the nuts will need to be dried in the oven and the kids will have to cope with cold food. At least we still have the electric kettle which means I still have tea. Otherwise, things could get ugly.

But this calls to mind some interesting conversations I have had with people--you know the standard American diet folks. The people whose kids ask if the kombucha mushroom is a strange pet and wonder if the kids are drinking hooch when I hand them a blue swing top full of blueberry water kefir. We just aren't the standard American family evidenced by the scores of eggs and the bottles of raw milk in the garage fridge. And then ten kids running around here. They tend to attract attention. And no, it is not always good attention (remind me to tell you about "Jogging Day" sometime). But at least we get noticed for something!

The next couple of weeks will have posts about the baby, the house and getting it all done postpartum with a house on the real estate market that needs to stay picture perfect. It probably won't be picture perfect, but I am okay with that because good is good enough. Anyway, before I let you go, I thought I would remind you of my thoughts of being all freaky foodie with you good people. Check out my post on the WAPF stuff I love in my kitchen and that I need to find a way to look normal, read it HERE. Tomorrow, I will have pictures of my bare bones naked kitchen and some thoughts on how I think I am going to progress. I could be really, really wrong on what I think will work but life is about rolling with the punches. See you then!

Eden Foods, soy and birth control...

2013-04-17T20:50:00.000-06:00

You may have seen some bruhaha about Eden Foods and birth control. You see, Eden Foods is run by Michael Potter who has filed a federal law suit seeking protection from the HHS mandate, read more HERE, which requires him to cover contraception and abortion services.

Kaayla Daniel is not pleased that while the company seeks protection from the HHS mandate, they manufacture and sell soy products (see her guest post at Sarah Pope's blog HERE). She took the opportunity to capitalize on the recent turmoil over the HHS mandate to highlight the concerning effects of soy foods particularly on infants. I understand that there have been cases of babies who died as a result of being fed soy-milk which may or may not have been produced by Eden Foods. I think this is tragic and I believe that not enough is done to re-educate parents that soy-milk is not a substitute for human milk. For that matter, neither is animal milk unless adjuncts are added to re-balance the vitamin and nutrition profile. But this is not an evil on the part of Eden Foods, rather there is a larger cultural problem and that is the blind acceptance of all plants foods as being of greater moral and nourishing character. This is the real problem. Daniel is correct is suggesting that labeling may help but it only helps if people read and believe the labels. Believing what is printed there is critical because right now as it stands, people seek and offer overt support and congratulations for choosing soy foods over other foods. Daniel and the Weston A. Price Foundation work very hard to make available the research and data available on soy and Daniel in particular makes it fun, accessible and interesting.

I agree a great deal with Daniel but in the end I will still support Eden Foods because I support Michael Potter. There are no perfect companies out there, consider the fact that is seems there isn't anyone who doesn't sell any soy foods. But most importantly I am a Roman Catholic. I believe and follow the Church's teaching on sexuality, contraception and abortion and doing so does not make me backwards or scientifically illiterate. Neither is Potter. Isn't this America, where one should be able to run his company according to his conscience? If his conscience includes clean, natural foods somehow this is acceptable but if he doesn't want to promote birth control somehow this is a problem? As far as I am concerned, if he wants his employees to wear only three cornered hats while at work, that is his prerogative. He has no control over their use or non-use of the hats outside of work hours and shouldn't have to pay for alternative head coverings, either. If I have a problem with three cornered hats, I can take my business elsewhere. I think that addressing the issue of soy foods is important and I contact companies regularly about the soy in the products but more importantly, I believe that there are important moral questions aside from soy.

Healthy diet and breastfeeding...

2013-04-14T10:51:00.002-06:00

Claudia announces dinner.

There has been a lot of talk lately about whether or not women with imperfect diets can and should breastfeed or if it is necessarily better to resort to raw milk formula. It has been a heated debated, hurtful at times, and has the result dividing the real food community in general and the Weston A. Price followers specifically. Common wisdom tells us that when nerves are strained and the tension is raw it is better to simply let sleeping dogs lie but there is really not a better time to jump into the fray. I am not here to point fingers or sling mud but bring up some important points and tell you how I interpret the role of nutrition in breastfeeding.

Mostly importantly I want to recognize that there are conditions and complications which make breastfeeding inappropriate if not impossible. I am not here to make women who had necessary breast surgeries, adoptive mothers, women whose lives depend on risky drugs or those with profound obstacles feel guilty. The world is not a perfect place, it broken, and sometimes things don't turn out the way we wish they would. If you cannot breastfeed, I am not here to make you angry or guilty; however, I am saddened by it since breastfeeding provides substantial benefit to mothers and infants and, gosh darn it, is so easy. Much, much less fuss and mess than bottles and formula; deep down I am too stinking lazy go that route.

Lazy enough that I wish you didn't have work that hard.

The fact remains that nutrition is only one end of breastfeeding. For mothers oxcytocin, the love hormone, eases bonding with babies as well as promotes a sleepy, relaxed feeling and a sense of pride and accomplishment in nourishing a baby (HERE). This sense of pride extends so far as to actually improve women's sense of self worth even with they are stricken with profound eating disorders. This is great on its own but coupled with the benefits for infants it is a sweet deal. Breastfeeding promotes a bond with mother, the transmission of immunity, satisfies the sucking desire of infants beyond the need for nourishment, and provides excellent nutrition even in the instance of poor nutrition in mothers.

While it is true that appropriate diet will definitely improve the quality of breast milk, do not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Few of us have the luxury of sufficient time, energy and money to provide the perfect diet; good can be good enough. Studies have shown that even women who have pronounced eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia can have infants whose weights are scale appropriate and even be overweight, at times, at nine months (HERE and HERE). This alone gives me pause. I have beat myself up for not having the best diet at times but I can and should find comfort in that knowledge that even anorexics, whose scant diet is far worse than my own, can nourish a thriving baby. By babies will be fine, despite my dietary indiscretions.

Now that said, this ability to nourish a baby comes at a price and I will lay the price one way or another. My body will leach iron and calcium from own stores to ensure that baby never does without. If I am going to be healthy and strong, for my own sake as well as that of my child, I need to also nourish myself. In the end, I breastfeed not only my child's sake but my own. I am not lost in that equation. Neither are you.

Soothing lemonade for sore throats...

2013-04-11T21:00:00.001-06:00

I had a couple of children who complained for just a couple of days of having sore throats. They never got any worse and it resolved quickly but in the meantime I relied on the basic home remedy of hot lemonade. My kids love it, they will drink a half gallon at a time, which isn't a bad thing when you are trying to get a kid to drink something that is good for them.

We all know that vitamin C supports the immune system, which can be especially important when we are under the weather, but what you might not know is just how fragile vitamin C is. Heating and storing foods high in vitamin C can result in losses of 50% of the original amount, see HERE. So it important to remember that fresh squeezed lemon juice will have higher amounts of vitamin C and to preserve it, we have to be careful not heat it too long or at too high of a temperature. My lemonade also uses raw honey to provide an additional boost and it, too, needs to be handled gently. The key here is warming it so that it is soothing to the throat without boiling it so that they beneficial properties of the lemon and the honey are destroyed.

Hot Lemonade

1 Qt very warm water, not boiling but warmer than you would bathe in

1/2 C fresh squeezed lemon juice (from two or three lemons)

1/2 C raw, unfiltered honey

Optional: 1/4 C coconut milk or coconut oil

Combine all ingredients in a heat proof pitcher and stir well to combine, serve immediately.

Giving natural products a bad rep...

2013-04-10T20:51:00.002-06:00

I do not have that straight, glossy hair that be washed and left naked to air dry. I have thick, coarse curly hair that goes to my waist. This means if I skip putting something moisturizing with a bit of hold then I end up with a whole yard of hot mess to contend with not to mention the fact that it very well may cause intense friction burns if you pass too close to me. I have made flax gel, which works great, and I make a spray gel with aloe vera juice which works with light hold and well though not as good. In this post HERE I explain what homemade products I have been making and using. I also use some freaky expensive Curling Custard which smells too sweet for my husband's taste but works so, so well. My hair is moisturized and defined and pleasingly flat (though slightly crispy) and causes no serious injury to those sitting next to me while I read to them at night. It smells like desert, like marshmallow cream, and in fact a little girl once told me that I smelled so great. In her words, "Just like candy aisle at Walgreens!"

But did I mention that it is freaky expensive? Yeah. My husband is financial planner and not too pleased with this. So I tried something else, which had great ingredients and boasted on its label that it was highly moisturizing, and cost way less. I tried Curling Souffle made with coconut oil and hibiscus and agave. This is a prime case of do not as I do but as I say. And what do I say? Stay far, far away from this mess!

First off, to say that it moisturizes is like saying that Portland has a damp climate. I live in Colorado. My hair is bone dry. But this is way too much for even me. It felt like car wax. My hair felt coated and sticky and well, even my husband was a little grossed out by it. He said my hair didn't even feel like hair anymore and it stuck together in giant clumps which meant even I didn't play with my hair.

Secondly, my hair was still frizzy. It was sticking in big greasy clumps that still frizzed out in all directions like my own hair was trying to run away from itself. My teenage daughter tried to be helpful when she suggested that I might need to wash my hair and start with clean hair. I explained that not only had I washed it but I had even skipped conditioning it. So she suggested I condition it and then apply it. Well, I did one morning and my hair felt greasy and was still wet six hours later in the cold Colorado spring with heat running in the house.

Well, I turned to some internet forums because nothing helps to illuminate the solutions to life's sundry problems like whining on the web. Someone recommended I comb it through my hair. I was skeptical but thought, "Other than the respect of my husband and children who have to look at me, what do I have to lose?" The answer was clear and resounding: my self respect. Never, never comb curly hair with a wide tooth comb when you have smeared ungodly amounts of vegetable grease through it. Honestly, who would have though that hair that long could have gotten so big? I looked like I was standing in front of a giant hair pyramid that stretched wider than my postpartum hips. This was not a good look for me. This is not a good look for anyone.

Having failed to find a solution when consulting my teen or the web, I turned to the next logical step. I bawled like a baby about it. When asked by my loving husband why I was so upset I told him that I was out of my expensive product and was trying this terrible product and that I was trying to finish my terrible product so not to waste money and in the end all I got was hair that looked like a homeless man's beard. A beard that was used to build a massive hair pyramid. I knew that the product was really just as bad as I was thinking when my husband said to me, "Yeah, it feels like wax and it smells funky, too. You should go wash it out." Other than being relieved that it was not just postpartum hormones and it really was the product's fault, I was also peeved out of my mind that that my husband thought my hair was gross. I did go wash it out. And for two days had nothing in my hair other than hair, which is also not a good look. Then my husband, despite being a bean counter, actually tossed out my terrible stuff and went and bought the good stuff.

So long story just a bit longer, Curling Souffle is an evil product made by evil people who secretly hate curly haired people and what them all to look like they are wearing homeless-man-beard-hair-pyramids. You have thus been warned.

Getting back to business...

2013-04-08T20:58:00.000-06:00

We have been less than successful in figuring out our new routine. There is the new baby and then there is homeschooling and the regular household chores plus real food, which is work, and we are putting our house on the market. Let me tell you that selling a house is about as much fun as putting a fork in your eye. Woe to me, the MLS is coming and there are ten children in this house including a not-quite-four week old baby. I need to make this house look like a normal house, you know, where people are gone all day and no one cooks and there are 1.2 children in it.

I am actually a bit worried about this. A professional stager will be coming to my house and rearranging the cupboards and pantry and furniture. My food zoo may be disconcerting to her. How do you explain the strange jars and starters and cultures that sit around a real food kitchen? We shall see. I pride myself on a well organized, very clean kitchen but apparently, it did not meet her muster. The track of the sliding glass door was dirty, my cupboards too cluttered and the tops of the antique farm cupboard, the top of the fridge and the counters are also too cluttered. If you have never seen my kitchen, you might want to see these photos HERE. I will definitely take photos of the farm kitchen when we get there and then show the changes once we are all in and the food zoo is properly settled. But for now, I need to please people who only care about aesthetics not the real functional nature of my kitchen. A kitchen that provides meals for a dozen people, three times a day. Soon to be thirteen because...

The college aged son comes home in three weeks, whoot! I have to make some of his favorite foods because he has been without good solid food. The food is decent at his college but he tells me no one makes veggies like me (creamed kale, pan roasted broccoli with sesame oil, and chili-lime roasted corn are his favorites) and his misses real bread. He really likes the Dutch oven bread I make that is soaked with beer. This is so great, cooking for people makes me happy. I am totally counting the days.

But, this means I have been bad about blogging lately. I am really sorry about it and will be working to have exciting things to tell you like, uhh, that I managed a shower today before noon and that, uhhh, all the children are well and accounted for, both of which are actually accomplishments because I have a newborn. And ten older kids. And no super powers to speak of. But there will be content, even if it is just what we are doing in this time. The newborn period is short and I will get my act together and I will finish that to-do list before going on the market, albeit with tears. This really could mean that my snarky side comes out. My writing is better when I have plans and research, when I wing it I get snarky.

Like the post for tomorrow. Its a product review for an all natural product that I found less than stellar. It is a beauty product that made my hair look and smell like a homeless man's beard. I took out my extensive postpartum hormones on this product and I do not regret it. People should think before they sells things that might be purchased at any time by women who are either postpartum or menstrual. Think hard people, internet access abounds and I probably way to forthright here.

Anyway, in so many words, I just want to promise that things will get better. We are hiring a cleaning lady while we sell this house and this will free up time for me to write things both snarky and researched. This will be good for me (because I seriously need an outlet) and for you (because you come here and read this stuff, and I am so grateful that you do!). So, keep coming back. Because the kids are tired of hearing me talk to myself.

Caramel hog frosting...

2013-04-03T20:52:00.000-06:00

I have a fabulous friend who went to culinary school and now bakes wedding and special event cakes. She is really very talented and skilled and her cakes taste as good as they look. They are also healthy, which is a rare feat. She and her mother recently tackled a very large cake for the dedication of our new church building (read more HERE) and they decided to try something different for the frosting. Something very different they did accomplish, something you might never have considered or expected. I know I was surprised.

Hanna usually makes Italian buttercream, also called a meringue buttercream, which has a simple syrup and beaten egg whites and not powdered sugar. Delicious but expensive and time consuming. They figured that they would try American buttercream which is made with powdered sugar and fat, like butter. They really wanted to avoid shortening, because although it is cheap, it tastes like bear grease and is rot for your body. So, racking their substantial brains for traditional fats they settled on lard. Laws makes amazing pastry, why not amazing frosting?

As it turns out, lard does not make good frosting. Not only is it not good, it is decidedly bad. Very bad. It all seemed to be going well at first but as the beat air into the very large batch of frosting for a very large cake, there was an unavoidable odor permeating the air. Not a good smell, something akin to a hog being deep fried in vat of burning caramel. They kept beating, and the odor intensified and the whole kitchen smelled weirdly porky. The frosting looked great, tasted off but most importantly could be smelled a mile off.

After conferring with each other and the children of the house subjected to the smell of candied pigs, they decided that there was no way to pass off this frosting. Children who will eat anything which is presented to them as desert oddly enough do not readily consent to pork flavored cake. Particularly if they can smell the caramel hog frosting from their rooms as they play with Legos. Go figure.

The whole batch of frosting was a complete loss in terms that it could not be used to decorate a cake for human consumption but it was a valuable experience. Even if the only value came from me holding my c-section staples as I laughed till I cried when Hanna called to tell me about her hideous pork cake. Hideous but hilarious. Freaking hilarious.

By the way, the photo is not of the church cake, I wasn't there to take the picture. This isn't even a cake made by Hanna but by my sister. But it is a cake and I had the photo on my phone. So there.

Linking up to Real Food Wednesday!

Post-Partum depression recovery...

2013-04-01T20:25:00.002-06:00

Amanda Rose, PhD, author and blogger at Rebuild From Depression sent me a copy of her book by the same name as her blog, it is available HERE, co-written by Annell Adam, MD, a board certified clinical psychiatrist. It arrived in the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy and I set it aside specifically for my babymoon reading (I delivered a baby on March 13). I am thrilled to be able to review it for you. Rose's book focus on depression in general but on pregnancy and postpartum depression specifically and discusses diagnostic methods to find nutritional deficits and then strategies for mediating these deficiencies in order to heal naturally. Her book gains high praise from more well known and influential people than myself, people such as Nina Planck, the author of Real Food: What to Eat and Why and Real Food for Mother and Baby. The praise is well earned and well deserved.

Rose is candid and forthright in discussing her own very personal and very painful experiences of profound depression during her first pregnancy and the deepening postpartum psychosis she crept into. The first part of the book is her personal story and it leaves her vulnerable and exposed to the reader in a way that caught my attention. I was shocked, not by her actual thoughts and feelings, but rather by her honesty and openness in laying bare her struggles. Depression is a misunderstood condition with a strong social stigma attached to it that makes it difficult for people to discuss their conditions and seek the help that they need. Rose's book lays out her own experience to demonstrate to the reader that she is not alone but that there is real healing out there.

The book progresses then to her own understanding that she needed to figure out the source of her pain and suffering before she could cope with it, and not in a spiritual way but a physical and diagnostic way. She delved into nutrition with single minded devotion and looked into her experiences and those of her mother and grandmother and put together a complicated puzzle that had come apart over generations. She found a common thread and then another. She realized that treating depression starts with diet and giving the body the nutrients it needs. She discusses the roles of B-12, magensium, zinc, heavy metals, omega-three fatty acids, oxalic acid, and phytates but the treatment chapters of the book fall into the basic food categories. Each food category (say legumes) discusses the "depression busting" nutrients in each and how one either minimizes or maximizes its effect on the body. Her nutritional advice is sound and very familiar to Weston A. Price diet followers.

But Rose's book is not only for or even primarily for the WAPF types. She discusses the best possible approaches for those who are vegetarian and even vegan and encourages them to avail themselves of some animal foods in order to get the most of the specific nutrients she suggests. While she is far more comfortable with soy than I am (I consider it a toxin and not actually food) she allows for it in very modest amounts and recommends properly fermented soy, which is far better than all the artificial milk and lightly processed soy products out there. But knowing how to to fix the diet is just as important as knowing what is missing. Rose discusses what diagnostic tools are available to measure and test for nutritional deficiencies as well as how to interpret body cues if the tests are burdensome or too costly.

Rose's blog is of further help as she and her mother maintain it with vivid personal accounts, stories of healing, recipes and additional information. The book and the blog are available to women and their families with little expense and tremendous amounts of information and assistance which could be a boon for those who find it difficult, for whatever reasons, to get the help they need. Not all of us have mothers who would give up everything to move in and help us rebuild our lives. Rose and her mother represent a life line to those who have none.

I think one of the most telling things in her book is that it is not highly edited or slickly packaged. It is real and personal and I think that is important. I get the feeling that Rose truly wants to help others, that her purpose is not to exalt herself as an expert but to extend a steady hand from the other side of the wide gulf of depression and pull other mothers across. In a world that hides from postpartum depression, this is a welcome relief. I wish my father's mother had access to this information, it would have changed the lives her husband and her children just as much as it would have changed hers. Because there is no going backwards, only forwards, I can only pass this book along to those who will need it and let others know that it is there if they ever find themselves in the same position.

Linking up to Fat Tuesday!

Really love your post-baby body...

2013-03-29T12:30:00.000-06:00

Here is a photo of my new little baby, Claudia Maria. She was born on March 13th and weighed eight pounds and two ounces but was almost twenty-two inches long, so she looks leaner because she is all stretched out. It was a rougher surgery than expected, I needed a classical (vertical) incision which takes longer to heal and made sitting fully upright pretty hard for the first week. But, I am actually feeling better now and she has thrived.

I am a big believer in co-sleeping and she has slept with me and I have nursed her while laying down meaning she and I are getting rest and my incision is getting time to heal. I have been thinking a great deal about all the non-sense they send you home with (formula samples, magazines, you know). I have some thoughts on some of the things I brought home. Monday, I have a review of a fabulous book on coping with and recovering from post-partum and pregnancy depression using nutrition and Tuesday I will share a hilarious cake decorating story.

Pregnant women are flooded with useless magazines featuring bad advice. I try not to open them let alone read them but one cover teaser caught my eye and I gave in and read it. "Love your post-baby body!" it boasted! I have each and every time struggled so much in the post-partum period with a crushing sense of disappointment in my post-baby body I opened it before thinking twice. It was the usual nonsense about high carb, low fat diet and exercise under the calories in, calories out model. Sure, it is ostensibly about weight loss (but really about fat soluble vitamin depletion) but what it was not about is loving my body.

There was nothing there about feeding my body solely for health and nourishment of myself as well as the infant I breastfeed, or about getting sufficient rest to promote the healing and recovery of my body or about exercise as movement to slowly regain strength. It was about subjecting my body to a regimen to manipulate it, control it and reign it in. The article could have been titled: Get thin and do it fast because, after all, movie stars look red carpet ready in eight weeks so, darn it, you had better, too! How is that loving my body? Loving my body would take patience, effort and care. I would need to value body for what it is so that I could then lovingly care for it as it needs to be cared for as I recovery from the grueling marathon that is pregnancy and birth. Especially in this case. I had a classical c-section and lost a sufficient amount of blood to need two blood transfusions. My body needs love right now. The first step to having love for my body would certainly be valuing it and showing that love would be the care I give it.

Is it easy to value our bodies? No, of course not. If it were, I wouldn't have struggled after each birth and you would have stopped reading this several minutes ago. But I do and you are and it is profoundly difficult. So where do we start? I think the very first thing is to stop listening to the world and start listening to your body and your baby. If we begin to value our bodies for what they are and not what strangers observe. Strangers cannot really know us and whatever opinions they may or may not have of us is completely irrelevant to who and what we are because our bodies are intimately intertwined with our identities and they miss that critical component. They do not and cannot see the rest of the picture. The opinions of those who know us and love are far more meaningful. This is why your baby's feelings towards you matter the most at this moment in time. Your baby loves your body and what it means and what it provides to him, how can you not be good enough? How can you not value and care for this body?

One of the most profoundly beautiful explanations of this is a part of a larger post on the broader topic of breastfeeding and the rush of WAPF types to recommend raw formula too often and too early. It is written by the amazing KerryAnn Foster and you can read it HERE. This is not to suggest that sometimes formula or donor milk is necessary, but I really believe that this rush to push women into all too often makes them more inclined to post-partum depression as well as interfering with the best possible way to nourish babies.

We are celebrating Easter this weekend, and if you will be as well, have a blessed Triduum and Easter! Pax Christi!

Red pepper fish tacos...

2013-03-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

I am on maternity leave through this week, so please enjoy this post originally published on 4/12/2012.

If you are using inexpensive tilapia fish for your family, you might want to consider using cape hake fish which is a mild, inexpensive but wild caught fish that is not over-fished, see HERE. I bought the fish I used in this particular meal at Costco under the Oceanfresh brand which according to the company is sustainably wild caught, see HERE. This is an easy dish and I like that you can pop it in the oven and walk away.

Roasted Red Pepper Fish Tacos, serves 6

2 pounds hake fillets, thawed
1 sweet onion, coarse chop
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Five large sprigs of cilantro
2 teaspoons ground chile peppers
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional
1 pt roasted red pepper paste, see my recipe HEREMexican seasoned salt to taste, see my recipe HERE

Stir all ingredients together in a Dutch oven and cover. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35-45 minutes. If you did not plan ahead and the fish is frozen, cook for 55 minutes. I have done it myself at times. I will also assemble ingredients and leave in the fridge and have the kids pop it into a cold oven and set to 350 and cook for 55 minutes if I am running around. Then we can just throw everything on the table and eat with no mess and no fuss. Serve with tortillas (see my grandmother's lard based recipe HERE), or corn tortillas HERE, and plenty of homemade sour cream (find instructions in the Viili 101 tab or HERE). Going grain free? Use very thin omelets, which is is the traditional way of serving chile rellenos. See my omelet tute HERE.

Linking up to Monday Mania and Weekend Gourmet!

Hunting for food sensitivities?

2013-03-21T09:00:00.000-06:00

Be a private eye!

I am on maternity leave through this week, so please enjoy this post originally published on 8/18/2011.

One of my children has some food sensitivities that are not allergies, meaning that the usual battery of skin and blood tests don't show an allergy. We struggled to find an answer to her obvious distress but when the medical tests failed, we needed to start a food diary to see what was causing her trouble. While a diary is time consuming and a significant hassle, it is well worth it to finally know what is causing your problems.

So, the first thing to consider is what caused your concern initially? Constant colds, runny noses, digestive trouble, weight loss or gain? These are the symptoms to continue to look for. Every day, every meal, every snack you will need to write down what the sufferer ate and drank. A small notebook or even a note taking feature on a smart phone can help. Make that you note the presence of any of the concerning symptoms in the same area. You would do best to avoid processed food because the total of the ingredients will be foreign to you. After you have at least two weeks of notes and maybe even a month, start looking for patterns.

Problem foods can present themselves in common ingredients (tomatoes and other high acid foods) or in just extreme reactions. My daughter had quinoa twice in our diary period and both times developed instant, watery stools and profound crying. That was a no brainer. But the nightshades took a closer look at what she had eaten in the 24 hour period preceding her symptoms. A friend saw the connection between the foods and we realized that they were all nightshades. They can also present in foods that are eaten to excess, foods that someone can't seem to avoid and this seems to be especially common when the symptoms seem to be constantly present.

The next step is to eliminate any obsessive foods or any pattern foods for at least two weeks if not one month. Then add foods back one at a time and no closer than two weeks apart. When more symptoms present, then stop eating the most recently added food. It may be that none of the foods eliminated can be added back but the lost food is not as much a pain to deal with than the sensitivity itself.

Looking for a good book that goes into far more detail than I can in a single post? Check out "What's Eating Your Child". This book is a phenomonal insight into how food sensitivies operate in the body and is an enormous help in solving your children's or even your own recurrent health issues.

Linking up to Simple Lives Thursday!

Special coconut cake...

2013-03-20T15:05:00.000-06:00

I am on maternity leave through this week, so please enjoy this post originally published on 4/16/2012.

This is the cake that I make every year for Easter and is a special memory for my children. The original recipe calls for white cake mix and egg whites but at least also uses whole milk and butter. I never used that version. Instead, I made a homemade version with white cake flour. It is really good, but I also felt a little guilty about the fact that it was white flour because I would like my indulgences to be a little less, well...indulgent, I guess. I was hesitant to use whole wheat pastry flour because whole grain cakes tend to be dry and soaked cakes tend to be gummy but since this is a cake that requires rest, the dryness is not an issue and because I use sprouted flour I don't need to soak. What is really great about this cake is that it can be made well in advance of an event so that there is no last minute dessert rush. It is moist and beautiful and impressive, all good things when you have company.

We use this cake especially for Easter because it also has a special symbolism. As Christians, my family believes that Christ left this world (the harrowing of hell) for three days following his crucifixion and then came from the tomb on Easter Sunday. I make this cake three days before Easter and we put it in the fridge (usually covered with the overturned tall spring-form pan for safe keeping from fingers) and I pull it out again on Easter. The cake you see in this photo is the coconut cake from Easter Sunday this year.

This tiered cake is a chocolate sourdough cake and frosted with homemade cream cheese and raw honey frosting (with some butter in for stability). I used the recipe from GNOWFGLINS Sourdough course. By the way, this particular cake used a double recipe
.

I know Easter is behind us, but with graduations and mother's and father's days coming up, there are plenty of chances to make this cake. I also did not want to post it until I was sure it would be awesome. My guests loved it, and I think yours will, too! We had a large gathering this year, so I made both cakes and my oldest daughter decorated them. I was pretty pleased with how they came out.

Coconut Cake

Dry Ingredients:

2 1/2 C sprouted whole pastry wheat, ground (this means measure after it is ground)

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp unrefined salt

Wet Ingredients:

2 sticks of butter softened

1 to 1 1/2 C sucanat

1 can organic, full-fat coconut milk (I use Thai Kitchen brand)

1 TB vanilla (I use homemade)

Additional Ingredients:

4 whole eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two stainless steel 8" cake pans (use the deeper 2" variety) by greasing with coconut oil and sprinkling with all-purpose flour or lightly refined cane sugar. I like to use sugar because it produces a good crust which does not crumble after splitting the layers and is easier to frost. Then whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl. In a smaller bowl, beat together the wet ingredients, be patient because it takes a while for the sucanat to dissolve. Add the wet to the dry all at once and beat until combined. Then slowly pour the eggs in while beating constantly. Pour into prepared pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs attached (if it comes clean, the cake will be too dry). Cool in pans 6-8 minutes and then turn out. Cool thoroughly and split each layer in two. Fill with coconut frosting below.

Coconut Frosting

3 C sour cream (I use homemade, so it is probiotic)1 1/2 lb of shredded, unsweetened coconut1 C evaporated cane sugar

Beat together until combined. Refrigerate for one hour before using.

Fill and frost the cake with the frosting right from the fridge, it must be cold. This is a goopy frosting. Once it is frosted, you will need to wrap the sides of the cake in either parchment paper or BPA free plastic cling. Use the wrapping to help smooth out the sides. Cover the cake and rest in the fridge for three days. Before serving, dip an off-set spatula in boiling water, wipe dry and smooth the sides of the cake. I also add berries to make it more presentable. It is delicious and moist and well worth the wait.

If you need to learn how to make sprouted flour, try my Flour 101 tab or click HERE if you are on a reader. I used homemade cream cheese, which is explained in the Villi 101 tab or click HERE. Lastly, I make my own vanilla, and you can find out to make some of your own in my post HERE.

Linking up to Weekend Gourmet and Monday Mania

Did you forget to soften the butter?

2013-03-19T18:06:00.000-06:00

I am on maternity leave through this week, so please enjoy this post originally published on 3/1/2012.

When making baked goods, often it is important to start with butter that has been softened at room temperature until it will hold a finger print, but not so long that is has begun to melt and pool underneath the stick. Softened butter incorporates well with sugar and eggs and will get fluffy as it is beaten whereas hard butter just falls into smaller, grainier pieces. If you have forgotten to soften the butter and have tried to bake with it straight from the fridge, you know how frustrating it is to beat the butter and watch it turn into small grains rather than incorporate with the other ingredients. But what can you do if you need to get your baking done and you didn’t set out the butter?

If you have a food processor, you can use butter straight from the fridge. Cut the butter into tablespoon sized pieces and place in the food processor with the sugar (which you are of course replacing with sucanat!) called for in the recipe and process until smooth. If your recipe also calls for eggs, it will often ask you to combine the eggs one at a time with the butter and sugar mixture. Crack the eggs into a pitcher and pour them in, one at a time, with the machine running to incorporate. A smaller recipe (say a layer cake) can be finished in the food processor but if you are making a larger amount, you’ll need to transfer this mixture to another bowl before adding the flour and other wet ingredients.

Frosting works beautifully in the food processor, so you don’t need to limit yourself to just baked goods. This method also works well for when you need to cut in cold butter like biscuits or pastry and it keeps the butter coldest yielding the best results. You also don’t need very fine sugar for frostings, fine pastry and other applications, because your food processor will make sure the coarse pieces of sucanat are finely chopped and the results will be much fluffier, as fluffy even as refined baking suagr. I also use my food processor to pulverize sucanat to keep in my sugar bowl for guests who are used to having it in their coffee and tea. It will pour out just as easily through a glass sugar pitcher as refined sugar and be far healthier.

If you don’t have a food processor, or are making large amounts of food, start by grating the butter on the largest holes of a box grater. In the recipe for this post, I made the Honey Whole Wheat Biscuit from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Book and I used Kamut. I combined the dry ingredients in my bowl and then grated the butter into it. Using a fork to keep the butter from being warmed by my hands, I toss the butter with the dry ingredients before I work in the buttermilk and egg yolks with my hands.

So the next time you forget to soften the butter, don’t panic and don’t stress! Grab the box grater and get to work!

When was a time you were frustrated by trying to work with cold butter?

Linking up to Pennywise Platter and Simple Lives!

Sweet "Chai" of mine...

2013-03-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

I am on maternity leave through this week, so please enjoy this post originally published on 5/23/2011.
I love chai tea, it is so comforting and makes me happy when I am having a bad day. I love it hot in the winter when I am sitting in front of the fire with a good book (or my Kindle). But in the summer, I love to sip iced chai while sitting under the trees over my patio in my back yard. I can close my eyes and pretend that the yard isn't littered with bikes, a GI Joe burial ground, various trebuches (catapults) in various stages of completion, and an umbrella laundry line full of diapers. No need to buy the expensive liquid concentrates or the tea bags which are often artificially flavored with vanillin, just pull out a small pot with a lid (stainless steel) and make a quart. You can serve a crowd or put it in the fridge to chill and pour a cup when you feel stressed. I promise, it works wonders

Vanilla Chai

2 cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces if you can manage it
1 (1-inch) piece ginger root and sliced5 cardamom pods, split
4 whole black peppercorns
2 black tea bags, regular size, or one family-size (I buy Newman's Organic Royal)
2 tablespoons honey (I use raw and unfiltered)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup half-and half (or whole milk)

For the spices, everything is pretty flexible so put in a little more cinnamon if you really like it or cut back on the cardamom if you don't. It is all about finding the mix that is right for you. Then place everything except tea, honey, vanilla and half-and-half with a quart of water into a small pot and bring to a boil and then add tea bags. Cover, remove from heat and rest for 5 minutes. Remove tea bags and let steep for 10 more minutes. Strain through a sieve, or not, into a teapot or into another glass container that can hold a quart of liquid and tolerate heat. Stir in honey, vanilla and half-and-half. Serve hot or chill and serve over ice.

Linking up to Monday Mania!