There is one on cravings, tropical smoothies, and a fun baby “party trick” that my skinny preschooler loves.

What really got me, though, was the Top 10 Signs You’re Breastfeeding a Toddler.

Some of my favorites:

-The multitasking toddler nursing and playing with a phone. MoxiLady has been doing this lately. I have been knocked in the face a couple of times. Yep, I just had to have the phone with the biggest screen…

-Your bra becoming a cookie jar. I have found the weirdest, most random things in my bra in my years of nursing toddlers. It is definitely motivation to change it regularly. The only thing worse than finding a leftover snack in your bra is realizing you haven’t given them that snack in 3 days.

-The nurse-and-go. Gone are the days of long, relaxing nursing sessions. Nope, pop on/pop off. The world is big, and she is busy. Except, of course, at night when I’m trying to slip away for some mama-time. Then she suddenly can’t live without it.

One thing I didn’t see on there is how you find yourself nursing every toy in the play room. Monster trucks crashed? They need nummies. Dinosaur fell down? Nurse that reptile! Baby doll is sad? Well, we can’t let a naked, crayon-scuffed, questionably-odored infant cry it out. Mommy to the rescue!

What signs tell you that your nursing infant has become a nursing toddler?

The photo is my own, but it is of a painting I commissioned from Shared Vision Studios. She is amazing, and you should buy her work. You could even buy a copy of this one if you asked her nicely.

Pregnancy cravings have the most publicity, what with the late night bologna and peanut butter or your standard pickles-and-ice-cream. But you know as well as I do that there is more to it than that. PMS chocolate, anyone? Just about everyone gets cravings now and then, and periods of stress and emotion seem to intensify them.

What if there is more to the story? What if your cravings are trying to tell you something?

It might not always be the case, but many cravings are linked with nutritional needs. For example- did you know that vinegar aids in calcium absorption? Yeah, the same vinegar in pickles and the same calcium in ice cream.

So many of us are looking to eat healthier, and one random sweets craving can throw that all out the door. Having a bit of a window into what those cravings mean might not fix everything, but it could give you some direction when it seems like only mayonnaise and Doritos will do.***

A popular chart outlines - “if you’re craving this…try this.”

Highlights:  If you’re craving chocolate, you could be looking for magnesium. Try nuts and seeds, legumes or fruits. (I might add that sweets cravings can be tied to a need for fats, which can also be met by nuts and seeds, or coconut oil)

Others are a bit more obscure, but I think the concept is worth looking at. Even as a happy vegetarian, I would crave burgers when my iron got low. Some chlorophyll and lentils and the craving would ease as I increased iron levels.

Other times…yeah sometimes potato chips and rootbeer won me over.

What has been your craziest craving? Can you identify the nutritional need they might reflect…or do you just enjoy it as-is (in moderation, of course…of course!) ?

***Dude. Gross.

Picture credit to Vegan Feast Catering 

Photo Credit to oliveabeans on VegWeb.Com

Winter has been half-hearted this year, with mild temperatures that I won’t come close to complaining about. Instead of playing outside in snow suits and galoshes, we’ve been in jeans and barefeet. But it doesn’t stop us from coming in looking for soup to curl up with.

Here are some amazing looking soups that I’m hoping to find a home for on my next meal plan.

No-Chicken Soup

Who says you need chicken for chicken soup? I could slurp on “chicken” soup broth all day, really. But, since the veggies are so good for you, I suppose they can come, too. Fun trick – I used gluten free noodles once and over-cooked them (by accident) so they dissolved..and it turned the broth so thick that it was more like the broth that dumplings make. Yum.

Chili for Days

Food Doodle's Vegetarian Quinoa Chili

Chili is one of my favorites to make in big batches because it freezes so well and can reincarnate in so many different ways. On baked potatoes or home fries, as burritos or on nachos, and seriously don’t forget Frito chili pies. Seriously. This one looks great, or how about adding quinoa for texture, or some roasted veggies for some added umph? Ahhh, moving on before my stomach starts growling…

Miscellaneous Mmmmm

The Ginger Lentil Soup of months past was a surprising treat, as was the Seitan “Chicken” and Barley. Check out this inspiration sheet for soups of all kinds, too..and don’t forget the simple, underrated vegetable soup, or tomato soup with grilled cheese.

There are so many ways you can go with soups and stews. What’s your favorite?

For those of you who have followed along since the beginning of this blog, through my pregnancy and first year with MoxiLady, you know that meal planning is a challenge for me. I don’t enjoy it, and often the meal plans come late or not at all as I stall to organize my thoughts and meld them with my schedule.

In fact, that hesitance has a lot to do with why I have been so neglectful the last few months here. Meal planning – and sticking to it – does not come easily for me.

And then, I discovered Plan to Eat.

It’s like a dream.

Plan to Eat holds a database of recipes that you can enter manually or import from sites. Importing is as easy as pinterest pinning, with a toolbar button that imports it to your database. If it cannot import, you can copy/paste the ingredients and directions.

Manually typing recipes is tedious, but it doesn’t take too long with the bulk option, and once I am caught up it will be totally worth it becaaauuuuse….

To meal plan, all you do is click and drag the recipes over to your calendar.

That’s it.

From there, you can print the whole calendar, or go over to “grocery list,” where a list has been made from your meal plan! On top of that, you can click, drag, edit, remove, and add to the grocery list — AND you can separate the list out into stores if you hop around to multiple places like I do.

I’m seriously in love.

I would like to see the option to click a meal area and type in a meal rather than only being able to use recipes. Other than that, I’m only seeing sunshine here. It is visual and intuitive enough that I am able to actually meal plan, and since I save so much $$ and energy when I do plan, it’s worth the $39/year or $4.95/mo to me. I mean, really, $39 barely covers one night out when we realize there is nothing to eat and it’s 5:45. If meal planning actively can save just two of those nights in a year, this is beyond worth it.

Go try it- the first month is free, with no card numbers or payment info to enter! I admit that my links are affiliate links, but beyond that, no one told me to post all of this. I’m truly in love, and once you are, you can get your own affiliate link to pimp. When you do, be sure to come back here and let me know what you think!

What a whirlwind this year has been.

I honestly cannot believe it has been nearly two years since I began blogging here and a full year since Moxi was born. With that in mind, it’s not surprising I wound up taking off a full month of writing at the end of this year.

From birth on, this baby has been amazing. Considering my concerns when we found out she was coming, that is an incredible answer to prayers.

Her birth could not have been better. After the boys’ births, I was left wanting to do things “better,” or at least differently. After hers, I was left in awe. It was like everything clicked and it went just as it should, persistent posterior and all.

While the boys grew up in warp speed, walking well before their birthday and knocking out all of their teething then as well, she’s still flirting with steps and only has three teeth. I always wanted a baby with a snaggletooth.

As she continues to grow and change, I hope I can continue to savor every moment. Not only with her, but with all three of the kiddos. Life gets busy, but it should not move so quickly that I miss this impossibly perfect and chaotic process of growing people.

Turns out, baking is it’s own thing.

When I put it into the Whole Grain Pancake recipe from The Vegetarian Mother’s Cookbook, it turned into super thick dough – and the more liquid I added, the thicker it seemed to get. It reminded me of griddle biscuits, so I went for it anyway.

It looked promising until it was time to flip them, at which point everything stuck and they took forever to cook through.

Rather than battle them for the whole double batch, I figured it looked enough like biscuits to just pop them in the oven. Why not?

I think I had them at 375, and I left them til they were golden on top and bottom. Meanwhile, I figure I’m experimenting already – why not try my mom’s old donut trick? Fry up some biscuit dough? (Seriously, my metabolism is going to catch up with me one day..or I will catch up to it. However that works.)

Once they come out, roll ‘em in sugar and cinnamon…easy donut holes!

By this point, I had 3 pans of food going, and not one was certain. I’d earned something fried, I’m pretty sure of it.

First things first – the pancakes. Overall, I give it a “meh” but I won’t ever use that mix for pancakes again. It never occurred to me that pancakes weren’t “baking,” so maybe that was the deal. They burned trying to cook through, and they never really made it that far, either.

The biscuits had a pretty good texture, except they didn’t cook through all the way either. I suspect that it’s because I had mixed it as though it were pancakes. A real biscuit recipe has definite promise with this stuff.

These were the rousing success of the day. The high temps cooked it all the way thru, and it was just like I remembered as a kid. I won’t make them often, and definitely not as any pretense of a healthy breakfast, but every now and then will be nice.

All in all, I’m pretty sure that this is a fab baking mix, and that I just completely skipped out on brain function that morning. I’m anxious to try it in a few of the baking recipes in The Vegetarian Mother’s Cookbook, cos I think it’ll be an easy peasy substitute.

Have you tried Bob’s GF baking mix? Know any tricks?

Just about every year, we go to my inlaws for Thanksgiving. Usually, we have very little to do with the menu, but this year it will be more “potluck” style. We are bringing the sides, which is exciting and terrifying all at once.

On one hand, it gives us the freedom to make sides that I know my kids will eat (they still want little to do with meat..makes a mama proud) and that I can eat…but on the other hand, I have 2 other families’ expectations to account for. Thanksgiving is pretty heavily centered around traditions, and every family has something different that they expect.

We shopped last night for the ingredients we were missing, and this is what we are planning to take:

Mashed Potatoes. Really, this is a staple. I do want to try to make them in the crock pot, though. I suppose I should do a trial on that first, eh?

Brown & Wild Rice pilaf. Hubby is addicted to this stuff, it’s rich and has that fall vibe, and it is a good alternative to stuffing without having to attempt gluten free breads. No one wants to experiment on Thanksgiving.

Green Bean casserole. This one is Hubby’s request. He’s making it and eating it. Allllll him.

Crescent Rolls. We found a Pillsbury can that didn’t include dairy- score one for the boys being able to eat it!

Green salad. We are putting it together so it’s loaded with yummy fresh veggies.

Deviled Eggs. Half appetizer, half side, this is another one Hubby didn’t want to do without. It’s a little more involved than the others, but it will be good for the boys to have a protein source outside of Turkey.

Really, that is quite a spread of food. It can tend a little bit carb heavy, but it’s all in what you grab. Some other dishes we considered but opted against-

Adzuki-Squash Stew
Baked Sweet Potato Fries
Pomegranete-Jicama Salad (SO good)
Cranberry Salad
A white bean cassoulet

If it were just us, it would be super easy to have a huge, veg Thanksgiving. I think this will work, though. Hopefully, everything goes over well!

What’s on your menu?

Disclaimer: I make no claims or promises that this is healthy or even good for you in any way. It’s pure indulgence. Wonderful, ridiculous indulgence. Because of that, I made 2 batches of regular pancakes and just jazzed up the last 4 for Hubby and I. We didn’t need any more than that. Yum.

I have this thing…call it a gift, call it a curse…but I randomly come up with food combinations that should just be left alone. Like oreo-brownie-cherry-pie. Most of the time, I don’t post them here. You all are trying to keep your bodies and babies healthy. You don’t need my food-crack. (That sounds gross…I mean crack like drugs. Cos the food is addictive. Not stinky and always showing up when you don’t want it too, like a crack-crack. Ew.)

This time, though, I had to share. It’s not really good for you, but it’s not devoid of nutrition, either. And it’s delicious. It started while I was craving eggnog and making gravy. Hmmm…what would…eggnog gravy taste like?

And of course, I would need to dip something in it. I had hoped for churros, but those aren’t so easy to come by when you are gluten free. Bob’s Red Mill has a rockin’ pancake mix, so I went with that.

But, when I was making the pancakes I realized they needed a little something special, too. So “gingerbread” pancakes were born.

The pancakes were light and fluffy, thanks to Bob, but the sugary-gingery topping just sent them over the top. The gravy was the icing on the cake, and felt just as indulgent. Hubby added Nutella to his, but I couldn’t do it. It was enough to just savor the brown sugar, ginger, nutmeg…ohh man…Okay no more teasing. Here is the recipe (as always, remember I cook to taste, and you should, too!).

Gingerbread Pancakes

You all know how to make pancakes. Mine, in order to be gluten free without much experimentation, were Bob’s Red Mill mix. Namaste’s mix is good, too. Or, just make your own whole grain mix from The Vegetarian Mother’s Cookbook.

While your skillet or griddle heats up, mix up your topping…the fun stuff. I eyeballed it, but here’s roughly what I used:

-1/2-2/3 c sugar + a teensy squirt of molasses. Mix that up, and you have light brown sugar

-a splash of vanilla

-about a tsp each of cinnamon and ginger, and a little shake of nutmeg

I think mixing the brown sugar yourself is important to get that full flavor that molasses has. Anyway, mix everything together. When you get a pancake on the griddle, sprinkle the crumble mix on top of it. It’ll settle down in the batter a bit.

Flip and finish as normal.

I did find that my skillet was pretty sticky once I’d flipped it and the sugars hit the pan. So don’t try to pull them off the pan too early after you flip.

If you don’t make eggnog gravy, I think a maple syrup would be great, too. BUT…

Eggnog Gravy

-1/3-1/2 c flour (I used brown rice flour, in keeping with gluten free)

-1/2-2/3 c sugar plus a bit of molasses to darken it up

-splash of cinnamon

-a couple tbsp butter (I told you..I never promised health. BUT, if you want dairy free, Earth Balance margarine rocks)

-1-1/2 c eggnog (Promised Land makes a good eggnog with minimal ingredients. For dairy free, Silk Nog is a pretty great alternative.)

Mix up the “dry” ingredients (all but the butter and eggnog), let the butter melt in the skillet. Throw in the flour/sugar mixture. You want it to sizzle a little but not fry away.

Add in the eggnog and stir to remove the clumps. You can add more flour or even some corn starch or arrowroot powder to thicken it up. I didn’t want mine crazy thick, but if I wanted it on griddle biscuits, I would have thickened it a bit more.

It probably won’t be white, cos you’ve got brown sugar in there. It’s brown cos it’s delicious.

I really wanted some earthy hot tea, something Traditional Medicinals. I think that was my body screaming for balance. Sometimes, though, you’ve just gotta tip the scales. Just do me a favor…follow this up with some protein, or don’t tell your midwife you got this from me

This year, being gluten free really has put a damper on things. I mean, there are still some pretty amazing gluten free treats, but not just anyone has them. I can’t grab a cookie from a samples display here or have some dessert with a friend there. It’s a bit of work. Cakes, cookies, pies, breads, muffins, stuffings, rolls…Sigh.

Aside from the gluten-laden goodness being off limits, I’ve got a bit of a game plan for the holidays to come. I’m also going to hone in on the desserts and treats section of the cookbook over the next two months to give you some ideas of what can be made with minimal sugar and maximum nutrition (and probably gluten free modification on many).

Here’s to the holidays! May they be festive and fun and FULL of guilt-free, nutrient-rich goodness!

Try a brown rice dish instead of stuffing

Pilafs can be rich and satisfying without all the carbs.

Make your cookies and pies from scratch

Homemade treats can be made with fewer ingredients, and you have control over the kinds of grains and the amount of sugar involved.

Stop when you are full

No, really. Stop.

Put excess in the freezer

You’ll appreciate having a meal or snack ready to go when you don’t want to cook, and that will keep you from grazing constantly.

Potluck? Bring something fresh.

Eat regularly to keep your blood sugar up

That’ll keep you from feeling like you can binge at dinner.

Keep it varied

Try a little bit of everything rather than large amounts of a few things.

What do you do to stay on track during the holidays?

(Photo Credit to  BMRR at en.wikipedia)

My mom taught headstart when I was pretty young, and she made this applesauce to go on peanut butter toast. There is so much flavor that it’s more like pie filling than applesauce, and if you leave it chunky (like I do), you can pretend it is.

This is her picture from a couple of weeks ago..I’ll update you tomorrow with pics of what I make…

Ingredients for Mom’s Homemade Applesauce

-Apples, peeled and chopped (size of the chunks is up to you).
-Butter (or Earth Balance Margarine).
-Orange Juice.
-Cinnamon and Nutmeg.
-A drizzle of honey (totally optional).

(I realize I haven’t put in quantities here. That’s cos it doesn’t matter. The amount of apples just depends on how much you want. Start chopping and see what you come up with. Remember it will cook down a little. I am pretty happy with what I get with 5 or 6 medium apples for our family, but you can never have too much. Also, granny smith are the best, but you can use whatever you’ve got.)

How to Make Applesauce

Don’t listen to those deceivers who tell you to just boil and puree apples. Psht. Here’s how you really make applesauce.

-Heat up a skillet to mediumish. I used to use my electric skillet because it was pretty big and had a lid (lids are in short supply around here). Tonight, I will just use my cast iron skillet.

-Toss in some butter. You don’t need a whole lot. Maybe a couple tsp for just a few apples up to a couple of tbsp for a bigger batch. “Dollop” comes to mind. Let it melt, then..

-Splash in some OJ.

-Add those apples. I like to let it sizzle and golden up a bit first. Oh man, I can smell it now. After that goes on for a minute or two, turn it down and let it simmer. You might want to add some water or another splash or so of OJ. You don’t want it swimming, but it can’t dry out, either.

-Shake in cinnamon/nutmeg to taste. I am usually generous with the cinnamon and cautious with the nutmeg, which is stronger. Drizzle in some honey if you’d like. It can go either way, but you don’t need much at all.

-Cook it down. Cover if you can, and check it every so often. Stir, smash, taste, whatever. I often start with big chunks (cos I’m lazy and don’t want to chop a lot) and then smash it down with my spatula as it gets soft. That gives me some smoothness and pourability, but leaves chunks because, well, chunks of buttery cooked apples are amazing.

-Enjoy. You could puree it, but why?  It should be thick and saucy. Great for toast, oatmeal, icecream, a spoon…

Yep. I’m totally making this tonight.