Coconut Popcorn

Does anyone else love this stuff as much as I do?

I just can't get enough of it! Reminds me of Sunday nights as a child, and I learned to eat it fast or else my brothers ate it ALL! :) Well, I was determined to find a healthier way to make it. Did you know that popcorn is one of the few foods that cannot be genetically modified? Love that! So, sometimes for a meal we have smoothies and coconut popcorn, or of course, I make it for movie night. On rare occasions that we go to the movies, we sneak it in. :)

Pop popcorn in a popper or over the stove. (Or you can pop 1/4 cup in a paper bag, fold it closed, and put it in the microwave until the popping slows-this is what I usually do, and about 4-5 batches to be enough for our family).
Take 1-3 Tablespoons (depending on the amount of popcorn) of virgin unrefined cold-pressed coconut oil, liquified, and pour over the corn. Stir well and sprinkle with sea salt.

*to liquify the oil, put desired amount in a container and place container in warm water. Usually during the summer it stays a liquid, whereas during the winter it is more solid.

Let's talk about coconut oil. There are very few oils and fats that are actually good and healing for your body. A big one is avocado, and there are so many wonderful properties that I wish I liked it! (I do occasionally put 1/2 in a smoothie, and can't taste it). Coconut oil is AMAZING! It got a lot of flack many years ago because it is a saturated fat. However, it is cholesterol free and trans-fatty acid free, and has been shown to lower cholesterol and stimulate the thyroid function. It is easily emulsified during digestion without burdening the liver or gall bladder. Virgin coconut oil also has medium-chain-length fatty acids (or triglycerides). Next to breast milk, coconut oil is the best natural source of medium-chain-length fatty acids. These have many health benefits including:

-raising metabolism
-acting as an antifungal agent
-acting as an antibacterial agent
-acting as an antiviral agent

Coconut oil has many healing properties as well, and is a beautiful moisturizer for your body. I use it on my legs, arms, knees and elbows. Oh, and my feet. :)

Mountain Rose Herbs (see link on the right side of the blog) has the best coconut oil for your buck, and they sell it in huge quantities. We just bought the 5 gallon bucket! I'm so excited!

Green Beans & Potatoes

Okay, before we jump to the recipe, let's talk about garlic. What? Garlic? Yep. I totally love the stuff. Love the smell, love the taste, but I certainly didn't know that I'd love what it does for my body! A while ago, my friend would eat whole cloves, tucked into a dollop of mashed potatoes to get it down. It has many curing properties on anything from the common cold to plague-illnesses. Here are some other things it does:

-helps with acne

-a natural antibiotic

-cleans your blood

-people who live in high-garlic-using cultures have a much lower incidences of cardiovascular disease

-garlic contains allicin which increases antioxidant enzymes

-garlic is anti-bacterial-awesome during cold & flu season!

-it adds so much flavor to cooking, which is my favorite part. :)

Garlic is best when raw, fresh and crushed prior to chopping or mincing. I just take the long part of my knife blade and press a clove firmly into the cutting board until I hear the clove crush. Mmmmmm!

My little guy has recently started crawling and he found our potatoes. Thankfully, he just gummed them to death. :)

 

Okay, folks, for those of you who have not tried organic potatoes, you are missing out! The flavor is awesome. But potatoes are the best when they are home grown, or bought from local farmers, as these are. Unfortunately, nothing will ever taste as good to me as my husband's (and mine!) Grandpa Don's potatoes, but these are definitely a close second. This is one of our favorites during the summer:

Green Beans & New Potatoes

3-4 pounds of fresh green beans, rinsed & snapped

2-3 pounds of fresh new potatoes, scrubbed

6-8 cloves of garlic, crushed and minced

1-2 onions, quartered

Place potatoes, onion, garlic and then green beans in a large pot. Cover with water and boil for 20-25 minutes, until potatoes are tender. Season with sea salt and fresh pepper. We have also added fresh rosemary, and it is delicious! Serve AFTER your large salad. We also put a pat of organic butter on the potatoes....mmmmm!

Granola

Oh, what a wonderful week I have had! My bestest friend was in town with her two daughters, and she spoiled me rotten with her time! I enjoyed playing with the girls, and cooking and cleaning up, and essentially just living together for a week. We had a 4 a.m. talking session that I don't think either of us really recovered from, but I am so glad that they came out!

 

Isn't she absolutely beautiful?

Now, I've made a ton of stuff, but haven't posted much....soooo, I'll be playing catch up for a bit. Here's a granola recipe from Green Smoothie Girl, with some HW&W adjustments to our family's tastes:

8 C regular rolled oats
1 C raw wheat germ
1 C shredded unsweetened coconut
1⁄2 C freshly ground flax seeds (flax seeds lose their nutritional value FAST after they are ground, so always grind it fresh prior to using it)
3/4 c nuts (we use raw almonds)
3/4 c seeds (love raw pepitos!)
3 Tbsp. cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice! Mmmm!)

Mix ingredients well in a big bowl.

Heat on the stove until barely melted, stirring together:
1⁄2 C raw honey
1⁄2 C Grade B maple syrup or molasses
1⁄2 C water
1⁄2 C coconut oil
1 Tbsp. vanilla or almond extract
Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until distributed evenly (this takes a few minutes). Spread onto 2 large cookie sheets, and bake at 250 for 45 minutes. Stir, and then bake for 45 more minutes. Stir again, and bake another 10-15 to get it good and dry. Keep in the pantry for up to 2 weeks in cooler weather, or in the fridge for up to six weeks.

We always pour on a bit of almond milk and some sprouted sunflower seeds, as well as seasonal fruit (peaches, bananas, apples, sometimes raisins....nummy!)

p.s. this stuff cleans you OUT! :)

Onto gardening! We had to pull out 2 of our squash plants. We lost them to vine borers, and I haven't had time to research how to prevent them. When I do, though, it will be on here so I remember for next year! We still have a bunny. Yeah. It's eating our garlic and making short work of our swiss chard. We are still getting things from our garden, but a little irritated that we are also feeding our pests. We continue to work, though, picking off squash bugs daily, looking for egg clusters, and watering during this heat spell we are having. My 3 year old's legs can't move any faster when she hears I'm going to water the garden. She loves to help!  I think next year we will try planting our vine plants later in the season. However, if anyone has ideas on how to get rid of bunnies, I'm totally open to it! :)

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Do you see these???? Oh my heaven. Ohhhhh myyyyyyy heavennnnnnn!!!! They are well worth the effort. I'm not a huge carrot cake fan, but I'm tellin ya, I had a hard time staying away from these!! These come from GSG's Holiday Cookbook.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

3 eggs

3/4 c plain kefir

1/2 c coconut oil

1/3 c mashed banana

1 c sucanut

3/4 c raw honey

2 t vanilla

2 t cinnamon

1 t nutmeg (my variation)

1/4 t sea salt

2 c Kamut flour

1 t baking soda

1 t baking powder (aluminum free)

3 c finely shredded carrots

1 c crushed pineapple with juice

1 c shredded unsweetened coconut

1/2 c raisins

chopped walnuts if desired

Preheat oven to 350. Blend the eggs with the Sucanut and honey. Add the oil, kefir, mashed banana and vanilla and blend again. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Add the carrot, pineapple, raisins, coconut and opt nuts. Drop batter by 1/4 cup into greased muffins tins or muffin cups and bake for 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool. Top with the following icing, if you want.

Coconut Cream Icing

1/2 c coconut oil

1 c powdered Sucanut (you can run it in your blender to powder it)

3/4 c shredded unsweetened coconut

1 t vanilla

Blend oil, Sucanut and vanilla in your high powered blender, then stir in coconut. Spread on cupcakes and let it set up.

Whole Wheat Pancakes w/ Homemade Peach Syrup

I don't buy syrup from the store anymore unless it's Grade B Maple Syrup. The kids loooooove homemade fruit syrups, though, and since we bought a bushel of fresh peaches from our bulk food's distributor, we had a lot of peaches to eat. So, we had these babies for breakfast one morning and they were quite filling.

Homemade Whole Wheat Pancakes

1 1/2 c almond milk

1 c uncooked wheat berries

Blend at speed 9 for the full cycle

Add 2 T coconut oil

2 eggs

2 T sucanut

1 T baking powder

1/2 t sea salt

Pulse 5-7 times, and then let rest for 5 minutes while the griddle heats up. Cook pancakes as usual, and serve. 

This recipe makes enough for me and my 4 children for breakfast. If you family is bigger or if you want leftovers to freeze, make 2 batches of batter.

Homemade Peach Syrup

3 c peaches, peeled and pitted

1/2 c sucanut

a smidgen of lemon juice

Press the soups button and run the cycle twice for hot nummy syrup.

2 Minute Cherry Ice Cream

My husband was so sweet to go to Whole Foods last Friday to get me organic cherries that were on sale for $2.99/lb! But....um....he got about 18 pounds. I was shocked and a little panicky for a few minutes. We sold about 5 pounds, and then I thought, "Duh! I can seed these and freeze them!" Has anyone ever bought organic cherries before at full price? Yeah, super expensive. $2.99/lb is amazing! So, we got a cherry pitter tool thingee and I pitted the rest of our cherries this morning and threw them in the freezer. 

For our Sunday night treat, we made this nummy ice cream in our BlendTec, and it was so scrumptious:

5-6 oz almond milk

2-3 oz raw agave nectar

1/8 cup powdered milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

2-4 in vanilla bean pod (opt)

10 pitted bing cherries

4 cups ice

Combine ingredients in the order given and press the ice cream button on your BlendTec. Enjoy!

Carnage & Burning

....in my garden, that is. :)

We continue to have problems with garden pests, but my friend Chelsea told me about this little concoction. It helps a lot with certain pests, but I admit, those dang squash bugs are too fast for me to kill very many of them. So I take my handy dandy scissors and snip them in half, and then stomp them for good measure. I told you there was carnage! :)

We also have problems with Japanese beetles and ants and bunnies. This concoction keeps the bunnies away so they don't burn their little mouths, and kills the ants, it's just hard to find the ant hills to destroy and burn because they are pretty good at hiding them under all the foliage.

Cut 1 whole garlic (not a clove, but a WHOLE thing of garlic) in half
Cut an onion into quarters

Place in a glass Mason jar with cayenne pepper and cloves. Fill it up the rest of the way with water and cover with lid. Let it bake in the sun for a day, and then strain (with a cheesecloth) into a spray bottle. Spray leaves, bugs, anything, and then follow with an evil laugh for good measure. Mwahahaha!

We have harvested beets, swiss chard, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, 1 zucchini (stupid bugs and ants!), cilantro, basil, mint, dill, rosemary, a carrot (yay!), green beans and we have seen little tiny peppers and cantaloupe in our garden. We love eating from our garden, especially because of what it saves us....but also because the taste cannot be beat!  There is nothing like sinking your teeth into a crisp juicy cucumber, freshly picked!

Peach-Banana Smoothie

I've been MIA for a bit, and I don't have a ton to share, but here's a quick recipe and a quick question:


So, we just got our bulk foods order, 2 boxes of FABULOUSLY JUICY, drip-down-your-chin beautiful peaches. I've frozen about 6 huge ziploc bags of them for smoothies, but here's what we did with some of the fresh ones last night:

Pack your spinach or swiss chard into your blender jar with 1-1 1/2 cups of filtered water. Add 3-4 fresh peaches, cut into quarters. Fill it up the rest of the way with frozen bananas broken into quarters and blend for a deliciously sweet smoothie.

Sorry, no picture because it was gone within minutes. No kidding.

So, the quick question. Have you ever wanted to do something you've never done before, but been afraid to make the commitment? I have been doubly inspired this summer by wonderful people. I have never run long distances before because I had knee surgery 4 years ago. My surgeon said not to do any marathons or even half-marathons, so I've kind of been afraid to do ANYTHING!

Well, my kids enjoy running races from time to time--and with a supportive school to assist in training early in the morning before school starts, it's something they take a lot of pride in. One of the races that they ran is one that takes place the weekend before Halloween called the Grey Ghost. It's a 5K for adults and a 1K for kiddos. Well, I kinda sorta want to do it this year. Just to say that I did it. I'm in horrible shape right now. The pro would be I would have a commitment that would force me to get into better shape, set a great example for my kids and have some me-time to boot! The con? Fear that I'll give up. :(  My husband has said, "Ya know, even if you aren't able to run it all, you can totally walk it!" Yeah, he's right.

Can ANYONE out there relate? And have you overcome your fear? How did you do it?