Thanksgiving

Woooo Hoooo for Thanksgiving! Our family usually does the same thing every year: stress stress stress and then head to my sister's house for grub, gossip and yawning after stuffing ourselves silly. :) No, really, it's a lot of fun, but our family hasn't had a Thanksgiving (that was PLANNED) with just us. At our house. So, much to the chagrin of some of my family members, we opted against the "status quo" and stayed home. We let each of the kids pick a dish that they wanted to make, and it was absolutely delightful! We didn't go overboard, didn't have a "set time" to eat and just enjoyed each other, learned how to set the table properly together, played games and went at  our own pace. 

And I got to do something that I love: COOK! 

Our turkey was the best we've ever had! I will do a separate post on that, along with a new trick we learned on how to peel a whole bunch of garlic in 20 seconds.  No joke!

Here are a few recipes that we LOVED this year:

Okay, isn't this picture beautiful? I love the colors!!!

 

Cranberry Sauce:
2 clementines
12 oz fresh cranberries
1/3 c agave nectar
1 cinnamon stick
With a zester or fine grater, remove 1/2 t zest from the clementines and set aside. Peel the clementines and chop the flesh coarsely, discarding any seeds. Place in a saucepan and add cranberries, agave, cinnamon and 2 T water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, and then lower the heat, simmering. Stir occasionally until cranberries pop open and sauce thickens. (Kids love to listen to the berries pop.) Remove from heat and stir in zest. Discard the cinnamon sticks and cool to room temperature. Refrigerate for up to a week.

Pear Hazelnut Salad
1/2 c hazelnuts
3 c or more of mixed greens
2 pears, cored and cut into thing wedges
1/2 c crumbled blue cheese (optional)-we decided we didn't care for blue cheese!

Preheat oven to 375. Spread hazelnuts on a baking sheet and toast until lightly golden, 10-12 minutes. Wrap nuts in clean dish towel and rub together to remove skins. Set aside to cool and then chop. Make salad by combining remaining ingredients and tossing with 2 T olive oil, 1 t Dijon mustard, 1 T white wine vinegar, 1/4 t sea salt and a bit of cracked pepper.


Sourdough Stuffing
1 loaf sourdough hearth bread, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 T coconut oil
3/4 lb-or less- fresh chicken sausage, removed from the casings
4 Gala apples, cored and diced
4 ribs celery, thinly sliced
1 large onion, diced
2 T organic butter
2 1/2 c vegetable broth
1/3 c fresh sage leaves, chopped
3/4 t sea salt
1/2 t ground pepper

Preheat oven to 300. Spread bread cubes on 2 baking sheets and bake until dried but not browned, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl.
Meanwhile heat oil in large skillet over medium high heat and add sausage. Break into chunks and cook until browned. Add apples, celery, onion and butter and cook until vegetables are softened. Add to the bread along with remaining ingredients. Heat oven to 350 and bake in a butter dish until lightly browned on top, about 50-60 minutes.
***This is our family's new FAVORITE! YUM!

Sweet Potatoes
***warning: no measurements here...we just put stuff in until it tasted good!
Peel and cut sweet potatoes into chunks. Cover with water and boil until tender.
Combine with organic butter, canned coconut milk (to desired consistency), cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, sea salt (a little bit!), maple syrup, agave nectar. Use a hand mixer to whip together. They were so yummy, we couldn't get enough!

 Thanks to my sister who introduced me to Leftover casserole: layer your Thanksgiving leftovers in a casserole dish to eat the next night for dinner. Oh, it is so yum! This one is layers of the following: stuffing, turkey, a bit of gravy, a bit of cranberry sauce, green beans and sweet potatoes. Mmmmmmm!!!! Bake at 350 until bubbly.

Pumpkin Chocolate Cake

Ooooo la la!!! Delicious.
Wanna know how to do it? First of all, make your own pumpkin pie spice to have on hand-it makes your spice cabinet smell really good, if for nothing else. :)

• 8 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Now, here's the rest!

Pumpkin Chocolate Cake
1/4 cup coconut oil, in it's liquid state (just warm it a bit!)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder or raw powdered cacao
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking powder, aluminum free
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sucanut
2 eggs (or 1/2 banana, 1/2 apple and a little bit more baking powder blended well)
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin purée
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an (8-inch) square baking pan with coconut oil or cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, eggs (or substitute), pumpkin and vanilla. Whisk flour mixture into pumpkin mixture until well combined then transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake until the cakes pulls away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes.
And folks, I'm so sorry I've been so lax in taking pictures. Either it's gone super fast, or I am just too busy to think about it. But trust me: I only post things on here that we REALLLLLLYYYYY like!

Thanksgiving Lunch at Kid's School

Today was hectic, but oh man, how it paid off! I'm so grateful for our health! I ought to knock on something, but I feel so blessed that our sickness has been so limited since we changed the way we eat. The kids rarely complain of stomach problems (in fact, usually it's after we eat meat, interestingly enough!), and we just feel good! Now, we aren't perfect in how we eat, but we take it a day at a time and have found joy in the smallest improvements.

So today was the kids Thanksgiving feast at their school. We could either pay $6 a person (or $3 a kid) and get a styrofoam tray of sugared up, chemical laden stuff (I'm not sure that I could actually call it FOOD!)....or bring our own! We brought our own, had so many folks stop and comment on how delicious and colorful our lunches looked, and one little boy sat with us, staring at our food until I offered him some. Needless to say, most of his bought lunch went into the trash.

What did we have, you ask? Salad. Yep, a humongous plate of salad, filled with fun toppings. We also had Black Bean Brownies for dessert.
Here is what we did:

a mix of romaine and spinach topped with any or all of the following:
pomegranate seeds
mandarin oranges
diced apples
raisins
sliced raw almonds
diced orange pepper
diced cucumber
raw shredded coconut

It was a beautiful salad. 2 of the kids opted for no salad dressing, which was fine by me. They loved the juice that the fruit left on the leaves, but everyone else had the following dressing:

1⁄2 C extra virgin olive oil 
 2/3 C orange juice
1⁄4 C agave or raw honey
2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar 
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1⁄4 tsp. dried oregano
1⁄4 tsp. black pepper
1 T poppy seeds
Blend in power blender until smooth, then stir in the poppy seeds. (This makes a lot, we only used about 1/4 of the dressing!)


Let's talk about pomegranate for just a minute. First of all, watch this! It shows how to cut and de-seed a pomegranate. Super easy!  Why eat pomegranate? This seasonal fruit is rich with antioxidants, fiber, vitamin C and vitamin K.  It keeps blood platelets from clumping together and forming unnecessary clots.  It is great for those at risk for heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, prostate cancer, Alzheimer's disease and high blood pressure as follows:
-it raises the good cholesterol while keeping the bad cholesterol from oxidizing in the body
-reduces plaque in arteries
-may prevent and slow down the growth of breast cancer and prostate cancer
-can prevent heart attack and stroke
-can lower blood pressure 
-can prevent and slow down Alzheimer's
-helps prevent cartilage deterioration


I love learning about how our bodies can heal itself through eating the right things. Of course, this is best done by eating it in it's most natural state-fresh and RAW! Best yet, they taste yummy! In fact during lunch today the kids kept asking for more of those beautiful jeweled seeds! Thanks, Jess, for reintroducing me to pomegranate! Mwah!

Should you drink the popular POM juice? No!!!! Juice begins losing it's nutritional value 15 minutes after juicing! Yep! It's true. I no longer buy juice in the store. The only juice that I don't do fresh is lemon and lime juice. I juice them and then freeze in ice cube trays for when I need them, which is better, but not the best. Tangent, I know, but anyway, be careful what juice you buy and ingest. Most juices are pasteurized (meaning most of the good enzymes are killed by heat!!) and then filled with added sugar or chemicals to keep it fresh. Ew, right? C'mon, folks, let's take good care of our bodies: it's the only one we have!

Carrabba's Minestrone

Several months ago, we took our daughter to Carrabba's to celebrate the reaching of her summer reading goal. While there, I had a bowl of their minestrone, which I love sooooo much! While there, I wrote down all the ingredients so that when it got cold, I could try to recreate it. Well, I did this last night, and it was positively PERFECT on a cold night! Of course, I don't know if I really replicated it, I just know whatever it was that I made was DELICIOUS! I didn't do a lot of measuring, so everything that has a * next to it, the measurement is a guesstimate. :)

This made a HUMONGOUS batch! Enough to feed 5 adults, 6 children and a large tupperware of leftovers....and I forgot to take a picture, dang it!

Take 1 1/2 c of dry garbanzo beans and *1/2 c white beans let them soak overnight. Rinse well, and put in a humongous stock pot, filled halfway with water. Sprinkle *4 HEAPING tablespoons of vegetable broth powder in it and bring to a boil, let it boil for an hour, then add the following ingredients:

10 large carrots, cut into quarters, and then in big chunks
4 ribs celery, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 head of green cabbage, chopped
8-10 small red potatoes, diced
1 can kidney beans, rinsed well!
2 zuchinni (cut into quarters, and then cut in chunks)
*1 heaping T Italian seasoning
*2 heaping T parsley
*4 t sea salt, may need to taste the broth after it's simmered for a bit and see if you need to add more!
*1 t pepper
*1/2 t ground turmeric
*1/2 t fennel seed
*2 t arrowroot powder (to thicken the broth)
opt. 1 T thyme, 1 t basil

Simmer for 30 more minutes, or until the potatoes and cabbage are tender.
During the last 15 minutes of simmering, add 2 cans of drained cut green beans and 10 cloves of crushed garlic, minced. Stir well and serve! The vegetables should retain their form, so if you strain the broth, it's perfect for a child who doesn't eat with utensils yet (which we have found is a difficulty during soup/chili season!)

***Beware-your kitchen will smell heavenly and your family will slurp it up and ask for more, so make sure you have plenty! :)