(Photo credit Mommypotamus)
My girlfriend Tara told me about these lovely recipes for a GAPS diet. All of these recipes are GAPS friendly! Pecan sandies, grain-free gingerbread men, holiday spiced nuts, coconut date linzer cookies, and more! This is the place where I got my fudge recipe. Sa-weet! Enjoy! You can get it at the Mommypotamus blog here.
When you go to the grocery store to buy those few things you CAN’T get at a natural foods store, your garden, or healthfood buying co-op, do any of you wish you had a woman’s magazine that reflected how you really cook, or at least want to cook? With real food, instead of Velveeta and macaroni and sweetened condensed milk?
Do your visions of sugarplums include visions of healthful versions of the usual holiday fare: glazed ham, turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, fudge, cheesecake, apple pie, chocolate cake, cranberry sauce, eggnog, and did I mention fudge?
Would you like some really yummy recipes to convince your family that “health food” does not mean “gross-tasting food”? Do you believe that butter is your friend and fat is not evil? Do you want some recipes that follow the Weston Price guidelines of traditional eating? The above issue of the Real Food and Health Magazine is the answer to all your dreams! OK, maybe not all your dreams…but probably most of your food-related ones. This issue is jam-packed with recipes for what I mentioned above, plus:
Is your mouth watering now?
Then mosey on over to Real Food and Health and get the latest holiday issue for free! Use the following coupon code:
GCVW3
Act fast because the first 50 readers who go there get it!
Like all of you I am shocked and saddened by the news from Connecticut. One of the little girls who was killed has Utah roots. Her parents grew up in Ogden and her grandparents live there. I like what Charlotte Siems has to say here about the tragedy. You just never know what is going on in people’s inner lives, but we can all be kinder and gentler.
This past week included a lot of activity with me getting a Christmas package off to my missionary son full of Christmas candy and cookies. Then I prepared for my Naturally Healthy Holiday Treats Cooking Class. Then I had my mom’s birthday dinner on Saturday night, then an extended family Christmas party to attend on Sunday night. All of these activities involved food, including my planning, shopping, or delegation of shopping to dh, and then the fixing of the food. By Saturday afternoon I was burned out. In a way I was glad my 8 year old son was ill with a fever. That forced me to stay home with him and take a breath! Sometimes it is just such a relief to stay home even though I was sad to miss my dear mother’s birthday party that I arranged for by calling all my sibs.
I generally believe in letting a fever run its course, as preached by Sarah Pope on her blog here. I do give peppermint oil for a fever across the forehead if the kidlets can’t sleep. But I felt pity for the little guy because it looked like he might miss out on some parties so we tried some speed healing. Sarah says that flu is simply a Vitamin D deficiency. It seemed like he had the flu since he was achy so I gave him cod liver oil. By Sunday afternoon the fever was gone but we decided to keep him home from the next party at his other grandmother’s house.
I will always remember that on Sunday night when I stayed home with him instead of going to the family Christmas party, I actually spent time with him instead of in the same house with him while he did his own thing. He was so distraught that he couldn’t go to the party. I felt sad for him and wanted to make the evening as pleasant as possible. I had been giving him essential oils and cold liver oil all day and the fever had gone down, but to be on the safe side we stayed home. My general rule of thumb is to keep them home until it’s been 24 hours since the fever went down.
First we watched two productions by the LDS Church: The Story of the Other Wise Men and then Nora’s Christmas Gift together on our laptop while we ate popcorn and then I cleaned up the kitchen. Then I let him watch a few things on his own that he chose. We both could have stayed glued to the screen all night, he at the laptop and me at the desktop. But I felt a voice inside me telling me it was time to break away from the screens. Instead of sending him to get dressed and ready for bed all alone, I went with him and read to him while he got ready. I read to him The Littlest Angel by Charles Tazewell. I can’t believe that after all these years of me living I have never read that Christmas classic. Now I want to read it to the other kids and then watch the movie featuring Johnny Whittaker.
Then I started reading to him another Christmas book. I bought it when my oldest was a baby, back in the days when I had a lot of money and could join things like the Children’s Book of the Month Club. He was only three months old. I was so eager to buy books for my family back then! Now I just get them from the library. But in all these years I haven’t read this book. I feel bad I never read it to my son who’s now on a mission. I will have to read it to him when he gets back! It’s called A Christmas Journey by Sally Fisher and it tells the story of the three wise men. It even has the tree of life metaphor!
Spending time with my sick little boy last night forced me to remember how good it is to slow down and just be with my kids, without baking or cooking, as much as I like that. I am looking forward to using this packet of ideas I got from my friend Mary Ann Johnson full of fun Christmas activities to do with them, besides reading, which I am really good at it. It’s full of fun things to do the week before Christmas! If it’s too stressful for you to buy the stuff to do the treats and crafts, just read the stories and play the games! Like Mary Ann says, the kids will remember the feelings they had with you as you played, not the stuff they got.
Doesn’t this look pretty? These are my Holiday Crispy Kale Chips with my friend Lynda’s Pico de Gallo salsa. They look like Christmas! And both recipes involve essential oils! Yum! Just imagine, salsa with lime and cilantro essential oils! My friend Tara’s apple pie is below, and it has essential oils in it too, lemon and cinnamon. We had so much fun at our class today featuring whole foods and essential oils for naturally healthy treats. Guilt free, sugar free, delicious fudge! Yummy pie! Chocolate dipped strawberries and raspberries (those do have sugar in them, in the melted chocolate chips, but it’s not much)! The document in the link below has the recipes for the foods I just mentioned plus some holiday neighbor gift ideas, as well as some fun marshmallow candies you can make using oils.
My friend Tara is on a GAPS diet. Notice the book in the picture below. She could eat some of the foods, but not her own pie, sadly. We used natural fats and sweeteners so these foods were delicious and healthful! Really! I know “health food” has a reputation for tasting bad. We were all laughing in the class about the Kid History video that shows a mom attempting to convert her family to “healthy food” with her tofu pancakes. I’m not into tofu like I used to be after learning more about the the evil of soy here. My 14 year old is rejoicing, he never did like my tofu. So there’s no tofu in any of these treats, or carob, or quinoa. I have never been able to fall in love with carob as a cocoa substitute. I am still working on quinoa. You can watch the funny Kid History video below, it’s under the picture..
I’m sad I didn’t get a great picture of the fudge close up. Boo-hoo, it is supreme, it’s in the upper right of the picture above the video. Somebody was hogging it and didn’t return it to the center of the table…just kidding. I made both kinds, the chocolate peppermint and the citrus white fudge in the same rectangular pan since I didn’t have two square 9 x 9s. I lined the 9 x 13 pan with parchment paper and then divided it down the middle with a wall of foil. Here are the recipes
The white has flecks of citrus zest in it and lemon EO. The different colored flecks of citrus zest, from a lime, grapefruit, and orange would make it look even prettier. Using parchment paper like I did to line the pan makes cutting up on the cutting board and cleaning up a snap. (Find parchment paper in the foil, plastic wrap and wax paper section of the grocery store).
All I want for Christmas is loose, soft curls, and I think I have found them! I have been searching for how to get the loose curl look, and so far this method looks the easiest and healthiest because it involves no heat.
Happy curling!
My friend Becky sent an email telling us all about this new Mormon Message featuring her neighbor who is the actress. I love the powerful message that we are never alone in our struggles because of Christ. That is really what Christmas is all about.
‘Tis the season for sweet treats! Here’s a guide to whole sweeteners. Please watch this video to help you in your shopping to satisfy your sweet tooth and not compromise your health. It is possible to enjoy sweetness without robbing your health.
The past two days I have had so much fun baking and cooking real food Christmas treats! Being a missionary mom makes me do out of character things, like bake or cook treats for the holidays, which I haven’t done in I can’t even remember how long. I’ve never felt like I had the time, money, or energy on top of doing my normal things (nursing babies, cooking 3 meals a day, homeschooling, chauffeuring, refereeing quarrelsome children, etc.) to even eke out something remotely yummy and sweet and my poor family has had to rely on white sugar neighbor gifts for holiday treats. But this year is different! This year I am inspired and I am also in a different season in life when I have more help from the older children, and more time to bake because I don’t have a baby who is constantly nursing.
I got tempted by some GAPS recipes for treats my friend Tara told me about. This includes the chocolate peppermint marshmallow delights pictured at the top, the white fudge right above, and the gingerbread cookies below. They looked sooooo yummy, I just had to try them out and send them to my son. He is not on a GAPS diet, or even a whole foods diet despite his mother’s healthful teachings. When he moved out to attend college last year he promptly bought himself Top Ramen, Kraft ranch dressing, and mayonnaise, all of which are verboten in my home. But maybe it was just because he was a starving student, working full time and attending school time and didn’t have much time to fix totally healthful food. To his credit, I did notice that the bought sprouts and bananas. Anyway, I have been having fun fixing these treats and will post recipes after the class is over, next week. If you want to know the recipes before then, please come to the class!
. So we made gingerbread men (these aren’t GAPS friendly, but I do have a GAPS, grain free gingerbread recipe I will post soon, two kinds of fudge, two kinds of marshmallows (I have never ever made marshmallows
I heard about this story last year from the prophet Pres. Monson. It is a beautiful story about overcoming selfishness. You can listen to it here. It’s part of a collection of short stories on that page, scroll to the middle to see it. The above cover comes from the Deseret Book publication of the story, with beautiful illustrations.
Then there’s the Cinnamon Bear. This story was originally written for the radio and involves 26 episodes. I have listened to a few of them with my younger children. I haven’t decided if it’s brain candy or a true classic, where you can learn something new every time. I do know that my 6 and 8 year olds clamor to listen to them, which we do while folding laundry or doing dishes. I will let you be the judge. All the episodes can be downloaded here.
I started listening to this next one while I was making Christmas treats to send to my missionary son. I haven’t finished it but it is promising, if not a little sentimental. You can listen to it here.
booksshouldbefree.com says this about The Christmas Angel:
Disagreeable old Miss Terry spends her Christmas Eve getting rid of toys from her childhood toy box. One by one she tosses them onto the sidewalk in front of her house, then secretly watches the little scenes that occur, which seem to confirm her belief that true Christmas spirit does not exist. Then the Angel from her childhood Christmas tree appears to show Miss Terry that she has not yet witnessed the final act of each of those little dramas…
Living Age magazine in 1910 observed of The Christmas Angel, “Not since Charles Dickens laid down his pen forever has there been a prettier Christmas story written, one more full of the real spirit of Christmas or conveying a more seasonable lesson.” (Summary by Jan MacGillivray)
Here’s Librivox’s version of a Christmas Carol. We listened to it in the car last Sunday as we drove to a Journey to Bethlehem simulation. More on that later…
Here is the Mormon Channel’s version of Dickens’ masterpiece, A Christmas Carol, fully dramatized. It’s so dramatized that it was a bit too scary for me and some of my kids so we prefer the librivox version.
I picked the story below because it sounds full of old-fashioned outdoor winter amusements with rambunctious boys. We’ve listened to the first few chapters and so far it is a great story. You can find the audio version here.
The next goodie is actually a play intended to be performed by children, written by Shepherd Knapp. I actually have not found an audio version, but it sounds so fun I am including the link to the text version here. If anyone finds the audio version please let me know. Here are the author’s words about the play from the preface:
This play is intended, not only for acting, but also for reading. It is so arranged that boys and girls can read it to themselves, just as they would read any other story. Even the stage directions and the descriptions of scenery are presented as a part of the narrative. At the same time
, by the use of different styles of type, the speeches of the characters are clearly distinguished from the rest of the text, an arrangement which will be found convenient when parts are being memorized for acting.
The play has been acted more than once, and by different groups of people; sometimes on a stage equipped with footlights, curtain, and scenery; sometimes with barely any of these aids. Practical suggestions as to costumes, scenery, and some simple scenic effects will be found at the end of the play.
What sort of a Christmas play do the boys and girls like, and in what sort do we like to see them take part? It should be a play, surely, in which the dialogue is simple and natural, not stilted and artificial; one that seems like a bit of real life, and yet has plenty of fancy and imagination in it; one that suggests and helps to perpetuate some of the happy and wholesome customs of Christmas; above all, one that is pervaded by the Christmas spirit. I hope that this play does not entirely fail to meet these requirements.
If you have any favorite Christmas stories on audio, please share below.
Merry Christmas and Happy Listening!
This yummy recipe that incorporates ginger essential oil is by Phillip Bruttig.
GINGERBREAD MEN
1 c. butter
1 c. sugar (I use sucanat from the bulk room of the health food store)
1 c. molasses
1 tbsp. vinegar
1 egg, beaten
4 1/2 – 5 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
5 drops dōTERRA Ginger Essential Oil
5 drops dōTERRA Cinnamon Essential Oil
1/4 tsp. salt
Put butter in large bowl. Heat molasses until boiling. Pour molasses over butter and sugar. Add vinegar and stir until well blended. Set aside to cool. When cool, add egg and oils. Sift dry ingredients together. Add dry ingredients to molasses mixture and blend until mixture is smooth. Chill dough in covered container for several hours. Roll dough on well floured surface and cut with gingerbread man cutter. Place men on greased cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees.
Tree of Life Mothering 