Homemade Laundry Soap Rocks!

Caring about my family's health goes beyond what we put into our mouths.  It matters what paint we use, what we clean with, what we put on our skin, etc......  About a year ago, I discovered how easy, affordable, and healthier it is to make my own laundry powder.  Prior to this, we were buying one of the natural (read "expensive") brands and going through it quite quickly with a family of 6.  

This recipe is so incredibly easy, and it works!  

At first, my husband was a skeptic and separated out his clothes to wash in a typical laundry detergent made from chemicals and smelling so strong like chemical fragrance.  Yuck!  

Well, after trying it out, he is convinced too that it is best....and it even works on stinky man clothes....even after a day of working in the yard!

I first discovered the recipe on my friend Lisa's blog :  http://www.earthmama101.com/2010/12/homemade-holiday-part-i.html.  I use her exact recipe, and it works great everytime!

1.  Gather your ingredients:  baking soda, washing soda, borax, and soap bars.  I use Dr. Bronner's castille soap because that is what we use anyways, and it is great stuff.!  We buy the peppermint scent at Trader Joes for a very good price, but they also make many other lovely smells, such as rose and lavender.  

2.  Grate 2 bars of Dr. Bronner's soap.

 I love the way the grated soap looks and feels!

 3.  To the 2 bars of grated soap, add 2 cups of borax, 2 cups of baking soda, and 2 cups of washing soda. All of these ingredients can be found inexpensively at your local grocery store.

4.  I then put all of the ingredients through the dry container of my Vitamix blender to create a powder.

Some pieces of soap will remain, but most of it will be a fine powder.

That's it!  So simple and cheap and fun to make! This recipe makes enough to fill 2 plastic quart yogurt containers.  For our high efficiency washer, I use 2 tbsp. per load, and it lasts at least a month.  
Better for the Earth, better for our bodies......good stuff!  Try it.  I think you'll be pleased!

Ode to Dandelions!

I love Springtime!  I love the warm weather, the beautiful colors, the fragrant blossoms, the longer days, the free food growing all over my yard....
dandelions, garlic mustard, chickweed, oh my!

Beautiful daffodil picture courtesy of my beautiful camera girl!

But, there are things that I hate too.  It makes me FURIOUS to see people outside spraying what grows naturally in their yard.  I actually started crying yesterday (ok...I was a bit tired too) when I saw a man outside with his spray of cancer-causing dandelion-killing stuff.  What are people thinking???  Cancer rates are higher than ever, and I know that this is one reason.  You can't spray harmful chemicals in your yard and not have dire consequences to ALL living things.  If they are meant to kill weeds, then they are meant to kill.....period.  

If you are currently using harmful chemicals in your yard to kill "weeds," please take a moment to think about this choice.  A beautiful yard does not have to include a golf course lawn.  Or, if you want a perfect lawn, then you can use organic and natural ways.  Check out Mike Mcgrath if you need help changing your ways.

We are so lucky to live in a house that is buffered by trees on most sides.  Our only neighbors care about the Earth and the humans that occupy it and don't use any chemicals.  However, my parents' neighborhood is another story.  When we lived there a few years ago, I had to give up my morning walk due to the toxic smells that were coming from the "perfect" lawns of their neighbors.  One neighbor, who pays a company to come and spray her yard with chemicals, wondered aloud to me why so many of her friends have cancer.  Really?  Another neighbor and old childhood friend of mine has the same company spray their yard, and then her children go out and play in the same grass.  I know that she loves her children, so why would she take this risk all for a green lawn?  It is absolutely incomprehensible to me.

Please, for the sake of humankind, let the weeds grow or pick them if you don't like them.  Many of them are super nutritious, real powerhouses that have been eaten for thousands of years.
And the dandelion tops the list!

Dandelion leaves emerging...beautiful yellow flowers to come.

Here is an article about some of it's virtues:  http://motherloveblog.com/2011/07/12/eat-your-dandelions/.  I harvest the leaves and flowers starting now and continuing all summer.  I add them to smoothies and even make a pesto with them.  In fact, my son Ben has said to me, "I only like smoothie with dandelion!"

I was about to post a recipe for my wild green pesto, but then I remembered that my good friend, April, had posted one awhile back.  I checked her recipe, and it is exactly the same as mine.
Here is a link to her wonderful recipe:
 http://flowoflove.blogspot.com/search/label/pesto
You can use any spring greens that you can find growing in your yard...just make sure that they have been grown in a chemical-free area and away from the road.

Here is what I did:
First, I found some beautiful wild greens during a lovely morning walk through my yard.

This is Archangel.  April did a beautiful post about this wild Spring green here.

The amazing dandelion!

Cleavers.  More about that amazing wild here here.

Beautiful bowl of dandelion, archangel, chickweed, and cleavers.

I got a turn with the camera, while Amelia picked some Archangel.

I just love how she set up this photo!

Wash the greens gently.

Put the greens into the blender with a clove of chopped garlic (or garlic mustard, if you have some growing WILD).

Add some of these beauties....raw walnuts, nutritional yeast, olive oil, salt and pepper.

A yummy, healthy bowl of Spring greens pesto.

I had some right away with some cucs and broccoli for dipping.  Yum!

A healthy dose of Spring nutrients, free and fresh from your yard with every bite!
Eat your weeds!

Yummy Maple Granola!

My kids love granola for breakfast.....or lunch.....or really anytime!  Buying it is expensive, and some of the ingredients may be questionable.  After all, how does it stay on that grocery shelf for months and not go bad?  HUH???  

This is what should be in granola....all natural, organic ingredients.

My favorite granola recipe comes from the cookbook Food to Live By  by Myra Goodman who is one of the owners of "Earthbound Farm."  I should first say that I am a lover of cookbooks.  I just love them!  This is a beautiful book that I bought for my brother and sister-in-law.  Let's just say that it never made it into their hands.  When it arrived at my house, I looked through the gorgeous color photos, the fun family and food stories, and the yummy recipes, and I knew that this would be a book for me!  Now it graces my bookshelf, and I use it often.  The recipes are not all vegetarian/vegan, but there are so many that I have adapted to fit with our family's needs.

Myra's recipe for "Maple Almond Granola" has been adapted by me to exclude the almonds and include pumpkin seeds.  The truth is that you can take this general recipe and make it anything you want!  There are times that I add candied ginger pieces, dates, different seeds, coconut, etc.  You can also add your favorite nuts.  My nut-allergic son is CRAZY about granola, so they never make an appearance in mine.

Maple Granola (adapted from Myra Goodman's "Famous Maple Almond Granola")

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  On a large cooking sheet, measure out 4 1/2 cups rolled oats, 3/4 cup raw sunflower seeds, 1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds, and 2 tbsp. cinnamon.  Stir it up.

The oats, sunflower seeds, and cinnamon ready to be mixed up.

 Next, add 1 1/2 cup maple syrup and 1/3 cup oil and stir until all ingredients are mixed well and wet.  I LOVE this part!  There is something so satisfying about mixing it up, almost like playing with wet sand at the beach.  

Spread out your granola on the cookie sheet and bake for 25 minutes.  Then take it out and stir it up.  Bake for another 15-20 minutes until dry and golden brown.  Mix it up one time during this last baking so that it doesn't burn and it evenly cooks.  

Mixin' it up!

After you remove it from the oven, stir in 1 cup of raisins and let the whole pan cool on a cooling rack.   After it is completely cool, I store in mason jars in the freezer.  It makes a lot!  It will keep for quite a while this way, though my kids usually eat it up before it could possibly spoil.

The finished granola cooling on the counter and smelling SO GOOD!

Besides eating this plain or with milk, we enjoy it on top of yogurt or ice-cream.  It is great mixed in with banana "ice-cream!"
But, my son, Ben's, favorite way to eat this is ......

Granola Balls

Put a few spoonfuls of granola in a bowl and add a heaping spoonful of sunflower seed butter (or your favorite nut/seed butter).  Mix it up well and form into balls or just eat it up with a spoon.  If you form balls,  leave them in the fridge for a bit to solidify, if you can wait.  Ben does not; he eats them as fast as I can make them!

Mixing the sunflower seed butter into the granola.

Anyway you make it, granola is a fast, easy way to make a healthy breakfast for your children.  Add some fruit or a smoothie and that's all, folks!

Fast Food!

My children have never been to McDonalds....well, except my oldest two....once.  When my youngest were REALLY young and I was completely overwhelmed (4 children.. ages 2 and under!), my dad took my older girls to get ice-cream through the McDonalds' drive-through.
For years after that, they would point to the "Golden Arches" and say, "Ice-cream!"
I would laugh to myself and let them think that McDonalds was indeed an ice-cream store.

Fast forward 7 years.  My children who are now 10, 10, 7, and 7 love to watch "The Cartoon Network."  Batman, Ninjago, Clone Wars...you get the idea.  And, unlike PBS, which used to be THE channel around here, there are commercials.  They are all kid oriented (of course), and my kids like to laugh at them, especially the one for McDonalds.  Because they now know what McDonalds is.....and what it isn't.  They joke that the children are eating "pesticide apples" (their words) and looking so happy about it.  They joke that our dentist (our dentist!) offered the kids McDonalds' coupons at Halloween time, and then when we told him that we are vegetarians and don't eat there, he said that they have apple juice and apples.
He was trying to be nice......but what the heck?!?  Would I really choose to take my kids to McDonalds to get apples???  Really?!?

Today in the car, one of my youngest, Leah, said that she made up a new jingle, like the one for McDonalds, only with new words:

"Smoooothie moves, Dairy free food....." (sung to her own, unique tune)
Loved this and just had to share.  I'm glad that my kids are starting to understand how certain popular things in American life are not ok and that we choose differently in our family.  I'm proud of them for understanding these choices and hope that they continue to make wise food choices in their futures.

So, what do we do when we need some "fast food?"  We stop at our local natural food store, of course!  Hummus and a bag of tortilla chips, along with some fruit, is fast, easy, healthy, and delicious!

I'll leave you with our version of a "Happy Meal."  There are no toys included, but lots of smiles and laughter come for free.

Juicy Juice

We really don't drink a lot of juice.  I think that it is viewed as a healthy choice for our children, but I absolutely disagree.  Fruit, in it's whole state, is full of fiber and nutrients.  But once you remove the fibrous parts of the fruit, you are left with sugar, even if it did come from something healthy.  Apple juice, which seems to be the favorite "kid" juice, really gets me because it has no significant nutritonal value and could even be likened to drinking soda.  A little extreme, I know, but I'm just not a fan of commercial juice for everyday consumption.
Juicing your own fruits and veggies, however, can be fun and nutritious!

When my children have juice (besides at a restaurant or party), it's because I made it.  I love to mix veggies with fruit, especially citrus, to create a yummy, healthy drink for them. The sweet fruit juice makes the bolder tastes of the veggies more palatable to children, and it gives them a burst of nutrition and energy to start their day!

Beautiful oranges and grapefruits ready to be juiced.

Love this close-up that Amelia took of the fruits.

Today's smoothie combination is citrus combined with carrots.  I often add spinach too, but I was out of it today.

Here is my juicing set-up.  I'm using my husband's "Grumpy" cup to catch our sunshiny juice.  :)

Look at that beautiful color....so full of vitamins and nutrition.  

A cup full of sunshine!



If you haven't tried juicing, give it a whirl.  It is easy and delicious and nutritious....my favorite combination!

No Animals were Harmed in the Making of this Meal!

I love getting creative in the kitchen.  Last night, I put chickpeas in the fridge to soak overnight.  This morning, as they were cooking, I started thinking about what to make for dinner.  I wasn't inspired by any of my usual chickpea go-to dinners, so I started doing some research.  In one of my favorite cookbooks, Veganomicon, I found exactly what I was looking for.....Chickpea Cutlets.  

These were AWESOME and so easy!  And, boy, were they a hit around here.
When Mike (aka omnivorous husband/daddy and the man who doesn't like chickpeas) finished, he said, "Please make these again!"  Don't worry, love, I will!

After I tasted the finished cutlets, I realized that "gravy" would be the perfect companion for this yummy, "meaty" dish.  I remembered that Emily at Daily Garnish had a recipe for gravy which I had made awhile ago and found to be delish.  It was finished in 5 minutes and SO GOOD!  A perfect match, indeed.

Leftover brown basmati rice, green beans, and carrot sticks (along with smoothies) rounded out this meal and really made me reminisce about meals that I enjoyed as a child.  Of course, as a child the cutlets were made from chicken or veal and the gravy had many questionable ingredients...but you get the idea.  

This meal was healthy, so delicious, easy, and best of all......no animals were hurt in the process.  

The raw chickpea patties just waiting to be cooked golden brown and yummy!

The finished product...golden brown, crispy on the outside, delicious through and through!

Try them and see for yourself!

Baking Cookies....starring Maddie (aka "Dance Diva")

I have kids who LOVE to cook.  

Maddie, aka Dance Diva, loves it the most and has become almost completely independent in her cooking adventures.  Today she decided to make vegan Oatmeal Raisin-Chocolate Chip cookies....

my absolute favorite cookie combination!  Yum!

This recipe is adapted from Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's wonderful book, 

Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.

Oatmeal Raisin-Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/3 cup rice milk

2 tbsp. ground flax seeds

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup oil

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

cinnamon, nutmeg to taste

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix the rice milk with the ground flaxseeds and then add in the sugar, oil, and vanilla, mixing well.  Add in each dry ingredient, mixing as you go.  Fold in the oats, raisins, and chocolate chips.  Drop onto a cookie sheet (covered in parchment or sprayed with non-stick spray) and bake for 10-12 minutes.

We all thought that these were the BEST Oatmeal Raisin-Chocolate Chip cookies ever....

and we make them quite a bit!

Maddie has become a confident, independent baker.....wonderful!


As much as I enjoyed sampling these yummy creations, it gives me even more joy to see how Maddie has become such a wonderful baker.  I am thrilled that my children are learning how to create in our kitchen.  I  think that it is a skill that should be right up there with reading and writing.  Maddie, in particular, loves to plan meals.  She will look through our cookbooks, write down what she needs from the store, do all of the preparing herself, serve us all, and even clean up.  What a gift to see my child share one of my passions!
Keep cookin', Maddie!

Eat More Kale!

We love kale!  We really do.  We enjoy it many different ways, but our favorite way is.....(drum roll, please) KALE CHIPS!  YUM!  Super YUM!  Get the point?

 Let me tell you how to turn kale into a delectable treat!  We seriously argue over who gets the last one! :)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Wash your kale and tear it off of the thick stem.  I love lacinato (or dinosaur) kale for other dishes, but curly kale is best for kale chips, we think.

Rub your kale with a bit of olive oil.  A little bit goes a long way.  You really want to "massage" the oil into the kale to soften it up.  Then sprinkle delicious nutritional yeast flakes (aka nooch) on top and rub it in too.  Sprinkle with salt.  At this point, try it.  It is very good, and my friend Kaecey loves to eat them this way.  I like them better baked a bit.
(Note:  If you don't like nutritional yeast, then leave it off.  They will still be delish.  I write this for my husband, who has not yet learned to appreciate the delicacy called nooch!)

Bake for about 10 minutes and then check them.  If you want them crunchy, you may need to leave them in for a few more minutes.  Try them and see how you like them.  I guarantee you WILL like them!

Really, you cannot see how delish these are.  They are crispy (if you leave them in long enough), salty, "cheezy," addictive....trust me.  I prefer them not as crispy, but my children like them well done.  

I'm not sure that this is the healthiest way to eat kale.....they are cooked quite a bit, they have oil added.... but they are delicious and a great way to get kids excited about kale.
I have only three more words to leave you with before I go into the kitchen to make me some kale chips........

This Soup Rocks!

On days when we are not going to be home until close to dinner time, the crock pot is my appliance of choice.  In the morning, all of the ingredients go in...and when we arrive home for dinner, the house has a wonderful aroma and dinner is served!

Really, almost anything put into the crock pot for a day of cooking comes out tasting pretty good.  But this recipe is my current favorite.  It is my version of "Chicken-less Noodle Soup" and darn good!  Watch out little red and white can full of questionable ingredients.......and hello delish, nutritious soup!

Chickpea Noodle Soup

Ingredients: (Note: all ingredients are organic...duh!)

*1/2 of a large onion, chopped - use more or less depending on your taste for onions, of course.

*1-2 cups of chopped tomatoes (You could use canned or fresh.  I prefer to avoid cans if at all possible....a topic for another post.  Instead, I freeze organic whole plum tomatoes in the summer when they are abundant and inexpensive. When I need them, I simply leave them out for a bit or run them under warm water.  The skins come right off, and I can chop them up and add them to soups or stews all winter).

*1-2 cups of cooked chickpeas, depending on your love for them.  Of course, you could substitute a different bean, but why would you want to mess with perfection? :) 

 (I buy beans dry and cook up big batches at a time.  I then freeze them in mason jars and use them as I would canned.  Healthier and cheaper too).

*Chopped up veggies.....I used frozen corn and green beans in this soup.  Carrots would also be good, but I was running short. 

*1 tbsp. olive oil

*leftover brown rice pasta spaghetti

Put the olive oil and the chopped onions into the crock pot.  Turn it on "high" and let cook for about 1/2 hour.  Then add all other ingredients and fill to near the top with water.  You can add spices at this point, but we like it fairly plain. I leave my crock pot on "high" all day, though it would probably also work at a lower temp.  And, of course, you could just make this in a pot on the stove, if you'd rather.

At dinnertime, put a small handful of leftover pasta in the bottom of each bowl and then fill with soup.  Add a good amount of nutritional yeast (love this stuff!), a pinch of salt, and a grind of pepper.  

Enjoy!

A bowl of yummy soup, ready to eat.

Organic, brown rice pasta from Trader Joes.

Nutritional yeast flakes.....love 'em!  So cheezy and rich tasting but healthful too.

YUM!

Homemade Oatmeal....What the Commercials Don't Tell You.

I grew up eating those little packets of oatmeal.  You know, the kind where you open the packet into a bowl and then add boiling water.  They were really yummy and easy, and at the time, it was how I thought oatmeal was made.  As I got older, I thought that making "real" oatmeal was a time-consuming task....standing over a hot stove and constantly stirring the oats for a long time.  NOT SO!  

It is the best kept secret, if you ask me, that homemade oatmeal is so darn easy.  It really only takes 5 short minutes, and you don't have to have any questionable ingredients in your child's breakfast.  

Honestly, people, if the label contains ingredients that you don't know, don't buy it!  

It's as simple as that, and so is homemade oatmeal.

Oats are always on my counter, at the ready, for a quick breakfast or snack.

Here is what you'll need:  Organic oats (bought in bulk at any natural foods store) and water.
Seriously, that is all that you need.  We like to jazz things up a bit with some organic raisins, cinnamon, brown sugar, and a little rice milk.  But oats and water are all that you really need.

Our oatmeal ingredients posing for a picture:  organic raisins (bought in bulk), organic oats, organic cinnamon, rice milk, and organic brown sugar.  

Take some oats and put them into a saucepan.  I don't ever measure how much I use.  Here I am using a measuring spoon just as a scoop.  Just know that a little bit of oats goes a long way to making a large bowl of oatmeal.

 Here's what the oats should like after you add the water.  They should be floating in water.  Less water equals thicker oatmeal, but too much water can always be cooked off.  You really can't go wrong.  If you find that it gets too thick, add a bit more water during the cooking process.  You can also use a non-dairy milk in place of your water, but I just like to add a splash in our bowls.

Soupy looking oats ready to go onto the burner.

 Put the saucepan on a medium-high heat and stir a bit.  Keep a watch on them.  They are seriously done in about 5 minutes, depending on how you like them.

Maddie's bowl of half-eaten oatmeal.  

That's it.....easy as can be!  Top it off with anything and everything!  Add chopped nuts, shredded coconut, a dallop of a nut or seed butter, dried fruit, fresh fruit.....anything goes!

Enjoy! And don't forget to laugh at those commercials that make us think we need to buy "instant" oatmeal.  You now know better!

It's What's for Breakfast.....Fruit!

When my children wake up, some are immediately hungry and others like to play legos or create movies on the computer first.  So, to start their day off right and also have something that they can get to whenever hunger strikes, I prepare fruit for each of them.  It can require some time, as they all like different things.

Ben is easy; organic blueberries are his choice day and night (except for his lego building apple slices).  Leah chooses kiwi, if I have it, but she will also eat grapefruit or orange.  Maddie and Amelia choose grapefruit.  Of course, these are our winter choices.  Can't wait for summer fruits!  Watermelon, canteloupe, strawberries, oh my!

I know that some people would not think highly of my choice to give each of my children a different fruit, therefore making a whole lot more work for me.  But I don't understand that argument.  After all, each of us likes different things.  I would hate it if someone made me eat something just because it was easier or because someone else in the house liked it too.  I think that it is only fair for us to listen to our children and their food likes and dislikes and try to  honor them.  (I'm also a big believer in trying new things...a thought for another post).

After fruit is consumed, some of my children want something else.....oatmeal, eggs, pancakes, banana "ice cream," scrambled tofu, ...... but fruit is the first thing that is eaten each morning in our house.
Fruit, it does a body good!

Organic oranges on the chopping block.

Love Trader Joe's Wild Blueberries.  Ben eats them year round.

Blueberries awaiting Ben!

Our breakfast table before the kids arrive.

Yummy, refreshing, organic fruit.

Always have a bowl of pears and apples.  Good snacking!

Starts the day off right!