Category Archives: Cooking

I did not realize how much we humans care about food until I became a mother. I swear I am cooking all day long just to keep up with the basic food demands for my family.

Adoption Fundraiser Recipes

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My cousins, Andrea and Kyle, had an adoption fundraiser last Friday and Saturday.  It was a yard sale and a bake sale, so I made the Oatmeal Cranberry cookies with spelt flour instead of wheat flour and dark chocolate chips instead of cranberries.  I, also, made Lemon Blueberry Bread and Banana Bread.  I found both of the recipes on Pinterest, and didn’t change anything about them, so here are the links to those recipes.

Lemon Blueberry Bread

Banana Bread

The Lemon Blueberry Bread is super delicious, and a full on sugar attack.  The Banana Bread does not have any sugar or oil in it.  Instead those are replaced with unsweetened applesauce and honey.  I hope you  enjoy them as much as I do.

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies -or- Multivitamin Cookies -or- Lactation Cookies

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These cookies are so delicious and healthy for you, too.  I found this recipe by Kathleen Major when I was searching for some lactation cookies to help Leah through a growth spurt.  I changed a few things, and this is what I came up with.

1 ½ C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1 t salt
¾ C peanut butter
½ C butter, softened
1 C honey
2 t vanilla
3 T brewer’s yeast
1 C flax
1/3 C water
2 large eggs
2 C craisins
1 3/4 C oats

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a bowl.  In a large bowl, beat peanut butter, butter, honey, vanilla, brewer’s yeast, flax and water until creamy.  Mix in eggs.  Gradually beat in flour mixture.  Mix in craisins.  Add oatmeal slowly, mixing along the way.  Place balls of dough onto greased cookie sheet.  Press down each ball lightly with a fork.  Bake for about 12 minutes.

The oatmeal provides iron and fiber.  The brewer’s yeast provides B-vitamins, selenium, and chromium.  Chromium is a trace mineral that many people are deficient in.  It helps maintain blood sugar levels, and some people believe it helps with morning sickness.  Flax provides omega-3 and fiber.  These cookies rock!  I got my milled flax and brewer’s yeast from Sunflower market.  You can get them at any health food store.

My favorite thing about these cookies is that you get all of those vitamins, minerals, and nutrients from whole foods, which means that they are easier for your body to digest, and there is less of a chance that you will dispose of them before using them all up.  On top of that, I’ve been munching on these for a few days now, and I don’t feel the slightest bit sick from them.  I can eat as many of these as I want, and it’s good for me.

Fruit Protein Smoothie

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I just made a super delicious, super healthy smoothie.  It is:

½ C orange juice
½ C frozen strawberry banana fruit blend (from Target)
½ C plain yogurt, original style (which is to say, “full fatted”)
1 t Nature’s Way Reuteri
1 scoop Naturade 100% Whey Protein Booster, Vanilla Flavor

All together this smoothie has 225 calories, so if you’re trying to lose weight, this is not the snack for you, but it might be the breakfast or the lunch for you.  The majority of the calories come from the full fatted yogurt, so if you want to cut down on calories a bit, just use a leaner yogurt.  Since I’m nursing, I’m going for as many calories as I can find.

There are 17 grams of protein, with the majority coming from the protein booster.  I love this booster.  It has no sugar and no artificial sweeteners.  The vanilla flavor makes my smoothies taste like I used vanilla ice cream, and all without adding even a gram of sugar.

There are 23 grams of sugar, which are all naturally occurring in the juice, fruit and yogurt, and 4 grams of fiber, which come from the juice and fruit.

Now to talk about the Reuteri.  This is a probiotic that I found at Good Earth.  It is in powder form, and you simply measure out how much you want to add to any drink.  It is good for anybody.  I can give this to my babies, and I do.  We’ve all been sick lately, so that’s why I added it to my smoothie.

This is great for all the sugar addicts out there.  It gave me a natural sugar boost to get my energy and mood up, and all the protein will help maintain my blood sugar, so that I don’t drop back down into the awful low of coming off a sugar high.

Enjoy!

No Sugar, No Artificial Sweeteners

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On January 30, 2012, my sister-in-law and I started three months of no sugar and no artificial sweeteners, though honey is okay in moderation.  We both get what we call “sugar sickness,” which is where we physically feel ill when we eat too much sugar, and we have yet to find an artificial sweetener that doesn’t have some kind of ill effect on us as well.  Basically we want to detox from eating too many sweets so that come May, we can start anew with the resolve to simply cut back on sugar.

This is a huge feat that we are trying to accomplish, so we decided to help each other out by doing it together.  Also, we didn’t want to set ourselves up for failure, so we gave ourselves a few treats to help us stay strong in tempting situations when we are otherwise doing very well.

The first thing to address was cold treats, like ice cream.  She loves Red Mango, so that is her cold treat and reward for avoiding everything else.  I found plain frozen yogurt at Yogurt Bliss, so that is my cold treat and reward.  Both of these are had in moderation, because eating them every day would basically defeat the purpose of even trying this.

She is allowing herself 70% cocoa to curb the chocolate cravings.  There is some pretty amazing 70% cocoa out there, and she is finding it.  I drink 100% juice, while she avoids it, because the natural sugars are too concentrated for her body.  She eats Greek yogurt, because of its benefits and the great flavors, while I just eat plain yogurt, because I don’t really like the added sugar in flavored yogurts.

When family events come around where sugar will obviously be present, we try to bring fruit or some dessert without sugar so that we don’t slip up.  I made a chocolate cake with applesauce as the sweetener when our aunt had a birthday.  It wasn’t the most amazing cake, but it gave us something to eat while everyone else was eating some really awesome looking cake.

I hope this inspires others to give this a try.  Don’t set yourself up for failure, and get a buddy to hold yourself accountable to.

Check out my sister-in-laws blog here.

Super Easy Crock Pot Chicken

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I have learned a new recipe for my 101 goals in 1001 days!  I found it on Pinterest, the wonderful site of sharing everything good in the world.  It originally comes from The Larson Lingo.  Michael really loves this, and I think it’s very tasty.  On top of that, it’s a crock pot recipe, so it’s super easy to make.

4-6 frozen chicken breasts
1 – 8 oz package of cream cheese (full fat)
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can of corn, drained
8-12 oz of salsa
Salt (optional)

Place the frozen chicken breasts in the crock pot.  Put the cream cheese on top.  Add the black beans, corn, and salsa.  And add as much salt as you think is necessary.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours.  Shred the chicken and let sit for about 30 minutes.  Serve over rice or in soft taco shells.

Originally this recipe doesn’t have salt, but we found it necessary to add some to bring out all the delicious flavors.  When I make this, I take my 1 pound container of salt and just pour some over all the food.  I suggest making this first without the salt to determine if you really want to add that much salt.  It is easily added after you serve.  I was worried about the chicken being hard to shred, but after cooking for so long, it was super easy.  The only thing remotely challenging was finding the chicken in the soupy mess.

I don’t have a name for this yet, so if anyone wants to suggest one, I’ll take the best name that comes.

Healthy Eating – Ice Cream

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Part of healthy eating is understanding what your body really wants when you’re craving something you probably shouldn’t eat.  For example, a sugar craving usually means your body really needs protein.  It sounds kind of strange, but if you’re dying for some sugar, eat a piece of cheese instead.

In regards to ice cream, your body is craving the fat from the cream, salt, it’s in there I promise, and sugar, obviously.  So, find a different way to satisfy those cravings.  I have found that an orange and cottage cheese satisfies all of the cravings: fat and salt in the cottage cheese, and sugar in the orange.  You can use any orange-like fruit as well.  I really like this with clementines.  Plus, they taste pretty good together.