Josephine's First Doll

I finished Josephine's first doll this week. It really was a labor of love. I like to sew by hand so I stitched over everything twice to make sure she can't rip it open. We'll see how it holds up. So far, she seems to like it.

On Yogurt Making

My favorite thing about yogurt making is the time that it takes. You can't rush the process, there is no way to make milk cool more quickly. The 'convenience' foods that we have today are so detached from their original state I don't even recognize them. The idea that we can get more than just the simplest foods just from opening a box is such a new idea, we forget that we haven't been able to do it for very long. Maybe we shouldn't be able to. Food-making takes time. Patience, after all, is not a skill that we are born with. Just ask my six month old daughter. It's a skill that we cultivate. With practice, patience grows.

Honey Baked Lentils

Josephine and I have been snowed in for a few days. The best thing to do on a cold day, I've found, is cook something warm and fragrant. This recipe hits the spot. This is the first time I've made it and I found it delightfully sweet and hearty. This is based on a recipe from the happyfoodie blog. Here's how I made it;

Preheat oven to 350. Throw all ingredients into a pot.

1 cup of lentils

2 cups of water

1 tbsp of oil

2 tbsp of honey (put the honey in your tablespoon right after the oil and it's slip right out)

2 tbsp of soy sauce

1 clove of garlic

1 onion

couple of carrots

(I think this would be great with any winter veggies that you have on hand. I would add more next time a make it.)

Cook, covered, until tender about 90 minutes! That's it- enjoy!

How to make your own healthy cereal

If you are looking for a healthy cereal you might be surprised at how little options you really have. (Particularly after reading about grain extrusion. There is a great article here.) I thought I would be stuck with oatmeal forever until finding this great recipe in a raw food book. It's actually very easy to make a great, simple, healthy, crunchy cereal by sprouting and dehydrating raw buckwheat groats. It takes some planning but the real active work is minimal. Here's the play-by-play;

1. Take your buckwheat (usually available by the pound at natural food stores) and soak them for at least 4 hours. I generally just throw them in a bowl of cool water when I get home from the store and then move on to step two before bed.

2. Rinse groats and let them sit in a strainer (or sprouting bag, if you have one) Every few hours (or whenever you remember it) rinse them again. Don't just pour water through the strainer, dump them into a bowl and stir it around with your fingers to get them a good rinse. They will have this film coming off them and that's good.

See the sprouts starting to stick out the bottom?

3. After a day or so you will have sprouts! Like so;
See all those beautiful little tails? That's how you know it's ready!

4. You can really start eating them right now. Use them like you would use bulgur in tabbouleh or any salad really. But if you want them to keep and be crunchy in your morning cereal- you need to dehydrate them. I don't have a dehydrator so I just put them in my oven on the lowest setting and let them go for about 4 hours or until they are crunchy. (Think grapnuts) You might want to stir them a few times to make sure they come out even. And that's it!

Throw them in with your favorite nut/animal/soy milk and enjoy! I add raisins or other dried fruit, but that's a personal call. If you make them really crunchy they will keep forever in a mason jar. If you like them a little chewy eat them in a week or so or keep them in the fridge or they will get funky. Stay well.

-Courtney

Start

Here is my sweet girl. The inspiration for all my crafting, cooking, writing and whole-living. And now she is awake again so I have to go tend to her.