Kid-Conscious Recipe of the Week

Yana Connors submitted this recipe that both her and other members' kids have adored.  Coconut flour is a wonderfully nutritious alternative to traditional grain flours.  It's great if your family has gluten/grain sensitivities or if you just love coconut like I do!

Raspberry Chocolate Coconut flour Cupcakes

makes 8-10

1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla (make sure your vanilla is gluten free, if needed)
1/2 cup of honey or coconut sugar paste (maple syrup would work too, I bet)
1/4 cup of coconut oil
1/2 cup of fresh or frozen raspberries
3 eggs
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1-Grease muffins tins, or put in muffin papers.

2-Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

3-Add the wet ingredients (but not the raspberries) and whisk well, until all lumps are gone.

4-Fold in the raspberries, and fill muffin tins, 2/3 full.

5-Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the top if firm and a toothpick comes out clean, when poked in the middle of the muffin. Take out of the muffin tins and cool on cooling racks

Tagged as: Dairy Free, Gluten Free

May 4th Meeting: Holistic, Yet Frugal: Living Well on a Budget

As mindful moms shopping on a budget, making the transition to holistic living can seem like a monumental investment in time and money.  As our standards for quality and healthfulness go up, so, it seems, do the associated price tags.  With creativity and a like-minded community, the budget barrier to living well can be overcome.  Keeping your home and family healthy need not leave your bank account in the red.

Join us for our May meeting to learn the techniques of frugally financing a holistic lifestyle.  Co-leader and bargain finder extraordinaire, Jennifer Oh, will present her extensive bag of tricks and lead the discussion to follow.  Please bring your own ideas to contribute.  Bring a friend to this meeting -- especially the ones who are afraid to enter "Whole Paycheck" for fear of losing their life savings.  We can help!

**Please note that this meeting is taking place at the Rozenhart Family Chiropractic Offices since our Library Community Room is unavailable this month.

See you Tuesday!

Kid-Conscious Recipe of the Week

Since we have so many great cooks in our membership rolls, I am adding a new feature to the blog; Recipe of the Week.  Through this weekly feature, we can share our tried-and-true, family friendly, nourishing recipes.  I am always looking for a fresh approach to presenting nutritious food to my family. I would appreciate that you send your recipe submissions to my email at holisticfreckles@sbcglobal.net.  These can be family recipes, links from your favorite blog, excerpts from recipe books or your own creation.  When you find something that works, please share it with us!

I'll kick this off with something I've been talking about on the loop.  Fresh whole wheat sandwich bread.  When I first got my breadmaker as a gift from my in-laws, I wasn't exactly sure about it.  I liked the thought of less work in the kitchen, but breadmaking was one of the tasks I didn't see as a chore.  I enjoyed the mental and physical therapy that kneading the dough provided.  Taking something from a chaotically sticky mass to a smooth and manageable ball was so satisfying.  This was, however, when I made bread only on special occasions.  Once I started truly making bread on a daily basis, I embraced and came to adore the convenience of my breadmaker.

When I first began baking bread in the breadmaker, each and every recipe I tried turned out as a heavy brick.  Whole wheat?  Forget it.  I finally got a recipe from Co-Leader, Jen Oh, and had my first semblance of success. I used it for months before I came across a technique for a lighter loaf involving the additions of natural acidity, starch and gluten.  I began playing around with this technique and eventually developed this recipe.  The pictures I'll post show the amazing difference in rise and crumb between the two recipes using the same amount of flour and water.  If you like the flavor of wheat bread but loathe the heavy texture, you will love this bread!

Original, unmodified recipe (pictured left)
1 cup warm water
3 cups whole wheat flour (I used freshly ground,  
   sprouted white wheat) If you want a less dense 
   loaf, use half/half white to whole wheat flour.
3 T Coconut Oil (or your preferred oil)
2 T Honey(or 3T of your preferred dry sugar)
1 T Kosher Salt (or 1.5 tsp. fine sea salt)
2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast

Mix all ingredients in breadmaker for 5 minutes, turn off machine.  Add yeast to top of mixture and set timer for machine to complete its "whole wheat bread" setting in 9 hours.  This will give the dough time to soak and absorb the liquids.


Christina's Light and Fluffilicious 
100% Whole Wheat Bread (pictured left)

I am writing this recipe for a breadmaker with a timer to delay the start of the dough/baking process. You can certainly make this recipe without the assistance of a breadmaker, but you may not get the same results due to not being able to soak the dough overnight without the yeast.  Experiment with the timing of adding the yeast and see how it goes.



Add to bread machine in this order:

1 Cup warm water
2 T Orange Juice
4 T Ghee or Butter or Coconut Oil
2 T Honey or Malted Barley Syrup
Heaping 1/4 Cup Dried Potato Flakes (or 2 T potato flour -- again Bob's Red Mill makes one)
2 T Buttermilk Powder (or nonfat milk powder)
1 T Kosher Salt (or 1.5 tsp. fine sea salt)
3 Cups Whole Wheat Flour (again, I used freshly-ground, sprouted white wheat, but King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour is a good substitute)


*At this point, start the machine mixing.  Let the machine mix until all ingredients are moistened and well incorporated (about 5 minutes).  Stop the machine and reset.  I set the machine on "Whole wheat," 1.5 pound loaf with a light crust.  I then set the timer so that the finished bread will be ready at 8:00 in the morning, when I am up and getting breakfast ready. 


NOW, don't forget to add:


2 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast

I add the yeast at the end so that it will not activate during the overnight soaking process.  When the machine starts in the morning, the yeast will mix thoroughly into the dough and begin the rising process.  When the bread finishes baking, take it immediately out of the machine and empty loaf onto breadboard to cool for 30 minutes before slicing.

Enjoy!

Christina

Also featured on Pennywise Platter

April Meeting Recap: Emergency Preparedness

This month's meeting on Emergency Preparedness was so enlightening. With all of the earthquakes that have occurred in the last few months, the timing couldn't have been better. We had two representatives from the SJ Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) come to speak with us and go over what to do in the event of various emergencies and what to have prepared in case of emergencies.

We learned different emergency scenarios: fire, hazardous materials, earthquake, etc., creating a family plan and how to handle these situations.

Some really great quick tips:

• Know where your gas, water and power meters are and how to shut them off, if necessary.

• Discuss with your family what you would do during an emergency and create a family plan of action.

• Create emergency kits - GO Bags - for various places: work, car, and in your bedroom. These bags are not your entire emergency kit, but the supplies you need immediately: shoes, glasses, clothes, flashlight. Imagine if it were the middle of the night and an emergency happened. You'd need to be able to grab a bag and run. You won't have time to grab clothes, shoes, glasses, et cetera.  The "Go Bag" would be indispensable.

• Make sure your kids know what to do and how to react. A common reaction for kids is to hide and in an emergency, this would be the scariest thing for a parent.  Explaining and teaching them from a young age how to react and what to do during an emergency could save their lives.

• Have an out of state contact. This would be the point person that ALL family members could contact and let know they are ok. Most often, local phone service is cut off (to keep lines open for emergency personnel), it will be easier to call out of state than locally. Let your out of state contact also have copies of any vital documents: passport, drivers license, insurance papers, etc (scanned on a USB stick is great).

• Carry a photo of your loved ones in your wallet. In the event of an emergency, you will have a photo of your loved ones, in the event you need it. It is much easier to find someone when you have a photo for people to look at than just a verbal description. Cell phones may lose battery power, so an old fashioned photo is still best.

For a complete guide on how to create a family plan and what should be in your emergency kit, visit
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/emergencyservices/EHFDP/EHFDPCh2.pdf

One of the biggest concerns I have regarding an emergency is dealing with the aftermath.  An emergency happens and you are required to eat rations.  A majority of people survive actual emergencies only to get ill afterward due to lack of nutrition, stress, fatigue, et c etera. It is vital to keep the body as healthy as possible.  Most MRE's (Meal, Ready to Eat) are highly processed. Yes, they are fortified with vitamins and minerals...and lets face it, if it's all you have, you'd eat it...but they are not as nutritious as what most of eat day to day. The best thing to do is to dehydrate, store bulk grains, beans, etc, or to look for healthier MRE alternatives. Here are a few links to some options we have found on the internet.While most are expensive - they do give you a starting point and making your own kit will save substantially, but these links are a great starting point.
http://survivalacres.com/
http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/emergency-disaster-preparedness-nutrition-survival-food-dehydrated-meal-mre-pack-supplies-kit
http://www.disasterstuff.com/

Posted by Jennifer Oh