Category Archives: Foodie

artisan gluten free bread banneton

Finally! Gluten-Free Bread Made Simple, with This Book

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Finally, my gluten-free bread game is on point!

Gluten free + dairy free loaf, baked on a stoneware baking sheet in the oven (NOT in a bread machine)!

To me, this is on par with the best German bakery bread – except that stuff’s all full of gluten, so we can’t eat it.

I’ve been learning how to live gluten-free for over ten years now.

Ten years ago, I was a vegetarian, and my husband was suffering from seizures, loss of his senses (taste, touch, etc), couldn’t sleep, brain fog, lethargy, generalized pain–oh, and (TMI) going #2 about 20 times a day.

He couldn’t work, and I was expecting, so I needed to stop working. So my husband went to California on the advice of a friend, to seek a new job and a new life for our family.

While the job didn’t work out, he happened to “get stuck” eating only meat and plant foods while he was there…

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Food Freedom? On Allowing Your Kids to Eat Whatever They Want

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This article was originally posted on TheHomestead.Guru

Unschooling goes beyond education and learning–it bleeds over into every area of your life, eventually. So what does it look like to be unschooling food?

For many unschoolers, unschooling food means exactly what it sounds like: kids are given the freedom to eat whatever they want.

Many of you may now be picturing ice cream for every meal and nary a vegetable in sight–but the reality of food freedom doesn’t stay that way, even if it might begin like that!

Kids, like people of all ages, tend to be drawn to what’s forbidden, especially if there’s a fair amount of emotional energy surrounding those taboos.

For example, when I was a kid, my parents were health nuts of the low-fat, low-salt variety. However, sugar was not yet seen as the villain many now know it to be.

Unsurprisingly, I craved exactly what I was forbidden–things like bacon and potato chips! Never mind how many popsicles I ate on a daily basis…

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Gardening: The Lazy Way. Quick Tips to Grow Food Naturally

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Gardening is at the core of our lifestyle. It’s health and hobby in one…but I seem to be a specialist in #NeglectGardening!

I forget to water. I miss the planting windows. I hardly ever weed.

And YET – we have consistent yields of wild, incredible abundance even from our “flawed” efforts. Gardening is a beautiful lesson-in-motion, that proves if something is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing badly.

Here’s some of my best quick tips to grow food and start gardening, even if you’ve never grown a houseplant.

All links in this post go to TheHomestead.Guru, a fantastic homesteading blog that I used to write for regularly!

//  We plant using companion relationships – such as tomatoes, carrots and basil; or the “three sisters”, corn, beans, and squash. It might sound funny, but some plants are “companions” – they do better when grown next to each other. Then again, other plants don’t get on as well…for example, tomatoes hate cucumbers! Continue reading →

Homemade Bumble Bars Recipe

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Ah, Bumble Bars…

Gluten-free, organic, and so delicious.  I was introduced to Bumble Bars by a dear friend of mine, who is big-into healthy eating (even moreso than I am).  At first, I wasn’t sure whether I liked them that much–but when I saw them at the store, I thought I’d try one again….and the next time….and, well.  I really love Bumble Bars.

They are, however, rather small, and rather expensive, and worst of all?  Only obtainable at stores that are an hour or more from my home!

So I decided to try making my own.  The first batch was okay, but wasn’t quite right.  This simple recipe, however, is spot-on awesomeness:  

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Part 3 – My Journey to & Beyond Vegetarianism [Everything is Energy]

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So in my last post in this series, I was feeling very unsettled and confused because wheat, the major ingredient in my diet, was suddenly being implicated as unhealthy, and the cause of my husband’s suspected Celiac disease.

This Celiac thing turned our world upside-down.

At first I approached it like a random allergy, as if he was allergic to strawberries or latex:

“Bummer!  Sorry you can’t have these noodles….”

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My Journey to and Beyond Vegetarianism, Part 2 (Grains are BAD?)

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So in my last post in this series, I left off at the point where I was a complacent vegan who felt “pretty good” about my choices from an ethical and a nutritional standpoint, and was more or less satisfied with my diet for the time being.

Then, gradually, I lost my passion for veganism.  

Now, I was never one of those street-corner supporters, denouncing the evils of flesh food to anyone who would listen (ok, maybe in my head, tho).

From the start, I had been quietly passionate about lessening animal cruelty and helping the environment–and being vegan was the most tangible way I thought that I could effect positive change.

Somewhere along the line, I lost passion for most other things in my life, as well.  I was in the grips of a deep depression.

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Gluten-free Crock-pot Cornbread Stuffing (Vegan-Adaptable)

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Gluten-free, vegan-adaptable crock-pot cornbread stuffing–that’s yummy enough to serve to your meat-, dairy-, and gluten-eating friends.  Really.

This recipe is the culmination of my search for yummy stuffing (like Stove-Top, but even better!) that is gluten-free, so my husband could enjoy it too.  He’s newly gluten-free, and we’re finding that a lot of the gluten-free items out there–especially store-bought gluten-free bread–are expensive…kinda spongy, stiff, and gross.  Anyway, it’s a bummer to have one member of the family relegated to an “equal-but-not-really” dish of his own while the rest of us eat something different.

Also, as a vegetarian of over 16 years (several of those were vegan), I’m always sensitive to those who wish to avoid dairy (and meat!), so I included that in my searching as well.  The recipe is rather labor-intensive in that you’ve got to bake your own breads, but you can start the day prior, and then just throw it all together very quickly.  OR – you could totally buy a loaf of GF-bread in the store and then cube it and toast it under the broiler.  Then you’d only need to bake the GF-cornbread.

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Evolution of dietary thought: Does the past shape the future?

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Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my diet, and making some changes that are long-overdue for my health and well-being.  I’m writing a series of posts discussing the evolution of my diet in both thought and action, from junk-food junkie to aspiring raw vegan.  (Back off, food police–I did say “aspiring“.  It’s an evolution, after all!)

When I was a kid, I ate lots of junk–whatever I wanted, really.  One of the curiosities of being the only child of fairly well-off, older parents, was that I got to eat nearly anything I pleased, with no regard to cost, and only scant regard to nutritional value.

I was nearly a teenager before it finally occurred to me that those numbers on the grocery tags and receipts actually meant something–that some people in the world couldn’t afford to buy anything they wanted at the grocery store.

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