Archive | July, 2008

Home Again…

By on July 19, 2008 in news & updates

I am completely wiped out! We took a quick day and overnight trip to the beach, Thursday and Friday, to participate in a family reunion on my dad’s side. Once again, Karis decided not to sleep well, but all in all we had a wonderful time of fellowship with our family. Most of them are not walking with the Lord, so it provided a sweet opportunity to extend the love of Christ to them. The beach, sun, lots of talking, two late nights (one driving home late), etc. has put me down for the day. I was amazed how exhausted my body was after returning home.

In all the years past of family reunions, it was a real chore to attend and hang out with my relatives, due to the vast differences of families and the way we were raised. We have alot of family weaknesses and challenges that run in the family (depression, obsession with appearance and body figure among the girls, desire to be successful, etc). The Lord changed my heart this time around and we were able to come with a real heart of compassion and love this time…and I am amazed at the difference in experiences. Praise the Lord!

Now we look forward to our week long mission outreach to our city this next week with other families (young and old alike). We will be serving Monday-Saturday at different local ministries. Serving the homeless, cleaning up local park, completing service projects for widows, etc. With this in mind, I am not sure how much time I will be able to devote to blogging this week, but we would greatly appreciate your prayers for our team.

Please pray for:
- team unity
- servant’s hearts
- protection as we travel around the city
- opportunities to speak His name!
- that God may be glorified over all!

Thank you so much! Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend!

Comments { 7 }

Simplifying in the Bathroom

By on July 15, 2008 in frugal & simple, making a home, natural & green

On the counter: toothbrush holder, toothpaste dispenser, soap dispenser – that’s all!

Welcome back for further simplifying tips for every room of your house…last week, we discussed the kitchen, and today, we enter the bathroom! Normally this room is piled high with various body, hair and facial products. I have been there! Items that just make this room look so cluttered. How can you simplify? Preparing for this post got me extra motivated to get more organized in the bathroom – I even pulled out a few items that needed to go! Remember every little baby step you take to simplify your life will open up time to focus on the important things – investing in family and the lives of others!

Continue Reading →

Comments { 37 }

Kombucha: Refreshing Summer Drink

By on July 14, 2008 in health & nutrition, recipes & kitchen tips

Thanks to my sweet SIL Autumn Edmonds for sharing this wonderful post on Kombucha for us! I just recently completed my first batch of the drink and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a wonderfully refreshing drink for summer especially! Pleasantly fizzy and sweet! Fermenting for seven days works great for us. As Autumn mentions at the end there has been some debate over the safety of consuming this product as a pregnant or nursing mother. Her cousin, a nurse, assured us that drinking this beverage in moderation during pregnancy or nursing is perfectly safe. We have mushrooms to share for any of our local friends, just send me an e-mail.

Want to be groove with the hippies, save money and offer a helping hand to your liver? Tired of your drink’s main ingredient being high fructose corn syrup? Now you have a healthy and hip alternative, equipped with a great name. Let me introduce you to Kombucha.

Wonderfully fizzy and slightly sweet tasting, Kombucha is a great way to improve your health. The Kombucha culture, often referred to as a “mushroom”, is a probiotic colony of friendly yeast and bacteria. It acts on sugar and tea to produce acetic, lactic and glucuronic acid. Kombucha is great for detoxification, boosting metabolism and assisting digestion. It is rich with antioxidants and amino acids, namely L-threonine (supports healthy protein balance). Kombacha is loaded with enzymes and healthy bacteria thought to enhance the digestive process. It has been used to prevent post-meal heartburn, acid reflux and has even been used as a cure for cancer.

Kombucha is very simple and inexpensive. It costs about 50 cents a gallon to make, compared with about $3 for a 16 ounce Kombucha drink at your local health food store. I make mine with black mango tea from Trader Joes. Try to stay away from non-organic teas, they contain fluoride.

Continue Reading →

Comments { 54 }

Camping & Menu Plan – July 14-20

By on July 14, 2008 in recipes & kitchen tips

Wow! We had a wild weekend at our church camp out. It was very fun and lively, full of fellowship, food, Frisbee, basketball, swimming, and the like, but we greatly lacked sleep! Saturday night Karis decided not to go to bed till 2:30am, and we tried everything! I felt so bad for our nearby campers. It was refreshing to come home and all of us get at least 10 hours of sleep last night (Karis got 12 hours)! Praise the Lord! I guess Karis just missed her home! That being said, we are a little behind today…unpacking, cleaning up, and planning out the week, so here is my late menu plan.

Here are a few pictures from our camping trip:

My dad and Karis

Karis and Auntie Brooke (my sister) – she loved the water!

Karis getting into all our bad food for the weekend! ;)

Aaron and my brothers – Dan & Sam around the campfire

Aaron leading worship Sunday morning

Now on to the menu…

Continue Reading →

Comments { 2 }

Frugal Food Carnival: Dinners

By on July 10, 2008 in recipes & kitchen tips

I am always on the look out for good nutritious foods to add to our list, especially meatless to incorporate twice a week in our menu plan! I am excited to see Kimi & Stephanie leading the way in collecting recipes to share with others in the way of stretching the food budget and still get the most nutrition out of our dollar. This week the focus is dinners.

Here are a few of my keepers that I have been trying over the last few weeks…black bean wraps & lentil w/rice casserole. Not amazingly exciting…but for a stretcher meal, these work well! I have found fresh herbs are the key to spicing up beans and lentils! Have fun doing some experimenting!

Continue Reading →

Comments { 26 }

Thank you!

By on July 10, 2008 in news & updates

I want to express my appreciation for all my wonderful supportive readers and your lovely comments and congrats to our recent family news! It has meant so much to us, especially as I don’t even know many of you…what a special blessing! I will be sure to keep you posted as the pregnancy progresses…but for now…I need to go take a nap! ;)

Comments { 12 }

Simplifying the Kitchen

By on July 8, 2008 in frugal & simple, making a home

While viewing a wedding registry awhile back, I was overwhelmed by the list of so titled “kitchen gadgets” that this couple had on their registry. It was six pages of gadgets! How many gadgets do you really need? The materialistic nature of our society is pulling us in the direction that we need every new and latest invention for every little task. Begin simplifying your kitchen by weeding out the excess gadgets, and not only will your kitchen be cleaner and more organized, you will have less items to manage, maintain and replace!

Today we continue our simplifying series with a few steps towards simplifying and consolidating in the kitchen as the first room of your house, especially since this is where we ladies spend most of our time!

Continue Reading →

Comments { 35 }

Baby Edmonds #2!

By on July 7, 2008 in news & updates

Drumroll please….well, you probably already figured it out…I kind of gave it away, I was just too excited..but yes, it is true. God is graciously blessing us with another gift of life, due to arrive, Lord willing, around the middle of March. Praise the Lord!

Karis is calling all her friends to tell them the great news that she is going to be a big sister!

I am thankful for the opportunity to cherish another little blessing, but am currently experiencing the joys of being a very tired mommy! I knew I was pregnant when I could actually take a nap (falling asleep that is)- I never can outside of being pregnant! ;)

We are grateful that God has chosen to entrust us with another soul to raise and nurture in the love and admonition of the Lord! We are weak and undeserving…only by His grace and strength can we accomplish such a high and holy task!

Psalms 127:3-5
“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.”

That is what we are thankful for this week!

Comments { 56 }

Homemade Granola

By on July 7, 2008 in recipes & kitchen tips

How about some yummy nutritious granola for a nice quick breakfast (especially that Sunday morning rush)? Or top some fruit and yogurt with this delicious concoction! This is a simple recipe that includes the nutritional benefits of soaking the grains, if you so desire. It is quite delicious and actually rather simple to complete.

I have been wanting to make my own cereal ever since reading about the wonderful processing, heating, and destroying of all nutritional value that goes into preparing store-bought cereals (a process called extrusion), even the healthy organic kinds. Sally Fallon discusses it in detail here.

This granola has a great balance of grains, nuts, seeds and fruit, and it adaptable to your own creative choices – making it a very well rounded balanced breakfast, especially topped with some milk!

I normally make 1/2 of a batch at a time and that makes 2 1/2 quarts, so one whole batch should make about 5 quarts of granola.

  • 8 cups rolled oats
  • 3/4 cup melted coconut oil
  • 1/2 cup melted butter
  • 1 1/2 cups kefir or cultured buttermilk (yogurt often produces a very tart flavor, unless you are skipping the soaking step)
  • 1-2 cups water (use only as much as needed to produce a moist consistency for soaking)
  • 1/2 cup raw honey
  • 1/2-3/4 cup maple syrup (I increased the sweetener just a tad from the original, and I think it was almost perfect – so flex as you desire!)
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 4 tsp cinnamon
  • 4 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup dried shredded coconut
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 1/2 cup sunflower seeds or chopped pumpkin seeds (I used the pumpkin seeds!)
  • 1/4 cup minced dried figs (optional)
  • 1 cup nuts (optional) – chopped almonds is wonderful!
  • 1 cup dried apples, chopped

Directions:

Mix oats with the melted butter and oil, kefir and water in a large bowl. Cover with a cloth and/or plate and allow to sit at cool room temperature for 24 hours. After the soaking time, preheat the oven to 200° F (93° C).

Place honey, maple syrup, cinnamon and vanilla in a glass measuring cup in a small pot of warm water on the stove. Bring water to a gentle simmer, stirring honey mixture, until honey becomes thin.

Combine honey and oat mixtures, mixing to incorporate.

Spread mixture out over two parchment paper-lined cookie sheets (don’t use regular paper – I learned this lesson the hard way!). Bake for 2-4 hours, until granola is dry and crisp. Four hours was perfect for a slightly softer granola in our oven, which was what we like. Allow to cool in oven before removing to a container. It will get crisper at it cools.

Mix in coconut, raisins, sunflower seeds, fruit and nuts, as desired. Store in an airtight container. Serve with chilled raw milk.

This recipe is a modification of Natural Food Recipe for Granola. Thanks to Michele at Frugal Granola for passing on the recipe.

It’s Kitchen Tip Tuesday!
Comments { 128 }

Menu Plan – July 6-11

By on July 6, 2008 in recipes & kitchen tips

We had a wonderful 4th with family and friends and look forward to a church family campout this weekend!

Monday
Prep: soak pancakes for Tuesday, soak black beans for Tuesday

Breakfast: Kefir Smoothie, raspberry muffin or bagel
Lunch: leftover pizza, salad
Dinner: D.C. Chicken Salad

Tuesday
Prep: cook black beans

Breakfast: Pancakes, Oranges
Lunch: Salmon Melts, Cherries
Dinner:  Black Bean Wraps on Homemade Tortillas, Raspberry & Feta Salad (this didn’t happen last week, so we are on again!)

Wednesday
Prep: soak oatmeal, thaw cod, soak kidney beans for chili, soak cornbread

Breakfast: Smoothie, muffin or toast
Lunch:  Quesadillas (with leftover filling from Tuesday)
Dinner:  Cod with Italian Crumb Topping, Salad

Thursday
Prep: cook beans

Breakfast: Oatmeal, apples, raisins
Lunch: leftovers
Dinner: Chili, Cornbread

Friday - Church Camping Trip (fri-sun)

Breakfast: Fruit Salad, yogurt, homemade granola
Lunch:  Peanut Butter & Jelly, oranges, apricots
Dinner: Chili Hot Dogs

Saturday

Breakfast: French Toast
Lunch: Tomato Soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, apples, apricots
Dinner: ??

Sunday

Breakfast: Granola
Lunch: Egg Salad Sandwiches

Comments { 5 }