Weirdness in Training
One of the regular parts of my take on the health-nut lifestyle is bone broth. I make broth about once a month. i save both beef and chicken bones (raw and cooked) keeping them & veggie scraps in ziploc bags in the freezer. Then approx. once a month I take them out to thaw, and cook ‘em up in my enormous “a 10month old baby could fit in it” stock pot for 24hrs (chicken & beef separately).
…& no, i’ve never actually PUT my babies in the pot…i just know they could’ve fit. 
Anyhow, I use this instead of water in pretty much any savory recipe calling for water, whether rice, soup, sauces…..lately as a mineral supplement I’ve been drinking it warmed up in a mug with a few shakes of unrefined sea salt. Grosses ryan out of course, but i’ve actually found it delicious & relaxing. So in the evening I’ll either sip on a mug of herbal tea…or chicken broth.
Asher of course has no interest in trying it, but I’ve got Grace hooked as well. She’ll drink some herbal teas as too, but those mostly only from my mug. She doesn’t go for all my oddities (yet), but i have hope that perhaps one of my kids will enjoy my experimental kitchen.
Lazy Blogging
Filed Under Culture, Family, Jennifer's Posts, Random · Comment
been pondering on this the past couple days, but my brain’s been a little crazy & pre-occupied so i give up trying to sound verbose. Basically: a friend wrote this post the other day & i liked it a lot. so go read it. Women’s roles
Cacawate Cake
Today is Grace’s 2nd birthday. I can’t believe it. I don’t remember being this stunned at Asher’s 2nd. In fact I think I may have the tendency to rush him in my mind, thinking each milestone takes forever to arrive….somehow with Grace they creep up too quick.
I’ll let ryan, the mast photo-poster put up the birthday pics…I wanted to talk about the cake.
Last year I made basically banana bread (with extra sugar) into cupcakes & topped it with weird, to sweet, heavy cream cheese icing. Overall: far too sweet & kinda gross, definitely too heavy! The kids didn’t mind but when it comes to things with sugar, their opinion doesn’t really count…they’ll eat anything called “cake”. (ok…it won’t work for thing OBVIOUSLY not cake…like fruit or veggies).
This year, added to my obsession with trying to turn food items that are by default unhealthy into healthy(ish) treats is the pressure of it being gluten & casein free (google it if you don’t know what they mean).
I did some internet reading & opinion asking…and i finally settled on a cake recipe taken off the Tropical Traditions website and an icing recipe taken off one of my favorite gluten-free blogs, everythingfreeeating.
I was going to go w/a more traditional gluten-free cake but i’ve found coconut flour recipes to be less oddly textured than the normal gluten-free recipes that require starch flours. This did not fail us for sure. Though the icing may not have been QUITE sweet enough for the average bear, i would still feel confident to serve this to non-health-nut guests. Due to the cocoa powder used (Chatfield’s) , it had a definite dark chocolate essence to it, vs. uber-sweet milk chocolate. Since i’ve been converted to the “dark-side”, this was heavenly for me. Unfortunately ryan’s not a fan of coconut, but since he’s not much for dessert anyway, i decided to not cater to his palate (sorry ryan). Here’s my versions of the recipes below:
Coconut Flour Chocolate cupcakes (I didn’t actually change this recipe at all)
1/2 cup coconut oil (i used expeller pressed)
1/4 cup coconut milk (or heavy cream if you’re not dairy-free)
1/4 cup cocoa powder (..heaping 1/4 cup)
9 eggs (yes…9…)
1.5 cups sucanat
3/4 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup sifted coconut flour (i actually followed the rules & sifted. figured dana would be proud)
3/4 tsp. aluminum-free baking powder
Melt coconut oil in a saucepan over low heat (or live in central FL & it will never reach a solid state anyway). Add cocoa powder and coconut milk and mix together. Remove from heat and set aside. In a bowl, mix together eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Stir in cocoa mixture. Combine coconut flour w/baking powder and whisk into batter until there are no lumps. Pour batter into muffin forms. Bake at 350 for 30min or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool & cover w/frosting as desired.
Sin On a Spoon Icing (my take on it)
4.5 TBS Ghee (or butter if you’re not casein-free)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 TBS coconut milk (or heavy cream)
3 TBS agave nectar (or honey or 8 drops liquid stevia…haven’t tried the stevia myself as i’ve had bad experiences w/stevia + chocolate)
2 tsp. lecithin (i did not plan in advance, so had to buy some from the local whole-foods. Which of course only had soy lecithin. I’m usually anti-soy, but i made an exception here due to the fact that i didn’t have time to wait for egg or sunflower based lecithin to be shipped from an online store).
Blend ghee in mixer on high till soft. Pour in coconut milk, lecithin and sweetner, whipping until blended. On stir setting add cocoa powder, turning speed up to high as the powder becomes incorporated. Mix until the desired consistency, adding more lecithin if necessary to emulsify the ghee and coconut milk.
I sprinkled some unsweetened shredded coconut on top for the coconut-likers in the house. The kids & I definitely enjoyed what Grace called “cacawate cake”…and I did notice that ryan ate his cupcake as well….coconut flour & all. ooh, if you’re really daring, chocolate chips in the cake would be pretty awesome i think.
Burgeoning Prayers
Grace has started praying more lately. Actually she’s been praying for some time, i’ve just never known what she says (just folded her hands, closed her eyes & babbled). 9 times out of 10 it’s, “God, thank-you, Amen”. Short & sweet. There have been variations on that as well.
Ryan is in Washington State until Friday on business. We prayed for him a few times today, and much to Grace’s delight she did get to say hello to him on the phone when she got up from naptime. Tonight at our bedtime prayers she strayed from the usual night-time prayer that we’ve been teaching her (thus far it’s mostly unintelligible). She said, “God, thank-you, Momma, Dad, ahshingson, Amen”. She says Asher very clearly these days, so it was definitely not Asher. 99.9% sure that last bit was Washington. sweet gal.
In related news she said her first very clear, even-strangers-could-understand-it sentence this past weekend, “hurt my toe momma”. This morning she was a bit under the weather & was saying, “tummy hurts momma”. Tonight after being poked in the eye by a diplodocus in the bathtub it was, “hurt my eye momma” (i fully expect a black eye in the morning it was a forceful poke). Sure would be nice to hear some sentences not revolving around her pain.
Hiccup Cures
I was just going to post this in the comment section under my previous post, but seeing as how 1) i don’t want that post to have a zillion comments (thus causing people to read it more) b/c i think my sarcasm in the post was lost in typing & thus makes the whole thing weird and 2) there was enough hiccup discussion cropping up it warranted being ‘moved’ to it’s own location.
i mentioned in there that when ryan and I were first getting to know each other he taught me his “zen hiccup cure”. Basically just involves relaxing your chest & throat & breathing slowly & swallowing. it’s weird. doesn’t have 100% success for me but i’d say as much as 95%. I think he gives credit to his dad for teaching him. Asher has started his own hiccup stopping technique that he’s become quite successful with:
It comes from the book, “Hiccup Snickup” which we borrowed from the library a few weeks ago. In the book the grandmother offers this rhyme as a hiccup cure, & the book goes through a variety of “cures” ending w/the rhyme & crazy dancing. the rhyme in the book is as follows:
hiccup snickup, rear right straight up, 2 drops in the teacup will cure the hiccups.
Asher’s variation:
hiccup snickup rear right straight up. 2 drops in the teapot will clear the hiccups.
it only works for him though when he says the rhyme while crazy dancing. It also helps if others join the dance, though it can be effective on your own as he has reported hiccup cures during roomtime.
Overzealous
In theory i’m supposed to be running a 10k on sunday morning (via Nike+, the “human race“). However, currently I am kinda stuck in a spot where i can only comfortably finish 4miles. Which means I will be able to FINISH 6…uh…6-point-whatever miles on sunday, however it won’t be comfortable & thus it would be ill advised to try to up my pace (i don’t want to get hurt & mess up my training for the half marathon in December). Add to that the fact that I chose to stay up late & sleep in this past weekend & run zero. I’m much too competitive to just go out & jog what is technically a race.
Mostly i just fell for the bait in that i got a free itunes workout for signing up for it. I suppose I could just not run it, but well….that would be akin to not finishing a book. I occasionally give up on a book, but it’s REALLY rare, & it does haunt me. Like forcing yourself to stop hiccuping (yes, it’s possible, Ryan taught me how). it works, but you feel kind of…unfulfilled for some strange reason. Besides, I like the workout program i got, the least i can do is get through 2 extra miles.
Ok, so thanks for the advice (re: being a sounding board for my verbal processing brain). I suppose i will move forward with the plan, but i will not pursue beating my current 10k PR (personal record). It’ll be good for the ego. Besides i will technically be running by myself, so that will make it easier not to push myself too hard.
Merciless Semantic pet-peeves
Another fun little burns’ trivia nugget for you. One of ryan’s pet peeves (you know, besides the all-encompassing, “things that don’t work the way they should”…but i digress..) is when people incorrectly interchange the words “Mercy” & “Grace”. It’s possible that this isn’t quite the pet-peeve for him that it used to be, however, it’s something that rubbed off on me & for me it does still remain.
The example that sticks out in my mind most vividly is once when i was helping out in a church office. I managed to ruin a stack of wallet-sized invitation cards (not an inexpensive mistake). I was pretty upset/worried about it. A person came in & was consoling me saying, “don’t worry, there’s grace here, you have grace with us.” I didn’t say anything, after all, this person was simply trying to encourage me. Not to mention that the confusion between the two is confounded by the non-theological use of the term in our language, which in all honesty should cause me to drop this soap box entirely, as that’s probably what people mean…. But i do remember thinking, “can you really offer me that? Pretty sure you mean mercy…”
Really I almost never say anything as i’m not always able to wrap my head around what the differences are (& unlike when i was in elementary school I don’t like walking around correcting people’s grammar/word usage). There are moments of clarity & it’s fairly easy for me to articulate ‘mercy’, but grace tends to elude me (ironic seeing as how we named our daughter for it….i get the ‘main idea’, but getting nit-picky i get confused).
Anyhow, this morning in my Hebrews study I pondered on the following verse:
Hebrews 4:16
let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
now this from the study notes in my bible:
mercy addresses our need for forgiveness when we have succumbed to temptation, and grace brings timely support to sustain us in the midst of temptation.
just got me thinking on an illustration that ryan gave me once a long time ago (but then immediately said it didn’t work, but i didn’t understand why or how so i kept using it): you’re speeding, get pulled over by a police officer. he doesn’t give you a ticket = mercy. he then gives you $100 = grace. i think i finally get why that’s not right. the first part is correct: he doesn’t give you a ticket = mercy. grace would be more like….(this is tricky, not sure if i’ll get it): he so changes your heart/mind so as to enable you to no longer speed…to no longer succumb to the temptation to speed. which of course doesn’t work in the analogy b/c only God can do that, but i think that makes the point (?).
Feel free to correct me if need be….i’m not sure i’ll ever REALLY understand this….
Toungue Twister!!!!
Filed Under Family, Jennifer's Posts, Random · 4 Comments
I’ve started getting a little picky about what I read to the kids. If I fail to choose a handful of books for them to choose from, they end up bringing things that…well…literally put me to sleep (”momma, don’t close your eyes!”). For asher it tends to be encyclopedic or dictionary (illustrated & intended for kids at least) type books & Grace usually chooses either a clifford book (which used to be a favorite & just unfortunate for her that i’ve read every clifford book we have a zillion times before she was even born….i actually CAN usually ‘read’ those w/my eyes closed) or the color train. i just don’t understand HOW to read this one (looks like it’s supposed to be a song, but i have no idea what tune)… it’s just annoying…& asher gets irritated that everything in the picture isn’t listed in the words.
Now, i realize Grace needs those easy boring books to be read to her for developmental/educational reasons & so i read them. And it’s just mean to deny Asher a dinosaur encyclopedia ALL the time, so i read them (when Grace isn’t around…she does NOT like those & makes it even more annoying than it already is to do so). However, most of the time for our pre-naptime stories, they get to pick anywhere from 1-4 books (lots of factors involved regarding the variance in # of books). Lately I’ve been on a Dr. Seuss kick.
I always love to read out loud (almost) any book that rhymes &/or is poetic. Asher used to have a book of poems that was my all-time favorite to read, but it got destroyed (&/or lost i’m not sure).
Anyhow, so back to Dr. Seuss. Upside: It’s really fun to actually READ. I particularly love the ‘tounge twister’ type ones (like “Oh say can you say“). Asher likes them when i get stumped & shouts, “TONGUE TWISTER” each time. It’s really fun to see the improvement over the course of a week (when i ‘have’ to return the book to the library). The first day there are shouts of “tounge twister” on every page & it takes forever to get through as I have to go very slow. By the end of the week we can zip through it fast (though i also challenge myself to enunciate in an exaggerated manner ever since I realized asher was hearing words mashed together & thought they were new words). hmmm…perhaps i should not read these in front of Grace…
The downsides:
1. They’re pretty nonsensical..(i don’t know if that REALLY matters or not).
2. it bugs asher to no end that he can’t figure out what the characters are…i’ve finally settled on ‘allowing’ him to say they’re just monsters (not that i’m anti-monster, but i like my son want things to be called what they are & these are just imaginary nonsense creatures…not monsters. however, he can’t seem to make that it’s own category in his mind, so they’re all different types of monsters…drives me crazy but i guess i should be the ‘adult’ here…).
3. a lot of them are LONG. I’m ok with it & asher is typically fine with it too, but it’s rare Grace will make it through a whole book. I typically start with a book Grace has chosen, then when we lose her it’s no big deal as she already got to hear “her book”.
4. And last, this is just kind of funny; they’re outdated. Last week we borrowed, “the cat in the hat comes back” & i had to change “dad’s $10 shoes” to “dad’s expensive shoes”. I doubt anyone would really get that freaked out about $10 shoes getting messed up other than the fact that they’d be unable to find another pair of dress shoes that cost so little.
Now if only our library would carry, “Oh, say can you say Di-no-saur“.
Keeping up appearances
The sunday night bible study we’ve been going to did not meet this week, so we had a little cookout w/the bible study folk tonight instead (at our house). One of the things I love about having people over is that it leads me to get some things done around the house that (almost) never get done otherwise. Things like needing to remove the kids’ booster seats from their chairs at the table which forces me to enter into hand to washcloth combat with the horrible monsters that have grown in the sticky crumbly goo that lurks beneath…..and sweeping the kids’ bathroom floor. I mean…I CLEAN their bathroom…tub, toilet, sink…but the floor has a tendency to get neglected.
and now you know the rest of the story….
i don’t know if it’s a typical “want to impress them with my meticulously clean house” or a more altruistic “i’d like to provide a comfortable clean environment for my guests to enjoy”…either way, i appreciate the motivation to seek & destroy overlooked gross stuff. so thx ‘bible study folk’. it was fun to hang out, & my house is clean(er).
Holy Stink Beans Batman
another edition of “The adventures of cooking with Jenn”
I’ve been testing the waters of sprouting grains lately, mostly with intention of dehydrating & then whizzing through the blender for “sprouted flour” to use in baking (long story to explain why that’s such a great idea). This weekend I got adventurous & decided to try garbanzo beans (or chickpeas).
i’m guessing i left the beans in the wet jar too long? i rinsed & drained them a lot & it never looked as though anything was going awry….but throughout today they started emitting a slight but rather unpleasant odor in the kitchen….which for whatever reason didn’t keep me from eating them everytime i walked by (raw…sprinkled w/a bit ‘o salt, not bad actually…though nothing to write home about). around 2pm I spread them out on the dehydrator trays, but waited till right before bed to put them in the dehydrator (it’s loud) & went to bed at just before 11pm. here i am an hour later, the smell crept across the house (granted, a small house, but still) & woke me up!!! it’s reminiscient of stinky trash….mixed with foul socks….seriously as gross as changing a toddler’s dirty diaper, who is not your own. I finally got out of bed & as I got closer to the source, it was like being hit in the head with it. I am literally nauseous from the odor.
i’m guessing these need to find their home with other things that smell like trash (namely…trash)? that’s where they’re going tonight anyhow. good lord.
my quick google search here didn’t produce any ‘expert sounding’ advice regarding the matter. just posts similar to what i’ve written; “help, they STINK! i’m throwing them out”. However, if it was normal I assume someone would’ve mentioned it. I’ve put out a “help they STINK” thread of my own on a forum in the hopes i can get some troubleshooting for next time. Yes Ryan, there will be a next time.
ok about to lose my dinner. off to trash duty. & then try to re-wind down to sleep again.
-
Recent Comments
- Phil Gons: So, are we going to be working together? I’m dying to know!
- Jeannie Edwards: I didn’t realize that the Presidency was on the table as a new career!!! GO STICKMAN!!! You...
- Gigi: You KNOW you have our vote!!
- Jennifer Burns: let’s see if i can answer these here… 1) the ‘flour’ itself def. tastes like...
- Jessica Carry: BTW, sorry for all the typos in that post…my attention is split between my typing and keeping...
- Jessica Carry: Sounds delish! I have TONS of questions about stuff. My ignorance is really showing here. Thank God...
- Heather: Happy Birthday, Grace!
-
Ryan's Recent Reading
-
Jenn's Recent Reading
