Essential Oils: Spice for Life

Announcement: Be on the lookout for my first give away coming soon.  It will be of some essential oils.  I'll announce exactly what when I start the give away so go like my page if you haven't already!

Since we are in cold and flu season Spice for Life is the next essential oil that I will cover. It is actually a blend that Be Young puts together that contains Cinnamon, Lemon, Lime, Orange, Oregano, and Ravensara. Many of these oils were first studied in the 14th century for their ability to counteract the plague. Today we are able to study their individual components and understand better how and why they are so effective against illnesses.

Click here to shop* (see bottom)

GAPS Oopsie Buns

Oopsie rolls have been a staple of the low carb community for many years.  I first encountered them while following the Schwarzbein Principle program.  They faded from my memory for many years but recently the arose in my subconscious and I went looking for the recipe once again.  They are quick and easy to make and have no fiber or nuts so if those bother you these are the bread substitute for you.  I am discovering that there are so many ways to dress them up!  The girls and I had nut butter sandwiches on them today while at their homeschool co-op.  They are brilliant as burger buns and I think if you make them the right shape they would also work quite well as a hot dog bun!  They also would be a great side for my Spaghetti Sauce Soup or with a salad.  Anywhere you used to have bread you can use an oopsie bun to fill that gap.

The original recipe Cleochatra's Best Ever Revol-Oopsie Rolls isn't quite GAPS legal but I figured out  few tweaks (the last one was thanks to a helper on my facebook page) and it's good to go.

The Quest for the Holy Cold Frame

Today's post is a guest post by my husband, Jason, describing the cold frame that he made for our family this winter.  Cold frames are a great way to grow your own food when the weather is generally too cold for gardening and can extend your growing season by a couple of months and sometimes longer. They are like a mini greenhouse. If possible it is a good idea to put a cold frame close to a large structure like your home to take advantage of the heat it gives off. Unfortunately that isn't possible in our yard but we have found other ways to save the heat from the day. One nice feature of our cold frame is that it is portable so we place it into our garden space in the winter and we will simply remove it and store it in the warm months.

Growing your own food is a good idea on GAPS since you can grow organically and avoid the toxins in conventional produce. It is a good idea on the LOD since you can choose lower oxalate varieties to grow.

~PattyLA

Some while back, I was cleaning out some old lumber under our back deck and ran across a nice big sheet of 1/4 inch thick glass. It is amazing what you can find stashed in the nooks of a 100 year old house. In the spirit of The Big Clean-Up (a favorite book of mine from my childhood and arguably a factor in my hoarding instinct), I decided to build a cold frame so that we could garden into early winter and start again in the very early spring (actually, I'm giving January a shot for a starting point this year).  In this post, I'll give an overview of the project.  If you have any thoughts of creating your own, you can get more details and my lessons learned at the long version of this post on my blog at The Quest for the Holy Cold Frame - Extended Edition

Since I like flashback, I'll start with the final result:

First off, I figured I should attempt a bit of research.  I procured Building & Using Cold Frames:  (the Kindle Edition will save you 79 cents off the budget busting $3.95 list price) and skimmed an article on Mother Earth News on the topic.  I'm enough of a guy that I wanted to forge my own path, so I decided to make my own plans. So armed with a decent recollection of my high school wood shop class, I set out to design my cold frame.

Leptin Reset Update #2

You can see my other posts about the Leptin Reset here

Leptin Reset 

Leptin Reset Update #1

I feel like a new day is dawning for me but it is like this picture.  Just barely visible. Hard to know how long till full light arrives. Of course I am a perpetual optimist so take that with a grain of salt. I always think that health is always over the next horizon.

This is a bit of a disjointed update. I apologize for that. I have been busy on other blog and family business and realized today that I hadn't updated my Leptin reset situation lately so I have dashed this off and am hoping I don't miss too many typos and sentence fragments.

Spaghetti Sauce Soup

This is a soup one night I invented in desperation trying to find something soupy my kids would eat.  (W in particular generally hates soup on principle). I have made it twice now and they loved it each time. It has a deceptively large amount of broth in it and every bit is gobbled up. Despite it's low protein content it doesn't take a lot of this soup to satisfy me. If you increase the fat it will be even more satiating. This also can hide some extra veggies very easily, esp if you puree them. I made it tonight and threw in some left over greens that hadn't been eaten and some mushrooms. The strong flavor of the tomato sauce covers up a lot of flavors.  This would also be a good soup to sneak some liver or other organ meats into.

Upcoming posts this week Feb 5-11

I'm getting into the swing of this blogging thing and having fun doing it.  I'm so thankful that each of you are along for the ride with me. I love hearing from you what you like and what you want me to blog about and any questions you may have.  I'm not an expert at blogging yet but after 26+ months of GAPS I've sure learned a lot about how it works. I post articles over on Facebook that relate to GAPS and nutrition and health as well so join in the conversation there. I may even start in on twitter one day soon.  (Can't believe I am old enough to feel this divide with "young people" over twitter and texting but I'll get there I'm sure. Just give me time.)

Coming up this week I have recipes for two of my children's favorite foods that even can be enjoyed together in the same meal if you so choose.  Spaghetti Soup and GAPS Oopsie Rolls.

Brussel Sprouts with Bacon

Ok this dish is so simple that I feel guilty writing a recipe for it but I know I need some inspiration sometimes so I'll go ahead and do it.  Thanks to the Leptin Reset and the fact that my eldest will only eat a big breakfast if it includes bacon we have a lot of bacon grease saved that we work into other meals (this is not a hardship, just a fact).  This recipe will work if you don't have bacon grease and will probably even work without bacon (but why?)  We use Beelers bacon here. It is thick cut and low sugar. Organic Prairie makes one that is strictly GAPS legal but it is very thin cut. I would use twice as much for this recipe. Also US Wellness sells a GAPS legal bacon (Go here to shop.).*  This was the first time my 8 year old ate more than one brussel sprout at a meal and she ate it willingly.  In fact she had 3 servings "Heavy on the bacon".  :)

Intro to essential oils and Mint EO

Essential oils are something that I am wanting to learn more about.  I have used them in a limited way for years. Tea Tree oil on cuts, bruises and burns, lavender oil to encourage sleep, eucalyptus oil for congestion, and some other blends for various issues. I mostly relied on others to guide me in using these oils and haven't ventured very deeply into understanding them. I also didn't have a lot of respect for how powerful they are until recently.

Yummy Cheeseburger Soup

Our church was having a pot luck meal centered around soups. I quizzed my soup hating daughter as to what kind of soup she would like.  "Cheese!" she said. Ok she wanted a cheese soup. I hadn't ever made a cheese soup and I wasn't sure I knew how but I did a little bit of searching and found this recipe for Cheeseburger Soup. I suggested cheeseburger and she agreed that cheese burger sounded good. I even managed to sneak in some vegetables but really the overwhelming flavor was cheese.

The version I made had broccoli but hind sight made me realize that cauliflower would be so much better (and sneakier). When my daughter had her first bite of this soup I distinctly heard her say "Yum!".  That is where the name came from. It makes my heart glad when I can find a food that is both delightful to the senses and nourishing to the body. This soup is very filling. I often eat two or more bowls of soup at a meal but one was plenty for this one. I did go back half way through the meal and discovered that all of my soup was gone from the serving table.  That also made me happy, knowing that others enjoyed what I created.  Sure we miss out on some yummy foods following GAPS but we eat a lot of yummy foods too.

This was the actual bowl of soup I ate at the church pot luck.
I didn't think to take a photo at home  the night before while I was making it.
Sorry for the poor picture quality from my phone and the paper bowl.

GAPS and the Gift of a Normal Life

This post was written at the end of 26.5 months on GAPS for our whole family.

Today I took my girls with me to the store. I had a couple of things to pick up. It was a beautiful day and we just had a great time together. Then my eldest had some money burning a hole in her pocket so we spent time in the toy department figuring out what she wanted to spend it on. She calmly compared and considered and finally chose. Then we went to the front of the store and she paid for doll and I paid for my stuff and we went home.

Normal, boring, you have now tuned me out and are wondering why I am writing such a senseless blog post. You are also wondering if I plan more like this in the future so that you can know to avoid me. This isn't supposed to be a diary.