Sweet and Spicy Kale Chips

Warning: Kale Chips are highly addictive! There are so many different ways to make kale chips. Usually I just toss kale pieces in olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Blended cashews, red peppers, lemon, and nutritional yeast is another popular combination. Here I combine a little almond butter, lime, olive oil, maple syrup, and chili flakes to create a very addictive, yet healthy snack. This kale chip recipe is the perfect thing to bring to any spooky Halloween parties you may be attending this weekend!

Kale chips can be baked at a low temperature in the oven or dehydrated in a food dehydrator at 115 degrees overnight, or about 10 to 12 hours. I always have great intentions of making large batches of kale chips and then storing them in glass jars on the counter for the kids to munch on but they never make it that far. I prefer making kale chips with curly kale because all the good stuff that you drizzle over the kale tends to stick a bit more. But since we have a lacinato kale forest in our back yard that is what I have been using. Lacinato kale is also called black kale, Tuscan kale, or dinosaur kale by the way.

Grain-Free Pumpkin Cupcakes

After multiple failed attempts to create a grain-free, nut-free, refined sugar-free cupcake recipe I finally got it! We couldn't decide whether or not to call these muffins or cupcakes.....so when frosted they are cupcakes and when plain they are muffins. I sweeten these little treats using pureed medjool dates. Combined with the coconut flour, they taste fairly sweet!

I have found that different brands of coconut flour yield very different results. Most of my coconut flour creations needed to be composted (ok, I have much more experience using grain flours) until I began using a different brand of coconut flour. Has anyone else experienced this? If you bake with coconut flour, what is your favorite brand? Please leave a comment if you have a moment. I have had best results using the Let's Do Organic! brand of coconut flour.



For detailed instructions on making your own pumpkin puree go to the post I did last year on How to Make Homemade Pumpkin Puree. It is important to make it correctly otherwise your puree could end up too moist which would affect how the cupcakes turn out. I use a Dairy-Free Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe I posted over a year ago. I didn't have any opened jars of applesauce so I used 1/4 cup of Tom's freshly made dairy-free coconut yogurt (I normally use 2 tablespoons applesauce). I also increased the coconut oil to 6 tablespoons.

Harvest Green Smoothie

It is harvest time and we are working on ways to not only preserve the harvest but also to use up nature's bounty while it is nice and fresh. Green smoothies are a great way to use up fresh produce. Plus, they are the perfect vehicle to deliver raw, digestible green vegetables to your children! We began giving green smoothies to our children when they were around nine months old. We always made them without lemon until they were at least twelve months old because citrus can sometimes be harsh on a baby's digestive system.

Offering smoothies when they are young primes their taste buds and other sensory organs, such as the eyes, to like and beg for these drinks. Children who don't get them when they are very young sometimes have a harder time adapting to drinking something bright green when first introduced. Our 3 year old twins love green smoothies. You can watch them help prepare a smoothie with Tom in this video when they were two years old. The other day, I told them that I was going to make a green smoothie but I was still busy in the kitchen with another project. One of my twins said...."mommy when are you going to make the green moothie......momMY, PLEASE make the moothie NOW!" After I made it they each gulped down about 12 ounces. If your child isn't fond of green smoothies, try making them with mostly fruit and maybe only one kale leaf, then, over the days and weeks that you make them, slowly add more greens to let your child's taste buds adapt. Keep trying! Sometimes it takes 15 times of tasting something new for your child to accept it. A straw can also make smoothie time fun! I don't buy plastic straws, but if I were ever to buy some I would purchase either stainless steel or glass drinking straws.

Gluten-Free Oatmeal Plum Cobbler

This simple gluten-free oatmeal cobbler is also refined sugar-free and vegan, though you can use butter if you like. I make it with Italian plums but you could use any variety of plum or pluot. It can also be made with peaches, blueberries, or blackberries. I've been dehydrating Italian plums like crazy lately. My children love to eat them as a snack in the winter. I keep filling up glass jars and storing them in the back of the pantry. Italian plums can also be halved, pitted, and frozen to use throughout the year. In fact, I have also made this recipe using frozen plums from last year!

Every year in late summer or early Autumn I take the kids around town and harvest plums with them. Usually there are so many trees with plums dropping to the ground and never enough people picking them. We just knock on doors and ask if we can pick plums. People are usually more than happy to have help with the harvest. And we are more than happy to have boxes of local plums to enjoy. This year plums trees around here were not as bountiful so we bought cases of plums from Eastern Washington.

Fresh Tomato Basil Marinara Sauce

This recipe in not the traditional way to make pasta sauce using fresh tomatoes. I take the easy and fast route. I just don't have time to remove the skins and seeds from 20 pounds of tomatoes each time I make sauce! Place fresh tomatoes in a blender and blend the seeds, skin, and all. Plus, this way we use the *whole food* -- the whole tomato. Once you begin to make your own you'll never want to go back to store-bought pasta sauce!

I have been buying cases of fresh, organic tomatoes from Smallwood Farms in Eastern Washington. If you grown your own tomatoes, this recipe is a great way to make use of them. The sauce can be canned in mason jars or stored in your freezer for later use. The other day I asked Facebook fans what everyone was doing with the tomato harvest this season. There are so many great comments. Be sure to head over there and check them out if you need more ideas!

Rice Breakfast Porridge

We have a newborn baby in the house now and that means that our meals have changed a little. A few weeks ago our sweet new baby girl, Camille Rose Malterre, arrived peacefully in our home by candlelight.....a successful VBAC at home! Our children were all there to witness her birth, though we couldn't really wake our 3-year old twin boys to be fully present. I put myself on a mildly restrictive breastfeeding elimination diet once she was born to help ease the transition into life outside the womb.

Newborn babies have such delicate digestive systems up until around three months of age. Compounds in certain foods can cause fussiness and crying, excess gas, and even skin rashes in the breastfeeding baby. Luckily it is really simple to just remove the most common offending foods from your diet at birth or before to keep baby calm and happy. I actually removed any dairy I was eating a few weeks before she was born as it can take up to a month for dairy to clear your system. Dairy, specifically the casein protein, is often the cause of a lot of digestive and skin issues in newborns. Our sweet baby girl has been sleeping through the night since she was a few days old and is a very peaceful, happy baby.....just like our first daughter, Lily. She has had a few bouts of fussiness, you know the kind where they are really uncomfortable and want to nurse and then cry and then nurse and then cry and so on. I realized those were the days that I had eaten citrus. Testing it one more time to make sure, we found that this is the one food that I simply cannot eat. I have not tested them all, such as dairy, cruciferous vegetables, or raw garlic, and in fact, I would suggest not testing these three foods for many months. I can eat cooked onions, a little cooked garlic, and tomatoes....oh we have been enjoying tomatoes in all sorts of recipes lately, thank goodness!

Baby Camille, 3 weeks, with big sister Grace

I did a great post a year or so ago on Nourishing the New Mom with a list of foods to eat and not to eat in the postpartum period. You can refer to that for more information. Below is a short list on the most common foods breastfeeding babies can react to. I would suggest to avoid them all at the time of birth and then if you are feeling up for it, slowly challenge each food in every 4 days, similar to our Elimination Diet. Please note that some babies require mom to go on a much stricter elimination diet, usually eliminating most foods and sticking with only with rice, millet, quinoa, chicken, turkey, yams, squash, salad greens, olive oil, and sea salt for 2 weeks and then slowly adding back in foods like nuts and seeds, other mild fruits and vegetables, and lastly, those listed below to determine the source of baby's upset.

Foods that most often cause issues in the breastfeeding baby:

• dairy (including goat and sheep)
• eggs
• raw onions and garlic (sometimes cooked can also aggravate babies) 
• citrus
• tomatoes
• a lot of acidic fruit
• peanuts/peanut butter
• chocolate
• soy
• wheat/gluten
• beef
• caffeine 

Rice Breakfast Porridge

After all of my babies have been born I have craved rice porridge for breakfast and sometimes even as a bedtime snack. It is easy to digest and easy on baby's newly functioning digestive system. Rice porridge can be made out of any brown rice but our favorite is Brown Jasmine Rice. You can try sweet brown rice, short grain, or even black rice if you desire. I like to top my bowl with a little coconut sugar, ground raw almonds, and lately, fresh nectarines or peaches. We have been buying boxes of fresh, organic fruit every week from Smallwood Farms (delivered to Bellingham once a week). They have the most delicious fruit imaginable, plus we save a lot of money buying it by the case! I have been working to freeze and dehydrate most of it to store for the winter.

2 cups uncooked long grain brown rice
6 to 8 cups water
¼ teaspoon sea salt


Optional Toppings:
ground raw almonds
coconut sugar or maple syrup
cinnamon
frozen blueberries 

diced apples

chopped peaches or nectarines
raisins

Place the rice into a coffee grinder or high-powered blender and grind into a very fine meal, not as fine as flour, but not too coarse either. We use the dry container of our Vita-Mix to grind the rice and then the almonds for the topping.

Place the water into a 3-quart saucepan and heat over medium heat until warm. Pour in the ground rice, whisk together immediately. Turn heat up and bring cereal to a boil, stirring constantly.

Once boiling, reduce heat to medium or medium-low. Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove lid and whisk cereal occasionally, adding more water if necessary depending on desired thickness. Cook for a few more minutes then remove from heat. Cereal will thicken as it cools.

Scoop into serving bowls and top with your favorite toppings. Source: www.NourishingMeals.com

Baby and I in the kitchen of course! 

More Breakfast Ideas:

Teff Banana Pancakes

Strawberry Almond Smoothie

Apple-Cinnamon Quinoa

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