Put your oxygen mask on first.

The nuggets and I were running late. I had taken the time to slather them in sunblock, find them each a hat, fill up their water bottles and grab them snacks. But because we were running late, I rushed them out the door - without putting sunblock on myself, filling a bottle of water for myself or grabbing something for me to snack on. I also forgot my travel mug of coffee. Once we were on our way, I realized what I'd done. My reaction was, "Gah! Oh well, I'll be fine."

The boys and I ended up spending the entire afternoon outside. We went to the park, then we went to a farm, and we walked and laughed and played. The nuggets snacked and drank, drank and snacked. I got thirty, then hungry, then sunburned. It was a memorable day but I was not fine. I was lightheaded from low blood sugar, I became dehydrated and I was *really* uncomfortable from getting too much sun. If I had taken the time for myself, gotten my sunblock, water and a snack first perhaps, the day would have been comfortable for me too.

I have a plethera of healthy food in my house. Besides the fact that it's good for us, I love grocery shopping. I always have, even as a child. Grocery stores are magical places, full of ingredients ready for transformation. I especially love shopping for organic produce. It is glorious in all of it's colors and smells, textures and tastes. I bring mountains of fresh strawberries, blueberries, peaches, pears, apples, cantaloup, watermelon, grapes, bananas, and cherries into my house. I eat none of it.  If I eat that peach, Peanut would be disappointed there wasn't one for him. If I eat an apple, Pumpkin wouldn't have anything to dip into his nut butter. Do I honoring myself in doing this? No. I miss the opportunity to enjoy a luscious peach with them and giggle as juice runs down our chins. Do I honor my children by putting them first? No. By denying myself something pleasurable and nutritious, I teach them that I am not important, that my health and happiness is inconsequential to theirs. Do as I say but not as I do.

My sons love me. They want me to be happy, as I in turn want them to be happy. In taking the opportunity to enjoy a delicious and nutritious piece of fruit, I honor myself; in honoring myself, I honor my family. And as we say in our house, that's giving your family a heart hug.

Love and light (and aloe vera),
K

Honey Approved Cocoa Coconut Snack Cake in a Mug

I came home from swimming laps at the pool and I needed something. Some-thing-de-lic-ious. I'd eaten dinner hours before and I was feeling slightly hungry but mostly "snacky." Wow, it would be SO great to have a little somethin' chocolate'y, coconut'y, gooey and warm .... just like those cakes in a mug I used to make. Hmmm....

I grabbed a pastured egg, coconut flour (of course), coconut oil (naturally), some cocoa powder and sea salt (because chocolate always tastes good with a little salt).

I grabbed a mug. I cracked the egg (dogs came running for the eggshells), added the coconut flour, the coconut oil, cocoa powder and salt. Mixed. Too thick. I grabbed the coconut milk from the fridge. Yes! Perfect consistency. Into the microwave it went and voila!, I had a very happy mouth.

Cocoa Coconut Snack Cake in a Mug

1 tablespoon coconut flour
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 pastured egg
1 tablespoon coconut milk
Pinch coconut palm sugar
Dash of sea salt (I turned my salt grinder two turns.)

Mix everything in a mug. Stir until there are NO lumps left. Lick spoon. Put mug into the microwave for 2:00 on Power Level 4. It will still be a little gooey in the middle. If you want it more done than that, cook it for 15 more seconds on Power Level 4. (If you want it MORE gooey in the middle, cook it for 1:30 on Power Level 4.)

And as I was enjoying my delicious little treat, my Honey came into the kitchen. "Whatcha got there?", he asked, so I made him one too. 

This recipe is officially "Honey Approved."

For the love of our children

My cousin and I were recently discussing our paths down the clean eating corridor. Our journeys have been different but our reasons are the same – for the love of our children. My cousin was motivated to make changes in her life to set an example for her boys; I was motivated to make changes in our lives because my son was sick.

When Pumpkin was 21 months old, he spiked an extremely high fever out of the blue. He had no other symptoms and he was too young to convey to us how he was feeling. We cut our weekend away short and by Monday morning, the fever was gone. He was perfectly healthy and happy once again.

A few months later, the fever came back. It would get high, 105+ degrees, and we would pump him full of pain relievers, put him into a warm bathtub, alternate holding him through the night and we would pray that he didn’t have a febrile seizure. A few days later, the fever would be gone. But almost like clockwork, the fever would come back again. The doctor said it was normal. The next doctor said it was a part of childhood. Yet another doctor told us he was prone to getting a non-specific viral illness. Really? OK. They are the experts.

He was so miserable during these episodes; my vibrant, active baby would cry and cling and he’d refuse to eat or drink. He'd wake up screaming because he was literally burning up with a fever. One time the fever got the better of us and he ended up in the ER with dehydration. I was pregnant with Peanut at the time and I remember holding Pumpkin against my belly, watching the fluids drip back into his body, feeling utterly helpless. I continued taking him to the doctor, countless times really: “He must have strep, we’ll culture him.” The culture was negative. “Well, he is around other children and children get sick. He keeps putting germs in his mouth.” Children get sick every 6 weeks, really? OK. Well, I must not be washing his hands enough. We started slathering his hands in Purell. We bathed him every night. We gave him vitamin drops. The fevers continued. The trips to the doctor continued.

On numerous occasions, we ended up contracting something worse at those routine doctor’s visits – we got coxsackie three times, we both got roseola, and the whole family got a whole bunch of stomach viruses. We stopped taking him to the doctor when he was sick. Instead, we got really good at managing his episodes. We noticed he would limp at the onset of a fever episode and we’d batten down for the storm. My Honey and I literally missed weeks of work staying home with our sick baby.

After Peanut was born, our "regular" doctor retired. I was heartbroken -- he knew all about Pumpkin's non-specific viral illness though! On one of Peanut's well-baby visits, I mentioned to our "new" doctor that Pumpkin was still having these fevers with regularity. She referred us to a pediatric autoimmune specialist. And yes, my Pumpkin had an autoimmune disorder; he had Periodic Fever, Aphthous Stomatitis, Pharyngitis, Adenitis Syndrome (PFAPA).

His little body was recognizing something as an invader; something was causing him massive amounts of inflammation. Was the source internal or external? I was hell-bent to find out. I started being scrupulous in what I brought into the house. I followed every tip I’d ever heard … eliminate gluten, eliminate sugar, eliminate dairy, eliminate food dye, avoid GMOs (whatintheheck is a GMO?), buy only organic, feed him lots of protein, feed him a vegetarian diet, give him kefir and yogurt,  give him whole grains, remove grains entirely. During this time, all I did was read the nutritional labels on what I was buying too. I was SHOCKED to realize that I couldn’t pronounce 50% of what I was seeing. I started shopping with my smartphone so I could Google the ingredients. When did this happen? When did food turn into chemistry compounds? I was overwhelmed, to say the least. What in the health was I supposed to feed my family?

My momma intuition kicked in – this needs to stop! My son was not a dietary project. My family was not a science experiment. I decided to feed our family with healthy foods. I removed all processed sugars. I removed all foods with additives, preservatives and food dye. I increased our whole grains. I switched to pastured eggs and grass-finished meat. We eat organic fruit, vegetables and pretty much whatever else we put in our mouths. I make 90% of what we eat and if I have to buy something processed or commercial, I follow my “no more than 5 ingredients” golden rule.  

Our story had a happy ending; or perhaps it is my happy beginning. My Pumpkin is almost one year PFAPA free. He had his tonsils removed last summer (by a brilliant surgeon and guardian angel to whom I am eternally grateful) and it did the trick. It doesn’t work in all children but for us, it worked like magic. His illness sent me on a journey full of love, education and awareness; what began as a mission to help my son through nutrition resulted in my dedication and duty to promote real food. 

And I am happy to have you here, traveling with me.

Love and light,
K

PS:  This post is dedicated to my cousin, L. I am so proud of the amazing, life-enriching changes she made in both her and her families’ lives. She also just did something incredibly kind and generous for the betterment of a complete stranger. Thank you for being my family. XXOO

Dark Secret Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

There are a few things you'll quickly learn about me. 1) I am a food snob real foodie, 2) I hate recreating the wheal (aka I modify the recipes I find more to my liking), 3) GMOs are E-V-I-L, and 4) I think Americans eat too many carbohydrates.

I feel at my personal best when I follow a grain free/ low carbohydrate diet. For that reason, most of my recipes are prepared without wheat or processed sugars. That isn't the right approach for some of you. And that is okey dokey with me. Eat how you wish, as long as it honors your body. All I ask is that you read the labels on the food you buy. And then ask yourself this: “What in the health am I eating?!” If you can't pronounce it or if it was created in a laboratory, do not put it in your shopping cart. Period.

One of my favorite things to cook with is coconut. I loooove coconut. No seriously, I am in love with it. I love coconut milk, coconut oil, coconut flakes, shredded coconut, coconut cream ... but my absolute favorite is coconut flour. A single 2-tablespoon serving of coconut flour has 5 grams of fiber and only 8 grams of carbs. Coconut flour is da’ bomb.

Pumpkin doesn’t like coconut. I have to work very, very hard to sneak it into our dishes. In an effort to pull one over on him up the nutritional content, I played around with a recipe I’d seen floating about. I’m always trying to sneak in some extra vegetables so a few different varietals later and voila!, yummy muffins with a sweet little secret: roasted butternut squash.


Dark Secret Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins


1 cup roasted butternut squash, mashed and mixed until smooth
3 eggs (pastured people, pastured!)
3.5 tablespoons coconut flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup melted coconut oil (30 secs in microwave aught to do it)
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 375 degrees.


Line muffin tin with liners (unbleached, please). Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix with a paddle attachment until well combined. Hand mix in almost all of the chocolate chips. Fill liners with batter about 2/3 of the way full. Top with remaining chocolate chips.


Bake for 15-18 minutes.


Love and light,
K

Well hello there!

The blogosphere has been calling me for some time now. Simply put, I need a way to confer my love of cooking and my passion obsession over clean eating. I think about the food we eat, where it comes from, how it impacts our planet, how it impacts our bodies, how it tastes, how it smells and how to properly prepare it all.the.time.  If I have 10 free minutes to myself, you'll find me searching the web for the instinctual nutritional knowledge we held near and dear to our hearts in yesteryear. I'll research cooking methods, obscure ingredients and new recipes. One of my husband's greatest pet-peeves is that I almost never make the same dish twice.

I believe we should cook like our foremothers and forefathers did in the mid-century. I find this believe ironic because I learned how to cook from my Nana, a strong, lean German woman whose passion for real food and cooking makes mine pale in comparison. Nana and Pop-Pop (a hearty, stout Norwegian whose passion for eating made them the perfect couple) lived at the Jersey Shore. I grew up in Northern Jersey and would only get to see them on the weekends. We'd pull up late on a Friday night and no matter what time it was, she would be at the front door waiting for us. The moment we would walk up the driveway,  she would start flapping her arms a la "Chicken Dance" and she'd say: "Well hello there, hello there, hello there!" She'd then engulf my sister and me in hugs and kisses.

My favorite childhood memories revolve around those visits to my grandparents -- and real food. She introduced me to making jam from the strawberries we'd picked on the farm earlier that morning. She taught me how to can green beans that we would eat later that year. But most importantly, she taught me how to prepare fresh, clean, real food. We would plan the menu, shop for the menu, prepare our dishes and then present our dishes. My grandfather would highly compliment our efforts and thus I also learned about the great pleasure a recipient derives from the cook’s labor of love.

I spent hours upon hours by her side, listening to the stories of her life and learning her best kitchen tips (always add a bay leaf to flour to repel weevils; eggs taste best when prepared in bacon grease). She slowly instilled in me the passion to honor myself and my family through real food. It is with that same passion I approach this blog. And for this very reason, I dedicate my very first blog post to my Nana.

Love and light,
K