Contemporary Earth Mama

Apple spice oatmeal

I just have to chime in quick today to share with you my new favorite way to eat oatmeal.  Oatmeal is one of those breakfasts that one could get about or be really, really bored with...I prefer to get excited about it.  I love food.  It's that simple.

No measurements here, folks...just trust yourself to make good choices!

Hot oatmeal

drizzle with milk of choice

drizzle with maple syrup

dash of nutmeg

dash of cinnamon

a dozen or so craisins

a quarter of an apple, chopped and set upon the top of your heaping bowl.

This is really, really tasty.

Enjoy.

 

Gluten Free Waffles

Upon waking this morning, I was told, "we are hungry for waffles".  OK, gotcha, I'll get right on it.

Truth be told, I love waffles, too.  There are times when I purchase the Trader Joe's GF waffle mix, but really dislike paying for the packaging, when the ingredients for GF waffles are so inexpensive.  I do love the oat flour based waffle recipe I use, but this morning I nailed the new favorite GF waffle recipe, adapted from Betty (Crocker) herself.  **Another thing I love is remaking her simple recipes with healthier, more nutrient dense ingredients**

Gluten Free Waffles with a shout out to Betty Crocker

**This recipe was easily doubled and made 8 big, light and fluffy waffles.

2 eggs

2 cups GF flour mix ( 1 1/4 c Brown Rice Flour, 1/4 c White Rice Flour, 1/2 c Tapioca Flour)

1 3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup melted butter

4 tsp baking powder

2 tsp guar (or xantham) gum

1/4 tsp salt

Beat eggs in bowl, then add all other ingredients.  Pour into waffle iron until golden brown.

This morning we served our waffles with pomegranate seeds and cottage cheese...oh, and warm cider, too!

With all the Thanksgiving prep we have today for our guests tomorrow, a good hearty breakfast is what we needed!

How are you starting your Thanksgiving Eve?

 

an interview with Eileen Parker of Cozy Calm

Cozy CalmWelcome Suzanne, thank you for joining us!

 

What are you doing in business and why?

This is one of the very few jobs I am capable of.  Since I have autism, working in an office environment is difficult to say the least, which makes my work suffer, and makes my spirit drown.  I also wanted to be home when my children got home from school; I wanted to be home if one of them was ill; I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom with a job.

So, I started a manufacturing company, Cozy Calm, making weighted blankets, and it turns out that I have a knack for business.  I love it!  My children are older now, and to this day, my kids know they can call me, they can stop by, and I can still make birthdays special.

It has been a tremendous growing experience for my kids.  My daughter said the other day, “Mum, I’m proud of you.”  I looked at her.  She continued, “Since I am on my own, I understand what you did for us.  Now you’re being an example for us about what is possible.”  I was floored.

What would we find you doing in your downtime?

Did I mention I have kids, and two step-kids?  J  Hubby and I spend time with the kids, time with each other, and time to delve into each of our own interests.  For me, that is reading or calling my mom, my granny, or my sister.  The four children range from 16 to 30 years old, and believe me, the parenting never stops.  Notice I said above that I call my mom, because it almost always turns out that mother really does know best.  It helps that she is insightful and a smart cookie.

Share something fun we might like to know about you...

I don’t know if I have ever told on the internet about the world I grew up in—a remote village in northern Canada.  My Dad was a meteorologist, so as a toddler I moved to a village on Attawapiskat Lake, which is just south of the caribou and polar bear areas very close to Hudson Bay.  I ate moose, ducks, fresh fish (as in an hour old), ptarmigan, wild blueberries, and more.  Of course, we ate food that was flown in also (There were no roads.). 

The Hudson Bay Store did a booming business from the fur trade.  Some trappers still used sled dogs, Ojibwe was the town language, I learned how to write in syllabics at school, and Old Emily Wabasse told me ancient tales, legends really, that I remember still. 

This was in the mid-sixties—a point in time that made this a unique world.  Due to satellite internet, mp3 players, and the English language, it doesn’t exist anymore, rather, it has changed into something new.  Many of the elders who knew life before forced boarding schools, like Old Emily, are long gone. 

But I remember.

Do you have a little something for our readers?

I will give two 25% off coupons for weighted blankets, which is a huge discount for us.  They will be one time use coupons, one for each winner.  Any order over $55 gets free shipping.

 

 

Healthy Halloween anyone?

I am thinking of offering a FREE live teleclass next Tuesday night with the topic of Healthy Halloween...any moms out there needing some clarity on how to handle yet another holiday that loves marketing and junk food?

It would be no more than 60 minutes in length...leave a comment here and I'll connect with you.

Again, this would be a FREE live teleclass!  My family has so much fun with Halloween, I'd love to share our ideas with you!

 

Gluten Free Energy Bars

The following recipe is what I have prepared for Sunny's soccer game snack this week.  This was ridiculously easy to prepare...maybe took me 15 minutes.

I did adapt this recipe from one in Family Fun magazine, and you can play around a lot with this.

Gluten Free Energy Bars:  Cherry-Apple-Walnut

1/3 cup walnuts (or whatever nut you'd like)

1/3 cup dried apples and dried cherries (or whatever dried fruit you'd like)

dash of cinnamon

Grind 1/3 cup walnuts in a food processor, empty into bowl and set aside.  Grind 1/3 cup seeded dates and 1/3 cup dried cherries in the food processor.  Add a dash of cinnamon, and pour the ground walnuts back in, process to blend.

Pour all contents into a bowl and scoop a bit out into your hand, shaping them into a small rectangle or log.  Line them up on a cutting board or small plate and chill for 15 minutes before wrapping or storing.  Because we are bringing them to soccer, I individually wrapped them in a little foil.

This recipe makes 6 bars, so double if you need more.

Let me know how your family or soccer team likes them! They taste just like a Larabar to me!

new soccer season

This year while waiting for the soccer season to start, we got an email from our coach in regards to snacks, game times, and general prep for the practices and games.  There was general emphasis put on how excited kids get about the snacks.  I thought a second about the snacks we were served in team sports as young kids and it was always something like fruit roll ups and a mini can of Shasta.  Gross.

As a health coach and the one in charge of keeping my girls immune systems in tip-top shape, I stepped slightly out on a limb and sent an email back to the coach whom I'd never met.  Taking the chance at becoming "that mom" on the team, I thanked him for taking this volunteer role, appreciating his time, effort, and energy before giving him my spiel that he may or may not have already been given from another mom.   I shared with him the food sensitivies our family has, and that Sunny is limited on the amount of gluten she consumes in a week, and that if she does consume it, I'd rather it be from a high quality, nutrient dense food.  Citing that we are likely not the only family on the team with some kind of sensitivity, I offered to create a snack list of options families can choose from when it's their night to bring snack.  Then, I pushed SEND.  Gulp.

What I got in a reply was so exciting...yes, I had talked about the current childhood obesity epidemic and the top three food allergens school age childred deal with, and the new co-op in town that gives us such great resources, but he was over the top on board.  Hallejuiah.  Not only was he on board, he gave me his full endorsement as I wrote a small educational piece on why these choices were important to make and model for our children.

As a team, we haven't had one single negative response from any of the parents, and have seen a couple great, healthy snacks come through.  Tomorrow I will share with you the recipe and snack we are bringing this week for our turn...and it's super easy.

How can you bring to attention the issue of quality and nutrient dense snacks for your child's sporting events this school year?

 

remembering t-ball

We started soccer with Sunny this fall...she was both excited and nervous, that's her M.O.  Once the practices were over and we were into game time, she's turned into a great player!

To boost her esteem a bit I shared with her my fear of playing t-ball.  Seriously, how easy is/was t-ball?  I never liked it, and never understood where I was supposed to be, why I was there, or what I was supposed to do.  I played shortstop and during one game where each player parted for their various position, I stood there giving my ginormous coach (not really, he was just SOO tall to me)a deer in the headlights look.  He finally lifted me up right onto his shoulders, walked me out to shortstop, set me down, looked at me, and said, "stay here.  catch the ball."  Got it.  Thanks.

What happened next was so embarrassing.  Here's the thing.  I had to pee.  And I had to pee before he brought me out to he field, but I didn't know who I was supposed to tell or where I was supposed to go.  I hung out there in the field and eventually wet my pants, so my dark denim jeans were completely dark and hot and wet all down the front and insides of my legs.  Someone became privy to the issue, and I recall my dad scooping me up and setting me down upon newspaper in the maroon cloth covered backseat of the Dodge Caravan we had at the time, and off we went for home.

To this, Sunny laughs and says, "I hope something like that never happens to me!"

Anyone remember anything like that happening to you?

another delightful breakfast

This morning, realizing I was out of milk of any kind, and steaming oatmeal was about to be served...I made a quick decision to "try" making my own almond milk.  This almond milk turned out frothy, sweet (but not too sweet), and the perfect fit for what turned into another delightful breakfast where all the flavors came together beautifully.

Of course, I didn't measure a thing when making it, so I'll give you guesstimates.

Homemade Almond Milk

::5 pitted and chopped medjool dates

::maybe 3/4 cup raw almonds

::splash of vanilla extract

:: 2 cups +, filtered water

I put all of this into my Magic Bullet and it was originally pasty, so I added more water and poured half of it into another Magic Bullet container (Cuisinart Blender currently on the fritz...anyone have a food processor they don't use?) and turned it on once more.  The result has me convinced I'll never buy almond milk again...unless I'm in a hurry and completely out of almonds, but I always have almonds...they're like clean underwear-they're always in the drawer.

 Strange analogy, but I couldn't fight what was on the tip of my tongue.

So, we took the almond milk and poured it over the aforementioned steaming oatmeal, tossed in a handful of whole walnuts, a handful of chopped apple, and a few drops of maple syrup and it was as close to heaven as I've been all week.

Try it.

Then let me know how you liked it.

dinner for mama

The other day I was downstairs working while Sunny was taking her quiet time.  About thirty minutes later, she came down and said, "Mom, do NOT go upstairs and into the kitchen."

This usually means that she's sort of told on herself, like perhaps she climbed onto the counter top to reach a glass instead of the tin mugs hung specifically within her reach from the floor, or maybe she accidentally tried to see what would happen when you push a scissor tip into moms exercise ball, you know, stuff like that.

When I told her I wouldn't be up for a few more minutes, she said to me, "No, you can't come up now and you can't come up in a few minutes.  You can come up only when I tell you for I am making dinner tonight."  Note this was said confidently and firmly.  Hmm. 

"Um, Sunny, can I just say one thing?"

"No, mom, I am using only my cutting board and my knife and I'm standing on the chair the proper way."

Hmm. K, so she calls me up a bit later and asks me to close my eyes so she can lead me to the cafe where she has placed my "order".  I found the above spread beautifull presented next to a candle left to be lit by yours truly.

On the menu were cookies, celery and spread, and a salad.  The delight and joy this child held in her entire body as she told me about all the ingredients made me want to eat her right up and keep the food for later.  The cookies consisted of coconut butter, peanut butter, oats and honey...a little on the oily side but Fannie ate nearly all of them for dinner.  The spread is a crowd fave around here:  cream cheese, diced garlic and fresh dill.  She cut the celery into chunks and served it with the spread.  The salad consisted of red cabbage, apple chunks, peas, carrots, flax seeds and homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

Too bad dad was working late that night...he missed out!

Do you remember the days of making breakfast in bed for your parents or pretending at every meal that your home was a restaurant?  There is lots of this going on around these parts lately...makes for great memories!

a freebie for new parents/parents to be

I have just released the brand new www.myhealthybeginning.com site and couldn't be more excited.  What I am most excited about is this great piece I wrote for all of you....it's called the New Parent Tool Kit.  It's got a hospital packing list, a homebirth supply list, tips on healthy pregnancies and healthy newborns, along with ways to support yourself nutritionally postbaby for maximum health and milk production.  You're going to love it.

The New Parent Toolkit has a retail value of $29.95, but it's yours for FREE.  Log on to www.myhealthybeginning.com and enter your first name and primary email address in the upper right hand corner and your Free New Parent Toolkit will be delivered to your inbox shortly thereafter.

Can't wait to hear your feedback!