Trying some Grain Free Alternatives

The more I read about grains and specifically wheat.  The more I am convinced that our family should limit the consumption of them whether they are whole, sprouted, soaked, etc.  While I think that we can get by pretty well on meat, veggies, fruits and dairy, I would still like to have the option of making a muffin or a pancake for the kids every so often.  And I should say with the exception of the few cavities our family has, we are not suffering any ill-health affects because of our consumption of grains, so if the kids have a cupcake or some corn chips at a birthday party, I really don't care.  I just feel that in the long-term minimizing our consumption of them is best for our family.

For that reason, I recently ordered some books and alternative flours to help us on our grain reduction journey.

Grain-free Books:
Almond Flour Cookbook
Cooking with Coconut Flour
Everyday Grain-free Gourmet
Eat Well Feel Well (this one follows the Specific Carbohydrate Diet Recommendations for people trying to heal their gut based on the book Breaking the Vicious Cycle)

Grain-free Flour:
Coconut Flour
Almond Flour (it is bleached, but I emailed the company to see how they bleach it and they remove the Almond skins by quickly steaming them.)

There are other grain-free flour options available, but I choose these two because they had cookbook accompaniments I could use to guide me as I start cooking with them.  I should also say that I only bought these to use occasionally.  I wonder what would happen if we all started consuming as much almond and coconut flour as we do wheat, I can imagine that too much of these flours could be bad too...but that is just a guess.

I got the books a couple of weeks ago, but today the flours arrived:





I am super excited to try these alternative flours and look forward to sharing the results here.  The only problem is I am heading up to beautiful Traverse City next week and won't be have the time to try them until I get back.  Adios Amigos!

Maple Creek Farm Share ~ Week 7

Yum!  This week we got some goodies that we have already enjoyed.

Corn - Had some for dinner last night, will have some more tonight.


Zucchini- Made some grilled cheese sandwiches with this.  We sliced it thin and put it right inside with the cheese.  Very good.


Peppers - Not sure what I am going to do with these.  Will probably make some veggie dip so we can dip them in it for snacks.


Onions - Saving them for use during the week.


Cabbage - Will store and use for a salad later on in the week.


Cucumbers - Made a Salad with it and the ....


Tomatoes - My daughter thought it was fun to pick the smallest tomatoes out ;-)  Ohh well.

Maple Creek Farm Share ~ Week 6

This week we got:

Lettuce: Will use for salads during the week.

Tomatoes: Will eat on our salads or give to the kids for a snack during the week.  I always ask them if they want it cut up like a "farmers market sample" which means I chop it up and give them toothpicks to eat it with.

Potatoes: Yum!  These were good I slow roasted them in my mini-slow cooker.  Had a few leftover that I will put in the kid's eggs in the morning.

Green Beans: Will use as a side veggie for dinner.  This Peanut Butter Green Bean Recipe is a fun side dish that is pretty kid-friendly that I have made in the past.

Broccoli:  Will use as a side veggie for dinner.  I usually just steam them.

Green Peppers:  Not sure what I am going to do with these, the black bean soup recipe from How to Eat Supper is AMAZING and calls for green peppers, I might chop them up and freeze them for use with the recipe over winter.

Onions: I put them in my storage bin and will use them through the week for cooking as needed.  I just bought some of these vegetable keepers from reuseablebags.com that are in the mail.  I can't wait to get them and hang them up in my kitchen to store my garlic, onions, and potatoes in!

Mentioned Products:
  

Favorite Things: Reuseit.com

Usually I reserve my favorite things posts for individual items, but today I wanted share with you some of my favorite things, from my favorite online store, reuseit.com.  The store is chock full of environmentally friendly products for your use at the home, office and while out and about.  They are constantly adding new items and have frequent sales, so there is always something new to buy ;-)

You can view pictures of many of the items I have purchase from reuseit.com on my flickr set for them,

Or, if you are more of a video person, watch the videos below where I talk about some of my favorite items.

Litter Free Lunch Napkins


Insulated Lunch Bag (Made in the USA)


Reusable Wrapping Paper


Reuseit.com has a HUGE selection of items like the ones I reviewed, hop on over there to check it out.

Cut Tomatoes Fast

A short video for you on the evolution of how I cut my tomatoes.



Related Product:

Maple Creek Farm Share ~ Week 5

This week we got:

Chinese (Napa) Cabbage.  Will probably make an Asian-themed salad with almonds, rice vinegar, sesame oil, onions.

Bok Choy.  Probably with stir fry it with some mushrooms and soy sauce.

Tomatoes. Use in salads through the week.

Zucchini. Opps...I forgot to take the picture until after I had sliced and eaten some.

Onions. Store for use in the coming weeks.

Lettuce. Salads for the week.

Maple Creek Farm Share ~ Week 4

This week we got:

Two Types of Kale. We had some of the Kale for dinner tonight as sauted greens. It was very good. I think I will have some with my eggs at breakfast tomorrow morning.

Onions.

Fresh Garlic.

Zucchini. I saw this post on The kitchn, 15 Spectacular Recipes for Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Pattypan & More. All of the recipes look very good, not sure which one I will try, but I feel like trying something new.

Tomatoes.

Maple Creek Farm Share ~ Week 3

This week we got:

Lots of Lettuce: We will use this for salads throughout the week.

Kohlrabi: purple and white. I sliced it into matchsticks and put it in our salad and sliced some and just ate them. It was very good. My husband really liked it because he remembers eating this as a child.

Fresh Garlic: I am going to cure these because I have a clove of last week's garlic still hanging around.

Kale: I made some Kale chips out of the Kale, but now I use coconut oil instead of Olive Oil, VERY good!

Update on last week: 

A few people asked about the garlic scape pesto, well I tried this recipe from a Michigan Garlic farmer and it was so good.  We had it on pasta and with the leftovers, I put it on our eggs one time and another, mixed in some olive oil and vinegar and made a vinaigrette out of it.  

Pick Your Own Lavender, The Yule Love it Lavender Farm

Today we spent thing morning at the VERY lovely Yule Love it Lavender Farm in Leonard, Michigan.  It is a wonderful place to visit.  We went there because my daughter loves to pick flowers and I thought it would be fun for her to go someplace where the entire purpose was to pick flowers.  I also happen to love lavender.  She had fun, but was probably a bit too young to pick lavender because we had to be specific about which stems we picked (they had to be flowering and we had to cut in between the first and second set of leaves), but we all still really enjoyed it because she could do other things like carry the stems we picked and put them into the basket.



After picking the lavender we sat down for some amazing lavender ice cream.  We each had a bowl and it was superb!  I am plan on trying to make some in the future.



Then the kids headed over to a little play area that was set up close to the pavilion that had a child-sized clothesline, a sandbox and a small tractor.  They had a blast "washing" and "drying" the handkerchiefs they had there and playing in the sand.





We didn't participate, but they also offer an afternoon tea that looked really nice, but I think we will save that activity for when my children are older and can appreciate it more.

Here are some additional pictures from our trip today:

Maple Creek Farm Share ~ Week 2

We got tomatoes, LOTS of lettuce (good thing we like salads), some garlic scapes, some onions, and some garlic.

I used a clove of the garlic in a salad dressing I made this evening for dinner, it was very good!

Thinking I will make some salsa with the tomatoes and green onions. I have some cilantro growing in my garden that will be nice in the fresh salsa. The tomato was very good. We had one in our salad this evening.

We will use the lettuce up in our daily lunch salads, and probably have some salads with dinner this week too.

I think I will try making some garlic scape pesto with the garlic scapes this week. Probably won't use it right away, but will freeze some for use later in the year.