milling mondays: homemade baby rice cereal

It is common to feed babies rice cereal when they first start eating solid foods and it is SUPER easy to make yourself.

We decided to give it a try with E after trying sweet potatoes for a couple of days. We figured that maybe giving her something more bland with her formula mixed in would be less of a change for her pallet and a gentle way for her to learn how to eat. And she liked it much better than the sweet potatoes. Instead of crinkling up her face and closing her mouth, she would reach for the spoon and open her mouth. So we decided to go this route for a couple of days and then return to veggies. Since then she has loved every veggie we have fed her:)

Homemade Rice Cereal

Ingredients

1/4 cup organic short grained brown rice

1 cup water

Directions

Bring the water to a boil.

Grind the brown rice into a powder. I of course used my WonderMill which worked great!

Add the rice powder to the boiling water while stirring. Let it simmer for 10 minutes continually whisking to make sure it doesn't clump.

Mix in breast milk or prepared formula to the desired consistency.

sweet potato puree

For a while Esther has been very interested in eating - she keeps reaching for food or drinks that Michael and I are having. Since I felt like it was too early to share my coffee or Thai curry with her;) we decided to let her try to eat some solids (with doctors approval). I think Esther had high hopes for the experience. As I lifted up the spoon to give her her first bite I looked away to say something to Michael and before I knew it she had wrapped her mouth around the spoon and taken a bite. BUT I think it ended in disappointment for her. She was so eager and then ... then her face started frowning and she wasn't as eager for the following bites. She didn't complain, but her facial expressions revealed her true feelings. Ha! I guess food wasn't all it was cracked up to be in her mind and maybe sweet potatoes just didn't taste good to her in general so we will try another veggie or fruit in the near future.

In the end I think Esther's parents had more fun with it than Esther herself:) We started the day by going to the farmers market to pick up some sweet potatoes to bring home to puree.

farmers market

mor and daddy - why are you posing me with a sweet potato???

Sweet Potato Puree

Ingredients:
Sweet Potatoes, peeled
Water

Directions
After peeling the sweet potatoes cut the potatoes up into small chunks.
Add the chucks to boiling water and let it boil until tender, about 15 minutes.

Then add the boiled potatoes to your blender and add some boiled potato water (or other liquid) and blend until you get the right consistency.

The pureed sweet potatoes can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days or you can freeze it as well.

This is SUPER easy to make and has no preservatives. Both characteristics that are important to me when feeding my baby. 

I think it tasted just fine and even a little sweet, but for now Esther isn't the biggest fan. I guess once we start mixing food together we will try the sweet potatoes again with a fruit or something.

even if esther wasn't the biggest fan of sweet potatoes she was super excited about her new bib:)

milling mondays: gluten free banana bread

I love banana bread! And this gluten free recipe does not taste gluten free in my opinion. It tastes just as yummy as when made with gluten flour. If you mill your own flour then making rice flour is super easy and inexpensive to make. So if you have some very ripe bananas that need to get used - this is a great recipe. 

Gluten Free Banana Bread

modified from Easy Gluten-Free Baking

Ingredients

1 1/3 cup very ripe bananas, mashed

1 cup sugar

1 2/3 cups white rice flour (white rice)

1/3 cup cornstarch

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 eggs

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F.

Mix together bananas and sugar and let it rest for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, if you mill your own flour grind your white rice. I of course use my WonderMill.

Then mix together the dry ingredients - the freshly milled rice flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt and xanthan gum. 

In a separate bowl mix butter until light and fluffy using a handheld mixer.
Add in the eggs one at a time mixing well between each.
Blend in half the dry ingredients stirring until smooth.
Then mix in the banana sugar mixture before adding the remaining half of the dry ingredients.

Once the batter is smooth, pour it into a greased/rice floured 9x5 bread pan.

Bake for 50-60 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. 

Let it cool in the bread pan for 5 minutes before removing it from the pan and letting the banana bread cool completely on the rack. 

Enjoy!

diy thursday: birthday freebies

It was my birthday earlier this month and I got to enjoy some birthday freebies:) I love a good deal and FREE food qualifies for that ... and it is even better at restaurants you like eating at even when it's not free:) This year it looked a little different since we had a newborn baby in tow - but we made a few adjustments and still got to enjoy most of the free meals we usually get.

I have had several people ask me about my list of birthday freebies so I thought I would list some of my favorites.

I will start with the ones that require an ID - meaning you have to eat there on your actual birthday and prove it with your ID. We live in Arizona in the East Valley so we can enjoy what my husband refers to as the triple threat: Liberty Market, Joe's Farm Grill and Joe's BBQ. They all give you $10 towards your meal - which is pretty much a free meal at these places. YUM!

Another two places I usually visit on my birthday because they require ID is Firehouse Subs (free medium sub) and Dutch Bros (free large drink) ... yes Dutch Bros is a must! Chompies also offers a free breakfast and so does Denny's on your actual birthday, but I usually don't take advantage of those - just not enough space in my stomach.

There are lots of places you can sign up for email updates that will send you a coupon for a free meal/snack/drink on your birthday. Some of my favorites are The Keg ($25 towards an entree),Grimaldi's Pizza (free large pizza one topping up to $18), Which Which (free small sub), Jason's Deli ($5 towards meal), Mellow Mushroom ($5 towards meal), Genghis Grill (free regular bowl), Schlotzsky's (free small sandwich), Rubios (free entree), Starbucks (free drink), Dunkin Donuts (free medium drink), Krispy Kreme (free doughnut and coffee), Sprinkles Cupcakes (free cupcake), Culvers (free ice cream)

There are also lots of places that will send you coupons for BOGO type of offers such as Benihana, Zoes Kitchen, Cold Stone, Dairy Queen, Auntie Anne's Pretzels, Bruegger's Bagles, Johnny Rockets or lots of places that offer a free dessert if you buy an entree. I don't love these offers because they are really not giving you much free since you end up spending money on a meal when you otherwise wouldn't have gone to that restaurants. Places I will take advantage of this kind of deal are places like Fox Restaurant Concepts (free dessert with entree purchase) or Postino (free dessert with entree purchase) - because those restaurants are just so yummy and any excuse to go .... right?:)

There are also lots of places you can get free items or money if you are on their email list such as Ulta, Sephora, World Market etc.

Enjoy!

PS. I am sorry I didn't include links to all of these places, but with a newborn I opted for not spending the time adding the links ... I will try to do that soon. In the meantime a simple Google search should do the job if you aren't familiar with the restaurant URL:)

diy thursday: homemade (spicy) dijon mustard

I have been making my own condiments since I am tired of reading their labels and seeing the amount of weird ingredients that are added to preserve etc. If you do end up finding some that only include the "basic" ingredients ... then it is rather expensive. To remedy these two problems I figured how hard could it be to make it myself ... and it has proven to be super easy. My husband loves mustard and I have in the recent years come to enjoy it as well. So recently, I set out to make some Dijon mustard and it tasted GREAT and was really easy to make.


Homemade Dijon Mustard
recipe adapted from honest-food.net


Ingredients

6 Tbs mustard seeds (the dark seeds are more spicy than the lighter seeds)
1/2 cup mustard powder
2 tsp salt
3 Tbs white wine vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)
1/2 cup water


Directions

With a spice grinder roughly grind the mustard seeds. Choose your combination of mustard seeds based on how spicy you like it. We like things spicy in our household so I just used brown/black mustard seeds, but you can use white/yellow or a combination to find the right level of spice you prefer.

Mix the roughly ground mustard seeds, mustard powder, and salt together.

Then add the vinegar and water and stir together.

Finally, add the mustard to a glass jar and let it sit in the fridge overnight ... and voila you have mustard!

ENJOY!

diy thursday: getting rid of a toilet bowl ring

Let me start by saying: I clean our toilet bowl every week! In the above picture it doesn't appear that way:( We have hard water and even though I clean every week I continue to have this STUBBORN toilet ring in my toilet bowl. Granted, we don't use our guest bathroom toilet as frequently so the water probably sits still for longer than our other toilet - but still, it is embarrassing to have guests come to use our toilet and then it look like I haven't cleaned in a month or two. I have tried everything to get rid of this stubborn ring. First, I tried using my trusted white distilled vinegar. Vinegar is usually great at getting rid of hard water stains ... but not a toilet ring like this. I also tried using bleach, to no avail. Then finally I read somewhere that you can use a pumice stone. A pumice stone? Really? I wasn't sure it would work and was a little worried it would scratch the porcelain. But for $1 I thought I would give it a try. AND IT WORKED!!!!! Why have I used so much time trying to clean the ring and within minutes for just $1 it had disappeared. AMAZING.

As mentioned all you need is a pumice stone.

After cleaning the toilet bowl  (I prefer to start with a clean slate) get the pumice stone wet and start rubbing it against the toilet ring. And it will start disappearing before your eyes.

This is such an easy and natural solution. It takes no time and no chemicals are used.

Mission accomplished!

milling mondays: homemade falafel

Homemade Falafel

recipe modified from just a taste

Ingredients

2 cups white onion, roughly chopped

6 garlic cloves

1 can (15oz) chickpeas, drained

1 cup fresh parsley

1 cup fresh cilantro

2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 + cup whole wheat flour (hard wheat berries)

oil

Directions

In a food processor mince the onion and garlic. 

Remove the onion mixture from the food processor and set aside. 

Add the chickpeas, parsley, cilantro, cumin, chili powder, and salt to the food processor and mix together until roughly chopped.

If you mill your own flour, grind your hard wheat berries. I used my WonderMill on the bread setting. 

Add the flour, baking powder and the onion mixture to the chickpea mixture in the food processor and mix it all together until it begins to come together, but is not sticky. You can add more flour if the mixture is too wet.

Cover the mixture and let it sit in the fridge for at least an hour.

Once the falafel mixture is cold, form the falafel mixture into balls and place them in a skillet with oil on medium heat. Let them brown on each side until cooked through (next time I may try baking them instead for a healthier option).

Once the falafel is done, you can serve them in a pita with a tahini sauce (mix together 1 1/4 cup plain yogurt with 1/4 cup tahini and 1-2 Tbsp lemon juice).

ENJOY!

diy thursday: raw apple sauce

I love apple sauce! Apple sauce is also a great alternative to oil when baking. And since organic apples are a lot cheaper this time of year, I decided to go ahead and turn some of them into apple sauce. 

Homemade Raw Apple Sauce

Ingredients

Apples

Lemon Juice (about 1 Tbsp per 2 apples)

Directions

Cut the apples into smaller pieces. I leave on the peel for added fiber.

Place the the ingredients in the blender.

Blend them together until desired consistency. 

This is great to freeze as well. I freeze smaller portions and use it when I bake .... or just want a yummy treat. 

ENJOY!

diy thursday: homemade natural peanut butter

I have been meaning to make my own peanut butter for some time now to save money. I prefer to buy the all natural peanut butter with one ingredient: peanuts. Unfortunately, this is a little more expensive than the peanut butters with more ingredients (you would think they could charge you less if they use less ingredients, wouldn't you?). Often when you make nut butters in a normal food processor, it can take up to 30 minutes which is a long time for your food processor to run (assuming it doesn't burn out before then). So when I was hanging out with my friend the other day, I brought some peanuts and made some peanut butter in her Vitamix. This was SO EASY and it took less than a minute! Amazing.

Homemade Peanut Butter

Ingredients

3 cups peanuts

Directions

Blend the peanuts in the blender  until it becomes the consistency of butter.

 

And Voila! You have peanut butter.

A jar of homemade natural peanut butter costs about $2.50 compared to $4-9 in the store.
Another great perk is that the oil doesn't sit on top like it does in store bought natural nut butters, which means no stirring required making it less messy. 

This method works great for other nut butters as well.

diy thursday: homemade almond milk

 

I have been wanting to make my own almond milk for a while now because every time I go to the store to buy it, I often end up putting it back on the shelf because of all of the added ingredients. What I like about unsweetened almond milk, is that you don't have any of the sugar that you get from milk. When we were on the Whole30 we couldn't have dairy, so in theory unsweetened almond milk would have been a good substitution for milk. Well think again! Store bought almond milk contains carrageenan (an inflammatory), which we couldn't have. I never got around to actually making my own almond milk during the Whole30  because I am not sure my blender can handle that. BUT last week, my friend let me use her Vitamix so I could finally give it a try. And boy was it easy!

Not only is it easy to make, but it also only has two ingredients (as opposed to the 13 I counted in the WholeFoods brand just to give an example).  The price to make it is also a lot cheaper coming in at $1 for 32oz. Can't beat that.

Homemade Almond Milk

Ingredients

1 cup almonds

4 cups filtered water

Directions

Cover the almonds with water and let them sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours. 



 

Dump out the remaining water left in the jar with almonds.

Add the almonds and four cups of filtered water to the blender and blend.



Once the almonds and water have turned into a creamy milk, pour the almond milk into a nut bag with a bowl underneath (ideally you have a nutbag, I didn't so I just used some cheesecloth. It seemed to work fine).

Gently squeeze the bag, letting the milk run into the bowl and the almond meal stays in the bag.



 

And voila! You have almond milk.