Our Dorado Avocado...

My kids have been wanting to grow a avocado plant for a while now. We have finally started the process...

We will name it our Droado Avocado, in the hopes that the plant will grow to look like the Dorado constellation! 

Non-GMO

These are some Non-GMO foods that I have found and will continue to purchase...

Coconut Milk (Sprouts, Good Earth)

Edamame (Soybeans in the Pod, Costco)

Soymilk (Costco)

Organic Cane Sugar (Costco)

Flaxseed (Costco)

Rumford Aluminum-Free Baking Powder (Wal-mart)

 Nutiva's Organic Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil (Costco)

Whole Wheat Waffles & Non-GMO

This picture and whole wheat waffle recipe is from Vitamix.com. I've used many recipes from their website to make things in my Vitamix and they have all turned out great!

 My mix of dry ingredients...

1 cup Organic Whole Wheat (Bob's Red Mill)

1 cup Organic Unbleached White Flour

1 tablespoon Baking Powder (Rumford Aluminum/GMO Free)

1 teaspoon Sea Salt

Then all the wet ingredients for the batter go straight into the blender...

  I used...

2 cups Unsweetened Almond Milk

2 Organic Eggs (egg substitute chia seeds, etc.)

2 tablespoon Raw Organic Honey (Honey down below is so so good!)

4 oz Organic Tofu (You ALWAYS want GMO free soy!)

Click on the highlighted links for good information on why to buy GMO free, especially soy...USDA Organic Soy & GMO's = not good.

Top Genetically Modified Foods...Corn and Soy are ALWAYS at the top of every list and also in just about every single piece of processed food you buy cereals, chips, popcorn, granola bars, crackers, baby foods, baby formula, pre-made mixes, animal feed, dairy, etc. Check out this list of more GMO foods. These kinds of foods are especially harmful to kids. The government is allowing so many more GMO foods. Would you ever think Sugar Beets (one variety of beets) to be a GMO food? Beets have the highest content of sugar of all vegetables, all natural, but when it's processed into refined sugar it loses all nutritional value and is just plain sugar and no bueno for our bodies. All of this GMO stuff is terrible, just terrible! The best way to avoid GMO foods/products is to make your own food and know what you are feeding your body. Also, a lot of health foods will definitely say right on their product "Non-GMO." I'm not saying you should never eat gmo's, but it should be very minimal.

Then take out the plug on top of the lid and put the dry ingredients into the batter and let it mix.

Put some frozen or fresh berries on top and enjoyed this nice & simple meal!

Raw Organic Applesauce

 For raw (uncooked) applesauce I cored the center out, quartered the apple, put it in the blender, and added some fresh squeezed lemon juice. 

 

This was fast and easy, however nothing can beat just eating the apple whole!

Organic Applesauce

 I've been wanting to make my own applesauce and oh my goodness, the homemade stuff is so much better than the organic applesauce we buy at the store! I never really liked the texture of applesauce, but this stuff is good! I buy the 10lbs bags of organic red apples at Costco for juicing and eating, but this time I bought an extra bag to make applesauce. Here's the process I did...

I had to buy a apple corer and cored out the center of the apple.

Have you ever heard of controversies over toxins found in manufactured apple juice and applesauce....Los Angeles Times: Dr. Oz vs. FDA, Arsenic found in Mott's apple juice, Eco-News. I've known that apple seeds are toxic, containing cyanide, so can we be sure that the prepared foods we buy are the best quality and safe? I'm all about knowing exactly what is going into my food. When you prepare your own food, you most likely are using crazy toxic chemicals and preservatives that are put in processed foods. The more you know about your food the better off your body and health will be!

 Next, I peeled off the skins, quartered the apple, and then chopped 'em up in cubes. And tossed them into my steaming basket in a pot on the stove. I let the apples steam for about 5-8mins.

In this first batch I added some fresh squeezed lemon to help the applesauce coloring stay light and yellow.

 

 I put all the steamed apples and lemon juice into the vita-mix on low speeds.

 I slowly turned up the speed and used the tamper stick to push down the apples, so everything was getting blended. 

  

 It came out nice and smooth!

 The jar on the left is the applesauce with the lemon added and the jar on the right has nothing added.

Finished product and oh so good! I like to save all my glass jars and they are really starting to add up. My husband will be delighted I'm finally using them, all in good time!

Valentine Coconut Sugar Cookies

These Sugar Cookies and frosting have the butter substituted with Organic Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil. Right now with the cold weather, the coconut oil is pretty solid and I needed it to be smooth and creamy. To do that I ran a glass bowl under hot hot water, scooped the coconut oil out with an ice cream scooper, and dropped it into the bowl. Once it hits the bowl it starts to melt. I continue to heat up the oil by mashing it with a rubber spatula until it's nice and creamy. If that's not quite doing it then I also heat it up just a few seconds at a time in the microwave (covered with a plate on top). You don't want it to be liquid, so you need to do it nice and slow until you can get it soft and creamy.

 I used this recipe, altered a little....

1 1/2 cups Organic Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil

2 cups Organic Sugar (I added a little less than 2 cups)

4 Organic Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

5 cups Organic Unbleached White Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder (Rumford Aluminum/GMO Free)

1 tsp Sea Salt

"In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight). 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. 

Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely." (I had to bake them longer abt 9mins)

 Here's the frosting recipe I used too....

1/4 cup Unrefined (Virgin) Coconut Oil
16 oz Powdered Sugar
4-6 tablespoons Coconut, Soy, or Almond milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla

This is much easier with a hand blender, but you can definitely do it with a whisk - and build some muscles! It's also best if you can measure out the powdered sugar with a scale. If you don't have one, feel free to just use two cups of powdered sugar and a little less soy milk. :)

steps:

1. "cream" the coconut oil until it breaks up and gets nice and smooth
2. add in 1/4 of the powdered sugar, the vanilla and 2 tablespoons of soy milk
3. mix together until nice and smooth
4. keep adding powdered sugar along with tablespoons of soy milk as needed until everything is combined - you don't want any clumps of powdered sugar or coconut oil.
5. frost everything in the vicinity

This frosting melts pretty easily, so make sure whatever you put it on is nice and cool. It should be enough to cover one 9x13 sheet cake.

*I usually make my own organic powdered sugar in my dry-grains blender. I also used Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk. 

We had fun delivering these yummy cookies to daddy, teachers, and friends!

Guac Egg Salad Sandwich

I like to make our egg salad sandwiches a specific way...

1. Boil organic eggs, so the yolks are soft and not cooked hard. 10-12mins. You can do longer. Check out how to "Make Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs".

2. Dump hot water and then run cold cold water over the hard boiled eggs and let them sit in cold water for a few minutes. This makes the hard shell peel off very easily.

3. Break away the solid whites and take out the yolks and put them in different bowls.

3. The make a spread I use 1/2 to a 1/4 of the yolk, from the batch of boiled eggs, to mix either with all or one of these things...avocados, hummus, mayonnaise, and/or grapeseed oil veganaise. The above pic was a mixture of the yolk, avocados, and veganaise. The yolk is where all the cholesterol is found, so that is why I don't use all the egg yolks.

4. Next I slice up the solid egg whites into pieces. 

5. Then mix the whites into the creamy spread mixture.

I love to add cayenne and/or black pepper. You can also throw a bunch of other things in like julienne carrots or cucumbers, sprouts, tomatoes, lettuce, etc. This is one of my favorite sandwiches! 

冰棒 Bing Bang

 My kids love to make "冰棒" Popsicles from our smoothies!

 Cherries, pineapple chunks, blackberries, strawberries, coconut ice cream, and water. These Popsicles are especially good to make for teething babies. They love it on their swollen gums.

Fresh Squeezed OJ

We love getting out our little mini hand juicer and making fresh squeezed orange juice. We also added in fresh squeezed lime juice this time. One of my kids is sick, so as I was juicing we started talking about the importance of eating one special vitamin that is in oranges, as we all probably know...Vitamin C! I love talking about the different vitamins and minerals in fruits and veggies with them and categorizing fruits and/or veggies with the same vitamins. I want them to know why they are eating it, what it will do, and how it keeps their bodies happy, healthy, and strong! Their little minds soak up so much and my kids are remembering more and more about all the good things wholefoods can do for our bodies!