Cookbook Reviews and

BISCOTTI

Because everyone needs snacks for teatime!
(Scroll down for cookbook reviews.)

Ingredients:

2c whole wheat pastry flour, plus up to 3/4c extra
1t pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon
1 t baking soda
¼ t cream of tartar
½ t salt
½c milk, your choice
1 egg, or 1T ground flax plus 2-3T water
1t vanilla
1c, or less, sweetener (I used ¾ c brown rice syrup, plus a drizzle of blackstrap molasses), really yummy with maple sugar!
½ almonds, chopped
Optional: 1/4c raisins, 1/2t almond extract if you like an Almondina-type biscotti

Combine dry ingredients. Beat (or toss in the blender) the wet ingredients and add all at once to the dry. Stir until dough forms, adding extra flour 1T at a time, till a soft dough forms into a ball.

Flour your hands generously and knead a few times in the bowl. Dough may be slightly sticky so reflour your hands as needed. Divide into 2 equal balls.

Roll into 2 logs, 12x2” approximately. Place on greased, floured cookie sheet, carefully, as dough may fall apart if not handled carefully. Flatten tops.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and turn heat down to 300. Cool on baking sheet 10 minutes.
Cut loaves into diagonal slices and rearrange cut sides down on cookie sheet.

Bake 10 minutes, turn biscotti other cut side down. Bake 10 more minutes. Cool on wire racks.

"I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet and simple things of life that are the real ones after all."
-Laura Ingalls Wilder



I realize some readers might be starting from scratch on the journey to whole foods eating, so I wanted to post some suggestions for a gentle, easy start. It is so important not to get overwhelmed! There are dozens of ‘natural eating’ diets that can confuse and complicate the matter. Remember that any book I review is probably available through your library, either locally or through inter-library loan. Reading a book before buying is always helpful to me.

When I recommend a book, I do so with disclaimers. Even cookbooks are written from a bias, and that bias may not be right for everyone. Very few books belong on everyone’s bookshelf, but there are, yes, a few! That’s why the first book in this review is not, in fact, a cookbook. But it belongs on everyone’s shelf.

This book breaks down whole foods eating into a very sensible series of steps, and thoroughly explains the WHY of each step. I can’t do as good or thorough a job as Marilyn Shannon in that department, so instead I recommend you read her book. The first part of the book gives you the reasons why to eat a natural diet, how to substitute healthier options for what you may be eating now, how to buy whole foods, and does a good job explaining WHY you need to cut out or cut back on certain foods. The second part of the book has specific nutritional helps for various reproductive issues, hence the name of the book. This book will give you direction and confidence in the grocery store and kitchen. The finest, most sensible nutrition primer I know of.

Next is my go-to cookbook:

The one cookbook I’d choose, if I could only have one. Heaven forbid. This cookbook is about cooking ‘American’- and Asian, and Middle Eastern, and European- with whole foods instead of refined ingredients. VERY helpful! The granola recipe in this book was the basis for my own, much evolved, granola recipe, and is alone is worth the price of this book! Many familiar recipes, dejunked, many new things to try, plus lots of hints and tips for general cooking and baking with whole foods. Meat dishes and vegetarian. Some milk-free, egg-free, etc. recipes, too. My only caveat is that many of these recipes have too much sugar for me- i.e. the bread recipes and the desserts. I alter those a lot. Other than that, this is an easy-to-use cookbook I can recommend without reserve. It is available through your local La Leche League Group, through the La Leche League website, or used on Amazon.

A great cookbook, recommended with some reservations:

This cookbook has more exotic ingredients and unfamiliar recipes, so it could feel a bit overwhelming to a mother just starting out. Biased towards vegetarian cooking, some poultry and fish recipes, very anti-beef. As I live in Kansas, organic grass-fed beef is very easy to find and I’m definitely not against red meat, myself. Meat, no meat, what type of meat? Is a personal decision and I don’t think there is a one-type-fits-all diet out there. Which is why this cookbook is a second choice for me. That being said, there are some great recipes in here, and if you want to explore alternative sweeteners, there is a LOT of great info in here.

Organic, or not? Many families simply cannot afford a 100% organic diet. When I was confused about what I should buy organic, and what wasn’t so imperative to buy organic, I found this book:

This book gives you hundreds of foods and basically ranks their importance as far as buying organic or not. My current buying habits are based a lot on the information I found in this book. After ranking foods, the author still recommends you buy everything organic. The intention of this book is not to make you feel guilty for what you're not doing, remember!

And to finish, a delightful book about the importance of eating together, for children:

And my daughter, eating pretend sukiyaki, one of the foods from the story. My children became eager to learn to eat with chopsticks after reading this book. 500 times.

“Mercifully, diets all blur together, leaving you with only one definite piece of information:
french-fried potatoes are out.”
-Jean Kerr

Monday Musings, HOOT!, and a Green Shake

I don’t want to tell you what we did today. Not because it was a bad day. Just because… I am worried. What we do here, in this house of bread (and honey), is unique to us because we are a unique family. Just like every family is. Many of the things we do, things that mean the most and teach us best, are really happy accidents showered on us by Divine Providence.

How many times do I see what someone else did today, like it, imitate it, and come away frustrated. Your good day isn’t going to look like anyone else’s good day. God made every family as different as every angel. As different as every species of flower. And only by becoming more and more yourself do the good days increase! In our house we might use Spanish, English, Spanglish, olde English, Latin, and ridiculous slang in the same dinner conversation. It makes us US, and it makes life fun. But it’s hardly worthy of imitation. Recently a friend asked me, “How can I learn to think like you?” Being tired and not quite my usual reserved social self, I snapped, “You can’t. You can’t learn to think like me. You’ll have to learn to think like yourself.”

As a mother, I am an expert. An expert in my own children. You, as a mother, are the expert in your own children. There are plenty of experts out there, in all the fields of “stuff” you can think. Experts in medicine. Experts in law. Experts in education. Experts in child development. They just won’t be THE expert in YOUR child’s development ALL the time. And, frankly, neither will you. You will be always working to keep up with the ever-changing little people under your care.

Now before you come batter down my door with stacks of scope and sequence charts, consider with me: at La Leche League meetings a mother often hears for the first time that the only expert in HER baby is herself. How many fellow mothers have I seen light up with joy at this revelation. No one needs to tell me when to carry, nurse, cuddle, or feed my baby? WOW! That feels like freedom! Awesome. Yet I am often shocked by the mother of a school-aged child who hears that she can be the “expert” in her own family, and instead of lighting up with joy, she pales in terror. “No! Just tell me which catalog to send for!”

Sometimes in a homeschool, there can be a sense that
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts…”
or rather, the day is a play, a performance, and if it doesn’t go how it’s ‘supposed to’, then it’s been a bad day, a show that’s flopped.

But rather than an actor, why shouldn’t a home-educator be more a scientist? A scientists learns as much, if not more, from a day of failed hypotheses than from a day of endlessly successful ones. In fact, a scientist whose experiments succeed every time probably isn’t doing much creative thinking at all! But a mother must slow down, give herself time for meditation and thought, in an objective fashion. . She can ask herself- why isn’t this working, and what might work instead? She must put her expectations into perspective continually, and this is hard, emotional work.

Life, including scope and sequence charts, curriculum catalogs, and booklists, are a feast laid for us by the hand of God. There are a few courses of which most everyone should partake. But perhaps we should not so anxiously fill the children’s plates for them. Perhaps we can dish out just a bit of what they must have, and let them taste and sample and enjoy their ‘food’ just a bit more. Yes, it takes time to enjoy the feast, instead of just shoveling in the fuel. Maybe I can’t stick to the scope and sequence laid out by the experts from August to June. Maybe our scope and sequence is a wider scope in a strange sequence… but here’s the rub. INFORMATION CHANGES. At the speed of light. An increasing number of the things taught even 15 years ago are becoming out of style, kicked off the chart, redesigned. To some, it seems scary. To a home-educating mother, it may leave a feeling of hopelessness- where do I start then? I take comfort in many things, but one thing in the biggest way. Information is interesting, helpful, enjoyable, necessary. Information changes, facts get redefined, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It’s a perspective I hope to pass on to my children.
If these ideas are interesting to you, here’s some more food for thought for you to chew on:
The Relaxed Home School
Homeschooling with Gentleness
How Children Fail
How Children Learn
Learning All The Time
For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School

"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child."
-George Bernard Shaw

So what DID we do today? Our usual Monday fare in the morning- Monday is our big ‘academic’ day. Ahem. But in the afternoon it was HOOT! At the Great Plains Nature Center. I almost forgot that we were going back out there today, but I’m glad we did. If you live near Wichita, it is ALWAYS worth attending. Every first Monday of the month, September through May, at 2 pm.

Afterwards, the children begged for a nature walk. And as I overheard the naturalist mention that there were blue herons on the grounds, even though I wanted to get home to make dinner, we hit the trails. And I’m glad we did. Because I’ve NEVER seen a mommy turtle kiss her baby before:

Or a blue heron in flight:

Or “our” burr oak look so lovely under a stormy sky:

Or the prairie grasses seem so magical:

Or enjoy my children’s antics more (yes, they’re all from the same gene pool):

And hearing Isaiah say, “God sure did make a good choice when he invented turtles!” and watching Rosie touch everything, and watching a teething toddler forget his mouth for a few hours, basking in the spring.

Before we headed out, I made my Basic Green Smoothie for a monster quantity of energy. Very easy, with endless variations.
You put 2-4 loosely packed cups of spinach in the blender. Add ½ a peeled, diced lemon, 2 chopped bananas, ½ t vanilla, your milk of choice in whatever amount you like (I prefer a really thick smoothie), and a bit of sweetener if you must.

Blend.

Enjoy.
More buzz than a whole pot of coffee!

"One cannot think well,
love well,
sleep well,
if one has not dined well."
-Virginia Woolf

Three Bears' Porridge

Although I don’t need to convince anyone around here that porridge makes a yummy meal, a good dose of a fine Goldilocks storybook could go a long way to getting children interested in trying this delicious breakfast. There’s oatmeal, good, and then there’s porridge, really good! One of our favorite Goldilocks storybooks, which specifies the toppings used by the Three Bears on their porridge: Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Start with Steel Cut Oats. Also called Irish or Scottish oatmeal. Place ¼ c per person in a bowl THAT FITS easily INSIDE YOUR CROCK POT!!!! Muy importante.

Add 1 c water per serving. Soak up to 24 hours. The soaking makes this recipes so easy to do.

I usually prep this after breakfast or lunch and leave the crockpot all set up to be turned on before bed.

(A note on soaking grains: most whole grains contain phytase, which can be broken down by soaking. Soaking whole grains increases their nutritive value and makes them easier to digest by breaking down the phytase. If this piques your interest, you can google it or read more in Nourishing Traditions- a cookbook I recommend with a grain of salt. It is not a beginner’s cookbook, but it does contain lots of information about nutrition.)

Set your bowl inside then pour water between your bowl of oats and the outer crock. You have effectively made a double boiler, or a baine-marie if you prefer French.

The real reason I like to soak our porridge is that it makes breakfast really easy. Stumble out of bed and Voila! Fresh, hot, ready.

Although if you forget to turn on the crockpot, it is a MAJOR letdown. Don’t forget! Steel-cut oats take forever to cook on the stove, so I pretty much only make them in the crockpot.
Close-up:

Another note: this crockpot set-up does NOT work with regular rolled oats, i.e. oatmeal. You will end up with a burned mess. Ya, I know, I tried it.

The real key to getting children interested in porridge or oatmeal is the oatmeal SUNDAE BAR. We use ground flaxseed, walnuts, bananas, frozen or fresh blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, sunflower seeds, and, on super-special occasions, Sunspire carob chips. Oh, and of course the homemade cashew, almond, sunflower, or sesame milk.

Shown here with a cup of Organic South African Rooibos.

Also, because I’ve already gotten questions about it, here are some general cookbook recommendations:
Whole Foods for the Whole Family- available from your local La Leche League, or used on Amazon
Feeding the Whole Family: Cooking with Whole Foods- my second choice, in print, which is why I’m making it a permanent button on my blog
Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition 4th Editionby Marilyn Shannon- the whys behind lots of healthier food choices *a REALLY IMPORTANT BOOK* which I plan to review in depth later

Happy Divine Mercy Sunday, Blessed John Paul, pray for us!

"No pains should be spared to make the hours of meeting round the family table the brightest hours of the day."
-Charlotte Mason