Happy Thanksgiving from the Johnson's! (Countdown to Thanksgiving Finale)

Yes, Donald's eyes are closed..they were in every picture.

We wanted to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, had friends or family to celebrate with, and had many things to be thankful for. We wanted to thank you all for sharing in our blog! It makes us feel a little closer to home and all those that we love.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, celebrating with close friends in Nevada! The days of prep work to make a fully homemade Thanksgiving feast were totally worth it! The food was amazingly delicious and it was so great knowing that it was all healthy.

Check out all the veggies on that plate!

We had a lot of fun blogging our Countdown to Thanksgiving and hope you had fun reading it. We are wrapping up our awesome celebration by introducing a few of our young adults to a family Thanksgiving tradition: watching Miracle on 34th Street =)

And on that note...who's excited for Christmas?!? I'm so excited to start decorating in the morning!! Have you decorated yet or are you planning to this weekend? We will be traipsing into the woods to cut down our Christmas tree on Saturday!

Countdown to Thanksgiving - Easy Centerpiece Ideas

If you're looking for easy ways to jazz up your Thanksgiving table, I came up with a few easy and possibly free (depending on what you have on hand) ideas.

1. Leftover pumpkins from Halloween. If you have any small pumpkins left from Halloween or have found them on clearance recently, they make great centerpieces! I had several leftover, plus I was given a few recently, so I used them as my focal point. There are lots of options with pumpkins. You paint them, write on them, or leave them plain. You could even have your guests write what they're thankful for on the pumpkins!
2. Use cake stands or cupcake towers to display on. I put my pumpkins and some leaves on my glass cupcake stand that comes apart. The variation of size makes it visually interesting. You could use just one or multiples. They are great for displaying candles, pumpkins, leaves, gourds, or whatever else you think up.
   
   
   
3. Fill jars with acorns, painted or all natural. We went acorn picking a while back at one of our local parks filled with Oak trees and came home with a grocery bag full of acorns. Once we baked them to get all the critters out, we just ended up putting them in jars around the house. They were pretty, but I wanted get a little more creative with some of them. I ran across this blog about painting acorns on Pinterest. This would be a great project to do with kiddos! We just used some acrylic craft paint we had on hand. They turned out beautiful if I do say so myself!
4.  Scatter some leaves and candles in the center of the table. If you are looking for a very basic centerpiece, this would be the easiest! I just grabbed a couple things of fake leaves at the dollar store and then cut them off the stems. You could then scatter any size combination of candles on top of the leaves. Or, if you want to get really creative, you could cut holes in gourds or apples and pop in tea lights, like they do here.

I ended up doing a combination of most of the above. The important thing is to get your creative on and have fun with it!

We will posting our final Countdown to Thanksgiving post tomorrow!

Countdown to Thanksgiving - Clean Eating Cranberry Sauce with Grass-fed Gelatin

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I love the Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce! It's on my table every Thanksgiving and I can't imagine eating the feast without it. The problem is...it's not exactly healthy. And it certainly does not fall into the clean eating category. Therefore, I set out to concoct my own recipe, hoping to come up with a very similar, but healthy alternative.

I knew I wanted to use grass-fed gelatin because of all its healthful goodness! And I definitely wanted to use real cranberries, not just cranberry juice. I also thought I could sub out some of the sugar for organic, unfiltered apple juice. Here's what I came up with:

What you need:

2 - 12 oz bags Fresh Cranberries
2 1/2 C Organic Apple Juice
2 C Water
Honey to taste
1-2 Tbsp Grass-fed Gelatin
Soup Pot
Strainer
Whisk
Measuring Cups and Spoons
Large Bowl

Start by pouring both bags of cranberries into the soup pot. Add water and apple juice to the pot.

Bring to a low boil and simmer for 30-45 minutes. You want the cranberries to burst and become very soft.

Put strainer over large bowl and pour cranberry mixture into strainer. Press the cranberry pulp until you've gotten all the juice out. It should yield about 3 1/2 cups of juice.

Taste juice to see if it is at your desired sweetness. Mine was extremely tart still at this stage despite the apple juice. I ended up adding 6 tablespoons of raw honey to the warm mixture, tasting in between each tablespoon until it reached the right ratio of tart and sweet.

Whisk gelatin into warm cranberry juice. For a soft set, use 1 tablespoon of gelatin. For a firm set (like use in a mold), use 2 tablespoons. If the whisking creates a lot of foam, skim it off the top and discard.

You can either pour it into a bowl or a mold. If using a mold, grease them before hand. I wanted more of the softer set, but still put the sauce in 4 wide mouth jelly jars. They take up less room in the fridge and that way I can open one at a time.

Once in desired container, cover and refrigerate until set and ready to enjoy on Thanksgiving!

For more Thanksgiving inspiration, check out the rest of our Countdown to Thanksgiving posts!

Countdown to Thanksgiving - 9 Ways to Eat Clean this Thanksgiving

This is our first Thanksgiving as clean eaters and we're pretty excited about it! In years past, I have used things like boxed stuffing, canned cranberry sauce, and pre-made pie crusts. This year, I am cooking EVERYTHING from scratch! It is quite the undertaking, but I've spread it out over several days to make it a smooth process. I wanted to share some of the ways we are incorporating clean eating into our feast!

1. Add more vegetable dishes to your menu. As I looked at menus on the internet and at our's from previous years, I realized that there weren't very many vegetables involved in the typical Thanksgiving menu. I decided to add in Roasted Carrots and Wilted Spinach with Raw Romano Cheese.
   
2. Homemade Stuffing from Homemade Bread. Stuffing is my favorite Thanksgiving item and I am so excited to try this fully homemade version! Depending on your grain preferences, you could use Sourdough, Soaked Wheat, or Ezekiel bread. If you're not up for making your own bread, you could also pick up your preferred healthy bread.
   
3. Homemade Cranberry Sauce with Grass-fed Gelatin. I looooove the Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce and can't imagine Thanksgiving without it. This year, I am making my own from actual cranberries, organic apple juice, and grass-fed gelatin (which is very healthy for you!). You can find the recipe here on our blog tomorrow!
   
4. Swap out regular refined sugar and corn syrup for healthy alternatives. Coconut sugar, maple syrup, honey, brown rice syrup, organic corn syrup, and real cane sugar are all great alternatives! Even though we're clean eaters, we still choose to enjoy the Holidays and goodies. When possible, I clean our traditional recipes up so that we're consuming healthier versions of the classics. They still taste just as good, sometimes better!
   
5. Use real butter instead of margarine. Margarine is chocked full of hydrogenated oils and chemicals. Butter is actually really good for your body, especially if you can find grass-fed (like the Kerrygold brand). Here's a great article about the benefits of butter.
   
6. Soak nuts to reduce phytates and enzyme inhibitors. If your baking pecan pie, putting nuts in your salad, or using nuts in your stuffing, I would highly recommend soaking them a few days prior and then letting them dry on the counter till your ready to cook. (10 reasons why your should soak nuts).
   
7. Make your own pie crust with butter/lard. This is a great clean eating recipe for pie crust. It is very clear that you do not want to use lard/shortening from the grocery store. You only want to use grass-fed lard/tallow. She even walks you through rendering your own lard! If you don't have access to lard, you can use all butter. I recently made this recipe with butter and it turned out amazing! Hands down, best pie crust I've ever had! The key to an extra flaky crust is leaving big globs of butter in the dough.
   
8. Use homemade chicken or turkey stock instead of canned broth. I make bone broth all the time and have lots of it saved up for Thanksgiving! If you don't, it's pretty simple. You can either use a whole chicken or just the bones of the chicken. Put it in a large soup pot with some carrots, celery, and onion. Cover with cold water and put in a few splashes of apple cider vinegar. Let sit for 30 minutes. Bring to a low boil and simmer for 4-24 hours. The longer, the better, but if your short on time, the 4 hours will work.
   
9. Make your own gravy instead of using the kind from a jar. One of the best reasons is that it tastes better! Even after several years, I still get nervous making gravy, but somehow it always works out. I just follow one of the easy gravy recipes using turkey drippings and chicken stock.

I hope you feel inspired to make some clean eating changes to your Thanksgiving. Even if you aren't able to make all of the changes this year, starting with a few is a great step in the right direction! 

We will be continuing our Thanksgiving Countdown tomorrow with my new recipe for Jellied Cranberry Sauce!

Countdown to Thanksgiving - Grillin' Up the Turkey!

I feel like I have never really been involved in the cooking of anything at the holiday celebrations that we have throughout the year. Of course, I enjoy BBQ-ing and I cook this way as often as I can (steak, ribs, brisket and other roasted veggies). I enjoy it so much! Sometimes there are just fun things to throw on the BBQ and see what kind of tastes you can come out with! Hence what I am writing about: how to grill up a golden delicious turkey!

I started out where everyone starts, the prep work! I tend to trim up any meat that I grill, especially where there is excess fat or skin. Next: choose your seasonings! Anything that is acceptable to your taste will do. In this case, I picked thyme, rosemary, salt, onion powder, and oregano. Take your time in this phase. Make sure that you get all the areas of the turkey covered with these tasty spices, use as much or as little as you deem necessary.

Most people would decide against grilling or BBQ-ing a turkey because it tends to dry out. Although you may have done your best to keep it moist, it went south. This is our trick, we cut up half of an onion into shards and cut a small apple into pieces. Now stuff the turkey with these high moisture, aromatic items! I used a few tooth picks to hold in the apple and onion pieces to make sure they didn't dump out in the moving or flipping process of grilling.

Now it's time! Make sure your grill is heated up and ready to cook! You'll want to keep your grill in the 350-400 degree range to ensure that the turkey will cook well. Even heat is your friend here.

Cooking time will vary by weight but because this guy was a small one, weighing in at just under 8 pounds. I grilled it for about 3-1/2 hours. Initially, I put down some foil for the first 2 hours, as well as over the top of the turkey to make sure that the heat would not just cook the under side of the bird or char the skin.

I also added in a bit of my own flair, I placed a few cups of water in a oven safe dish, put it on the grill and added mesquite liquid smoke to the water! When your grill starts to boil up the water, the mesquite will add a wonderful flavor to the turkey.

Now you wait. Keep moving of the turkey and opening of the grill to a minimum for the first 2 hours. Allow the smoke flavor to sink into the meat. ( Now I'm Hungry! ) After a few hours had gone by, I took out the foil completely. At this point, you want to start getting those glorious grill marks on the turkey. I rotated the bird every 30 minutes. Once you have achieved a lower turkey breast temperature of 165 degrees, you are done! Here is the end result!

Enjoy this fun Thanksgiving cook out idea and check back tomorrow for Erica's post about how to include clean eating in your Thanksgiving meal as we continue our Countdown to Thanksgiving!

Countdown to Thanksgiving - Pumpkin Spiced Cider

As our ode to Thanksgiving continues, we knew pumpkin was a must! To our young adults (Donald and I are the pastors of a young adults group called Flashpoint), I am known as pumpkin queen in the Fall. We've sat around joking several times about what kind of crazy pumpkin recipes I'll come up with next. During one of those discussions, Pumpkin Cider came up. I decided that Thanksgiving was the perfect time to take that challenge and come up with a recipe! This one is not based off any Pinterest searches, just plain ol' Erica ingenuity! Here's what I came up with.

What you need:

4 C Apple Juice (I used unfiltered organic from Trader Joe's)
1/4 C Pumpkin Puree (all of my homemade was gone, so I used store bought)
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
2-5 Cloves (depending on how spicy you want it)
2 Reusable Spice Bags (if you don't have these, you could sub in a coffee filter or cheese cloth and tie with kitchen twine)
Sauce Pot

Measure out your apple juice and pour into pan.

Spoon a 1/4 cups worth of pureed pumpkin into your spice bag and tie firmly.

Add cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and cloves into second spice bag and tie firmly.

Place both bags into apple juice and bring pot to a low boil. Simmer with lid for 2-6 hours. The longer you simmer it, the more the flavors will develop.

We let ours simmer for about 6 hours and it had a great depth of flavor! It tasted great served warm or cold. If you want the pumpkin to be the main star, lessen your spice mixture so that it's not so prominent.

We will definitely be serving this on Thanksgiving day, both for a festive beverage AND because it makes the house smell just heavenly!!

Check back for another Countdown to Thanksgiving post tomorrow!

Countdown to Thanksgiving - Give Thanks Banner Craft

Donald and I are pretty excited about our first Thanksgiving as clean eaters and as bloggers! We decided that we wanted to do a count down to Thanksgiving. That means every day for the next week we will be posting a Thanksgiving themed blog post! It will vary between crafts, recipes, and ways to incorporate clean eating into your traditional Thanksgiving fare.

We're kicking off with a simple craft to liven up your dining room! I'm sure some of you already have beautifully decorated dining rooms, but I'm certainly not one of them. My poor walls are bare and in desperate need of some love. When we moved to Nevada last year, we downsized majorly and got rid of almost all of our stuff to cut down on moving costs. That meant we had a whole house to furnish when we moved into our own place in August. We picked things like couches instead of art for the walls (necessities, you know ;) So as I planned my Thanksgiving menu and started thinking about how I wanted to decorate my table, I realized that my walls needed some kind of spice!

I searched through Pinterest, but didn't see anything that particularly struck my fancy. So I came up with something of my own. I had made this kind of flag banner for a baby shower and knew how cute they looked. This time I wanted to add letters and do it in a Fall colored them however. I did a quick trip to Michael's and was very happy that everything I wanted was on sale.

(By the way, I'm sure you will noticed the lovely green carpet in several of these pictures. Yeah. That's the color of my carpet. >_<)

What you need:

Scrapbook Paper
Stick-on Letters or Letter Stencil
Tape or Glue Dots
String
Scissors
Ruler
Pen/Pencil

I started by drawing a triangle with the ruler to figure out what size I wanted. I decided on 6 inches for each of the long sides.

Draw and cut out the model triangle from a piece of scratch paper.

Then flip over the scrapbook paper to the back side and trace the triangle on to it. I was able to get about 6 triangles out of each 12x12 piece of scrapbook paper.

After the triangles were cut out, I attached the stick on letters. I decided to have my banner say, "Give Thanks."

Lay out the triangles in the order you wanted them, then keeping in that order, flip upside down. I did two banners; one that said "Give" and the other saying "Thanks!"

Once the triangles are laid out upside down, run your string along the top of each and tape in place. I had glue dots left over from a project, so I used a combination of glue dots and tape.

And with that, your done. All that's left is to hang it up on your wall. I just tied it to some thumb tacks to hang it.

My dining room is not the most well-lit place, so it made it hard to get a good picture. But I guarantee, it looks awesome in person! I put a little leaf wreath below it to add a little more interest to the huge wall it's hanging on.

I hope this provides you with some crafty Thanksgiving inspiration! Please check back tomorrow for a very unique Thanksgiving recipe as we continue our Countdown to Thanksgiving!

Mac n' Cheese with Sweet Potato Noodles

First off, let me just say, this is one of those things that just does not photograph well. I tried several different angles and no matter what, it just looked like gloppy orange stuff in a bowl. The photo definitely does not do this justice! It's definitely worth the taste test!

This recipe was invented out of the need for a quick dinner, one which did not use grains. Donald and I haven't cut out grains completely, but we're trying to greatly decrease how many we're ingesting. Our weightloss progress seems to pick up drastically anytime we greatly decrease our grain intake. As I stood in my kitchen tonight, with this fact fresh on my mind, I struggled to think of something quick. Pasta sounded wonderful and I was desperately trying to resist. We've also been upping our intake of raw cheeses and I wanted to incorporate that into our dinner. I knew people had used zucchini as noodles, but did not have any on hand. So I tried to think of what vegetables I had on hand that could be used as noodles. That's when I thought of it. Sweet potatoes.

What you need:

1 small-medium Sweet Potato
1/2 C of Half & Half
Some of your favorite all natural/organic Sausage (we used 2 chicken apple sausages)
Scant 1/4 C of your favorite Cheese (I used raw cheddar and  raw pecorino romano)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Peeler
Sauce Pan
Medium Fry Pan

Fill sauce pan with water and put on to boil.

Chop up your sausage into bite sized rounds. Pour the half & half into fry pan and turn on medium low. Add sausage to the pan with the half & half.

Peel the sweet potato. Once peeled, take the peeler and use it to cut strips of sweet potato. These are your noodles.

Once boiling, add the sweet potato noodles to the water. Cook for 2-4 minutes, until the noodles can easily be bitten through.

Drain the noodles and put aside.

Once sausage is heated through, remove it from the half & half, which will have reduced some. Turn the heat off of the fry pan.

Shred or cut cheese into small chunks. Add to warm half & half. Stir until cheese has mostly melted. Salt and pepper to taste. If you're using raw cheese, its important to keep the heat very low/off during this step so that it will retain it's healthy raw properties.

Once cheese has melted, add in noodles and toss with cheese mixture. Then add in the sausage and toss again. And that's it, you're ready to eat!

Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe {Gluten Free, Dairy Free, and Low Sugar}

Donald's 26th birthday was this last week and he asked if I could make him peanut butter cookies as his celebratory treat. As with a lot of our recipes now, I knew I could invent a healthier version of a classic recipe. One of the things I've been subbing in is all natural sugar alternatives. Here's the recipe I came up with.

What you need:

1/2 C Natural Peanut Butter
1/2 C Coconut Sugar
1 Egg
1 Tbsp Arrowroot Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Vanilla
Pinch of Sea Salt

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream peanut butter, egg, and coconut sugar. Mix in the rest of the ingredients.

Use a tablespoon to form and drop cookies on to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Makes about 12. Flatten slightly.

Bake for 7-9 minutes.

At 8 minutes, cookies have a nice crisp around the edges, but still soft in the middle.

Before I could snap a picture, most of the cookies were gone! That's the only after shot I could get =) Needless to say, they were a hit! They did not have quite the same texture as traditional peanut butter cookies, but we loved this new texture with the crunch around the edge and a little soft in the middle.

Homemade Sweet Potato Fries in Coconut Oil (Including a Freezer Version)

One of the things I love the most about our WAPF lifestyle is that it embraces healthy fats! This means that things like sweet potatoes fried in coconut oil are good for you, which happens to be one of my favorite side dishes!

I had recently seen Cheeseslave post a blog about making french fries in coconut oil. Despite all of the healthy I had regained and food allergies I have healed through clean eating, potatoes still seem to be one of the few things I react to. So as good as those french fries sounded, I knew they wouldn't work for me (...yet. I still believe I will be completely healed of all of my allergies). I am, however, able to eat sweet potatoes and adore them! I use them in all the ways I would use a regular potato (baked, hashed, mashed). Therefore, I set out to make a sweet potato fry recipe!

Coconut oil, when cold-pressed/expeller pressed has a higher smoke point than a lot of oils and won't loose its nutritional value at high temperatures. I buy the Nutiva brand from Costco. Now I know, you're thinking "won't my fries taste like coconut?" My answer from experience: no, they will not. I was a little concerned about that too. I like coconut flavor, but the people in my house are not so crazy about every little thing tasting like coconut. So I had them be my taste testers. They said there was no residual coconut taste, despite the oil initially smelling of coconut when it was first melting.

In the end, I decided on two recipes. One for immediate consumption and one for the freezer, enabling me to grab and go.

Recipe #1 (for dinner tonight)

What you need:
Coconut Oil
Sweet Potatoes (number depends on how many you want to eat.)
Salt
Deep pan or soup pot
Kitchen Thermometer
Sharp knife
Peeler

Put about an inch worth of coconut oil in your pan and put on medium heat. You want the oil to be between 325-335 degrees.

Peel and thinly slice your sweet potatoes. For a super crispy fry, cut very thinly. For a fry with a soft center, cut a little thicker. The more uniform the cutting, the more evenly they cook. I found that out the hard way. Here's what mine looked like:

Once your oil has reached the right temperature, put in a handful of the sweet potatoes. I used tongs and put in 2-3 tong-fuls of fries. You want to make sure not to overcrowd the pan so that the oil remains at the right temperature.

Let cook for about 3 minutes. Remove to a plate and let oil reheat back to the 325-335. Once oil is back at the right temperature, add more sweet potatoes.

Repeat this process until all of your sweet potatoes have been fried.

After your last batch is fried, heat oil to 375. It is time for the second fry, which is what give the fries their true crispiness!

Again, fry them in small batches, allowing the oil to rise to the correct temperature between each batch. I only had to fry mine for about a minute during this second fry. They will quickly change from orange to a dark brown if you leave them too long.

Once all your sweet potatoes have been through the second fry, sprinkle them with some pink salt or sea salt and they are ready to eat!

Recipe #2 (for the freezer)

Follow directions from recipe #1 until all sweet potatoes have been through the first fry.

Lay out the once-fried sweet potatoes on a baking sheet and allow to cool. Once cooled, place in freezer. Transfer to a freezer bag after they have frozen.

When you're ready to use some of them, preheat the oven to 325. Lay out some of sweet potatoes on a baking sheet.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, depending on the the thickness of the fries. Half way through the time, move the fries around with some tongs to prevent one side getting burnt. Sprinkle with salt and let them sit for a few minutes before eating (they will feel soft coming out of the oven, but allowing them to sit lets them crisp up a bit).

This is what mine looked like after coming out of the oven the other night. I had a few dark ones, which were the fries that had been cut too thin. It was so nice to have them only take 10 minutes from freezer to the dinner plate!

This whole recipe was trial and error. The first time I made fries, I only cut up 2 medium sweet potatoes and Donald and I polished them off in one sitting. The second time, when I was trying the freezer method, I cut up 5 sweet potatoes, that were a little more on the large side. I got a full gallon sized zip lock bag worth out of those. The first time I tried to cook them in the oven, I put the heat way too high at 425. When I checked on them after just 4 minutes, this is what I found.

The other thing I learned through this process is that coconut oil is reusable! When I first heard that, I thought it was weird and for sure that there would be a funny after-taste. I decided to try it. I just let the coconut oil sit in the pan with the lid on. It solidified and looked kinda gross.

I used this oil again the next time I made sweet potato fries. I just add some fresh oil to it to get it to the right depth in my pan. Surprisingly, it had no flavor difference! So I would highly recommend you save yourself some money and save your used coconut oil! You don't have to leave it in the pan. You could transfer it to a mason jar after its cooled it you like. Just make sure you put a lid on whatever you leave it in so that things in the air don't float into it between uses.

Hope you enjoyed this recipe and happy cooking!

Three DIY Deodorant Recipes (Plus our personal trial & error)

Deodorant was my first DIY attempt. I decided to make my own, both for health reasons (the aluminum in store bought deodorant is being linked to breast cancer), and to save on cost. I started making it last Spring and started with a really simple recipe. It worked surprisingly well, but the one thing I did not like about it was that I had to put it on with my fingers.

Simple DIY Deodorant #1:

2 Tbsp Coconut Oil
2 Tbsp Corn Starch
2 Tbsp Baking Soda

Melt coconut oil and pour into a reusable container (like a small gladware container). Mix corn starch and baking soda with the coconut oil. That's it; you;re done! Dip two fingers in the mixture and rub on armpits.

After a while, I got really sick of having to use my fingers to rub it in. Plus, Donald was not so keen on the idea either. So I set out to make some kind of stick deodorant. Both versions gave us horrible rashes. One of the recipes may work for some people. It just depends on your skin sensitivity.

DIY Deodorant #2:

1 1/2 Tbsp Coconut Oil
1 Tbsp Organic Beeswax
2 Tbsp Corn Starch
2 Tbsp Baking Soda
Several drops of essential oil

Same method, melt beeswax and coconut oil. Mix all ingredients together and pour into old deodorant containers. Put in fridge for a few hours while the mixture sets.

The advantages to #2 is that the beeswax will keep the deodorant solid even in warmer temperatures, which means you can use it as a stick deodorant, plus the scent is customization.

Unfortunately, we got bad rashes from this deodorant. We can't figure out if it was the beeswax, the essential oil, or the baking soda. Upon googling it, I found that usually reactions from DIY deodorant are because of the amount of baking soda. The ph in baking soda is very different from that of our skin, so too much of it can cause reactions. The trick is finding just the right amount of then because it is what helps keep the stink away! No matter your skin sensitivity, its important that you don't use just any baking soda. The kind that comes in the yellow boxes is synthetic and made in a lab. Because it is not the naturally occurring, it is much harsher on your body. You want to use Bob Redmill's baking soda, which is the naturally occurring kind that they gather from nature! I had also read that many people used arrowroot powder instead of corn starch and I wanted to give that a try. So back to the basics I went!

Simple DIY Deodorant #3 (great for sensitive skin!):

1 1/2 Tbsp Coconut Oil
3 Tbsp Arrowroot Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda

Melt coconut oil and combine all the ingredients.

Pour into old deodorant containers and stick in the fridge to set up.

Because it is the colder season, it should stay solid outside of the fridge. It may not be best to keep it out if you're going to steam up the bathroom, but you could just keep it in your bedroom or during the hot months, (as odd as it sounds) you could keep it in the fridge.

Keep in mind, with DIY deodorant, you don't need to apply as much. One or two swipes is sufficient! If you try and find that #3 is not strong enough for you, try adding in some more baking soda until you find the right balance for you.

Easy Home Remedy for Minor Burns

A while back, I got a really painful steam burn on my finger. No matter how much cold water I submerged it in, the pain continued. For hours. It was on a Saturday night and I had to get up early the next morning to lead worship from guitar. So I started googling home remedies for burns. I came a cross this site.

I was shocked to see aluminum foil on the top of the list! But I was so desperate, I decided to try it. Amazingly enough, it worked!

Method 1:
Place burn under cold running water for several minutes.
Dry burn area.
Slather antibiotic cream on burn.
Put foil, shiny side to burn, on the effected area (if applicable, wrap snugly).
Wrap some tape around the foil to help keep it in place.
Leave on for at least 30 minutes or for as long over night.

Method 2:
Place burn under cold running water for several minutes.
Dry burn area.
Put foil, shiny side to burn, on effected area (if applicable, wrap snugly).
Wrap with tape.
Leave on for 20-30 minutes.

With my steam burn, I used method one. I had actually tried just using the antibiotic cream before finding the foil idea. So instead of trying to rub off the cream, I just put the foil on top of it. The relief wasn't instantaneous; it took a few minutes to start kicking in. After about 30 minutes, it was considerably better. Because I had to be able to use my finger the next day, I decided to just sleep with it on. It had started to blister slightly the night before and when I checked on it the next morning, there was no evidence of the burn!

I happened to burn my finger again just this week. It definitely wasn't as bad as my steam burn. I just wrapped some foil around it for about 20 minutes and the pain went away. I did have a mark left this time, which tells me the foil and antibiotic cream must be more healing combination!

Please do keep in mind, if you have a severe burn, seek medical attention.

Homemade Eggnog

It's that time of year again! We loooove eggnog in this house! Since the last holiday season however, we've become clean eaters. We grabbed a carton of the store bought stuff a few weeks ago and it just didn't seem the same, plus we knew that it was chocked full of refined sugar and chemicals.

It turns out that eggnog can actually be a healthy drink, full of vitamins and nutrients, if its made at home with whole foods! It's a beverage that is even recommended by Weston A Price.

Definitely the healthiest version is made with raw milk and raw cream, but not everyone has access to it (e.g. it's illegal to sell in Nevada). Pasture-raised eggs are an absolute must though, no matter what version you make, because you will be consuming the yolks raw. Check with your local farmer for fresh, pasture raised eggs (EatWild.com is a great resource for finding local farmers.) They can also be found at places like Whole Foods and Marlene's, but probably won't be quite as fresh as from the farm.

Comparing a normal cage free brown egg yolk to the pasture raised egg yolks. See the color difference? Pastured yolks are orange and firm, while normal cage free are yellow and break easily.

This article, in the "How to cook your eggs or not" section, explains why it's safe to eat pastured eggs raw. This blog post also explains the benefits of eating raw pastured eggs and why its safe.

So on to the recipe!

What you need:

1 1/4 cups whole milk (non-homogenized and not ultra-pasteurized preferred)
1 3/4 cups half & half (not ultra-pasteurized preferred)
1 cup heavy whipping cream (not ultra-pasteurized preferred)
4 pastured egg yolks (The only place I could find them this time of year was at Whole Foods)
3 Tbsp organic maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Start by separating your egg yolks from egg whites. (Make sure to keep your whites for a great macaroon recipe coming soon on the blog!)

Measure everything into a small mixing bowl or blender. Blend for about a minute, until the yolk are well incorporated and everything is frothy.

I then poured mine into a quart sized mason jar. You can pour yourself a glass right away or you can stick it in the fridge and let the flavors develop some more. The spices usually rise to the top, so make sure to give it a good shake or stir before pouring a glass.

The recipe is definitely adjustable! The ratio of milk to creams can be played with to suit your taste, as well as the spices and sweetness. This recipe makes just a about a quart and can be easily cut in half or doubled to make more.