Preparing for Changes in 2014

It's after 4pm and I JUST realized it's Friday, meaning Guilt-Free Friday, meaning I need to blog something...  I haven't been cooking much lately, which is sad.  Christmas cookies?  Yeah, didn't happen - only the two recipes I posted, and I hardly ate any of them.  Just haven't been interested.  It's been a... different... month for me.  I have to apologize to all you readers for going MIA, but I fully intend to get back into the swing of things as soon as possible.  There have been a lot of changes happening, all good ultimately, but they've sort of interfered with my life and lifestyle.  Why must the holiday season be so difficult for someone trying to live a healthy lifestyle??  I have fallen off the Paleo wagon so badly it's embarrassing.  But I must say, I am SO proud of and SO happy for all of you who did so well sticking with it.  I watch some of your posts on Facebook or your messages to me and see that you're trying out some of my recipes for family gatherings and you're doing so well with it.  That's awesome.  That's what I wanted - to help you all find an easy, enjoyable way to switch over to a healthy lifestyle.  I have a few things on my plate that's made it a bit more difficult than before to stick with certain things, which I promise to share more about within the next month or two, but I'm working hard on psyching myself up to start fresh again with the New Year.  2014 will come with a lot of changes that were inspired by events in 2013 - eye openers that reminded me we're not invincible, that we need to take extra care of ourselves NOW to enjoy our lives both now and LATER.   I want that for everyone else too.  I want everyone to see what I've seen, to know what I know, and to feel the motivation to take care of yourselves before it's too late.  Let's all make 2014 a year of positive changes.

One of my blogging New Year's resolutions is to focus more on mental health.  That's one thing I've been struggling with, which I know is probably 80% related to my poor diet lately, but also hormonally and possibly due to circumstances as well.  But it's something that's ignored way too often.  Something that's brushed over like it's not really worth considering or taking into account.  Like it doesn't matter when it comes to the big picture of general health.  But it does, and I know that for a fact personally.  I want to talk more about the importance of sleep, the importance of exercise, and get more into how diet affects your mood and mental health.  How hormones work and why they're so important and how to take care of them. I also want to talk about alternatives to psychiatric drugs, which I feel are SO dangerous and over-prescribed and can lead to problems far worse than what you were dealing with to begin with.

And for my personal New Year's resolutions - to get back into my healthy lifestyle stronger than before.  To exercise more.  To make sure my family is healthy and strong.  And to inspire more people to work towards better health and to realize the importance of taking care of yourself now.

I hope you all enjoyed the holiday season.  We've got one last Christmas gathering tomorrow night and then it's on to New Year's celebrations and onward into 2014.  I'm excited for the new year.  It's going to be a good one!

Guilt-Free Sunday: Snickerdoodles

Here I go again, shirking my duties.  I'll be honest, I've been feeling pretty crappy over the weekend.  Head cold gone totally out of control... sinus pressure that made my head feel like someone poured cement into my skull, drainage that made it hard for me to keep anything down... I'll spare you the rest of the details.  I'll admit, I've been slacking a bit on the natural prevention.  I know it's the season to get sick.  I know everyone around us has been getting sick - Harlee's around other kids at the babysitter's, I'm working directly on people all day at my job - we're bound to contract something.  It was pretty stupid of me not to take precautionary measures like the Thieves oil on our feet every night or taking olive leaf extract supplements or upping the vitamin C or ecchinacea. And now this happens.  Harlee got it too but his didn't last as long.   I didn't get so lucky.  Finally yesterday we went to the chiropractor and got us both adjusted and she did acupuncture in my face for my sinuses.  That was a first!  I've had acupuncture tons of time before but never in my face.  Well it worked!  I'm going to have to blog about acupuncture one of these days.  I can't get over how amazingly effective it is for EVERYthing.  I felt my sinus pressure shifting and moving, lots of popping and cracking in my head, and I felt like I had a whole new skull after that.  Except instead of draining out my nose, it continued to drain into my stomach.  Made for an unpleasant day.  Finally this morning I'm starting to feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel.  Figured I'd at last get this blog post up.  Which I did not write in advance - had I done that you would have seen it sooner.

Oh well, here it is now.  Snickerdoodles!  I stole this recipe from Elana's Pantry and altered it a bit.  I made it exactly the first time and while it was absolutely delicious it was hard to work with.  Very crumbly.  So I added an egg and everything worked out great after that.  I think her intent was to make it a vegan recipe, but that doesn't apply to me.  Eggs are so crazy good for you, why would you ever omit them?

For those of you who attended my last healthy eating class in Red Bud, these are not the snickerdoodles we served there.  Those were okay, but had molasses in them, which isn't an ingredient I'd usually associate with snickerdoodles.  To me, a snickerdoodle is a basic sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon and sugar and smooshed flat.  That's what I grew up on anyway.  Well these hit the nail on the head!  I tried making snickerdoodles last year and they weren't very good either.  I'm so happy I finally found the recipe that works!  I'll be sticking with this one.

Here's how it goes:

2 cups almond flour
1/8 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
1/4 cup coconut oil or pastured butter
2 tbsp honey
1/2 cup coconut palm sugar for dipping
1 tbsp cinnamon for dipping



Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  In a mixing bowl beat together the egg, oil or butter, and honey.  Stir in the flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon until you get a dough.  Scoop a small spoonful of dough and roll into a ball - I made mine about the size of a ping pong ball or just a touch smaller.  Briefly dip the ball in a bowl of water then place in the bowl of palm sugar and cinnamon and coat.  I found it best to designate one hand for dipping in water and one hand for dipping in the sugar mixture - reduces the mess that way.  Place the ball on a parchment paper line baking sheet.  Continue to place the balls on the sheet until full, spacing about two inches apart.  Flatten all of them with the palm of your hand.  Place in the preheated oven for about 7-9 minutes.  Let cool and enjoy!

Guilt-Free Friday: Double Chocolate Sweet Potato Cake Cookies and Snow Ice Cream

It's cookie baking season!  I've got some good ones to share this time.  I was almost late posting this, it's been an eventful day, but I'm here just in time.  Unfortunately I forgot to snap a picture of these and they all got eaten up before I realized that, so I'm just going to have to make them again, darn...
*Update: just made more and now there are pictures, see below!  But they looked better on my phone than they do on the computer... but hopefully you get the idea...

A little update, here's our house as of Monday this past week - all the stone is finished on the garage and on that section that juts out, but obviously I haven't been too on-the-ball with the camera, so I'll have to get you an updated picture soon.  But we have soffit, siding, garage doors, custom kitchen backsplash windows, and a lot of progress on brick and stone.  And 8-10 inches of stone that came a bit too early, otherwise the masonry would be done... but oh well.

Here's our pretty town all lit up for Christmas... minus the giant bradford pear trees that used to really add something to the scene but I guess it's still pretty without them...

Justin got a deer!  Yay for meat in the freezer!  Not sure what kind of face Harlee is making there... hard to take pictures in the dark...

He LOVED the snow.  He did not want to come inside!

I finally convinced him to come in by bribing him with snow ice cream.  It was YUMMY!  Just fill a bowl up with snow, pour in about 1/4 cup of almond milk or coconut milk, a packet of stevia (like 1/4 tsp probably), and we added some chocolate chips too.  Mix it all together and voila!  Good stuff!

Had to get the kiddo some snow boots.  Those things are expensive knowing that they'll only be worn a handful of times... oh well, we'll make lots of memories playing in the snow in them.  I also dropped my phone in the toilet.  That was nice.  I hate how dependent I am on my phone, and how lost I felt without it, but I guess that's what happens when you run a business off the thing.  So we battled the nasty conditions and headed north to get me a new phone and Harlee some new boots.  Glad that's over with!

So.  The cookies.  Oh my these are heavenly.  They're based off of the sweet potato brownie recipe, but I got tired of picking brownies out of the pan and figured it would be easier to grab a cookie instead.  I altered the recipe so they'd hold up better like a cookie, and with great success!  They're super cakey and moist, mmm... These are definitely on my Christmas cookie list!  Once I make another batch I'll post a picture of them.

One fun memory of my Granny was last year she somehow got roped into making cookies every month for a good friend of the family.  I can't remember how exactly that all went down, I think he said he didn't think she'd make it an entire year delivering cookies to him every month, so she took it as a challenge and successfully made 12 batches of cookies, all with entertaining jokes attached like delivering them in a giant popcorn tin but stuffing the bottom 3/4 of it with packing peanuts so he THOUGHT he was getting a lot.  I think she delivered one batch in a hospital bed pan too...  Anyway, now that she's no longer with us, he wasn't sure who was going to supply him his Christmas cookies, so I offered, saying I needed a guinea pig for my healthy recipes.  He was a bit leery of the "healthy" aspect... but nonetheless I had Justin drop these cookies off for him and didn't tell him they were made of sweet potatoes, and he responded with great praise for them.  He loved them, and was very surprised to find out about the secret ingredient!  Harlee loved them too, and I must say I couldn't get enough, so they definitely passed the test.  Delicious.  Go make them.  Here's how:


2 small sweet potatoes, baked at 425 degrees for about 30-40 minutes or until soft and skin is peeling off.

3 eggs at room temperature

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

1/2 cup honey (or liquid sweetener)

2/3 cup almond flour

3 tbsp coconut flour

4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

3/4+ cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Let the sweet potatoes cool to room temperature.  Beat the sweet potatoes and the eggs until soft peaks form.  Mix in the coconut oil and honey.  Add in all the dry ingredients except the chocolate chips and mix into a thick, sticky batter.  Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts (if you're adding those).  Spoon about a tablespoon of batter onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet, each spoonful spaced about an inch or so apart (they don't spread out much).  Flatten them out a bit, as they don't do that very well on their own.  Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes.  Let cool and try not to eat them all at once!