Sweet Potato Soup with Garam Marsala

I had a large sweet potato left and I was trying to decide what to do with it. I thought I’d make it into a soup but wasn’t sure how I wanted to make it. Smooth or chunky, savoury or sweet? I finally decided on a creamy blended soup a little on the sweeter side. What to season it with, I pondered. I was leaning a little towards coriander, or maybe fennel when suddenly I had a better idea! So today I made this for lunch and even my son, who doesn’t really care for the two main components of this soup, liked it.

Kitchen Snapshots

It’s been a busy day in the kitchen today! It started off with making breakfast. Now who said eating healthy has to be boring? We had chocolate sourdough waffles with strawberries and whipped cream! And yes, they tasted as good as they looked!

Natural Hair Care

In a previous post I mentioned the products I use to take care of my hair. I’ll tell you what they are used for then give a rundown on my routine. It’s nice to FINALLY find something my hair seems to like CONSISTENTLY!

Natural vs Chemical: Part 2- Personal Hygiene

One area I make very few compromises is when it’s something we’re slathering on our skin! We can sometimes see our skin as impenetrable, but in reality what we apply to our skin DOES get absorbed into our bodies! Now this can be a good thing, some natural medications can taste rather nasty, kids especially will appreciate having them applied to their feet overnight rather than putting them in their mouths! But if you don’t feel comfortable taking a big swig of Vaseline lotion, you might not want to be slathering it all over your skin either! In this post I will share with you what products I have totally replaced with natural products, which ones I still ride the fence with and which ones I don’t have any plans to switch over anytime soon (though those are quite few and far between!)

Natural vs Chemical: Part 1- Cleaning Products

I’ve always been such an all or nothing kind of person. I could never do ANYTHING half way! Even when it came to things like cleaning the house! If I was going to have natural cleaners, then they ALL had to be. If they weren’t ALL natural cleaners, then NONE of them could be. I am very concerned with health, so I do like to reduce the amount of chemicals used in my home, but after fighting with home made cleaners that just weren’t cutting it on one end, or getting headaches from all the fumes in an arsenal of chemical cleaners on the other, I have found a place where I feel very content. Many of my cleaning products ARE natural, homemade cleaners that I have found to be very effective, some are chemical products I use only occasionally, usually for no other reason than nostalgia (like I used to watch my mother clean with that product <3). And some products I’ve found myself MUCH happier with chemical laden unnatural stuff! Though even with them I find myself pondering how to make it myself LOL. So here’s a breakdown of what I use!

Sourdough Battered Fish

It’s been quite a while since I posted here! I’m sorry about that, life has a way of getting complicated and it completely slipped my mind! But here’s a YUMMY recipe to make up for my absence!

Coco-Mayo OH NO!

Okay then. Using coconut oil (not the kind that tastes like coconuts, ew!) to make mayo may SOUND like a good idea, hey it should thicken up nice in the fridge right? DON’T DO IT!!!! It thickens up alright, like refrigerated butter thick! No problem if you take it out to soften up before you need it, but if you weren’t expecting it….yeah, you’ll end up sending hubby out to buy junk mayo when supper is just about ready and you need it NOW *facepalm*

Next Week’s Menu Plan

I kind of go back and forth between planning meals for a whole week or just for a day or two, but this this week I planned the whole week. Just to note, all breakfasts are served with a kefir/fruit smoothy, lunches are served with veggie sticks and water, and suppers are served with at least one fermented condiment and kombucha to drink. All soups are homemade using homemade chicken stock, crackers and bagels are homemade sourdough, etc. The cream cheese isn’t homemade though, I found a few tubs in the freezer!

My First Glass!

The first glass of my first brew with my new kombucha SCOBY I grew from a bottle of store bought kombucha. I hoped to get a good picture of the GORGEOUS colour of this batch but the camera just doesn’t do justice to the brilliant ruby tone of this grape flavoured brew! It was so cold and refreshing and quite effervescent despite keeping it in plain old mason jars (I’ll be getting some proper bottling equipment eventually). Such a treat!

Sourdough Impossible Pie

After reading on GNOWFGLINS about using sourdough starter as a base for making healthy “Impossible Pies”, and not being able to afford the eBook that contained the recipe, I decided to experiment and see if I couldn’t figure out how to do it myself. I used to love making impossible pies but since trying to eat healthier I stopped making them. Now it would be pretty easy to make a healthy homemade bisquick (using a recipe like this one and using sprouted flour and butter), but since I already have a sourdough starter going then it would be so easy to just use that! The post that gave me the idea mentioned using 1 1/2 cups of starter so I started there, and consulting mainstream impossible pie recipes came up with the following formula.