Increasing Milk Supply While Nursing

Due to many requests I'm going to give my story around milk supply.  My little girl was not handling foods that I was trying to introduce well so I felt I would have to nurse much longer than I might have needed to with the older two.  Simply for nutritional reasons.  One day around a year my milk supply plummeted.  I was terrified cause there were maybe 3 foods she was tolerating outside my milk.  I did a little digging.  By far the best thing that helped the most was rubbing therapeutic grade Fennel essential oil on my chest night and morning.  This doubled my milk in less than 2 days.  As I searched I also found "lactation cookies".... these are the coolest cookies ever!  They are paleo, gluten free, sugar free, but they taste amazing and give super food nutrients.  This boost of specific nutrients helps many women with milk supply, no matter the age of the baby.  This was also the first cookie my sweet little girl could handle without an allergic reaction.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
3/4 cup maple syrup
4 Tablespoons water
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups ground flaxseed
2 cups coconut flakes
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup raisins
2 Tablespoons brewer's nutritional yeast
Directions:
Mix all wet ingredients with all dry ingredients.  After batter thoroughly mixed spoon cookies onto greased cookie sheet and bake for 8-12 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  This recipe can make up to 12 dozen depending on cookie size.

Freeze Fresh, No Freezer Burn With Vacuum Sealing

Those of you who know me well know that I am in love with Mason Jars!  I love to vacuum seal our food so that it lasts longer both on our pantry shelf and in the freezer or fridge.  I also love to do crafty projects and decor with them.  Enjoy this video showing how I vacuum sealed to prevent freezer burn.

A Healthy Eggy Breakfast

Today I decided to try something I've seen in quite a few recipe books.  Although I didn't follow any of them, it still turned out great!  These egg and turkey muffins are very yummy!

Making Fruit Leather From Fruit & Veggie Juice Pulp

Seal It to Save It - No Freezer Burn!

I hate freezer burn!  This made me want a better way and I think I found the best way.  Its great!  We put together a vacuum sealer with the jar sealing attachment and I just take out the air before I freeze.  I use this for dry pantry items and refrigerated foods as well, to make them store for 3x as long (or longer).

Review of New Sedona Dehydrator Purchase

This video is our family opening the dehydrator.  We were so excited when we saw the FedEx guy pull up with it.  Kirk ran out to meet him at the truck with the kids and surprised him when he came out of the back with the box.  He said "We have been waiting for you!"  It reminds me of the Mr. Postman song by the Carpenters.  The FedEx man laughed and gave Kirk this monstrous package.  I really had no idea that it was this big.  Its about 2 inches wider than my toaster oven and double the height.  Its bigger than our microwave too and I was expecting smaller because of the videos I've seen.  Because of the size the trays are actually about the size of a typical cookie sheet I use for baking.  That makes it really nice because we can make more with it.  I am now gonna have to pack up my toaster oven though, cause I don't have room for both in my kitchen like I thought I would.  Oh well, this is cooler anyway, right?  :)

Here is the video of me going over the individual parts of the dehydrator and how they work.  I thought it would be useful for anyone thinking about getting the sedona, excalibur or any other food dehydrator on the market for that matter.  Enjoy!

Campout Dinner In Backyard - No Electricity or Gas

Our electricity went out a bit ago and it inspired our Dad of 3 from DadOf3LivingARTly.blogspot.com to practice what preppers typically call "Bugging In".  It was very fun.  To cook we only used found things for starting the fire.  No grill, sun oven, or any other appliance, and it was bricks and wood that was left in the garage from who we purchased our home from.  The food is some from our pantry and some from the freezer and from the fridge, so a good mix of what you'd probably use both in normal conditions and in a power outage or other disaster situation.  It is nice to become more self sufficient and build more experience and skills every chance we get.  

A Look Into My Fridge & A Week of Bone Broth

As you can see, like most people who drastically change their diet, the contents of my fridge are not yet perfect.  Especially when it comes to our condiments.  We are very slowly getting rid of them and then to do more with what we have I am making my own versions of them that is healthier and then putting that in the empty bottle of the store bought condiment.  Its amazing how many eggs and how many vegetables it takes to get through 2 weeks.  Normally that 2nd shelf is full of just eggs, but this week I did it a bit different.  On the top shelf right now I have 13 quarts of homemade bone broth that I have made this week.  I am planning on making lots of different types of soup with them.  Wow... bone broth is not nearly as hard as I thought it would be and I can get about 4 quarts a day and keep the same bones cooking in the crock-pot for a whole week (just add new veggies every couple days or so).  The longer it sits in the fridge the darker it gets, so fascinating.  Here's a few pictures from making the chicken bone broth.

13 quarts of homemade bone broth (a week of doing broth gave me a lot more than this, I just have used a bunch for cooking and soups since it is soooooo nutritious) & 6 + dozen eggs

The bone broth on the third day right after adding fresh water and 3 cups of new veggies - 1 small onion, 1 celery stalks, 1 carrot, 2 cloves garlic, 1/2 cup cut up kale, 1 Tbsp Raw Apple Cider Vinegar, 1 Tsp Sea Salt

This is the way the broth looks when stirred when the veggies have been cooked for 8-12 hours.  You can cook anywhere from 8 hours up to 3 days without taking out the broth liquid.  The sooner its removed, the more broth you get, but the longer it cooks before being removed the stronger (and better) the flavor and the more nutrients go cook into it from the bones.  I like it to simmer for 12 hours before I switch out the liquid for new water, but there were a couple days this week that I did 24 hours (the first day it seemed better to do a full 24 hours).

This is the bone broth right after I used a measuring cup to spoon out the liquid through a sieve into a 2 quart mason jar.  I like using the mason jars cause they can be vacuum sealed to preserve the food in them longer and better.

I found that to strain the broth well enough I needed something similar to a cheese-cloth on top of the small sieve.  I also found that it turned out better to use the sieve in a pot and then pour it into the mason jar from that because it spilled so much less onto my counter that way.

I love this picture because it shows so well the bones  once they have just started to break apart after the broth has been taken out.  Every time I remove the liquid I use my wooden spoon and push the bones against the crock-pot.  After the first 24 hours to 3 days this is what the chicken bones look like, just the ends break off first, then as the week goes on they fall apart more and more until they are basically a mush at the bottom of the pot. 

 For those of you that have been thinking about doing a bone broth for a while now like I did, it's so fun!  To see how the bones change is fascinating.  It doesn't have to be as intimidating of a task as it seems.  Once you get it going for the week in the crock pot it only takes around 30 minutes a day to change out and get 2-3 quarts of the broth out twice (every 12 hours - morning and evening) along with add new water & veggies (if you want more veggies - this is optional).  This broth/stock is one of those super foods that helps the gut heal and provides so many nutrients people in our society are deficient in.  I recommend it to everyone.  Take my word for it, you'll love this, and you're body will love all the micro-nutrients in it too!