Honey Mustard Chicken

This recipe has become a family favorite!  The GAPS diet has encouraged us to stretch our food repertoire quite a bit.  Instead of the staple green beans, peas, carrots and broccoli, and occasional salad with tomatoes thrown in to say we'd had our veggies, we've made exotic things like: cauliflower, snow peas, beets, cabbage, much more zucchini and squashes, and now, this recipe, which includes another exciting addition: mustard. 

OK, so we are pretty lame.  Ketchup and mayo were our condiments of choice, and we really didn't branch out.  But our picky 6 year old goes after even the chicken skin on this yummy dish.

Honey Mustard Chicken

8 chicken thighs (our preference) or 4 chicken hind quarters
1/2 cup yellow mustard
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons honey
garlic salt, onion powder, and cayenne to taste

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Arrange chicken in a 9x13 pan.  Mix the mustard, water and honey, and pour evenly over the chicken.  Shake spices of choice over chicken (I use quite a bit of garlic salt).  Bake for 45 minutes or until chicken tops are golden brown. 

This chicken is great cold, also, as a leftover.  We're taking some with us on a picnic tomorrow, with significantly more veggies than you see in the above picture.  Yipes we look like carnivores there! :)

It's Time To Heal Our Guts! (Aka: The What's and Why's of the GAPS diet)

Two months ago we embarked on a crazy-diet journey called GAPS.  Not a diet to lose weight (though it does get you to the weight that is healthy for your body type), but a diet to heal our GUTS, as the kids are fond of saying.

                           Some of our yummy garden produce included in the diet

GAPS stands for "Gut And Psychology Syndrome", basically meaning that what you eat affects how your brain and therefore the rest of your body works.  The goal of this diet is to heal the digestive system so it can absorb the good vitamins and minerals, and pull out toxins that may be stored in the body causing disease symptoms.  My family, though fairly healthy, has several "symptoms", like allergies, asthma, digestive upset, low energy (that would be me!), etc.

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride is the author of the book on GAPS, and used the diet to heal her young son who had been diagnosed with autism (after much searching and a second doctorate in nutrition), then went on to help hundreds of others.  So how does it work?  The 400 page book is very detailed and interesting, but here's the super-condensed version from me:

Our brain, immune system--everything in our bodies--runs off what we eat, which is absorbed through our digestive system.
We have 3 basic kinds of "flora", or bacteria, living in our digestive system:

Essential or Beneficial flora--we want these!  They keep our digestive system healthy, destroying the bad, protecting our "gut walls", and helping the good vitamins and minerals into our body systems.
Opportunistic flora--Candida and the like (there are 1000's of kinds) make up this group.  These are always present in our gut, but are kept under tight control by the beneficial bacteria, and even made to help us, unless they have "opportunity" to mutiny and take over.  For example, ever had a round of antibiotics?  Besides helping you with an illness, they also wipe out most of the good bacteria in your gut and allow the tough opportunistic bacteria a chance to spread rapidly while the beneficial bacteria are trying to make a come back.  (Beneficial bacteria are in fermented foods like yogurt and kefir, so when you are taking antibiotics it is a good idea to put as many of these good little guys as possible back in your gut by eating those things.)
Transitional flora--also includes bad guys.  They come in through our food and drink, and these are bacterias that can make us sick (there are places you just shouldn't drink the water because of these little fellows), etc.  Our healthy flora can actually encapsulate these flora and send them right on out, without harming us.

So you have: the good guys, the mutineers, and the bad guys.  When the good guys aren't ruling the roost, disease happens.  In different people this is manifested differently because we have different life circumstances and genetic weaknesses.  Some people struggle with various auto-immune disorders like eczema, lupus or fibromyalgia, some have ADHD, dyslexia or autism, some have IBS, Crohn's, allergies, or asthma.  Basically the opportunistic flora have taken over and damaged several areas in a persons digestive system, allowing toxins to get through to other body systems.  The toxins can come through what one eats, since the beneficial flora are no longer around to keep it out, as well as from the waste of these opportunistic flora.

So this diet works to heal and seal up the damaged lining of the digestive system, and flood that system with beneficial bacteria so they can be in charge again and rule their well-run peaceful kingdom.  (Dr. Natasha says nothing about mutineers in her book, but doesn't it sound fun to think of mutineering pirates and beautifully run kingdoms in your intestines instead of just "flora"?)  The diet also aids your body in pulling out toxins that it's stored in weak areas of your body, and flushes them out.

How do you do this?  Through what you eat.  My next GAPS post will be on the actual foods in diet and how we've implemented it.

"Mom, I think the Tooth Fairy got lost again!"

One thing I want to spend a lot of time writing about on this blog is our GAPS diet journey.  Before I start that, though, I feel compelled to share this embarrassing moment with you, just for fun. 

I am a klutz.  I ran cross-country because it was hard to "miss the ball" or run into anyone or anything in that sport.  I mean, you can see there's a tree ahead for quite awhile and have plenty of time to avoid running into it--that's what I need in a sport.  Nothing flying at me that I'm supposed to catch or hit or bounce (it took my high school volleyball coach awhile to get me to do more than duck and cover my head when the ball came my direction).  But being the tooth fairy is not supposed to involve any of those skills. 

At our house we don't pretend that there's an Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, but I remember as a kid just loving the thought of a darling little Tooth Fairy who could magically change my lost tooth into a quarter while I slept--even though I knew it was my mom.  So I brought the Tooth Fairy into our family when my oldest lost her first tooth.  I had no idea it would be so nerve-wracking--what if the kid wakes up?  what does the Tooth Fairy DO with the tooth?  I am a trepidatious Tooth Fairy to say the least.  My husband just laughs at me, since it was my idea in the first place.

Yesterday, Simeon (who just turned 8 and says he doesn't believe in these kind of things, but likes to have his tooth "changed" into spending money), lost a tooth.  He'd been wrestling with his big sister Julie while they waited those wiggly last few minutes for Daddy to come home after directing camp for 2 weeks.  When Eric came in, amid the hugs and laughter Simeon held out his newly lost tooth for Daddy's examination.

"What happened?"  Eric asked, "Did someone punch you in the mouth?"

Simeon's jaw dropped.  "How did you know?  Julie just knocked it out with her FIST!"

After unloading all Eric's gear into the livingroom we enjoyed supper and an evening of the constant chatter of catching up.  I forgot about the tooth.  At 4am I was up feeding our sweet baby, and remembered the Tooth Fairy.  She'd been forgetful in the past and was determined to do better.  After putting our little guy back down I snuck to the kitchen in the dark (Tooth Fairies are stealthy) to find some loot.  We were out of the "gold coins" (one dollar pieces) the Tooth Fairy usually gives, so a regular dollar would have to do.  My husband's wallet was empty, so I quickly trekked through the dark livingroom to grab mine.  Unfortunately, I'd forgotten all the Rubbermaid containers and bags we'd unloaded earlier.

The crash was terrific.  I was totally sprawled out, and my right shin hadn't fared well.  I bit my lip to keep quiet and silently got the "loot" ready.  Simeon was the only one who woke up from the noise, but I thought I'd use that to my advantage since he was groggy.  After searching for a momnet and finding nothing I asked him if he knew where his tooth was.  I thought I'd make the switch quickly and he'd think the Tooth Fairy had already come.  Only trouble was, we couldn't find the tooth anywhere.  I finally gave up and we went back to bed, nothing gained except a painful shin.

This morning Simeon located his tooth still in its bag, under his bed, and let me know of the Tooth Fairy's negligence.  I wore a long skirt today to hide the big blue goose-egg on my leg.  Whose idea was this silly Tooth Fairy thing, anyway?

Amazing Grain-Free Pancakes

On our road to eating healthy, we've come across great recipes, but these pancakes have got to be near the top when it comes to coolness and yumminess!  They are simple and delicious, and most would never guess they are grain and sugar free, and loaded with protein.  And they have just 4 ingredients!

Peanut Butter Pancakes (About 16 pancakes)

2 Ripe Bananas
1/2 cup Peanut Butter
4 Eggs
1 tsp Baking Soda

In a medium size mixing bowl, mash bananas with a fork.  Add eggs, peanut butter and baking soda and stir thoroughly or beat with a mixer (I just mix it well with a wooden spoon).  Heat coconut oil or butter in a skillet over medium-high heat and pour small pancakes, using 1/8-1/4 cup.  (Tip: the batter is a little "gloopy" from the bananas, so I sometimes use the measuring cup I poured them with to spread the batter a bit.)

Flip when they bubble in the middle, just like any other pancake.

They puff up beautifully while cooking and sink down some after, and they are sooooooo good!  We top them with applesauce and enjoy them (and then go back for seconds!).  My kids request them nearly every day, and they are my husband's favorite breakfast, and leftover snack. 

My sweet 10 year old likes to surprise me on special days by getting up early and making breakfast for us, and this is the recipe she enjoys most because it's so simple she has it memorized, and it's easy to make.  I hope you enjoy them, too!

Stinky Mushrooms

The other day I thought I saw one of my son Simeon's orange Nerf bullets stuck in our flower pot.  It's been so hot I thought the bullet had puffed in the heat.  I showed it to him, and he thought it was possible he'd left one outside (since we are forever finding his stuff where it doesn't belong, possible was a huge understatement!), and an 'exploded' Nerf bullet was cool.  The next morning Simeon had the job of watering the flowers, and he ran into the house exclaiming that there were several orange tubes in the flower pot, and he hadn't put them there...they weren't Nerf bullets. 

So what were they?  And what were all those white egg-looking things mixed in with the snap-dragons?

                            
The Answer: Eeeeeewwwwwwwwwww!  We looked them up online, and discovered they are mushrooms called 'Elegant Stinkhorns'.  (Possibly named for the reaction they get, say, when you walk out your door in the morning and smile at the blue sky, sunshine, lovely flowers on your porch, then take a deep breath and nearly collapse from the odor, wondering what died nearby?) 

                                       Pretty gross looking, huh?  The smell is from the slime spores on
                                       top that are spread by...oops, that may have been too much info...

The rest of our free moments were taken up going to the library and piling on the couch together to learn all about mushrooms and fungus and spores and other gross things that fascinate small boys.  The girls joined in the fun and all the kids ran for jars so they could plant the "eggs" the mushrooms burst out of.  They (at Mama's insistence) put lids on the jars, and decided to keep them in their closets until the next morning, when most of them were delighted to find new smelly mushrooms growing robustly.

               
OK, honestly, I thought they were pretty cool too.  The whole cycle of how God turns things back into rich dirt to grow more plants is amazing; another testimony to His glory!  And the variety in mushrooms is astounding.  We had a blast with our mushroom discovery and the kids didn't even realize they were learning so much--home educating at it's best!

Unfortunately, Mama rained on the kids' parade when they decided to plant the "eggs" in other flower pots and start a smelly mushroom farm.  And thankfully the heat has seemed to do the mushrooms in completely and we haven't seen anymore.  But I'm grateful the Stinkhorns showed up for a week to teach us more about our Creator's wisdom in His design of the life cycle, and for the light in my kids' eyes as they discover the wonders He's put there for us to (sometimes literally!) unearth.

What have you discovered recently?

There once was a farmer who took a young miss...

My delightful husband Eric can be very romantic, but he is also good at catching me off-guard, making me laugh with his silliness.  When we were getting to know each other before we married, he sang me this song.  I prepared to swoon, thinking it was going to be a declaration of his love...and ended up laughing.  The joy I share with him still, over 12 years of marriage later, fills me and we are so blessed to raise our 4 "sweet violets":

There once was a farmer who took a young miss
In back of the barn where he gave her a...

Lecture on horses and chickens and eggs
And told her that she had such beautiful...

Manners that suited a girl of her charms
A girl that he wanted to take in his...

Washing and ironing and then if she did
They would get married and raise lots of...

Sweet Violets, sweeter than the roses
Covered all over from head to toe
Covered all over with sweet violets.

Our time here on earth is so fleeting, and Eric and I look at our life together as sort of a game, where we have this short time to learn and grow in God and share Him with others before we are called home.  We've played the 'No House, No Job, And You're Broke With A Baby' game together, as well as several versions of 'God Has Blessed Us So Richly We're Laughing, Crying And Thanking Him At The Same Time!', and one I'm super glad we're past, 'Living In A House Infested With Brown Recluse Spiders'. 

My goal for this blog is to share us, our journey as we run towards God, in the hope that it will bless others, and help us keep heading in the right direction.  I love to learn and try new things and plan share about the craziness here.  I hope you will be blessed by what you read, and encouraged in your journey towards Him!