Let's have the best new year EVER!

Join us for the Daniel Fast in 2013! We're starting tomorrow morning. Today is the last day to indulge in your sugary sweets.

Not sure what it's all about? Not sure you can do it? I guarantee you, that you can do it. That it'll change your life. It's a time we set some time to focus on the Lord, and detox our bodies from all the Christmas foods. Check out the video to learn more. I hope you join us on this journey!

With Christ we can do all things!

7 Day Juice Fast

Lately I've been talking with some of my girl friends that in the new year we want to get healthy and start eating/living better. Then we started talking about wanting to do a 7 day juice fast. We were so excited about the idea, the idea grew and a couple of us, grew to a few of us. This week I opened my email and received one from the Juice Master: aka Jason Vale! It wasn't a personalized email or anything: however it was an email describing the World's Biggest Juice Detox. He's encouraging the world to do the detox. Last year he had over 18,000 people participate. This year he's looking to have over 20,000 participate. The Juice fast starts January 7 - January 13 2013. How neat is that, we were already thinking/planning to do a juice fast in the new year and here is a movement happening, inspiring the world to do a juice fast.

The reason he's not doing it January 1st, is to get your body ready for a juice fast after the holiday eating. So the first few days in January you cut out the sugar and garbage and stop caffeine etc to get ready for the fast.

Check out the website here.

Go to the Juice Master's website and sign up to join us!

So what will you need for the Juice fast?

• a Juicer 

•  a Blender 

•  Mason Jars (to store and bring your juice with you to work/while you're out)  

•  Fresh fruits/veggies to create delicious juice

• Optional:  His book 7 lbs in 7 days, or his Iphone app 7lbs in 7 days (to follow along, get great advice, amazing recipes etc)

 

So you're considering juicing in January with us? Here's a few reasons why I do it:

• You feel fabulous!
• Great way to jump start weight loss
• A quick way to get rid of toxicity in the body (especially after Christmas and holiday foods this season)
• Get a ton of minerals and nutrients to your body quickly with juicing

So what's my plan?

I've signed up for the world's biggest juice detox to start on the 7th and end on the 13th of January. I'm also going to start the Daniel Fast on January 1st. That way my body will be prepared for the juice fast. After the juice fast I'm going to continue the Daniel fast until January 21st. Not only will I be starting off the year right with healthy habits and spending the 1st 21 days of the year restraining from my sweet treats to focus on the Lord and hear his direction for my year and life. 

Want to be part? Follow this blog. I will be posting each day a video or post. Also, follow our group Greener living moms to get encouragement and feedback from other juicers during the journey. 

Live in Pensacola? We'll be going out for juice once during the week as a group at Everman. There's strength in numbers. we can do it together. 

My Favorite Loaf of Bread yet...

I've made about 1/2 a dozen loaves of bread in my breadmaker since I've been grinding my own flour. Most of them have seemed pretty dense, not really light and fluffy. The loaf of bread I made today is definitely the lightest, fluffiest, homemade bread I've ever made in the bread maker with my own ground flour.

It's called: Light Oat Bread. I got the recipe from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

It ended up a little lop sided, but tasted delicious, light and fluffy!

• 1 1/4 cups of warm water
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup rolled oats ground
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dry active yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt

The best news was that my family LOVED it too!

Old Fashioned Popcorn

I absolutely love a yummy snack while watching TV or a movie. Popcorn is definitely one of my favorite snacks. Growing up as a child, my family had a popcorn maker. You'd plug it in, pour your popcorn kernels in it, and popcorn would come out the other side.

 Then we would get bags of popcorn to pop in the microwave. I'll never forget when "Movie Theater flavored butter Popcorn" came out to pop at home. My family was literally in heaven. Every Thursday night we'd rent Blockbuster movies, order pizza, and make some "movie theater flavored butter popcorn" at home! We couldn't believe we could make that kind of popcorn at home without going to the theater. What a treat, and such fond memories I have.

Now that I'm the mom and have a family of my own, we have family movie night once a week. We try to pick a movie that the whole family will enjoy (including my youngest who's two). We make pizza at home, and lately have been wanting to find a better alternative to making popcorn in the microwave in a bag. It's really full of...for lack of a better word: 'junk'. I was at Everman, our local  co-op grocery store and discovered that you can buy organic popcorn kernels pretty cheap in bulk. I bought some and brought it home and put it in a glass jar. So it's ready when we're ready to make popcorn:

Here's how I make it:

• I put some oil in a pot on the stove
• I pour about a 1/4 of popcorn kernels in the pot
• Put the lid on the pot so the popcorn doesn't pop out
• Wait for it to pop
• Once it slows down popping, bring it off the stove and pour the kernels in a bowl
• Add your seasonings: like cinnamon/sugar, dill & garlic salt,  butter and salt etc. The options are endless! I love homemade popcorn

The best part about making homemade organic popcorn is you know exactly what you're putting in your body! No junk, no additives, no chemicals, and definitely no GMO's!   I promise you that making it at home, takes no more than 3 minutes. Which is exactly how much time it takes to make it in the bag in the microwave. So why not make it on the stove as a MUCH healthier and cheaper option?

 Try it! I'd love to hear what you think. 

Cheesy Bread, a total flop...literally

I decided to up the ante with baking bread in the bread maker, from making simple regular whole wheat bread to a Cheesy bread. It honestly isn't that much harder. It really is just adding a couple extra ingredients.
I followed the directions completely! I put the ingredients in the bread maker just the way it said. I should've stopped there....however I have these instincts when it comes to cooking. Like to add a dash of 'this' or 'that', however whenever I get these instincts, I need to ignore them. They're ALWAYS WRONG! I keep thinking I can substitute 'this' ingredient for 'that.' Or 'this' seems like a good idea, however IT NEVER IS! I don't know why I never inherited the cooking gene, I just didn't.

So this is what happened:

The bread maker said 40 minutes left. It was on the last cycle for it to rise. So I opened the bread maker lid and thought, wouldn't it be great to put a layer of cheese on top of the bread? I would love to slice into a loaf of cheesy bread that has a layer of cheese on top. Doesn't that sound yummy? Can't you taste the ooey gooey cheese now? Well I put some cheese on top and then lowered the lid. I opened up the bread maker 40 minutes later to discover a TOTAL FAIL...or should I say flop!

The bread couldn't rise with the heavy cheese on top. So lesson learned...I should perhaps wait until the bread is completely finished baking to then add a layer of cheese. My poor looking bread, what a sad sight!

Despite the appearance of the bread, it did taste pretty good!

Churning Butter!?!?!?!

It honestly started as a joke. A few weeks before my 31st birthday I mentioned to my family I wanted a grain mill for my birthday, so I could start grinding my own flour. My parents joked that next I'd want to start churning my own butter too!  I laughed, but didn't say anything. The thought kind of stuck with me. How does one churn their own butter in this modern age? I found quite a few youtube videos that show you how to make butter. One of the things that shocked me is that Heavy whipping cream and butter are almost exactly the same! The only things I needed to make butter were: Organic Heavy whipping cream and my kitchenaid Stand Mixer.

Here are the steps I followed:

1. ALL you need is heavy cream!
2. Pour it into your kitchenaid mixer
3. Use the whisk attachment, and put it on high
4. Whisk until it looks like whipped cream...keep on going until it looks more like butter wading in milk
5. Strain the buttermilk out of the butter, so that the butter doesn't go rancid. But save the buttermilk for waffles, or pancakes.
6. Pour in a bit of water, and whisk some more
7. Strain out the water
8. put the butter in the fridge

1/2 a container of heavy whipping cream, after 10 minutes of whipping it in the kitchenaid mixer. It separated into buttermilk and butter. 

The finished product: delicious organic butter!

So why am I making my own butter? Well for a few reasons:

• To know exactly what is in my butter: (1 ingredient, organic whipping cream)
• To try my hand at making it, to see if it's something I could consider as part of my regular routine
• To save money, organic butter is quite pricey.
• Best part of all: it's extremely simple to do! Anyone can do it.

Tonight, I'm trying it on some homemade bread.