Last Day for the Homesteading Bundle

There is only one more day to purchase the Homesteading Bundle of 7 ebooks for $12.97. This sale ends on Monday May 20, 2013.

Click Here to Purchase the Homesteading Bundle!

The Homesteading Bundle from my affiliate partner, the Nourished Living Network, includes a total of 7 eBooks for only $12.97. This bundle is available for ONE WEEK ONLY, from May 13, 2013 until May 20, 2013. The complete list of titles in the bundle is:

• Pioneering Today: Faith and Home the Old-Fashioned Way by Melissa Norris
• Whether you live in the middle of the asphalt jungle or on the side of a mountain, you can experience the pioneer lifestyle and start your own homesteading journey. This book explains practical and easy methods to cook from scratch, garden, and preserve your own food. 
• Making Hand Milled Soap for Fun and Profit by Susan Godfrey
• This book includes instructions and 52 recipes to teach you how to make your own designer soaps at home! It also includes many tips and resources for making a profit selling them!
• Livestock Guardian Animals by Jim Mitchell
• Learn how donkeys, llamas, and livestock guardian dogs deal with threatening predators. Read about the instincts, abilities, and limitations of each type of livestock guardian. Then evaluate your needs and make the right livestock guardian decision for your farm, ranch, or homestead.
• The Urban Chicken by Heather Harris
• This book will walk you through each step of the way to raising your own chickens, from choosing a breed, to where it will live, all the way to processing. This is an easy to read guide that will quickly expand your knowledge on how to produce fresh eggs and meat from your own backyard.
• Drawing Blood From Your Goats by Starlene Stewart
• This full instructional guide will walk you through the process of drawing blood from your goats, complete with photos, labeling instructions, how and where to send the blood for testing. Instead of calling out your local veterinarian and shelling out $, learn to draw blood yourself and save money on your homestead!

 And the bundle comes with a bonus of two free ebooks as well:

• Adventures with Kids! On the Farm from Stitching Hearts Together
• Beneficial Garden Wildlife: Attracting Helpful Small Animals to Your Yard and Garden from the Homestead Gardens Series

Click Here to Purchase the Homesteading Bundle!

Homemade Freezer Waffles (soaked whole grain : gluten-free : nutrient-dense)

Freezer waffles are one of my family's staple breakfast foods.  We make a very big batch once every 4-6 weeks, and then we have the convenience of eating them for breakfast any time we'd like. Whether topped with butter and syrup, butter and jam, or even nut butter and jam, we all love to eat waffles for breakfast.

Years ago, I made freezer waffles from soaked spelt and soaked oatmeal.  Now that we avoid gluten and try to limit most grains (since they can cause behavior problems in our daughter), I developed a new freezer waffle recipe based on millet, arrowroot, and coconut flour.  Even though I use whole millet in this recipe, a grain grinder is NOT required as a blender works wonderfully to grind the millet.

These waffles hold together well and can be warmed in the toaster oven or toaster.  Like most freezer waffles, they need to be watched carefully to make sure they don't burn. I've given recipe amounts for the both the huge batch that I make as well as a smaller amount in case you want to start with less.

Animals to Guard Livestock

For a few years, I've yearned to move where we could have enough land to keep goats and a
whole flock of chickens.  One thing I've wondered about is how to protect those animals from the natural predators in this area, which include coyotes, foxes, and even mountain lions if we were to move close to the nearby beautiful mountains. 


In Jim Mitchell's ebook Livestock Guardian Animals, there is a great amount of information on how to use guardian animals to protect livestock and property.  I was surprised to learn from this book that:

"Two species of guardians, donkeys and llamas, naturally dislike canines and are effective against wolves, coyotes, and marauding dogs."

The majority of this book focuses on livestock guardian dogs, which are distinctly different from herding dogs, companion dogs, and all-around farm dogs: 

Was the GAPS Diet Worth It?

If we were to do it all over again, would we still do the GAPS Diet? The answer may surprise you.

What is the GAPS Diet?

The GAPS Diet is recommended for curing all sorts of auto-immune problems, and in our family we wanted to cure problems such as eczema, allergies, joint pain, and poor immune system. The GAPS Diet is supposed to cure these conditions by healing the gut through a nourishing diet based on healthy fats (such as butter and coconut oil), meats, fruits, veggies, broth, and fermented foods. The GAPS Diet does not allow any grains or starches, and allows no sweeteners except honey.

My family started the GAPS Diet back in the late summer of 2010. We followed the GAPS Diet very strictly for over 16 months, and completed two rounds of the Intro Diet. Initially, we had amazing results, but over time on the diet some of our problems came back, and new problems developed. I posted some unexpected GAPS results here. A rundown on the positive results and set-backs for each of us is as follows:

GIVEAWAY! New App for Grain-Free Recipes - Nourished

I'm giving away 5 copies of Nourished, which is a new iPad/iPhone app that features 77 grain-free recipes.  This is a truly beautiful app that can make grain-free cooking easier.  The app features grain-free recipes from bloggers such as myself, plus plenty of recipes by Michele and Erik Spring (who developed the app). This app will work on any iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini, and iPod Touch running iOS 6.
 

Blueberry Banana Spiced Custard Cake (nutrient-dense : GAPS : primal : gluten-free : grain-free)

Custard cake (also known as clafoutis) is perfect for breakfast or brunch, and can even be dressed up for dessert. This blueberry banana version is spiced nicely with cinnamon and ginger.  The blueberries lend a sweet-tart, juicy flavor while the bananas and spices meld wonderfully together. Blueberry banana spiced custard cake can be served warm or cold, and can be topped with sweetened whipped cream for a special dessert.

Blueberry Banana Spiced Custard Cake

Serves 6 generously

• 12 Tb (1&1/2 sticks) butter
• 1/3 cup plus 2 Tb mild-flavored honey
• 6 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
• 3/4 cup sour cream  
• 1 Tb organic vanilla extract (or use homemade)
• 3/4 tsp organic almond extract (omit if using almond flour)
• 1&3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1&1/4 tsp ground ginger
• rounded 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 2 pinches ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp celtic sea salt
• 5 Tb coconut flour* OR 1/3 cup plus 2 Tb ground crispy almonds**
• 1 large ripe banana or 1&1/2 medium ripe bananas
• 1 cup frozen blueberries***

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat.  Turn off heat, add honey, and stir a bit.
2. In a large bowl, combine eggs, sour cream, vanilla, almond extract (if using), spices, and salt.  I like to use my immersion blender to mix it all up together, but you could certainly use a mixer instead.
3. Add melted butter and honey to wet ingredients and mix or blend.
4. Add almond flour OR coconut flour and blend until well-combined (or use mixer until smooth). Using the immersion blender is great because it further grinds the nut flour (which doesn't get particularly fine when I grind it in the food processor).

Our Adventures in Backyard Chicken Keeping

This article was originally published in the March/April 2013 issue of Real Food and Health magazine.

We Decide to Get Chickens

My family lives on a small suburban plot of less than 1/4 acre, and over the last five years we've dedicated more and more of our yard to growing our own fruits, herbs, and vegetables. In the hot, dry desert where we live, I'm not sure that gardening is any less expensive than buying local produce at the farmer's market. Much has to be done to improve our soil and frequent watering is required during the many warm months. Yet I feel that there is an intrinsic value in knowing how to produce our own food, and in observing the cycles of growth and decay in our own back yard. I want my children to know where their food comes from, and to learn the skills for producing their own food as they grow up. The next logical step was for us to get chickens.

I've never owned or cared for any farm animals, but with the encouragement and support of a chicken-keeping friend, we decided to take the plunge and get two baby chicks. Springtime comes with lots of baby chicks at our local feed stores, and we were overwhelmed by the loud sound of hundreds of baby chicks peeping. The baby chicks seemed unbelievably tiny and fragile, like irresistible little fluffballs. We selected one Plymouth Barred Rock (known to thrive in our desert climate) and one Araucana (known for their beautiful blue-green eggs). We drove home with the pleasant sound of cheeping emanating from a little cardboard box.

WINNERS of Diet Recovery 2 Books

There were over 70 entries to the giveaway for Matt Stone's Diet Recovery 2 book. I used a free random number generator to select the winners (nerdy, I know).

The winners are:

Most Important Tip for Making Enough Breastmilk

There are lots of tips out there for ensuring an adequate supply of breastmilk: drinking dark beer,eating oatmeal, taking herbal concoctions.  Sure, these may help, but there is one thing that is the most important to ensure an adequate supply of breastmilk:

 

Allow the baby unrestricted access to the breast.  The more the baby nurses, the more milk the mother will produce.

Supplemental feeding with formula, especially during the first 3 months of breastfeeding, can inadvertently sabotage a mother's milk supply. Additionally, bottle-feeding with pumped breastmilk can reduce the mother's milk supply.  Why?

Mother and baby have been perfectly designed to make breastfeeding work.  The more the baby stimulates the breasts, the more milk the mother makes. The more the baby is given something other than breastmilk, the less the baby is stimulating the mother's breasts, so the less milk that is produced.
Use of pacifiers can also result in a reduced supply of breastmilk. Pumping breastmilk does NOT stimulate the breasts the same way that a nursing baby does, so pumping rather than nursing can also reduce milk supply.  

I experienced this myself with my firstborn since I was still working outside the home.  I pumped breastmilk for about 15 months so that my daughter would be able to drink breastmilk while I was at work, but it was very obvious to me early-on that I was not able to pump very much.  If my daughter was nursing, the milk would just keep coming as long as she nursed (as evidenced by repeated let-down sensations and her vigorous swallowing).  But with pumping, I was only ever able to get a small amount of milk at a time.

 

What does unrestricted access to the breast look like?

GIVEAWAY - Two Copies of Diet Recovery 2 Book

Matt Stone from 180 Degree Health has generously agreed to give away two copies of his book Diet Recovery 2: Restoring Mind and Metabolism from Dieting, Weight Loss, Exercise, and Healthy Food.  One winner will receive the eBook format, and one winner will receive the audio book version 180 Platinum Collection). (which is not available for individual sale, and only normally available when you buy the

I bought this book for myself a few weeks ago, and am very excited to be able to share it with you.  In Matt's words,

Being healthy is a lot easier than you are making it out to be...

Diet Recovery 2 really is a “health book” too.  It contains a foolproof and fully up-to-date strategy for restoring optimal metabolic rate and overcoming the many health problems that can be caused by restrictive eating and attempts at forced weight loss.  Nothing, not even thyroid hormone drugs, are likely to raise your metabolism to the extent that following this general diet and lifestyle prescription will.  And it’s all very simple with no special foods to avoid, magic meal plans, “metabolism supercharging supplements,” or other crap.  Just the biggest results with the absolute smallest changes – none of them difficult or requiring willpower.  No wagons to fall off of.  No rebellious splurges right around the next corner.

With the help of Diet Recovery 2, you should not only be able to overcome your diet obsession and eat normally again, but you can also confidently expect to:

•  Raise your body temperature significantly – most returning to the normal 98.6 degrees F or above in just a few weeks
• Become “fat proof,” more or less incapable of gaining body fat eating whatever you want, in the quantity you desire, with or without exercise
• See major health improvements in areas that were being impaired by the metabolism-suppressing effect of restricted diets
• Learn how to make small changes in your diet to function properly in the main competencies of physical function – such as digestion, metabolism, sex drive and function, sleep, mood, dental health, and other primary places
• Completely eliminate all strong cravings for any and every food 100% in just a matter of weeks
• Eradicate binge eating, emotional eating, and other behaviors only seen when a person is consciously interfering with his or her food intake
• Receive simple guidance to get the benefits of exercise you’ve never been able to get, with just a fraction of the time and effort that you put into it in the past
• Actually see big improvements in how your body looks (more muscle, less fat, better proportions) a year or two down the road from having fully completed the diet recovery process

There are three ways to enter this giveaway:

• Leave a comment below including your location and your first and last name. Entries that do not include this information will be excluded from the drawing.*
• Pin this giveaway on Pinterest and then leave another comment to let me know that you have done so. 
• Share this giveaway on Facebook, and then leave another comment to let me know that you have done so.  

This giveaway will be closed to more entries on Tuesday April 9th.
I will randomly select 2 winners on Wednesday, April 10th. 

*In one of my previous giveaways, multiple people claimed the same entry.  To prevent that from happening again, I am requiring people to include both their first and last name, as well as their location.