Autumn is Officially Here and So Are All Things Apple and Pumpkin!

I cannot stress enough how much I love the Fall!!  Especially for one suffering from hot flashes, the cool, crisp air is a blessing from my precious Lord!  On that note, I am enjoying a cuppa of my homemade pumpkin coffee.  Yummy!  I simply put my favorite coffee, Chock Full Of Nuts, into my brewing basket.  To that I add about a teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 t. cloves, nutmeg, and ginger, with just a pinch of allspice.  I mix that around and voila!  Pumpkin Coffee!  Once that is poured into my favorite mug, I will often add sweetened condensed milk.  Wow!  So delicious!  This is to be savored sitting in a comfy chair, curled up under an afghan, with a good book in the peace and quiet.  Nice!

I have been busy dyeing roving and knitting swatches of my yarns for my shop.  Getting ready for the fall/winter selling season.  You never know what a yarn will look like when it's knit or crocheted.  Hopefully this will help.

Last evening, I discovered, what I think, is a wonderful Science website, Physics4kids .  They also have Geography4kids, Biology4kids, Chemistry4kids, and a link to a really good math site - Rader's NUMBERNUT.  My sweet hubby wants me to start teaching some serious science to our 4th grader, Ben.  So, we are going to start Physics.  Just a basic class - nothing too involved, but he wants Ben to have a general knowledge of motion, matter, speed of light, etc.  I am pretty convinced , right now, that I am definitely am going to go for DVD courses in science when he gets older.  I was pretty good in Biology, Earth Science and basic Physics, but to get an in depth education in Chemistry and Physics will require DVD teaching!

As far a our organic, healthy way of eating, it's coming along.  The trouble is leaving home.  When we go to anyone's home or church for meals, it's tough, mentally, to stay the course!  However, we are doing much better than we were a year ago.  Now,I am going to be forced to stick within my $60.00/week budget!  I will post my menu for this coming week, along with my grocery list.  Then, I'll let you know how I did staying in my budget.  I love the challenge!

Challenges

Ther are some challenges with going chemical/hormone free in your eating - namely cost and taste.  Yes, cost is what keeps a lot of families from going natural.  However, if you overcome cost, you are still left wanting in the area of taste-at least for a newbie.  I have 3 goals for my new c/h free lifestyle.  The first is to eat c/h free on a budget of $60.00 a week for a family of 4.  Secondly, I want to be able to prepare breakfast, lunch, dinner, desserts and snacks that my family will love.  Lastly, I want to share it all with my dear readers.  I want to eventually post menus with recipes and costs.  

For now, my success and failures in the past 2 days.  Homemade pineapple ice cream - UCK!  Ok, I followed a recipe for this one.  The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of liquid Stevia.  I thought that was a lot, but, hey, it's a recipe that someone has tried and liked!  I did use coconut milk in the place of evaporated milk, bot the aftertaste of the stevia was terrible!  It was not edible.  That was Monday evening.  This morning, I made an oatmeal casserole for breakfast.  Success!!!!  This was a winner.  Even my picky eater ate it! Here is the recipe:

1 organic apple cored and sliced

1 c. raisins

1/2stick of butter

2 eggs

1/2 c of maple syrup

2 T. wheat germ

2T. Flax seed or flour

3 c. oatmeal

2 t. baking soda

1t. sea salt

1 c. Vanilla Almond Milk

2 t. cinnamon

Grease a shallow casserole dish.  Layer the apples and raisins in the bottom.  Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a mixer.  Pour this mixture over the fruit.  Bake at 350° for 30 minutes. 

The apple, raisins, butter, eggs, wheat germ, oatmeal, and Almond Milk were organic.  Kroger has an organic brand that is relatively inexpensive.  I buy a lot of my groceries from Kroger.  They also have c/h free meat.  

This afternoon, I gave the ice cream another try.  This time I used honey instead of stevia.  I didn't add any fruit. I used vanilla almond milk in place of evaporated milk.  It was a lot beter, but not much taste.  We added some leftover breakfast casserole as a topping and it was really quite tasty.  Next time, I will add a little more honey and another teaspon of vanilla.  

As soon as I perfect the ice cream, I will share the recipe!  Coming tomorrow - Awesome Organic Chili!