Ramble On

Straight up coconut flour waffles, no fancy stuff, no extras, just waffles.

Yum.  I've been craving these for years.

1/4 cup plain yogurt
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tbs coconut flour
2 tsp oil
2 tsp honey

Plug in your waffle maker to preheat and gather up the ingredients. Add everything to a bowl in order, just dump it all in. Mix using a whisk until everything is combined. 

Once your waffle iron is ready scoop out some of the batter into the middle of the waffle iron and sort of spread it to the ends. This batter is runny so it will be very easy to over flow your waffle maker! I usually use about 3 tablespoons of batter per waffle but this is vary by the size of your waffle iron. Close the lid and let the waffle maker do it's thing.

Spread the batter around the waffle iron

Remove with a fork, be careful not to burn yourself that sort of ruins the day if you do that first thing int he morning.


For toppings I added a few slices of -real- butter (SCD legal) and honey which I heated in the microwave on high for 30 seconds.

Enjoy!

Cranberry sauce is one of my favorite things about the holidays. The last couple of years I felt bad for myself as the dish was passed around the table but this year I decided to take matters into my own hands and come up with a recipe so I could eat some too.

I had a couple of requirements:
1) It still had to be a little tart, I wanted it to actually taste like cranberries
2) I had to be able to make it the night before.

A word of caution: this is an advanced SCD recipe. Cranberries have tiny little seeds and skins, if you don't think your gut can handle this please don't try! You could try straining the sauce through a fine mesh strainer but I do not know how that will work out. 



SCD Legal Holiday Cranberry Sauce
serves 12
2 12oz bags of fresh cranberries
2 cups orange juice
1 cup honey
1 tbs cinnamon (optional)
2 tbs orange zest (optional)

Rinse your cranberries and check for any rotten ones or stems or anything that looks like you don't want to eat it.

In a large pot combine everything and bring to a boil over medium heat, reduce to a simmer. Stir occasionally until all the cranberries have burst.

Turn off the heat the sauce will get thick as it cools. Store in the fridge until you're ready to eat it.

That's it.

You can add whatever spices you want, orange zest, cinnamon, ginger to name a few, which is why I listed the cinnamon and orange zest is optional but these things really make it taste special. 

The cranberry sauce turned out fabulously. I actually ended up making it twice since we barely had any left overs after Thanksgiving dinner. I'm working on writing up the recipe and I will post it very shortly. It's an advanced SCD recipe, meaning that you should have been the diet for a while before eating it. There is nothing illegal about it, and it's quite easy, but cranberries have a lot of little seeds and the skin of the berries might be hard to digest at first. So there's that.

My baby nephew was here over Thanksgiving and during his tummy time he spent some time on my blanket. So now I have an actual baby on my actual blanket. I'm excited. He seemed to like it, he's only 5 weeks old so he was into the black and red colors. He's a sweetheart (and I'm not at all biased). 

I've been super busy this last couple of weeks since I got some commission work for a set of Christmas stockings and several head pieces. I'm hoping to have everything shipped out by this Friday but I still have quite a bit of work to do, just odds and ends. I'm excited about having the opportunity and hopefully everyone is happy with my work!  I'm thinking about trying to get some stuff together in Octber of next year and maybe selling some already finished object via my facebook page or etsy. People don't tend to want to buy in July but as soon as mid Nov hits everyone wants something! It would be a lot easier for me if I had some stock handy. Initially I wanted to do that this year but I got really busy with other things and it went on the backburner. Of course I also talked myself out of it since I was convinced that no one would pay the price I wanted for my stockings or other items (obviously, I was wrong).

I've found it's a lot easier to just give up before you start instead of quitting I guess, because if you don't even try there is no risk of failure. It's a sad way to live, and I'm determined to not do that to myself anymore. Good things happen if you work hard and put yourself OUT THERE.

This past weekend we traveled back to my home town to attend a birthday party for my friend's little girl (she turned 4!) and we stopped by to see my other friend's 8 month old daughter. We went out to dinner as well, and I didn't get sick. Huzzah!

I'm so excited to report that I ate at Perkins, had the make-your-own omelet (with mushrooms, spinach, and tomatoes) and fruit as a side. It wasn't the best omelet I've ever had but it was filling, and as I said before, I did not get sick.

Do I plan to keep doing this? After not eating out for over year all of the sudden I've eaten out three times in the past two weeks! No I don't plan on continuing to do this. 1) we just can't afford it lol and 2) it still makes me nervous. I did promise the kids that I would take them out for lunch before they go back to school, but we'll see.

In Knitting news, I finished my Daughter's birthday unicorn


I know that's very exciting, but I love to knit and if I don't share it with the blog world then I really don't have anyone else to talk to about it. Sorry ya'll!

I made it! I'm 29! Well I was as of Saturday. I baked an Orange Cream cake on Friday night after it cooled off. It was 111 on Friday while hubs was driving home from work. I kids and I spent the day inside blissfully unaware of the temps.

On Saturday my dad invited us bowling, I actually won a game. This was the first time I've bowled since I was in high school, up until now my wrists always hurt I couldn't even pick up a bowling ball. Just to be safe I used some of the lightest balls but I was fine and I bowled several strikes, which surprised me to no end!

After bowling my husband made dinner, steaks on the grill, mushrooms, watermelon, strawberries and my cake for dessert. He also did the dishes. It was a wonderful day.

I kept thinking about how far I've come from last year when I was still in shock over my hospitalization and awaiting a diagnosis. I really believe that getting that diagnosis saved my life (more about this later). Looking back over the last year I am truly blessed in my life and so thankful for all the support not only from my family but everyone on the web in the alternative medicine community that provides support for these diets that really do heal people.

yes that is Kermit on my shirt

This year has been crazy, and I'm not talking about 2011 in general but this past year from July '10 - July '11. This month marks my one year diagnosis with Crohn's. I feel a lot better, in fact better than I have in years. I hope this continues and I really feel like I have myself to thank for this (so much for being humble) and God of course, who give me the strength to do this. I pray every night for the resolve to stick to my diet to be healthy, and to be a good mama for my children.

So that sort of sounded like an awards speech, which is not what I was intending. I'm just grateful, so very grateful for the chance to feel good, and like a normal person, to not be walking around in pain every day and so very grumpy. I love my life, my kids, my husband and I hope that there are good things to come for me and my family in the future.

I'm trying to put myself out there now that my health is stabilized and I feel like I can make it a priority. My sample got mailed off to the publisher, which was a huge step for me, fear has held me back all my life and I can't let it do that any more. I don't want my children to grow up thinking that it's okay to just give up on what they want because it's scary or it gets hard. That's not what life is about and I'm just learning this now! I hope that I can be a good example for them, it's taken me long enough to get here.

left overs for dinner, pity me :-)

I've found that eating in the summer is so much easier. The photo is what I had for dinner last night. Grilled portobello mushrooms, zucchini, and a crab. The veg was marinated in olive oil, sea salt, pepper, and garlic. The crab was rubbed with SCD legal  spices (surprisingly enough I picked it up in the club pack section of Wegmans, all the ingredients were legal!) including thyme, cinnamon (yes!), red and black pepper, sea salt, and cumin. These were actually left overs from Saturday night when we had a big lobster boil. I was able to eat everything on the table except for the bread and the potatoes, however, who wants to fill up on that stuff when there is lobster, shrimp, clams, crabs, and grilled veg? 

I cooked all the raw sea food, just steamed it until it was done and we boiled the lobsters. My husband grilled the veg and these crabs (they needed reheated) I ate until I couldn't eat any more. A couple of hours later we had strawberries that I had sliced earlier and put in the fridge with about a cup of honey poured over top. I ate mine with yogurt, everyone else had their atop vanilla ice cream. Topping the fresh strawberries with honey made the best tasting strawberries I've had in a long time. I found before, in my previous life (before SCD) that slicing strawberries and then pouring a bunch of sugar on them didn't really work since it always ended up gritty and just not sweet enough the honey method is so much better and no one complained.

yummy legal fruit!

I love using fruit as a dessert especially chilled melons, SCD legal and a crowd pleaser at any event or meal. You just can't go wrong with it, my 2 year old even eats it, which is amazing, she's a little picky.


Did I leave this family event feeling hungry and left out? No. Of course we made too much food and have leftovers that need to be eaten (by like tonight) and I got really sweaty standing over boiling/steaming water in the kitchen but it was totally worth it to enjoy the evening with my family enjoying a meal we could all eat.

Just a warning: this is a Crohn's heavy entry, I'm talking about poop, and gas here! 


I inadvertently put myself into what I'm calling a mini-flare on Saturday night/Sunday morning. I'm still feeling the effects right now. It's odd, because as of right now my bowel movements are formed, and I only had two bouts of loose stool. The real issue I'm having is joint pain, mostly in my wrists, which is the area that has been the most effected by my disease.

My husband had taken my kids camping, we live in a state park so the camping area is just a short four mile drive from our house. It has been cold lately so he didn't want our 2-year-old staying over night in the tent. I don't camp (I'm allergic to about seven types of tree pollen being in the woods is misery even with medication), so I shuttled her back and forth between the house and the campsite. I showed up Saturday night for a campfire and brought along a 2lb bag of baby carrots, between my dad and I we ate all of them.

Now here's the thing: I've always had issues with carrots. I can eat a few of them with no problems, raw or cooked, but more than a few (and I'm talking more than like 5) I get gas and painful cramping. I don't know how many I ate on Saturday night but by 1 AM Sunday morning I woke up with the most horrible pain I have ever felt in my life. I've given birth three times, twice without any sort of medication, this pain was worse than that. I instinctively felt my stomach to see if there was any swelling, on my right side there was a hard lump. I could feel and see my intestines through my skin, I could literally put my fingers around it. I was so scared. Of course the only person in the house that could come to my rescue was my 2-year-old daughter so I didn't make a noise. After googling bowl obstructions on my ipod and seeing if I could still fart (I could!), eventually I found a position that wasn't too uncomfortable and willed myself back to sleep, the pain had lessened but I was feeling pretty nauseous at this point. Several times through out the night I woke up again, in pain, the mass had moved and it seemed like every time it was trying to "go around a corner" I would have this pain. Finally around 6AM I had a bowel movement, which was completely orange and pretty loose. After that I was able to go back to bed for a couple of hours until the baby got up.

On Sunday I was nauseous pretty much the entire day and my stomach was sore, like I had been doing crunches all night. I had another lose bm that afternoon, again, carrots. I also noticed the my wrists started to hurt around that time. I realized then that I must be having some sort of flare, my crohn's was angry that I got cocky and ate too many damn carrots. I ate very little solid food on Sunday I stuck to smoothies, bananas, water, and tea. By Monday I forced myself to attempt to eat all my calories since I came in about 500 short on Sunday (I just could not bring myself to eat). Monday was okay, I had no bms that day and no gut pain, gas though and wrist pain.  Today, my wrists are still feeling a bit sore but other than that everything is normal, 2 bms today and all formed.

I guess I got too comfortable with the diet and what I could and could not eat. Even though carrots are "safe" they aren't so safe for me personally. This disease is so humbling, you just never know what's going to happen.

As of now I'm completely off of carrots, the thought of them makes me feel sick.

I just absolutely do not believe that it's June! May seemed fast, and slow at the same time. I'm glad that school is going to be out for the summer next week, at the same time I'm nervous to try to entertain these kids all summer. Right now I have ten minutes, to type this entry, before I need to start dinner. The baby is asleep (finally) I've been trying to get her to take a nap for the past two hours, sort of frustrating. I have nine days to finish my knitting sample, and for a few of those days my husband is taking my kids camping which means I'll have our 2-year-old all to myself (which means nothing will get done).

It being June also means that next month is the anniversary of my hospitalization and subsequent diagnosis with Crohn's. I really do feel much better than I have in years, but I'm also nervous. I'm honestly terrified of going somewhere with out a bathroom. I'm afraid to just go somewhere, anywhere, on a whim without planning it all out. We haven't been out to eat, and I haven't stayed overnight anywhere that didn't have a dedicated kitchen for nearly a year now. I realize that I can't keep living like this but I'm not sure how to get over it.

Getting on the antidepressants and anxiety meds was the first step but I'm still wary of changing my routine. This is working, for now, and I'm afraid to change it because I don't want to get sick. It all comes down to that. I don't want to be sick, who wants to be sick?! It's always in the back of my mind, every cramp, every noise, every time I pass gas (yeah who wants to talk about that?!) I'm afraid that my Crohn's is going to flare, even though it hasn't. I feel like the further away I get from my last flare I become more terrified of the one that's coming. I haven't heard of anyone that gets out of this with only having one flare and one hospitalization. I'm terrified of going off of the SCD and adding things back in. The closer it gets to my big one year mark the more nervous I get.

I know I don't have to go off my diet at all, I'm in charge of what I put in my mouth, but I'm feeling a lot of pressure to do so.  A lot of things I've read have suggested that most people who have been on the diet successfully for some time have been able to go out to eat and have one meal completely off diet very occasionally (about once a month).  My kids really want to go to Pizza Hut on Tuesdays when they have the all you can eat buffet. When I think about going there I end up analyzing every ingredient in something I might eat. If I have a slice of pizza that's not just one thing that's not currently on my diet, it's several! Milk, lactose, sugar, gluten, several grains, probably soy. I could go and just not eat, or have a salad with out dressing (or cheese since the shredded bagged stuff is covered in cornstarch to keep it from sticking together), but I won't really enjoy it because I'm so paranoid about cross contamination and the fact that it's Pizza Hut, there's flour flying through the air there!

Besides if I'm going to go have a meal completely off diet, I'd rather eat my grandma's perogies or her fried fish at least I know for sure what goes into those things even if they are completely not something I should eat right now.

Every day at 11:30ish I make this smoothie. Why 11:30? I have no idea. I've never been good at eating breakfast. I usually just have tea, feed my kids, and do a bit of house work then I might have another cup of tea and check my email. It never fails that by the time I'm actually feeling hungry and wander out to the kitchen it's about 11:30 *shrug*

Banana Sunrise Smoothie

2 frozen bananas
1/2 cup orange juice (fresh squeezed, no pulp)
1/2 cup plain yogurt (homemade)
honey to taste - honestly I sometimes don't put any honey in it at all, the OJ and bananas are enough to sweeten the yogurt.

blend until smooth. Yum!

My favorite way to make burgers in my previous life (before SCD) was to throw in a packet of french onion soup mix. Well that's not allowed anymore so I came up with a recipe that tastes pretty dang close to what I remember them tasting like. Instead of fries I served some roasted carrots and cauliflower on the side. It was so good. I'm actually drooling a little bit right now thinking about it.  If you want to make this full meal you need to prepare the veg first so I'm going to go into that recipe first.



Roasted Cauliflower and Carrots (serves 8, depending on the size of your veg)
1 whole head of cauliflower
4 large carrots
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
sea salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
Break apart the cauliflower into florets. These will shrink a bit so don't worry about making them bite size. Peel your carrots and cut them down to baby carrot size. Toss in olive oil, sea salt, and pepper.
Spread the veg out on a jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with a rim) and bake for 40 minutes.

French Onion Burgers
(makes 8 burgers)

2lbs ground beef
1 tbs dried onions
1 tsp parsley
2 cloves grarlic
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper

Mix everything together and form into patties. Grill until you're happy with them. Top with legal cheese, lettuce, tomato, anything you can tolerate!

There's a lot I need to do but not much that I've been doing.

Actually, that's not true. I have been doing a lot, just not a lot of blogging. I have a couple new recipes that are ready to be shared, with photos, my laptop broke (the one with the SD slot to upload said pictures) the LCD screen failed so it's now hooked up to a monitor in my bedroom. Do you want to know how often I get the chance to go into my bedroom to get online? Yeah. 

Just this week my 2-year-old has decided her new bedtime is 11PM, which is when I have to go to bed or be a zombie in the morning. On top of that it's finals week and my husband is working over time at the university covering finals. He's also starting back to grad school in a few weeks. So we've been busy.

In Crohn's related news, I've been successfully eating raw veg for the last couple of weeks with no ill effects. You have no idea how happy this makes me! I've also added grape juice (which is legal early on in the diet but I always had problems with) with no problems. I'm mixing it with water or seltzer diluting it by 50%. Loving it. I've also started eating strawberries, yes with those tiny little seeds, and have started to add orange juice. I'm doing well. I'm so pleased! 

I had a busy and highly stressful month in April and I'm hoping that May will be calmer. I'm going to make time, hopefully this weekend (probably on Sunday) to do some proper updates, upload some pictures, and type up those new recipes. Finals are over on Saturday so things should be "back to normal" or as close as they can be soon.

It's snowing right now. No I don't want to talk about it.
What I do want to talk about is my dental appointment yesterday. Since I was diganosed with Crohn's I've become super paranoid about my teeth. Before my diagnosis I never really flossed on a consistent basis and I didn't brush every night either, I never really had major issues with my teeth until I was pregnant with my second child I was very ill for months and my back molars got holes in them, yes holes, right along the gum line.

It was awful. I had to wait until she was six months old (and not nursing every two hours) to get them fixed and at that time I ended up having a total of 9 cavities all at once after not having any ever, my entire life up to that point. It happened so quickly, I had been at the dentist for a regular check up a few months before I got pregnant. I was 22 at the time and that was right around the time when my Crohn's symptoms started in earnest, of course I didn't know what was going on with me back then. I just figured things were changing, I had two kids, I was tired, that was normal. It wasn't. My teeth weren't the only thing that should have been a warning sign for me but back then I didn't know what I should be looking for.

But back to now: I had dental appointment yesterday and I have to admit I was nervous. I have been brushing twice a day (carefully, don't push too hard your you'll do more harm then good!) and flossing once a day before bed. I haven't been using any sort of fluoride rinses or anything because I'm not really convinced they would do anything and they have added sugars (what the heck?!). So I went and everything was fine! The tech was really impressed with my teeth, I got xrays done and everything looked good with those too. She was also really supportive of my diet, which made me feel really good about what I'm doing.

I know, I shouldn't care what other people say or think and for the most I don't because I believe that I'm doing the right thing for my body and for my health but it was nice to have some support from someone in the medical community. The health of your teeth and gums is so telling and important to your over all health and it's something to take seriously.

I got sick. I'm feeling much better this morning but yesterday was a lost day. I absoutely hate throwing up. Ugh.

I got up this morning and baked myself a batch of bread, and crushed some ice (always always had crushed ice when I was sick) and pouted because I really wanted a ginger ale.

So I googled and I found this recipe for an SCD legal ginger ale and I could not get it made fast enough. You guys, it's awesome. I have a glass beside me right now and I'm trying to pace myself drinking it. I also going to make a pot of ginger and lemon tea and see how that is chilled mixed with seltzer but for now, this stuff is awesome.

The good news is that I had absolutely no Crohn's involvement with this fluish illness. I'm so grateful for that.

This will make approx 6 pieces of French Toast. I usually make two pieces for myself and store the rest of the batter in the fridge for another time. It'll keep for about three days in the fridge. You're going to need bread for this preparation and since I can not eat nuts I've used souffle bread, and coconut flour bread. You can use anything you'd like though, it'll work with any sort of bread. For my family if we're all eating French Toast, I make my portion first and then use the remaining batter for the rest of the crew. Everyone likes it.


In the photos I'm sharing I've used souffle bread.

French Toast Batter
1 egg
1/4 cup yogurt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla



Place in a hot pan and allow to cook until the side that is down has browned. Flip (like a pancake) and cook until the other side is brown.


Syrup
Go ahead and put about 1/3 of a cup of honey into a microwave safe dish, make sure it's tall because honey likes to climb, and microwave it for approx 30 sections to break the honey and create a syrup. Yum!

I didn't set out to be a success story for any diet or lifestyle or anything like that. I started on this journey to get better and to reclaim my life. I'm so happy that SCD is working for me thus far, I'm happy with how far I've come comparing my life now to my life before the diet, it's so much better. So much better in fact that I now refer to my life before diagnosis as my "previous life".

I've mentioned before that I've suffered from depression for many years as well as carpal tunnel syndrome. Now that I've been on the diet for a considerable amount of time those symptoms too have lessened, which is amazing to me. My wrist pain kept me from doing things that I wanted to do, it kept me from knitting, it kept me from cooking, writing, and picking up my children. That pain is gone now, just gone! It took months for this to happen but as I continued to follow SCD it has gradually diminished. I now can knit for several hours a day, I'm cooking a lot (obviously!), and I'm picking up my kids, well at least the ones that I can lift (the 5-year-old is teetering on the edge of that right now, 9 year old is nearly as tall as me so..).

As far as my depression. I can say that it's less sever than it has been in years. It's still there, lingering, I know it's something that I will struggle with for the rest of my life but now that I'm reclaiming my digestive health I feel like my mental health is also improving. I go outside and play with my kids now, something I never did much of simply because I was too tired. It was a vicious cycle. I was tired, so I didn't go out and play with the kids, then I felt bad about it, so I'd cry, and that would make me more tired. No good.

I went on this diet and started this journey to lessen my Crohn's symptoms. I had no idea taking care of my gut would improve the rest of my health. I'm so grateful that I took the chance and tried the diet. It is hard but it's doable.  I'm so grateful for the people who've gone through this before me that showed me that it could be done and now hopefully, I'm showing others that they can do it as well.

Here's what I want to say: It's easy to get upset, to beat yourself up, to stop taking care of yourself, of your family, your finances. It's easy to give up. Facing a diagnosis, whatever it is, is hard. But please, please try to find the positive in your situation. Don't let your diagnosis take you, you're more than just this disease.

Tomorrow, I will be posting a guide to French Toast including a SCD legal batter recipe. I will post links for breads that will work with it (I also think my banana bread would be really good as French Toast as well but it's not something I've personally tried yet, adding it to my list!) 

I've been making stew that features butternut squash as a sub for potatoes and it's a pretty dang good one. The recipe only calls for half a butternut squash so I always have some left over which I chop up and store in one of my beloved lock n' lock containers in the fridge until I'm ready for a snack. I think this would be really good for breakfast along with some over-easy eggs. Yum.

Oven Roasted Butternut Squash Home Fries

1/2 of a peeled, de-seeded and chopped butternut squash
tablespoon olive oil
sea salt & pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Toss the squash in the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread out on a jelly roll pan and place in your oven for about 45 minutes  to an hour. It's going to depend on how thick your pieces of squash are. I actually sort of prefer them on the burnt side cause I like the crunch.

After I'm done shooting off the list of things that I don't eat I'm often asked what exactly I do eat.

Well, actually, I eat a lot. I'm supposed to keep a food journal but I don't do it consistently, I'm like that. I'll be all into doing it for about an hour in the morning until I get busy with my kids, misplace my notebook, don't like to type on my (broken) ipod, etc etc. I do know what I ate/drank yesterday though just to give you an idea.

• Water (lots, I'm only putting it here once though)
• Peppermint tea with a tsp of honey (about 3 cups)
• 1 slice SCD legal cheese cake (made with full fat yogurt, and dry curd cottage cheese)
•  Smoothie made with 1 cup of full fat yogurt, 2 bananas, tablespoon of honey 
• decaf tea with a tsp of honey 
• coconut water
• Slice of SCD legal meat loaf (from Grain Free Gourmet, which is made with 90% lean ground meat, and loads of veggies: red pepper, celery, carrots as the binder)
• Apple cider
• seltzer water  
• Roasted chicken legs (2), pureed cauliflower
• 3 slices sharp cheddar cheese
• frozen peach slices, thawed, with cinnamon

Today I am introducing beans that have been soaked over night and fully cooked into my diet with the chicken chili recipe from Grain-Free Gourmet. Hopefully I'm able to tolerate them because that will be a great source of calories and protein for me.

I am trying to gain weight. I haven't lost that much in the grand scheme of things. I weighted 135lbs when I was admitted to the hospital in July, as of today I weigh 112lbs. I am 5'4". Once I stopped growing I pretty consistently weighted about 120lbs all throughout high school and college. I'd like to get close to that again it just seems impossible to keep any weight on right now.



Overall I'm feeling really good but the sight of my slight frame is starting to bother me. My hips stick out too much and my ribs are very apparent. The first thing my friend said to me when she saw me was, "What happened to your boobs?" I'd like to know too. I suppose this is the next step in this journey for me.

Now that I've posted a ton of recipes that are heavy on the coconut flour I'm going to try to do more things without it. Over the next couple of weeks I'm hoping I can come up with some alternative desserts (and maybe some meals) that don't use any sort of flour at all. I'm not saying it's going to work out, but I'm going to try!

Posting a recipe every day is hard and I've only been doing it for (almost) two weeks. I know I can't keep up this pace because, frankly, I'm running out of recipes that are done. I'm simply not going to post something that I don't know is going to work that would be irresponsible of me and I can't do that.

Not every recipe I create works out so well.

If I could spend the day in the kitchen experimenting (and had some hired help to clean up the mess) I would but I am a mom first and foremost and while I love cooking and baking I have to realistic about it. I do call it "working" but at this point it's actually a hobby and taking care of my family comes first.

No I'm not going anywhere, I think what I'm doing right now is important and I plan to continue to do it, I'm just trying to explain where I'm coming from. I'm figuring things out right now trying to find some balance between everything I'm doing and what I'd like to be doing in the future.

I wasn't going to post this cause I figured that everyone "knew" how to do this. Then I thought about it for a while and I realized that I didn't know how to make soup when I was first starting out cooking, I just sort of figured it out as I went a long so I would have had loved to have some direction.  I'm a haphazard cook. I never measure anything and keep tasting and adding things until something "tastes right" so this is more of a "soup guide" than an actual recipe.You can really put anything you want in it, if you like broccoli, add it, if you love onions, add them.


Stock:
carcass of one roasted chicken (I usually roast a 5lb chicken)
one onion, quartered
1 carrot, peeled and broken in half
sea salt & pepper to taste
enough water to cover

You're going to need a very tall pot. Bring to a boil then lower heat to a simmer and cover for 3 hours. Strain broth, discard the onion and carrot. Remove any meat from the carcass and refrigerate the broth if you aren't going to use it right away.

Chicken and Veggies Soup serves 6:
Homemade chicken stock
1 large carrot peeled & sliced
1 stalk celery sliced very thin
1 zucchini julienned (avoid the seeds)
5 button mushrooms, sliced
sea salt & pepper to taste
cooked chicken meat

Put all your soup ingredients into a pot and bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer until the veg is as soft as you'd like it. That's it. Taste your broth and adjust the seasonings.