Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are really delicious chocolate chip cookies that melt in your mouth and are actually on the healthier side! You won't feel so guilty feeding these to the kids, if there are any left!

Preheat oven to 350˚F

Ingredients: 

1 1/4 cups sprouted spelt flour

1/2 tsp no aluminum baking soda

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup organic butter

6 TBS xylitol

6 TBS coconut sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

In a bowl mix the flour, baking soda and salt. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter. Add the xylitol and coconut sugar beating until the mixture is creamy and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients, blending well. Add the chocolate chips and blend. Place parchment paper on cookie sheets and scoop dough by teaspoonfuls onto the paper. Give the cookies about 2 inches between dough balls. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Once baked, let the cookies cool for a minute or so on the baking sheet and then remove the whole paper and place onto cooling racks, cooling completely.

Yields 3 dozen cookies

Sauteed Swiss Chard

OK, so I love my green leafy vegetables, but not having grown up on Swiss Chard, I wasn't really sure how to cook the stuff. But, I am always drawn to it in the grocery store with the pretty colored stalks! 

"Look kids, you can get your green leafy veggies in pink, red, yellow, orange or white. What color would you like to eat tonight?!??"

After quite a few attempts at making this vivid veggie, I've finally come up with a family favorite recipe. My kids raved about it at dinner and my daughter even asked for some to be added to her school lunch box!

So, here's how I made a veggie dish that the kids adoreded:

Ingredients:

2 bunches of Swiss Chard

5 cloves of garlic

2 TB butter

1 TB grapeseed oil

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

2 TB balsamic vinegar

Directions:

Wash the Swiss Chard and pull the leafy part off of the stalks. Chop the stalks up into about 1 inch pieces. Chop up the leafy part into about 1 inch strips. Keep the stalks and leaves separated. Smash the garlic.

In a large Dutch Oven, melt 1 TB butter and the oil. Add the garlic and brown at about medium heat, taking care not to burn it and stirring frequently. Once browned, remove the garlic and add the Chard stalks and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the leafy part, browned garlic and remaining butter and saute an additional 5 minutes. Season with the black pepper and drizzle the balsamic vinegar over the greens before serving.

You will find that the stalks still have some crunch and if you chose colored Chard, it will retain it's beautiful vibrant shades.

Try out this recipe to get the kids to eat their veggies! 

Happy and Healthy Eating!

Homemade Toothpaste

Most of my posts thus far have been related to food, so I thought it might be time to post something about personal healthcare. I've been making homemade toothpaste now for about 6 months. Basically, we ran out of commercial toothpaste. We had been sustaining our oral health on all those little free samples from the dentist. I hadn't actually bought toothpaste in over a year with running out as a goal! Well, the day finally came when the last drop was squeezed out of the final tube and it was time to get into the kitchen and put something together.

Now, you are thinking, just as my Dad commented, why don't you just go to the store and buy some, it's so much easier? Well, I've been actively reading ingredients in everything that we have been using and eating over the last couple of years to try and better improve our lives and noticed all of the ingredients in toothpaste and some in particular that I try to avoid. Well, if I'm cutting things like Saccharin out of my families diets, why would I want to sneak it in via toothpaste?!? If you don't believe me, and you use a standard market toothpaste, read the ingredients.

3 ingredients in particular I'm disgusted with are:

1) Saccharin - an artificial sweetener that is carcinogenic and I don't use any artificial sweeteners nor buy products with this ingredient.
2) Sodium Laurel Sulfate - SLS as it is frequently referred to is a known carcinogenic. And again, when trying to improve my families health, I don't want to introduce carcinogens, it's just plain counter productive!
3) Fluoride - Now you think, all the toothpaste commercials and your dentist swear by fluoride. You need it to keep your teeth strong and healthy, right? Wrong. Fluoride is actually toxic and the form found in toothpaste is not natural, but chemically manufactured. Plus there is plenty of fluoride that you are exposed to in your daily lives. There's fluoride in your tap water, it's suppose to help your health, but I've known people that have had discoloration of their teeth from all of the fluoride in the drinking water that they were exposed to as children.

So, enough of my preaching on my soapbox, if you are interested in trying your own homemade toothpaste for health reasons or just for the heck of it, here's the recipe that I use and it's popular with my children:

Ingredients:
2/3 c baking soda
4 tsp fine sea salt
2/3 c powdered xylitol (blend in blender or food processor to powder)
2/3 c coconut oil
25 drops peppermint oil
10 drops tea tree oil
Filtered Water to reach desired consistency

Directions:
Mix all ingredients except the water in a bowl until well blended. Add a little water to thin it out as desired. Please note that the mixture will be thinner after you make it and will thicken as it sits. Also, coconut oil is liquid in warmer weather and solid in colder weather. This will affect the consistency. I like to add about 2 TB of water and then check it later in the day or the next day to see how the consistency is and adjust at that time. 

Once your toothpaste is made, I like to put mine in small container with a little scoop (like one for makeup) and scoop the paste on my brush. If you thin it out enough, you can also put some in a small self sealing bag and cut a small portion off of a corner and squeeze it on your toothbrush.

OK, now I'd like to explain my choice of ingredients.

Baking soda - well, everyone knows that baking soda is a great cleaner and I've used it with peroxide in the paste as a quick tooth cleaner, not all that tasty, but works in a jiffy.

Sea Salt - sea salt is much better than standard salt and makes a great abrasive. You'll find lots of recipes out there using salt as an abrasive in various cleansers.

Xylitol - this is a fabulous product and a main stay in my pantry. It inhibits plague and dental cavities by 80%, retards demineralization, promotes remineralization, increases salivary production, relieves dry mouth, has a cooling effect, and so much more. 

Coconut Oil - this is actually a really great heart healthy type of oil that should be incorporated into your diet. It's been shown to help the body fend off viruses and bacteria. It helps the body process blood sugars. It can help to reduce cholesterol via the lauric acid that it contains. It can help your metabolism and so much more.

Peppermint Oil - I like this for flavor, but it is also good for the digestion and a great aroma therapy ingredient.

Tea Tree Oil - This is another great essential oil that should be included in every medicine cabinet. It helps fight off viruses and bacteria and is great in toothpaste as a means of keeping the bad bacteria from growing that promotes bad breath.

I hope I've inspired you to give this homemade toothpaste a try! Happy brushing!