Quinoa Bean Pumpkin Pancakes and a Letter to the 14-year-old boy's football coach...

Dear 14-year-old boy's football coach,

Now Coach, let me preface this letter by saying that I have the utmost respect for you, as does the 14-year-old boy. You volunteer untold hours of your time to support these young people and enable them to develop important values such as teamwork, perseverance, sacrifice and responsibility. You take them on 6-hour road trips (each way) and somehow are able to control dozens of energetic, testosterone-driven young men every football weekend. I thank you for that.

Now, on to the nitty-gritty. As all coaches do, you want to encourage the players to be aggressive, which is an important skill in football. When a boy is about to make a tackle in practice, you may even sometimes say things to them that would encourage aggressive behavior, something inflammatory, like "Hey 14-year-old boy, you gonna have tofu for dinner tonight?" Perhaps comments like these do indeed initiate a more aggressive hit, which I'm all for, believe me. I want the team to win just as much as the next mom. These comments don't bother the 14-year-old boy, but he does come home and tell me what you say as humorous anecdotes.

Now, Coach, let's evaluate the health benefits of some of the vegetarian foods the 14-year-old boy eats for dinner, just to make sure he is ingesting enough protein to be an excellent football player for your team.

Did you know that teenage boys only need about 52 grams of protein per day? (HERE'S one of my references.) And adult men only 56? There's only one group of people that need more than that, and that's me, a lactating and/or pregnant mother.

Also, Coach, did you know that recent studies have shown that vegetable protein is easier to digest than animal protein? (One reference HERE.) That means that my 14-year-old boy will process that hummus or bean soup or wheat sprout protein faster than you'll process that 16-ounce porterhouse your beautiful wife puts on the grill for you on Saturday night. (I don't really know that you get a porterhouse every Saturday night, but I know you'd like to, and I also know that your wife is beautiful.) However, the 14-year-old boy will be skipping the saturated fat, but adding untold vitamins and minerals to his diet, vitamins and minerals that are largely deplete in steak. So, in essence, Coach, my 14-year-old boy, after eating his bean soup, will be stronger quicker than you will be after eating your steak.

So, Coach, just so you don't worry about the 14-year-old boy and his tofu, let me share with you an example of where he gets his daily protein requirements...

He starts off the morning with his favorite meal of all time, two PB and J sandwiches and a huge glass of milk. This meal alone contains 38 grams of protein! Yes, he could use more fruit and we're working on that.

Next, he comes home for lunch and may eat something like a bowl of 15-bean soup with some corn chips and a salad. This meal contains about 31 grams of protein, and depending on whether it fills him up or not, he'll make more PB and J sandwiches, which adds even MORE protein to the meal.

At dinner time, we might have quesadillas and refried beans and another salad, which adds another 25 to 30 grams of protein. Or maybe, on a special night, we might make breakfast for dinner, such as the following Quinoa Bean Pumpkin Pancakes, which pack 11 grams of protein per serving, and that's not counting the extra 10 or so grams he'll get from the milk he'll use to wash 'em down.

So, Coach, if you do the math, that's between 80 to 100 grams of protein on an average day, much more than he actually needs.

Yes, Coach, the 14-year-old boy may very well have tofu for dinner, but you can count on him to be strong enough to get some sacks in, thanks to your excellent coaching and his mother's inspired meal preparations. Love ya!

Oh, and P.S., if you want to ask your beautiful wife to make some high-protein vegetarian pancakes for you and your youngsters, have her try this recipe!

Ingredients
4 tsp cider vinegar
3 1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup pinto bean flour
2 1/4 cup quinoa flour
2 tsp allspice
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 cups pumpkin puree

Directions

Step 1. Combine vinegar and milk and let sit for ten minutes, until milk is curdled.

Step 2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl.

Step 3. Mix all the wet ingredients in a large bowl, including the milk mixture.

Step 4. Pour the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture and mix well.

Step 5. Butter a skillet and pour on 1/4 cup portions. Cook until browned on each side. Pancakes will be moist in the center.

For Complete nutrition data go HERE.

PSSST! To find great deals on fun stuff to do in your area, go HERE!

Chick Pea Enchiladas

Welcome to the 89th weekly edition of...

Thank you for joining us! If you're new to this carnival and would like to enter your post, please check HERE for the rules and regs.

YOURS: This week's "YOURS" goes to One Crunchy Mama over at GenX Moms! She posted in honor of Earth Day and teaches how to cook with a fraction of the amount of energy using the "lid cooking" method. Mostly, I just loved her stock pot...

Am I right? To learn more, please visit GenX Moms by clicking HERE. Thanks so much, Crunchy Mama, for your tip and your link-up. We look forward to hearing from you again!

MINE: Recently I learned in THIS FORUM that one can use chick peas, otherwise known as garbanzo beans...

...as a chicken substitute. Sometimes vegetarian dishes are just lacking in texture, and something like chick peas seemed to fit the bill as a suitable substitute in a lack-luster dish. I tried this, and I wasn't at all disappointed. Here's what we made...

Chick Pea Enchiladas

Ingredients:
1 pound dry chick peas (soaked overnight)
2 squares vegetable bouillon
2 cans tomato sauce (about 3 cups)
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup salsa of your choice
30 corn tortillas
3 cups cheese of your choice, grated (we used mozzarella)

(Note: We like this brand of vegan bouillon...)

Directions:
Step 1: Drain chickpea soak water, then cook chick peas in water, together with bouillon cubes, until soft, about 3 hours. Drain.

Step 2: Combine tomato sauce, salsa, and salt in a sauce pan. Heat until simmering.

Step 3: Cut up corn tortillas into 1x1 inch squares, like so...

Step 4: Spray non-stick cooking spray on an 8x11 casserole dish. Pour half of the sauce into the dish.

Step 5: Over this, layer on half of the cut-up tortillas, then half the chick peas...

Next, layer on half of the grated cheese...

Repeat layering process again with remaining sauce, tortillas, chick peas, then cheese. Bake at 350 degrees f for about half an hour or until cheese is lightly browned...

This really was delicious and filling, full of protein and spicy goodness...

Hope ya love it!


OURS: Okay, now it's your turn! Can't wait to see what awesome tips, recipes and how-tos you have for everyone today. Thanks so much for visiting and/or linking up and have a great Homemaker Monday!



Today on 365 Days of TV-Free Toddler Time: It's Helping With Lunch Time!

Today on life in mexico {and other places} a picture a day: {birds}

Today on Whole Food Kids: Candied Almonds...

New and Improved Vegan Best Ever 100% Whole Wheat Rolls

Becoming a vegan seems to have made some of the recipes on my left sidebar obsolete, but there is one recipe I just couldn't give up. The Best Ever 100% Whole Wheat Rolls couldn't be thrown by the wayside, so I came up with a vegan version for whoever may be interested. Let me first say that a couple of things went wrong with this recipe. First, I had forgotten that it was a mildly sweet bread, great just plain or spread with butter. Unfortunately, I decided to use this recipe for garlic breadsticks and the flavors just did not work out together. Secondly, I substituted the refined sugar with agave nectar, as I'm trying to stay away from all processed foods, and as I was using the KitchenAid to knead the bread, I didn't get a good feel for how soft the dough was. It turns out it was too soft and the bread ended up taking a long time to bake. Adding a little more flour until the texture was a little firmer would have solved that problem. Other than those two things, the vegan substitutes worked out well, namely the egg substitute. I used flax seed...


...and water as described below and I couldn't detect any difference at all. Here is the new and improved Vegan Best Ever 100% Whole Wheat Rolls recipe!

4 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
3 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 cup agave nectar (refined sugar substitute)
2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled (butter substitute)
2 tablespoons flax seeds plus 6 tablespoons water, blended until smooth in blender (egg substitute)
10 cups or more whole wheat flour (as finely ground as possible. If you don't have a wheat grinder, try putting your store-bought wheat flour in a blender, a cup at a time, until it is powdery.)

Step 1: I first dissolved the yeast in the warm water and let it sit for about ten minutes. If you're not sure how warm warm is, click HERE.

Step 2: I then added to the yeast mixture the agave nectar, salt, coconut oil, flax seed and water mixture, and 5 cups of the flour. I stirred this until it was mixed well.

Step 3: Next, I stirred in the remaining flour, one cup at a time, until the dough was soft and pulled away from the bowl. In the original recipe, I dumped it out onto my floured counter and kneaded it for ten miinutes. If you're not sure how to knead, here is a video I forced asked the 16-year-old boy to help me make that will show you how. In this recipe, I put everything in the KitchenAid with the new dough hook my wonderful husband ordered for me and let the machine do the work.



Step 4: I then put the ball of dough in a large, greased bowl, covered it with a damp towel, and set it in a warm place to rise in until it was doubled in bulk. (For more on how to find the perfect warm place to raise your bread, click HERE.) This could take anywhere from one to two hours.

Step 5: I punched down the dough, kneaded it for one minute to get the air bubbles out, then tore it in half, then tore each of those halves in half until I had 16 balls of dough. Then I tore each of these pieces into three pieces, rolled them up into neat balls, placed them on four cookies sheets (12 on each one), brushed the tops with melted butter, and let them rise, covered with damp towels, until doubled in bulk. (You should have had 48 balls of dough.)

Step 6: At some point in the rising process, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees, then baked them for about 12 minutes. They should be light golden brown.

Here's what the original rolls looked like...


Yeah I know, kind of plain, but it was easy...and delicious! If you would like your rolls to look fancier, like this...


(Photo by www.allrecipes.com)

...just click HERE for instructions at allrecipes.com.

Hope you love this recipe and thanks for being here today!

I am pleased to list this post @...
Shannon's "Works For Me Wednesday". Her blog is awesome so go check it out!
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Is it This Easy to Make Almond Butter?

I've always heard it was really easy to make peanut butter. Just throw some peanuts in a blender and turn it on. I guess the thing that always stopped me was that I didn't think my blender could handle it. Enter my KitchenAid food processor. We found it on sale at Sam's, and John knew I would use it, as it had an 11-cup capacity and tons of attachments. After sitting in our basement for a year and a half as we waited for our home to be built, it is now enjoying regular use, especially because of my new found lifestyle. I have opportunities to use it almost daily and it has an amazing capacity to chop up almost ANYTHING into little tiny pieces, sometimes even as smooth as pudding.

As I've searched raw vegan recipes over the post month, I have come across a lot of recipes that call for almond butter. Almond butter is something that absolutely cannot be found in our region of Mexico. So, on Saturday, when I was visiting a friend, we were talking about it and decided we would google a recipe on how to make almond butter to see if it was as complicated as I had heard it could be. We were pleasantly surprised to find that it was quite simple, so I suggested that we try it right then and there. After all, I had given her a bag of almond for her birthday, so we basically had all we needed! Let me tell you, this was a huge success! This almond butter was better than any peanut butter I've ever had and was all natural! I immediately went home and whipped up a batch for myself. Here's what I did...

1. First I put four cups of almonds and one teaspoon sea salt in the food processor, and processed them until the nuts went up the sides of the container and were outside the reach of the blade.

2. I turned the processor off and with a rubber spatula, scraped the sides of the container and pushed the almond butter down towards the blade. I again turned on the machine and repeated this step a few times.

3. I then added about 5 tablespoons of vegetable oil (anywhere between 3 and 6 tablespoons will work, depending on how thick you want it) and kept processing until it was the consistency I wanted. Here's how it turned out...


Let me repeat that, to me, this is better than any peanut butter I've had and was as easy as it could be. I look forward to making other nut butters, such as macadamia butter and pecan butter. This is a great project for the kids, too, since they love peanut butter so much! I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. I you make this, let me know how it goes!

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Homemaker Monday: The Coolest Nutrition Data Website Ever!

Welcome to...

Thank you for joining us! If you're new to this carnival and would like to enter your post, please check HERE for the rules and regs. (By the way, if you have been featured on Homemaker Monday in the past, your name is on my left sidebar. Check it out!)

YOURS: This week's "YOURS" goes to Mrs. Mordecai at Be it Ever So Humble. You can bet that I'll be eating lots and lots of beans from now on, as they are a great source of protein, and Mrs. Mordecai tells us how to cook them right! She features crock pot instructions, one of my favorite modes of cooking, and gives detailed instructions on how to avoid one problem, in particular, that can arise when it comes to eating beans. For Mrs. Mordecai's entire post, click HERE. Thank you so much for your contribution to Homemaker Mondays, Mrs. Mordecai, and please feel free to take the "I Was Featured" button from the left sidebar if you would like!

MINE: When I find something wonderful, I have to share it. Have you ever been on a calorie- or protein gram- counting diet and you wanted to eat, say, a banana or a peach, but had no idea what it's nutritional value was? Or, to make matters even more confusing, have you ever created a dish from scratch but been frustrated at not being able to determine it's nutritional information? Well, thanks to your visit here today, those days are gone! Let me introduce you to nutritiondata.com. Enter in the name of ANY food (I have yet to find a food they couldn't give me information on) and a neat little nutrition label, along with many other charts and tables of nutrition information, is presented.

If that weren't cool enough, they have a form in which you can input the ingredients of your favorite recipes and determine all of their nutritional information. It is amazing! I can see that this is going to be my new favorite pass time (besides blogging, of course).

Something fun I've been doing with this new, informative website is calculating the amount of protein I've been consuming on a daily basis. Many of my friends and loved ones have expressed concern that because of my newfound vegetarianism (leaning towards veganism) lifestyle, I might not be getting all of the protein I need. Soooo....I figured out what the USDA recommendation for protein for my height and gender is and it just so happens that I need about 29 grams of protein a day to be healthy.

I found out some interesting things about the foods I'm eating. Most of us know that THESE have lots of protein...


...but did you know that THESE have some protein, too?...


Yep, the 2 cups I ate for a midnight snack had 2 grams of protein! Who knew?

The following is a list of just some of the foods I ate yesterday that contain protein. I was amazed and quite pleased to see that even though I ate completely vegan yesterday, I consumed MORE protein than is recommended for my height and gender! Some of the proteins were "incomplete", but I was able to consume the complimentary protein throughout the day to even things out. Take a look...

1 cup home-grown wheat sprouts- 8 grams protein
2 tablespoons peanut butter- 8 grams protein
1 cup homemade almond milk- 2 grams protein
2 cups strawberries- 2 gram protein
1/2 cup homemade vegan almond yogurt- 10 grams protein
1 cup homemade hummus- 12 grams protein

That's 42 grams of protein!

So, my dear friends and loved ones who are expressing concern over this new lifestyle choice, not to worry! I've never felt better and I've never had such a desire to eat good foods as I do now. In fact, I posted a recipe for cake balls a few weeks ago, and just the thought of eating one of those completely disgusts me! Those of you who know me will not believe that, but it's true! And it's wonderful! I now crave stuff like this...


...avocados, pears, oranges, bananas, almond milk, manna bread (stay tuned for that recipe tomorrow) and fresh, homemade pineapple-cucumber salsa!

So friends, I hope you will find fulfillment and enjoyment perusing nutritiondata.com, just as I did!

OURS: Okay, you're up! I can't wait to read all of the inspiring ideas you're sending out our way! Thanks so much for your contributions and we'll see you next week!



I am pleased to list this post @...
Between Naps on the Porch's Metamorphosis Monday,
LL's Making a Happy Home Monday, and
A Southern Fairytale's Mouth-Watering Monday.

Check out these blogs! You're going to love 'em!

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Could My Life Be Getting Easier?

I think so. I never thought I'd get to this point, but I think it's finally here. I've noticed that recently, the twins have begun to very much enjoy each other's company. They seem to be content, especially in the morning, to play for long periods of time in the living room by themselves as I work in the kitchen. A few things they really enjoy are the 250 ball collection my sister bought them for Christmas and a miniature house I purchased for them that is basically just a door that opens and closes with lots of switches that make lights and music. Hyrum has even started dancing, to accompany the five or six steps he takes at a time. It is always so strange to witness a child walk for the first time. We have been so used to them crawling around the floor like puppies, then suddenly they are on their feet and they seem so tall and big! The babies also enjoy a drum and a tamborine we had laying around, as well as a set of dominoes we recently unpacked. And guess what? They don't watch Finding Nemo anymore! Yes, it was great while it lasted, but I was really beginning to feel guilty, so I'm glad that they have come up with other things to occupy their little sponge minds.

Another thing that has seemed to simplify things in my life a bit is the fact that the babies can feed themselves now. Some of the finger foods they love are (by the way, Hyrum has two teeth, Joseph has four)...

-Cheerios (of course)
-Grapes cut in quarters
-Raisins
-Dates
-Crackers
-Scrambled eggs
-Mandarine oranges
-Peeled cucumbers
-Torn up pieces of toast
-Torn up pieces of PB&J
and their favorite...
-Sliced bananas

During their breakfast, as the kids get ready for school and finish up their morning chores, I am able to empty out the dishwashers and start cleaning up what's left of breakfast. After the kids leave, I wipe the babies down, take them for the diaper changes, make sure the toddler is happy, then I make my breakfast and take it into the living room to eat as I check my blog on the laptop John got for me for Christmas. I then apply my make-up (for why this is a necessary part of my day, click HERE) and get out of my robe into real clothes.

Today I had a lady who helps me out come over and she spent most of her time making about five dozen tortillas for our family. I was so thrilled to find out that she doesn't use shortening or lard in her tortillas, just vegetable oil. While she was rolling out the tortillas, I cut apart two fryers, seasoned them with butter, salt and pepper, and put them in the oven for lunch. Why, you may ask, if I am a vegetarian, am I cutting up fryers and baking them in the oven? The answer? I still happen to have a teenaged son who really likes meat and I don't feel that I can inflict my beliefs on him as far as this is concerned. Now, when we run out of meat, I don't know that I will have the wherewith all to actually purchase the products that support untold cruelties to animals, so I might just have to buy live chicks, raise them, then have the kids go through the process of butchering them so that they can get a realistic picture of where their meat comes from. Plus, we will treat our chickens well while they are alive, not like at the factory farms in the United States and other countries. But, I digress...

I also put together a simple salad and cut up several Asian pears. Are you familiar with those? If not, you must become so. They are some of the best fruit I have ever had. They are crisp, like an apple, but full of juice, like a water melon. Oh, they are good! It turns out that I must have been inspired to make such a large lunch as the five kids brought four friends home, so we had more than enough food to go around. During the last ten minutes before the kids had to go back to school, we did a mad dash cleaning spree so that I was only left with the sweeping and the high chairs once they were gone.

After I got the babies cleaned up from their lunch mess, I put Johnny down for his nap, then went into the living room to hang out with the twins again. They had already taken short naps during the morning hours, so I knew this would be relaxing time I could spend with the twins without having to see to the toddler's needs as well. I spent some time on the couch doing email, then I enjoyed poring over recipes in this book my daughter and her I-don't-know-what-he-is (friend? boyfriend? man?) gave me for Christmas...


For anyone interested in improving your diet, whether you are an carnivore, onmivore, or herbivore, you will LOVE this book! The photos are beautiful, the information is inspiring and the recipes will make you feel like a better person just for THINKING about making them!

After a while, the twins got fussy, so I tandem nursed them, something I'd stopped for a while, as they kept pulling each other's hair, and enjoyed the quiet of just sitting there looking at their angelic faces. Joseph, with his small face and serious expression and Hyrum, with his easy smile and touseled hair, so happy to be eating yet again! After they'd had their fill, I put them down on the rug to play again and got another snack for myself, then it was time to wake up the toddler and go pick up the kids from school.

I'd made 100% whole wheat bread the night before, so the toddler and I took a loaf over to grandma's and visited for a bit while the 12-year-old boy and the 8-year-old boy babysat for a few minutes. That was a relaxing period, then back home to start dinner. What I came home, from across the street, the 8-year-old boy was sitting outside on a rock holding a twin and looking pensively at the sky. It was beautiful. It had been overcast all day, raining on and off, which is unusual for the part of Mexico where we live, and even the baby seemed to be enchanted by the feel and smell of the air as he was sitting very still on the 8-year-old's lap.

For dinner, I warmed up leftover soup, made quesadillas with the cheese our neighbors made from our cow's milk and the tortilla's Ester had made that morning, and the two afore-mentioned boys made strawberry/dark chocolate milkshakes. Next, we did twin bath time, toddler and 8-year-old boy bath time, called the grown daughter to ask her for a raw vegan yogurt recipe, the teenagers did the kitchen clean up, the 16-year-old boy took over scripture study as I had to go and comfort a crying baby who had woken up after I'd put him to bed, and five of the kids decided that they had to have a slumber party in the same room. I told them they couldn't because it was a school night, but they begged and pleaded and said they wouldn't talk at all. I caved and I'm so glad I did, because look...


Moments like this are what life's all about. Oh, hold on a sec...

...okay, I'm back. Both the babies woke up, but I was able to lie between them in our bed, put both my arms (thank goodness I have two!) around them and they went right back to sleep. It was a little dicey getting my arms out from under them, but they are asleep again. Even though my life is completely insane most of the time and I usually don't even have time to eat dinner until 10:30 at night, I never regret my decision to have a large family and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants lots of character-building experiences! If you're still here, thanks for listening and have a great day!


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Vegetarianism: How It's Going

Now that I've become a vegetarian, I find myself fielding lots of questions on the subject. One question I've been asked frequently is simply, "How's it going?" I appreciate that question. It shows concern and interest for what is going on in my life and I thought I'd take this time to let you know "how it's going".

As I stated in my first post announcing I was becoming a vegetarian, I still have tons of questions as to where this might lead in my life. I think that is the most exciting part about this whole change. Will I have more energy? Will my BMI go down so that I can fit in the "normal" range category instead of the "overweight" category? Will I live longer? Will my cholestorol count go down? Will I be able to keep up this lifestyle? Although I've only been a vegetarian for ten days, here are some of the changes I've already noticed for which I'm very grateful:

1. I've lost four pounds.
2. Because I am trying to keep meat out of my body, and it can be an effort, I am much more careful about other things that go into my body, like refined sugar and other sources of animal fat, such as can be found in milk and eggs.
3. When I look in the mirror, I feel pure and light.
4. I've had the opportunity to try lots of great recipes that I wouldn't have ordinarily tried.
5. I've begun to wonder if I shouldn't try veganism.
6. I've begun to wonder if I shouldn't try RAW veganism, in which cooked foods are avoided, thus leaving the natural enzymes, vitamins and "good" bacteria intact.
7. I've very much enjoyed doing research on vegetarianism and all of it's facets.
8. I've begun to have a disdain for dairy and egg products as well and have actually gone vegan this entire day.

These are just SOME of the changes I have experienced. It's been wonderful to try new foods and to have the motivation to carefully monitor what goes into my body. Some of the things I've eaten over the past few days are:

-Natural peanut butter and raw honey sandwich, sprinkled with psyllium husks on whole wheat bread
-Organic yogurt
-Pasta salad with vegetables and lettuce
-Chocolate/banana non-dairy shake
-Almond milk
-Avocado gazpacho
-Granola with strawberries, almond milk and agave nectar
and
-Manna bread, a bread made with these home-grown wheat sprouts...


...and baked at a very low temperature. I will post a how-to on Tuesday, so you, too, can make this!

As all of this experimentation takes time, I've needed extra help with the three under three and who should step in but the six-year-old girl. Here's how she does it...


And she did this without me even asking! I really appreciate this little lady!

If you don't mind, I would like to keep you up to date on my progress with my new food adventure. I'm so grateful that Bethany and J introduced me to this new lifestyle. Thanks, Guys!

I am pleased to list this post @...

Grace Alone's...



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I'm Blogging an Annoucement (And No, I'm Not Pregnant)

I have decided to become a vegetarian!

I owe this decision in part to my daughter, Bethany, who gave me an inspirational, eye-opening book for Christmas called Diet For A New America. Becoming vegetarian is an idea I've been toying with for many years and I feel I am ready to take the leap. My reasons for becoming a vegetarian are numerous and it's too late in the evening to get into them here, but I feel that I have ample motivation to make this lifestyle change. It will be challenging, but worth it, and I've done challenging things before, like home schooling for 13 years, being an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for 30 years, taking my children to church without my first husband's help for 16 years, and last but not least, choosing to bear and raise 9 children over the past 19 years! If I can do those things, I can do this.

I'm not worried about what I'll eat. That's a no brainer. I don't even like meat that much and rarely consume it anyway. What I am worried about is having to defend myself, especially in a cattle-raising community like the one in which I live. I'm going to have to buck up and take it like a woman.

I also have miriad questions about where this will lead me in life. I've chosen to go the lacto-, ovo- route, which means I still consume dairy products and eggs, as long as they are produced by my cow and chickens, but will I be satisfied to stay on that course? Or will I want to persue the course of veganism, abstaining from all animal products? What path will I seek to encourage my children to follow? Will I still cook meat often for them? Will I change my mind in the future and go back to eating like a typical American? Will this change bring about the health and longevity I so desperately desire for my old age in order to enjoy my, hopefully, large posterity?

These are the questions I've been pondering as I've made this life-changing decision. I feel good about this, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the research I've been doing on making sure I get the iron, protein, and other nutrients I need. I'm a person who loves change and I am looking forward to this next phase in my life with enthusiasm and joy. If you would like to know why I made this decision, let me know, and perhaps I will do a post on it.

Now....

My first vegetarian/vegan recipe!

Non-Dairy Almond Milk

Ingredients:
2 Cups Almonds
8 Cups Water
1/4 Cup Honey or Agave Nectar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
Pinch Salt

Step 1: Soak the almonds overnight in a bowl of water...


Step 2: Drain the almonds and place in a blender with four cups of water. Blend for three to four minutes.

Step 3: Strain almond mixture through nylon hose or cheese cloth into a pitcher. You will have almond pulp left, as shown below, which can be used in other vegetarian recipes...


Step 4: Pour 4 more cups of water into the blender, along with the honey or agave nectar, the vanilla, and the salt. Add the strained almond mixture. This should fill your blender to near capacity, so blend on the lowest speed in order to avoid overflow.

Step 5: Once the ingredients are thoroughly combined, your almond milk is ready to be refrigerated.

This is a great drink for the kids, those who are lactose-intolerant, or anyone who would simply like to decrease their intake of diary products. I hope you love this as much as I did!


Thanks for the recipe, Bethany, and for the inspiration you are in my life. I look forward to embarking on this adventure with your love and support.

Any other vegetarians out there? I'd love to hear from you!

I am pleased to list this post at...

-Tip Junkie's "Talk to me Tuesday",
-5 Minutes for Mom's "Tackle It Tuesday",
-Tammy's Recipe's "Kitchen Tip Tuesday",
-Blessed With Grace's "Tempt My Tummy Tuesday",
-Mary's "Tightwad Tuesday",
and -The Lazy Organizer's "Talk About Tuesday".

Check out these blogs! You're going to love 'em!

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