Stepping into His Nature

I stepped into the trees and what did I see…simple little Nettle looking back at me.

It’s March 21, 2024, there have been some weeks of warm weather… warmer than we should be having for the time of year. I went for a walk this morning, bundled up because of the chill of 22 degrees and moderate breeze of the early morning. As I came back to the house I thought I’d just take a moment to step into the trees behind our house and see if anything was visible as far as green growth. I didn’t linger to long, it was chilly but it was glorious, even for a few moments. I am just so humbled, excited, in awe, at peace when I step into nature and this morning was no different even if it was chilly. Then I had my quiet Jesus time after a shower and with my first sips of coffee (my cup of cozy for that moment)…THEN He brings this to me this morning.

Devotional credit to "The Prayer Jar Devotional HOPE" by Wanda E. Brunstetter. Gotta love how He shines in His Nature…this morning it was simple Nettle. So many times He has to take my face and yet again turn it back to Him. Life - Living Inspired: God turning my face, yet again, back towards Him. Thank You Lord Jesus

Beauty makes a sound

 

Beauty makes a sound

‘There's no denying Beauty makes a sound!!!’

Credit to this song phrase: Testify by Need to Breathe

 

Has this happened to you?

Sometimes, maybe often, you don’t really listen to the words of a song? Unfortunately, it happens all too often to me. But I heard these words tucked within this song and my mind was transported to how Beauty can and is SCREAMING at us…and we miss it.

The sun shining,

Snow gently falling,

The shade of a tree,

A flower in bloom,

A babbling brook,

A deep cleansing breath,

Good nourishing food,

Gentle falling rain,

A child’s laughter,

New baby snuggles,

The warmth of a blanket,

A great cup of ‘cozy’ (whatever cozy is for you) to drink,

The smell of baking bread (or another amazing smell for me: freshly cut alfalfa!),

An amazing Sunrise or Sunset,

A gentle breeze at the end of a hot summer day,

A refreshing cool drink of water,

Buying apples at the apple orchard,

Nature in its God created splendor,

…. Where did your mind just take you further? ...

Several of these moments listed honestly do not create much of a sound but how many times are we too busy, too distracted, too far extended that the sound of Beauty that surrounds us is missed, overlooked, lost? Why do we allow this to happen in our lives? May we seek to not miss it!

Life – Living Inspired: May we sense the screaming of Beauty that surrounds us…and not miss it.

Being inspired by someone else can be a beautiful thing! Gluten Free Bakeries

 

A Gluten Free Bakery – who knew such a thing exists?!? Well now I do!!

I have a co-worker who inspired me to look for something I never would have tried to search for prior to becoming gluten free – a Gluten Free bakery. This is something I’ve only recently found out even exists and I love the concept!! I traveled to Washington State this month for a girls weekend with my daughters. We did a little bit of internet searching and found two relatively close to where we were and just headed to the closest one to us. Wow what an interesting little world to step into. The one we found was not only gluten free but marketed itself as making allergen free baked goods and mixes to order. This shop touts being wheat, dairy, soy, egg, nut (and more) free – oh and vegan. This was a fun adventure to enjoy being brave to try out and look for something new to discover. I’ll admit it was a little bit pricey but some ventures are and after all – how often do I get to go to a gluten free bakery? What did we get to enjoy? A brownie with cinnamon added (in celebration of Cinco de Mayo), a monster cookie, tea cookies, cinnamon roll with vegan cream cheese, gluten free sour dough bread and Chick Pea butter (think a substitute for peanut butter). None of the items disappointed. All flavorful and worth the try.

That entry above was started in May of 2023 with a trip to the Seattle area. Now to fast forward a bit to the Fall of 2023. Gluten Free baked goods in a bakery do exist right here in good ole Nebraska! Lo and behold ‘The Goldenrod Pastries’ in Lincoln NE. Oh so amazing and then buying the owners cookbook ‘Perfectly Golden’ with oh so many of the recipes from her shop right in the book?! Say what? Recipes that are used in an actual bakery? I’m starting to work through some of the recipes – oh so good. I then was able to in turn tell the co-worker who suggested visiting a gluten free bakery in the first place about the wonderful Lincoln shop. She got to taste a cinnamon roll (gluten free that is) for the first time in a LOT of years!!

Life – Living Inspired: Being inspired by someone else can be a beautiful thing!!

Gluten Free - Finding ways to be successful

 

Fruit Crisp Trial Run

Coffee Cake

Take and Finish Pizza Cruts

Test Run at home

Chocolate Cupcakes

Sandwich Loaf

Angel Food Cake - Who knew it could turn out this great!?!

Gluten. A word that for some people it strikes discord in them even when they hear just the word (and that discord doesn’t even include eating it), for others it leaves them scratching their heads and going ‘huh?’. I could go into the nitty, gritty details of what gluten is and why it has become such a discord for so many people in recent years as the thoughts on this are wide and varied – but – I won’t, well at least not here. You can easily search the internet and find a myriad amount of information to sift through yourself. This blog is not meant to dig into ALL the many facets of celiac, gluten sensitive and gluten allergy and honestly as soon as I’d share something here the information would outdated, updated or refined. For this blog I will just tip my fingers (and maybe toes) into the pool of sharing about being gluten free in my life (this doesn’t even begin to cover nut, dairy, egg, meat, food additive – allergies, reactions, interactions in other people’s lives). As I shared in an earlier blog I knew during the Fall on 2022 that I just wasn’t feeling well. Many, many vague and seemingly unrelated symptoms were occurring for me in my body (I now realize that I probably was experiencing these for some time prior to the Fall of ’22 but these symptoms came to an ugly head during that Fall). The yearly physical in February of 2023 found me looking at the Dr and telling him I was probably going to need a double amount of his time that day because we had to try to come up with some answers/ideas. I had some thoughts of my own and his suggestion was to first try avoiding gluten (yes that was one of my thoughts). So I launched into label reading, information seeking and learning.

I have several people in my life that need to be or choose to be gluten free in their lives. For the past few years I’ve been starting going down the road to learning how to bake and cook gluten free to be able to share these items with everyone so it wouldn’t matter whether you needed to be gluten free or not, you could just enjoy the food item and not have to worry about it. My husband does not need to be gluten free like I need to be. So he becomes my recipe judge. If he will eat it and tells me that it’s worth making again, or he goes back for seconds then I know it’s a winner!! So the experimenting becomes even more directed - make it gluten free and get it to pass the taste tester’s approval – aka my husband.

The summer of 2022 I participated in a local Open Market Night as a vendor taking craft and baked items to sell. I dabbled in a few gluten free items with the regular baked items that did contain gluten. Things will probably be looking a bit different for me this coming summer with the vast majority of my baked items being gluten free. There are tips and tricks to learn and know about how gluten free (GF) flours can be different from other flours, a bit of chemistry factors in there. I have a friend who has told me “cooking isn’t crazy difficult but baking…that’s different – baking is a science experiment, it’s all chemistry.” And there is some real truth in that. Baking/Making a recipe that’s designed to be gluten free right from the start is not as tricky as converting a regular recipe to being just as good but made gluten free (there in lies the experimentation and the taste testing…and repeating, critiquing and tweeking).

What has been exciting is finding ways to be successful. What gluten free items might appear at the summer Open Market Nights?     Angel Food Cake, Coffee Cake Muffins, Sandwich Bread, Take and Finish Pizza Crust, Chocolate Cupcakes, Banana Bread, Pumpkin/Squash Bread, Fruit Crisp and there’s bound to be more options baking…I mean developing.

Life – Living Inspired: Finding ways to be successful

Lifelines and Chicken Feet

 

Ready for the Freezer

Chicken Feet in ice cold water and prepping the crockpot for cooking

Ready for the 1st cooking

End of the 1st Cooking

First Broth strained off

The 2nd cooking begins

1st on the Left, 2nd on the right

2nd ready for the freezer

1st ready for the freezer

Nourishing Chicken Noodle Soup

In recent years I came to know about a book called Nourishing Traditions:The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon. A friend introduced me to this book. It goes back to food traditions long forgotten – especially in a need it now society. I read and read and read it. Tried some of the things noted in the book but then put it aside as other interests occupied my time. Now even more recently I have watched a video series that begins to take people back to traditions long lost by most of us (or never known to many of us!) and found Sally Fallon being one of the presenters. She shared and showed about making bone broth and using it – this is something I had intently read in her book, tried and found to ‘OK’ but not something I aspired to do repeatedly. I am a very visual/hands-on learner so seeing this video set a whole new set of wheels into motion! My learning to be more resourceful took on new fervor.

This resourcefulness took on a whole new meaning for me in March of 2023 – OK that’s not quite correct – this adventure truly started in May of 2022. Chicken Feet – yes you read that right. Butchering chickens happened then and I have known I wanted to make my own bone broth – really good bone broth with lots of collagen and chicken feet can and have been used for many years to achieve that (chicken heads – per Sally Fallon’s video demonstration - can be used also but - oh goodness - I’m not quite ‘there’ yet and not sure I’ll ever be ‘there’ on that one). During butchering the feet were saved, cleaned/scrubbed and frozen for later use. Now come to March of ’23 the next part of the adventure continued and let me tell you - NEVER have I EVER skinned chicken feet - and I had to use one of my life lines and call a friend on this one (by the way – it’s the friend that introduced me to the Nourishing Traditions book). Thank goodness for trusted friends who are more educated on this than me!! I thought the skin should just peel off – um no. So the life line told me it’s a lot like blanching skin off of tomatoes or peaches. Put the chicken feet into boiling water for 20-30 seconds then plunge them into ice cold water. Okay this did help. It was not a perfect fix but I did get it accomplished with better ease. I have to admit I was a little – ok maybe a lot – grossed out by doing this. Wow – talk about a learning curve here! But I was successful and my efforts were rewarded!! The resulting bone broth was truly amazing!!!! Cooking twice as instructed: the first broth yielded the wonderful, very thick results and the second cooking the wonderful slightly less thick results. Wowza I can tell you that this WAS worth it!! The broth was frozen for later use and I have just recently made chicken noodle soup and I’m here to say that the resulting soup was way more satisfying than any store bought broth has ever produced for me. Truly nourishing to the body in a way that cannot be easily described.  Wow what I’ve been missing for too many years. New ways, New traditions often come with a learning curve – but don’t be afraid to jump in and learn more!

(Of note I have also made the beef bone broth and it too was wonderful!! Have used oxtail – and that can be about as crazy to think about as using chicken feet for one not used to such things! Learning curves yet again.)

Life – Living Inspired: Make connections to know who our lifelines are and do not be afraid to use them!!

 

Seek out the real gems and make every effort not to waste them!

Pure Sunshine!!

YUM!

The beginning of not letting it go to waste.

Frozen lemon disk prep

Ready for the freezer

The last bit of goodness to save

Sour, bitter, bad, yuck, a piece of junk - are just a couple things that come to mind when the word Lemon is mentioned, or even ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’ – ok that’s a little bit better than the first 5 thoughts shared. But when you go out seeking lemons and find some real gems you make every effort to NOT let them go to waste. I LOVE lemons – the real deal kind – especially picked fresh off the tree, no wax or harsh chemical sprays on the rind and WAY more sweeter than sour (ok yes it’s still somewhat sour). I had a weekend retreat at Mrs. Pfanny’s Garden Cottage a while back and was blessed to be able to enjoy some time in their Geothermal Greenhouse among the lemon and orange trees – right here in Northeast Nebraska in February no less!! I was able to sit and enjoy, smell and taste, pause and ponder – what more should one do – oh pick and prepare!! Meyer lemons are known for being sweeter and these did not disappoint. I have done this once before, making as much use of the whole lemon as possible. Grating them for the zest, juicing them, cutting up the remaining fleshy chunks of the rind and freezing all of them for later use. That zest can/will be used in cooking/baking, the frozen juice disks go into my water to drink or even into cooking/baking and the frozen rinds get plopped into my drinking water. Oh man, I love me some lemon!!!

Seeking out the real gems: Supporting local has become more important to me in recent years. As I get back into gardening (and even into herbalism) more and seek to expand my gluten free food prep/baking knowledge, the work it takes proves to me that I want to learn to be resourceful in my efforts and have more self-sufficiency when able. Learning to use what I have, can make, can do is intriguing me more and more. I also want to seek to support others in their efforts also. Pfanny’s Farm is truly a gem – to some it may seem a hidden gem but honestly Julie is truly working to get her word and efforts out there. If this gem is still hidden from you check out pfannysfarm.com.

 

Life – Living Inspired: seek out the real gems and make every effort to NOT let them go to waste!!!

Meet 'Lil B'

I'd like to introduce you Lil B (short for Little Bertha). She came to live at our house from a friend - Mary L. (a family Friend) to Emily (my daughter) and left behind at home when Big Bertha moved with Emily to Washington and the car could hold no more!! So Lil B kept her residence here with me. I've decided since I am aiming for gluten free cooking and baking for myself now Lil B will by my gluten free girl. A new house (plastic tub) will become her new digs with a dedicated hardware for gluten free activity. I've had lots of people ask if I use dedicated equipment for the gluten free baking that I do, well this shall be my closest attempt. So officially welcome Lil B as we pay homage to Big Bertha her predecessor.

That above introduction was sent to friends/family as a fun update but there is a deeper message within that paragraph...'since I am aiming for gluten free cooking and baking for myself'. As the Autumn of 2022 progressed I struggled to feel well. MANY varied, often seemingly unrelated, symptoms kept surfacing and I honestly didn't feel well most of the time. A yearly physical the beginning of February 2023 found me sharing with the Dr my many varied symptoms. I had a few things in mind that I thought it could be - gluten being one of them. Well his suggestion was to try avoiding gluten. Within 5 days I started to feel better. So I now embark on a personal journey of doing things differently. I have spent time in the past few years experimenting with gluten free food prep because of friends needing gluten free options. Now that experience will broaden to include myself. Thankful for the past experiences I've had. Now there is more room to grow - isn't there always room to grow? 

Life - Living Inspired: Always room to grow!