Ginger Biscuits - Vegan - Gluten Free

I love ginger biscuits! Not only do they taste great, but ginger is fantastic for stomach complaints especially nausea. They are so yummy to nibble on, and because they are made with nutritious ingredients, they add to your good food intake for the day, not the naughty extras, how cool is that! 

These are vegan and gluten free and sweetened with maple syrup.  My sweetness need has lowered dramatically since changing my eating habits, this doesn't happen overnight but little by little. If this recipe isn't sweet enough for you, add a little more and a little less next time you make them to wean off. My family who still eat "normal food" like them, so it should be fine anyway. 

Here is the recipe for my ginger biscuits...

1 cup ground cashews  

1/2 cup ground almonds 

1/2 cup coconut flour

6 tbsp maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 tsp ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch salt

1/4 cup nut milk

Bake in a preheated oven 160 Celsius for approximately 8-10 minutes depending on the size of your biscuits.  15 - 20 minutes for bigger biscuits.

Grind the nuts and flour together in your food processor 

It will look like flour when finished, it won't take too long 20-30 seconds in mine

Add the rest of the ingredients.

Now to bring out my cookie cutter collection! 

Some of these I've had since I was a child. 

The dough rolls out very easy

I think I'll choose butterflies... 

Very easy to cut. Who said gluten free cooking is hard? It's definitely easier than wheat flour. 

They break away no hassles. Easy peasy. 

And they are done, so easy and the taste delicious!

Hehe, butterfly for my butterfly puppy. 

Yummy yummy, scrummylicious! 

Now to get them back in the tin lol they fit them so snug and there is a process we need an instruction sheet for lol

Hope you enjoy, x Sarah and Pippin 

Pumpkin Pie - Vegan - Gluten Free

I only discovered how good pumpkin pie was as an adult, when chatting to some American friends online.  It became a fast favourite, so I had to create a vegan, gluten free recipe I could indulge in! I use butternut squash since it is the sweetest of the pumpkins and really easy to buy year round. This recipe is packed with vitamins, minerals and protein, as well as being delicious!

First off, get that pumpkin cooked! A little hint, bake your pumpkin in the oven for about 30 minutes, it should be soft but not squishy, the skin will peel right off, and you can chop it up no hassles!

Recipe

Biscuit Base

Note -  I rinse the pecan nuts in warm water to get rid of the bitter taste before I use

1/3 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup raw pecans 

1/2 cup raw cashews

Pinch of Himalayan salt

8 dried dates (can be soaked for 30 mins to soften)

splash of vanilla extract

Blitz the nuts in your food processor until they look like flour, and then add all the ingredients together, and press into 25 cm pie dish

Pre bake base for approximately 15 mins at 180C or until it's just stating to brown up.

Leave and make the pie filling

Pumpkin filling

1 medium baked butternut pumpkin, approx 2 cups pumpkin.

1 TSP cinnamon

1/2 TSP nutmeg

1/2 TSP ground cloves

3 tablespoons tapioca flour

 4 tablespoons maple syrup

1 cup thick coconut cream)

Pinch salt

1tsp vanilla bean extract 

So easy with my amazing Breville food processor! Love it!

Blend all this together in your food processor.  Pour into pie base, and bake at 160C for approx 30 minutes, this will differ according to how runny your mix is to begin with. Don't worry if it is a little soft when warm, it will set further when cooled.

And try to not eat the whole thing in a day....try!!   LOL!!

Enjoy!! x Sarah

Time to make toothpaste!

It was time to make another batch of my homemade toothpaste today :-) honestly I haven't been feeling the best the past week, after forgetting to order licorice root and going without for ten days, well even though I'm on full steroidal replacement, I  now know what a difference licorice has made in my adrenal disease! I still needed to brush my teeth, and there was no way I was using commercially made toothpaste so I had to make some!

I've tried various recipes, and of course this is always the best thing to do and then you can tweak your own personal recipe that works best for you :-) for me, baking soda was a big no no, and so many recipes call for baking soda. It changed the whole PH level of my mouth, gave my tongue a horrible coating. Using too much essential oils gave me blisters. This recipe I make seems to be just right :-) I've made it 3 times over and wouldn't change it a bit now.

I start off using a special blend of essential oils, that are great to fight off nasties, and keep my mouth fresh. I keep it in a jar on its own so it's handy when I need to make more toothpaste.  If you don't want to do this to begin with you can easily just use peppermint oil on its own.  Check below for the recipe.

Next you want to make the toothpaste :-)  this is really easy and blends together really well. I have tried a recipe without coconut oil, and because there was no carrier oil for the essential oils to mix with, the oil went straight to the delicate skin in my mouth and burnt it pretty badly, so the oil is very important. The paste is pretty solid when it cools down,  so I decided to put it into my chocolate moulds, and then into a jar, and all I do is bite off a little bit before I brush my teeth, you only need a small amount, pea size, let it dissolve in my mouth and swish it around my teeth before brushing and rinsing :-)

If you do want to place the paste in little jars, it's easy to pop the jar in some warm water before use to soften and then use it like normal paste on the brush.

 The clay draws out impurities while the essential oils and coconut oils freshen and get rid of bacteria.  It is different from regular toothpaste, it will feel different in your mouth but is so much better, your teeth and mouth feel amazing, I don't have dry lips or tongue or any of the nasties that come along with regular toothpaste. Plus my teeth are white! I always had coffee or tea stains on my teeth and had to go to the dentist to take them off or use one of those peroxide teeth whiteners that ruin the enamel on your teeth and don't really work anyway! I couldn't believe that this brown mud paste made my teeth white and my gums healthy, my mouth feels great :-)

The recipe is just below, the only rule is to not use metal spoons or dish with the clay.  Also, experiment with the amount of essential oil you put in the paste, start with a little, taste and increase if you need to .  Remember with essential oils less is better :-) Give it a go and when you become more confident you can make some of your own flavours, how about cinnamon and orange, or choc mint or vanilla :-)

Any questions please ask 😊

Toothpaste recipe

1/3 cup bentonite clay

3 tablespoons melted coconut oil

1/4 teaspoon Himalayan salt

10-15 drops essential oil toothpaste blend

7-10 drops peppermint essential oil

****************************************

In a separate jar mix this recipe and then you use only 10-15 drops of this blend in your toothpaste recipe.

Essential oil toothpaste blend recipe

8 drops clove oil

72 drops lemon oil

40 drops cinnamon Cassia Oil

32 drops eucalyptus oil

20 drops Rosemary oil

Yay for yummy healthy treats!

My loving earth www.lovingearth.net yummies arrived yesterday, can't speak high enough of this company! Even their packaging is printed with vegetable inks, and the "plastic" wrapper is home compostable! When I opened the box I thought theyd used polystyrene peanuts to pack, but nope they melt down in water! Excellent. To the food lol, yum! It's all stuff I can eat, mainly coconut products and cashews, flavoured with essential oils. Oh yum! When you make your own everything, this is so nice to have on hand! The buckinis are great for some crunch. The vanilla bean is divine, never getting the extract again! So worth the money when you consider the paste in the shop is only 47% vanilla. OK... On to the nectar, low gi, full of minerals, non inflammatory, unlike cane sugar, and in comparison to cane sugar, coconut trees produce 50-75%more sugar per acre but use less than 1/5th of the soil nutrients and water. So many ways we can make ourselves healthier and help the earth recover while sustaining us too. Anyone else know of some amazing earth friendly health friendly places?

another win for turmeric ginger tea (golden milk)

We are well into autumn in Australia,  and a few days ago another virus-bug-cold-cootie type thing tried to take over me, and again, with nature's help, I won! hehe! That's Sarah-3, cooties-0 so far! I know I gotta stop this gloating or I'll jinx myself!

Anyway, I followed my natural healing protocol and instead of feeling worse each day,  I felt better each day.  I used to be bad in a tearful, I'm dying way, (no, I'm not just a wimp, I used to feel great shame in how bad I felt, but I've realised in the last year how incredibly strong I am and have always been, dealing with so much, two organs that don't work  at all and multiple chronic illnesses, a virus to fight was always over over over kill...) so, now, with my new regime I just feel bad, not extremely-emely-emely bad ... Plus no doctors, no waiting for appointments, no 100's dollars spent at the chemist, no antibiotics, no spreading to lungs and and and....MONTHS of illness followed by awful flares and more disability... It just went POOF! And I could pretty much do something at home each day instead of feel myself slipping into a mucusy hole of mucus, pain, dispair and ickydom. Yes that IS a word!

Find the recipe here... TURMERIC TEA CLICK HERE FOR MY BLOG POST AND RECIPE

THE NEXT POINT OF THIS POST IS....I've not really healed completely in my gut, stomach, esophagus from the 20 yrs of harsh medications I was taking for my autoimmune diseases, or the 36 yrs of antibiotics, PLUS I still have to take 10 mg of prednisolone daily for my Addison disease which still plays havoc on my gut lining, I still have tummy issues, and I may always.  It does go away at times, but comes back, its no where near as bad as it was previously, before my healthy life changes, but I still get the gnawing uncomfortable something lives in there kind of feeling, swallowing can be difficult and nausea.  BACK TO THE POINT, IT ALL WENT AWAY WHILE I WAS SICK AND DRINKING MY TURMERIC TEA. AND now I've stopped for a day, the pain is back!! Gasp!! Light bulb moment! I researched again and yep, turmeric helps heal the gut! I take curcumin and ginger supplements daily, but this tea seems to settle everything down WAY more! Probably as it touches all the inflamed parts as I drink it  down. Capsules miss the initial tubing and dissolve in the stomach.

Also my pain and inflammation was less when I drink it, and I slept like a baby! I'm sleeping like I've never slept before on my beautiful healthy whole foods diet, but this was even better... Sleep is good, I'm still catching up on the many many years of only two hours sleep a night, so, yeah! That's huge for me!

Let's not forget how amazing the ginger is too! 

Before you say you can't eat spicy food... I was always one of those people who could never eat spicy food... Even tomato hurt my stomach, I had it all, GI irritation, GERD and IBS...  Food allergies, medications, then PPI's and antacids for the GI problems all contributed. Now I'm eating the right food for me and stopped a huge percentage of the damaging medications I was on, my stomach is much more balanced and healing. So, spicy doesn't hurt me now. I eat everything and the spice is doing what it is made to do... Wonderful healing things! Joy, joy happy happy, I love it!!

I fancy a curry now...Hehe!   I do recommend you do everything slowly and LISTEN to your body, use your common sense.... but I've lived my whole life in such discomfort and sickness... I'm going to shout the stuff that helps me from the rooftops if I can!  It stuff that is working for me, I will never share anything that I've not tried and tested.

Stay well friends, we have more power than we've ever been lead to believe!

Missing chocolate this mothers day???

Or got a mum who eats nothing but rabbit food? Are you scratching your head as to what to get her that's as sweet as she is for Mothers day? 

Why yes! You read my mind!!! 

What's that you show, healthy chocolates??? 

Do tell more! 

What do I need? 

To make the nut butter, check out my easy instructions by following this link

How to make nut butter

Then simply add everything to a blender, and combine. 

Press into cute chocolate moulds, harden in the fridge. 

And voila, you have a beautiful present for your mum, and she'll love you for it, even if she did have to make it herself. If you are like my son and have paws instead of hands.. Teehee!

The beaut thing about this recipe is you can use less maple syrup if you like, more or less cacao, or peppermint. Personalised chockie :-) 

Thanks Pippin, I love my boy! 

Happy Mothers day to all types of mums everywhere!  

don't get sick this winter...fight back naturally!

Can you believe it, I haven't had a cold, flu, virus, since before I began my holistic healing journey.  That is over 2 years!! The last time I was sick it lasted for 9 weeks, which was normal for me and I'm pretty sure that final bug threw me into the massive flare up of my arthritic condition, that nudged me onto the natural healing pathway...they do say things happen for a reason ;-)  I was one of these kids and adults who made a living being sick, or gave the drug companies and doctors their living I should say..that boat and vacation property, it came from me, yep..lol  My first memory is of being sick, I remember the doctors surgeries. I wasn't allowed to touch the toys in case I got sick haha!! Honestly, if it was going around, I got it, even if it wasn't going around lol!!  Yes!!  I spent a lot of time being sick and by the time I got to my teens knew exactly what to do and which antibiotic I needed lol. I had to take SO many courses of them, and when they didn't work I got antibiotic injections, along with more antibiotics...

Anyway, it was nothing unusual for me, I just got on with my days at home, morning TV, looking at books, crafts.  Back then it was better than school so I didn't mind so much. But now I do!!  I'm finally feeling the best I've ever felt in my life, I don't want to waste any time being sick with the unnecessary!

The other week I went to the shop, and it honestly felt like one of those video games where you have to avoid the attack of the monsters...this time the monsters were people sneezing and coughing!  I kinda felt like I'd be immune to it, but for as long as I remember I've avoided people who are visibly sick.  I would hold my breath, move past them, lag behind, it became a bit fun trying to speed walk through the aisles before they caught up hehe!

But alas, I was not invincible this time!  I got sick!!!!  NOOOOO!!!!!

This is no time to panic Sarah!! 

Honestly, my first thought was curl up on the couch and let it take me, but the responsible Sarah was firm, don't give up, fight, and so fight I did ;-)

Firstly I carried on eating everything I usually did, everything!  I believe that throwing some natural remedies on an unhealthy lifestyle and diet will not give the same punch.  I also took all my daily herbs and spices that double up as great virus busters, ginger, curcumin, nettle, apple cider vinegar, plus I added an olive leaf supplement, drank ginger tea with fresh lemon, and for the first time I made GOLDEN MILK! I thought taking the supplements was enough, but no, you feel this stuff working as its going down, it is amazing!!!  I still make it now.

There are loads of versions of this delicious milk to try, but this is my recipe, which of course I think is the best ;-)

I am not a fan of pepper, but you NEED it in this recipe.  The body can not respond to the healing properties of turmeric without it.

I use coconut butter to add creaminess, instead of using milk.  Here is my post on making nut butter and using it as a replacement for nut milks  http://sarahmedina.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/the-easiest-way-to-make-nut-milk.html

And for those who want to use regular milks in the golden milk, you can do a straight exchange with the water in the recipe.  

The other thing I did, besides take rest and keep warm, was get some fresh air, carry on with a simple version of my daily yoga routine to keep my energy flowing, pushing the unhealthy out while replacing it with healthy glowing healing energy.  

A couple of other great products I can't live without are these olive leaf, homeopathic throat and nasal sprays...  In my long history of throat and nose/sinus problems, these are the best I've ever tried. They last me for ages because they work first or second time, and don't leave me a mucusy mess when I stop using them.  I actually use the nasal spray each time I come home from the shops, or other place where germs can easily spread.

http://www.iherb.com/Seagate-Olive-Leaf-Throat-Spray-Raspberry-Spearmint-1-fl-oz-30-ml/16771

http://www.iherb.com/Seagate-Olive-Leaf-Nasal-Spray-1-fl-oz-30-ml/16766

Plus, I used my essential oils! These pictured below are all great for cold and flu relief, but of course I love eucalyptus, lemon, lavender, cinnamon and peppermint the best. Mix a few drops into some base oil like olive oil and rub some on your throat, forehead, back, chest and feet, rub between the palms of your hands and breath it in.  Much much better than any store bought product!

Yes, I love essential oils! 

Oil burner mix...its a lot, use what you have, but I have to say this mix was amazing!  And I love blending, mixing, creating recipes, looove it, so much fun!  It reminds me of being a child and making potions in the garden with plants, rocks, seeds, water and buckets, only I'm using the real things now.  I think we are born with a knowledge of what we need to do to live a healthy life, and we act it out with play, but most of this old wisdom is lost in this modern age and not been handed down.  I'm glad there is so much to learn and access now through the internet connecting us all, technology can be good.  

So, there you go!  Beat cold and flu before it takes hold, enjoy your rest day or two, because you'll be back on your feet before you know it ;-)

Update...I got another illness, a couple of weeks after this one, and beat it again! I feel like I've cracked another code or something, this natural way of living rocks! Yes I'm feeling the power lol