Tasting Life Abundant

My sister and I are doing a Whole30 type diet this week. My breakfast today was sweet potatoes, pork chop, and egg with avocado. The pancakes were for Sophie and Nathaniel...And now my house has that amazing fried pancake smell and it's kind of toturing me. 😆 Roast beef dinner. Sirloin tip roast, the last one from our homegrown, grass fed cow. Roasted carrots that got so caramelized they tasted faintly of molasses. Instant mashed potatoes, because I can't do everything.😉 Sautèed mushrooms, cooked in butter, garlic and onion powders and dried parsley. And green beans, which is warmed in the skillet after the mushrooms​ were done. Brian took the kids fishing last Saturday, and they brought home a bunch of trout. I coated the fish in some seasoned flour and fried them in butter. They were good, but all the tiny bones make it alot of work, especially when you have to pick them out for your kids as well as yourself. Served the trout with baked potatoes and broccoli. ...

This is my lunch today. Aside from all the pretty colors in this picture, it's not super attractive.....In fact, I think chef Gordon Ramsay would probably be offended that I even took a picture of it. But sometimes, its the messy stuff that ends up tasting the best. What is it? Leftover enchilada topped with half an avocado and two farm fresh fried eggs, and a little salsa. SO GOOD.  The spicy with the creamy and the gooey with the chewy.....mmm.  And I cannot get enough avocado the last few days...like I'm eating at least one day. I'm so proud of myself! Lol Up to about two years ago, I hated avocado. But my taste has changed and now I enjoy its creamy addition to salads, smoothies, sandwiches, burgers, Mexican food and eggs. As long as its ripe, that is. There is definitely a "sweet spot" for avocado ripeness. Too ripe and it tastes like banana (yuck!) and too soon and it's hard not creamy and tastes really grassy. But a perfectly ripe avocado is deliciou...

This isn't as much of a recipe as it is an idea or meal/snack suggestion, but I thought it was worth sharing. I've been making these yogurt parfaits for Brian for a few months now. I started making them because most yogurt has so much sugar in it, which to me kind of defeats the purpose. I mean, if you're eating it for the probiotics (or Good Tummy Bugs, as they're known in my house), then adding a bunch of sugar that just feeds the Bad Tummy Bugs doesn't make much sense, right? Plus alot of popular brands contain additives or other stuff that's not great for you. And also, most yogurts are either low fat or non fat, and the fat in dairy not only helps you feel full and makes it taste better, it also helps you digest it better when you consume the whole food. And grass fed dairy fat has an even higher nutrient content. So, I wanted a whole milk, low sugar yogurt, preferably grass fed when possible, and it's cheapest to buy yogurt in a larger tub. But tha...

 I was up for two and a half hours last night, in the middle of the night, with Sophie and Nathaniel. They both had "growing pains"; their ankles and knees were hurting so much they were crying, and I ended up moving them both downstairs into the living room for the rest of the night. Nathaniel especially has a really hard time dealing with the pain. He literally says, "I can't handle it!", with tears streaming down his face. It's hard for a mama to know what to do....it's not an emergency, but it can feel like it. And it's hard to know what will help relieve the pain. (I used a heat pad, arnica muscle rub and lots of foot massaging, and a banana to help them relax.)  I was thinking about growing pains today, and how there are many times in our lives we experience "growing pains"...sometimes its emotional, sometimes spiritual. There is an urgency to relieve the pain, but we don't always know how. We try a lot of different things, hopin...