Hearth and Soul Blog Hop

Welcome to this week's edition of the Hearth and Soul Blog Hop, where each week, cooks from around the globe share their mos+t delicious, nourishing, and heart warming recipes. The cooking carnival where you come to share your best kept cooking secrets, those recipes with the magic ingredient in it called "Soul Spice"-  the made from scratch recipes that you make with love to feed your family, friends, and loved ones.

My co-hosts for the blog hop are:
Alea of Premeditated Leftovers,
Swathi of  Zesty South Indian Kitchen
and April of The 21st Century Housewife


Favorites from last week:
TBA

Hearth and Soul Mission

It’s about food from your hearth, made for your soul. Food that follows your intuition. Preparing food from scratch to nourish your family…body, mind AND soul! Food made with your own hands…infused with energy and passion and intent. Real food made by real people to feed real families (big and small, in blood or spirit). Ingredients from scratch, be it something grown in your garden or raised on your land…food foraged in the field or woods…food from local farms, farmers, or farmers markets…or even ingredients chosen by you from your local market that will be turned into something that feeds your soul. Tapping the food memory that each of us has stored inside; letting it guide and influence our own time in the kitchen.

We hope to embrace not only the “expected” areas of real food, but also those who want to incorporate healthier choices without sacrificing their love of food…how it tastes, the memories it conjures up, the comfort it brings. Yes, we’re trying to steer clear of packaged, processed, and boxed foods in favor of real foods….without absolutely excluding the sometimes frowned upon white sugar or flour (because the body craves what it craves…and sometimes things just don’t taste the same when you replace these). Making conscious choices and being present in the now with what your body needs…and taking steps towards exploring and enjoying healthier choices. If you take the time to listen, your body will tell you what it needs.

The warm comfort of the home hearth…stories, anecdotes, lessons, adventures, journeys, recipes, meals, beverages…we want to share the “why” of how food feeds more than just our bodies…how it also feeds our souls. After all, aren’t these the essential ingredients in defining real food? Please share links from your Hearth ‘n Soul with us each week.

Rules for linking:

Recipes should include healthy ingredients and can be old or new recipes or posts. Articles on real food, slow food, foraging, herbal remedies, local food, sustainable food, organics, gardening or any healthy eating information written in a positive and loving light are also welcome.

If you are new to a blog carnival, or blog hop, it is very easy to learn how to join in the fun! Simply go to the blog post for that carnival and scroll down to the bottom where you will see a small box that will say, You’re Next or Your link here. When you click on that link, you will be asked to enter the URL of your recipe or article.

Please link to your article only and not directly to your blog front page.

Place a link back to one of the blog hosts, which means adding in the URL of the blog hop post which you can copy from your browser address bar and insert at the bottom of your post. You could also choose to place a blog badge into your post.

Please link a post that closely fits into the mission. You don’t have to link up every week…link up when you can. We welcome posts that are shared in other events. If you have an older, archived post that you want to add, we welcome that…as long as you go in and add a link back to Hearth and Soul.

Please feel free to use and share the Hearth and Soul Hop badge listed below to promote the Blog Hop.

<a href=http://www.pennilessparenting.com"target="_blank"><img alt="Hearth & Soul Hop" src="http://premeditatedleftovers.com/hearthnsoul150.jpg"/></a>

Lets see your best recipes! Join up below! (If you've never participated in a blog hop before, click here to see why you should.)

Making and Using Homemade Royal Icing (Chemical Free) to Decorate Cookies

We just had a lovely party in honor of our baby, Anneliese, on Saturday. (We don't do baby showers- we welcome babies into the world only after they arrive all the way.)

I wanted to make some cute cookies, girly themed (after 2 boys, I'm bringing out the pink full force) to serve at the party. Only, I didn't want to serve any chemicals or anything like that, so I made my own homemade food coloring. And I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on paying some fancy cookie maker to make these cookies for our party, so despite never having learned "officially" to cake/cookie decorate, I decided to make my own cookies... and looking at the results, they were a smashing success. There were various bits and bobs left over from the party we threw, but not a single cookie left- people even asked if they could take cookies home for family members that couldn't make it, they loved the cookies that much.

I have a cookie cutter in the shape of a girl that I bought a few years back. (I own exactly 2 cookie cutters, a boy and a girl. That's it.)
I used this recipe from allrecipes.com- I couldn't taste it, but everyone who ate them said they tasted really delicious, so I highly recommend it. After making a bunch of those cookies and letting them fully cool, I made my homemade food coloring and then decorated the cookies with homemade royal icing. I wanted royal icing specifically because royal icing dries hard, so you don't have to worry about the frosting rubbing off the cookie and getting everything dirty.
Now usually royal icing calls for meringue powder, and you know me, I don't like using any specialty ingredients because they're usually a fortune, and something like meringue powder is probably processed enough that it isn't healthy. So here's how I made and used royal icing using only what was in the house.

Homemade Frugal (and Chemical Free) Royal Icing

Homemade Beet Food Coloring Recipe

Food coloring is banned in my house. Or rather, it isn't... We do have food coloring in out house, its just used to print things in our printer. No, seriously. (See here how we fill our ink cartridges with food coloring.)
Whether or not the FDA approves of food coloring's safety makes no difference to me- I don't trust that its fully safe and that there will be no harmful side effects from ingesting food coloring, even if only rarely, so I will never put food coloring into our food.

But what do you do then if you actually want to make your food prettier, like if you want to make colored frosting? Well, I don't have the solution to all the possible colors you might want, but here's how you can take advantage of nature's food and make your own magenta food coloring out of beets.

Homemade Beet Food Coloring

Crazy Cheap and Easy Chocolate Cake Recipe

No, this cake ain't healthy, nor is it gluten free or sugar free, but it's got something going for it- its cheap and its easy and its vegan and it doesn't use any ingredients that are hard to find and it's ultra easy to make. Pretty much its a good desert to make if you want to whip up a recipe last minute and you have no eggs or butter or milk or anything like that in the house... or if you have those, but want to save those ingredients for another use to keep your cake as frugal as possible.
And oh- it's moist and yummy and soft and did I mention really, really yummy?
I used to make this cake a lot, usually with carob powder instead of cocoa powder, but it's absolutely terrific both ways.

My husband hasn't had this cake in a while, even though it's his favorite- so I whipped it up to surprise him by serving it at the party in honor of our daughter's birth this weekend. (No, my husband isn't sugar free or gluten free- though I think it would be a good idea for him to be, he's an adult and he can make his own decisions, so I figure if he's going to eat it anyhow, I can make a treat for him like this...)
I have to say, I'm a bit jealous that he can eat it because it was one of my favorites as well.

I didn't make up this recipe, its known as Crazy Cake and has been floating around the internet, and has been passed on long before that- it originates from the Great Depression, when people didn't have money and cooked from scratch... kind of like what people should do in the economy today, which is kind of why Great Depression recipes have become more common lately- because they're good, yummy, and cheap, and nearly everyone is broke but likes good food.

Crazy Cake Recipe

Living Rurally To Save Money

One benefit of rural living- free firewood for heating!
Mrs Bushman tackles a fallen tree with her chain saw.

I live in a town of approximately 1200 families a 15 minute drive from the entrance to the nearest city. Because of our location, our rent is certainly higher than it would be in a more remote place. A few friends of mine asked me why I didn't move further out, so that I'd be able to pay less of our income on rent, and instead, I explained to her why its actually cheaper for us to live locally, despite paying much higher rent, because being near the city offers us many financial benefits. 
Many people I've spoken to who live further out in an effort to save money typically need much more money to make it through the month than we do, and I'm pretty convinced that if they lived nearer to the city like we do, they'd be better off financially, even after their higher housing costs... 


One blog I came across, Budgeting with the Bushmans, is about a family of four who lives debt-free  and ultra frugally, on one part-time income! The author claims that the reason they're able to live as frugally as they are is because they live rurally, but I had my doubts... After all, my friends who live more rurally end up spending much more than I do precisely because they're more rural... 
But yet, as I read through their blog, I saw that they actually were as frugal as I was, perhaps even more, and this is without having the frugal benefits that come with living near the big city that I do. I wanted to know how this was so. I asked the author of Budgeting with the Bushmans to offer another perspective to you readers and to me, to write a guest post explaining how living very rurally helps them be very frugal in ways not possible when living in the city.


How our family saves money by living rurally.


My family recently paid off $30,000 in credit card and medical debt, sold our mortgaged home in the city and moved to a rural area to buy a house for $13,000 cash.

Here are some of the things we have found to be cheaper living rurally:

Feeding Primal People... Frugally??

I've read and read lots of posts on the Primal/Paleo diet, and other low carb and grain diets, and despite all that I've read on this diet/lifestyle, I remain thoroughly unconvinced that grains are the evil some people make them out to be, both because of scientific reasons and because the reasoning for the theory (eat like the cavemen did) doesn't fly for me for many, many reasons. That said, even if I were convinced that a Primal/Paleo diet is the ideal way to eat, I most likely would not go on that type of diet because it is the most expensive diet out there, in my opinion, the least economically sustainable, and practically impossible to do frugally...

However, a family member of mine is on a modified Primal diet (he does eat legumes- a no no in "real" Primal diets), and because of certain circumstances that have come up, this family member will be at our house rather often in the next little while, so I'm pretty much doing what I thought impossible- feeding this grain free guest without putting us into the poorhouse (too much). (This guest eats animal products, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, minimal fruit, and that's about it. He'll eat very minimal amounts of potatoes or sweet potatoes, but will avoid those as well if possible.)

Why exactly is a grain free diet not frugal? How can you make a grain free diet as frugal as possible?

Hearth and Soul Blog Hop

Welcome to this week's edition of the Hearth and Soul Blog Hop, where each week, cooks from around the globe share their mos+t delicious, nourishing, and heart warming recipes. The cooking carnival where you come to share your best kept cooking secrets, those recipes with the magic ingredient in it called "Soul Spice"-  the made from scratch recipes that you make with love to feed your family, friends, and loved ones.

I wanted to wish co-host, Swathi, of  Zesty South Indian Kitchen congratulations on her baby boy!

My co-hosts for the blog hop are:
Alea of Premeditated Leftovers,
and April of The 21st Century Housewife


Favorites from last week:
Lentil and mung bean soup. Legumes + Winter + Soup= Perfection. This looks delicious- I shall be trying it out with some variations. (Can't get curry leaves or hing)
Could it be b12- This talks about the affects lack of b12 can cause on the body. I know I'm b12 deficient. Could that be why I had nerve issues as a teenager as well as a tendency to depression? Gives much to think about!
Italian Wedding Soup- I think I'll try this out with variations to make it gluten free. I'll also use wild greens in place of the spinach.

Hearth and Soul Mission

It’s about food from your hearth, made for your soul. Food that follows your intuition. Preparing food from scratch to nourish your family…body, mind AND soul! Food made with your own hands…infused with energy and passion and intent. Real food made by real people to feed real families (big and small, in blood or spirit). Ingredients from scratch, be it something grown in your garden or raised on your land…food foraged in the field or woods…food from local farms, farmers, or farmers markets…or even ingredients chosen by you from your local market that will be turned into something that feeds your soul. Tapping the food memory that each of us has stored inside; letting it guide and influence our own time in the kitchen.

We hope to embrace not only the “expected” areas of real food, but also those who want to incorporate healthier choices without sacrificing their love of food…how it tastes, the memories it conjures up, the comfort it brings. Yes, we’re trying to steer clear of packaged, processed, and boxed foods in favor of real foods….without absolutely excluding the sometimes frowned upon white sugar or flour (because the body craves what it craves…and sometimes things just don’t taste the same when you replace these). Making conscious choices and being present in the now with what your body needs…and taking steps towards exploring and enjoying healthier choices. If you take the time to listen, your body will tell you what it needs.

The warm comfort of the home hearth…stories, anecdotes, lessons, adventures, journeys, recipes, meals, beverages…we want to share the “why” of how food feeds more than just our bodies…how it also feeds our souls. After all, aren’t these the essential ingredients in defining real food? Please share links from your Hearth ‘n Soul with us each week.

Rules for linking:

Recipes should include healthy ingredients and can be old or new recipes or posts. Articles on real food, slow food, foraging, herbal remedies, local food, sustainable food, organics, gardening or any healthy eating information written in a positive and loving light are also welcome.

If you are new to a blog carnival, or blog hop, it is very easy to learn how to join in the fun! Simply go to the blog post for that carnival and scroll down to the bottom where you will see a small box that will say, You’re Next or Your link here. When you click on that link, you will be asked to enter the URL of your recipe or article.

Please link to your article only and not directly to your blog front page.

Place a link back to one of the blog hosts, which means adding in the URL of the blog hop post which you can copy from your browser address bar and insert at the bottom of your post. You could also choose to place a blog badge into your post.

Please link a post that closely fits into the mission. You don’t have to link up every week…link up when you can. We welcome posts that are shared in other events. If you have an older, archived post that you want to add, we welcome that…as long as you go in and add a link back to Hearth and Soul.

Please feel free to use and share the Hearth and Soul Hop badge listed below to promote the Blog Hop.

<a href=http://www.pennilessparenting.com"target="_blank"><img alt="Hearth & Soul Hop" src="http://premeditatedleftovers.com/hearthnsoul150.jpg"/></a>

Lets see your best recipes! Join up below! (If you've never participated in a blog hop before, click here to see why you should.)

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe

This is a terrific peanut butter cookie recipe, both for people on a gluten free diet and those not, as it doesn't call for any specialty flours or specialty ingredients. Its also pretty easy to prepare.
No, it's not sugar free or particularly healthy, but it at least is healthier than store bought cookies with all their chemical additives and preservatives.

Well, I have to admit, I didn't even make these for my family to munch on (for the most part). My friend and I are throwing a joint party this weekend for our friends and community to celebrate the birth of our babies, and I made these cookies to serve then. (Yea, we tend to do joint celebrations here. Double birthday party for the kids, double birthday celebration for me and the hubby. If my daughter doesn't share a birthday, we'll do the celebration with a friend! Double the fun, half the cost, I say...)
You might wonder why I feel its correct for me to serve people food that I think is unhealthy. If its unhealthy for my family, its unhealthy for everyone, and I shouldn't be serving it to others, right? Isn't it hypocritical for me to serve others foods that I myself won't eat?
I mean, maybe it is slightly, and if I had all the money in the world, maybe I'd serve only the healthiest food to everyone, no matter who they were. But the fact is, most healthy food is more expensive, and healthy sweeteners locally are a fortune, and if my guests do eat sugar and do eat white flour, etc... I'm not going to pay through my nose for better ingredients when my guests don't care. I'd rather save the money and use it to buy healthier food for my family, people who actually do care about eating healthier.
There are, however, certain things I won't serve guests, even if they don't care, and those are the things that I think are just so terrible that I can't justify feeding it to guests because it feels akin to poisoning them. (Those things are fake sugar, margarine, food coloring, artificial flavoring, and soy oil.) Even if it means spending more money, I will avoid serving these absolute no-nos to my guests.
But yes, I will serve guests sugar, and white flour.

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe

Homemade Sunflower Milk Recipe

I think one of the things I most frequently post about on this blog is how to make non dairy milks. Ok, thats slight an exaggeration, but I've already posted instructions on making homemade chickpea milk, sesame milk, and coconut milk, and now I'm posting yet another type of non dairy milk- sunflower milk.

Why do I make non dairy milk? Why not just buy it in the store and be done with it? And why not just stick to one type?

Well, homemade non dairy milk is loads cheaper than store bought! Soy milk is the type of non dairy milk sold and used in most establishments, but since I try to avoid soy for health reasons, its hard for me to even buy non dairy milk even if I wanted to. And I'm dairy free, so I can't just buy regular milk. (Dairy causes stomach issues for me.)

There also are other reasons to serve non dairy milk. You might be vegan or be hosting vegan guests. You might have other reasons why you can't serve dairy at a specific meal. You might be unable to get raw or organic or hormone free milk in your location and are worried about the health ramifications from drinking the standard non organic hormone-full pasteurized milk. Or you might be unable to make it to the store regularly enough to have a constant supply of fresh milk and don't want to use the ultra pasteurized shelf stable milk or powdered milk, either because of health or taste reasons...

Whatever the case may be, its always good to know how to make your own non dairy milk. And for the record, sunflower milk is my go-to milk now because chickpea milk is too much work, and I get stomach issues from both sesame milk and coconut milk...

Homemade Saline Solution Recipe

 Ok, this may seem like a dumb idea for a post, but my little girly is sick and is having breathing trouble and I've discovered via the net a way I can help her without giving her steroids or chemicals, doesn't cost a lot, and guess what? My doctor totally approves also, so I'm not being frugal at the cost of her health, don't worry.

My doc said that I should put saline in a nebulizer and let her breathe in the salt water solution... and they usually sell saline in pharmacies for this purpose among others...
Well, I didn't have time to make it to a pharmacy, and I didn't see the need to buy it if I could make it myself, and saline solution is saltwater solution...

Fortunately, google came to the rescue, and I discovered how to make my own saline solution, and I've been using that in the nebulizer and it seems to be helping my baby, fortunately.
I figured I'd share it with you in case you ever are in need of this for yourself or your child...

Homemade Saline Solution Recipe