Papaya Lime Smoothies

Every time I make smoothies, I determine to make them more often. Then I get caught up in other things and I once again forget about my beloved smoothies.

They are such a great way to get some extra nutrients in for breakfast, snack, or any other meal, though, and are so delicious AND simple that I am once again determined to make smoothies a regular part of my diet, and my family's.

There's nothing quite like enjoying a cool smoothie with your breakfast on a hot summer day. A papaya lime smoothie is one of my favorite smoothies, and I easily get addicted to them when I make them several times in a row. These particular smoothies do call for a good amount of sweetener so they are a great dessert as well.

I first started making them a couple of years ago when I got some wonderful fresh papaya in my Harry and David fruit of the month club delivery (I purchase this each year as part of a Christmas present for my family with some of the earnings I make at a local trade fair booth each year). They had included a smoothie recipe with the fruit, and it was delicious.

I have adapted this recipe to make it more nutritious, but the same great flavor is there. I use frozen papaya chunks when I don't have good fresh papaya.

Projected time: 5 minutes. Serves 2
2 cups papaya chunks, fresh or frozen
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt (plain is fine, you just might want to add a little more vanilla)
1/2 cup ice
3 tbsp. fresh lime juice
2 tbsp. organic cane sugar or natural sweetener of choice (use less for some sweeteners)
1/4 tsp. pure vanilla
1/2 cup milk of choice
1 tsp. extra virgin coconut oil
1 tsp. milled flax seed
1 tsp. chia seed (I use Salba)

Blend all ingredients together until smooth. Adjust sweetener and flavor, and possibly ice, as you desire.

Enjoy!

Here are some other smoothies to try from a couple of other foodie friends:
Aggie's Green Smoothies
Kristen's Nutrient Packed Smoothies

What are your favorite smoothie flavors? Do you like to add vegetables to yours? That's something I'm trying to do - spinach, kale etc. with berries. Share with us!

Mother's Day, and Easy Muffins

  "A Mommy who cares for us, a Mommy who lets us do a lot, This is the Best Mommy.
  I Love you Mommy you who care you are great to S and me.
  You are the Best Mommy for us, We love you much, so we give you these to thank you for the things given to us." -written by C

The writing above? A gift given to me a few months ago, just because, from my oldest, C, and youngest, S.

Below, another just because gift of a little necklace of beautiful beads on string, a spin paint art design and another note with a heart with a gold circle and glitter: "A Golden Wish ... Just for you, you are the Best Mommy"

The occasions? Just because. My heart swells. I am blessed.

I have two precious daughters. The oldest turned 8 a few months back and the youngest will be 5 in a couple of months. They are both fiercely independent, intelligent, strong-willed, defiant, ornery, opinionated, adventurous, curious, bright, inquisitive, beautiful, talkative girls. I call them "spirited."

My friends and family speak the truth when they say we have our "hands full." Boy, do we ever. They are not laid-back children, nor are they compliant in any way, shape or form. Neither was I, so I suppose I'm getting payback several times over.

They can out-argue any adult. It's impossible to "win" an argument, especially with C. We have to be pretty firm in our boundaries and try to follow through every time. I'm worn down by the end of the day.

But I'm not complaining. I wouldn't change a thing about my daughters. It makes things very difficult at times, yes. It is a challenge. But all of these traits will serve them well to help them go as far as they want in life.

They are so alike in so many ways, and yet so different. One is in love with all things in nature and chases children with slime pulled out of a pond, all in good fun. The other is all princess and dress up, but still likes to play and dig in the dirt. They both love music. And reading. And cooking. And art. And their family.

They have by far the biggest hearts I've ever seen in children. They are sharing, kind, loving. Compassionate and caring. They may have awful cat fights with each other, and an hour later be cuddling on the couch with a book. I often find artwork or love notes, flowers, flower petals and pretty stones from both of them hidden under my pillow, on my nightstand, in my recipe "thinking" notepad, on my desk. A potholder for spring, with each color representing a part of spring, presented with new buds and a baby pine cone ...

I love these daughters of mine.

As Mother's Day nears tomorrow, I reflect back on my first Mother's Day. I didn't have a baby to hold. My first child had gone to heaven early in my second trimester five months before. I was still bitter and longing and broken. I wanted people to remember that I was a mom, too, but then that was another reminder that I wasn't a mother to a baby on earth.

When we called my mom to wish her a happy Mother's Day that day, she said, "Happy Mother's Day to you, too, Caneel."

My mom knew I needed that. I have a great mother. I was a challenge for her, just as my girls are for me. But she stuck with it and loved me through the hard times and the good times equally. And I'm so thankful that God gave me the mother I have.

I know I make mistakes in parenting, and I know my daughters will remember some of those mistakes. But ultimately I pray that they will know how loved they are through it all. I want to be a mother deserving of the children given to me.

Tomorrow I want to cuddle with my children and let the world pass by. I'm going to try for a day to forget about all the cares and concerns of the world at large and my own world, and just enjoy my family. I probably won't turn the computer on, until it's time to Skype my mom. I don't know how or why I was so blessed with these incredible daughters and amazing husband, but I'm thankful I was.

I wish a very Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there. And a Happy Mother's Day to my own mother, and my mother-in-law. And for those of you who have mothers who have passed from this earthly life, I hope you are filled with good memories of them tomorrow.

In honor of tomorrow's special day, I've decided to share with you an incredibly easy muffin recipe. I didn't really intend to ever share this recipe, because it's just adapted from the back of the Pamela's baking and pancake mix.

However, I made these muffins one day, with blueberries, and the girls love them so much that, while I was on the phone, they set up "props" for a photo shoot with one of the muffins. When I hung up, they excitedly dragged me to the table and told me they had everything ready for taking pictures for my blog. They had pulled out things I had forgotten I even had to use as props. It wasn't what I would have chosen, but I couldn't possibly refuse them.

So I took photos of the blueberry muffin, exactly the way they had set it up with the muffin broken open and all, and knew that one day I needed to post the photo, with the recipe.

Blueberry, exactly the way my daughters set it up

It's an easy one. It's one that you can scoop the mix from the bag and throw together in a matter of minutes. It's one that adults, or kids, not used to baking or new to gluten-free baking, can pull off without being intimidated.

Banana chocolate chip

So if you're one of those people, or one day you need a super-quick but yummy breakfast/brunch, this is for you. They are good. My favorite three ways to make them are blueberry muffins, banana muffins and banana chocolate chip muffins. Make what works for you. It's versatile and you can do whatever flavor you want. As stated above, it's adapted from the recipe on the back of the Pamela's mix.

Blueberry
Projected prep time: 5 minutes; Bake time: 18-25 minutes
Makes 6-8 muffins (I always double it)
1 1/4 cups Pamela's baking & pancake mix
1/3-1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup organic cane sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 large egg
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla
1/2 cup blueberries, frozen or fresh
(Optional: Sometimes I throw in a spoonful or two of milled flax seed or Salba/chia seed)

Banana/Banana Chocolate Chip
Makes 6-8 muffins (I always double it)
1 /14 cups Pamela's baking & pancake mix
1/3-1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup organic cane sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 large egg
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla
1 banana, mashed
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

(Optional: Sometimes I throw in a spoonful or two of milled flax seed or Salba/chia seed)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line muffin tin (this is for regular size muffin tin) with baking cups or grease the tin.

Mix all ingredients together (use your judgment on how much milk, you may need to use up to 1/2 cup), except the fruit. If you are using just bananas, then mix them in last, mixing very well. If you are using chocolate chips or blueberries, fold them in last.

Spoon batter into prepared tin, about 2/3 full in each. Sprinkle a little organic cane sugar over the tops of each. Bake for 18-25 minutes (regular size muffins), until they bounce back a little when the tops are touched and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Happy Mother's Day.

Banana Bread

Banana bread with melted butter

This is the very first recipe I converted to be gluten-free. It was actually before we were gluten-free -- my father-in-law was diagnosed with celiac disease before my husband and the subsequent testing that led to our daughters and myself going gluten-free, so I originally made this for him.

My entire life, my favorite banana bread recipe has been the one out of Cooking Down East; it's the one my mom has always used and I followed, then adapted a little to be dairy-free for a daughter's former preschool classmate (and kept it that way b/c we liked it so much!). It's the one I've adapted even more to be gluten-free, and everyone loves it. I hope you do, too!

Projected prep time: 10 minutes; Projected bake time: 1 hour, maybe more
1/4 c. expeller-pressed extra virgin coconut oil
1 tsp. sea salt
1 c. organic sugar
2 eggs
3/4 c. white rice flour
3/4 c. brown rice flour
1/4 tsp. gluten-free, aluminum-free baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda (see note)
4 bananas (very ripe), beaten creamy with fork and/or masher
3 heaping tsp. milled flax seed (optional, but why not do it?)
3 tsp. Salba seed (optional, but why not try it? It gives a great little crunch and texture!)
No nuts in this recipe, but you can add a cup of chopped nuts of your preference if you desire.

A note on the baking soda: I always level it out on the spoon and then take a little pinch out like I show here. I also put it in my hand first and make sure there are no clumps.

Coconut oil is a great butter replacement in this recipe. It is so healthy, and you can't really taste the coconut flavor with this particular recipe. My husband doesn't care for a coconut taste in a lot of things, but he loves this bread. If you've never baked or cooked with it, it's an oil that will be solid at certain temperatures and then change to liquid as it heats up. You can see it's solid as I start this recipe:

Add salt to the oil, and add sugar gradually while beating. The coconut oil will probably have little lumps remain that you can't cream out and may even be visible in the batter. It's okay. It will melt into the rest of the batter when it bakes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Sift flour together with soda, baking powder and milled flax seed.

Mash bananas and add alternately with dry ingredients to the egg/oil mixture. After it's all mixed together, add your Salba seeds gradually while continuing to mix.

Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for an hour or longer. Check at an hour and you may need to continue baking for another 10-15 minutes or so. It's done when knife in center comes out clean. I like to spread some butter on top of the loaf right out of the oven.

Enjoy!

I made a mini-loaf in this photo because I was making these bananatella cream bites with the batter, as well (minus the Salba in those)!

Mama Me's Pancakes

We love pancakes in this house, and they are usually made at least once a week. Before we went GF, I made the pancake recipe out of the Joy of Cooking, with some alterations. It's the recipe my mom and dad used every Saturday morning while I was growing up -- usually with plenty of batter left to refrigerate and have for supper on Sunday night -- and I loved them, so why change it?

After we went GF, I had quite a time figuring out how to replicate something as simple as pancakes with the recipe I loved. No matter what flour blend I tried, it just didn't quite make the cut. It was either too grainy, too slimy, too puffy, too dry, too whatever, you name it. I tried lots of different blends and flours by themselves but they just didn't taste the same. I hadn't ever cared too much for pancakes from a mix before, unless I added more stuff to them than called for, but that's what finally happened here. I can tell you, too, that the whole family loves them and so does everyone else who has tried them.

First, let me introduce you to three products in this recipe:

Let's zoom out of that shot so you can see the different flours that I bake with at any given time:

Of course, they don't sit on the bar all the time. Most of them are stored in the refrigerator, with a few in the freezer and a small handful in the pantry. I just took them out so you could see all the fun. There were still a couple of homemade flour blends in the fridge, and a few bags of flour types in the freezer that I use less often.

This is basically the recipe on the back of Pamela's Baking & Pancake mix, but it has a few changes as you can see if you compare them.


Projected prep time: 5 minutes; Projected cook time: As long as it takes, not too long
1 level c. Pamela's Baking & Pancake mix
1 tbsp. canola oil or grapeseed oil
2 large eggs
3/4 c. milk (or more depending on what all you add to it and how thick it seems to you, it may need thinning just a little)
2 tsp. Salba seed (optional, but try it!)
2 heaping tsp. milled flax seed (optional, but why wouldn't you?)
Blueberries
Syrup or whatever topping you want
(Note that I change this up all the time. Sometimes I make it with mashed bananas and chocolate chips. Sometimes I make it thinner, adding more milk and omitting the Salba seed, and top them with Nutella and sliced bananas, and fold them over. Another favorite is topping with strawberries and whipped cream. Do what you want!)

Mix your ingredients together and pour pancakes onto a preheated griddle or pan. You know the drill.

When I do blueberries or chocolate chips, I put them in a little bowl next to the griddle and drop a few on top of the batter after it's poured. They don't clump in the batter that way.

Top with some butter and your favorite toppings. These are topped with maple syrup (organic, Grade B -- more nutritious!).

I use up all my batter at one time. If there are pancakes left over (there usually are because I double, sometime triple the recipe) then I refrigerate them and reheat within a few days (they're usually gone the next day). Have a great weekend, everyone, and enjoy some pancakes!

Product I can't live without of the week

Love this stuff! I sprinkle it in pancakes, breads, muffins, on top of cereal, rice noodles, this list goes on ...