Elderberry Syrup

I just realized that I spoke of an elderberry recipe and then never posted it.  Well now is definitely the time for having this on hand!  It is an immune booster, and also amazing how it can fight off flu.  Whether you get the flu shot or not, it doesn't always cover the strain that you may come in contact with and you could still be infected.  During the flu season, I give my kids a "shot" of this syrup daily to help boost their immune system.  Then if they do get sick, I give them a "shot" every two hours.  Being diligent and giving this often and for as long as the illness is lingering is the key with Natural Remedies!  They will take longer to work, but a chance of relapse is almost none!  Also remember to keep hydrated too!  I found a great "Natural Gatorade" recipe on Pinterest.  By the way, if you are on pinterest and don't follow me, please go and do that!  I have a lot of boards, but you may just be interested in my natural health, no harsh chemicals please, nourishing our bodies one bite at a time, paleo, and our life on GAPS boards. 
Now for the recipe:
1/2 cup dried elderberries, or 1 cup fresh (Frozen) berries
3 cups water
1 cup honey
bring berries and water to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 30 min
mash berries to release all the juices
strain off the berries, add honey and mix to combine well.
store in fridge for a few months

I buy dried berries from www.bulkherbstore.com or I harvest them myself in the wild.  Just be sure they are the black elderberries not the red ones.  The red ones are poisonous.  Also do not confuse elderberries with polk berries or sumac.  Be sure to look it up on line.  Making sure the  leaf and the blooms/berries look like what you see online.  This is the time of year to find them ready to harvest.

The bottom picture is frozen elderberries that I harvested last fall.  I am making the syrup using those berries today!  ENJOY, and may you and your family all have a healthy winter!
 

Taco Chilli

It's beginning to feel like Fall here in the mid-south.  Today was a busy day for us as we started the day on a field trip to our local pumpkin patch.  I packed our lunch for us to eat in the car.  After the patch, we headed to the library to get our books on hold and a movie.  Then headed to Sam's Club.  This adventure did not go well because of 2 reasons.  #1 when I got out my membership card, I realized it was expired.  No problem, I will just renew it inside.  So I proceed through the store filling my cart only to realize at the check out that my debit card has expired.  Oh yes I do remember they sent me a new one, but its on my counter at home waiting on me to activate it from a month ago.  GRRRR, I have no reason to get upset with my children when they pull these kind of forgetful stunts...they learned it from me!  So I leave the store empty handed.  Let me also mention here that my local Sam's Club is an hour from my house.  So you can imagine my frustration with myself! 
After that incident, we headed to Trader Joes's and got our groceries.  (They take a credit card, where Sam's does not)  Then we still had 40 minutes to kill before the chiropractor opened, so we stopped by the park to play for a few.  Then I got adjusted and we were homeward bound by 4:30. 
After I unloaded all the groceries and put them all away, I realized I had nothing planned for dinner.  It's now 5:45 and the girls are hungry.  What can I throw together quick that is also filling and healthy?  I invented a Taco Chilli recipe, and I wanted to share it with you all since it is kid and husband approved! 

TACO CHILLI
1 pound grass fed beef
1 pound pastured pork sausage
1/2 cup of bell peppers (I used red, green & yellow) diced
1/2 yellow onion  diced
2 tsp crushed garlic
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1Qt tomato juice (home canned is super yummy)
1 can Rotel (tomatoes and chillis)
2 Tbsp cumin
2 Tbsp Chilli powder
salt to taste
shredded cheese (optional topping, we use kerrygold)
avacado (topping)
Sour cream (we use plain greek yogurt)
Organic blue corn chips (optional)
Since I am the only one in my family who is 95%  Paleo, I do not include all the optional toppings, I do use avocado. (yes I do realize that beans are not Paleo! Thanks for the good observation)

Brown the sausage and beef together in a skillet.  Remove the meat, leaving the fat behind in the skillet.  Saute the veggies in the fat.  After they are cooked, drain the fat and add the meat, veggie, beans, tomato juice, Rotel, crushed garlic and seasonings to a big pot and stir to combine.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 30 min.
(If you want this to be thicker, more like chilli, add an 8oz can of tomato paste)
Serve with the optional toppings.
ENJOY, and HAPPY FALL YA'LL!!!

Pictured is a bowl with cheese as a topping.

Fresh homemade salsa

This is a video of me making my fresh salsa.  Tomatoes have been good this year!  This was the first gallon I made.  We ate all of that and I have since made a second gallon.  It lasts in the fridge for 6 months!
Recipe:
1 gallon of tomatoes, chopped, drained and press (excess liquid through mesh strainer)
1 small bunch cilantro (optional)
1 large red onion, diced
1 fresh cayenne pepper, seeded and diced
5-6 fresh banana peppers, seeded and diced
2 medium bell peppers, seeded and diced
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/8 cup sea salt
1 Tbsp garlic powder (or more to taste)
1 Tbsp ground cumin

Dice all veggies or use food processor to do it for you!
Add vinegar and spices
stir well and refrigerate
ENJOY!


Oh and I forgot, add the juice of 1 freshly squeezed lime!

Fresh homemade tomato sauce

If you are like me, you have a LOT of tomatoes in your fridge.  Either you grew them or you have friends giving them to you.  So many tomatoes and you can not eat them all before they go bad.  You have made BLTs and salsa, and eaten them in salads, had tomato and cheese sandwiches and still have TONS of tomatoes.  What to do with them all?
Can them!  I know this may be a new thing to some or scary to think about, but I have an easy way that you can do this!  Not special equipment needed!
You can use cherry tomatoes, or the big ones, either is fine!
Take about one big stock pot 1/2 full of tomatoes.  If you are using the big ones, core them and cut off any bad spots.
Add them to the pot and turn heat to med high.  Add chopped bell peppers (approx. 3) and chopped onion (1 large yellow), about 5-6 garlic cloves, 1 Tbsp sea salt, 1/4 cup EVOO, and fresh herbs (basil, oregano, thyme, and rosemary) about 1/4 cup of these slightly chopped, stems removed.
cook all of this till veggies are tender.
Let cool a little, then pour into blender or use immersion blender to puree into a sauce.
put sauce back into pot and bring to a boil, then simmer while you get the jars ready.
Fill clean QT or Pint jars with HOT water to get the jar HOT.  The ladle hot sauce into clean empty HOT jars.  Leave a 1" head space, wipe rim clean, screw on a new lid and ringer to hand tight.  Set on a towel on the counter and repeat till you are out of sauce.
Let the jars set until the lids POP and seal.  Then let them continue to set undisturbed 24 hours. Label and date the jars.  If any do not seal, put in the fridge and eat within a week!
ENJOY!!! 


NOTE: if your sauce is watery before you add to the jars, stir in a small can of tomato paste!  Make sure its organic!

Our newest addition

                        Meet Sallie Ann, our 3 week old puppy that is a Shepherd/Lab mix.

                        She loves sitting by the chicken tractor and watching the chickens!

As if we don't have enough animals already!  The neighbors across the street, their Lab had puppies.  My girls caught wind of their cries and wandered over there to find 5 adorable puppies.  So naturally when they finally talked my husband & me into walking over one evening after dinner, we came home with one.  Incase you don't already know, we have 2 full grown labs, a cat, 2 guinea pigs, 6 chickens, and now...a puppy.  At first they had her in the house and we crate her at night and while we are gone.  But yesterday I decided that I could NOT take the hair anymore!  So I vacuumed the whole house and banished her to be an outside dog.  She has taken up friends with the chickens!  We still crate her while we are gone and at night because she is so young.  Last night was a LONG night.  She was up at 2:30 crying so loud I could hear her from in my room which is NO where near the garage.  Not to mention she was awake again at 5:30 crying even LOUDER!  Just a little window into our lives that seem like we live on a farm, but in reality we live in a neighborhood!  #lovemykids #theycantalkusintoanything

Getting rid of a stuborn virus

This is my sweet Tiny Trotter, age 5 who came home sick from the beach with a fever virus and some GI upset.

This is colloidal silver, it fights against 650 different kinds of bacteria and viruses.

Remember the phrase I used a while back when talking about things I do for myself and my family?  "Not wrong, just different!"  Keep that in mind when reading this post!  I'm not against western medicine, I am a nurse myself!  I just find that sometimes in todays medical world that some natural remedies that work well, are not mentioned because they do not make anyone money! 
So I am going to share a story with you:
5 kids are at the beach, Gulf of Mexico waters, and 3 of the 5 end up sick.  Main symptom, fever, with a little GI upset, some mild vomiting and a few cases of diarrhea.  No energy in the kids and no appetite!  Complaint of headache and excessive thirst.  Fever will not break and ranges from 99.8-104.6  These kids are sick!  I started off with my child that was sick treating the fever with Epsom salt baths, and chamomile tincture.  This worked for the first 24-36 hours.  Then she would not eat or drink much at all and the fever would not respond to the tincture.  So I gave the ibuprofen every 12 hours or as far apart as I could.  As long as her fever was 101.5 or less, I did nothing!  On day 3 of my Tiny Trotter being sick, it was also day 5 of one of the other children.  My best friend decided to take hers to the doctor.  I was curious what this virus was myself, so asked her to let me know what the Dr said.  The answer was, "not sure, but here is a prescription."  I am married to a self employed man and our insurance...well, lets just say we pay for it ALL out of pocket.  So I thought I would give my child the colloidal silver as her "antibiotic" just as my friends Dr had prescribed for her sick children who had the same thing.  Thanks to her for saving me some money and letting me have her diagnosis without having to pay way too much!  LOL
The difference between antibiotics and this colloidal silver is that the silver also fights against viruses!    Antibiotics are only good against bacteria.  So we had a little test for ourselves going on...is this a virus they have or bacteria?  Today is 3 days of Tiny Trotter on the silver and she is fever free and appetite back, along with playing like her usual self.  This also would have been her 5th day of the symptoms had she awoken with fever again.  So I feel like 2 full days of the silver in her system did the trick.  I am going to continue to give it for about a total of 10 days just to boost her immune system.  My friend?  Her kids are on the up side of this as well.  She did not feel that the antibiotic did anything to help!  One of her kids had fever for 5-6 days, and the other one I saw today and she still said she felt bad.  Today for her is 6 days being sick.  Poor kids!  What was it they had?  How did they get it?  Why didn't the other 2 get it?  All I know is our other 2 kids are healthy eaters and a healthy weight!  The other 3 are more picky and under weight! 
What I have learned that I wanted to share...just because its not prescribed, doesn't mean it can't work.  I did a LOT of research online before I gave it to her.  Some sites said it was dangerous, others said it was fine.  There was a lot of medical research that had been done all over the world for years on this mineral and nothing was found negative.  But just like with all things...a little is all you need!  Too much of a good thing, is still TOO much!  And for those interested?  I bought it on amazon.com for under $30.  Should last us a LONG time!  It was an 8 oz bottle, you only use 1/2-1 dropper full and the shipping was even FREE!  I am a PRIME member, but this was not a PRIME item.  Still is was FREE shipping and I got it in 2 business days.  (What I used on Tiny Trotter was some my chiropractor has given me another time she was sick)

GI testing results are in...

So this is a diagram of what the human anatomy of our digestive track looks like.  Just in case anyone is curious about that!
My test results were as follows:
NO fungus or yeast
NO parasites (Yippie!!!)
3 strains of bacteria that all people have normally in the gut:
1. e.coli
2. strep
3. lactococcus
All of these were in serious overgrowth in my gut!  Not a good thing, especially since all the other markers were negative and I did NOT have a bacterial infection in the gut.  Luckily Anti-microbials can cure this!
(SIgA) which is a marker that tests for intestinal immunity was LOW!  Normal is 400-880, and mine was 44.
This is the immunity of the mucosal tissue, not what determines if you catch a cold or not!
This could be low due to food sensitivities which I have not tested for yet, but will be doing next!
I had no inflammation in the gut!  Thats good!
Chymotrypsin (pancreas enzymes) were low.  Normal is around 15, mine was 4.  What does this mean?  My food is not being properly broken down because my pancreatic enzymes are low.
I did have a little blood in the stool, once I begin gut healing treatment, I will retest for this to see if it is still there, worse or the same.
The recommendation was to start gut healing treatment to see if symptoms of bloating and discomfort after eating go away, or test for Food Sensitivities.  When I say bloating, let me be clear here that this is extreme bloating!  I have a flat stomach, eat anything at all and then I look 5 months pregnant.  No matter how much I work out my ABS, I cannot hold in my ABS to where I don't look preggers.  FRUSTRATION, and PAIN!  So,  I chose to go ahead and test for the food issues first because I felt it would be a lost cause to heal the gut if the food is the problem!  This test is being mailed to me now and once I have my blood drawn, I will have results in 2 days!  Much faster on this test!
So, when people ask me why I am doing this testing through a Nutritional Therapist and not my doctor, the answer is this...
Sadly enough in our Western Medical community, testing is not super thorough.  As long as they can find one thing out of the norm that there is a pill for, then they stop there and prescribe the pill.  The problem I have with this is that more times than not, this doesn't really get to the bottom of what is really going on.  Then the pill masks the symptoms so the real problem still exists.  I am taking my health into my own hands and seeking out help from a more holistic approach.  I want all the tests run and then collaboratively with my N.T. we will come up with as natural of a plan as we can to get my body back in balance the way GOD designed it to be.  We live in such a toxic world that no matter how hard we try to eliminate the toxins from our environment, we are still exposed to some degree.
I hope this hasn't totally overwhelmed or confused you all!  It's a lot to take in and understand!  Thanks for reading and following along!  I welcome any comments and questions if you are struggling to get some answers about your own health!  I will try my best to guide you in the right direction!