Cashew Hummus Recipe

Cashew Hummus* 

(the McKee family version - basic and mild)

FYI: We bought our Small Cashew Pieces from Azure Standard...

Ingredients

• 2 cups (16 oz) raw cashew pieces toasted in oven
• 3-4 T. toasted sesame oil
• 2/3 cup lemon juice
• 1 tsp Garlic Granules
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp cumin 
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp Chili Powder
• 3/8 tsp cayenne 
• all spices "to taste"

• Black Botija Olives, pitted (optional garnish)
• Parsley (optional garnish) 
•  Paprika (optional garnish)

Directions

1. Soak toasted cashews overnight. (Or at least 3 hours.)
2. Drain and rinse cashews a few times.
3. Place cashews and all remaining ingredients in a food processor.
4. Puree until well blended (it will be very thick).
5. You can add water ¼ cup at a time until desired texture...We didn't add water.
6. Garnish with parsley, paprika, and Black Botija Olives.
   
   possible additions - add while blending:
   sun-dried tomatoes
   olives (10-30)
   roasted red peppers
   roasted garlic
   
   *original recipe came from SunFoods 
   

FYI: McKee Family Topical First-Aid Kit

The McKee Family's Topical First-Aid Kit

Our go-to external first aid kit is made up of these 3 Boiron remedies: Arnica Gel, Calendula Gel, Calendula Ointment. Tincture of Iodine (not the colorless kind), Lavender EO, and Cayenne Pepper.

Arnica Gel (Boiron)

Bumps, bruises, overdoing it/muscle aches. If used soon enough and repeated as needed it can prevent bruising. Our first experience was when our son's hand was closed in the hinge side of the car door. It took away the pain and it never bruised.  Use on unbroken skin only, but can be applied near the open area. 

Tincture of Iodine

This is the first thing we do. (not the colorless kind or Povidone....it can be difficult to find in local drug stores. We found it on Amazon. )

Good for any insect bite or scratch. Especially animal scratch/bite, tree/thorn/fence scratches. We've treated Brown Recluse bites with only Iodine.  Iodine is a long time standard anti-infective treatment.

Calendula Gel (Boiron)

Skin irritations, infections, razor cuts, burns, skinned skin (you know like knees/arms, etc...).

Calendula Ointment (Boiron)

For longer lasting staying power under a band-aid.

Lavender EO 

It's good for any kind of burns- sun or heat.



Cayenne Pepper (ground)
Cayenne stops bleeding FAST.  The sooner you use it the better.  Like while the area is still in shock it won't feel the heat!   It coats a cut & speeds healing. Just make sure that you leave it on a while before you clean it off, or it will start bleeding again.  You can bandage over the cayenne and it can stay on until you need to change the band-aid. 

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Homemade toothpaste

No, it's not guacamole!  It's actually grey, not green!   

 

6 T Bentonite Clay

6 T Baking Soda

2T MSM

2T Xylitol

1 T Fennel Powder

75 +/- drops of Fennel* Essential Oil

3 smidges of White Stevia Powder

2 T unscented liquid Castille soap

Nutiva Extra Virgin Organic Coconut Oil to make paste consistency.

I fully expected to tweak it with more sweetener and flavor, but hubby deemed it good the way it was.  So, we have a nice supply of toothpaste that will last a while! 

 I've since read about using activated charcoal in toothpaste and will add that to the next batch.  Bentonite clay was what we happened to have in abundance, I might try another type next time.  Also, adding powdered horsetail would be good, but I didn't have any.  

 *You can flavor it any way you like....we've used peppermint and fennel....

 

EASY Healthy, Homemade Dark Chocolate

"Sinfully Delicious Salted Dark Chocolate"

This recipe was written by Amy Kelso of Backat the Ranch. Easy, tasty chocolate that is good for you!  We use Organic, Fair Trade cocoa powder from Frontier.  =)

This makes a great healthy candy, but be careful how you store it.  Coconut oil melts around 72°F!

    

Ingredients

• 1 cup Coconut Oil  (We use the ratio of 1:2 Cocoa Butter 2 -1/4 oz & then Coconut Oil up to 7 oz total) 
• 1 cup organic cocoa powder (3 & 1/4 oz)  (I just realized that I was accidentally using 1/2c! Well--it was good like that, but I'll have to try the whole amount next time, lol!)
• 1/2 cup raw, local honey (5-6oz)
• 1 tsp. natural vanilla extract
• 2 Generous pinch of organic coconut sugar (or 1T Sucanat)
• 2 Pinch of sea salt =)
  Optional: 1c rice cereal or granola & 1-2c chopped nuts, dried fruit, etc.

Instructions

1. Melt coconut oil & honey in sauce pan over low heat. (We found that you have to heat it till it starts to bubble a bit- otherwise it will not harden properly.)
2. Add cocoa powder, blend well.
3. Stir in a pinch of coconut sugar and sea salt.
4. Remove from heat.  (this is when you would add the optional crunchy stuff)
5. Line a shallow baking dish with parchment paper.
6. Pour chocolate mix onto paper lined dish.
7. Refrigerate (or freeze) until chocolate solidifies.
8. Cut into squares or break into bite sized pieces.
9. Store in refrigerator. (or freezer)

Notes I collected from the original blog post:
"You can adjust the amount of honey and coconut sugar to suit your personal taste.  I like mine a little less sweet and will often cut the amount of honey in half."

"Experience has shown me (experience and some helpful comments from my readers) that this chocolate will be an oooey gooey honey-fied mess if not spread thinly enough… so word to the wise."

"If you like, you can save your sea salt ’til the final step.  Sprinkling sea salt on top of your cooling chocolate adds to the visual appeal."

Almond Milk

Not to be used as a milk replacement for babies!


We followed the Vita-Mix directions.

1 cup raw almonds (I sprayed them with H2O2 first)

3 cups water

Blended as per directions.

There was a lot of thick, creamy pulp left....we added it to the quiche recipe we were making, could be used for crackers or added to breads or smoothies....

In the future we will soak the almonds in salt water overnight and skin them (like we usually do) then try this recipe again.

Unless this is really scrumptious we'll probably stick to using almonds for nut butters and snacking.

 We like to salt water soak, skin and dehydrate almonds, then toast them briefly in the oven.  Yes, that's a lot of work and steps to follow, but that's the way we like them.

Next adventure....almond butter from the Vita-Mix!  Stay tuned....

Debbie makes Sourdough...

To see the photos, how-to and recipe, please follow this link!

Golden Beets

 We ordered a 25 LB sack of Organic Golden Beets from Azure* this month. (We have never done that before.)  A 25 LB sack of beets is large!

 Debbie & Adrienne scrubbed almost all of them (a few are in the fridge for roasting another time), and then gave them a boiling water/cold water dip, to make them easier to peel. This process took longer than we thought it would, but it was not bad. The peeled beets looked like peaches! =)

Beets, boiling water, 1/2-1 teaspoon salt per quart jar and ONE INCH head space!  (we had beets left over, Debbie cooked & pickled them!)

Pressure can them....

 I'm not sure that Golden Beets are supposed to be canned- they lost all their color!  But we are now the proud owners of 6 quarts of beets, that will get turned into pickled beets later in the year.

*Azure is a buying club that delivers to Greenville once a month. They also deliver to Rockwall, and other places in the DFW Metroplex. (click here for info)

Rice Milk

(please don't give it to your baby as a milk replacement!)

We basically followed the Vita-Mix directions.

1 cup cold cooked brown basmati rice (cooked with salt and rice bran oil - 2 cups rice per 6 cups water)

4 cups warm water

2 Tablespoons Sucanat

Blended as per directions.  Decided it was a little on the thin and watery tasting side so we....

added another 1/2 cup cold cooked brown basmati rice and poured the rice milk back and processed it again.....

....we were delighted to see there was nothing in the strainer, so we can dispense with that step in the future! 

We bought the rice at a store called "India Market" in Irving off Hwy 183 on the way to the DFW airport.

From the recent news concerning arsenic levels in rice (from Ag use such as pesticides and feeding to conventional poultry - then using the manure for fertilizer) in rice grown in the good ol' USA, we might be better off getting our rice from India, although it wasn't organic.....

Candy!

 This is the McKee Family's  variation on the "Fantastic Carob Fudge" found on page 109 in the "Whole Foods for the Whole Family" (1984 printing) cookbook.

1. In a medium sauce pan, melt (low/med-low heat):
1 cup (12oz) Honey
3/4 - 1 cup (8-10oz) unsweetened Nut Butter
2 - 4 Tablespoons Coconut Oil or Butter

2. Leave the heat on, and using a hand mixer, carefully, mix.

3. By hand, stir in:
1/2 cup Organic Cocoa Powder (sifted)
1/2 cup Carob Powder (sifted)

4. Carefully, mix using your hand mixer again. It will get nice and thick & rubbery!

5. Stir in whatever Nuts or Fruit you want!
(This time we used: 1 cup of toasted sliced Almonds and 1/2 cup Craisins.)

6. Remove from heat, spread out on something that you can put in the fridge to cool.
The first time we put it on a Wax Paper lined cutting mat and it stuck to the waxed paper! The second time I spread it on a Plastic Wrap lined cutting mat. 
Store it in the fridge or freezer!

Yum, Yum!

This candy/fudge has to cool/harden in the fridge.
This fudgey stuff was SO glossy, thick & rubbery.....but so good.

Adrienne was caught with her finger in the pot...  =)

Making our own Bacon

As you can see, we took our pigs in to the processor. We used Cobbs (click here), because they came recommended by Wes & Kelly Adams over at Adams Blackland Prairie (click here), and Robert Hutchins over at Rehoboth Ranch (click here).
Cobbs is a humane kill certified facility (click here), and that was very important to us. Our pigs lived over there about a week before processing, so they were well treated and very happy before they left this old earth. =)
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This is 1/2 a pork-belly, that we had to cut into manageable pieces, for our very first bacon! Pork-belly is the name for the cut of meat that is classically turned into bacon. You can also make "buckboard bacon" which is made from roasts, so it is leaner. (We are planning to try that next!) We made three recipes this time, so we can decide what we like best:

This is recipe 1 (click here)

It is a dry rub, not too hard, but it did make a mess on the bag while we were putting it in the bag.

Recipe 2 (click here). First you coat with local honey...
Then you give it a generous cover of black pepper. (No, we do not use McCormick, we buy whole organic peppercorns, in bulk from Frontier Natural Foods Co-op, and grind our own.) We love pepper. Good, fresh pepper! Once you try it, there is no going back! (we grind it in a coffee grinder)

Then you try to pack it with a salt, etc mixture...ha,ha. That was a mess!
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Debbie said there has got to be a better, neater way to get the meat in the bag...so she grabbed one of those flexible plastic cutting boards, and inserted it into the bag...

...which made a lovely chute! (What a good idea~ it makes me wonder what else we could use that cutting mat for!)

And last but not least, recipe 3 from Backwoods Home magazine

We just mixed an UN-godly amount of yellow mustard (Can you tell that we don't eat yellow mustard?), with some sugar, salt & black pepper, covered one half, slipped it into the bag (Thanks again, Debbie!) and flipped it over, poured in the remaining mustard mix, and that was done! =)

We vacuum sealed each one, but you could also just use Ziplock bags or some other well sealing container. They are in the fridge now, and we just have to turn them & knead them every day for 7-10 days...we could smoke them, but I don't think that that will happen, as we don't own a smoker.

Rinse well, soak, chill, slice and cook!

~Thank you, Adrienne for doing the really messy part of the job...

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We will add to this post telling you how it turned out!

Apple Day!

We decided that we missed prepping pears for the dehydrator and ordered a 20 pound box of organic juice quality apples to prep and dry.

Easy!

We used the peeler gizmo and hubby helped Adrienne and I, we got it done in about an hour.

Q: Can I leave the skin on?
A: Yes, you can leave the skin on, but it gets rather tough. (The piggies are getting our skins and cores!)
To keep the apples from getting brown (the lighting is why these don't look so good), we mixed 1T citric acid and 1T ascorbic acid in 2 quarts water, and tossed them in. (just don't leave them in longer than 30 minutes)

9 trays full and drying right now!!!!! So much easier than pears!!!

We ran out of space in the dehydrator, so we added a few old apples that were running around, and had enough apples for 2 pies.

(this is what the solution looked like when we got done- kind of murky...)

So Adrienne experimented with freezing one pie's worth for Thanksgiving.
Put apples in boiling water for 2 min and then remove them to a bowl of ice water til cool, and then pack and freeze.

And the other half she cooked up and made 2 half pie/cobblers. one for tonight, and one for the freezer.

This is what she did this time:
8-9 cups Apples
2t. Cinnamon
1t. Nutmeg
1/2t. homemade dried Orange rind
1/2t. salt
some butter
Some water
(you could just use 3/4 -1 cup brown or white sugar)
a splash of Molasses
1/2 t. Stevia
1/2c. Xylitol

Cook it a while on the stove, and then dump it in your pan(s), top with homemade crust (thanks Mom), bake awhile @ 375ish until filling is bubbly and crust seems nicely browned.

The next morning the Dried Apples were done:

After putting up literally hundreds of pounds of pears, a 20 pound box of apples was like a walk in the park! I made a note to self, next time order TWO boxes!

(Adrienne really packed the first jar too full, otherwise it would have been two full half gallon jars!)