Sunflower seed muffins - best in town

I thank the dinosaur book for this delicious recipe (originally called Mini nut butter cups, p. 195)

2 eggs
1 ripe mashed banana
1 cup sinflowe seed butter (I made my own from sunflowers with water - dunno how it should be, but this worked out fine).
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup chopped dark chocolate (I used 86%)
1/3 cup chopped pecan nuts

Prepare the sunflower butter by grinding sunflower seeds for a good while in a mixer, add a little bit of water and grind until it is butterish.

Then mix eggs and mashed banana together and add the sunflower butter & salt. Chop the chocolate/pecans and stir into the dough. Place dough in muffins forms (silicone, do not stick) and bake in oven on 200 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

I am not kidding, we ate these muffins in less than 5 minutes. Three each, if we were that lucky. Kids and hubby were mad at me that I had not done more. But we were out of more sunflower seeds and eggs...

Enjoy!

This worries the shit out of me

The Worst Place to Store Your Cell Phone

- We have wifi. I used to turn it off at night. Not anymore... going back to old practices here.
- I used to breastfeed while surfing on Internet... particularly with kidtwo... felt I shouldn't but I did....scares the hell out of me now.
- I do not have an alarm clock... I use the telephone... I am getting an alarm clock next week. Seriously.
- How good is it to use a laptop with wifi all day long? My head is spinning. Should be go back to cable? Maybe even good old desk computer.

I guess we can start discussing this seriously now in this country as Nokia is going down the drain....

Dinosaur pizza

I made Dinosaur-pizza muffins tonight. Kids kind of liked them - although they were so tired that they were almost falling asleep before the muffins came out of the oven. Still - I'd say it was a good one.  Have to admit - kidone had one, kidtwo had two, just as usual... and mommy had....ahummm... 4... hubby none, his away and will have none since they include bacon - 6 more for me and the kids then! :-)

Apps and this and that.

This week I have traveled across the Swedish spoken landscape of Finland. It has yet again been an interesting week but very little time for thinking about food. Before I left on Monday morning on a three day course up north, I made sure the family had some chicken dinner for the days I was gone: thai-chicken a la wise choice and then some chicken nuggets. It was nice to still have some thai leftovers on Thursday when I was back in the loop (with way too much to get done outside the kitchen).

Today after having spent the day in the soon-to-be-local-food-mecca-of-Finland (Ekenäs - it's da shit for those interested in locally gown food), I prepare my own version of the Dinosaur-cauliflower-risotto: cauliflower rise, salmon and organically grown corn. Spiced with a lot of coconut/olive oil, salt and some lemon. Oh yes, this was good. We have some left for tomorrow's lunch. Let's see if it is still good then.

Spunky dinosaurs

I am listening to this podcast right now: Spunky coconut meets Paleo Parents.

It is a great podcast to listen into. Especially if you are a parent of children with allergies or behavioural problems, listen in!

I am amazed by the Paleo Parents story. Partly because it just confirms what I have witnessed here at home as something that is really real. Touchable. Because as I have said many times, the improvements in our family are a lot more subtle. Maybe it is because we never had that big issues or because of the daycare meals, we have never had this kind of complete turnaround in our health. Although what we experienced last summer was quite revolutionary....

But it is these kind of stories that keep me going. It is this information that keeps me true to my conviction although the pressure from the immediate environment (not the virtual one) is something completely different. As you might have noticed, I always enter into this denial stage once in a while, just because I want an easier life... and I want the kids live a normal life. But then... I read or listen to these kind of stories and I am all back on my freaky track of avoiding all sorts of unhealthy things...and shutting my ears to the conventional messages out there.

After listening to this, I am sooo waiting for the Spunky Coconut cookbooks, and I'll be sure to make use of the Dinosaur cookbook in the next weeks!

Coping strategies for hectic days

This week has been another hectic week, but in a different way than previous weeks. It has now been ages since I made a week menu and sticked to it. This week has been even more simple - I have rushed to the grocery store to buy stomething on the way to pick up the kids or together with the kids. Planning on the spot... Yes I know, I would save time by not going to the grocery store everyday, but there is only so much you can do with your head at the same time...

So the coping strategy has been to mix in nutrition into the dishes I have prepared. Like for example, the other day we had pea soup for dinner. Yes, that is right, the canned pea soup (which by the way does not include anything strange, only peas, lard, pork meat and some salt - only if the can (read BP-A) is toxic would I consider this a bad choice). To make the soup a little bit more nutrient dense I used bone broth instead of water and I added some tumeric powder. Kids ate two plates!

The other day we had reindeer with mashed potatoes. I added organic spinach to the potatoes, and instead of milk and butter I used bonebroth and ghee. Once again. Success.

Soemtime things do not need to be that difficult...

Provoking trouble...

Yes, today was the BIG day. The day Kidone has been waiting for since middle of March. She FINALLY got to try to eat WHEAT. We went to the clinic to try out whether it would give her an allergic reaction or not. As I suspected, there was no immediate reaction, not after one spoon of wheat porridge, not after three, and still not after a whole bowl of porridge. We spent all morning there, eating and waiting for rashes or some signs to appear. But nothing, absolutely nothing. Yet another sign that its her mother who has flipped, its all in my head... Well, luckily the personnel did not think so (or at least not show it) and I now have clear instructions on how to continue provoking some reaction in the next few weeks. Actually, at the moment I really hope that there will not be any reactions at all. Not any mood swings, no stomach problems, no apetite loss... That would mean that maybe these 2,5 months have served to restore the functioning of the intestines and that would mean that she can live a normal social life again.

Let me be clear; wheat is not entering this house again. Or correction, after this period of provoking trouble, wheat will not be entering this house again. I do not see any point in going back to what we used to eat - there were so many drawbacks for us as a whole.  And I am a believer of Wheatbelly and all the Paleo/Low Carbers that say that wheat is TROUBLE, big time. I would also prefer to keep her off wheat at daycare, because it would automatically mean higher quality food and less of blood sugar jumps. But, I also think that the children have the right to a normal childhood, not having to feel different. When they grow up they should be able to make their own choices, not feeling that their hysterical mother forced them to eat in a certain way (which the mother is obviously proud of having done...). This is why it would just be so much easier if Kidone could tolerate a tiny bit of wheat, and it Kidtwo could have some milk products. So that is what I am hoping to see - that serving a little bit of bread/pasta doesn't thrwow us right back to square one.

For the rest of the day, we had a lovely day out shopping second hand summer clothes with my girl. We went out to eat lunch and she even had a ball of icecream (and me a coffee that didn't turn out to be a very smart choice). After a tough spring diet, with many disappointments regarding food, she truly deserved a bit of spoiling.

And when we got home, my birthday gift had finally arrived (Eat like a Dinosaur cookbook by the Paleo Parents). And how the kids liked the book - Kidtwo immediately noticed that the pages numbers had a small dinos to highlight them, and Kidone was into the chocolate chip muffins (go figure...). Well, due to this enthusiasm, the three patiperros joined in and made some cookies from the book. Here's  (less than half of) the result (sorry too tired to start reciting the recipe with the modifications right now):