The Overnight Bag

When your big, strong, hockey-player husband and best friend-roommate are out shopping and, home alone with your precious baby son, you here a crash downstairs (on Boxing Day - the national day of home robberies) what do you do?

Grab a phone, a weapon, a soft blanket and a library book (The Backyard Homestead by Storey Publishing) and lock yourselves in the ensuite bathroom.

So we're sitting here hanging out and I decided to write about my overnight bag since we have a tradition of spending Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas morning with Cal's, it requires a sleepover.

I really only pack a few things if you don't count diapers and the like. An outfit for the next day, maybe even just a clean shirt and undies. And the worst having to pack all my toiletries so I just put on light makeup the day before and sleep with it on. I don't wash my hair everyday, so really all I need is a toothbrush (I own 2 so that I don't have to bother transferring them), toothpaste (I currently have Himalaya at home and Hakeem Herbal in my always packed bag), and for touch ups: mascara (I use Lavera at home, raw EarthLab packed) and concealer (Korres at home, Lavera packed). And can't forget a few bobby pins!

So that's my overnight bag! I hope you enjoyed your holidays! Check our my mom's new site: glutenfreebyrose.com

Updates

We've just returned from a relaxing weekend at the cottage. Oliver and I are having a quiet day at home, and it is: MY MOM'S BIRTHDAY!

If you haven't already noticed, I have a fancy new banner at the top of this site. It was designed by one of Calvin's very best friends, Ren, and he can be reached at rpeers@rapiddelivery.ca if you have a design job for him.

Last night was my church's Christmas production and Bethany KILLED it. It felt morally wrong not to offer her a bouquet of flowers at the end. I felt like I knew a celebrity.

We're all very excited for next weekend. Christmas Eve will be at my parents' house, then Christmas morning with Calvins' parents. Then various extended family get-togethers including seeing long-gone cousins from as far as England and Korea.

I hope everyone has a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Product Review: Derma E Fruit Smoothee Facial Cleanser

Company: Derma E Natural Bodycare, American (California)
Product: Fruit Smoothee Facial Cleanser, 175ml
Claims: Natural, Organic, "provides antioxidant benefits", "removes dirt and oil".

Ingredients: Water, Glycerin (naturally occurring component of fat, can be from plants or animals - in this case plants, is a moisturizer), Grapeseed oil, Calcium ascorbate (vitamin C), Sodium lauroamphoacetate (lathering and cleansing agent, considered low risk by EWG, often derived from coconut oil), Sodium cocoyl isethionate (a safe cleansing agent made from fatty acids found in coconut oil), 1,3 propanediol (a humectant, solvent, moisturizer and emulsifier made from corn sugar, note: in other products it may be made from a chemical process on petroleum feedstock - yuck!), Acai berry extract, Tocopheryl acetate (vitamin E), Cranberry seed oil, Pomegranate seed oil, Citric acid, Xanathan gum, Sodium benzoate (a commonly used salt-based preservative), Phenoxyethanol (an anti-bacterial agent approved by the natural product industry), Potassium sorbate (an anti-mold and anti-yeast agent), Tangerine and grapefruit oils.
Click here for more information on Derma E's ingredients.

Certifications: Recyclable, Not tested on animals.
Price: About $15

My review: First of all, my younger sister (a former cosmetician) has used much more expensive products than this on her face, and she swears this is the best. I tried it purely because I packed only a toothbrush, toothpaste and my raw mascara for a weekend cottage trip and then realized I should have packed more. She said I could use whatever I needed and I was pleasantly surprised at how natural the ingredients are. Right away I was impressed by the citrusy aroma - it is hands down the best-smelling skin care product I've ever used. One small pump was more than enough for a single use. It lathered nicely (considering it's free of the harmful SLS) and left my skin feeling clean and fresh. I was really happy to find a facial cleanser that both works wonderfully and doesn't contain harmful chemicals. This is one I will go back to.

This review has been cross-posted to flaxlash - my new collaborative natural beauty website with make up artist, Brittanie Havens. It is still a work in progress!

Chipkos

You may have seen a while back when I posted about a new line of sandals that I'm so excited about... well they are finally resting comfortably between my toes! I know it's funny to get excited about summer footwear in December, but hey - one of my latest posts was on when to plant seeds so I'm allowed to get excited about comfortable shoes that are appropriate in six months from now.

Chipkos specializes in eco-friendly footwear by protecting one hundred square feet of the rain forest per product purchased. I feel good about myself already.

Their sandals (I got them in red) are inspired by the classic Indian "Osho chappal" which, in India, represent a a connection with the Earth, spiritual awareness, and mindful thought. I already love how comfortable they are and how durable they seem. The bottom is super non-slip and appropriate for inside or outside. (As the website says "urban dwelling or outdoor adventuring" which I love). They are 100% vegan and are produced with low impact, environmentally friendly materials.

Click here and use code AHIMSA to get 10% off through me!

In other news, our fraiser fir is up. I have advent going and flourless gingerbread made and homemade cards as usual.

Oliver and I are off to the library to get magazines for our cottage trip.

How are you making Christmas planet-friendly?

Make it Monday: Macarons

If you're looking for something delicious and impossible to make for dessert tonight, look no further: French macarons. The instructions read like a chemistry experiment. One wrong move and you end up with raccoon food. Ingredients are weighed, sifted, weight again... each move with the precision and training of a martial art.

My friend, Emily, and I like a challenge. So she popped over with a canvas bag of ingredients and we did the best we could to almost master the art of the French macaron. Here's the simplified version:

1. Measure 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar and 2/3 cup almond meal. Grind til fine in a food processor, and run through a fine sifter before mixing in a bowl.

2. Whisk 3 egg whites until "firm peaks", adding 3 T white sugar at the end.

3. Fold the almond-sugar mixture into the egg whites carefully. 

4. Pipe small circles onto a parchment-lined cookie tray. Circles should be 2 inches wide. Let sit for 20 minutes or until the tops are tacky when touched.

5. Preheat oven to 360F.

6. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until golden. You've done it right if you get "pied" or feet, that look tall and bubbly at the bottom of each cookie shell.

7. Match up pairs of like-sized shells and sandwich with your choice of filling. We used chocolate ganache in the chocolate cookies (add 3T cocoa powder, sifted, to your almond-sugar mix, before incorporating into egg whites) and buttercream in the plain. To make chocolate ganache, warm heavy cream and add dark chocolate squares until dark and soupy. Let cool. (You can add sugar and salt to taste). For buttercream, whisk softened butter into icing sugar. Add vanilla.

Baby's First Foods

Oliver is the following things:

Four months old.
Hungry every hour.
Trying to grab food from my hands/ fork/ plate.
Waking up to eat more during the night.

I honestly wanted to wait until 6 months to start him on solids but he is showing a lot of signs of wanting to start asap! Before I jump into anything, I have some research to do.

Conventional knowledge and recommendations tell us to start with a brown rice baby cereal. Easy enough, it's simple to change the consistency, relatively low risk for allergies, and seems easy to digest... but new sources say there's a better way to go.

I'm now reading about how an infant's digestive system is not suited for grains yet. Not for a while. They say fattier foods like egg yolk, coconut oil, butter and animal livers are perfect first foods.

As I'm still in the beginning of my research I don't want to claim to know much at all about this. So, what's your opinion?


http://mamaandbabylove.blogspot.com/2011/01/raw-egg-yolk-for-babies.html
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/right-way-to-feed-babies/
http://www.babyledweaningblog.com/2011/02/22/annelieses-first-food-egg-yolks/

Try it Tuesday: Daiya Cheese!

When I first heard that Daiya cheese was going to be available in Canada my knees buckled in excitement. I immediately told the manager of the health food store I work at and I instructed him to purchase as many cases as possible. Since I began my position, vegans (and non-vegans alike) had been coming in requesting the delicious vegan cheese they'd had at this and that restaurant. They said it was the best they'd ever had. I knew that we'd sell out right away, and we did! Well, Daiya was smart - they made their cheese available in industrial sized bags for use in restaurants before they released it for retail sale in Canada. So many of us had tried it, but couldn't buy it yet... and the anticipation grew daily.

After releasing their cheddar and mozzarella shreds, they formulated a new "pepperjack" which features yummy spices lending a mild heat. This is the flavour I've been obsessed with!

Check out how it melts perfectly
on my quesadilla.

Daiya cheese is a vegan revolution - it's the first ever product that I've tried free of any animal products, free of soy, and free of gluten, that still tastes amazing. It's base is tapioca. The reason that a good-tasting tapioca-based cheese imitation is so important is that almost all vegan products are soy-based and a diet heavy in soy can lead to all sorts of complications. Many people are now seeking out soy-free vegan foods, but they don't always taste great.

You cannot resist its melting goodness!

I recently went buck-crazy with a bag of their shredded pepperjack. I started out by making a plain quesadilla: a good flavour test since all it contained was a plain, white tortilla shell filled with Daiya pepperjack cheese, and warmed in a skillet. It melts so beautifully and within 5 minutes I had a tasty, vegan snack that could easily pass for real, dairy cheese. Then I made a batch of nachos and had Calvin try some, without telling him what was special about the cheese. (Calvin is a trained chef, having worked at - arguably - our city's finest restaurant, Crave. He has an impeccable palate and can almost always tell when I'm tricking him.) He said the nachos were really good, a little salty but he liked the spicy kick. He had no idea that they were vegan until I told him: success! I also melted some on a warm pita, gave some away to my mother-in-law who is 100% dairy-free, saved some for a taco tonight and made scrambled eggs with it (not vegan, I know). Clearly one small bag goes a long way!

Now that we have the amazing privilege to have this product in Canada, go and try a bag yourself!

Clean and Natural Baby Products

I just received a request from an old friend, Saira, for natural and/or homemade baby products. There are some awesome options out there:

Brand Name

Many of the big labels have a natural line now. Johnson's Baby actually has some nice natural stuff - it's free of most harmful chemicals, but still contains some questionable things.  Huggie's also has a natural line but I wouldn't recommend it.

Natural Lines

Popular natural lines like Burt's Bees and Live Clean now have a line up of baby products. I especially recommend Live Clean's non-petroleum jelly for an alternative to vasoline. My favourite brand is Weleda. They are hands-down the most natural products, they smell amazing and work great. You can buy them at Quarter Master Natural Foods in Wortley Village. Another good product is Baby Balm by Abundance Naturally.

DIY

A small skin rash or a case of baby acne can usually be cleared up with an application of breast milk. It sounds funny but the stuff is pure gold.  When Oliver was congested as a newborn my midwife recommended using a medicine dropper to squirt breast milk up his nose. It is also the best remedy for sore, cracked nipples from breast feeding.

Organic coconut oil is a wonderful, pure moisturizer and diaper cream. It's a great food to eat to keep up energy and brain strength too. Pure sweet almond oil is equally good, but more liquid than solid, so it can be used for different applications.

Soap/shampoo is a little trickier. For the first while, washing with just warm water will be fine. When you start needing heftier cleaning power you can make a mild homemade soap (see my earlier post) or buy Dr. Bronners liquid castile soap.

Here's a great recipe for homemade wipes too.

Let me know if you need more help!

Make it Monday: Mascarpone

Recently I posted about my friend Rob and his adventures in homemades. He sent me home with a recipe for mascarpone and it wasn't 24 hours until I had my skillet on the stove ready to go.

It comes from the now-concluded make it from scratch blog, originally from baking obsession.

Mascarpone Cheese
Makes 12 oz

2 cups whipping cream
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Bring 1 inch of water to the boil in a wide skillet. Reduce heat to medium low so the water is barely simmering. Pour the cream into a medium sized heat resistant bowl, then place bowl into the skillet. Heat the cream, stirring often, till it reaches 190F. If you do not have a thermometer, wait until small bubbles keep trying to push up to the surface.

It will take about 15 minutes of delicate heating to reach this temperature. Then add the lemon juice and continue heating the mixture, stirring gently, until the cream curdles. It will coat the back of your wooden spoon thickly, and you will see a few whey streaks when you stir.

Remove the bowl from the water and let cool about 20 minutes. Line a sieve with 4 layers of dampened cheesecloth and set over a bowl. Transfer the cream mixture to the lined sieve. Do not squeeze or press on the cheese.

Once cooled completely, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate in the sieve, overnight or up to 24 hours. It will firm up and become thick and creamy. Keep refrigerated and use within 5 days.

 

I used my cheese to make mini tiramisus with cookie bottoms, soaked in espresso, with mascarpone (whipped with vanilla & sugar) and topped with cocoa powder, served in mini glass dishes.

Drool Scarf

Oliver is approaching his four month birthday, and with that milestone comes many joys: He is now fully conversational (although I haven't figured out the language he speaks), he can sit up on his own (it usually ends up with him doubled over on his face, but it's cute), he attempts to crawl, he plays with toys very purposefully and he can roll over front to back and back to front. The only hiccup that this age brings is... the symptoms of teething! He doesn't seem bothered so I assume we're not far into it, but he is drooling like a leaky faucet.

In hopes of sparing his shirts I set out to make him some drool scarves. Some moms also use these for spit up, but I'm happy to say that's almost a nonexistent problem for my little guy. The idea came from a friend and fellow mom, Kayla in Alberta, and it was easy to find a pattern online.

I started by cutting an old soft blanket into triangles - 12" x 12" x 17". It made 8 pieces. Then I cut Calvin's old cotton t-shirts into the same size - 4 of them to line the double-sided scarves that the 8 pieces of blanket would make. When you choose fabric, make sure at least one is absorbent. I had my mom fold the pieces into a mock-hem, and sew around the edges, with the blanket fabric on the outsides, nice side facing out, and the t-shirt in the middle for thickness and absorbency. After sewing all 3 sides, on all 4 scarves, we also added velcro on the front top left and back top right so the scarves are easy to secure around his neck.

It's important that babies don't sleep with a drool scarf on.

Planting Phenology

I might be a huge gardening geek for reading a planting book in December but I've just learned a really cool science and it's worth sharing. Phenology. It's the study of indicator plants, used to determine weather conditions that guide your planting time line.

Here are some tips:

• Plant chard, spinach, beets and onions when daffodils bloom
• Plant peas when maple trees flower
• Plant potatoes when white oak's leaves are the size of a cat's eat
• Plant beans and cucumbers when apple trees drop their petals
• Plant tomatoes and eggplants when black locust trees flower

And, most interesting - plant anything just before it rains because it will be well watered. How do you know when it'll rain?

• Swallows will swoop low to the ground because the insects they eat fly closer to the ground (difference in air pressure)

Just a little early December gardening tip from your local geek!