Potato Pancakes (gluten-free, dairy-free)

This is not the most stellar recipe post, but I thought I'd share that lately I've been making a quick side dish out of the extra farm eggs we have now that I'm no longer nursing and eating two each morning (and I keep forgetting to decrease my order size!). My son loves eating these savory pancakes. I essentially beat a couple of eggs and add to them grated potato, zucchini, carrot and chopped onion (maybe some spinach, too) with some herbs, salt and pepper. Then I add some tapioca flour or rice flour and/or arrowroot. It's very unscientific. I just add until I feel like the mixture will hold together. I think I tried adding in some coconut milk once -- maybe I mixed that with the flours first and then added to the egg. At any rate, I fry the mixture in a pan with olive oil or coconut oil and flip at least once. Pretty simple and good.

Gluten-Free Rhubarb-Apple-Strawberry Pie (no dairy, low sugar)

Mother's Day was also my husband's birthday. I got my special time running a half-marathon, and then we went out for brunch with friends. He didn't get much special time, having promised a neighbor we'd babysit for them. D'oh! But he did mention an idea to buy a slice of rhubarb pie for himself, so I got motivated. We also had way too many eggs because I keep forgetting to reduce my farm order to one dozen now that I'm not longer a nursing mom eating for two. So I thought, as long as I'm making crust and heating up the oven, I might as well make some quiche and a pie!

The results were yummy. I used my no-frills gluten-free pie crust recipe. For the quiche, this time I used sorghum flour, a little millet flour and rice flour with coconut and olive oils plus some oregano, pepper and basil. For the pie, I used almond flour and rice flour, coconut oil and butter plus some cinnamon and nutmeg, and maybe a dash of vanilla.

I cobbled together a few recipes for the pie with some GF substitutions and came up with this;

Gluten-Free Rhubarb-Apple-Strawberry Pie (no dairy, low sugar)

Mixture to coat fruit:
3 Tablespoons arrowroot and tapioca flours
1/4 tsp sea salt
juice of half a lemon
1/3 cup Sucanat (most recipes called for a cup or more of sugar)
1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon
dash-1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp vanilla (alcohol-free would be better)

Fruit:
A bunch of rhubarb cut into 1" pieces
Half a pint of strawberries cut up
One apple cut into chunks -- I used half of a gala and half of a granny smith

Mix all the dry ingredients together & then mix with fruit to set for 15 minutes.
Before I put mixture into the pie crust, I tossed it with about a Tablespoon or more of coconut milk (not low fat) just for a little creaminess and a little extra sweetness.
I added a little coconut oil on top too, just because the other recipes said to dot with butter and I thought maybe it could stand some more goo. I did not put a top crust on this even though all the recipes I saw called for it. The pie baked fine.

Bake time and temp I have to make a best guess as I was also cooking the two quiche and a chicken.
375-400 worked for me, and I would guess about 45 minutes, though I would check before that and not be surprised if you didn't like the looks of it until an hour.

All agreed that it was delicious. My husband got his supplemental sugar with ice cream. I just poured some extra coconut milk on mine. Rice dream or coconut sorbet would work, too. We served it mildly warm and loved it, but it was just as good out of the fridge the next two days.

Second spring foot soak

About a month after my first ionic foot soak (since pregnancy, since weaning), I did another. I think it looks a little less dark (less black/heavy metals) this time. But who knows if that's good or not! Does it just mean I'm holding on instead of excreting? I'm so stressed out with showing the house to sell/to move, I can't tell if my returned knee skin issue is a bad sign that I'm burning out or a good sign that my body is releasing more toxins. I hope that we sell soon so that I can finally use my infrared sauna again after almost 4 years. Right now it's out of the way in a friend's basement.

Stress is something to let go of, too

I'd hoped that this spring season would find me happily detoxing away. I made a good start nutritionally, and I did the one dramatic foot soak. But I haven't gotten much beyond that.

We have been planning to move but had to do some unexpected negotiation after the home we want to buy got a lower appraisal than anyone expected, which put us in decision-limbo for a few days. Then we decided to move forward but still have had to prep our house to sell, which we're trying to do by ourselves to save money (and because it's been done successfully in our neighborhood several times). My husband has been between consulting gigs, so it seemed like we ought to do as much ourselves as possible since neither of us was really earning any money, and we will still be writing a huge check for the new home in a few weeks, employment or no.

But we're finding that this FSBO business takes a lot of time and requires a lot of decisions -- not as many as an addition would have, but still. I have enjoyed doing some of it -- taking the photos, prepping the house. But there are so many questions and so much unknown, I'm getting to an I-can't-take-it place. I am healthy when I take care of myself, and I'm not when I don't. Add to that the money concerns that have totally tabled any extra detox and body wellness protocols I'd hoped to do this spring. If LJ's expected new job starts up on Wednesday as we hope it will, I'm picking up the phone to get some appointments scheduled. Because I have to admit I need help to really be in the healthy zone -- and if I get too far out of that zone, it will not look pretty. I can feel my thyroid reminding me that it didn't heal on its own; it had a lot of help from my positive thinking and all the advice I got. The idea of trying for another child is, as far as I'm concerned, completely off the table until my body is not a walking stress-bomb.

And if tomorrow's open house comes and goes with no serious interest logged by the time LJ goes back to work, I think we are going to have to hire an agent or the money we save by eventually selling on our own is going to by out-paced by my medical bills.