Pie crust hints

With summer upon us, many in the US are thinking of PIE time - Apple pies of course! Previously I made this recipe and it was a hit on the blog and with my family!

 A few major points for making a good pie crust include:

• COLD butter
• Fold the butter in slowly, do not over "work" the crust or it will begin to break
• You can use whole wheat, and other flours, just the finer usually the better

Pre cook the apples with the "flavorings" - then just bake for the amount of time the crust needs (12 or so minutes).

What are your hints for Happy Pie Making?

Microwave Lentil Recipe - Aloo dal

As mentioned in my rice recipe post, we are cooking with only a microwave as of late, because of this, and the lack of processed food even if we wanted it, I'm trying to be creative. <br>

Microwave lentils recipe

1.5 c washed lentils (tripled washed)
2 c water
1 tomato
2 garlic cloves
tsp salt
dash of red chili powder
dash of turmeric powder
Red onion to taste
diced potato
Extra water

Wash lentils. I used filtered water due to the water source here being suspect.
Cover with water.
Add salt
Add diced potato

Stir and microwave for 10 minutes

While microwaving, blend remaining items.


Pour blended mixture into bowl of lentils. Stir well. Use a little extra water to get the rest of the mixture out and add to lentils

Microwave for 5 minutes. Stir and check lentils. If soft, then enjoy! Otherwise, microwave 2 more minutes or to your liking. You can also add additional water to make this more as a "soup" and microwave for approximately 30 minutes total. Lentils will then "mush" into a soup upon stirring.


Here it is served. My kids asked for ketchup with it so I said "why not" and added it. It brought down the temperature as well so they could eat it right away, which they did, on the microwave rice I made  before this!

Microwave rice

We are currently in an apartment that has a stove but no gas, so our cooking options are limited. Luckily the microwave can double as a convection oven, so we have some options. However, we lack pots/pans so we're limited again to "big" Correlle serving bowls. Here is how I made rice in the microwave.
To make rice in the microwave, wash rice three times. I used filtered water, just in case, since I'm in India.

Make Microwave Rice

Add two parts water to the rinsed rice.
Toss with salt, lightly.
Microwave on high for 10 minutes.
Stir once.
Microwave for another 5 minutes.
Cover and allow water to absorb. Serve warm/hot. I served mine with dal, which I also made in the microwave.

Just add Cilantro - Heavy Metal removal

Foods can hurt and foods can heal. Many of my recipes, especially Indian recipes (Mexican often calls for it as well) call for fresh cilantro at the end of cooking. Fresh cilantro has healing properties. Disclaimer, I'm not the FDA and FDA probably doesn't have anything to say about this since they only work on "drugs" and not food regulation when it comes to healing... Anyway, cilantro is known for their ability to help move heavy metals from the body.

Read more about it here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21462837
http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/health-benefits-of-cilantro/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21988208

7 Days Sorta Raw - Lunch 1 - Guacamole and raw veggies

Yeah, yeah, I know that it has been a while since I've posted any recipes :)

But here's a new challenge I have - 7 days, sorta raw is my challenge.






My goal is

Fruit and coffee (not raw) breakfast
Raw lunch
No snacking
No soda
Normal dinner

Today's lunch was guacamole with veggies

Super easy and nothing processed to the guacamole.

1 avacado
squeeze of lime (i actually just added a slice here)
slice of pepper (I used Korean Pepper)
Dash of salt (is that raw?)
One tomato
Clove of garlic
Cilantro if you have it
1/2 onion (if desired)


Blend until smooth

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Real Life Attachment Parenting: Proposition 37 - Right to know - label GMOs - Vote...

Real Life Attachment Parenting: Proposition 37 - Right to know - label GMOs - Vote...:


California residents have the ability to help the public know their foods. Proposition 37 would require that GMOs be labeled. It doesn't BAN GMOs, it merely allows for people to know what they're eating.

Please, if you live in California, know someone from California, have heard of California, share this information. There's an icon above - tweet, facebook share, BLOG it...

If you don't care about GMOs, you can still vote yes, because it won't change anything except allow those who are concerned to know.

If, say, Monsanto were so proud of their products, why wouldn't they want to label them? Hmm....