19 weeks 4 days

Baby Girl Massaro is really making room for herself!

Hearty Sandwich Bread

I've written before about how Mark is a huge sandwich fan. I can't seem to break him of his desire for deli meat and hearty sandwich bread, but worse things have happened. I'm saving money by making homemade bread, and I feel better knowing the ingredients, process and hands that made it. Because Mark works late and leaves early, I've been trying to help him by making his lunches at night. I noticed the bread was so soft after the first two-three days of baking, it was so soft that it wasn't holding up to a big turkey sandwich without tearing! Softness isn't bad for a dinner bread, or even a piece of toast, but it was problematic for the sandwiches. So, I found a recipe on allrecipes.com, and basically butchered it until it resembled a loaf that had the taste, consistency, and ingredients we both liked.

I've been baking loaves on Sunday afternoons, which means we often each French toast on either Saturday or Sunday to use up any last pieces of the prior week's loaf. I even made chocolate bread pudding with a stale heel one week! This is a very easy, low-maintenance loaf if you have a bread machine. It makes a smaller loaf than my other recipe, which works well for us, because we only need about 10 slices - 4 sandwiches for Mark, and 2 pieces for me on the mornings I have eggs.


Ingredients

3/4 cup water

1 tablespoon butter, softened

1 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons of any mixture of the following: sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, millet, quinoa, amaranth, or cornmeal (I use whatever I have on hand!)
2 cups white whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon milk, water, yogurt, buttermilk, or olive oil

2 T honey

1 1/2 tablespoons SAF yeast

1 T vital wheat gluten (to help with the rise)

Add water, butter, milk, and honey to bread machine. Then spoon the flour over the liquid mixture. Add seeds, gluten, and yeast. (I like to add my salt when the fruit and nut cycle beeps so that it doesn't interfere with the yeast action, but most recipes say to just add it with the flour.) Choose bread dough cycle. Mine runs about 90 minutes.

When dough is complete, punch down and transfer to baking pan, stick in a warm oven (or warm room) and let rise til doubled in size. Bake at 350 for about 25-30 minutes. I use my meat thermometer to make sure the internal temperature is 190 degrees - otherwise I end up with gummy bread. This makes great toast, and Mark loves his turkey and avocado sandwich on this bread.

It's a girl!

I'm a little late on this post, but we found out last Friday that there's a baby girl growing in my belly!  Here's a pic of me holding the ultrasound snapshot, as well as my 18 week bump. We don't have a name yet, though we have some strict parameters: non-American, uncommon, multiple syllables, and ends in a vowel. How's that for picky?!

Chicken Caccitore

Mark and I are both Italian, but Mark likes Italian-American food far more than I do. I don't mind a good pizza a few times a month, and I'll take fresh food fruit and veggies from Italy above all else, but I'll pass on pasta ten times out of ten. Usually, I make a pot of homemade meatballs and sauce and eat it plain while Mark polishes off a half pound of pasta himself. Tonight's meal was no exception.  However, what I liked about this dish was that it only took about an hour from start to finish, and I didn't have to bust out the crock pot. It was a nice change of pace to have chicken and tomato sauce instead of beef. I adapted recipes from Joy of Cooking, my dad, and Food Network.

Serves: 4 - 6

4 split bone-in chicken breasts OR 1 whole chicken, cut up

dredged in 1/2 cup of flour seasoned with a sprinkling of red pepper and garlic powder, or plain

browned in 1/3 cup of olive oil over medium heat in a large stock pot (you may need to do this in batches)

Once chicken is done, set aside on a plate. Add to olive oil:

4 mashed, chopped garlic cloves and 1 cup sliced mushrooms

When mushrooms are brown and flavorful, add:


1 cup of white wine and cook til reduced by half

Then, add and stir:

1 28-ounce can of crushed or whole tomatoes
2 T tomato paste (I forgot it, but I wish I had added it for a thicker sauce)
3/4 c beef or chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon each of salt, pepper, thyme, marjoram, basil, and oregano
1 bay leaf

Put chicken back in the pot and simmer covered until chicken is cooked. I am very bad at telling when things are done, so my meat thermometer has been a lifesaver. You want the internal temperature to reach 165 degrees for poultry.

Let sauce sit for 5-10 minutes after turning off heat to thicken up a bit. Serve chicken and sauce over pasta, if you so desire. Fresh parmesan cheese is wonderful on top!

Health Basics

Simple Healthy Eating Guidelines

Real Food. Real Lives. Real People. - my other blog with a plethora of information and basics on healthy eating

Beating Crohn's Disease Part I
Beating Crohn's Disease Part II


Top Ten Keys to Beating Colds and Flus

Benefits of Water Kefir

Natural Body Care Products

Should we throw out sunscreen?

Sally Fallon on Low-Fat, Lowering Cholesterol? - Important information for people who have questions about eating low-fat and have been told to lower their cholesterol

10 Keys to Avoiding the Cold and Flu (Or shortening your symptoms!)

Some people wear gloves on the T (public trains, for those of you not in the Boston area). Some people stick those weird Zicam swabs up their noses. Others cross their fingers and swallow extra vitamin C supplements every once in a while.

Are there better ways to avoid getting sick as the cold and flu season is upon us? I'd say, YES. I'd been planning this post for awhile, my inspiration coming from the many, many times I've told people I'm not getting the seasonal flu vaccine (never have) nor the H1N1 vaccine (never will). "But you're pregnant!" they gasp, as if I might as well count my baby as being born with only three fingers on each hand now, due to my insolence and irresponsibility. "Exactly!" is my usual response.

I am very cautious about vaccines. I understand that people have good reasons for getting them, and it's always in the best interest of their family. I've done a lot of research though, and from what I've heard and read, I believe it's in the best interest of my family, especially my growing, unborn baby, to not receive an untested vaccine for a virus that I don't believe has the power to harm me if I am living a right lifestyle. I have simply not seen any compelling evidence or scientific research that points to safe, clinical trials that point to the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. In 1976, at the onset of another Swine Flu "pandemic", the public was vaccinated with an untested vaccine and these were the results:

"Twenty five people died from severe pulmonary complications after receiving the swine flu vaccine, and about 500 cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome were reported after vaccination. Some 300 claims were later filed by families of Guillain-Barre Syndrome victims who died from the disease. The 1976 swine flu vaccine debacle ended up costing the US government $3.5 billion in damages to some 4,000 vaccine injured Americans -- a direct result of the CDC’s intensive vaccination campaign." (Dr. Mercola)

Truth be told though, I honestly didn't think I needed to worry about H1N1, because I didn't think I would come in close enough contact with anyone who had it. I know I have a strong immune system, practice good hygiene, and get a solid 8-9 hours of sleep every night. I've had one cold and one sore throat in the last three plus years  - which marks the time when I started eating "real food" - and both of those were treated naturally and disappeared quickly. So I didn't worry...until Mark was diagnosed with Swine Flu on Tuesday.

His doctor immediately prescribed TamiFlu for both Mark and me. I got a little nervous and looked it up on the internet, because I hadn't heard much about it. All I needed to see was this little blurb under their Safety and Side Effects tab:

"TAMIFLU is normally not recommended for use during pregnancy or nursing, as the effects on the unborn child or nursing infant are unknown. If you are pregnant, planning to become pregnant or breastfeeding while taking TAMIFLU, talk to your doctor before taking TAMIFLU."

I am not interested in being a guinea pig, so instead of taking TamiFlu, I chose to move out for the week. I lived with my aunt for several nights, and my mother for a few nights as well.  For whatever reason, whether it was my Thursday afternoon visit to Mark in the apartment, the hiatus I took with my cod liver oil and coconut oil supplementation due to my unconventional living arrangements, or a combination, I started to have a sore throat on Friday - the same symptom Mark started with. By Saturday morning, I had a low grade fever, and could barely swallow. In fact, on my drive from Boston to the South Shore, I had to spit out the window on the highway every few minutes, because my throat was so sore I couldn't swallow. This used to happen to me several times a year, and it often lasted for a week, and was accompanied by cold and flu-like symptoms.

But I was not defeated. I fought back, with the help of my loving mother. I began taking 4 monolaurin supplements a day, higher doses of cod liver oil supplementation, and ate just chicken broth, vegetables, and egg yolks. (I had been staying away from sugar anyway, knowing it's immune suppressing capabilities.) I drank echinacea tea infusions with lemon (great source of vitamin C) and raw honey for its anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal properties. I also made coconut carob treats with raw honey instead of agave, and ate those at regular intervals to boost my honey and coconut oil intake. (Coconut oil is also anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial.)

In addition to my "food medicine," I took beta-glucan supplements. Beta-glucans have immune system enhancing properties. I also gargled with salt water several times a day, used the neti pot to clear out my sinuses as a precautionary measure, though I had no symptoms of sinus blockage. Gargling with salt water twice a day even when you're healthy is an excellent practice to get into. It kills the germs that may be festering in your mouth, before they can turn into something more dangerous.

Saturday night I felt a little better, and my fever had stabilized at 99.1. I woke up with a bad headache on Sunday morning, though my fever was gone. I increased my fluid intake, continued to drink tea, and felt well enough to go shopping for several hours on Sunday afternoon. Though I was still tired, all other symptoms were gone by Sunday evening.

I woke up today feeling 100% better. I have no traces of a sore throat, my headache is completely gone, and my fever is normal. Here are the top ten things I believe helped me defeat this virus so quickly:

1. Prayer and positive thinking. The more I started to get anxious about being sick, the sicker I felt. Instead, I continually redirected my thoughts to Jesus, and played His words over and over in my mind from Psalm 103: 1 - 5:

Praise the LORD, O my soul;
       all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

  Praise the LORD, O my soul,
       and forget not all his benefits-

  who forgives all your sins
       and heals all your diseases,

  who redeems your life from the pit
       and crowns you with love and compassion,

  who satisfies your desires with good things
       so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

2. Monolaurin: This is a medium chain fatty acid found in mother's breast milk and coconut oil. It is an immune system enhancer. I eat several tablespoons of coconut oil in a day, in the form of coconut oil treats or candies, or stirred into tea, or used to fry an egg. (And it's my daily moisturizer and hair conditioner!) When I'm healthy, I feel this is all I need. However, though I don't normally advocate for pills, if you do get sick, research shows you will benefit much more from taking a supplement of monolaurin, because only a small portion of the lauric acid from coconut oil is converted to monolaurin. You should take 4x the recommended dosage at the onset of symptoms.

3. Raw honey: Oh, how I love my honey.  It's a lifesaver for any sore throat or upper respritory infection. I could eat Crystal's All Natural straight from the 5 pound jar. It costs $25 for a 5 pounds, and is unrefined, unfiltered, so it contains enzymes, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-microbial and anti-oxidant properties, and minerals and vitamins. It's definitely better for you than regular ol' sugar, as it is full of its own enzymes and doesn't call on the body to produce the enzymes lacking in refined sugar. Honey doesn't call on the body's nutrients to metabolize, so those nutrients are able to be used to metabolize fat and cholesterol, which means less fat on your body! It's also a great remedy for sore throats, or beating any kind of respiratory illness. Just add cayenne pepper, ginger, honey, and raw apple cider vinegar and sip or gargle.

4. Beta-glucan: This was a new supplement for me, but my mom recommended it after reading about its immune boosting abilities. Basically, beta-glucans are polyssacharides that activate the immune system without over-stimulating it, which can lead to problems. It's an all-natural food-derived supplement. It modulates our white blood cells, putting them at alert for any immune system threats.

5. Rest. This should probably be number two, but usually when people are sick, it's easier to rest becaues it's so hard to do many other things! I've read from countless sources that our bodies repair themselves from 10pm to 2am. I don't know how anyone can figure this out, but I do know that when I am in bed by 10pm, I feel well and well-rested by 6am. I believe this was the key to Mark getting sick. The week prior to his diagnosis, he worked until 10pm, and stayed up much later than that, and was waking up at 5am! Over the weekend, he went out on both Friday and Saturday evening, and probably didn't fall asleep until 2am. By Monday evening, his body seemed to have given up.

Other important keys -
6. Gargling with salt water
7. Echinacea tea
8. Citrus fruits  - grapefruits, lemons, oranges
9. Homemade stock
10. PROPER HYGIENE!! I wash my hands about twelve times a day - just about every hour I'm out and about. I won't eat anything if I haven't washed my hands first, as germs enter our body through our noses and mouths. Just another reason to stop that nose-picking habit...

I hope this post gave you some tools to help you live well this season. Mark and I are living under the same roof again, and we both feel great. Mark says he is going to be more diligent about washing his hands, will be going to bed much earlier, and might even wear gloves on the T from now on...

Please feel free to ask questions or for more information. If you'd like to leave a comment and do not have a google account, just choose "Anonymous" in the drop down menu, and make sure to type in the proper letters once you've clicked on submit.

Under Construction

Hello readers!

As you may have noticed, I'm doing some construction around here. The tabbed links at the top should be good to go in a few days, so please remain patient.

Thanks for your readership,
=) Megan

Belly Bump Photos

I wish that the ubiquitous side pregnancy photos were easy to take by yourself. Mark took the first one, and I learned how to use the automatic timer on the others. I'll try to get Mark to take the rest because I think he does a better job with the angles. =)

So, for those of you tracking the disappearance of my abs, enjoy:

SIX WEEKS (September 8, 2009)
The day we found out

TEN WEEKS (October 7, 2009)
I felt so sick and tired the prior four weeks, this was the first time I was able to convince myself that a picture wouldn't kill me. =)


FOURTEEN WEEKS (November 3, 2009)
Part of that may be the beginning of a bump...part of it may be the three helpings of mac and cheese I had an hour before. It seems to take a while to move through the system.

EIGHTEEN WEEKS (December 4, 2009)
Its growing! You can't tell as well in this picture because of the angle,
but there is definitely something there.

Homemade Extracts

The front jar is newly made anise star extract, and the jar in the background is an in-progress jar of vanilla extract.

Most of us have good intentions. I was all set to participate the Nourishing Gift carnival. I was so excited about it!! I had my ideas, my extracts brewing, and a ream of blank labels ready to be printed. And then Swine Flu got in the way and I had to move out of my flu infested home for a week, leaving the jars to themselves. I still managed to divide some of the above extracts into these 2 ounce clear glass jars from Mountain Rose Herbs ($1.30 each) and print out my labels, so let's try to imagine...



These jars of Madagascar vanilla bean extract and anise extract...

 in mini woven baskets, with some raffia, and a mini-recipe book (about 2" x 4") with different ways the recipient can use the extracts. I plan to include my Pizzelle recipe, this kasha chocolate chip cookie recipe, instructions for making chai tea, and a few others that I have yet to determine! Can you picture it? It'll be great when it's done, I promise.


I used to spend a lot of money on vanilla extract, especially after I had the real stuff, and not just an imitation jar from Big Y. I have no idea how I realized I could make my own, but after the first batch, I was hooked. It's deceptively simple, and deliciously good. If you're interested in brewing your own extract to save money, or to give as gifts, here is all you need to brew your very own homemade extracts. Experiment with vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks and anise pods.

The ingredients
6 vanilla beans OR 1/2 cup star anise pods OR 6 cinnamon sticks (I buy mine from Mountain Rose Herbs)
1.5 cups of vodka (or cognac, or rum, or Armagnac - though vodka lets the beans shine the most)
1 quart sized mason jar with a tight fitting lid
Time

The Method
1 Slice the beans lengthwise, splitting them almost in half, but leave one inch connected at the end. If making anise or cinnamon, skip to step 2.

2 Put beans or pods in jar. Cover with the vodka.
3 Shake the bottle once in awhile. I tend to forget this step until I go under the counter to get my food processor, which is stored in front of the jars. Keep in a dark, cool place for several months. My first batch took about 10 weeks to mellow. The batches I have going now had only 2/3 the amount of beans I should have put in, so they are still fairly strong but should be ready in time for Christmas.

These last for awhile! You can top it off with vodka every time you use a little if you don't mind a slight alcohol flavor, or alternatively, once you're done with the beans, add a fresh cup or so of vodka and it should mellow even quicker than the first batch.

You can reuse those beans one more time! Take the beans out after 6 months and put them in a cup of sugar per bean to make tasty vanilla sugar for baking!

Stay tuned for pictures of the final product.


Future Extracts

Here are a few links for extracts I'm in the process of making (so I can't exactly vouch for flavor!):
Lemon Extract
Orange Extract

Hazelnut Extract

13w6d

Yesterday I walked into the cafeteria at work and the one friend I have in the whole place comes up to me and says, "Wow, you look exhausted!"

I was dizzy, and had a headache, and felt very tired. I pleaded with her, "Lyndsey, please tell me that I will wake up one day and it will all be gone. I just need to hear those words."

"Oh yeah, definitely," she replied. "Once you hit twelve weeks, BAM!" My heart sunk.

"I'm thirteen and a half weeks," I said softly.

"Oh." Long pause. "Well fourteen weeks. You'll wake up at fourteen weeks and BAM!" she said with a clap.

Tomorrow is that day. BAM!