Home made Chai Tea Bliss!!

My hubby loves Chai Tea.  if he has to have it bagged he prefers Twinings, but....I made it for him from scratch once and he asks for this whenever I have more time as he says it tastes so much better!

so for Chai lovers here you go:


For a mug size cup:

1 1/2 cups water
8 whole cloves
8 green cardamom pods
1  1inch piece of cinnamon
2-3 tea bags of black tea or green tea

milk and sugar to taste

Simmer spices in water on the stovetop in a pot with a tight fitting lid, watch out not to boil off the water!  Add tea bags and simmer until darkness is to your liking.  Add sugar then milk, strain and serve.

My larger pot version of extra spice chai

3 cups water
15  whole cloves
15 green cardamom pods
1  3 inch piece of cinnamon
3-4 tea bags black or green

Milk and Sugar to taste.

Same method as above.

Mom's Perfect Pancakes

Original Recipe:

1 1/2  cup  flour
   2      tbsp. sugar
   3      tsp.    baking powder
   1               egg, large
   2     tbsp.   oil
   1      tsp.    vanilla
 1 3/4  cups  milk, soy milk, almond milk or what ever you choose


Mix well with a fork and pour into hot buttered pan by 1/4 cupfulls.

Can be wrapped in waxed paper and frozen.


Changes the I make once in a while:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, (or combo of white, ww, with 1/4 cup substituted for soy flour)
2       tbsp.  sugar substitute, (Or 2 tbsp. applesauce, and add two tbsp. flour)
3       tsp. baking powder
1       egg (or 1 Tbsp ground flaxseed with 3 tbsp. warm water)
2       tbsp. oil (or melted butter)
1 tsp vanilla (Or any flavouring of your choice)
1 3/4 cups liquid ( milk dairy non-dairy, mashed banana, applesauce)

what do you feel like today?

measurements equivalencies

I hope i'll be able to read this!  I want to upload my cook book pages to throw away all the pages I have! 

Our year of healthful eating has begun...sigh wish me luck

I have to say that this quest of mine is probably getting oneveryone's nerves!  I read...a lot!!... and i watch food documentaries...a lot... and if one of those sources makes sense i try to implement their advice for my family. Not an easy job, let me tell ya!!

This September, 2014, my oldest boys, 12 & 8, have gone to school. The second time for my oldest but the first tine for my second. Talk about stressful! My middle son is already incredibly picky about what he will eat, now with the stress of school, he eats even less! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!<(

I didn't do too badly feeding healthy foods, but realized after two months of working out, and hard, at the gym and not having lost ANY weight that there still had to be something wrong with my diet. 

Enter in SUGAR.

All the things that we eat are loaded with sugar...and i don't have large amounts of processed foods in my house! Yet, it still sneaks ( guilty) into our foods via the baked goods i offer, juice, our favourite crackers, peanut butter, middle son's fave nutella, pasta sauces, and the list goes on!

So, with everyone having been sick these past two weeks, including me, I have researched changes for my recipes to reduce or eliminate sugar from mybaked goods and from our drinks.

Tough luck!

It has been hard, Daddy is having the hardest time of all, by sneaking in the cake from the freezer! The juice boxes for the kids lunches have been replaced with water bottles.

Although i am still having an impossible time getting Chet to eat his lunch.

Help is appreciated!

So, today i am roasting pumkpins and their seeds. Going to see what ican make from this without buying  cans of pumpkin puree.

I seem to be ranting now, so i'll leave off for now.

What do you do to reduce sugar consumption in your family's diet?

Rena Untitled...intro paragraph

  Rena opened her eyes when her alarm chimed and had a moment of panic when she forgot where she was.  Sitting upright quickly she looked around frantically before remembering she was in her new apartment.  She was in New York City.  Then a wave of mortification passed through her as she remembered why she was there.

  Flopping back onto her pillows she tried to bury herself and forget what she had to do today.  Hiding almost worked, until the nagging voice in her head made her come out of bed and get started with her day.

Walking into her bathroom she stared at herself in the mirror,"Sure! Youcan be reasonable now! Where were you three months ago!" With a deep sigh she reached over to start the shower, hoping against all hope that the day won't be as bad as she feared.

Kandinsky project

http://kidsartists.blogspot.ca/2011/02/concentric-circles-in-style-of.html

I love how simply this lesson is.  I have been scouring books at the library for an idea of how to present this particular painting to my boys and found tonight when doing another search.  This was myfirst hit for tonights search....can't imagine why i haven't seen this one before!

Another hit...not quite a sucker punch

Just spent some time google searching a title of a book i read ages ago, but felt it needed a re-read.  After searching on and off for weeks i finally found it: one minute millionaire.

Anyway, in my search box i typed in " woman having to make a million dollars to get back her kids story line".  Yes, fourth or fifth on the list was the book i was looking for but also on this list was amanda hocking....ebook author.

Self-published e-book author whom is now published on paper and has her first three books optioned to be movies!

Why this is a hit for me (a slap or even a punch) to my ego is i have been toying with storylines in my head for years and thinking that "there's no way that I could do this and people would actually want to read it!!"

And, while looking for something else, a not-so-gentle reminder makes itself known and i realize what it is i am not doing....again.

However, i do realize that the list of things that i want to be doing is a touch longer than one or two things so i do know that not all can be done. 

Time is short on this earth and to be spending sooo much of it doing things we don't want to be doing is a terrible waste!!!

Changes need to be done asap!!!!!