Kefir Update; What (Inhibition) Are You Giving Up For the Holidays?

I hope everyone's having a relaxing weekend and not spending too much time waiting in line... We're still in the bright, crisp sunny days here.

An update on my kefir situation: I mentioned recently that I'd tried to move away from the super-labor-intensive kefir-making with coconut milk powder that I'd been doing and that the grains weren't taking kindly to the sugar-water fare. Well, after a little more discussion with Marilyn Kefirlady, I tried to revive them with the diet they were accustomed to - the coconut milk powder from Wilderness Family Naturals again. And they're happy again!

So I'm back to coconutty bacterial goodness, which my ND had said was good for me anyway. I'm trying some ways to streamline the process and make it less labor-intensive. Maybe I'll make little lime cheesecakes (no sugar or dairy or grains) with it again, like I did a few month ago. And I'm enjoying it mixed with sauerkraut and sprouts - very winter-appropriate!

But even better, my wonderful friend Bitt has shared some water kefir grains with me, so now I can enjoy both the coconut creamy and the fizzy drinky varieties of probiotic yumminess! Thank you so much!
(This isn't the piece of good news I mentioned yesterday, btw. How cool to have so much good news to share.)

Giving Up (Inhibitions) for the Holidays


I'm not the kind of person who slacks off on a diet over the holidays. I tend to be very doctrinaire and dedicated if I'm following some kind of diet plan, especially if it's to kill yeast or similar. However, I am aware that many people do use the holidays as time for indulgence, and additionally, my ND has charged me with the challenge of breaking some of my food rules.

It suddenly struck me today that breaking food rules is actually 'giving something up,' which isn't a usual association with holidays. Maybe my 'renunciate' side can feel better about it framed that way?!

I pondered the question as I started my first onslaught on Holiday goodies prep...

Why, oh why am I incapable of doing one thing at a time? And why wouldn't that cacao butter melt faster? (Moments after I took that photo, the cuisinart bowl ended up on the floor, which I can giggle about now but was annoying at the time.)

And just inches to the left of the above picture...

Poetry writing books and recipe books from the library and research into ancient ecology and diet and a spatula, all mixed up together, just inches from the food spray zone! Thank goodness there were no casualties. And isn't the ocean beautiful in the background?

Well, it should come as no surprise that as I got ready to make goodies and imagined which ones I might be able to partake in myself, I was thinking that I would allow myself some chocolate over the holidays...

I don't know why that's such a no-brainer for me, why chocolate continues to be so alluring, despite the fact that it really doesn't make me feel good, in a lot of ways. Recipe-tasting at lunchtime, I felt again the immediate jitteriness and anxiety increase.

What else do I 'give up?' Well, I was looking through all these recipes, and instead of always trying to convert all sweeteners to stevia, I am willing to have more xylitol over the holidays. And although I still don't feel like I want to use agave, I decided that now is an appropriate time to admit a little sugar-experimenting in the form of coconut nectar, which, amazingly, one store in town here carries,


...and which is supposed to be very low-glycemic anyway. Yes, it's expensive, but it's the holidays!
I'll tell a bit more about what I'm making with it soon. I'm also going to be lax about my ban on nuts and seeds besides coconut (which I'll talk more about soon, as I just keep promising), since so many raw goodies rely on them so heavily. I accidentally figured out a way to make myself feel better about using them too, which I'll share in due course.

What are you giving up for the holidays?

Oh, speaking of holiday bounty, Averie is giving away an amazing $50 giveaway with iHerb. That's really one that would be worth winning...

Ok, off to play some more in our multipurpose kitchen surface...
much love

Winter Pictures, Kefir Woes, Giveaway Tomorrow

Happy day to everyone! I wanted to share some of the scenery with which we're being blessed around here.

Last Saturday, we went birdwatching on a beach about 15 miles north of here. We saw some unusual birds, including redwing blackbirds who have no business this far north at any time of the year!... And we got very close to this juvenile bald eagle, who was conserving energy and looking haughty. (Out of respect for the bird, we didn't try to get real close, but this is closer than I'd normally expect to be.)

Yesterday and today, we were hiking on beaches near here as the sun came up around 9.45:

Isn't that glorious? The temperatures have actually been dropping after sunrise these past few days: it seems that at night there is some cloud-cover, which warms things up, but when the sun rises and the sky clears, even though the sun is bright and beautiful, it doesn't warm things up.

Speaking of warming things up, Homer has a lot of coal: in fact, it was originally a mining town as much as a fishing town. Unfortunately, the mining out of coal seams is a big factor in the terrible erosion problems along the seashores around here now. But as you hike along the beaches, you'll often find deposits of coal, and sometimes great patches spattered with smaller coal chunks. You'll often also see 'petrified wood,' which is semi-fossilized wood that hasn't quite turned into rock or coal yet. I adore it: it's just so beautiful. Here's a huge chunk we saw this morning:

We also found a stranded jellyfish. This was about as big across as my foot. Doesn't it look just like a giant hard candy? (despite being so soft itself)

Just for fun, because I thought it looked so funny: here's a shot of our cabin after we did laundry two days ago. It's a ventilation issue, because those wet clothes represent a lot of water that needs to go somewhere...

So we opened and flapped the door periodically through the day, which cooled things down faster than you'd believe.

Now for my kefir update. Remember my very time-consuming coconut kefir-making process using Wilderness Family's coconut milk powder?

Well, between my concern over the trace of dairy in the coconut milk powder and the time-consuming factor, when we finally got home from our travels, I decided to try making water kefir for a while instead. In fact, I tried out Amanda Rose's suggestion of making water kefir, adding nettle tea and fermenting for one more day as an extra mineral boost together with the probiotics.

Well, it made wonderful tonic kefir for a few days, but then, the grains simply ceased to convert the sugar! (I was using pure evaporated cane juice.) I'm at a loss, and unfortunately, Marilyn Kefirlady, from whom I obtained the grains, hasn't been forthcoming with any suggestions as to whether I could revive them. She suggested that keeping them warm enough is very important, but every time I've gone traveling,  I've left them in the fridge while I was gone and they've bounced right back afterwards.

Meantime, I'm missing my kefir. Both the effervescent, bacteria-sour-yumminess, and the wonderfully creamy sour coconut that I used to have in the fridge. I'm missing the coconut version even more so since, for reasons I'll be talking about soon, I'm experimenting with cutting all nuts and seeds, including the chia and flax that I mostly eat (with the exception of coconut and mac nuts), down to a minimum or nothing for a little while, and when I get hungry for a snack and am not going to eat a chia cracker, coconut kefir was often a go-to item, at least when at home. So, I'm putting my hopes to the universe and my feelers out to get kefir back into my life soon!

Have you ever quit something and then really missed it?

Stay tuned for a giveaway tomorrow!
much love.