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In addition to free shipping, Tropical Tradition's Pure Coconut Oil pints are currently on sale Buy 1 Get 1 FREE! This oil is their most affordable coconut oil. It is a high-quality, expeller-pressed oil and it rivals many more expensive coconut oils in the market in both quality and taste. This 100% pure coconut oil is a popular local product in the Philippines, and Tropical Traditions is the only one exporting it into the US market. Sale price is only $12.50 for two 16oz. jars!




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Such a great deal!!!

Simple Vinaigrette

Photo credit

Our garden is giving us a bounty of tender greens.  Leaf lettuces in green and red, kale, mustard greens, and curly leaf lettuce.  These greens are so delectable, they just about melt in your mouth.  On top of that they are so flavorful that to mask that with a heavy dressing would be nothing short of criminal.

Beyond Easy Fruit Salad

Fruit salad is a staple in our house.  It's easy, good, and good for you too.

Many fruit salad recipes have some kind of special dressing.  Not this one.  Oh, no.  This is simplicity at it's best.  So if you can open a can or two, cut up some fruit and maybe grab a couple handfuls of some fresh or frozen berries, you've got fruit salad.

Muffuletta Sandwich on Homemade Sourdough

Photo Credit

Since we started our real food journey, we rarely eat sandwiches.  It wasn't uncommon before for us to have sandwiches for lunch every day, featuring store-bought processed lunch meat.  Now if we do eat sandwiches, it's most likely tuna or egg salad or a cheese sandwich.

A couple weeks ago, it was absolutely beautiful outside and we decided to have a picnic dinner.  I wanted something good and hearty, but relatively mess-free.  Well, these sandwiches aren't really mess-free, but they are nothing shy of amazing.  I hope you think so, too.

Zesty Orange Salad

I recently read "French Kids Eat Everything" by Karen Le Billon.  The book is the British Columbian author's experience with raising her two daughters in a small French village where her husband grew up, and the changes they made along the way with their eating habits.  Although at times I wondered who the child was (the mother or the girls), it was an enlightening read and has impacted how I personally look at food.

Food is meant to be nourishing...oui?  But it is also meant to be satisfying.  For food to be satisfying, it is important for us to take the time to truly savor our meals.  When we take that time eating, seated at a table, preferably with our family, it gives our bodies the time they need to be able to tell us when they are no longer hungry (you didn't hear me say "full"!) and at the same time we are connecting with the people we hold most dear.

I realize that this is a lengthy preamble to a recipe.  But my hope is that this simple and pretty dessert is the satisfying end to a meal in your home sometime soon.

Bon appétit.

Water Kefir Tribbles

Captain Kirk with Tribbles

If you are not a Star Trek fan, this analogy will be totally lost on you.  So sorry.

Last week, I purchased 1/4 C of live water kefir grains.  When I received them in the mail, I immediately dissolved 1/4 C turbinado in some warm filtered water in a quart jar and topped that off with more cool filtered water to give me just shy of 4 cups of lukewarm sweetened water.  I anxiously added my water kefir grains to that, covered with a sprouting lid (you could use cheese cloth or a clean dish towel) and set it on my counter top.  Every two days, I would strain off my grains leaving behind my water kefir...which I'm really starting to love, by the way, and I promise to post more on that soon.

Anywho, in the 6 days I have had my water kefir grains, this is how much I have right now.  (And remember, I started with 1/4 cup...)

Powdered HE Laundry Detergent Recipe

Laundry detergent.  Now that I've been making my own for the past several months, I can hardly believe the price it fetches at the local stores.  Can you say "highway robbery"?

I had been using the liquid detergent I posted several months ago.  It works great.  It's inexpensive as all get out.  But... I'm lazy.  And having a big ole jug to mess around with, well, I starting thinking about a powdered version.  After all, wasn't I going to be putting the detergent in water anyway?  So, now you have another version to suit your preference.