Tuesday 31 May 2011

Ice Cream Pie

It is hot here.  Too hot to turn the oven on and bake a cake for Rob's birthday so I made him an ice cream pie.  Chocolate peanut butter pie with a cookie crust to be exact.  It didn't take many ingredients and was pretty easy to make.


I started with a box of Late July Vanilla Bean with Green Tea sandwich cookies (they are better than Oreos in my book).  I whirled them in the food processor with a couple tablespoons of melted butter.  I pressed that into a pie plate and put in the freezer to set.

In the Kitchen Aid bowl I mixed softened chocolate ice cream with cut up peanut butter cups.  I then poured that into the prepared cookie crust.  I then put it in the freezer for a couple hours to firm up.  Later I melted some chocolate chips in the microwave and put it in a plastic sandwich bag.  I cut the corner off the baggie and drizzled the melted chocolate on top of the pie.


Done!  I put it back in the freezer until after supper.  It was great!  Everyone loved it.

Monday 30 May 2011

The Way We Eat


Why do we eat an all natural diet?  Because that is the healthiest way to eat.  Artificial colours, flavours and preservatives are made from petroleum and the human body was not designed to process petroleum.  Petroleum causes some peoples bodies to do some pretty wacky things.  About 4 years ago we realized that J's body could not handle anything artificial - it makes him crazy.  He couldn't sit still, couldn't colour within the lines, couldn't behave and couldn't concentrate.  We didn't know what to do too help him and we didn't have a doctor and then I found the website for the Feingold Association and it changed our lives. 

Feingold advocates a petroleum free diet and eliminating high salicylate foods from your diet for a short time to see if any food intolerances. (They publish a book that lists things that are free of those petroleum based products.  In Canada it is not a huge book but it is definately a big help when you are starting on this food journey.) 

Within weeks J's behaviour was incredibly different, he could sit and read by himself, he could follow directions and best of all his terrible eczema cleared up totally.  As we slowly added the high salicylates we found out that J couldn't handle oranges - they made him bounce off the walls.  Since that time we have also eliminated Corn Syrup.

So we had found a better way to eat, now we just had to find the food.  There is not a lot of prepared food that is all natural so we make our own.  From english muffins to marshmallows we make it all.

The sad part is that the way we eat shouldn't be the "crazy" way to eat.  We are eating real food, the way people ate 100 years ago. Why are we considered different because we don't give the boys Cheez Whiz or Cool Whip?  They are not real foods.  My kids are not deprived because they don't eat petroleum products.  They get real cheese and real whipped cream.  They eat a pretty darn good assortment of food if you ask me.