8 reasons why I love coconut oil

Life has definitely changed for me in the last month since having Thomas, but it sure has been a joy! I just have time for a short post today, so here is a list of 8 of my favorite uses for coconut oil.

1. Under eye treatment. It works wonders on dark under eye circles.

2. With cocoa butter for an all over body butter. Melt them together and whip if you like, then keep in a pretty jar.

3. Oil pulling, for detoxing and making my teeth white. Read more about this HERE.

4. It makes excellent toothpaste, find out how HERE.

5. It tastes so good, woks great for high heat (try making orange chicken with it) and is one of the best fats for your body! (Read more about healthy fats HERE.)

6. It makes a nice healing salve. Being antibacterial, and microbial and very healing in general it woks nicely to help wounds heal.

7. Works great for my babies skin. It helped heal his dried skin, the cuts on his feet from the jaundice tests, and his belly button (the cord came off before it healed properly. I didn't want to put anything on it that would make it burn, so I tried coconut oil, it worked so good!)

8. As a light sunscreen. Coconut oil is a natural 5spf which is fine for me since I don't go out in the sun between about 10 and 4 when its to hot for me.


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Easy Asian ground meat with veggies

This is an incredibly easy meal to make, that serves several people on a budget. 

Prep time: 0-5 min Cook time: 20-30 min Serves: 4 or more

Ingreedients:

1/2 cup of rice per person

1 pound of veggies of choice (I love green beans or broccoli)

1 pound of ground meet of choice

1 tbsp of sesame oil

1/4 cup of soy or tamari sauce

2 tbsp of rice wine vinegar (red wine vinegar works nicely also)

1 tbsp of honey

2-4 cloves of minced garlic

1/4 to 1 inch of fresh ginger minced or grated. (you can use powdered) 

Asian hot sauce to taste 

Directions:

Cook the rice however you like, I do 1 cup of rice with 2 and 1/4 to 1/3 cups of water boiled then simmered until it is done. I just kind of guess basically, you may want to follow more specific directions though. 

In a pan or wok cook any onions and hard veggies first. Add in the ground meet and let it start cooking, then add in all the flavors (everything but any other veggies). Once the meat is cooked add in any other veggies you want cooked. I usually add in the frozen veggies now on top and put a lid on. Any water that comes off of the veggies helps to make a sauce. You can always defrost any veggies before, I just always forget and this works fine. add your meat and veggies to some rice and eat up. I never said it was classy, just delicious ;)

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Healthy pina colada

I've been adding coconut oil and heavy cream to my smoothies for the extra nutritional fat. Today I had fresh pineapple so I changed up my usual pineapple smoothie (pineapple, water, and aloe vera) and ended up with a delicious pina colada.

For two servings.

1 medium pineapple, skinned, cored, and chopped.
1 1/2 tbsp of coconut oil
1/2 cup of milk (can use coconut milk)
3 tbsp of cream (can use the cream from canned coconut milk)
1 to 2 tsp of honey if your pineapple is on the tart side.
Optional 1 aloe vera stem de-skinned

If you use coconut milk and coconut cream then you may want to cut down on the coconut oil.

Blend and serve.

The easiest sauerkraut recipe

This sauerkraut recipe is so simple and takes very little time. You can make this recipe with just cabbage, or with other vegetables and greens or even fruit. Also, you can make it with or without salt. The salt does give it an extra bit of crispiness. No water, culture, or whey is needed. 

Fermenting your vegetables makes them more nutritious, unlocking nutrients and culturing beneficial bacteria to help your body thrive!

For one batch

Prep time: 10 min Fermentation time: 5-10 days

Equipment:

Make sure all equipment is sterile, you do not want to introduce bad bacteria. 

1 bowl

1 mason jar

a knife

a cutting board

something to press your kraut into the jar with (optional, if your hand fits in the jar you can just use your fist/knuckles)

Ingredients:

1 head of cabbage

1 tsp of sea salt (optional)

I like to make mine with cabbage, carrots, beats, and swiss chard, you can also add in apples, dried berries, spices such as caraway, ginger, garlic, celery zucchini, basically whatever you feel like. 

Adding more veggies, herbs such as parsley, and garlic and ginger make for an awesome immune booster. Not only are their going to be more nutrients from the food by fermenting them, the beneficial bacteria are going to make you have a better immune system also. The probiotics, or beneficial bacteria, in our guts protect us from parasites, harmful bacteria,  and toxic substances including mercury! 

Directions:

• Wash your cabbage. 
• Take of the first 1 to 2 layers of leaves off your cabbage and discard.
•  Take off another layer and save it for later.
•  Take out the core of your cabbage and shred it by slicing it thinly with a knife (I do for one batch) or with some sort of cheese grater. If you are adding any thing else you will want to shred it as well, except for greens like swiss chard just chop those finely. 
• Place all ingredients in a bowl with the salt if you are using it.
• Using your hand, squish and kneed the mixture until the juices are getting released. 
• Press the mixture into some sort of jar with a lid that will seal, such as a mason jar. You want this to be packed tight!
• Using your reserved leaves, cover the top to take up any extra space.
• Cover and keep in a pantry or some place similar. You want the area to have little to no light, be dry, and not to warm or cold. 
• Let it sit from 5-10 days. A week usually works perfect for me but if it is unusually warm or cold it may take less or more time. You may want to keep a tray underneath because it has a tendency to bubble and leak. 

Middle eastern type tomato chicken stuff... or something like that

This was something that I made the other day trying to use up the chicken and couscous that I had, and it turned out really well for such a simple recipe.
Chicken in a tomato and turmeric sauce with vegetables and couscous.

Prep time: 3-5 min Cook time 8-15 min Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces.

1 14 oz can of diced tomatoes

2 tbsp curry seasoning or 1 tbsp each of coriander and turmeric (you can fiddle around with the spices)

2 tsp to 1 tbsp of garlic powder

1 pound of fresh or frozen veggies, cooked (I used broccoli) 

1 cup of couscous 

1 1/2 cups of chicken or vegetable broth (water will work if need be)

salt and pepper if you used tomatoes and broth without salt

Directions:

Bring the broth to a boil. Add in the couscous, cover and turn to low cooking for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat, fluff the couscous, cover and let sit for another 10 minutes.

Cook the chicken breast in a bit of oil in a pan. Add in the tomatoes (with the juice) and the seasoning. Let that heat up. You can cover it and let it cook on low for a bit to let the spices integrate more if you would like. Put down the couscous first, then the veggies, and then the chicken and tomatoes layered on your plate. Now you have dinner for two. 

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Easy creamy tomato pasta

This is really delicious and so easy to make. It can easily be made vegetarian by omitting the chicken.

Takes about 20 minutes to cook, 10 if you make the sauce while the pasta is cooking, and serves 4.

Ingredients: 

1 pound of pasta cooked, drained and buttered or oiled so that it doesn't stick.

2 tbsp of butter

1 red onion, minced

1/2 pound of chicken thighs or breasts cut into small pieces, about 1/4-1/2 inches

2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 large tomatoes chopped (Don't get rid of the juice! This goes in too) or a can of diced tomatoes (you might want to chop them up a bit more)
1/2 cup of cream cheese
1 Tbsp of oregano
1 Tbsp of basil
1/2 cup of olives, chopped
1/2 cup of chopped artichoke hearts
Parmesan or asiago cheese to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Melt the butter in your pan (I left the pasta in the colander and did this in my pot to save of dishes but you can just as easily do this in a saute pan or skillet with high sides.) Cook the onions in the butter with some salt to help them sweat for a couple of minutes or until they soften up and start to become translucent. Scootch the onions to the sides of the pan and add in the chicken. You can season the chicken if you want. Since they are small pieces they should take 2 to 3 minutes to cook. Add in the herbs and tomatoes and let them cook a bit, don't forget to add in the juice that was released when you cut them up. Add in the cream cheese and let it melt into the sauce. Add in everything else but the pasta and let it mix up then combine it with the pasta. Whala you are finished.

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Easy Diy Perfume

I love to use essential oils and hydrosols for perfume instead of that toxic nastiness that you get on your fingers when turning the page in a magazine for a perfume add. Instead of messing up your endocrine system, giving you headaches, and causing cancer in your body, you can actually help your body out with perfume made from essential oils and hydrosols. 

You can make perfume 3 ways, one as a roll on with a carrier oil, 2 as a solid perfume (find my tutorial for that HERE) and 3 as a spray using hydrosols for the carrier instead of alcohol. 

I like to keep things simple with rose hydrosol and chamomile oil in a spray bottle, but you can get as complex as you would like. Bellow I have oils in groups to give you ideas.

For a roll on take a bottle with a roll top and drop in your essential oils first. you will want the oils to go probably about 1/8th to 1/3 of the way up. Experiment with just a little first so that you can test out combinations without wasting any oils. Then fill the bottle up the rest of the way with a carrier oil such as almond.

For a spray perfume choose your mixture of oils and add them to a spray bottle with a hydrosol of your choosing. Hydrosols are the water left over from making essential oils, so they still have the smell and small particles of the essential oils suspended in the liquid. You will want to play around with the ratio of oil to hydrosol because every oil has a different strength to it. 

You can even use floral waters, like orange blossom and rose water that you can get at the grocery store with extracts like vanilla and almond. 
 
Blend ideas for women:
 *Neroli, chamomile, and bergamont are refreshing and relaxing.
*Jasmine, ylang ylang, vanila, cardamom, orange create a romantic scent
*Lavender and vanilla is simple and sweet.

Oil ideas for men: Sandalwood (calms and soothes but also increases testosterone and balances hormones) Frankincense, spruce, fir, cedarwood, vetiver, sage, vanilla, hints of cardamom are nice, basically anything manly. You can go woodsy, or more spicy. 

My favorite is sandalwood with frankincense and cedar with a bit of orange and vanilla. 

You can put oils in a roll on and use them for various problems that you might be having to rub directly on where you need the oils. 

Sore muscles/back pain: Peppermint and clove work marvelously together. You can also add other warming oils like wintergreen, cypress, basil, marjoram, and elemi can be added as well as calming oils like lavender and chamomile.

Endocrine system rosemary, cinnamon, Black pepper, dill, geranium, and frankincense.
  
Fatigue:  Ginger, Peppermint, White Fir, melissa

Help you think: Rosemary, basil, sage/Clary sage, peppermint.
  
Hot Flashes: Peppermint, Geranium, citrus oils, and Clary Sage.  
  
Low Blood Sugar: Cinnamon, clove, thyme,

 Mood: Bergamot, Clary sage, fennel, geranium, lavender, lemon, peppermint, rosemary, sandalwood, blue spruce, ylang ylang, melissa

 PMS: bergamot, Clary sage, fennel, geranium, grapefruit, lavender, Roman chamomile, melissa,

Have fun being creative and smelling fabulous!

 I usually post recipes, beauty DIY's and health tips once or twice a week so if you want more then subscribe over on the side bar. :)