Cup of Wisdom

Garlic Goodness

By now most everyone has heard about the health benefits of garlic.  It is helpful in the management of blood pressure and cholesterol levels, is a natural antibiotic helping to promote the immune system and is packed with vitamins  and nutrients!  Most people use garlic to cook with but taken raw it really packs the most punch health wise.  But eating a clove of garlic just by itself isn't really that appealing, at least to me.  I was given a brilliant tip on how to get a good healthy dose of garlic without scaring away your family and friends.  Take a couple of bulbs of garlic and peel them, cutting the cloves into smaller pieces if they are super large.  Place your cloves into a small jar and cover with raw honey.  Put a lid on the jar and let sit for 2 weeks.  After the two weeks is up the garlic will have soaked up the sweetness of the honey and have a much more palatable taste. Now don't throw away the honey that has all that garlicky goodness in it.  Save it to make marinades and salad dressing!
As with anything, eat the garlic in moderation.  You can have too much of a good thing.  Consuming too much garlic can lead to heartburn, upset stomach and even allergic reactions.  Try having a clove every other day or  a few times a week.

Coconut Almond Granola

This stuff is super, yummy and super easy to make, and is great on yogurt or just by itself for a quick snack!

Ingredients

3 Cups rolled oats
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tp. sea salt
1 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut
1 cup blanched, sliced almonds
3/4 cup real maple syrup
1/4 cup oil, melted
2 tsp. pure almond extract

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.  In a large mixing bowl mix together all your dry ingredients.  Next stir in the almond extract, maple syrup, and melted coconut oil.  Spread out the granola on a cookie sheet greased with coconut oil.  Bake for 20 minutes-give it another stir.  Put it in for another 5-6 minutes and stir again.  Another 5-6 minutes and it should be done depending on your oven.
Let it cool and store in a mason jar or other air tight container.

A Hatching Success!

It has been a busy week. The kids are home on vacation, I started an herbal apprenticeship at a local farm and our chicks hatched!  Thursday made 21 days and sure enough the eggs began to pip in the morning.  During many, many random checks throughout the day(talk about being distracted!) we saw the eggs rocking and very often little peeps could be heard coming from the eggs.  By evening more cracks were evident.

Around seven the first chick busted his way out, peeping loudly and wobbling all over the place.

We saw two more hatch before we finally went to bed.  In the morning we were greeted by five little balls of fluff intermittently peeping and napping. All the eggs successfully hatched!  Making a transition to the brooder went smoothly and they all seem to be adjusting well to life outside the egg!

 

Now comes the hard part-trying to figure out which are girls and which are boys.

Pinterest tip of the Week #2-Mason Jars

Did you know that mason jars will screw onto most blenders?  This makes it super easy to make a one serving smoothie! This is also true of the mason jar drinking mugs with the handles.  I like to make a smoothie the night before to drink in the morning and this works out perfect.  You could also easily make up several different flavors of smothies for different members of the family without washing the large pitcher of the blender over and over again. Cool right?

Crazy for Crochet

While browsing through Pinterest and seeing a bunch of adorable crochet items I decided that I needed to learn to crochet. When  I was much younger my sister-in-law taught me how to crochet a granny square and if I had stuck with it I would be a master crochet artist by now but being young and foolish I didn't.  As you know the Internet can be a wonderful source for learning how to things but being a bit old fashioned I love me a good book to use as a reference.  So I bought a book on the basics of crochet, some hooks and some yarn to begin practicing.  I did find YouTube videos to be very helpful when I was uncertain about how to do a certain stitch and the picture in the book just wasn't quite clear enough.
  One of the things that really drew me to crochet was the adorable little critters you could create.  The Japanese art of amigurumi was especially intriguing. The word amigurumi is derived from a combination of the Japanese words Ami-which means crocheted or knitted. And nuigurumi, which means stuffed doll.  After a little research I found that most amigurumi was made with only one stitch and that was single crochet-I could do that!  So I went about finding some patterns and of course a couple books and I was soon on my way to making some cute little critters!  The amigurumi patterns work up pretty quickly so I got this quick little feeling of accomplishment every time I made one.  Another bonus is that my kids are loving the little creations too!
I soon found crocheting to be very addictive and wanted  to crochet everything.  And when I say everything I mean to the point of crocheting hats for eggs, otherwise known as an egg cozy.  You know know it's important to keep your eggs cozy right?!  Actually the fact that such things actually exist and were not created by me just goes to show I am not the only one who is crazy for crochet.  I do believe the actual purpose of an egg cozy is too keep soft boiled eggs warm while you prepare the rest of your breakfast and not a fashion statement but either way they're pretty cute!

Here's a few of my favorites-

 

 

And here is something a little more useful, a jar cozy.  I made this for Becca to hold her paintbrushes!

I have got an ever growing list of things I want to try making on my Pinterest boards so stay tuned for further creations!

Cup of Wisdom