Lotion, Ice Cream, Brownies, Oh My!

What a raining day today turned out to be!  So much for a BBQ and playing outside today, but I had fun making a few things while Gregg and the girls were playing video games or doing homework.  I made Magnesium Lotion, homemade Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Chocolate Ice Cream and Chewy Fudge Brownies for a special Holiday dessert! 

First is the lotion.  I had everything except the Magnesium flakes last week, so I ordered a bag from Amazon and today I finally had time to make this recipe.

  Modern Alternative Mama's recipe was so easy and quick! I melted the oils & wax together.

As she says in her post you can add essential oils and/or infused oils to the recipe.  So I replaced half the Avocado oil with some Calendula & Rose hip infused Sweet Almond oil and I added some Lavender, Vetiver & Clary Sage essential oils.(to help with restless leg syndrome).

Then I mixed the oils with the magnesium oil, and like magic it get think and turns to lotion!  It is just so cool how that works!  

Here is the final product!  It is a great body lotion and it really smells good too! 

Next up, the Gluten free Chewy Fudge Brownies! Oh my goodness are this yummy!!  These brownies are chewy and rich and yet crunchy on the sides and the top!  Best of both worlds.  What is crazy is these are made with oats and no wheat flour so they are gluten free!

So easy to make, just put the oats in the food processor and blend until flour like, then add the other ingredients and bake.  They taste as good as they look!

I made the brownies to go with the Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Chocolate Ice Cream tonight.  The recipe is from the ebook Just Making Ice Cream, this is a great book with some awesome ice cream recipes that I never knew you could make homemade! This recipe is chocolate ice cream with peanut butter cookie dough pieces made from real food and no chemicals!  Although, it was a very soft serve ice cream because it was getting late and the girls had to go to bed for their last week of school, it still was very yummy ice cream!

 Here is the sinful combo that I am eating...

                                                           so, got to go, time to eat this yummy dessert!

What to do with 99 Chocolate Chips!

I have a guest blogger today.  Check it out, she wrote this herself and she baked all by herself tonight too!  Enjoy!  Make sure to let her know how you liked her post! :)  Rene'

Hey all y’all bloggers on the internet in the CRAZY ALL NATURAL cyber space! This post is commin’ from a very special guest on the Crazy All Natural Mama’s blog. I am the daughter of the creator of the blog that you are reading. Well, let’s get back on topic. (That is, if we really started one yet) :)

Today, I made some real yummy banana muffins. Of course, my mom tells me to follow the recipe, so, I did, but I altered it a bit. With my instinct, my brain tells me ya know what, everything goes better with 99 chocolate chips. So I literally counted them out one by one while my dad was makin’ dinner. Why 99 y’all may ask? Well, 100 just seems too even and too perfect. Anyway, I never thought that banana mini muffins would taste good with nutmeg and a few other spices the recipe called for. You can make so many great things that taste good and are not packed full of chemicals. They even taste better because you know you made them from scratch. You probably have most if not all the items needed to make multiple deserts that are better for you than store bought stuff. Try NEW things… You never know what you will find!

Here is what the muffins looked like when they were done!

Elizabeth
age 13, first time blogger

One down, one more to go!

Had a busy and yet very productive day today!  First the girls and I did the Run for the Meadows 5K this morning; it was a beautiful morning for some good exercise!  We then came home and finally got all the veggies planted in the garden in raised bed #1.  I guess it was good we hadn't planted the garden yet since it was down to 42 degrees the night before.  We are hoping the weather will stay warmer and that the green soaker hose looks like snakes to the local rabbits to scare them away!  :)

So in raised bed #1 we got tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, cherry tomatoes, several herbs, cucumbers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, marigolds and more tomatoes.  Did I mention tomatoes?  Yes, I want to be able to can lots of tomatoes this year!

Gregg was working on bringing lawn chairs and table out from the shed and draining the water from the tarp on the pool.  We are hoping to have the pool open by the end of this long weekend.  What a great weekend to work out in the yard, soak up the Vitamin D and enjoy the sun!

Tomorrow we will plant in raised bed #2.  Check back then to see what is being planted there.

Aloe to the rescue!

The wind has been so strong these last few weeks, it has not been good to my plants!  I put my seedlings in a small green house just outside the back door, but wind kept blowing it over, so not sure how many of the heirloom seedlings will make it.  Even with bricks to hold the greenhouse down, it just kept falling over and dumping the seedlings.  I even put my Aloe Vera plant outside to enjoy the sunshine, but even that was blown over while sitting on the bricks.  It didn't like being dumped over and it looked pretty sad, so I decided before it died to salvage the gel from the leaves. So, Lizzy helped me with this very gooey and tedious job.  We added some citric acid and vitamin E and blended it in the food processor then sealed it a pint jar and stored in the fridge. We got almost a cup worth of gel from the leaves.  Check out all the benefits of the Aloe Vera plant here.  Do any of you have an Aloe plant?  What have you used it for?

Where's My Dinner!?

Tried another new recipe tonight, actually a couple new recipes...White Bean & Ham from Crock On recipe book for dinner and then Pineapple Mango smoothie for dessert.  Wow, yummy!  I just love reading and learning so much from lots of bloggers and trying new recipes!  Sorry, I don't have pictures of the White Bean & Ham, but there are plenty of pictures in the Crock On recipe book. All I can tell you is this is a great book with some great crock pot recipes!  If you want to try to use your slow cooker more, here is the book for you!

I did get a few pictures of the Pineapple Mango Smoothie I made.  This is so easy and super yummy!  I did add some ice cubes to make it more slushy, but it is just my preference!

Check out the recipe at Heavenly Homemaker.com and follow her blog, she has lots of great things to learn and try!

Cashew Chicken

Today I made Cashew Chicken in the Crock pot, a recipe that my husband found and asked me to make it for him.  Wow, it was good! The fresh garlic and ginger really make this recipe. I really like The Elephant Bar's Cashew Chicken and this recipe is very similar, especially if it had pineapple! So, next time I will add some onions, pea pods, water chestnuts, carrots and pineapple!  This will make it healthier, more filling and a lot cheaper then going to The Elephant Bar for dinner! Here are pictures from tonight's dinner, next time I make it, it will have more color from all the different veggies.  Look for pictures when I make the new version next time. :)

Only one serving left for Gregg's lunch tomorrow!  

Let the gardening begin!

Yes!  We finally finished the 2 raised beds for my garden today!  Thanks so much to our awesome and hard working friend Bob for designing and building these beds for us!  The girls and I helped as much as we could, but he did the hard work!  Today we moved 6 yards of good garden compost dirt into these 2 beds, it took most of the day, but it was a beautiful day for a good arm work out! :)  Here are a few pictures of the dirt being moved and the finished raised beds!

 Just about done with the moving the dirt pile out of the driveway!

This is the last of the pile.  Lizzy loves smiley faces!

Zoe showing here tools of choice! 

 Raised bed #1 on the east side of the yard.  I will be planting veggies and companion herbs as soon as I can now that we got dirt!  Actually, we still need to put the caps on top of these brick, that will be tomorrow's job!

Raised bed #2 in the back yard on south side of the yard.  I am going to plant other herbs here and some raspberry bushes too!  Just today our neighbor across the street said I could have some of his raspberry bushes that just came up since he as so many now.  My girls are so excited since they love raspberries!  So, this weekend I will be digging them up, walking them across the street and planting them here! :)  Maybe I will have to plant some other berries too!  What other fruit should I plant here?  What have you had success with in your garden?

Something new for dinner!

Tried something new for dinner tonight, and it actually was pretty good!  See, I am not much of a fish eater.  I usually just don't eat it, like ever, but it is so good for you, so I was going to try it again, even if it kills me!  I found this recipe for Lime & Ginger Grilled Tilapia on SparkRecipes.com and it sounded good to me, so I thought I would give it a try.  Of course making fish for dinner will make my husband very happy!  It was super easy to put together and marinade, although next time I might add a little bit more cayenne pepper for just a little kick.  :)  Here are a few pictures, but I should have gotten a picture of Gregg grilling it. 

The fresh Ginger and Lime really makes this recipe!  

Along with the fish I tried made some Whole Wheat Garlic Cheese biscuits that are to be just like Red Lobster's biscuits, and sauteed potato's and onions with coconut oil.  It was all a hit!  I even liked the fish, it really had great flavor and it wasn't fishy to me!  Here is my plate, doesn't that look good?

I just love tried new recipes, especially ones that my family likes and are so healthy for them! :)

Testing, testing....ok, I think its working.
Welcome to my Crazy All Natural Mama Blog!  This blog is for me to post what I am learning and all the things I am making on my all natural journey.  I have been reading lots of other christian mama blogs and trying so many new things I felt I needed to have a place for me to share what I have learned.  I am slowly changing how I think of food and good fats and how to make sure what I am feeding my family is real food and nutritiousness.  Hopefully as I continue with this blog, I will tell you my story and how I got to this place in life at 47 years young; turns out, you can teach an old mama new tricks!
So you wonder how I came up with the name of this blog?  Glad you asked.  My twin 13 year old daughters started calling me Crazy All Natural Mama just for fun because they could see the changes I was making in the food I would purchase; or more like the food I wouldn't purchase anymore.  They wanted cookies and granola bars for lunch, so I would make them homemade and they liked them!  I have been trying new real food recipes and they liked them too!  So, the name kinda stuck as they would be telling their friends and other family members and I liked it, so I am going with it! :)
My biggest struggle is where to purchase the best quality food for the best price and still stay in our budget.  I can still shop at Aldi's to get many things that are not processed and produce that are on the Clean 15 List and some organic foods.  The hardest to find is affordable organic produce.   Of course, I am going to be having a garden, but it is not producing yet, so until then I hope to find what I need at the local Farmer's Market.  The Family and I went this last Saturday, but it was about 11:30am so I think we missed the veggies, so I hope to find some next week.  I have been getting my organic produce from Meijer so far since there is not a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's anywhere near where I live. I actually went to Kroger today to get a few free things, and had looked at their ad online for this store's address and saw they had organic bell peppers on sale. Yea!  However, I didn't see any organic produce there, so I asked the lady putting produce out and she said they don't carry any organic produce.  Strange, since it was in there ad.  Fine!So I had to swing by Meijer on the way home to get the produce they didn't have.  I will be writing to Corp. Kroger about that; why have online ads for specific stores if they don't have those items in that store?
Anyway, here is a picture of the food I got today.  Picked up 2 dozen cage free eggs on Manager's special for $1.99, another regular eggs for free(luckily my hubby & girls all love eggs for breakfast) and some cool ranch Doritos's for free!  (I know, not natural, but I try to be 80-90% natural with some compromises to keep the peace in the family! :)  Also got some yogurt for .99 for 4 and 1.69 for large tub for smoothies.  I actually did pretty good today at the store, but I really can't wait until I get to eat from my garden this summer!

 This picture below is my new water dispenser!  I had to get a new one, cause the old one was to hard to push to get the water out!  Funny how the lime sinks and the lemon float!  The organic strawberries will go in tomorrow to make a wonderful strawberry lemon/line water!  This yummy water makes it so easy to be done with Diet Mt. Dew!