A1 makes me a happy girl :)

I was so relieved when I read the label for AI steak sauce and realized it was one of the few things in my fridge door that we could still have! We were always to ones who people asked "Hey, do you want alittle steak to go with that A1". No, it's not all natural and the sodium is a bit on the high side at 280mg per 1Tbsp serving but it is still doable! I was messing around with some beef and came up with a yummy recipe.

Marinated Beef with Peppers and Onions
1 pd. beef- cubed (I bought a couple of all natural roasts on sale. I like to chop some of it up into 1 inch cubes before I freeze it.)
1/4 A1 sauce
1/4 Red Wine Vinegar (The health benefits of Red Wine Vinegar are endless!!!)
Pepper to taste
1 whole Yellow Pepper - chopped
1 whole Onion - chopped
1 Tbsp
1 cup instant whole grain brown rice

Marinate the beef in the vinegar, A1, and pepper mixture for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Saute the beef, peppers, and onion in the olive oil until beef is done and veggies tender (about 20 min). Cook the rice according to the directions and add to beef and veggies at the end.

This was really easy to put together & everyone loved it! When we first started eating this way, I basically had to relearn how to cook. Frustrating......OMG, worth it.......absolutely! I never realized how many different flavors you can taste in a dish when it doesn't have much salt in it. I'm have really loved experimenting with different herbs, spices, juices, & vinegars! It has forced me to think outside of my cooking box and try new things. Over the last 3 1/2 months, I have tried MANY new recipes and cooking techniques. I think it's because of this that the kids are now more willing to try something new. That by itself makes me a happy mommy!

The reason pure maple syrup is expensive....

I have been paying about $6 a bottle for 100% pure maple syrup. I was rinsing out the glass bottle we just finished for recycling and realized why they are so expensive! The syrup comes in the cutest little glass bottles. Most brands have different shaped and sized glass bottles. They would be super cute for crafts! I have some glass paint upstairs...I'll post what I come up with :)

Nutrition all the rage.

We started this new label reading lifestyle back in March. I've noticed recently that eating all natural & low sodium is getting alot of tv coverage . I'm like, OMG, did I start a nation wide movement?? Probably not, but it is fun to think so!

Alot of people have said "but your not counting calories or watching fat?" Here are my two cense about that. Your body tells you when your hungry and when it needs more or it's had enough. You have a built in calorie counter. When the only thing you put in your body is wholesome, vitamin & mineral packed, all natural foods, you are giving your body everything it needs. The fats in these foods are the super heart healthy monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, & omega 3 fatty acids. Though the weight loss is a nice side effect but our initial reason for changing the way we ate was for heart health. I've been looking at the labels of some "health" food and I've come to the conclusion that you'll trade the weight for diabetes & high blood pressure. They contained a surprising amount of sodium and artificial sweeteners! I don't get it!

BBQ sauce

I grill ALL year round. My favorite BBQ sauce has always been Sweet Baby Ray's. I love it for it's sweet, stickiness. Sadly, as with almost all of our past favorites, high fructose corn syrup is the first ingredient. I have since found that making your own BBQ sauce is super easy! If you sort through all of the crap on the ingredient list of Sweet Baby Rays you come up with -
Tomato paste, vinegar, pineapple juice, molasses, & garlic. Those ingredients alone seem like they would make quite a tasty sauce. Why add all the other crap??? Here is one of the sauces I've come up with. The whole family loves it!


All natural Chicken Legs w/ BBQ sauce
Start by rinsing the legs. Marinate them in alittle olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and spices to taste ( I like thyme, rosemary, oregano, and curry) for at least a 1/2 hour. The trick with legs is that they need to cook for a LLOOOONNNNNGGGGG time over low heat. Place the legs on the grill, over low heat with the lid down for 45 min! Turn once mid way through. This melts all of the fat off the leg leaving a much tastier result! Baste the legs with the sauce in the last 5 -10 minutes of cooking.

Sauce
1 cup Hunt's All natural no salt added ketchup
1/4 apple cider vinegar (Search apple cider vinegar health benefits and you'll find that many sites state that apple cider vinegar's health benefits aid in diabetes, high cholesterol, blood pressure & heart health, cancer, and weight loss.)
1/4 molasses
1/4 mustard
1 Tsp red crushed pepper

Combine all ingredients and chill for 1/2 hour for flavors to mesh!

Blueberry crumble

When life gives you blueberries......

Do a search on "super foods" and blueberries are at the top! Packed with antioxidants and phytoflavinoids, these berries are also high in potassium and vitamin C, making them a top choice for doctors and nutritionists!

Blueberry Orange Crumble
6-8 cups Fresh Blueberries
2 Tbsp whole wheat or oat flour
Zest and juice from 1 whole orange
3/4 cup whole wheat or oat flour
3/4 cup organic cane sugar
1 Tbsp molasses
1 Tbsp cinnamon
4 Tbsp unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 375. In a 9x13 prepared (cooking spray) pan combine blueberries, orange zest and juice, and 2 tbsp flour. For topping, melt butter and combine with rest of ingredients. Spread evenly on top of fruit. Bake for 30 minutes. YUMMY. Goes great with Breyer's all natural vanilla!

Spicy rice and veggies

I put this recipe together using bits and pieces of 3 others. It's sooooo good!

Spicy rice and veggies

1 onion - diced
3-4 garlic cloves - minced
2 Tbsp olive oil
Red, yellow, green pepper - 1/2 of each - chopped
1 cup broccoli crowns - cut in to smaller pieces
1 cup baby bella mushrooms - sliced
parsley, basil, marjoram, cumin, turmeric, & cayenne pepper - to taste
(I don't usually measure spices, but I'd say about 1/2 - 1 tsp each
1 cup instant whole grain brown rice
2 cups organic broth - chicken or beef - divided

Saute onions & garlic in olive oil until almost done. Add 1 cup of broth, veggies, and spices. Cook until vegetables are tender crisp. Cook the rice in 1 cup of broth covered in the microwave for 8 minutes. Add the rice to vegetables, stir and serve.

You can add different veggies. I added a 1/2 can of no sodium added garbanzo beans the last time I made it. I really like how versatile it is!

Your bodies PH balance

You know..It's all just science. We are one giant science project. I heard about this a couple of years ago and thought it was really interesting. We all have a PH balance. Just like the our swimming our pools. If the PH balance is off..funk stuff can grow. The truth is, disease, viruses, cancer, all flourish in an acidic enviroment. Your bodies PH balance is determined by the food you eat. Check out naturalhealthschool.com/pH-balance.

Healthy dessert

One of our favorites is the frozen banana. I cut them in half and stick a popsicle stick through the bottom. Dunk them in Stonyfield organic strawberry yogurt. Coat them with Kashi lean crunch cereal. Freeze them. They heal a sweet tooth and the kids can have them for breakfast!

All natural, low sodium tip on salad dressing

Veggies have taken over 75% of our plates! I have looked at the ingredients and nutritional facts of just about every bottle of salad dressing. Even the ones with names like Balsamic Olive Oil & Herb have high fructose corn syrup as the second ingredient! So far, the best tasting I've found is Kraft Tuscan House Italian. Although not all natural, the sodium content is doable without the crap content of so many others. It has satisfied the dressing needs of our family!

All natural, low sodium tips

Before we started our allnatloso adventure, canned tomatoes and beans were a staple in my kitchen. While they don't have the crap content, the sodium in out the roof. I found one canned tomato that has proven to be delicious and versatile. RedPack's 100% natural diced tomatoes with basil, garlic, & oregano in thick puree. I can buy a 28oz can at Marc's for $1!!!
It only has 90mg of sodium per 1/4 serving.

I use this as our sauce for whole grain pasta. There is no need to add anything else. The way it's seasoned it can be used for Italian & Mexican dishes.

Beans....beans were not so easy. I started with dried beans. I still haven't found my niche with the dry bean. I've opted to hunt down no sodium added canned beans and pay for convenience.

All natural, low sodium tips

Since lunch meat was no longer an option with it's super high sodium and "crap"(this is what I've come to call all of the bad additives) content. Lunch needed a makeover. I've since started roasting a turkey breast to use for lunch meat. Not just any turkey breast, it has to be all natural with NO added solution.

Roasted Turkey Breast

Preheat over to 350*
Rinse breast and place in roasting pan
Top (liberally) with oregano, basil, paprika, rosemary, garlic & onion powder
Roast uncovered for 1-1 1/2 hours
I use a meat thermometer so that the breast doesn't become overcooked and dry, 180 degrees!

Remove from oven and cover the breast tightly with foil and let rest for 20 minutes. This helps keep all the yummy juices inside. Discard skin and carve up for sandwiches. Place in a air tight container in the fridge.

A full price turkey breast costs between $8 and $10. I think that's pretty comparable to the price of lunch meat when you buy a pound of this and a pound of that and you get just as much meat.

How my family went all natural, organic, low sodium

The first thing I did was google "top ten healthiest foods" & "food additives to avoid". Most sites had the same opinion with a few differences. I then researched the WHY's of the good and bad. Now it was time to look in our cabinets and refrigerator. I've always prided myself on the fact that we have a responsible, functional method of building our family. I only bought prepackaged junk food occasionally. Always opted for the 100% juice instead of the cheaper "red" or "blue" drink. We never put pop in our 1 year old's bottle (seen it happen). We've always thought we leaned more to the health side of things with our choices. I was shocked to see how many items from the "food additives to avoid" list were in MOST of our food! Two of the top contenders, high fructose corn syrup & partially hydrogenated oil, were in almost EVERYTHING! I've discovered to many health risks linked to both to list them all here. That was really scary and overwhelming! Sad thing was, we had just gone to Sam's club and stocked up. Cases of green beans, corn, Bisquick mix, tomato soup, and so on and so on....All super high in sodium. Most had enough items from the bad list to concern us. What could we do? We couldn't get rid of the stuff and buy new. We took all natural, low sodium baby steps.

All natural, low sodium pizza

I have found plenty of all natural recipes online. The problem is that sodium is a natural ingredient! Our all natural, organic, low sodium adventure started 3 months ago with a call from my husbands dental surgeon. His blood pressure had been up for the last few years. Hovering at about 150/90. Right at the beginning of needing medication. We thought that if we stopped adding salt to our meals at the dinner table we would be ok. Back in March, my husband had to have a wisdom tooth surgically removed. That night the ACTUAL DENTAL SURGEON called. He said he was concerned about Dave's blood pressure. That really got my attention. Apparently not adding salt from the shaker was not enough. That got me looking at labels. That got me noticing all of the other crap that was in there with the sodium. Then, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution aired on t.v. This all happened in the span of a couple of days. Things just happened to line up in a way that lit a fire under my butt!


All Natural, Low Sodium Pizza

Start with my recipe for crust
For the toppings
Sauce - RedPack 100% natural crushed tomatoes with basil, garlic, and oregano. These crushed tomatoes have the least sodium with BEST taste I have found. 90mg per 1/4 serving. I use this on our pasta as well, straight from the can with nothing else added. DELICIOUS!
Chopped FRESH veggies (nothing from a can, we do kinda miss pepper rings and black olives) - tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, red onion...
Low fat mozzarella - at about 180mg sodium per serving, it's not to bad. I just noticed that shredded swiss has alot less, 60mg per serving. The next time I make anything with shredded cheese I'm going to try to add half swiss to cut down on the sodium and see how it tastes.

Bake at 425 until cheese is nice a golden.

My son had 5 pieces when I made this! Did I mention that he is probably going to grow 9 inches this summer the way he has been eating!

Yeast, all natural, low sodium pizza crust

Finding an all natural, low sodium pizza crust was proving impossible! I had to make my own. Using yeast for the first time is alittle bit overwhelming. It seemed like there were to many steps. It's so easy to kill those little suckers and you end up with a very dense, pizza sized flat biscuit. After chopping them all up they made really good "homemade croutons". So the 6Th. time was a charm! The dough was rising now hopefully it tasted good! When you do get it right it makes all the steps worth it!

Pizza Crust
1 1/3 cup luke warm water
1 pkg. dry yeast
1 tsp. honey
1/4 oats
1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil, plus more for coating the dough
garlic powder, onion, powder, oregano (did you know that oregano is the most antioxidant dense food?? I now add it to everything!), basil, rosemary to taste
1/4 cup ground flax seed (the health benefits of flax are endless and you can add it to just about anything!)
3 1/2 whole wheat flour

Pour the water into a large bowl and sprinkle in yeast. Stir in the honey and oats, let set for 5 minutes. Stir in the oil and seasoning. Add 2 cups of the flour and mix well, let set for 5 minutes. Add the remaining flour gradually mixing well. Place the dough on a floured surface and knead for about 8 minutes. Place the dough in an oiled bowl covered in plastic wrap and let double in size. Punch the dough down and turn it out kneading it briefly. Let set for 5 minutes. Roll it out and place on a oiled (I use canola spray) pizza pan and add toppings.

All natural low sodium recipes that WORK!

It's been 3 months since my family has gone all natural, organic, low sodium. My husbands blood pressure is down! I've lost 17 Pd's.! We have a ton more energy! Quite a few people have asked about recipes. I'll try to pass on what I've learned these past months. There has been alot of trial and error. It's very frustrating when you have a recipe box full of your families favorites that have to be tweaked to fit in with your new life style. Some did not work so well. Like our FAVORITE Ravioli Soup with spinach and tomatoes. Sounds very healthy right. Not when you looked at the sodium content. I substituted with low sodium organic chicken broth, no sodium added canned tomatoes, skipped the Campbell's cream of chicken & poultry seasoning and basically ended up with ravioli, spinach, & tomato water! I've since learned that compromising on a few ingredients is ok, like the organic chicken broth that's not low sodium, and the sodium content will still be way down.

Stuffed Pepper Soup
1 pd. 96% lean ground beef or turkey
1 diced onion
4 gloves minced garlic

Brown meat with onions & garlic. Mix in all other ingredients and simmer for 30-45 minutes.

Yellow, red, green pepper - diced
1 28oz. can crushed low sodium all natural tomatoes (RedPack has a 100% natural crushed tomatoes with basil, garlic, & oregano that has 90 mg of sodium per 1/4 cup serving. It's DELICIOUS!)
2 cups organic beef broth (not the low sodium..I know, I know, but it still has far less than non organic)
2 cups water
1 cup uncooked brown rice
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp organic cane sugar
1 Tbsp molasses
pepper, red pepper seed, ground celery salt to taste