Today

Today my 16 year old passed the written component of his driving test and got his L Plates.

He has not very keen to learn to drive, primarily because it meant studying the Drivers handbook ad nauseum, and partly because he is quite happy to have me drive him around.

I have not been so enthusiastic about continuing this arrangement and so I have been pushing him for weeks to press on with his devotion to the handbook.

Well today was quite an event. I had no idea if he actually knew his stuff, but he seemed quietly confident so we went and gambled the $26 fee on the chance that he might pass. Once he passed (to all of our amazement!) we had to fork out another $47 to get his license processed. (Highway robbery!)

I offered him the keys as we headed to the car park, but he declined. As always, it will take him a while to build up the courage/enthusiasm/mental space to actually take the next step in his jouney to adulthood.

Baby step. But steps that are so exciting for me to see him taking.

Balinese Spiced Duck

I posted this recipe on my gaps blog but thought that my homeschool friends might also like it - And it is so delicious you wont want to miss it!!

This is one of my all-time favourite recipes and I wanted to share it with you all as it is so simple and a delight to the taste buds. I got this one off the web - one of the recipe sites, not sure which one.

Ingredients

8 duck portions
50g dessicated coconut
3/4 cup coconut milk
Deep fried onions and salad leaves (I caramelize our onions and we serve the Duck with Steamed or Stir-fried veges).

For the spice paste

6 shallots (I use 12 spring onions)
2 cloves garlic sliced
2.5 cm fresh ginger root pealed and sliced
1 cm galangal peeled and sliced
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1-2 red chillies seeded and sliced
4 macadamias or 8 almonds1 tsp coriander seeds dry fried

Method

Whiz the ingredients for paste in a food processor until a paste forms.
Rub over the duck pieces and marinate for 3-4 hours or over night (I often skip the marinating as I forget!)

Preheat oven to 140 C.
Shake off the paste and mix the coconut milk into it
Place duck pieces into a glass baking dish and pour over the sauce
Cover and cook for 1 hour (longer if you are using legs and wings - I use breasts with skin on and 1 hour is plenty)
Dry fry the dessicated coconut until crisp and brown
Remove cover from duck
Turn the oven up to 190 C and cook 20-30 mins brown and crispy. I usually leave it longer than this
Sprinkle desiccated coconut over meat

Serve with caramelized onion and stirfry veges and drizzle with I often add a tsp of salt and a tablespoon of honey to the sauce at the end to boost its flavour!

Today

Today was a typical unschooling day for us. Crazy busy!

I got up early to help dear hubby build the carport we have been "meaning to" build for several years. We had to try and weather proof the motor of the roller door as we were told very firmly by the guy that installed it that 'if it gets moisture in it, it wont work'.

The rain clouds were rolling in so the first thing the boys and I did was glad wrap the motor while David raced against the clock to get the cover on.

We had put up the frame the day before but ran out of day light before we got the roof on. Once the motor was somewhat water proofed we went up and down, and up and down, ladders for several hours hammering and drilling. Yelling for the boys to come out and hold one thing or another as they were needed.

At 11am the boys had a tennis meet so they headed off with a friend to do that while David and I focused on the carport.

12:30 came and so did the rain that had been threatening. I raced all the power tools back inside and then raced down to pick up the boys as the courts dont have any shelter.

Back home we all grabbed a bite to eat and then it was off to a gymnastics competition that the boys had entered in. (David managed to finish the roof just as it was time to leave - phew)

Three hours of sitting on the very hard and uncomforable benches while we watched the boys vault, jump, role, spring, tumble and flip on various apparatis (as well as a lot of sitting around waiting for their turn!!) and we were ready to go home. Both boys came home with ribbons. Notably Jordan with first place in his class for the vault.

We tossed up whether to stop at a Thai resaurant on the way home to celebrate the win and David's birthday, but decided that we would prefer the BBQ that we had planned at home.

Wonderful conversations about fitness, and army stories (dh used to be in the army), and questions and laughter all the way home.

Unschooling focus

I have decided to add another blog to my repertoire separate my blogs so that those that want to follow my GAPS journey exclusively can do so and my family and friends can hear about what is going on in our homeschooling journey, without having to read about enema's etc!

That way I can also share non-gaps recipes with you all. Yesterday I made some delicious cookies for David's work, I couldnt eat them of course but they were some of my favourites pre-gaps and they smelled and looked so great I thought I should share the recipe - but that is for later.

So here is the link for the other blog if you are keen. http://healingwithgaps.blogspot.com/

For the love of Liver

I used to hate liver.

Just slicing it would cause me to gag. Eating it produced the same effect and I would have to spit it out. The dogs enjoyed my attempts at various liver recipes. They would go nuts for it.

Then I found some wonderful resourses that explain how to prepare it properly, and now I cant get enough. (And the dogs dont get a look in).

So here is a breif explanation of the benefits of Liver, and some simple ways of preparing it.
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This excerpt is from "The Liver Files" on the Weston A Price Foundation website: http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/liver.html

So what makes liver so wonderful? Quite simply, it contains more nutrients, gram for gram, than any other food. In summary, liver provides:

• An excellent source of high-quality protein
  
• Nature’s most concentrated source of vitamin A
  
• All the B vitamins in abundance, particularly vitamin B12
  
• One of our best sources of folic acid
  
• A highly usable form of iron


• Trace elements such as copper, zinc and chromium; liver is our best source of copper


• An unidentified anti-fatigue factor
  
• CoQ10, a nutrient that is especially important for cardio-vascular function
  
• A good source of purines, nitrogen-containing compounds that serve as precursors for DNA and RNA.

Here is my favourite way of preparing the Liver - again from the Liver Files:

Marinate slices of liver in the fridge overnight in water mixed with a little vinegar or plain lemon juice, plus lots of garlic and bay laurel leaf. After marinating, pat dry and fry in lard and/or butter until well done (really brown on the outside and slightly rose inside). The key is marinating to take away any unpleasant taste.

Once the liver (I use lamb liver) is marinated and patted dry I cook it in one of the two following ways.

1. dip the slices in egg and then dunk in almond meal mixed with a little salt (you can use flour if you are non-gaps). Then gently fry on each side . These little schnitzels are divine. They dont taste like liver at all. I use them as snacks when we are out.

2. saute some diced onion and bacon and when almost cooked add some diced liver and losts of garlic and saute until just cooked. Fry or poach an egg leaving yolk runny for maximum nutrient value, then serve with liver mixture. I like to have this with a little salt and home made tomato sauce. Again this is sooooo delicious. Really it is worth a try!

Be brave and reap the rewards.

How Im making my soup

I have discovered a delicious way of making soup. (Well after 4 weeks of eating it you would imagine that I would stumble upon some sort of discovery!!)

Basically I start with making a huge batch of bone broth from 10 litres of water, 2 full beef necks and 2 marrow bones cut length and cross ways.

I simmer that for about 24 hours and then pick off the meat and scoop out the marrow. I add the marrow back to the broth and reserve the meat. The dogs get the bones (which they leave scattered all over my lawn!!).

I then freeze the broth in batches.

I then get some more meat - lamb chump chops are my favourite, but I also use chicken thighs, lamb bones with a lot of meat still on, beef chops etc.

I saute an onion and some garlic and the meat and water to just cover the meat. Simmer for 3-4 hours until soft. Remove any bones and grizzle. The water will have simmered down quite a bit so I add a nice big dose of bone broth. Maybe a cup or three.

Then I add the veges of choice and simmer - ready for eating in about 30 mins.

I sometimes remove the veges and puree and add back to the soup to thicken. Depending on how much meat was on the second lot of bones I might also add meat from the stock making process. The double boiling of meat seems to really enhance the flavour.

I didnt set out to double boil meat, I just found that each batch needed more meat, and often times I was simply adding veges etc to yesterdays batch to make todays soup and I definately needed more meat.

This soup works really well for me.

Bringing some moderation into my healing journey

One of my dearest friends has moved to Victoria and I have been keeping her updated on my GAPS journey (including all my woes), via email.

A few days ago I recieved this response from her in relation to my ongoing soup consumption and lack of progress (I was continuing to struggle with a chronic sore throat despite sticking to the diet). Alice is also following the GAPS diet. Id been on soup for about 4 weeks and it was seriously effecting my emotional balance. This is what she is referring to when speaking about "4 weeks".
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Hi Stephanie,

I’m thinking of you. make sure it’s only 4 weeks. It could be die off – but it could also be lacking something else that you’re not getting in the soup. I agree and totally support you. I can see that you want to get it done once and for all and do it right. I’m like that too, so I relate.

So you’ve been having the soup for 4 weeks and you’re going to carry on with it for another 4 weeks??? I don’t know what the yahoo group members suggest, but I reckon even if you still have the sore throat and allergies after another 4 weeks, you should still go onto the next stage.

It might be that your sore throat takes longer to go away, so don’t loose hope if it’s not gone in 4 weeks, there is still a good chance it will go away within the next 2 years of being on the gaps diet.

I say this as I know what it’s like to live with ongoing low level depression – it’s miserable. It also has an obsessive, anxious streak in it, which I think you also suffer with, like me. So it’s good to keep a balance when the obsessiveness is overtaken… in other words carrying on with the soup on and on because you think it is the ultimate….

I know myself and I’ve always liked to do things well and have good attention to detail. So I have to watch myself for heading over the edge of obsessiveness. It’s a fine balance.

Love Alice
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This letter helped me so much.

I was really getting overwhelmed by the diet and as I love to eat, I was really suffering with the lack of variety.

Both broth is very cleansing as well as being immune boosting, so it was probably adding to my die-off symptoms.

As of yesterday I decide I needed to follow my own path to healing and while I am still following GAPS guidelines, I am not introducing the foods in the sequence that GAPS suggests, and I am have introduced several foods all at once.

I expected to have a reaction to the foods I introduced but surprisingly I havent. I can only guess that by adding more enjoyment to eating has stopped me craving (and indulging) in foods that I know trigger me (like fruit!).


I have also added more supplements and have started having DAILY epsom salt baths. Both of which I imagine are contributing to my success.

In case you are wondering the epsom salts help to remove toxins from the body, so that die-off symptoms are lessened.

So what am I eating:

I really felt I needed more iron, so I added liver (with onion, eggs and salt cured bacon) for breakfast, and a nice big steak with salad for dinner . I still had soup for lunch and bone broth in the evening as well as 3 glasses of warm water with coconut oil mixed in, throughout the day.

I have also introduced saccharamyces boulardii to kill off the candida, fish oil (Nordic Naturals brand) to help with the depression, and niacin for detox and immune boosting.

So far so good

GAPS Intro Stage 2 continued

This week has been a hard week. The die-off is leaving me feeling tired, depressed, anxious, fat, trapped, hopeless, foggy....

Not very pleasant.

Prior to stage 1 I was enjoying cooking and was planning to make cheese and yogurt for my kids. Now I cant be bothered.

I keep reading posts from other GAPSters to keep going and have faith in the program, and I am trying to keep my spirits up, but I am sick of soup and even a mouthful of fruit gives me a sore throat.

I feel like Ive become allergic to everything!

Apparently this is normal. I need to go slow and steady. More slowly than I have been! Just about every day I try to add a new food in the hopes of expanding my dietary repertoire. Obviously this is not working and in fact I wonder if it is slowing my progress?

I have cut back on all dairy. Ghee has not caused me problems in the past however I have cut this out for now as obviously the detox has made me more sensitive.

I have cut out the sauerkraut but I am having a probiotic cabbage rejuvelac drink (basically sauerkraut water without salt). This is from Bee's Candida Diet, recipe is here: http://www.healingnaturallybybee.com/articles/pre1.php

I have ordered the Saccharomyces Boulardii to help kill off the candida, and am starting on the fish oils to combat the depression.

To be honest the only thing keeping me going is the knowledge that people like Baden have had such wonderful success.

Well that is where I am up to. I dont feel up to writing anymore at the moment. Will post those promised recipes soon