Best darn carrot salad without measurements

So, one of my bff's, Kim, has been lovingly on my case for years now about writing a cookbook, or teaching cooking classes, or somehow organizing my food knowledge.  But that is so hard for me because food is a little like a mother tongue for me; I don't ever think much about measurements.  I cook until it looks right, until the taste, texture, or smell is right - until it looks good.  Unfortunately this doesn't work for everyone, and I get that.  So, since I was starving to death using my sweet Richard Simmons's Food Mover system, and I wasn't feeling good, I started looking into some other options for cleaning up my health and that of my family.  I knew some people on a forum I frequent at www.simplycharlottemason.com had written about the GAPS diet.  On some divinely inspired impulse, I started researching it.  I was floored!  Being an information addict, I read online until my eyes went blurry.  I ordered Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, and I hungrily devoured the book (pun intended).  I have not done the healing intro diet yet, but I have gone full GAPS for about 2.5 weeks.  In that time, I have been able to stop taking my allergy medicine and have been able to stop taking my GERD/reflux meds. My belly is slowly healing, and I have to pay close attention to what I eat, but I feel so much better!  As a lovely side note, I have lost several pounds as well.  So, mainly at dinner, we have been having two or three veggies with some kind of meat (as clean as we can afford), and the other day, I was searching for something different and easy.  I invented the following carrot salad.  It is almost GAPS diet legal, but Dr. Campbell-McBride suggests not eating fruit with a meal...but oh well, this was darn yummy.  Perhaps we could almost call it a desert...

Use your box grater or a shredding disc on your food processor to shred about 8 organic carrots.

Put these shredded carrots in a large bowl.
Add about 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
Add about 1/4 cup organic raisins
Add about 1/4 cup unsweetened dried apricots, diced
Add about 1/4 cup blanched raw almonds, slivered
Toss all this together.

In a smaller separate bowl mix:
about 1/4 cup mayonnaise (homemade is preferable, but can use organic mayo.  try to avoid regular, which is made with GMO soybean oil)
about 1/3 cup plain keifer or yogurt
about 1/2 teaspoon raw apple cider vinegar
one small squeeze of lemon juice (about 1 wedge's worth)
about 2 teaspoons of raw honey (or to your taste; i like it a bit sweet)
celtic sea salt to taste
several cracks of fresh black pepper

Whisk all this together well.  Taste and adjust seasoning; you want it a bit tart and tangy and a bit sweet.

Mix the dressing over the carrots and fruit and nuts.  Toss well and allow to marinate for at least 10 minutes before eating.  If you can wait!

You will probably need to play around with the amounts of things, particularly the dressing - this is just my best guesstimate.  Start with a little of each ingredient and add and taste, add and taste.  Enjoy!  And I highly recommend the Gut and Psychology Syndrome Book...amazing business, that book!

In His web,
MamaWebb

Fail

Clearly, I have failed as a mother.  Clearly.  Just a few moments ago, my youngest daughter, B, asked me: “Are we whole Americans, or are we half American, half something else?”   Hahaha, sigh.  So this led us to a discussion of our own mixed bag of European heritage.  Which then led us to a discussion of other languages. 

My oldest daughter, Fia, wants to learn French, as I did in high school.  She was asking me various “how to say…” questions.  I remembered a little.  We started talking about slang in other languages and also in our own.  This led us to a discussion of curse words, and the kids wanted to know if other languages had curse words.  “Yes,” I assured them.  And yes, I remember them.   Frankly, I can swear in three languages – four, if you count my mother tongue. 

So, Fia then asks me, “How did you learn the bad words?”  Well, my friend Kevin (a dear friend for many years of my childhood) taught me some.  He also taught me how to say: “I think I am going to cough up a hairball,” which he learned from a book titled French for Cats or something like that.  But the rest I learned in France when I visited.  Fia, then asked…wait for it…wait for it:  “How did you figure it out before Google?”

Oh, really, are we that old? Fail.

Here’s another example of my failure.  This weekend, Anna B earned some money for chores, and she wanted a bit more so she could buy her brother, Nate, a birthday present.  So since she knew that Johnjohn had a dollar, she wheedled him into giving her his dollar if she did a magic trick.  At dinner, when we told Daddy about this, Johnjohn says:  “Actually, it was Jamey’s dollar. I still have mine.”  Parenting fail.  Sigh.

Yesterday, was a day where my desire to flee the house was overwhelming.  It started with everyone oversleeping.  Then no one was following directions to hurry up, get dressed, get downstairs.   We finally got moving on our schoolwork, but when it came to Latin, my son, Nate, decided he just wasn’t doing it, or listening to me.  He yelled; he cried.  He stomped out of the house.  Fail. Fia kept pulling her disappearing teenager act.  The dog wouldn’t stop barking, but I couldn’t get her in the house.  James peed his pants three times. (Fail.  He’s been potty trained for a year, but I guess I have to start setting a timer again.  Yay.   One more thing to oversee and follow through on.)  The kids made the yard a huge mess and kept fooling around instead of cleaning it up.  Then I made the ultimate mistake of trying to get Nate to finish his weekend chores; all that was left was cleaning his room.   I asked the younger three to help, and I offered them a 1$ reward.  So they get to work, but Nate, who’s spend the last six weeks complaining that the boys don’t help, came down to whine at me that he “doesn’t work well with others," and that he just wanted to do it himself.  But now the littles are pumped to earn a dollar.  Then I told Nate that he had to clean his room, and if the little boys wanted to help, he couldn’t exclude them.  And I said, cleaning it up was not an option; chores are a basic responsibility if he wanted to be a part of this family.  So he stormed out of the house again:  “Well maybe I don’t want to be a part of this family.” 

So I said, “Fine, leave.”  Sigh.  Parenting fail.

And the bickering and unkindness and constant tattling just went on and on.  I was trying to make dinner, knowing Dan had a meeting after work and wouldn’t be home until after the kids’ bedtime.  The kids sort of cleaned up the yard.  (But this morning as I went to feed the chickens, I found two Barbie rollerblades, one sled, one watering can, one sneaker, and every toy weapon the boys own out there - all rained upon last night).
 

So the boys’ room went unfinished.  And dinner was late.  And Nate wouldn’t do his dishes chore – Fia had done her part.  As I was getting the little boys ready for bed, we had tooth trouble.  They had brushed their teeth, but then proceeded to eat the pretzels that Nate had brought up to his room against my wishes.  So I told them to brush again.  Then, Jamey proceeded to drink juice out of a sippy that he found.  Brush again.  Finally, as I went to put them in bed, I realized most of what had been on the floor in the boys’ room was now on John’s bed.  I looked over at James’s bed, and it was naked.  No fitted sheet, no mattress cover.  But wait- what was that?  What the h**l was that?  On the naked mattress, was a disgusting wet pile of chewed-up-spit-out pretzel.   And at this, I just became a raving lunatic.  I let out one long wavering howl of frustration.  Parenting fail.

Turns out, John had chewed them up and spit them out, in order to pretend his “mouth was pooping.”  Dear Lord, really?  This is really my daily minutia?  Please, God, tell me you care about even this, ‘cause I just can’t take it.  Every effort to teach and demonstrate manners and decorum is lost on the young Y-chromosome.  Sigh.  Parenting fail.

The day ended with me feebly attempting to teach physics formulas to Fia, because Dan wasn’t home yet.  Thank God he arrived one equation in.

And, today?  Well.  B is done with all her school except two things I have to do with her.  John practiced the letter “L” and Sophie is sort of working.  She’s been sure to sing lots of songs and stand in the chairs at the homeschool table and ask me how people learned things before Google.  And Nate?  He hasn’t even started his first subject, even though I’ve put him back in his seat like six times and told him to go there at least 6 million times.  Yes, today appears to be shaping up as one where those alpha-bits will be seeking to get the better of Nate.  So, I am signing off, putting on my armor, asking God to bless this fight with His presence, and I will carry on.  He's the only One who will get us all through the daily muck and mire...

Thankful to be caught in His web,

MamaWebb