I love a good cup of chai tea on a cold winter morning. Black tea has antioxidants that help the body to eliminate free radicals from the body, thus fighting colds and flu, heart disease, and possibly even cancer, but when you have some delicious organic chai to sample when the weather heats up it’s a bit of a dilemma. Thank goodness for the noggin’ using person who thought of iced tea!

As with any gourmet drink or dish there is an art to making the best iced tea, and it starts of course with the chai tea itself. I had the opportunity to try out a new to me organic decaf chai tea from LeafSpa makers of premium organic loose leaf teas.

The LeafSpa decaf chai is a spiced Darjeeling black tea infused with organic cinnamon, organic ginger, organic cardamon, organic pink peppercorn, and additional organic cinnamon, vanilla, and ginger flavor. That’s a lot of organic goodness that combines to make a delicious nicely spiced warm and soothing chai tea. But again, unless you are in the middle of a thunderstorm and need the warm reassurance of a good cup of chai you’ll want another use for your tea during the hot summer months.

Along comes iced chai the summer savior for tea drinkers. But here is a healthy indulgent iced tea recipe with a twist: a chai tea shake a-la-natural health goodies…

Our Chai Tea Shake Recipe

(or if you like fancy names it could be the Natural Health Goodies Secret Ingredient Goody Goody Gum Drop Chai Tea Shake without the Gum Drops – but that takes longer to say than it takes to make so maybe not)

First make up a batch of chai tea:

• Use 1 tsp loose leaf chai tea per 6oz cup of water
• Heat cold water to a rolling boil and let sit until the temperature is between 180-200 Degrees F
• Steep tea for 2-3 minutes or to desired strength

Allow your chai tea mixture to cool (it can be left in the fridge over night if you like) and then pour into a blender along with enough vanilla frozen yogurt so its nice and creamy…..

Last but not least is the super secret natural health ingredient.. drum roll please… bda bda buda bda (how do you type a drum roll anyway?)

Vanilla Kefir!

Kefir, if you haven’t heard is a probiotic yogurt-like cultured milk that has tons of good for you digestion and immune boosting benefits and makes a nice addition to smoothies or in this case chai shakes.

Blend all ingredients until frothy and rich pour and enjoy. And then try to say “Natural Health Goodies Secret Ingredient Goody Goody Gum Drop Chai Tea Shake without the Gum Drops” five times real fast.

I have several more LeafSpa teas to try so please subscribe and stop by again for more LeafSpa Organic Tea reviews and recipes.

This Post Shared on Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday

My girls absolutely love kefir, a delightfully delicious cultured milk similar to yogurt. (and I admit I’m a little addicted as well) Someday we’d even like to make our own if we can find a good source of kefir grains, but until we do we like to try various store bought kefir when we find it.

We recently found a good one at a local co-op made by Nancy’s – Organic Blackberry Kefir – I’m salivating just thinking about it. Nancy’s makes four varieties of Organic kefir in 8oz and 32 oz sizes – plain, raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry.

Not only is their kefir loaded with tons (well, billions actually) of live probiotic cultures including L. Acidophilus, B Bifidum, L. Rhamnosus, and L. Casei (which besides being fun tongue twisters are actually great for digestive health and the immune system) Nancy’s organic kefir uses all organic milk, fruit and inulin (a prebiotic – probiotics best friend that enhances nutrient absorption).

In fact the organic milk comes from grass fed cows which provides a massively huge amount of good nutrients not found in “regular” milk.

The natural health geek in me has to mention a couple of points: one Nancy’s Organic Kefir uses Agave Nectar which while it is a low glycemic sweetener, has very high levels of Fructose which many even geekier natural health guru’s believe should be avoided like the plague.

Also in order for it to count as a low-fat drink it contains organic nonfat dry milk (in addition to actual organic milk) – which kinda defeats the point of all those good for you fats found in grass fed milk. There is a widespread misconception that low-fat or non-fat milk is good for you – but that is a whole post in and of itself.

That being said Nancy’s Organic Kefir is still one of the best for you kefirs I have found in stores and I’ll certainly buy it again – now if they made a full fat grass fed naturally sweetened variety I’d have to say it would be the perfect kefir.

This post shared on Fight Back Friday

I was just perusing Amazon’s special offers this morning (if you’ve ever bought anything on Amazon you’ll know those offers spring up like a batch of dandelions) most dealing with a timely nudge to be green for Earth Day when my attention was grabbed by the roots by the number one selling book on Amazon – All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew.

Since everything is starting to green in our yard I’ve had the itch to start a garden, nothing fancy maybe just a little patch in the corner, but I’m a terrible procrastinator (like right now I should be writing the rest of this post yet I am going off on a tangent about procrastinating) Now where was I?

Oh, yah this intriguing book that has been on the Amazon top 100 book list for over 3 years! That’s what caught my attention – next was how does a gardening book stay in the top 100 for 3 years not to mention who knows how long at number one.

Looking at Square Foot Gardening I can see why – it is a super simple method to gardening that claims 100% of the yield with 20% of the space – which fits right in with my plan for a little back yard garden. Not only that but Mel reveals his secret soil mix for perfect growing conditions (and never a need for fertilizer): 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 agricultural grade vermiculite spread out in a 4ft by 4ft box. (oops did I just ruin the secret?)

This new version of Square Foot Gardening called All New Square Foot Gardening (pretty original title huh?) Reveals 10 new and improved methods to make the whole process more efficient, easier, and well, garden-tastic. Take a peek at the video and see if you are as excited to get outside as I am – in fact I’m outa here the sunshine is calling…

One last note though, Mel has also written a delightfully delicious book called All New Square Foot Gardening Cookbook (he’s got a good thing going with his naming so why change it I guess) that looks to be as savory as the fresh herbs and veggies coming out of the garden.

What are you planting in your square foot garden this Spring? (and when can I come over for dinner?)

This post shared on Fight Back Fridays

If you’ve read my green smoothie inspiration you’ll know our recent adventure into the world of green smoothies has begun with a splash. And true to our kitchen creative nature we had to do some tinkering with the basic green smoothie recipe from the video.

We’ve discovered the fun and versatility of making green smoothies, and to my surprise we now have kids who can’t wait to eat their green leafy vegetables – who would have thunk.

So here it is folks, drum roll please… our first green smoothie recipe dubbed by our 4 year old…

The Smoothie You Can Chew

1 Mango (minus what you sample while cutting – so probably a half mango)
1 Banana
3 Strawberries
3 Broccoli florets
Handful of fresh Spinach leaves
2-3 Green Kale leaves
1-2 basil leaves
1 Tbsp Flax seed
Splash of Pomegranate Kefir
10-12 ounces of water or to desired thickness

Blend that baby up and enjoy some vibrant green goodness – Don’t worry you don’t really need to chew it.

This post shared on Fight Back Friday

Today must have been the day of the coconut because as chance would have it I discovered a good article on the healing properties of coconut oil and soon after a new highly reviewed shredded organic coconut made by Let’s Do Organic. (Certified USDA organic; vegetarian/vegan; sulfite-free, unsweetened, 100%-natural, finely shredded dehydrated coconut – yum yum!) Which led me to the idea for the first Natural Health Goodies recipe… how to make coconut milk.

I’ve been using coconut oil for a couple years now after hearing about all the health benefits of the healthy fats in coconut oil. As you may know one could fill pages on why coconut oil is the best oil for cooking, baking, skin care and most importantly your health – perhaps I will at a later date (if you say pretty please). But there are still health benefits to raw foods like coconut meat and coconut milk and what better way to enjoy these benefits than to make your own coconut milk for baking or just plain drinking.

Preparing Coconut Milk from Desiccated coconut.
(Try Let’s Do Organic’s Shredded, Unsweetened Coconut)

• Put equal parts of unsweetened desiccated coconut and hot water by weight into a blender (ie.. 8oz coconut to 1 cup of hot water).
• Blend for about 30 seconds and allow the mixture to cool a bit.
• If desired, you can strain and press it through cheesecloth or a fine sieve when it has cooled down. This is not necessary for most recipes, unless you require a silky smooth texture for the end product.
• Discard the squeezed coconut meat or you can also soak the coconut in warm water and run it through the cheese cloth again to make “thin” coconut milk which is good for soups and general cooking.
• Refrigerate the milk and use within 1 or 2 days.
• To make a thick coconut cream from dessicated coconut: Use 4 parts coconut to one part water.

If you like doing things the old fashioned way you can also make coconut milk from a fresh or store bought coconut.

Making Coconut Milk from Fresh Young Coconuts or Mature Brown Coconuts

• Pierce the eyes of a fresh young coconut, drain the liquid inside (This liquid, often called coconut milk is not the same as coconut milk used for baking or drinking, although this coconut water is delightfully delicious all on its own so drink away – or better yet add it to the mixture before blending)
• Cut the top off the young coconut or whack, crack and pound the shell of a mature coconut with a hammer (whatever works) so that the shell breaks into several pieces.
• Remove all the coconut meat from the shell, peel off the brown skin and cut the meat into very small cubes.
• Place the coconut meat in a blender, add hot water to cover all of the coconut and blend until finely grated.
• Place a sieve covered with cheese cloth over a bowl and pour the coconut meat and water into the sieve squeezing the coconut meat to extract as much liquid as possible into the bowl.
• Discard the squeezed coconut and refrigerate the coconut milk that has been extracted into the bowl. Refrigerate the milk and use within 1 or 2 days.

This Post Shared on Real Food Wednesday

“The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves.” – W.C. Fields

You gotta hand it to those lazy people to come up with a new gourmet popcorn recipe no one would have thought of… While it wouldn’t have occurred to me to put popcorn in pancakes until I read that quote by W.C. Fields we did enjoy a nice batch of organic popcorn last night with a movie.

I stopped at Coborn’s grocery for the first time the other day and found their natural and organic foods section – and just had to try the Natural Flavor organic popcorn made by Full Circle. I also had to keep true to my usual kitchen creativeness and spruce up the batch for a little impromptu gourmet popcorn a-la hot organic butter and a homemade secret garlic herb seasoning mix (just toss your favorite herbs, some garlic granules, and sea salt in a grinder and dash away – ok the secret is out).

It was the yummiest batch of popcorn I have had in awhile and my secret seasoning mix can’t take all the credit because the Full Circle organic popcorn was light, fluffy and dangerously delicious all on its own.

Full Circle makes four types of organic microwave popcorn including Organic Light Butter Microwave Popcorn, Organic No Salt/No Butter Microwave Popcorn, Organic Butter Microwave Popcorn and Organic Natural Flavor Microwave Popcorn. I’m sure the other flavors are scrumptious as well – I guess I’ll just have to try them – I know it will be a huge sacrifice but what is a natural health blogger to do?

“Full Circle Microwave Popcorn is produced with only certified USDA organic ingredients by certified organic growers and processors. It is produced on land farmed without the use of chemicals, synthetic pesticides and synthetic fertilizers using sustainable farming methods.”

This post shared on Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday