We Have Moved!

Well, once again, I have decided to move my blog hosting location.

After using wordpress for awhile, I realized I am not very impressed with its capabilities. Blogger, where we originally were, has so much more to offer its bloggers and is very user friendly. There are certainly features that WP has that I am greatly going to miss, like being able to have multiple pages on your blog, besides just the main page, and individual post pages.

But, there is so much more I LOVE about Blogger! I hope that this move makes our blog a lot more interesting and appealing visually!

I am moving all my blogs over to blogger, so I have my work cut out for me, but The Holistic Family blog is officially moved and I will start adding new posts here from here on out!

The new blog url, for now, is http://holisticmother.blogspot.com

I will very soon have a private url domain name for my blog, www.HolisticFamilyPlace.com, so stay tuned for that update.

I wish you all the best, and enjoy stalking! )

Peace and Blessings,

Leigh Anne

Enter to Win an Organic Mei Tai at Crunchy Bunch

Crunchy Bunch is having a Spring Give Away Contest!

Enter to win an Organic Mei Tai!

Here is the link for details:

http://crunchybunch.blogspot.com/2009/03/organic-mei-tai-giveaway.html#comments

Good luck!

Peace and Blessings,

Leigh Anne DuChene

UPDATE!

Well, I know it has been awhile since my last post.

A LOT has happened in my life that has really been overwhelming.

Over the past few weeks our raw diet has become more of just a vegetarian diet as financial difficulties have shown us that it is NOT cheap to go RAW, especially if you are transitioning and don’t already have a good stock of necessary food staples like nuts, seeds, superfoods, etc., etc. And, not to mention the purchase of the equipment, while not necessary but makes life easier, is quite expensive.

So, we have decided to stick to vegetarian for now as it fits our budget and can incorporate a lot of grains and legumes that are not too pricey and will fill us up.

I do have a lot of vegetarian/vegan recipes that I will be posting soon that we have used. They are so great.

Anyways, we hit some MAJOR financial difficulties due to BOTH of our vehicles needing repairs in the same week that has cost us so far about $1000 and we still aren’t done yet! Well, needless to say, we DID NOT have $1000 free to spend on such things and thus have taken a HUGE hit on our budget. We are working diligently to find ways to increase our income into our practice and thus our household.

Then to top things off, my grandmother has been in the hospital with blocked arteries and had quadruple bypass surgery yesterday! She is so far recovering well, and I pray that she continues to do so.

But, obviously, I have been a bit preoccupied with some crisis situations, that I believe are starting to come to a close and things are starting to calm down.

Many of you knew about some of these things that were going on, so I appreciate you patience, as I know many are anxiously awaiting updates and new recipes and ideas.

I want to thank all of my friends and family members that have prayed for, encouraged, and supported us through it all. I am so blessed with amazing friends and family members that are loving and supportive. It really made these past few weeks, and especially days, so much more bearable to receive your kind words of prayer, encouragement, solace, and support.

I love you all and may God bless you and those around you.

Peace and Blessings,

Leigh Anne DuChene

Excalibur is here!

I am so excited my Excalibur dehydrator came last week. I haven’t had the time to get the ingredients for my raw vegan pizza crust yet, so we are making Kale and Sweet Potato chips first. Things we already had available at home and are quick and easy snacks.

I am looking forward to making my sprouted raw vegan pizza crust, crackers, breads, and other things as well.

I will be posting them as we go. So stay tuned!

Peace and Blessings,

Leigh Anne

Market Street, New in Coppell, TX!

There is a new Market Street grocery store in Coppell, TX.

We went last week to check it out. It was better than your average grocery store, but not as good as Whole Foods, Central Market, Sprouts, or other truly natural grocery store.

I was thoroughly impressed to see “Expectant Mother” designated parking places! I have not seen that since I lived in Phoenix, AZ at the Paradise Valley Mall that I worked at.

You can find your general foods that the conventional grocery stores carry, like Doritos Cheese Tortilla Chips (yuck), but you can get some great things there too. Organic coconut milk, bulk nuts, a decent selection of natural body care and personal care products, free range ground buffalo meat, buffalo “hot dogs”, and a bunch more.

The other thing besides the parking that impressed me were the prices on their bulk organic nuts. I have been pricing them for our raw food diet at all the local natural food stores, and at online stores. Market Street definitely had the best prices I have seen so far. I am also liking the convienence of it being just down the street from us and no shipping.

All-in-all, a great place to shop if you don’t want to drive the drive to your nearest Whole Foods, which for us is a bit of a ways away. You are not going to find all the things that a WF’s carries at Market Street, but a good enough selection I think.

Peace and Blessings,

Leigh Anne DuChene

www.DuCheneNaturalHealth.com

www.Soul-Birth.com

www.DFWHolisticParenting.com

www.NaturalChildrensToys.com

Raw Burst Experience – Day 18

Today was a mexican food day! YUM! I LOVE mexican food.

DH decided to surprise me with homemade raw salsa this afternoon. Since, I slept till noon. Man I love weekends!

Then we decided to finish it off for dinner with a mexican salad.

Salsa:

4 vine ripe tomatoes (quartered)
1/3 of an onion (chopped)
3 cloves of garlic
1 hot red pepper (chopped)
cilantro to taste
salt to taste

Salad bed:
1 bunch of fresh kale

Mock Mexican Chicken Salad:
1/4 c sunflower seeds
1 c cashews chopped (optional: soaked for 1 – 2 hours)
1 cucumber; peeled and seeded, chunks
2 green onions chopped
1 c pecans or almonds chopped
1 celery stalk chopped
1 t crushed red pepper
1 t cumin powder
juice for 1/2 a lemon

variation: traditional (non-mexican)

leave out:
1t crushed red pepper
1t cumin

add:
1 t dill
1/4 t of curry powder

eat without a bed of greens or with (whichever you prefer), top with salsa if doing Mock Mexican Chicken Salad.

Enjoy!

Xiser is back on schedule now. Today I did two workout sessions. Feels good to be working out again.

I am really looking forward to getting my Excalibur on Tuesday! I can’t wait to start “uncooking” with my D.

Peace and Blessings,

Leigh Anne DuChene

www.DuCheneNaturalHealth.com
www.Soul-Birth.com

www.DFWHolisticParenting.com

www.NaturalChildrensToys.com

Raw Burst Experience – Days 9 – 17

Well, this week has been VERY interesting.

We have been very busy since grad school started back up for me and then Joe is seeing A LOT of patients.

It’s also been a rather difficult week, as we were not prepared for RAW ON THE GO! This is part of the reason why I am SO EXCITED to have my Excalibur on it’s way. It should be here on Tuesday. YEA!

This will enable us to take dehydrated fruits, veggies, veggie chips, sprouted grains, nuts, & seeds crackers and breads, fruit leathers, and SO MUCH MORE. These are easy ON THE GO RAW snacks.

Well, needless to say, we were not very good at sticking to our raw diet. We did well, but it was certainly not strict.

I have to say though, it was great to see how I feel after eating meats and cooked foods after being raw for 2 weeks. I felt so tired, lethargic, generally icky. I craved all my addictions, sugar, msg, gluten, dairy, etc.. I started having headaches and nausea.

We DID do a raw asian and sushi night. It was amazing. This was on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2009. DH woke up and was raring to go. He had, up to then, not made any of the raw meals. This was all his idea and doing.

We started the day with raw fried rice, and ended it with lettuce wraps and sushi rolls, each topped off with it’s own special sauce.

UMMMMM! It was delicious.

Unfortunately, though, DH has been lazy and procrastinating on getting the recipes to me. I know many of you wives, know exactly what I mean. He did it all from his head and wrote NOTHING down. URG! He keeps saying he will get them to me, but it’s been a week now and nothing yet.

I WILL get them eventually, and will post them as soon as I get them. I know many of you are very interested in these.

We didn’t try any new raw recipes this week, but pretty much kept it simple with basic salads and mostly things we had already made before to finish up some of our veggies.

We already have some new recipes and meals lined up to try for this coming week. So we will have a lot of new, fun, and interesting meals to share with you.

As for our burst training, that too took a temporary break. I had been over doing it on the xiser, so I had to let me legs rest. I started back up two days ago, doing only two – three workouts every OTHER day.

I have lost a total of 10 lbs, since Jan. 1, 2009. YEA!

There is so much more to come. So, Stay tuned!

Peace and Blessings,

Leigh Anne DuChene

www.DuCheneNaturalHealth.com
www.Soul-Birth.com

www.DFWHolisticParenting.com

www.NaturalChildrensToys.com

Excalibur is On His Way!

I ordered my Excalibur dehydrator yesterday! YEA!!!!

I must say, if you have ever wanted an Excalibur dehydrator NOW is the time to buy from the company website at http://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/product.php. They have some awesome FREEBIES! till Jan. 31, 2009, with your purchase of a 5 or 9 tray dehydrator.

I got the 9 tray of course, I plan on doing A LOT of “uncooking”! Breads, crackers, chips, fruit leathers, trail mixes, etc., etc.. The list seems endless.

I am so excited. I think my first thing might have to be pizza crust. I want some RAW VEGAN pizza so very badly.

Well, anyways, I have to get to class now. I just HAD to post about getting my D. I will be posting like a mad woman this evening to get everyone caught up. Some of you already know that we did a raw vegan asian and sushi night. So, I will be sharing how that went and the recipes that my DH used.

Peace and Blessings,

Leigh Anne DuChene

www.DuCheneNaturalHealth.com
www.Soul-Birth.com

www.DFWHolisticParenting.com

www.NaturalChildrensToys.com

Busy, Busy!

Wow, well I started back to chiropractic school on monday, and, well, it just seems like my life was kicked up a notch as far as how busy I am. So, I haven’t had the time to post and catch up on my past week’s worth of meals and recipes. I will be doing that this evening, as class starts in 20 mins, right now.

Peace and Blessings,

Leigh Anne DuChene

Raw Burst Experience – Day 8

Jan. 8, 2009 – Day 8

Another house cleaning day.

I actually did a fast for the first part of the day. So, I was up around 8am, no breakfast and I didn’t have lunch till around 1 pm.

L: avocado sandwhich

1 avocado sliced
your choice of healthy sprouted grain, nut, and/or seed bread
Rawnch Dressing - recipe on Day 3′s post
dash of salt
dash of crushed red peppers
1 tsp of hot pepper relish (homemade by a friend of ours, so I do not have the recipe)

It was very tasty.

We are house hunting right now and didn’t get in till a bit later this evening. So, we are having a later dinner.

We had a bag of potatoes that needed to be eaten up. So, DH really wanted to make some homemade potatoe chips. He has been deep frying them in coconut oil for most of the evening.

I didn’t want just potatoe chips for dinner so I was trying to think of something other than a salad that would help use up the Rawnch Dressing for the week. Remember, it only keeps for a week, it is raw food. I couldn’t find anything that fit what I was thinking of online, so I developed my own recipe to make a falafel type patty out of nuts and seeds.

D: coconut oil fried potato chips.

Nut Patties – by Leigh Anne DuChene

Servings: 6 small patties
Prep time: 1 – 2 hours
Requires a dehydrator or oven. If using your oven, preheat to 200 degrees.

1 c cashews
1/3 c almonds
2 T sunflower seeds
1 T flax seeds
2 garlic cloves
1/2 yellow or white onion – chopped
1 t evoo
1 – 2 T water (only if you do not soak the nuts for 4 – 6 hours before hand)
2 pinches of salt
2 pinches of pepper
2 T fresh pasley – chopped

put all ingredients in the Total Blender and blend till it is a battery/doughy consistancy. Stir, if necessary, between pulses to mix ingredients well, and insure all the nuts and seeds are getting ground up. If you do not have a Total Blender, Vita Mix, or other high powered blender, blend nuts and seeds individually to a powder, then blend onion and garlic to a chunky paste. You can then hand mix them with the remaining ingredients in a bowl till they form a batter. Then, form into desired size patties and place on a parchment lined baking sheet or your dehydrator sheets. Put in oven for 45 mins – 1 hour or Dehydrate for 1 – 2 hours. Once they are firm you can remove them. Serve with the Rawnch Dressing drizzled ontop, or your favorate dressing/dip.

They were great. I ate mine per the recipe, DH decided he wanted to see what they would taste like fried in coconut oil. I have to say, I didn’t much like it fried. I think they tasted pretty darn great per the recipe, even if that may seem a bit bias!

Today was my mandatory rest day from exercising, so no x-iser workout sessions today. I will be picking them up agian tomorrow, though.

If you try the Nut Patties recipe, please let me know what you think and any additions or subtractions you did that you felt made them taste better. Feel free to experiement. That is the beauty of this experience.

Enjoy the raw goodness.

Peace  and Blessings,

Leigh Anne DuChene

www.DuCheneNaturalHealth.com
www.Soul-Birth.com

www.DFWHolisticParenting.com

www.NaturalChildrensToys.com