Catchin' your own sourdough

"It's alive!  It's alive!"  That quote comes from the 1931 version of "Frankenstein."  And for you book readers, it's NOT in the book! 

What's alive?  This sourdough starter sitting on my kitchen counter!

O.K.  Maybe the thought of Frankenstein creeps you out.  So how about a nice exchange from Laura Ingalls Wilder's book By the Shores of Silver Lake:

"But how do you make the sour dough?" Mrs. Boast asked.
"You start it," said Ma, "by putting some flour and warm water in a jar and letting it stand till it sours."
"Then when you use it, always leave a little," said Laura.  "And put in the scraps of biscuit dough, like this, and more warm water," Laura put in the warm water, "and cover it," she put the clean cloth and the plate on the jar, "and just set it in a warm place," she set it in its place on the shelf by the stove.  "And it's always ready to use, whenever you want it."

I love sourdough bread, sourdough biscuits, sourdough crackers, sourdough cinnamon rolls, etc. etc.!  These things are all easy to bake but they all require a sourdough starter.  You can buy one or you can catch your own.

Did you know you have wild yeast and bacteria floating around in the air around you?  You can't see these little critters in the air, but they are there!  And they're just what you need to make your own starter.  Since in the past few months I have given away several jars of my sourdough starter, I thought I'd share how you can easily get your own.  All in the comfort and privacy of your own home!


All you need is a jar or crock, 2/3 cup of flour, and 1/2 cup of water.  Mix the flour and water and if it doesn't look very thick, add a little more flour.  (You can use whatever flour you want.  But some are a bit easier to start with, such as soft winter wheat.)  Now stick the jar on your counter and tell it "I'll be back." 

The next day, you need to feed it.  Add 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water.  The next day after that you will hopefully see some bubbles.  If you don't you may want to move it to a different location.  Keep feeding it every 12-24 hours.  Once you see some nice bubbles at the top, you can begin baking with it.

 

Or if you don't want to bake yet, just cover it - loosely! - and stick it in your refrigerator.  When it's in there you only need to feed it once or twice a month.  Get it out the day before you want to bake with it, and feed it.

I keep mine on my counter, so that it's ready to use at any time.  You'll see in the top photo that I cover mine when a little towel and rubber band.  You do not need to.  I started doing that this summer after a swarm of fruit flies decided the starter was yummy and tried to move in.  If you leave your starter out, you need to feed it once a day or every other day.

Sourdoughs taste different depending on where you live.  Think of San Francisco sourdough!  Yum!  I think that is my favorite tasting one. 

One last thing, since your starter is a living thing, you just may want to name it.  (Yes people really do that.)  When my friend C visited last month, she took some sourdough starter home with her.  She was so surprised that mine did not have a name.  She pointed out that Tabby and I are always naming things.  (For example, if anyone gives us a plant - that plant will be named after that person.)  I responded lamely that I hadn't thought of a good name that stuck.  She laughed and said she was going to name her starter "Big Bertha."  "Bertha!" I responded in amusement.  She said I could call my starter the "Mother of Big Bertha."  Oh goodness no!  That name was just not pretty to me at all.  I finally decided "Bertie" would work though.  So now there are two batches of sourdough starter out there, that are relatives, named "Bertha" and "Bertie."  Ha!  

Assigning one of your children the job of feeding your sourdough starter "pet" can be fun.  Hunter enjoys feeding Bertie for me.  :)

A good book on sourdough is The Vintage Remedies Guide to Bread by Jessie Hawkins.  Also there is an excellent e-book called Sourdough from A to Z by GNOWFGLINS.  Finally, here is my very favorite sourdough biscuit recipe:  http://ruralspin.com/2012/04/12/wild-yeast-sourdough-biscuits/

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”- Matthew 4:4

Now.  What post would be complete without a picture of one of the growing puppies?  

Tabby took this adorable photo.  One of her assignments for school tomorrow is to do a photo session with all the puppies.  I can't wait to see the results!  (She took a bunch of really fantastic chicken pictures today.  I bet she posts a bunch on her Goat Chick blog tomorrow.)

Bread and puppies.  Sigh.  I love writing but I miss having a specific topic to stick to.  Like Lilly.  But maybe someone out there will find this post of interest.

The Dream Dial

Solomon has made it clear that THE food he likes is banana.  It works to my advantage though.  I can mix banana in with almost anything and he will eat it.  Or in the case of pureed chicken, I use a bite of banana as a "chaser."  Here is Solomon enjoying carrots ... with banana:

As I posted about this spring, I am using the book Super Nutrition for Babies as my guide for feeding Solomon.  I know trends of how to feed babies can be quite faddish, but this book seems very solid to me.  It even has pictures of vintage baby food ads in it (I LOVE vintage pictures) and they are fascinating to read.  So far Solomon is eating:  avocado, lacto-fermented sweet potatoes, carrots, chicken, homemade chicken broth, and of course his beloved bananas. I also sprinkle into his food desiccated liver (from Radiant Life) and a probiotic (Country Life Maxi Baby-dophilus) once a day. He also occasionally gets a 1/4 teaspoon of the juice from Bubbies brand sauerkraut.  (Tabby eats the sauerkraut.  I'm afraid of it.) 

Earlier this week, on a blog called The Nourishing Gourmet, I read about an interesting quarterly-ish e-book called Everyday Nourishing Foods with Kimi Harris.  Kimi has been sharing research on her blog lately about nutrient dense diets, which I find very interesting.  (If you are "into" info. by Dr. Weston Price, or have a copy of Nourishing Traditions, you will like this.)  I bought and downloaded a copy.  (It is just a couple dollars if you buy in the next few days and use the discount coupon.  To buy and for more info click here.)  As I want to get more of these foods into my family's meals, I think this looks very useful.  (I haven't had much time to look at it yet but see several recipes I want to try.)  I just wanted to mention this in case any one else is interested.

Hunter, my 4-year old engineer type minded kid, has created a "Dream Dial."  I both laughed and was impressed with his idea.  He took old TV antennas, hooked them into an empty kleenex box cover on his nightstand, and then sets it to whatever he wants to dream about at night.  He claims it works for him because he has dreams about appliances, air conditioning units, plumbing, pipes, cars and trucks.  (All those things I've never even dreamed of dreaming about!)  Here is a picture of the Dream Dial:

I wish the dream dial really worked!  I usually have bizarre, tiring dreams.  Though sometimes I am able to solve real life problems in my dreams.  Now those are useful dreams!

Book: Super Nutrition for Babies

This past Saturday, I gave Solomon his first bite of solid food.  He had soft boiled egg yolk with a tiny bit of Himalayan salt on it.  He gobbled it down.  Actually it felt like he was attacking me and the spoon!  I've never had a child react that way so it rather threw me off.

He also learned to drink from a special water bottle that I had gotten Lilly.  I don't think he cared it was pink!

With Tabby I followed much of the book Super Baby Food and had great results.  I tried it with Hunter it did not go so well with him.  He remains a picky eater with some food textural issues.  Then with Lilly and her special needs everything regarding feeding a baby changed.  So much of her life was about giving her things to boost her immunity.  Once she got her g-tube, and I began her blenderized diet of real food, I used tSuper Baby Food for some for it's guidelines of what foods to introduce first.  But by then I had been reading books like Nourishing Traditions and starting to make more "real foods" for us.  So Lilly got things like homemade chicken broth, made from organic chicken bones and feet. (To see what all she was eating, via g-tube, click here.) I've continued to learn more and implement better/healthier food changes for us since Lilly passed away.

So for Solomon, things are different from the beginning.  Last week I gave him a taste of cod liver oil.  Unlike the rest of us, he hardly flinched!  (We take fermented cod liver oil by Green Pastures. I like the peppermint flavor the best - that way we don't taste fish oil all day.) 

Next Solomon will try chicken broth.  Then - and I can't believe this - grated raw liver.  (YUCK!!!!)  I'll add 1/2 teaspoon to his egg yolk. Then we'll move to more normal things like avocado and banana. 

So where am I getting these weird ideas?  A book called Super Nutrition for Babies by Katherine Erlich, M.D. and Kelly Genzlinger, CNC, CMTA.  I've read most of the book and it is excellent.  And really inline with the way I think about food these days.  (Weston Price anyone?)  So I'm going to follow the book with Solomon pretty closely and see how it goes.  (Even though I despise things like liver and sauerkraut ...)

I've given Solomon the egg several day in a row now.  I think he and I have worked out his aggressive eating style.  First - he has to have a bib on completely unlike the other kids:

Then I get two spoons.  I put egg on one, and he helps me put it in his mouth.  Then he continues to hold that one while I take the other spoon and scoop egg on it and hold it up.  He puts down the spoon that was in his mouth and helps me guide in the new spoonfull.  I pick up the spoon on the tray and start all over.  I tell you, I just wasn't expecting this.  Tabby and Hunter were both such neat eaters and perfectly content for me to spoonfeed them.  Solomon gets VERY upset if he doesn't get to help.  He is definitely a very unique little boy!

Lilly's blenderized diet - where we ended up

In hopes that this post will help someone out there, I wanted to do a final post about Lilly's blenderized real food diet.

On Sunday I gave one of my favorite Lilly resources to a friend at church that has an adopted son with special needs. He got a g-tube shortly before Lilly did and his mama has been looking into the real food diet. The resource is the book Homemade Blended Formula Handbook. (Available from www.mealtimenotions.com Click the book title and it will take you directly to the webpage that describes the book, and where you can order it.)


First, I would recommend the "real foods blenderized diet" to anyone that has a g-tube fed child. Second, if you decide to pursue this - get ready for a lot of questions from dieticians and medical doctors. Going this route is just not the norm! Formula - no matter the age - is. Third, if you do convince people that your child is thriving on a blenderized diet, they may say "but you can't because it will clog the g-tube button!" Lilly's clogged maybe three times. That was because I hadn't pureed the food long enough. (You need a Vita-Mix and you need to just let it go on high speed for awhile.) I was able to easily get the clog out with tweezers or a syringe of water. Also note that Lilly's MIC-KEY button was one of the smallest - if not the smallest - there is.


Lilly had been on breastmilk since day one. We tried adding in formula for a few months to add calories but finally quit because it just messed up her digestive system and gave her stomach aches and gas. But, like all children, she finally got to a point where she needed more than just breastmilk.


I have earlier posts on how I introduced her to this diet. So I won't go over all that again. I just want to stress that on this diet, she thrived. Her weight gain, which had stopped, slowly began going up again. She seemed to have more energy. Her digestive system worked well and she rarely had gas issues. She was content. She was doing more physically.


I recorded everything in little notebooks everytime I fed her. It's neat now reading back over what she had in a day. I wrote everything down for two reasons. First was for me, so that I could keep track of what I was feeding in a day, or couple of days, to be sure there was variety. Second, I wanted to be able to show the doctors and dieticians that I took this very seriously and put a lot of thought into it.



For a typical day, Lilly was on continuous feed, via a feeding pump, overnight. During the day, every 1 to 1.5 hrs. or so (except nap time), she would get one ounce of one of the below foods, or two mixed (organic whenever possible, veggies were steamed) :

- coconut oil (good fat - she loved to eat this one by mouth)
- avocado
- chicken broth (homemade with organic chicken bones and parts like chicken feet)
- yogurt (homemade)
- spinach with orange juice (needed to be combined for better absorption of the iron)
- dark chocolate (XOCAI) (super high in antioxidants and many other things - see this article) (I usually combined this with avocado)
- banana
- cauliflower
- congee (slow cooked brown rice with salt, ginger, cinnamon)
- eggs
- apple
- rice cereal with apple
- squash
- carrots
- peas
- sweet potato
- clementine
- green beans
- blueberries
- broccoli
- kefir


I also gave Lilly an ounce of water frequently. Water is good to give about 30 minutes before a meal, as it should be digested by the time you feed them the food. I usually mixed VitAloe and Stemkine and spirulina in with her water. I called it her Super Water! VitAloe was for immune boosting, StemKine was for regenerating damaged tissues (it supports bone marrow to produce more stem cells), and spirulina powder (immune boosting, phytonutrients, source of protein).

In addition to the three above supplements, I also gave her (every day):


- blackstrap molasses (for iron - Lilly was anemic at times, so this was important)
- probiotic (for digestion) (Country Life's Maxi Baby dophilus)
- kelp powder (iodine)
- beet powder (high in iron, potassium, magnesium plus many other benefits)
- mullein infusions (high in iron, great for respiratory issues, pulmonary diseases)
- Brewers Yeast (vitamins, minerals, proteins, immune boosting - good list here)
- Omega-3 DHA liquid (Dr. Sears brand) (brain power!)

I think that is it! The only other thing, was Herbs for Kids Echinacea/Astragalus, when needed. That is a great immune booster. I use that for all my kids if it sounds like they're starting to come down with something, or I know they've been exposed to something.

The day Lilly passed away I had pureed chick peas that morning for her to try. It was in the freezer in ice cube trays until recently. I'm still disappointed I didn't get to try that with her. Even though all this was more work that popping a can open, I really really enjoyed it.

I saw in my notebook that Lilly's very last meal was spinach/orange juice. I wish it had been chocolate and coconut oil!

A quick update on my friend K. - the doctors finally determined she had a congenital heart defect. She is to have surgery this afternoon to put in a pacemaker and defibrillator. If all goes well she will go home soon! Amazing! It looked like she wasn't even going to live for awhile. God really cares about us and answers prayer!

"If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." - 1 John 4:15-16

Pretty dresses and a "real food" e-book

Today's pictures are of Lilly wearing her new smocked dress. It's the "Petit Ami" brand which I seem to always be drawn to. (I like the "old fashioned" style.) Ebay usually has a nice selection of these dresses, so I wasn't too disappointed when I needed to move Lilly up in sizes. :)

Lilly seems to continue to gain weight and be thriving on her "real food" diet. Yesterday I introduced pureed egg (with a little breastmilk) through her g-tube. She's done great with it and had it again today. (We get organic free-range eggs delivered by a local chicken farmer.)

For the past few years, I've gotten more and more interested what had been dubbed "real food." (This just means eating food that is close to it's natural state as possible. i.e. no processed food, not lots of added sugars, pesticides, etc.) It's what I think of as "basic food": organic meat, fruits, veggies, whole grains, dairy (real butter!), etc.

When I was pregnant with Lilly and found out that somethings weren't right with her, I really really tried to just eat organically and did things like adding in homemade kefir. I wanted to do everything I could to help give her a better chance of life. And since Lilly's immune system is always in a fragile state, I continue to try to learn new ways to feed my family better so we can be healthier. I recently came across a wonderful e-book called Real {Fast} Food by Trina Holden. This book is perfect for me! It is filled with time saving techniques and the basic kind of recipes that my family loves. (The first one we tried was salisbury steaks and we've all been craving to have it again ever since!) Most of our menu for this week will have more recipes from this e-book. I don't think I've ever really gotten excited about a cookbook before (I honestly don't even like cooking meals. I prefer to bake bread or something like that.) Anyway, it was the best $6.00 I've ever spent on something food related. If you're interested in learning more about the e-book, or purchasing it to download, go to: http://www.trinaholden.com/p/real-fast-food.html Scroll down and you'll see that you can download it in pdf, Kindle, or Nook.

Praise God, Lilly is staying well right now. She's so happy too! My husband and I were discussing last night that we don't even remember the last time she cried. We're excited that if Lilly continues to thrive, then next week we will get to leave to drive out-of-state for her open heart surgery where they'll patch the hole in her heart. God's plan for this little girl has completely surpassed everything we had hoped for. My current goal for Lilly is that she'll be one of the 60% of Trisomy 18 children (of the 5-10% that made it past age one) to make it to 5 years old. :)

I also hope that the medical profession in general will notice that there are children like Lilly that survive longer than statistics say they should, and will do what they can to help them. Our medicine is so advanced, I just don't see why any of them wouldn't want to try. We are so thankful that Wolfson Childrens Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida is willing to operate on Trisomy 18 children. But I also admit that at times I am completely annoyed that none of the big hospitals around us will operate on Lilly. (Though thankfully the majority of the doctors in those hospitals treat Lilly well and are kind.) Anyway, this reminds me of what one doctor at Wolfson's told us last year - that in the past, children with Down Syndrome were treated the same way.

Trisomy 18 is still considered "incompatible with life," but Lilly is one joyful little girl who I'm sure feels very "compatible with life." This scripture is so fitting for her:

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." - Psalm 139:13-14

Real food update

I've been continuing to introduce blenderized food to Lilly via her g-tube. She is now up to 3 food meals a day, with breastmilk or water in between. She has tolerated everything very well. I only give her 1 ounce at a time as that is all her tummy can hold. These are the food combinations she is getting:

- yogurt/banana
- spinach/orange juice
- avocado/dark chocolate
- cauliflower
- congee (see below for details)

Lilly is still eating coconut oil by mouth. Other than that though, I'm afraid I haven't been very good about working on mouth feeding with her right now. I've been so focused on the diet itself. But after her heart surgery we hope to really try hard to teach her to eat more by mouth.

Until I read the Homemade Blended Formula Handbook I had never heard of congee. It is a slow cooked porridge considered a staple in many Asian countries. It is supposed to be very easily digested. There are a lot of recipes out there for it, using different grains and spices. Here is how I made it for Lilly: combined 5 cups of water and 1 cup of organic brown rice in the crock pot. I added a pinch of himalayan salt. Then sprinkled in some ginger and cinnamon (both of which have many healthy benefits). Covered and cooked it on low for 8 hours. (Smelled yummy!) It made a lot so I put some in the freezer. With what was left, I blended it in the Vitamix with some breastmilk.

One important thing we've learned about feeding Lilly anything through the bolus - is NEVER lay her down flat for at least 5 minutes. If we do that, or even just jostle her too much, the food or milk comes right back out. In fact, Lilly's in my lap right now, staying propped because I fed her a little while ago. But I've kept her still long enough and she's getting squirmy. So we're off to do some physical therapy and practice sitting. :)

Return to the pumpkin patch

Today we went back to the local pumpkin patch for the kids to pick out pumpkins. It was thrilling to take Lilly back with us this year. Last year I had wondered if she would still be with us to do it again. (You can see my post from last year - including a picture of 6 lb. Lilly here.) The Lord has been so generous with continuing to share Lilly with us!

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." - Ephesians 3:20-21

Below are a couple pictures from today. (A much bigger Lilly than last year - she's almost 13 lbs. now!)

Lilly sitting amongst the pumpkins, wearing her pumpkin hat:


Super Lilly trying to lift a pumpkin:


Lilly with the pumpkin she picked out:

Lilly sitting on one of the old John Deer tractors that were at the pumpkin patch:

Ready to go home - Lilly got a sticker saying she had visited the pumpkin patch:

In other news from the week, Lilly got her first Synagis shot (for RSV (virus) protection) this past Wednesday. She's supposed to get one a month throughout flu season.

I'm continuing to add new foods to Lilly's blenderized real food diet through her g-tube. I found out that the body apparently doesn't absorb iron well from spinach if you eat spinach by itself. So I got a list of foods that help it absorb better. One thing is citrus foods like oranges. So I mixed orange juice in with her spinach. I also am melting her super healthy dark chocolate and adding that to her avocado. The other new food she had was banana mixed with yogurt. She is taking just under an ounce of food at a time. About 30 minutes before I feed her food, I give her an ounce of water. I read that this helps with digestion. She's now getting two feedings of real food a day. All her other feedings are still breastmilk. This next week I hope to add eggs and cauliflower.

Operation blender diet

A few days before Lilly got sick, I decided to slowly start her on a blenderized diet of real food. She had two days of a little avocado blended in homemade organic chicken broth fed to her through her g-tube. Then she got the cold so I stopped as I didn't want to do anything extra. Now she's better and so today I again gave her a half ounce of the avocado/broth blend. (You can see in the picture I have the food in a big syringe, then push it through the bolus extension of her g-tube.)

I've started a little notebook so I can keep track of what I'm giving her and note how she handles it. I figure start SLOW and only introduce one new food a week. Since she has tolerated a little broth and avocado by mouth, I started with those.

The "other Lily's" mama shared with me about a book called Homemade Blended Formula Handbook by Marsha Dunn Klein, M.Ed, OTR/L and Suzanne Evans Morris, Ph.D., CCC. It is available on the Mealtime Notions website: http://www.mealtimenotions.com/ . Click HERE for the direct link to the book.

I'm so glad I got this book - it is a wealth of information. Plus I'm a "book person." It's nice to have a book to carry around and read wherever I want and not be chained to a computer searching here and there for information to piece together.

I am really looking forward to seeing how Lilly does on a diet of real food. She is still currently just getting breastmilk and now at 14 mos. I know she needs more. But her digestive system does NOT like formula very much. So I am praying this will work for her. The book had examples of children (a variety of ages) who had all sorts of digestive issues on formula and when they were switched to the blenderized real food diet they made HUGE improvements. Digestive issues went away, they began gaining weight better, had more energy, felt better, not sick as much ... the list goes on. For children (and adults) with g-tubes, formulas are convenient and are scientifically packed with what they need. But surely they just can not be as perfect as the food God created!

"And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food." - Genesis 1:29

"Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything." - Genesis 9:3

One other big change for Lilly's feeding is that during the daytime, we have been switching from using the pump and continuously feeding her, to bolus feeding her. Her tummy is still so tiny that I'm giving her an ounce of milk every hour. But in the couple weeks we've been doing this, I see that she is slowly starting to handle more at once. So we'll eventually be able to give her several ounces at once and not have to feed each hour. We are all LOVING this! Because without Lilly hooked up to the feeding pump constantly, we can do things like just pick her up and walk around with her like a "normal" baby. :) And I honestly think Lilly is feeling better too. I don't think it is just a coincidence that her painful gas issues have been decreasing as I have been getting away from the continuous feeds on the pump during the day and doing the bolus feeds instead.

I'll be sharing more about this food journey in future posts. For now I'll wish Lilly bon appétit!