Gorgeous children's beds for tiny bedrooms (yes I am still here, though it might not have seemed that way recently)

It's been a while... Ok a seriously long time, since I blogged. Most days I can be found searching the web for refined sugar free recipes, natural cleaning tutorials or crafting ideas. This leads me mostly to sites of stay at home moms who are apparently the super woman kind. They have huge sites with tons of recipes they tried and tested themselves, and then market like crazy with blogs, tweets, ebooks, seminars, etsy stores... While also having the time and energy to push out 5 kids, which they home school and keep mentally entertained with age appropriate awesome activities.

I am not that kind of mom.

Yes I have a blog, I think up, try and test (and fail miserably lots of the time) recipes, I have a 2 year old and am pregnant, but that is exactly why I haven't blogged in ages.

Healthy American Breakfast Pancakes recipe

It has been too busy lately. I am behind on everything. I have a memory game tutorial lined up, a quick and easy petticoat skirt tutorial in the making and a bunch of recipes to share. But as none of those are finished (sorry!) I thought I would share my healthy morning pancake recipe.

This is healthy between quotations because pancakes have never been very unhealthy. It's those cups of maple syrup, butter and what else you pour over them or serve with them that makes in not so healthy. But this is definitely a healthier variant containing less gluten, more fiber and you can even add fruit or vegs if you like. The taste will still be great! O and no baking soda, or powder but a neat little trick I learned last week!

Healthy American Breakfast Pancakes
In our case it was enough to feed 2 adults and a toddler (makes about 15 American sized pancakes)

1 cup of (spelt) flour (you can use any other gluten flour you like but I recommend a whole wheat type)
1/2 cup rolled oats (nothing added, just the basic rolled oats)
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
pinch of salt

1 cup milk or milk substitute like rice milk
1/2 cup yoghurt
2 eggs
optional: 1 grated piece of fruit, like apple or pear, or a handful of blueberries, or grated vegetables like zucchini

1/2 cup sparkling water


Mix the flours, oats and salt in a large bowl.
Add the milk, stir well.
Next add the yoghurt and eggs. Fully incorporate everything.
Add the fruit or vegs if using, stir in gently.

Heat the pan or whatever you are using to bake the pancakes.
Add rice oil/ coconut oil or butter.

Lastly add the sparkling water to the batter. Stir gently until well mixed.

Spoon three batches of batter into the pan at a time. Bake on medium high heat until golden brown on the bottom and then flip and do the same for the other side.

You can keep the pancakes warm in the oven or on a plate over a pan of boiling water.
However if you aren't making too many as is the case with this recipe, you can easily stack them on a plate and cover them with a lid. They will still be hot when serving.

Serve with bacon, eggs and hashbrowns for that all American Breakfast type plate. Otherwise just eat with maple syrup, honey, cheese, plain or whatever you like really.

Enjoy!

Need a gluten free pancake recipe, check out my easy to make amaranth pancakes

Going natural: quick, easy and not expensive at all

Happy Valentine's Day!

We passed a great milestone today, our dishwasher ran with the last toxic dishwasher soap cube. This means that the house is almost toxic cleaning products free! We still use conventional dish soap when washing dishes by hand but that is because we still have so much of it. I hate wasting stuff even it will kill you when you eat it. Does natural dishwasher do that? I honestly do not know.
(It's by the way very hard to blog and watch Hope Floats at the same time...)

My under the sink cabinet after removing (most) toxic cleaning products

It was surprisingly easy and quick to get rid of toxic cleaning products. I had already been changing our way of eating and the use of plastic over the course of a few months. This kept me online reading almost every day and then my in-laws told me there was a documentary on about products that are hurting our unborn babies.

Spicy honey pumpkin pie recipe, no refined sugar

This is a smooth spicy honey-pumpkin pie. It is of course refined sugar free and simple to make. You do not need many ingredients or much time to whip this up!

  Spicy Honey Pumpkin pie

250 grams/ a cup of (organic) orange pumpkin, seeds removed and cut in small cubes (if organic you do not have to remove the skin) Alternatively you could use the same amount of canned pumpkin.
3 tablespoons honey and 1 for decoration
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or speculaaskruiden if you know what those are)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 pack of puff pastry

Elvis to keep away the terrors and some other things I have been up to

My hubby is watching a horror movie and even smidgins of it freak me out. With noise cancelling in-ear phones blaring Elvis into my brain I still seem to look up just when some little girl is puking blood or a freaky ghost is standing behind someone. I have therefor moved to our dining room table (actually just dining table, we wished we had a separate room hahaha) which has no view of the tv and resigned to writing this overdue post on Saturday night.

Listening to Stitch's Elvis song on this great spotify Disney playlist 50 best of family and kids movies.

I have been up to a lot lately. Too much to remember which sometimes leaves me doing stupid stuff like playing the Simpsons App until I get my thoughts straight.

I have been working on making a small picture book for toddlers to learn sign language. If you find that interesting please let me know. That would be a great boost to finish it.

Saying I love you

I decided to make a whole new bear for my etsy store which is easy to make, looks cute and can be dressed. I plan to make them all unique, each one coming with a little subscription of their character and a matching set of clothes. Also I want to sell clothes and patterns on the side. It seems fun but my babe holds me back sometimes as I cannot use the sewing machine when she is not in her playpen or when she is asleep because it will wake her (our appartment is tiny.). I finished my second version and it looks great so I am starting production soon. Now onto the clothes! Fun :)

First prototype, his arms are already falling off...

Furthermore I just put all my refined sugar stuff into a box, and it is a BIG box, goodness. My decorated cake shop has all but closed because I cannot make myself bake anymore of my usual recipes or use fondant to cover anything. I do not know how I am going to get rid of all this refined sugar. I think I am going to make things and try to sell them until I run out. It would sure clear up a lot of space in my kitchen.

BIG amazon box full of refined sugar stuff and I have another one nearby, what to do, what to do...

With both my nieces birthdays coming up I do have to think about how I am going to make them pretty cakes. Therefore I am starting a search for the perfect unrefined decorated cake. I have started work on a sugar free marzipan fondant that can be rolled out. If I find it you will be the first to know of course :)

Cake idea for my niece who is turning 1!

Next week I will be posting a recipe for sugar free pumpkin pie and I am trying to update the site with small things like hover pin it buttons and a printer friendly version so keep checking back!

Easy Sugar free nutella recipe with raw cocoa

This super easy sugar free hazelnut spread is great for on bread, pancakes, or just a spoon but not as bad for you as nutella is. It's made with dates, raw cocoa and hazelnuts obviously.

Creamy, yummy and definitely gives you the ability to keep the real nutella for weekends and special occasions!

Easy to spread and eat ;)

This is the hazelnut paste I usually buy

Sugar free nutella hazelnut spread recipe

175 grams ground hazelnut (I buy this in a jar, like you would peanut butter, you could grind your own I would expect, but my food processor is not good enough to try, it needs to be so fine that it releases its oils) 

4 or 5 dates without the pit

How to of baby sign language part 2 and why you should persist!

We starting signing to our daughter when she was 4 months old. After reading wonderful reviews saying that their kids already knew 10 signs at 6 months, and 50 when they were a year, I was really optimistic. At first it did seem to work well. Our baby learned Sleep really quickly and it was wondrous! Our tiny infant could tell us she was tired and when we put her to bed she wouldn't cry at all! It was a parent's dream come true!
It was one part where we did not have to guess and so our baby was almost never cranky from lack of sleep :) It was a flying start... but not much more. At 8 months she hadn't learned any other sign and at 10 months with just the sign for Milk added, we stopped actively signing. But I did not want to give up.

I used Babysignlanguage.com to learn the signs and they have an overview of 10 starter signs. The site says Mommy and Daddy are some of the signs baby can learn most easily as she has most need of them. Sounded like logic to me so I signed Daddy for months when calling him when she went to sleep.