Written by Kari @ Living Strong, Health and Wellness, Contributing Writer

With summer in full swing and the Fourth of July right around the corner, we all know that this means a lot of picnics, bbq’s and get togethers are on the calendar. This also means that this will involve a lot of, you guessed it, food!

Is it possible to eat healthy during all these summer festivities? Yes, yes and yes! Eating healthy doesn’t mean that these celebrations have to be boring! In fact, I believe that you can have even better tasting food when you choose real foods prepared properly and with love! Nothing off the grocery store shelf can hold a candle to the greatness of real food!

A couple months ago I released my first cookbook that addresses the reality and simplicity of delicious and healthy food! On my journey to live a healthier lifestyle, I was finding that eating healthy usually meant bland, boring and just plain not good! My family felt the same! I knew that real food could taste amazing, be nourishing and keep you satisfied, so I went to work creating, experimenting and indulging.

Below are two wonderful recipes that can be found in my cookbook that you can incorporate into your summer celebrations! Kari’s Restaurant Style Salsa – to go with those big bowls of tortilla chips and Easy Peasy Peanut Butter Drops for a protein packed sweet treat. I know you will enjoy these real food treats and feel good knowing that you are feeding your family foods that will not harm them.

Kari’s Restaurant Style Salsa

What You’ll Need:

• 1 can (28 ounce) whole tomatoes, with juice (I use Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Tomatoes)
• 1 can (28 ounce) diced tomatoes with green chilies
• 1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped
• 2 to 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon, unrefined sugar (cane, sucanat, coconut) or honey
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 cup fresh cilantro
• 2 to 3 tablespoons lime juice (from the actual lime is best, if they aren’t in season, use lime juice)
• 2 small cans diced chilies (hot if you like the zing, otherwise use mild)
• 1 tablespoon diced jalapenos (add these very last to make the salsa more hot) (optional)
• 1/2 to 1 smoked chili pepper (optional – these add zing too)

What You’ll Do:

1. Pour one can of the tomatoes in the blender, add the onion, garlic, sugar, sea salt and cumin.
2. Blend until smooth.
3. Pour this into a large mixing bowl.
4. Now, pour the other can of tomatoes in the blender and add the cilantro, lime juice, diced chilies and jalapenos.
5. Blend until smooth.
6. Add this into the bowl with the other half of the salsa.
7. Mix well with a bamboo spoon until combined thoroughly.
8. Now it’s taste testing time. Grab some chips and and test it out. Does it need more heat? Add the smoked chili pepper. A little more cumin? Lime juice? This is your time to get creative and create a taste that you and your whole family will love.
9. If you need to add more ingredients, scoop a couple cups of salsa back into the blender, add the extra ingredients, blend and pour back into the bowl. Mix again and test again.
10. Store in glass jars – this typically makes 2 quarts of salsa.
11. Refrigerate. Over the course of a couple days, the flavors will have time to mesh together and you’ll get a wonderful, amazing and fresh salsa!

Easy Peasy Peanut Butter Drops
(Packed with Protein and Energy)

What You’ll Need:

• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter (or another nut butter of choice)
• 1/2 cup raw honey
• 1/2-1 cup unsweetened, finely shredded coconut
• 1/4 –1/3 cup mini dark chocolate chips
• Sucanat (unrefined sugar) for rolling the drops

What You’ll Do:

1. In a medium size bowl, mix the peanut butter and honey until combined thoroughly.
2. Add the chocolate chips. You can add more or less according to your taste (I always add the larger amount).
3. Add the coconut in 1/4 cup amounts until the consistency reaches a thick, yet semi-sticky state.
4. You don’t want it so sticky that you can’t roll it, but you don’t want it so dry that it wont hold together. Find the happy medium.
5. Once you are able to roll them and they still have some stickiness to them, roll into balls and then roll in the sucanat.
6. Place on wax or parchment paper on a baking sheet or plate.
7. Refrigerate for a while so they can harden up a bit, transfer to a glass jar and keep in the fridge.

I hope you have a wonderful and amazing summer, making time to enjoy family, friends and delicious food. Take time to cherish these moments and be thankful for the many blessings that God has poured out upon our lives!

**note from Rachel: Make sure you check out Kari’s new cookbook Real Food. Real Kitchen. So Good.: Health Made Easy. It’s actually on sale on amazon right now!

What is your favorite summer dish that brings a smile to your face and everyone who tries it?

The post Jazz Up Your Summer BBQ Menu With Real Food Recipes appeared first on Day2Day Joys.

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Written by Contributing Writer, Kari at Living Strong, Health & Wellness

With summer just right around the corner, it’s finally time to step outside and begin enjoying the beautiful sunshine and warm weather again. Living in Colorado means we get over 300 days of sunshine, but not all those days are warm. This makes summer a much anticipated season in our home.

What are some fun and exciting activities that you and your family can participate in that will allow you to make memories and improve your health all at the same time? Here is my list of go-to summer activities that are sure to bring smiles to your faces. All of these allow you access to fresh air, possible peaceful and quiet surroundings, time away from televisions and computers and a chance to have real conversations with the ones you love. Not to mention the chance to see God’s beautiful creation, soak in some Vitamin D and time to think without the noise of technology.

1. Hiking…

Not everyone has access to foothills or mountains, but if you do this is a wonderful way to get out and spend some time quality time with your family. Take photos in front of streams, trees and climbing rocks to preserve the days events. Pick some leaves from trees and press them in a book at home and grab a few small unique rocks to put on display to remember your day.

2. Gardening…

Is beneficial on all sides. You get to dig your hands in the dirt (absorb those healthy soil organisms), learn about how food grows and you get to partake of the bounty of the harvest. It’s also a great activity to do with your children of any age, as it teaches them responsibility and to be thankful for the provision of food.

3. Grounding…

Not the most commonly known term, but it simply means being outside barefoot! This is so beneficial for our health for many reason (learn more about that here), but what child doesn’t love running around the thick grass with their shoes off and soaking in the days of summer. Grounding can also be done on sand, some pavement – but not tar streets!

4. Camping…

This definitely isn’t everyone’s favorite, but I do think everyone should camp at least once in their life. You can either find a remote spot in the mountains or go to your local lake or reservoir and enjoy the amenities there. Yes, in Colorado we still have traces of snow in the mountains even during the warmer months of the year!

5. Sports…

If you have kids this should be something you are always doing with them. T-ball, frisbee, basketball, soccer, swimming – there are so many options. Even without kids, grab a group of friends or your sibling and parents and head out to the yard or park and play some ultimate frisbee. Get some fun cardio into your day.

6. Go Into the City or Take a Trip to the Country…

For us it’s always fun to take a trip into Downtown Denver and experience the culture we don’t get living in the suburbs! We have great sculptures in Downtown Denver that the kids get a kick out of! If you already live in the city – visit the country, local farms or even historical sites away from all the noise.

7. Family Movie Nights…

We enjoy family movie nights where we whip up some stove-top popcorn, hang out on the sleeping mats or all snuggle on the couch. Or who can deny that watching movies outside isn’t possibly one of the coolest movie-going experiences! Whether it’s in your backyard, at the park or on the side of a building hosted by local vendors – this is a wonderful way to spend time outside on those warm summer nights. Either way, grab a family-friendly movie and laugh the night away.

I firmly believe that the family unit needs to start spending more quality time together and just a wonderful way to do that is outdoor activities instead of spending every minute inside in front of electronics. I also believe we have moved far away from family bonding and spending valuable and memorable quality time together. This summer make sure you put some of these activities on your calendar! I guarantee you that your kids will love every minute and so will you!

What is your favorite way to spend time outside in the summer months?

The post 7 Summer Activities to Strengthen Your Family and Improve Your Health appeared first on Day2Day Joys.

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Written by Kristen, Contributing Writer

This has not been the grandest year for my garden. There’s no abundance of tomatoes to can, no peppers to freeze, and hardly enough basil to make one batch of pesto, but I decided to give myself grace with gardening and not aim for perfection. I’ve realized that even in an off-year with the garden, certain crops always do well.

One of those for us is Swiss chard, and I’ve got more than our family cares to eat. In the past I would lightly steam and freeze it to use in place of frozen spinach in recipes, but it rarely would get completely used up, and I’d rather save the freezer space for something else, like blueberries. I still hate to see it just sit in the garden, though!

The Dehydrator to the Rescue!

My husband really blessed me this year with an Excalibur food dehydrator (Amazon affiliate link), and it’s been a lifesaver when it comes to preserving food with little time and effort from me. After doing lots of peaches, herbs, and some tomatoes, it dawned on me that I should dehydrate the chard for the winter!

Dehydrated chard (or other similar greens) can be added to soups, pastas, breads, smoothies, and more. They take up very little room in the pantry and can quickly add a boost of nutrition to any recipe. Leafy greens are famous for their high content of vitamins and minerals, and having them on-the-ready will be a great help to me this winter and early spring!

How to Dehydrate Chard

The steps to dehydrate chard are so easy! These steps leave you with a dried chard that could still be considered raw. Some people feel that chard and other dark leafies should always be eaten cooked to diminish the oxalic acid in them that can act as an anti-nutrient. If you are concerned about oxalic acid or think that you’ll use your dehydrated greens mostly in smoothies, you can lightly steam the leaves before dehydrating them. I don’t think this will be our primary use, so I dehydrated them raw.

1. Remove the thick stems and veins, and wash the leaves so that they are free of grit. Remove any discolored leaves or sections. (If you want to dehydrate the stems, you certainly can. Just slice them into smaller pieces and expect them to take longer than the leaves.)

2. Lay the leaves on the dehydrator tray in a single layer. A little overlapping is fine, but too much will cause them to dry unevenly and too slowly.

3. Fill up all of the trays, or lay out all of the leaves that you have, and dehydrate the leaves according to your machine’s directions. In my dehydrator, the chard leaves take longer than green herbs, but less time than juicy fruits or vegetables.

4. Once the leaves are completely dry, place them in a food processor. Pulse it to crumble the leaves uniformly.

5. Store the dried and crumbled leaves in an airtight container. I prefer glass jars, but plastic freezer bags work as well.

Ta-da! You can now enjoy chard all through the cold winter and early spring months.

It’s amazing how one giant grocery bag filled with chard can be dehydrated down to a quart-sized jar of dried chard! I’m imagining soups, baked pastas, and green tortillas all made with our dried chard.

Have you ever dehydrated greens before, or do you like to freeze them? Is there another veggie that you like to dehydrate for easy food storage? Do share!

*this post is linked to: Encourage One Another, Titus 2sdays, and WFMW*

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Written by Kari, Contributing Writer

This is a transitional time of year for almost everybody out there. School has started up again, summer is almost over and the cooler months are on the way. All of this means that we are going to have to pay more attention to keeping our immune systems strong so those ever present germs and bugs don’t have a chance to wreak havoc inside our bodies!

Even healthy families and houses can experience the sniffles, coughing and that ‘yucky’ feeling, but do we have to resort to the Cold/Flu aisle at the local grocery store to get us through these times?

Absolutely not!

I can’t tell you the last time I bought OTC medication for my family when those runny noses, sore throats and coughing made an appearance. I made a decision eight years ago, after my daughter was born, to take care of these issues in a better and more safe way. First and foremost my husband and I pray over our children and ourselves and speak healing scriptures over us. That is always our main defense – then we attack the natural symptoms in the body so we don’t have to just ‘wait it out’. We usually get things nipped in the bud quickly and these symptoms never go longer than a day or two.

Often times adults and children alike have weakened immune systems due to a myriad of reasons, including antibiotic use, poor nutrition, lack of activity and exercise and stress – just to name a few. Along with addressing these issues, there are several things that are in my go-to ‘health arsenal’ that are natural and safe and I feel comfortable in giving my family knowing they are beneficial to our bodies and not harmful or toxic.

How To Keep Your Immune System Strong and Treat Symptoms Naturally

1. A  healthy diet

This is extremely important. If your body isn’t getting nutritious food that support the functioning of the body, your natural immune defenses will be down and this makes it so much easier for germs, viruses and bacteria to enter in and take root. So, eliminating or decreasing processed foods, eating fresh and living foods, drinking plenty of water and eating a good variety of macronutrients (healthy carbs, healthy fats and protein) is a sure way to keep the immune system strong. We also like to make our own ‘Spa Water’ around here that livens things up a bit while adding some healthy goodness to our water intake.

2. Vitamin D

When sunshine decreases in your area and you’re not spending as much time under those beautiful rays – then supplementing with Vitamin D3 is a must. Now, D3 is a fat soluble vitamin and is better assimilated by the body when taken with a fat. This is why it’s best to take Vitamin D3 with Cod Liver Oil (which contains concentrated vitamin D, vitamin A and is the #1 source of EPA and DHA). As an added note – we also lay off the sunscreen for the most part. Unless we’ll be outside in 100 degree weather for hours on end – we don’t use sunscreen. We welcome the healthy sun to do it’s job and give us natural Vitamin D! Instead we just use coconut oil or a special oil blend I make specifically for time in the sun.

3. Probiotics

The health of your gut can determine your overall health. It’s important to keep our gut populated with good bacteria and eating probiotic-rich foods is the best option. Full-fat yogurt, dairy kefir, coconut kefir, amasai, summer sun pickles, water kefir, kombucha, kimichi and beet kvass are good examples of cultured food alive with good bacteria. If needed, supplementing with a high quality probiotic is the next best option.

4. Herbs

Used since the beginning of time, herbs are amazing and there are so many things you can make with them that strengthen your immune system or attack the bad invaders if they’ve already settled in. A few of my favorite recipes that we use all the time are Elderberry Syrup, Safe Cough Syrup, Natural Remedy for Sore Throats and Immune Strengthening Herbal Tea Blend. I also like to incorporate essential oils for even better results. Even simply combining eucalyptus, rosemary and lavender essential oils with some almond oil makes a good rub when you have congestion and a stuffy nose.

5. Juicing

I am a huge advocate of juicing and for many reasons. I have experienced nothing but positive results with my family ever since we began juicing 5 years ago. Regular juicing removes toxins, cleanses on a cellular level and gives your digestive system a break! If you need to treat symptoms you see coming on – add ginger, garlic, beets, parsley or wheatgrass! Here are some of my day to day recipes we like in our house.

Choosing to make our own products has not only saved us a lot of money, but I also believe it has saved our bodies from untold amounts of damage. I have always valued the remedies of years gone by that were used by old-time grandmothers from the farm, civilizations that only had the substance of the earth to rely on and just good old common sense!

There’s no reason to fall prey to these transitional symptoms that try to show up this time of year. Start with a solid foundation of a good diet and include the other beneficial goodies as a way to keep your immune system strong and to treat symptoms naturally!

Take charge with your family’s health and make a quality decision to only take care of them using safe and natural methods! Doing this is a long term investment that pays off with long and healthy lives!

Make yours a LIFE WORTH LIVING and be confident in the fact that it is possible when you realize the reality of HEALTH MADE EASY!

Some good points to remember:

In what ways are you creating your families health arsenal?

*this post is linked to: Encourage One Another, Titus 2sdays, and WFMW*

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Written by Liz, Contributing Writer

Leafy greens are an important part of a balanced diet. They are a strong source of vital nutrients including iron, calcium, potassium, vitamin K, and beta-carotene. They are especially important for women, because we are more susceptible to anemia and osteoporosis – diseases resulting from iron deficiency and calcium deficiency, respectively.

The USDA recommends we all get at least 3 cups of leafy greens per week…and I don’t know about you, but they aren’t my favorite things to eat…so I struggle to do that! (source)

One easy way to get your green goodness in is to make green smoothies. Before you get all grossed out, I promise they are YUMMY! I have them in the morning and sometimes for snacks, and believe me, I wouldn’t drink them if I didn’t like them! They are easy to make and easy to drink – a win-win situation, right?

photo credit

At a nutritional seminar I attended about a year ago, the speaker said, “If you want to change your life tomorrow, drink green smoothies (source).” I have been making them ever since then and she was right – I feel so much better!

There are a few main components to a green smoothie, and a couple optional ones. They are very versatile, and you can put in whatever you want to suit your taste buds.

Here is what you need:

Greens:

You’ll want a heaping handful or two of leafy greens like kale, spinach, or chard. I usually use kale because it’s a superfood and I don’t like to eat, but I like to drink it.

Fruit:

This is what makes the smoothie naturally sweet and delicious. Really anything goes here – an apple, a half a mango and a banana, a pear, a handful of blueberries or even an avocado – whatever! Just don’t put in too much fruit at one time to avoid sugar overload – a little goes a long way!

Liquid: 

You can use juice, milk, water, tea, or even whey. Throw in anywhere from a half a cup to two cups, depending on how thick or watery you want it to be.

Optional probiotics:

Kefir and yogurt are great additions to any smoothie. Probiotics are also a beneficial part of a healthy diet because they colonize your body with good bacteria, and this may be a good way for you to get them in too. A half a cup of either one is good.

Optional extras:

There are so many extras you can throw in, like coconut oil, bee pollen, spirulina, chia seeds, organic protein powder, raw honey, nuts/nut butter, ice, or whatever else your brain can conjure up. The sky is the limit, girl!

The instructions are easy: blend until smooth! 

Ladies, feed these things to your kids and hubby, because they will like them too, and they need those nutrients. Your little ones will have no idea it’s good for them!

**Note from Rachel: Don’t forget to subscribe via email to get your free copy of Spring into Smoothies all Summer Long, where you’ll find lots of great smoothie recipes!

Have you ever made a green smoothie? What is your favorite recipe?

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Or since you can’t find a healthy sweet treat, instead of grabbing a piece of fruit you grab some crackers or chocolate. I have found myself there many times and then regretting the decision later. 

Not that chocolate or crackers are bad, unless you keep grabbing handful after handful or breaking off more and more chocolate… Ahem.  So, these easy cocoa almonds are a great alternative to choosing crackers or chocolate. These provide you with a crunchy, chocolate-y taste you’re looking for. And your kids will love them too!

All you have to do is plan ahead, which is something I am working on at the moment. It only takes about 20 minutes, hope you enjoy!

Yes, I realize they’re in a reindeer bowl, lol!

What you need:

2 C almonds (or nut of your choice)
1/4 C sweetener (I used real maple syrup but you could also use stevia and water)
2-3 T unsweetened cocoa powder
dash of salt

What to do:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place some parchment paper over a baking sheet and set aside
2.  In a small pan, heat sweetener and salt over medium heat
3. Turn off heat, then add the almonds, stir until they are completely coated
4. Spread the almonds on the parchment paper and bake for 10-15 minutes
5. Put the cocoa in a paper bag then pour in baked almonds and shake until covered, let them cool
6. Enjoy!

What’s your favorite healthy treat?

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