A Nourishing Dessert: Coconut Custard Cake

I’m over at Keeper of the Home where I’ve opened up my heart and decided to share some personal struggles in my life right now.

Through it all, God has proven himself faithful to my family as he continues to provide simple, nourishing food.

We’ve purchased all our locally raised, pastured meat for the year with tax money, and rely on a real food, food budget which has served us well.  Using a menu plan has proved to be the number one resource which allows me to continually provide the best food for my family on our strict budget.

Although on a budget, I enjoy being able to make simple, nourishing treats for my family and this coconut custard cake has quickly become one of my children’s favorites.  It’s treats like these that can lift ones spirit and the children enjoy them just the same.

I adapted this coconut custard cake recipe from my friend Mare at Just Making Noise.  Her treats are always scrumptious and never fail.

What I most enjoy about this recipe is that it’s very quick and easy to make.  To make this nourishing dessert extra special, I added chocolate just to see a beautiful smile on little brothers face.

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A Spring Quiche Recipe: An Asparagus and Prosciutto Self Crusting Quiche

A spring time quiche is one of my favorite meals to make during the season, especially since my chickens are up in egg production.

They’ve been happy girls, pecking around outside, showing their spring time joy by leaving us bountiful brown eggs with brilliantly orange yolks.  My favorite kind.

It’s neat to think about how the season’s work with you when you work with them.

As an urban homesteader, it’s the busiest season of the year.  There’s winter cleanup to be done, gardens to be sowed, and coops to be cleaned and freshened.  Couple that with a mami’s responsibility of a home and children makes for a busy time of year.

As I work in my home and on my homestead, my girls are working for me.  They up their egg production in the spring allowing me to make the best kind of fast food for my family.

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spaininiowa

It’s Simple Lives Thursday! My favorite day of the week where you share your tips and recipes for living a simple life. Whichever blog that you choose to link up your post, it will show up on all 4 sites! As a reminder, this blog hop is a way to share with many people your posts on what you are doing to live a simple life. Whether that’s gardening, raising urban chickens, homeschooling, sewing, making your own deodorant, or cleaning supplies… we want to know about it! If you’re into homeopathy, ways to save $ by conserving energy or other ways to live frugally… we want to know about it! If you bike, cook real food, homestead or farm… we want to know about it!

Your Hosts (for the time being, due to hosts taking breaks)

  1. Wardeh from GNOWFGLINS
  2. Alicia from Culinary Bliss
  3. Anette from Sustainable Eats
  4. Me!

Please read and follow the Simple Lives Thursday bloghop rules

1. If linking real, traditional and simple recipes, please make sure all ingredients used are whole. Such as whole grains, vegetables, legumes, meats, even sugar. In order to keep the integrity of “nourishing” food, we will delete any recipes that utilize processed, boxed foods. We are definitely not going to be ingredient policeman, however, please note that this is a hop hosted by advocates of the real, local and sustainable food movements.

2. Please link your posts back to one of the hosting blogs. This is a common blog hop courtesy. This link helps build the Simple Lives Thursday community by sending your readers to all of the other participants posts. We all end up sharing and learning from each other.

3. No giveaway away or otherwise primarily advertising oriented posts. Keep your topics to fit our simple living theme of “consume less, produce more.” We will delete posts that don’t fit.

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Aunt Mae's

This giveaway is on behalf of a woman whom I have never met, yet needs our encouragement, prayer, and support nonetheless.  I heard about the opportunity to help through Positively Real Media.  These words are not my own.

Have you read about all the harmful ingredients in store-bought soap yet the thought of making your own is too intimidating? Would you like to wash with a gentle lather safe enough for a baby’s skin? Then let me introduce you to Mae’s Handcrafted Natural Soaps.

These natural soaps made with real tallow will delight your senses! Mae lovingly makes all her soaps in small batches to ensure the highest quality. She uses the best of the best ingredients: real tallow is gentle on your skin while at the same time is used for the bar’s hardness, which means it doesn’t get mushy in the shower. Olive oil is added for further gentleness along with a touch of coconut oil for a fluffy lather.

Cranberry-Fig-resized-300x199Only high quality soap scents or essential oils are used, and even then they are added with a light hand. Mae’s bars give you an absolutely delicious scent you can enjoy in the shower, without becoming obtrusive during the day. Even her coloring agents are of a natural origin. These unique combinations make long-lasting, gentle bars that your whole family will love.

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A Recipe For Honey Glazed Carrots

One of my favorite things about spring is setting aside heartier stews and soups of the winter and introducing lighter dishes with simple sides of vegetables.

In my family, we love carrots.

carrots

We love them raw, cooked, and especially, growing them ourselves.

Like I’ve written before, growing them is something magical when you pull from their long grassy leaves and unearth beautifully colored edible roots.  The kids love it and so I highly encourage you to even just plant carrots for the simple act of watching your children’s faces light up with joy to discover such treasure.

Our season has not yet started, but organic rainbow carrots are starting to arrive at most grocery stores.  I couldn’t help but grab a bunch especially to see such beautiful leaves still attached.  I’ve recently been introduced to carrot top pesto from this gem of a book called, Roots.  It’s one I would like to add to my personal collection.

With the tops I made pesto, and with the roots, I made a simple recipe for honey glazed carrots.

I started by chopping on the diagonal, which I’ve read A Girl and Her Pig enjoys as well.

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spaininiowa

It’s Simple Lives Thursday! My favorite day of the week where you share your tips and recipes for living a simple life. Whichever blog that you choose to link up your post, it will show up on all 4 sites! As a reminder, this blog hop is a way to share with many people your posts on what you are doing to live a simple life. Whether that’s gardening, raising urban chickens, homeschooling, sewing, making your own deodorant, or cleaning supplies… we want to know about it! If you’re into homeopathy, ways to save $ by conserving energy or other ways to live frugally… we want to know about it! If you bike, cook real food, homestead or farm… we want to know about it!

Your Hosts (for the time being, due to hosts taking breaks)

  1. Wardeh from GNOWFGLINS
  2. Alicia from Culinary Bliss
  3. Anette from Sustainable Eats
  4. Me!

Please read and follow the Simple Lives Thursday bloghop rules

1. If linking real, traditional and simple recipes, please make sure all ingredients used are whole. Such as whole grains, vegetables, legumes, meats, even sugar. In order to keep the integrity of “nourishing” food, we will delete any recipes that utilize processed, boxed foods. We are definitely not going to be ingredient policeman, however, please note that this is a hop hosted by advocates of the real, local and sustainable food movements.

2. Please link your posts back to one of the hosting blogs. This is a common blog hop courtesy. This link helps build the Simple Lives Thursday community by sending your readers to all of the other participants posts. We all end up sharing and learning from each other.

3. No giveaway away or otherwise primarily advertising oriented posts. Keep your topics to fit our simple living theme of “consume less, produce more.” We will delete posts that don’t fit.

Continue Reading