Broccoli Hater's Broccoli Salad from Chef Maki's Kitchen

Broccoli Salad

Mix together:

Juice of 1 lemon

1/2-3/4 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup plain yogurt (homemade crockpot yogurt here)

2-3 TBS sugar

Add:

4 Broccoli stalks & flowers, in small, bite size pieces

1/2 small red onion, finely chopped

1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds

1 -2 cups red grapes, halved (or not)

1/2 pkg turkey bacon, cut in small pieces (no need to cook if package says it is already fully cooked)

1 cup shredded carrots

Mix it around to coat. Serve. Yum! Even my broccoli haters like this salad. This salad gives you a flavor packed treat in each delicious bite!

In the picture, you see no red grapes. This is because I had none this go around, so I substituted raisins. It looks prettier with the red grapes. {My picture isn't too pretty anyway since I took it too close up, but you get the general idea.} I also subbed green onions and yellow onion for the red onion, for the same reason. You can make several variations and still have a yummy salad.

Mama Rika's Top 25 Natural Remedies Part 3

Here is the final installment of my Natural Remedies series. The post for part 1 can be found here. The same disclaimer applies to this post as applied to part 1. Part 2 post can be found here.

Cedarwood essential oil has a very pungent odor. I don’t care for the smell. However, it is great for fighting those dreaded pimples. As soon as a little acne spot decides to dare mar your face, apply drops of cedarwood oil. Do this heavily at night. It dries them out fairly quickly. If you catch them right as they begin, you can prevent them from forming all the way. Great to have on hand for teens and adults.

Peppermint oil is wonderful for coughs, fevers, and Christmas pretzels (but that is a treat and not a home remedy). Purchase peppermint essential oil and a drop or two on little baby footsies if they have a cough/cold or fever. Very gently rub the tiny foot with the oil. Do NOT massage the feet of little ones vigorously or in any manner other than gently for a short period of time so as not to overstimulate them. The light massage soothes baby. The vapors from the peppermint work to loosen up congestion. Peppermint has also been known to help reduce fevers. You can use the peppermint essential oil not only on babies, but older children and grown-ups as well.

Plaintain is for bites and stings. I use it in salve form as soon as someone is stung and it stops the spreading of the redness/puffiness and helps it clear up faster.

Prayer/Blessings are the best thing for any ailment. Sometimes inspiration can be found to guide you to something helpful. On occasion rapid recovery has been known to happen after the laying on of hands with a blessing. In emergencies, prayer helps to keep everyone involved calm and invites the healing powers of heaven.

Pregnancy is not a home remedy, obviously, but during pregnancy there are a lot of natural aids to be found to help mother and growing child. I’ll not elaborate too heavily on these. (You can read my Childbirth: Preparing for the Miracle book to get my complete thoughts on pregnancy, labor and delivery.) Some favorites for pregnancy include raspberry leaf for overall motherhood health, Floradix for iron, Vitamin C & E, relaxation and visualization.

Soup. Huh? Soup? You may have heard that chicken noodle soup cures things. Well, it isn’t an old wive’s tale. I even did a smidge of research for you so that you know I am not kidding you. You can find a little more info here, here and here. Chicken soup is wonderful when you have a cold to help ease congestion. It is soothing when you have a sore throat. It is calming when you are uptight. There’s so much good stuff that goes in to chicken soup that it can’t help but be healing. Chicken soup with homemade noodles of course is best. (I’ll post that recipe and video in the near future.)

Swedish Bitters from Nature’s Works often works best simply as a threat! On occasion if I threaten with pulling out the Swedish Bitters, a child has been known to recuperate much more quickly. It is horrid tasting, but it will kill just about any bug that ails you.

White Willow is a painkiller. It works like aspirin, but doesn’t have the side effects. It is suitable for headaches and pain from injuries.

Mama Rika's Top 25 Natural Remedies Part 2

The post for part 1 can be found here. The same disclaimer applies to this post as applied to part 1. In case you were wondering...I was going to do this all in alphabetical order, but realized I forgot a few, so that is why it is not in order. :)

Ginger can be very soothing for upset stomaches and helpful against carsickness and can be found in things we all like to eat. Ginger snaps, gingerbread, and ginger ale to name a few. However, read the ingredient labels because some of these products actually contain NO ginger! You can also get ginger as a powder (spice), in capsules and as a tea. My children and I are all prone to carsickness, so I like to take ginger snack items with us. I have found that we are more likely to get carsick if we have little in our bellies, so I try to make sure we always eat well before traveling.

Honey Lemon Tea is not only a tasty, comforting drink, it feels really good on sore throats. It is also awesome for kids with croupy cough! (Don’t give honey to kids under 1 because they don’t have the proper enzymes to digest it.) You can make the tea by getting a mug and squeezing in about a half a lemon. Add a teaspoonful of honey. Pour in warm, but not quite hot, water to fill the cup. Stir and taste test. Add more honey if needed.

Milk and Bread Poultices are very useful in drawing out slivers and stickers from the skin. {This one I learned from my MIL who grew up on a farm.} Simply take a pinch of bread and a couple drops of milk. Squeeze any excess milk out of the bread and apply it to the sore with a band-aid. Leave it on overnight and then try to get the sliver out in the morning when the skin is nice and soft.

Mineral Supplements are always good to have on hand for growing pains, cramps, and calming. I like Peter Gillham’s Natural Calm best. It mixes easily with water and the raspberry-lemon flavor tastes fine. Kids don’t mind it.

Molasses Milk should be made with blackstrap molasses for best results. Blackstrap molasses (available at health food stores) is a great “girl tonic” since it is rich in iron, calcium ant potassium. It is good to drink anytime, but especially during PMS time. Make it by pouring a glass of milk (cow, rice, soy or almond is fine) and drizzling in about 1 or more TBS of molasses as you whisk the drink with a fork.

Nerve Tonic comes in a tiny white pill from the company Hylands. Hylands is a homeopathic company whose products are without side effects. Nerve tonic is very mild and can be given in small quantities to small children. It is helpful for when you just can’t fall asleep at night or when a kid is in a bit of a panic after having received an injury of some sort. It has a very calming effect. It has a very sweet taste and just melts on your tongue.

No Milk Products is a rule we use when someone has a cold. Milk tends to be very mucous forming and who needs that when you are going through the tissues like crazy already!

Cayenne Tincture is something I try to keep on hand in the fridge. We have used cayenne tincture to successfully stop bleeding noses. Here’s what we do. Put a few drops into about ½ to 1 oz of water. Have a piece of plain bread right next to the cup. Have the child gulp down the drink as fast as possible and then quickly eat the piece of bread. Why? Cayenne is hot! We came up with this method for my oldest child who got nose bleeds frequently. This is the same child that can not even stand the “heat” from black pepper. He would willing take this treatment, though, because he knew it worked when he couldn’t get the blood flow to stop.

Cayenne Pepper in powder form can be poured directly onto a bleeding wound to stop the bleeding. This cauterizes it right away. We don’t do this every time someone bleeds. This is only used when we can’t get the bleeding to stop. At the risk of sounding completely careless, I shall share a story of my own ineptness. {Warning! Blood story ahead! Faint of heart should not read!} I was trying to pull up the edge of a can that I had just opened with the can opener and decided to use my fingers rather than grab an instrument of some sort to assist me. Needless to say, I managed to slice open my pointer finger on the edge of the can. I quickly grabbed hold of my finger with my other hand because I realized immediately that I had done a stupid thing. I held on tightly and poured water over it, then let go to see what the damage looked like. Bad idea. Blood gushed forth and kept gushing and gushing. I had someone grab the cayenne pepper for me and I covered my would liberally with the red powder. Results were nearly instantaneous. No more blood gushing. I bandaged it up and allowed the healing to begin!

There's the end of part two. As always, please feel free to share your ideas by posting a comment. Part three will be coming along in about a week. Feel free to email this post to a friend, and/or subscribe to my blog for more like this.

Mama Rika's Top 25 Natural Remedies

To begin...I believe that God designed our bodies in a wonderful way in that our bodies are able to heal, to recuperate when broken, and to fight off diseases when we get them. Our bodies will do everything they possibly can do to renew themselves. I also believe that while it is true that we can do things that are detrimental to our bodies, we can also do things that affect our bodies in a positive way. What we put into our bodies, what we put on our bodies and what we expose our bodies to all play a role in our health. I do believe that there are things outside of our control that can be harmful to our bodies, but we can do many things to keep ourselves in the best health possible.

I try to accentuate our family’s health by trying to serve as many healthy meals as possible and keeping fruits and vegetables available for snacking. I also encourage our family to be active physically. One other thing I do is to “say no to drugs.” And I don’t just mean illegal ones. I feel like, as a society, we rely too much on a different drug for every little ailment. I don’t have anything against doctors. I have a nice family doctor. I just try to not visit him often. I try to take a natural approach to healing, and decided to share my ideas with you. I hope you will find something useful.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, so I am not recommending that these things will work for anyone and everyone. I make no claims that you will achieve any sort of miraculous results by using the items I outline below. I am simply sharing what I have done with my family that has worked well for us. Every person is different.

I have studied nutrition, herbs and supplements on my own from my early teens. {And that was a really long time ago, yet just a moment has passed. :)} I like to check up on the physicians desk reference to determine for myself the side effects of various prescribed drugs. I have been taught many things by my Mother who knows an amazing amount of things, having read, studied with an expert, and having run a small health food store for many years. I have seen some things that work and some things that don’t work as I have raised my 7 kids. (The oldest is now 18.) I can count on one hand the number of times that any of my children have had a drug of any kind. But, I have no paper work to show that I am any sort of expert, nor do I claim to be one.

So, please read through this with those things in mind. And, please read and study on your own. You can find out things the best that way, but this might be a good starting place. Thanks!

This is going to be a three part series. Here are the first several items, not necessarily prioritized by what is best or most important.

Acidophilus is great for upset tummies and keeping good bacteria around. You need the good bacteria to fight off the “bad guys” that your body encounters. You can get it in chewables for kids or swallowable capsules. You can also find it in yogurt with live cultures. Click here to see how to make your own crockpot yogurt. It is always a good idea to take acidophilus when you have been on antibiotics because antibiotics destroy the good bacteria along with the bad.

Aloe Vera soothes and rejuvenates burned skin. We have an aloe vera plant that we just break off a leaf and squeeze it on. Burns heal so much faster this way.

The last time I used it was a few months ago when I splashed boiling hot water from some pasta I was draining all over the left side of my face. Wow, did that hurt! I had bright red blotches all over, some more severe than others. Part of my eyelid and just below my eye was particularly painful. I kept putting on Aloe every 10 to 15 minutes for the first little while. It soothed and made it much less painful. Then, as I could, I put it on less often. In the morning, there was a small spot on my eyelid and by my eye that was visible. The top of my ear also still hurt, but that is all! Amazing stuff!

Aloe Vera can grow indoors or out nicely. It is actually easy to grow. {This is coming from someone who did not inherit her mother’s green thumb!} Aloe Vera can be purchased, but if you buy a kind with a lot of fillers, it doesn’t work nearly as well. I wouldn’t choose the kinds with funky colors and ingredients you can't pronounce. Check with your local health food store for the best brands. The one I like comes in a see through tube-like container, but I can’t remember its brand name.

Apple Cider Vinegar can be gargled to clear up throat ailments. If you have a tough time gargling, you can take a small spoonful and just swallow it. That method isn’t as effective, but does help. It is especially good with mucous build up and we’ve used it on strep too.

BFC (this stands for Bone, Flesh & Cartilage) from Nature’s Way is the perfect salve for all bumps, bangs and bruises. It heals things so much faster. I could tell many stories of how this has healed in amazing ways. It is really wonderful for sprains, of which we have had plenty. We use this very regularly on "owies".

Echinacea and golden seal are similar herbs. They both strengthen the immune system, but golden seal is a lot more potent. Golden seal should not be taken for long periods of time. Echinacea is safe to give kids and can be purchase in liquid drops. Use when a boost is needed.

Emergen-c from Alacer is such a must-have. Emergen-c comes in little packets that you add to water. It fizzes. It comes in many flavors, all of the ones I have tried are a bit tart, but not unpleasant. The lemony flavors are best in my opinion. Emergen-c gives you plenty of vitamin C, which most everyone knows is wonderful in fighting the common cold and and other ailments. It also gives you electrolytes and most flavors have a good bit of potassium too. Great for sporty kids like mine. Better than sports drinks.

Garlic is something we eat a lot of in my cooking. Not only does it taste good, it has known benefits for your immune system. It has been called “Russian Penicillin”. For an extra boost when feeling ill, I like Kyolic garlic. This comes in capsule and in a liquid. The liquid can be squeezed directly into the child’s mouth. Yes, it is very garlicky! Most of my kids have actually liked the taste. Others took some coercing. But you do what ya gotta do for the kids to help them be healthy!

Garlic oil ear drops work wonderfully well for ear infections. You can get this at the health food store. There is a kind with garlic & mullein that is also fine. The other ingredient is olive oil. When I notice my kids getting runny noses, it often is affecting their ears as well, so I will use the ear drops then, before they start to complain of ear aches. I had one child that got some bad infections, but we never had to go put tubes in or do antibiotics. Make sure the ear oil is warm, not cold, not hot, (room temperature is okay). Then, drop a couple drops in the ear. Treat both ears, regardless of whether the child has pain in both. Finally, put a cotton ball in the ear and you are done.

Okay, there's part one. Don't forget to do your homework! Part two and three will be coming soon, so stay tuned if you enjoyed this little show.