Organic Granny

Joyeuse Noel!  Soon you will be able to say this-- in a variety of languages-- and really know that you are into the Christmas season. I said "Merry Christmas" to a woman upstairs at Step Above coffee shop today, and she said the same back, so maybe it's begun? If you have missed the previous 3 days of crafts / gifts made from various household items, you can check them out here:   Day 1      Day 2       Day 3      You will notice that we have built in some Gluten-Free Christmas Cookie Recipes as well!   ⁹ Ugly Christmas Sweaters At some point in the 80s or 90s there was a run on really cute Christmas sweaters.  People knit them as gifts and some people spent a lot of money to buy them in fancy stores.   Then the tide turned, and the sweaters were proclaimed "ugly" and ever after people wore these sweaters as some sort of indicator of how trendy they were.  Or something? Now I am happy to say that today's craft makes use of any ugly sweaters-- or perfectly n

I hope you are having a pretty mellow day today. The more mellow you are (that includes smiling, (even if you don't particularly feel like it), the more healthy it is for your brain. Not kidding-- read all about it in " How God Changes Your Brain " by neuroscientist, Andrew Newberg, MD and Mark Robert Waldman.   Today we are going to do a Christmas craft / gift that relies on your having baking soda on hand as its main ingredient. You definitely will need some other supplies for this craft / gift, but the result will be pretty minimally costly, I promise. And you will feel great!   I am referring to, of course, CHRISTMAS BATH SALTS as today's crafty item.   This is one that you may let your child help you with, unless, of course, Santa opts to give them the Grinch Bath Salts in their stocking... in which case, you might want to do this activity by yourself again. (sorry) Get the recipe for the Grinch Bath Soak  HERE                                      I like t

Nice to have you here to do a little craft with recycled materials that you likely have around you somewhere.  If you missed the craft from yesterday, you can   check it out HERE DECEMBER 12, 2021 .  A couple of years my husband and I met his cousins at Church.  They are from another city and have a "beach house" in our community.  Like my husband, they grew up in Evangelical Lutheran households-- GERMAN Evangelical Lutheran households.   It was the first day of Advent-- "the Coming of the King of Kings." The Pastor -- seemed like a priest to me-- in vestments, carrying the whole service by himself except for some help at Communion Time and the ladies crewing in the basement with coffee afterwards-- announced that the small fir tree in the Church yard that they had marked to be used this year as a Christmas tree, had been cut down and taken off.  Grinchy thieves.  Last night, apparently. So, today's craft has to do with  wood  in honour of the stolen tree.   Tre

These 10 Days of Christmas on Organic Granny's site are henceforth dedicated to readers who are making a valiant effort to celebrate the Season without consuming gluten!  I was thinking.  When folks are gluten-free during a holiday season, like Christmas, there seems to be an awful lot of time given over to baking and the like.  For the gluten-sensitive person, that might entail a lot of temptation and / or a lot of expensive ingredients used to sub in for something that might not necessarily smell or look or taste like the "usual" item.  Disappointment. So, why don't we just branch out here and do something else creative.  If you have kids you might want to involve them in the activity (no pressure-- you can also do it while they are at school or asleep), A few (maybe up to 10) ideas for crafts or gifts made from stuff you already have about-- old Christmas cards, scraps of wool, mismatched ornaments... we'll see as we go.  One craft a day with a reflection, and

  Here we go with 10 Days of Holiday fun and creativity!! The crafts are pretty simple and goofy sometimes-- but will click into your creative side, and should be relaxing and fun to do by yourself or with a couple of close folks. Some added creative ideas for crafts and gifts are in between the free activities.  The cookie recipes are all gluten free and vegan.  If you make a couple of dozen and freeze a dozen, you will have enough cookies for a party around Christmas where they ARE  ALL  GLUTENFREE! Here we go: Day 1 Craft is HERE     Craft = Folded Pages Angel  Cookies =GF Thumbprints   Beautiful laser-cut nativity set that your kids will love to paint as a pre-Christmas craft that can be displayed for years to come... homeschool kidart proudmama  shopetsy  <click Day 2 Craft is HERE     Craft = Mittens with Greens  Cookies = GF Peppernuts Adorable whimsical Library AdventCalendar from Germany-- order now to get it by Dec. 1st bestseller bookworms Christmas <<click 

It is Christmas season, of course, so please forgive my divergence from strictly "healthy" fare... one could argue that I have used high anti- oxidants (raw cacao powder), enzyme-dense sweetening (raw honey), and organic extra virgin coconut oil (among all the other organic ingredients) and therefore, this is a healthy little morsel-- but we both know that that is stretching it a bit!  But it is DELICIOUS and I am guessing that it is healthier than the non-vegan version, and definitely there is no gluten in this recipe.  Scroll down for the history of the Nanaimo bar.  Enjoy, and Merry Christmas! I used a recipe for raw Nanaimo bars found at the (former) RawBC site, but I like raw honey better than agave, and I didn't have almonds, so used walnuts.  I soaked both the Macadamia nuts and the Walnuts.  The base layer is my least favourite, maybe because I am not particularly fond of Macadamia nuts?  If I were to do it over, I would use all almonds for the base, and I am conv

  Several years ago my husband went off to Honduras to help build a church school as a volunteer.  I missed him. I had been eating lots of dopamine-producing foods and honestly had not had any cravings for sweets. And suddenly... well, I invented the most delicious unbaked (not all the ingredients are "raw") brownies that smelled like oreo cookies when I took the top off the food processor.  I will try not to eat the whole pan myself, although that will be hard.  Here is the recipe, but I suggest that you jiggle around with the ingredients to get the exact taste that you want... it's not hard, just put You could, for example, try a little oatmeal for the dehydrated buckwheat crispies (although I think that would be a shame, really, because they give it the 'cookie crumb' texture-- maybe you could try rice crispies?) Melt about 1 T. of extra virgin coconut oil in a dish over hot water. Grind up about 1/2 C. of Buckwheat Crispies into a flour usin