Artichoke Dip - The Maui Vegetarian

This is by far one of my most favorite dip recipes prepared by my all-time favorite chef, Brian Igarta, who also happens to be a friend of mine. Brian, who worked as a chef in five-star restaurants in Hawaii, has written several vegan cookbooks with his wife, Crystal. I have about five cookbooks that I use heavily. Their cookbook, "The Maui Vegetarian", is one of those.

Enjoy this demonstration. I'll put purchasing information for Brian's books up in the "Mommy Tools" section soon.

Pine Needle Tea

We've been battling whooping cough at our house. Not fun at all!!! But we did make one discovery that I just have to share -- pine needle tea!

This is amazing stuff. Made by steeping freshly collected pine needles from any true pine tree (do NOT use Ponderosa Pine needles as it can cause an abortion) in boiling water, it tastes a little like peppermint tea. But, more than just a flavorful hot drink, it is a powerful medicinal herb. It contains 4-5x as much vitamin C as fresh-squeezed orange juice and a lot of vitamin A as well. It works as a powerful decongestant and expectorant. Add a natural sweetener, like honey or agave nectar, and your kids will love it!

This video gives some helpful, step-by-step instructions:

Don't Feed the Greed

Ever thought about the food your children eat? Where it comes from? How it's processed? Who has touched it along the path to your table? What moral lessons we teach our children from the food that we serve?

There are a lot of reasons why I choose to feed my children a mostly vegan diet. It's not based solely on health concerns or being kind to animals, although those are both valid reasons. I think the following clip from Intelligence2's debate "Animals Should Be Off the Menu" explains my thoughts on the subject in such an eloquent way, I just had to share it. The clip below it contains an introduction to Philip Wollen and his concluding remarks.