If you've been reading this blog for a while, you are probably aware that I am slightly obsessed with fermentation. :-) This is rather interesting to me, given my natural penchant for control, as fermenting things so often has unpredictable results!  Case in point: my recent experiment with making homemade dandelion wine for the first time.

Always an adventure, this fermentation foray has been especially eventful - including explosions, spewing jugs, yeasty lessons, and more. Read on to find out how to make your own dandelion wine - as well as what NOT to do, as I learned the hard way!  :-)

After a fun break last week to visit with family, I'm back to work and summer is in full swing! It's the season for grilling on the back deck, lying in the hammock in the shade, and enjoying all sorts of fresh summer fare...

It's funny to think about, but doesn't summer also seem like the season for condiments? From burgers, brats, and other grilled foods, to creamy coleslaw and potato salad, it just seems like summer provides the perfect occasion for enjoying lots of your favorite condiments.

Unfortunately, many of these popular toppings are packed with unhealthy ingredients that can increase inflammation, lower your immunity, increase weight gain and cravings, and more. The good news is, there are also a number of delicious condiments that are quite good for you and will add lots of tasty flavor to your favorite summer meals.

In the guest post below, nutrition specialist and personal trainer, Mike Geary, shares 5 healthier condiments you can enjoy with your summer meals this season - as well as 4 of the most popular ones that are best avoided if possible:

As we move into the summer, many are hoping that the spread of COVID-19 will naturally slow as more people spend more time outdoors in the open air and sunshine where transmission is less likely. However, it is important to remember that this virus is likely not going away any time soon. This is why it's so important to do whatever you can to support your body's immune system and strengthen your natural immunity.

With this week's Immune Defense Summit starting Monday, you can get a head start on boosting your immunity and protecting yourself against COVID-19 with this FREE presentation from Dr. Thomas E. Levy. Go watch it now, and you'll discover a number of effective ways to take immediate action and lower your risk starting right now. Or you can also learn more below...

Violets are one of my favorite spring flowers! They are so bright and beautiful in the bright green spring grass, and I love picking them to add some color to our spring salads. We happen to have many of them growing on our property, so it's easy to collect a handful or two in just a few minutes.

While I've enjoyed eating violets my whole life, I didn't know until recently that they actually have some interesting healing properties.

For example, both their leaves and flowers have mucilaginous properties, helping to moisten and soothe inflamed and irritated tissues. This makes violets a great natural remedy for illnesses that involve cough or sore throat.

In fact, as Rosalee de la Forêt at LearningHerbs.com explains, violets have actually been used to soothe coughs throughout history in Native American, European, and Chinese medicine. One double-blind randomized clinical study of children with intermittent asthma found that violet syrup helped ease and significantly shorten the duration of coughs.

Violet-infused tea, syrup, or honey is also great for soothing dry and irritated sore throats, and may also help to move congestion and stagnant lymph related to upper respiratory infections.

Since it's violet season, I thought I would share this awesome recipe for quick and easy violet syrup. It may be a good remedy to have on hand right now - and you can also freeze it for later use during cold and flu season.

Most of us don't think much about the food we eat beyond what's for dinner. In fact, until recently, many people probably didn't even think about that. We live in a fast food nation, and millions of Americans eat out more often than they eat at home - at least, up until the recent pandemic hit and forced everyone to stay home and start cooking for themselves... 

Growing up on a farm, we thought about food a LOT. Since we grew and raised most of what we ate, thinking about food was a long-term proposition. In the summer and fall, we thought about how much of our garden produce we needed to can and preserve for the winter. When chicks hatched or baby goats were born in the spring, we thought about when and how to butcher and store the meat, and how long it would last our family of 5. Most of the foods we bought at the store were purchased in bulk (whole wheat, beans, dried fruit, oil, and animal feed), so we thought about how much to buy at a time to save the most money possible and make every purchase stretch as far as we could. In the spring, we tapped maples and boiled and bottled maple syrup. In the fall, we harvested honey from our bee hives and poured the thick golden sweetness into jars to last throughout the year.

When you raise your own food, your life becomes about food in many ways. This is a far cry from how most people in modern society approach food, and as we have shifted to a mindset of convenience over substance, speed over source, this has been considered "progress." But in a very real sense, distancing ourselves from our food has caused more problems than it has solved.

The truth is, no matter how much we deny or ignore it, how and what we eat impacts our entire world in many important ways.

By making conscious food choices and choosing to learn and care about where our food comes from, we can not only improve our own health, but the health of the entire world - from the farmers who grow our food, to the animals, plants, and soil that support and/or comprise our food, to the environment at large - including water, air, and wildlife.

As the video below explores, food impacts everything, which is why changing the way we eat and working towards a new food system can be so powerful and far-reaching.

The guest on this episode, Mark Bittman, is the author of more than 20 books on cooking and food, including the acclaimed How to Cook Everything series. His new cookbook, Dinner for Everyone, shares how simple and delicious it can be to cook at home, no matter what your dietary preferences are. It's the perfect cookbook to add some easy and tasty variety to your home cooking - which many of us could use right about now!

Watch the interview below to learn why the food we eat can be a solution to many of the issues facing our world today...

As we move forward into what will likely be a long and slow recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, most of us are striving to find a new sense of normalcy in an uncertain and ever-changing situation. While the effects of the pandemic will likely be felt for years to come - both in our economy and our emotional state - there are some potentially positive effects that we can try to focus on.

One of these is the tendency of our human, caring side to come through in times of danger. Many communities are now banding together to care for the less-fortunate among them.

Another positive aspect is our ability to appreciate the "little things" in life, and find joy in small moments that we may otherwise overlook.

Still another positive is the fact that many of us are seeking ways to become more healthy and self-sufficient - whether it be growing some of our own food, learning to cook for ourselves for the first time in years, or taking charge of our own health, cutting out unhealthy habits, and learning natural ways to strengthen our immunity.

This summer's Immune Defense Summit online event comes at a time when this topic is top-of-mind for many of us. In preparation for this event, there are a number of helpful resources that you can access right now to help build up your immune system and increase your odds of staying healthy.

I will be sharing these free resources with you via email and social media over the next few weeks, but first of all, I wanted to share a very interesting eBook that I think you will find quite eye-opening. Inside, you will learn what the media hasn't been telling you about the coronavirus, particularly when it comes to how to actually protect yourself from viral infections like this one.

You can grab your copy here now, or read more below...

Strawberries are usually the first fruit of the season, and even if you don't grow your own, you can often find organic berries for a very reasonable price (conventionally grown strawberries have some of the highest concentrations of harmful pesticides, so you should always choose organic). We look for them to go on sale every spring or early summer, and usually buy a whole bunch and make a nice big batch of jam to last us through the winter. While I love all jam (who doesn't?), strawberry is one of my favorites...BUT - only if I make it the right way.

Freezer jam is my favorite as it is not really cooked, so you get that full, fresh, strawberry flavor. However, it does take up room in the freezer, and of course you have to wait for it to thaw before eating, so I do like to can most of our strawberry jam.

However, I discovered several years ago that I really don't care much for canned jams that contain pectin - especially strawberry. Pectin seems to change the color and flavor to make it much less appealing. Plus, you have to use more sugar than fruit to get it to gel properly, which makes no sense to me. I want to taste the strawberries - not a mouthful of sugar!

Since I started making the old-fashioned kind of jam without pectin, I have re-discovered my love for strawberry jam. Not only does it taste better, but it's a lot healthier for you as it uses less than half as much sugar! I actually haven't used pectin for years now in any kind of jam. I have found that just about any kind of fruit will gel up nicely if you cook it long enough.

Below is an excellent recipe for homemade low-sugar strawberry jam without pectin. If you're not feeling up for canning (which is easier than you may think - especially for jams), you can certainly also refrigerate this jam for up to 6 weeks, or freeze it for longer-term storage.

With everything going on in the world right now, most of us are barely aware of what day it is (I forgot it was Easter this weekend until someone reminded me on Friday!) - so it's not surprising that tax season has crept up on us without warning this year. Fortunately, the deadline has been extended until July, so I don't have to freak out about getting ours done this weekend.

However, I thought it would be a good time to address a financial topic this week, especially as so many people are currently in financial turmoil, laid off, working part time, or simply watching as their stock portfolios plunge in a sickening roller coaster ride of volatility.

Fortunately, at least the latter aspect is not much of a concern for me or for most our clients at the office, since so many of us utilize Bank On Yourself® as an integral part of our financial plan. While there is not a lot we can do to prevent our clients from losing their jobs, at least the plans we design for them can help keep them from losing their shirts in the market!

A prospective client recently asked me what are the main benefits of the Bank On Yourself strategy, and after taking the time to enumerate the three aspects that are most important to me, I thought it might be fun to share my response with you as well. Read on to find out why I'm such a huge proponent of Bank On Yourself, and why I choose this method over all the other popular financial vehicles out there as the core of my financial plan.

With COVID-19 disrupting the lives of millions of people, boosting immunity and staying healthy are topics that are on everyone's minds these days.

While building a strong immune system is no guarantee that you won't get the virus, it can certainly help your body to resist falling ill - and if you do get sick, a strong immune system can help you to experience milder symptoms and recover more quickly. 

There are a number of things you can do to protect yourself as we have discussed previously, but one unique way that many people are improving their immunity is through an age-old practice that humans have used for thousands of years to achieve a number of health benefits - including a stronger immune system and reduced viral load...

As I write this, we were supposed to be on a bus from the Montego Bay airport to our beautiful resort on the Jamaican coast. A few short weeks ago, I was so excited at the prospect of the warm Jamaican sun, relaxing music, amazing food, lying on the beach in the shade of palm trees... Less than a month ago, I was planning what to pack, and debating whether to kennel the dog or try to find a house sitter. Only just over 2 weeks ago, we decided to cancel our trip "just in case"...

Now, all flights to Jamaica in the next several weeks have been canceled, and the resorts are officially closed until May.

How quickly things can change, and how drastically a tiny virus can change the lives of millions of people...

For years, people have given me weird looks when they hear that we can our own food from the garden, or how much time I spend harvesting and preserving vegetables every summer and fall.

Now, it's not so funny. Grocery shelves are sparsely stocked in many areas, and people are afraid to leave their homes. My husband's multiple weekly shopping trips have diminished to less than one. Fortunately, there is little that we actually need to buy. Last week, we prepared all of our meals for the week without going grocery shopping at all!

This is the time of coronavirus - a time when homesteading doesn't look so crazy after all...