Gardening, Huge Sale, and a Hot Offer! (and a very cute kid!)

It. Is. HOT. Here.

Is it hot where you are?

We have had over 100 degree temps here today, yesterday, and continuing for a few more days, they say.

Good thing that I have good garden workers like my youngest son!  He is 9 years old and he loves to help his dad with all of the planting, watering, weeding, and picking from our garden this year.  Our kitchen surfaces are generously covered with zucchini, summer squash, green beans, basil, peppers, and more.  With all of this hot weather, I suspect tomatoes will be in full-force within a week.  I have been testing out many recipes that use zucchini, in particular, in hopes of putting together a little zucchini recipe collection for you all.  Since our zukes seem to be coming on earlier than most other people that I am hearing from, I am hoping that I can find some award-winning recipes (Well, the Johns Taste Buds Award, anyhow!) into an ebook for you all.  I love how easily zucchini grows, but too often I have tried recipes that have not been all that good, and I feel like my ingredients have been wasted.  :(  Right now on the blog you can check out some of our favorites:

Zucchini Quinoa Patties
Chocolate Zucchini Cake (YES!)
Black Bean and Zucchini Taco Bake

My husband has handled all of the gardening this year.  He choose heirloom varieties and has been doing all the doin's organically.  You can read here about the essential oil concoction he put together to help keep the bugs away from our food.  :)

HUGE STEVIA SALE!  Due to changes in the marketplace that are SO good for you, the consumer, but not so favorable for me, the small business retailer  :), I have made the decision to liquidate all of my current inventory of Sweet Leaf Stevia.  You can read more about this decision here.  Please take advantage of these sale prices and stock up on all of your favorite flavors while they are available.  (Psst....know what else?  Read on to find out how to get FREE SHIPPING, too!)

FATHER'S DAY:  I dropped the ball.  You see, being a mere mortal mother that I am, sometimes things fall to the wayside.  Recently, I put together a Father's Day gift pack, and then never got around to telling you all about it.  :(  Sorry about that.  But fair is fair:  It's still up, and you can stock up on the gift packs through this weekend.  It's all good, no matter what day it is.  Right?  :)

Have you seen this thing on facebook where business and blog pages are mentioning that facebook has changed things up again, and now you won't see their posts unless you clickety-click something?  Yeah, well, I don't know how much truth to that there is, but I do notice that the stats I see are showing me that only 20-30% of you that have Liked the Supermom's Health and Wellness facebook page are actually getting to see the updates that I send out.  Every day or so I send out a recipe, link to an interesting article, ask questions, or do *something* that is related to healthy living.  If you haven't been getting those posts, would you click on over to the page, make sure it's "liked," and then also be sure that under the Like section you have checked "Show in News Feed."  Hopefully that will help.  And, hey--if it's all an urban legend, forgive me?  (I checked snopes.com and it isn't mentioned there....does that count as due dilligence?)

Since it is a hundred degrees out, I think we need a *hot* offer for you awesome people!  How about FREE SHIPPING on all orders of at least $100?  Great time to get your stevia, vitamins, and everything else you need!  This offer is good through the weekend.  (possibly longer, depending on how quickly I get back to changing the settings...)

Goodbye, Sweet Leaf Stevia

Let's talk about Sweet Leaf Stevia.  I have offered Sweet Leaf products for sale on this site since the very beginning.  In my opinion it is the best stevia product on the market, it is the only one I recommend, and I enjoy using it in my own home.  Years ago when I started this business, stevia products were hard to find in stores, so my decision to offer it here was primarily because I wanted you to have access to a product I believed in, and I knew that many of you wouldn't easily find it in your local stores.

Fast-forward to 2012, and you know what?  Sweet Leaf Stevia has really expanded in the marketplace!  Even in my small-town stores I see it on the shelves regularly, plus I see it offered at really great prices through Amazon, Vitacost, etc.  These large businesses have the volume buying (and selling) power that I, as a small business, do not, and therefore they are able to offer much lower prices than I could possibly sell for, and oftentimes you can even get free shipping!  I think that's a great opportunity for you all, and after some serious consideration,  I see it as my time to go ahead and liquidate my current stock of Sweet Leaf Stevia products.  All of the Sweet Leaf Stevia products have been reduced dramatically, in the hopes that you will go ahead and stock up now, and help me clear my shelves.  Please go buy all you want before your favorite flavors are sold out!

I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to share this product line with you all, since it's one that has been such a benefit to my family for so many years.  I still think it's a great product, and no doubt I will continue to mention it here from time to time.

You can still check out some of my favorite recipes and tips about Sweet Leaf Stevia here:

Why I recommend Sweet Leaf Stevia over all the others.
Ways to use Sweet Leaf Stevia
Supermom's Healthy Lemonade Recipe
Peppermint Tea Recipe

Essential Oils for the Garden

Photo of my own personal organic gardener and husband of nearly 21 years, Dave Johns, our youngest son who at 9 years of age is the biggest gardening enthusiast of all of our children, and our faithful and sweet doggie Brandi.  :)

My wonderful husband Dave has been heading up a big garden for us this year.  We always garden without pesticides, but with mixed results.  (some years our plants get eaten up)  This year Dave did some research and decided to try out a combination of essential oils to help keep the bugs away.  It worked really, really well in our garden and in our fruit trees and grapevines, so now we'd like to tell you about it!


Just combine: 


16 drops tea tree oil
16 drops clove oil
 and 32 drops peppermint oil
with a gallon of water.


Dave used a gallon size sprayer to combine all of these items and spray the garden, trees, etc.  He learned that it wasn't really necessary to spray directly on the plants, but instead he generally sprayed the entire garden area.  He saw a dramatic reduction of bugs in the area, and our fruit trees are doing better than they have in years.


He mentioned that he hasn't seen any bugs dying from this spray.  We don't want to hurt bees, earthworms, or other beneficial garden friends.  (I don't even want to kill non-beneficial bugs!)  We just want to let the plants grow so we can eat them without sharing with buggy critters!  :)  Hopefully this mixture is just creating a less appealing spot for bugs to hang out, without hurting anybody.  We have had a bumper crop of zucchini, summer squash, banana peppers, kale, swiss chard, green beans, and bell peppers so far, and nothing tastes like essential oils, which was actually a concern of mine.


I hope this is helpful to you.  If you try it, let us know how it works for you.  OK?

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

So let's just say that you have a lot of zucchini from your garden that needs to be used up, and you and chocolate have a friendly relationship.  Why not put 'em together and make this simple cake?

(yes, yes, I KNOW that I just posted another chocolate cake recipe the other day.  WHAT'S YOUR POINT?!)  Lol

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  No-stick spray a 9x13 pan.

Stir together:
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups coconut sugar
three quarters of a cup of unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder without aluminum
half teaspoon sea salt
4 eggs
one cup natural applesauce
half cup melted coconut oil
3 cups grated zucchini

Once you mix up all of the ingredients just pour it all into your pan and make for 50-60 minutes, until the center tests as done.  Very moist and delicious.

Zucchini Quinoa Patties

I tweaked a recipe from eatingwelllivingthin.wordpress.com to get this.  Turned out so. darn. yummy.  A lovely way to use up your garden zucchini!

2 heaping cups of cooked quinoa
three-quarter cup Mexican blend shredded cheese (or similar)
half cup small curd cottage cheese
1 cup shredded zucchini (try to press the water out of it first)
3 eggs
3 tablespoons whole wheat flour
half a cup of Thrive freeze-dried onions, or about a half of a small onion, chopped
half a cup Thrive freeze-dried celery
half teaspoon coconut sugar
a little sea salt and black pepper and garlice powder
a sprinkle of Lawry's seasoned salt

To cook quinoa:  Bring 2 cups of water plus a little salt to a boil, then add one cup of quinoa.  Reduce heat to low and keep covered while it cooks for 15-20 minutes or until all the water is absorbed.  Let cool for a couple minutes.

I use an electric skillet at 250 degrees for this, but you could also use a skillet on your stove top.  You'll just have to work on finding the perfect temp. to cook these at.  Use no-stick spray to coat your skillet and let heat up before you drop the patties onto it.

Combine all the ingredients and then drop about a quarter-cup of mixture at a time onto the skillet, kinda patting it down just a little bit.  Let cook for about 4 minutes on each side.  Easy and so delicious!

Healthified Chocolate Oatmeal Cake

Let's say, theoretically, that you have PMS that is telling you FEED ME CHOCOLATE CAKE!!!!  What should you do?

I'll tell you what to do.  You make this cake and eat it too, with no guilt to cry about tomorrow when the PMS roller-coaster takes you over another loop.  ;)  (also TAKE YOUR VITEX ladies!  It will help you not want to kill people quite so much during that very special time of the month, and that's worth a whole, whole lot.  Just ask your husband.)

Chocolate Oatmeal Cake

• 2 cups boiling water
• 1-1/2 cups oatmeal
• 1-1/2 sticks butter
• 2 cups coconut sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place the dry oatmeal into a medium bowl. Pour in the boiling water. Add the butter, sinking it into the hot water and oatmeal so it will start to melt, and set aside.  Spray a 9 by 13-inch pan with no-stick spray. In a large mixing bowl combine all of the other ingredients and then add the oatmeal and butter mixture.  Mix well.  Pour it into your 9x13 pan and bake for 35 minutes.  You can eat it without frosting.  It is moist and yummy just as it is.  :)  

Black Bean and Zucchini Taco Bake

Just created this tonite and it turned out to be quite good.  Kind of like a taco lasagne!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray a 9x13 pan with no-stick spray.

You will need:
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium green pepper, chopped
a little olive oil
22 ounce salsa verde
10 ounces diced tomatoes in juice (or you can whiz them up smoothly in your blender if your kids hate tomato chunks like mine do)
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
2-3 cups of cooked black beans
1 medium zucchini, thin sliced and then quartered, or you could shred it
1 package of ten 8 inch whole wheat flour tortillas
grated cheddar cheese or mexican blend cheese

Using a large skillet, saute the onion and green pepper til soft.  Stir in salsa verde, tomatoes, spices, beans, and zucchini.  Stir well and frequently so the bottom doesn't burn.  Bring to lightly bubbling and let cook for about 5-10 minutes.

Rip up 5 of the tortillas into bite-sized pieces and cover the bottom of the pan and layer over each other.  Then pour half of the tomato/bean/zucchini mixture on top and spread out.  Sprinkle half the cheese on top.  Then do another layer of ripped tortillas, followed by the rest of the tomato/bean/zucchini mixture, followed by the rest of the cheese.

Bake at 400 for 15 minutes.  Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.  Cut into squares or rectangles like you would for lasagne.  Could serve with sour cream.  Yum!