I anticipate Resurrection Sunday all year long.  When I saw the movie, The Passion of the Christ, a few years ago, it shook me to the core. 

    I've believed in Jesus Christ's resurrection since I was a young child, and I hold great faith in that.

    Now that I spend a lot more time thinking about Christ's horrifically painful death on that wooden cross, I am so grateful for the immense suffering and sacrifice He made for me.

    And I look forward to Easter every year, so thankful that we are again reminded of who Christ is and what He has done for each and every one of us.

    Debbie Fortnum is a Canadian artist that spent some of her childhood years in southwestern Oregon, where I live.  She is a beautiful pianist and vocalist - and has led meaningful times of worship in many services. 

    Debbie's "Easter Morning Sunrise" song, in her The Beautiful Piano album, is amazingly haunting and beautiful.  I think you'll love what you hear, on the video below, and imagine yourself going through some of the disciples' hard times as their leader passed away on that cruel cross.  And then, imagine the resurrection!  It's a beautiful song:

    Yummm...the smell and crispy crunch of homemade waffles has been something I've really missed.

    When we switched to a low carb eating plan, traditional waffles were no longer on plan. 

    But I love 'em!  Especially with peanut butter and syrup!  Yum.  ♥

    Inspired by the Trim Healthy Pancakes in the new book, Trim Healthy Mama, I was determined to come up with a healthy, low carb version of waffles that would not only be nutritious, but also delicious.

    And that sounds like poetry...or an advertising jingle.
    "Nu-tri-tious and de-li-cious!"  Okay, laugh at me if you want.  That's just where my mind wandered.  ☺

    Here's the recipe we've made numerous times, that is quite tasty!  Not only that, it's super speedy to mix up!  The best of both worlds. 

Serves 4.

• 2 cups old-fashioned oats, uncooked
• 2 cups 100% liquid egg whites or 14 egg whites
• 2 cups nonfat or low fat 1% - 2% cottage cheese
• 4 tsp. aluminum-free baking powder
• 4 tsp. Trim Healthy Mama Sweet Blend (*see below for other sweetener alternatives and         measurements)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. salt (I prefer Redmond RealSalt with its full mineral content)
• 1/2 tsp. glucomannan powder
• coconut oil spray
• butter

    Heat waffle iron to medium or medium high.  The level of heat may take a little bit of experimentation on your part, depending on what type of waffle iron you own.  Blend old-fashioned oats in blender until powdered.  (Higher end blenders will do this quickly at high speed; for lower end blenders, pulse at low speed until well blended.) 

    Add remaining ingredients except coconut oil spray and butter to blender.  Combine well; let sit for 1-2 minutes to thicken slightly.

    Lightly spray entire cooking surface of waffle iron with coconut oil spray.  Pour batter onto hot waffle iron until surface is half filled with batter.  Close waffle iron and heat to desired level of doneness or until golden brown to dark brown.

    Remove waffles from waffle iron.  Place waffles on serving platter or plate and store in warmed oven, if desired (200° F) or serve immediately.  Before pouring additional batter from the blender, lightly spray entire cooking surface of waffle iron again with coconut oil spray.  You'll need to grease the waffle iron each time before you pour any new batter onto it.  If you forget to grease the waffle iron one time, you'll probably never forget again.  It's time consuming to have to clean out that waffle iron when the oil has been forgotten!

    Since this is an E ("Energizing") meal, you'll want to eat no more than 2-3 squares of waffles at a meal, and be sure to top them with only a tiny amount of butter, if you use it at all.  These are delicious topped with Polaner All-Fruit Jam with Fiber or homemade fruit syrup that doesn't contain sugar in any form.

*4 tsp. THM Sweet Blend is the same as:

•  4 "doonks" THM Pure Stevia
• 3/16 tsp. other stevia sweeteners
• 6 tsp. Truvia or homemade "Truvia"
• 6 packets Truvia or stevia
• 1/4 cup erythritol/Just Like Sugar/ xylitol
• 1-1/2 tsp. liquid stevia

Have you seen the FREE printable Trim Healthy Mama grocery shopping lists I have available?
Check them out!

    Trim Healthy Mama is such a popular eating plan because it's radically changing the way people eat, causing a lot of weight loss and disappearance of many medical problems.  Even those eating Paleo or low-carb are having dramatic changes in their health when they stop eating flour and sugar.

    I had no idea that over 5,000 of you would enter my giveaway for the new Trim Healthy Mama stevia products - wow! 

    Thank you all for taking a minute or two to visit Joy In Our Journey and enter the giveaway.  It was so hard to know that I could only select two winners of this fabulous new sweetener. 

    You'll find the winners listed here. 

    If you weren't randomly selected as a winner, I highly recommend the new Trim Healthy Mama (THM) Pure Stevia, Erythritol, and Sweet Blend products.  They are truly wonderful in their taste.  I'd buy them alone, just for the level of purity in the products, and the taste in my baking and cooking.  But also, these are so much more pure than other products on the market, that it takes a lot less Pure Stevia or Sweet Blend to make foods deliciously sweet - so even if you are paying shipping to purchase these products, you'll use a lot less than you would with other stevia products on the store shelves and online.

    I hope to host additional giveaways of THM stevia products in the future, so stay tuned!

    Also, if you haven't yet downloaded my new Grocery Shopping Lists for Trader Joe's and for any store, they're available here for anyone to download, print, and use for their own personal use:

    The new Trim Healthy Mama (THM) Pure Stevia is an amazing natural sweetener.  ☺

    THM Pure Stevia is not an artificial or chemical sweetener; it is made from the non-bitter, naturally occurring, sweet component of the herb stevia - a glycoside called Rebaudioside A. This naturally sweet component is isolated from the stevia leaf using a gentle water extraction process, with no bleaching involved.  The THM Pure Stevia Extract is also so minimally processed, it has not even been granulated, which means it remains as a fine white powder – like a dust, which is unusual for stevia products, because most stevia is overprocessed.

    In the last few months of using THM Pure Stevia and now the THM Sweet Blend, I've found that I've needed to adjust how much stevia I use in foods.  THM's Pure Stevia and Sweet Blend are much more sweet than other stevia I've used over the last several years, so I find that I'm using a lot less than I used to.

    Because THM Pure Stevia is such a fine white powder, it's a bit more challenging to store for repeated use.  The bag in which it comes may not be convenient to zip and unzip repeatedly for everyone; some people would prefer a "shaker" type of storage container for their pure stevia extract.

    I've used three different methods of storing my THM Pure Stevia.  Now, in case you think I'm just a bit schizophrenic about storage containers, I've been using THM Pure Stevia for the last six months, as a beta tester.  ☺ Thank you, Pearl and Serene!

    This has given me some time to experiment with a few different containers for storing my THM Pure Stevia.  I've used the following so far:

    Now that you can clearly see the three containers I've used to store THM Pure Stevia, let me share with you how they've worked:

    Have any of you been able to try out the new THM Pure Stevia or THM Sweet Blend yet?  Just remember to use less than you would normally use, and you should taste a very pleasant sweetness, especially if you're already used to the taste of stevia. 

    If you are already using the THM Pure Stevia, are you keeping it in the zip-style bag, or are you storing it in another container?  Your comments will help future readers, so thank you for being a part of Joy In Our Journey's community!

     In the interest of full disclosure, some of the links in my posts are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I receive an affiliate commission...without it costing you a penny more.   I only recommend products I use personally. Your purchases through these links help support Joy In Our Journey. I humbly thank you for your support!

    I know a lot of you gals are eating low-carb diets or following the Trim Healthy Mama eating lifestyle plan.

    Some of our guys are all in - convinced that the THM or low-carb eating plan is for them, and they're losing weight and gaining all these amazing health benefits right alongside us.

    Others balk at any changes in the meals they're served.  ☺  Or downright refuse to eat any new recipes.

    My good friend, Serena, gave me a recipe years ago for delicious Venison or Elk with Mushroom Gravy.  When she invited us over for dinner one day, we enjoyed this so much!  Yum!  What I loved about it was that it took me 15-20 minutes of preparation time in the morning, and then the crock pot did the rest until our dinner was ready!

    We started using Trim Healthy Mama in our home in January 2013.  Since that time, I've neglected to make Venison with Mushroom Gravy - even though it's one of my husband's favorite recipes - because of the off-plan ingredients found in cream of mushroom soup.

    This morning, realizing that I still had at least 10 lbs. of venison packed up in my freezer, I decided that today was the day that I served my husband one of his favorite MAN recipes:  THM-style.  ☺

    If you don't have any venison or elk, feel free to use stew meat or 1/2" thick sliced beef roast.

    Homemade low carb, gluten free cream of mushroom soup actually takes very little time at all to prepare.  The neat thing is that it makes a big batch, 6 cups' worth, so there's enough to use for now and freeze for later.  That's the best of both worlds!

    I filled my 6-quart crockpot (here's my favorite crockpot in the whole wide world!) about half full of thawed, browned venision, but I didn't think to weight the meat to see how much I added.  I'm going to make an educated guess and say that I used 3 lbs. of venison for this crowd-pleasing meal.  Feel free to cut yours down in half for a more manageable recipe for a smaller family.  We're not a large family, but we love leftovers! 

• 3 lbs. thawed venison, elk, stew meat, or beef roast
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 6 Tbsp. butter
• 2 Tbsp. fresh sage, chopped
• 1 lb. sliced mushrooms
• 2 celery ribs, chopped
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
• 1 Tbsp. sea salt, or to taste (I like Redmond RealSalt)
• 1 tsp. pepper (or to taste)
• 1/2 tsp. glucomannan powder (or if not low-carb, arrowroot powder or corn starch)

   
    Place coconut flour into a shallow dish or plate.  Add 2 Tbsp. coconut oil to 12" frying pan on medium heat until oil shimmers.  Coat both sides of wild game or stew meat or sliced beef roast in coconut flour; place coated meat into hot oil in frying pan for several minutes until both sides are browned.  As meat finishes browning, remove from frying pan and place browned meat into large crockpot (4 quart or larger).  You will probably need to add additional tablespoons of coconut oil with each pan of meat that you brown.

    While meat browns in the frying pan, begin making Low Carb Mushroom Gravy:  In a large 6-quart pot or dutch oven, heat butter over medium heat until it begins to brown and becomes fragrant, 3-4 minutes.  Add chopped sage and cook for one additional minute.  (Turn down the heat if the butter begins to burn.)

    Add sliced mushrooms, diced onions, and chopped celery ribs, stirring well.  Saute until mushrooms and vegetables are tender and lightly browned, 4-5 minutes.  Pour broth into pot and bring to a simmer.  Cook for an additional 4-5 minutes, letting flavors blend. 

    Transfer broth/vegetable mixture to food processor or blender.  Caution:  this is hot, so handle with care.  Blend or puree broth and vegetables until smooth.  Taste and add additional salt and pepper, if desired.

    When all of the browned meat is placed into the crockpot, pour blended broth/vegetable gravy over meat.  Cover and cook on low for 6 hours.  Just before serving, sprinkle 1/2 tsp. glucomannan powder over gravy in crockpot; whisk well.  Whisk in 1 cup heavy cream; add additional salt and pepper, if needed.  If needing thickening, sprinkle additional glucomannan and stir well.  Serve immediately in soup bowls, or over Dreamfields pasta (follow directions on box) or cauli-rice (recipe for cauliflower rice not provided). 

Click on the recipe, below, to download and print out your own copy of the recipe!

    Like many of you who are following the Trim Healthy Mama eating plan or a low-glycemic or low-carb diet, the sweetener aspect of eating this way has been a bit tricky for me.  And I do love sweet treats.  ♥

    When Trim Healthy Mama was originally written, the authors recommended NuNaturals Pure Stevia Extract as one of the best stevia products to use with their plan because of its purity and taste.

    Unfortunately, in April 2013, NuNaturals changed the formulation of their Pure Stevia product.  My family couldn't get used to the change in taste and level of bitterness...and we're not very fussy.

    People can grow their own stevia plants, and dehydrate and grind up the leaves, but it will still have an unusual aftertaste that takes some time to get used to.

    When the NuNaturals version of stevia was no longer an option my family could use, we chose to use several other stevia/erythritol options...but didn't really love any of them.  If our bodies could have tolerated xylitol, we would have used that, too.  We weren't too happy about using Truvia, because it's most likely made with GMO corn products, and it is highly processed.  :(

    Over the last year, we have anxiously been awaiting the new Trim Healthy Mama Stevia products.  I'm very excited to let you know that these products are now available!

    Pearl and Serene sent me some of their new sweeteners so I could give them a try.


   THM Stevia sweeteners are available in three different varieties, for various uses:

    How is THM Pure Stevia best used?

    It contains a tiny "doonk" (spoon) to sprinkle very small amounts of stevia in your foods and beverages.

    Based on my 15 months of experience in using stevia products, the THM Pure Stevia would best be used by adding it to beverages and anything needing sweetened but not needing the bulking action of sugar.

    For example, I wouldn't use this as the only sweetener in most baked goods (cakes, cookies, etc.), but it could be used in combination with the other THM sweeteners (THM Erythritol or THM Sweet Blend) in baked goods.

• sweeten a cup of coffee or tea
• sweeten a cup of yogurt
• add to fruit syrups
• 1/2 tsp. = the sweetness of 1 cup sugar
• sweeten protein shakes
• and more!

    When opening the bag of THM Pure Stevia, tap it on your counter a few times. Then, zip the seal before opening the bag, because the powder likes to "plume" a little when first opened. You’ll find a tiny spoon (1/32 of a tsp.) inside the pouch. This is your “doonk” spoon. When adding the powder to your drink or recipe with your doonk, turn spoon downward and gently tap it on the side of your glass or bowl as you empty it out. This will allow the stevia to flow out of the spoon.

    Don’t put the doonk back in the pouch, as you’ll have to dig around in the white powder to find it. Find your doonk its own special home somewhere else in your kitchen. ☺

    THM Erythritol can be used alone or combined with THM Pure Stevia in recipes.  It provides the "bulking" action in recipes that need 1 cup of sweetener, for example, so the THM Erythritol is great for baking!

    You can also combine THM Erythritol with THM Pure Stevia to make your own homemade "Truvia"; see directions on the chart below for the "Homemade Sweet Blend Recipe".

    There are many stevia blends on the market, but unfortunately, the majority of them use fillers that won’t do your health or waistline any favors. Stevia that is blended with sugar, dextrose, fructose, or maltodextrin can raise your blood sugar and slow weight loss.

    Stevia takes a while to get used to using, for most people.  Keep in mind that if you have never used stevia extract or stevia products, there will be a period of adjustment to the taste...although the THM Stevia is far better tasting than anything else I've used so far!

    For my own family, it took us 6-8 weeks to adjust to the taste of foods made with NuNaturals stevia so that we couldn't taste the "aftertaste" anymore.  Even though the THM Stevia products taste wonderfully, you may possibly have an adjustment period where your body is adjusting away from using sugar as its sweetener source, and switching to using stevia and erythritol exclusively.  This is normal.

    Also, the THM (Trim Healthy Mama) Stevia sweeteners are definitely sweeter than other stevia products on the market, which is nice!  You'll use less of it each time, saving you money in the long run.

    I thought it would be helpful to provide you with a THM Sweetener Conversion Chart.  This is being shared with the permission of the Trim Healthy Mama authors, Pearl and Serene.  Just click on the graphic, below, to download and save/print your own THM Sweetener Conversion Chart:

   To enter this giveaway, please use the Rafflecopter widget below.  (Email subscribers may need to click back to the original post to enter this giveaway via the Rafflecopter form.)

    Two winners will be selected in this giveaway:  one will win a 1 oz. bag of THM Pure Stevia Extract, and the second winner will win a 1 lb. bag of THM Sweet Blend!

    The giveaway ends on Friday, April 11th, 2014 at midnight (Pacific time)...

    ...and please read the requirements, below, for entering this giveaway.  ☺   I will be validating the winning entries to make certain they are legitimate entries.    U.S. entries only, please.  Thanks!

    I received two bags of THM stevia for review, but was not compensated financially in any way. The opinions expressed are those of Joy In Our Journey.com and are based solely on experiences while using these sweeteners.

     In the interest of full disclosure, some of the links in my posts are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I receive an affiliate commission...without it costing you a penny more.   I only recommend products I use personally. Your purchases through these links help support Joy In Our Journey. I humbly thank you for your support!

One Little Word by Amanda Cabot
Lorraine Caldwell will lose her family fortune to a reckless cousin if she doesn't marry quickly. When she learns her long-lost brother is alive, she hopes she's found the answer to her problems. What she finds instead is a mysterious carousel carver who turns her life upside down.

A Saving Grace by Jane Kirkpatrick
Grace Hathaway must rescue a dear friend from a remote and notorious clinic that promises healing but delivers only heartache. In a place laced with deceit, where lives hang in the balance, whom can she trust to help her?  Jane Kirkpatrick is having a special giveaway on her website!  Please sign up to win, HERE! 

    These four short stories are each very different from the other, but each is unique in its setting and subject.  “A Moonlight Promise” by Laurie Alice Eakes is an adventure, romance, and mystery taking place in October 1825 on East River, between New York City and Albany, New York.  Steamboats on the river were popular and the Erie Canal was ready to open just as this story takes place.

    Camilla, recently arrived from England, is attempting to get to Albany to join her friend, Joanna, who is heading west.  Camilla has a complicated past and is running from her previous life of wealth and protection to an unknown future.  Nathanial is the young steamboat captain whose boat is the last to leave for Albany as Camilla desperately boards his boat in spite of his threat to take her back and leave her at the dock. He finally relents and of course, becomes attracted to her.  There are villains and heroes in this story and it is exciting to the very end.

    “Lessons in Love” by Ann Shorey is a story set in Chicago in 1858; it involves a young single woman, Merry Bentley, who has set her life goal as being a writer (in a time where women are not highly thought of if they have or desire a career outside of home and marriage).  She has accomplished obtaining a job for Kipler’s Home Weekly where she writes articles on Christian marriage and family; the editor of this magazine assumes she is a man since she only signs her articles a M.M. Bentley.  This leads to many complications which make it difficult for Merry to maintain the Christian integrity she so wants to present.  She is sure the editor will not accept her articles if he knows she is a woman.

    Merry has a piano teacher, a nice Christian man, who tries to help her in her efforts.  The story becomes even more complicated with the two of them involved in secrecy and subterfuge; it is interesting to the end!

    “One Little Word” by Amanda Cabot is set in May 1892, somewhere near New York City; a nice little romantic story with many facets.  A young woman is faced with losing her inheritance unless she marries a cousin she detests---and soon!  A young man from England is set on completing his goal in America and returning to England to fulfill his parents’ wishes.  The two come together in a most unexpected way and make this an exciting and wonderful story.  Carousels become an important part of the story and make it even more fascinating to the reader.

    “A Saving Grace” by Jane Kirkpatrick is a short story set in 1911 in Washington State, actually relating to real places and events of that time.  A mysterious, insidious tale of people going into an institution where they could overcome physical “ailments” as diagnosed by the woman doctor in charge, who happens to have a very strong personality.   Some died in their struggle to overcome their “ailments”.

    This is a story of a woman attempting to rescue her good friend from a desperate situation and the help she received while accomplishing her task.  An eye-opener of a conclusion awaits the reader.

   I received a copy of this book for review, but was not compensated financially in any way. The opinions expressed are those of Joy In Our Journey.com and are based solely on experiences while reading these books.

     In the interest of full disclosure, some of the links in my posts are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I receive an affiliate commission...without it costing you a penny more.   I only recommend products I use personally. Your purchases through these links help support Joy In Our Journey. I humbly thank you for your support!