Outside

Boosted Broth or I am in a Rush and need Something to Sustain Me

• Your Favorite brand of Beef Bone Broth (or make it yourself)

  (Depends on how much you want but I make a large pot (about 8 cups) to store in the refrigerator.)

• 3 tablespoons Dried Ginger

• 2 tablespoons Trader Joes’ Mushroom Seasoning

• 1 tablespoon Black Garlic

• 2 tablespoons Chicken Bouillon Seasoning

• 1 teaspoon Black Pepper

• Pinch of Salt

• 1 tablespoon Dried Onions or Garlic Powder

• Cayenne Pepper

  (There is no measurement on this because it is your call on how spicy you want this broth. Don’t forget that the ginger adds a kick.)

  1. Add beef bone broth to a pot and turn the heat on for a low simmer.

  2. Add all the dry ingredients and let the broth simmer until a slight boil.

  3. Once you see it start to boil, remove from the heat.

  4. Let cool and store or enjoy as a drink through the day or add some noodles to it!

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  When we are not taking the kids to daycare or not running off to work, I have my husband take the kids out immediately after breakfast. Why? Several reasons:

• You will feel energized.

• Natural sunlight, helps promotes vitamin D production.

• It boosts serotonin levels.

• Sunlight, first thing in the morning can help your sleep better at night.

  Since doing this, I have noticed a difference in my children. They aren’t as crabby. I am so very serious. They come in ready to do something else in a much more manageable emotion level. I love it. It makes morning tea much more pleasant.

  Do you have a morning routine? With or without children? If so, share! I would love to see more ideas.

  xo.

Butter Swim Biscuits

or documenting life.

Butter Swim Biscuits recipe

2 1/2 cups of flour

4 teaspoons of baking powder

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

2 cups of cold buttermilk

1 stick of melted butter

Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.

Stir in buttermilk until a shaggy dough is formed.

Pour melted butter into an 8-inch square baking dish.

Place dough into prepared baking dish and spread evenly with a spatula.

Bake at 425 degrees for 20-25 minutes*

Note: You know your oven. Baking at 425 might not be best for your oven. The biscuits may be overcooked if you bake for 20-25 minutes. Keep an eye on them to get the golden brown color.

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I have been trying to document things. Either by little notes in random journals, taking photos, or sending text messages everywhere so it can be found months or weeks later.

I have been stressing to my parents about documenting their story their history so it’s there and can be found and also because I am nosy about the past lol

It’s important to know your history not only because of that blah blah of repeating it again but also so you have an anchor, a foundation, something you can hold on to and maybe inspire you.

How do you document your family history or moments?

To Be Fearless

Chicken Noodle Soup

• Shredded Chicken

  • This could be store bought, pre shredded or purchased rotisserie chicken you need to shred OR fresh chicken you cooked and shredded. Either or all is fine.

• Two Tablespoons of Olive Oil

• 1 stalk of Chopped Celery

• A few Sliced Carrots

  • Depending on how big they are and how sweet, you make the call of how many carrots you want.

• Minced Garlic

  • Garlic is my favorite. I use this in everything and a fairly decent amount of it. While two tablespoons would be fine, feel free to add more if need be.

• One Large Yellow Onion Cut in 4

  • While normally chopped onions work best, we have family members that do not like onions, so to still get what we need from onions, large chunks.

• 4- 5 Cups of Chicken Broth

  • Store bought or freshly made depending on your time.

    • Mini Recipe: Fresh Chicken Broth

      • Boil chicken, veggies and seasonings, strain. You can freeze the broth for up to 3 months or use immediately.

• Salt

• Pepper

• Two Tablespoons of Mushroom Seasoning

  • We get ours from Trader Joes

• One Tablespoon of Dried Black Garlic

  • We also get this from Trader Joes, and I put this ish in and on everything

• Two Tablespoons Powdered Ginger

  • If you don’t have access to powdered ginger or have a preference, use fresh minced ginger.

• Two Tablespoons Chicken Bouillon Powder

• One Tablespoon of Cayenne Pepper

• Parsley

  • Fresh is better but dried works well too.

• Cooked Egg Noodles

  • We don’t always use egg noodles, sometimes ramen or ditali pasta but the moral of the story is it needs to be cooked separately. These noodles soak a lot of the liquid in the soup, and you don’t want to have to constantly remake the liquid in order to eat.

In a large pot, add your olive oil and let heat (do not burn). Once heated, throw in your onions, celery and carrots (do not add the garlic in yet). Lightly salt and pepper the veggies. Let cook for three minutes to get a little char.

Add your minced garlic and stir (do not let it burn).

Add your seasoning: powdered ginger, dried black garlic, mushroom seasoning, chicken seasoning and cayenne pepper. Stir and let cook for about two minutes.

Throw in your chicken broth, put the burner on low-medium. Keep an eye on it. You are waiting for the carrots and celery to soft enough for a fork to go through it. Once they are soft, turn up the heat slightly, add your shredded chicken. Stir and let them get to know each other and for the chicken to warm up for at least 5 minutes.

While that is going, gather your bowls and add the cooked noodles to them. If you are using dried parsley, add it to the noodles.

Remove the pot from the heat and turn off your burner. Ladle the hot soup to the bowls and top with parsley and enjoy!

You are able to freeze any leftovers :)

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I went back and forth quite a bit to decide if I wanted to pick this up again. There is value in writing but like most things the issue of time and self-doubt came about. But I decided to commit myself to change and to remember the me that was fearless enough to write and write in a public space.

For this Sunday, I decided to let my kids play in the rain, and really be conscious of what my next steps are, in life. Not only from a career or business perspective, but for me as an individual. Who do I want to become and which direction do I want to take to become that. Sundays with GoodRiver will still be centered around the family but me as well because who doesn’t love content about the person creating the content ;)

Hello, Again.

It has been some time since I have posted and let me tell you that things have been busy on this front. Prepping for a winter in the Carolinas is an interesting one. Between the one minute, it is 90 degrees and the next day it is 30 degrees. One thing I am learning as an herbalist and my family needs is that it changes and the beauty of looking towards herbs/plants as healing first, is there is something for everything.

Slippery elm with honey or agave for the kids (above 1 year old). Echinacea and hot water bath soaks for pain, steam blends to clear the lungs etc etc. Natural healing looks different for everyone and there are different ways to get the healing that you need.

Basically, what I am getting at this week in this mini post is that with natural healing there are different paths and there are different herbs for the same thing or more. The internet, all the books are vast in knowledge and its alright if its overwhelming or if you don’t know where to start. Go back to the basics and take it from there. Ask questions and do your research.

Sundays are for Pancakes. . .

Or the attempt to create traditions.

Pancakes (recipe) with a side appearance of bananas

• 1 1/2 cup of Almond Milk

• 1/4 cup of White Vinegar

• 2 cups of Flour (unbleached preferred)

• 1/2 cup of White Sugar

• 2 teaspoons of Baking Powder

• 1 teaspoon of Baking Soda

• 3/4 teaspoon of Salt

• 2 Large Eggs

• 4 tablespoons of butter

• 2 teaspoons of Vanilla Extract

Combine milk and vinegar in a small bowl for 10-12 minutes and set aside.

Melt butter on stove top or microwave.

In a large bowl, add flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk until combined.

In a smaller bowl, whisk your eggs, then add in milk mixture as well as melted butter. Mix well.

Add vanilla extract to your wet ingredients. Mix.

Pour wet ingredients into the large bowl with your dry ingredients. Whisk and then let sit for 2-3 minutes.

Note: Mixture looks thick but pours thin. Do not add anymore liquids or flour to mixture.

Using a soup spoon, pour mixture into a buttered pan over medium or low heat. Make the pancakes as big or little as you want. Once you see bubbles, flip over.

Any leftover mixture can be stored in the refrigerator for up to one week.

To make the mini banana pancakes

• Slice your banana into rings.

• Using a fork, dip a single ring into the pancake batter.

• Make sure it is fully covered in batter and drop into the pan.

• These rather fast so keep eye on them. Like traditional pancakes, once you see bubbles, flip them over.

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Growing up, on Wednesdays, my family would make homemade pizza and have game night. Wednesdays was payday, so that was the day after school we would go to the mall get one thing we wanted and then come home for game night and pizza. This changed when I turned 16 and started working. Unfortunately, my job, any job I had, for whatever reason, would not give me off on Wednesdays. But I slightly digress.

Now with a family, creating those memories, creating those traditions/themed days are important. Starting with Sundays. Why? It is the easier day to start something new.

This past Sunday, I made mini banana pancakes for my daughter (my son doesn’t have teeth yet) and pancakes for the rest of the family. And the joy I got from ole girl eating those pancakes without syrup! I was too happy. And seeing her munch and run around, made me want to do this every morning, even if that means losing that extra hour of bedtime. So, Sundays will be for pancakes and then who knows what else. I’m just going with the flow.

Its the joy, y’all. I live for it. Above is my pancake recipe. I hope you enjoy it.

xo.

But What to Do?

We try on the weekends to not do a bunch of running around with errands but some weekends that doesn’t work. This recent weekend after a bust in plans to go out of town with the kids, we took a stab at much needed cabinet restock. Let me say that each time I go food shopping, I always have to stop and say is this worth it? Can I make this from scratch? How do I stretch the dollar even if I coupon? A lot of decisions were made in that 30-minute shopping session. And here are our thoughts (to note, we already eat less meat and that is not due to price but more of being conscious of what we are eating. A balance diet and all):

1. Make it ourselves.

   1. Nothing beats convenience but it is harder and harder to find good quality items that won’t break the bank. We are small business and a lot of our household items come from small businesses. But also, a lot don’t. Again convenience.

2. Canning

   1. I and I say I because I am hands on learner. YouTube is great for a lot of things but I learn best when I have someone guiding me. With that being said, canning overall is very interesting to me, its either you spend all day doing it or you don’t at all. So, I need to decide if that is what I want to do with two children under 2 (this is a time thing).

I know that above two are huge and they are items we will be working towards but how do y’all make things work for y’all?

Instagram for the Win

Like Pinterest, I use Instagram for a lot of inspiration and ideas for food. Very rarely do I find a recipe that does not require me to make edits to it. But today was the day.

The Modern Nonna, who I randomly found (thank you algorithm), posted a recipe for Kompot. This is a “juice” so to speak where it is made from naturally sweet fruits. She posted two ways of making this drink, I chose to boil, strain and chill, which is the method that she demonstrated within her video.

I used the exact same fruit; apples, dark plums, pears and peaches; washed and seeded. Put into a pot with a gallon of filtered water and boiled for 30 minutes. After I removed from the heat, I strained it and per Nonna’s recommendation, pureed the fruit (super good).

Let me tell you… this drink was perfect. It did not need any additional sweetener, which I was skeptical of. The sugar level was much higher than I thought it would be. But when super cold this drink was perfect.

Would I change anything? Yes, after I strain the fruit, I would remove the skin because there is a lot of pulp. Other than that, the actual recipe itself does not need any updates.

Here is The Modern Nonna’s video breaking down the recipe.

This is a new family favorite and side note, drinking it hot was really good too and my personal preference.

xo.

Sundays with GoodRiver

Just like everything, it all begins with an idea. And what a glorious idea this is. I haven’t blogged in such a long time; I almost forgot how to get started. But it begins with an idea and then movement.

You are here because you want to know more. You want to know how GoodRiverxo lives. I appreciate you for that. Sundays with GoodRiver not GoodRiverxo are Sundays with my family. Good for my daughter, river for my sons. On Sundays, we cook and the only cleaning that is getting done are the dishes and the dinning room table. Beyond that, it is cuddles, farmer market runs and reruns of our favorite shows.

I wanted to share this part of us with you because it is the foundation of GoodRiverxo. Taking care of family, promoting wellness through group chats, sharing photos is part of our everyday wellness and now it is a part of yours. Whether you have purchased from us previously or just curious about who we are, this space is welcoming you as part of our Sundays.

xo.