I am getting hits from people who speak Portuguese and Spanish, lately. Usually it’s just Americans that drop by, so this is a nice change. I only know because I can see that y’all are translating my pages, but don’t worry, I can’t tell where you come from:)
Enjoy your visit, I’d offer you some nice wine that we make, but you know……it’s the internet:)
Le grand sigh…..I had such high hopes of being able to snag myself an empty overpriced covetous luxury home or an abandoned luxury SUV, but alas it is Rapture Day and as far as I can tell I’m still surrounded by Christians.
No volcanoes, no trials and tribulation, no gnashing of teeth. Not even a little wailing or zombies. Damn, I feel gypped.
Poo 
At its most basic, this is a person’s luck. More specifically, it is “family luck”, meaning that it is is inherited through the family line. It is the fortune that we carry around with us. In Old Norse, there is a word that describes the life force, much like words in other languages exist, such as ki, chi, prana, or mana. This word is “ond”. Ond is the life force that flows through everything in the universe. I tend to think of our hamingja as the manifestation of our own personal current of this energy. It both informs and is informed by our vital force and exists as an inseparable manifestation of it. The greater one’s hamingja, the more prosperous one is, or more fortunate. Hamingja affects our wyrd. Rather than luck, which is generally how it is described by most authors, it may be better to think of it as personal spiritual energy, given to each one of us, through inheritance, going back to the original first people created by Odin.
Hamingja can manifest subtly. It can be seen in one who never looks tired or haggard, even when sick, or in the housewife who always seems to get her laundry in off the line before the rains hit. It can show itself more overtly in the fisherman who is always able to make the good haul in an area where others have tried and failed, or the stockbroker with a Midas Touch. It is because of this that many tend to view hamingja as “luck”, but those of us that study universal energy and its manipulation, we know that there is probably more than just luck at play. I consider that as individuals we in the Prairie Sky Hearth all have very good hamingja, and as a family our combined hamingja is very strong. I say this because I see the manifestation in our daily lives; dark clouds come to us just like everyone else, but they never seem to stay long and their effects are more like bumps in the road than anything else.
Hamingja is sensitive to one’s actions in this lifetime. Righteous action has a positive effect upon a person’s hamingja, and feeds their energy. Attitude plays a big role as well. Looking at the sunny side of life and making lemonade when life hands you lemons is integral for the development of positive hamingja and overall strong ond. You attract exactly what you send out. One’s hamingja can also be strengthened by daily devotions and other personal rituals. The rituals of the Year Wheel, so common to European pagan practice will also strengthen our personal luck reserves, as will living with the seasons. Energy raising activities such as blots, sumbels, and galdr can turbocharge your Hamingja for a little while – so can initiations. These are the spiritual equivalent of a dose of Red Bull.
Sometimes we receive symbols, words of power, or other charms during meditation, initiations, dreams, or astral travel, to increase our hamingja. These gifts of spirit should be cherished and kept close for they are meant for the individual. Unless otherwise instructed, do not share these gifts. World mythology is rife with stories of what can happen when someone discovers your spiritual keys to power.
It is possible to overpower or influence someone else’s hamingja. This can be done positively, such as giving physical and/or energetic assistance to a loved one during times of illness, injury, or emotional distress. Care must be taken, though, especially if you decide to do something drastic, like take on the symptoms of someone you know. This activity has been performed successfully by heathen and non-heathen groups alike, but it is very draining for all the recipients. When you work to add to or influence someone’s hamingja, or to overcome it entirely, establishing healthy routines for yourself in the realm of diet, exercise, meditation, and spiritual life is paramount.
Of course, this is not the influence that we think of, when we consider someone influencing another’s hamingja, is it? It is unfortunate that many people come to study magic and energy manipulation to fill voids in their life with what they mistakenly believe is “easy” power. I’ve met far too many individuals like this in my short lifetime. Most straighten out sooner, rather than later, because being nasty – whether one uses magic or not – takes dedication and perseverance. It is difficult to keep the flames of hate burning brightly for a long period of time, although some folks seem intent on clinging to bad moments in their lives. Most people will give up quickly, though. Those individuals who do keep at it are largely driven by fear, insecurity, and envy. This can happen knowingly and intentionally, but many times it happens in ignorance.
Regardless of how it happens, this type of attack against someone else’s hamingja is destructive to the originator. The energetic backlash created can be physically, mentally, and spiritually debilitating. It does no one any good to engage in this sort of behaviour because in doing so, one has tied his wyrd to another but in a 100% negative way. It retards one’s forward advancement on whatever the spiritual path may be and also manifests physically in day to day living as chaos and instability. These are the folks that most of us give a wide berth when we see them coming. One’s hamingja can be drained to the point that it takes years to rebuild – sometimes never.
I have heard of one particular occultist – well known in some circles – who used to befriend people that he did not particularly like to begin with – for the sole purpose of cursing them. This was done for many years to see if the curses that this individual developed would work. I am told by those close to this magician that their personal life went to shit, and indeed I knew that simply from following a few events that garnered a bit of press many years ago. Also, their ability to work any sort of magic appears to have gone the way of the do-do bird. No more spells, no readings, no teachings, no otherworld journeys – nothing. I know that this individual now lives an almost cloistered, hermit-like existence. I am an optimist who likes to see the good in people, so I hope that this downtime is being put to good use and that he is able to rebuild his personal energy/luck because when he was switched on, he was one hell of an amazing pagan.
Most of the time, though, we lose hamingja because of our own stupidity. We choose French fries over salad, beer over water, and easy over right. We alone must live with the consequences of our actions. Impulsive decisions, lack of planning, poor living, gambling on poor odds in life one too many times – these can lead to a depletion of our inherited luck. Acting dishonourably can drain it significantly. It is important to realize also that when we do those things, guilty though we may feel, the guilt means nothing. We can not hide behind forgiveness. It is not the hamingja of the one you have lied to that suffers – but yours. Your hamingja is affected by your actions.
As you go through life, be aware of hamingja, because its existence with your wyrd and ond is symbiotic. We will all screw up and do some rotten things from time to time. That is simply life. When we consciously strive to increase our hamingja by living true and by accepting responsibility for our actions, we will find that those trips off the path will occur less and less, as we attract better and better into our lives.
Open your eyes, folks.
I find it funny that the other day I was mentioning to Dave that “I bet something really freaky will happen now because people are all worked up about Obama’s poorly photoshopped ‘birth certificate’.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Now we have a dead terrorist leader, conveniently given a watery grave yesterday.
Whatever.
Are the American people that retarded? Apparently many are, because people are doing the rah rah party in the streets, ding dong the witch is dead. I won’t deny anyone their moment to gloat or tie one on, but really…..I can’t possibly be the only person on the planet that’s noticed that whenever the US president is being shady something either gets blown up or something really dramatic and over the top happens to take the heat of the government. Come on folks, really.
I also find it funny in a not so haha way that when the late Benazir Bhutto “accidentally said the wrong name” and mentioned Bin Laden being murdered, in 2007, by someone that she suspected would also attempt to kill her, that she was assassinated about two weeks later.
Come on folks.
Have a drink, throw darts at his picture, and come back to reality. Japan is still suffering, and according to a recent Chernobyl anniversary issue of my newspaper, the danger isn’t over in The Ukraine, either. The US government is pulling a Great Britain a la the late 60s and cheerfully devaluing its dollar by printing huge amounts of paper money. Americans are living in their own Winter of Discontent, but it’s been happening slowly so no one really pays attention. How many people who read this even know what the Winter of Discontent is?
At the same time, the Chinese have been openly talking to Russia about becoming financial allies and dropping the US dollar all together. In the meantime, China has been dumping its US dollars by buying whatever chattel and real estate it can, at whatever cost, just to unload the money. This is a pretty telling sign of things to come, folks. What China is doing won’t devalue the dollar, but it does fortell something serious. The big players don’t want anything to do with the US dollar any more. It will not be the world standard in a couple of years. It may be rubles or yen, or something else, but it won’t be the good ol’ almighty US Greenback.
This is why it costs almost $2 to buy a loaf of bread in the grocery store in Canada, folks. This is why tomatoes have gone up, peppers have skyrocketed, and fruit is getting pricier. These are the things that we have to import into our country from the US because it’s too damned cold to grow them up here most of the year. Look around you Canada, our biggest trade partner and next door neighbor is falling, and if you think they’re not going to take us down with them, think again.
Starting in the 80s, the full out Americanization of Canada began in earnest. How many of us have lost our pensions and retirement investments right along with the Americans over the last few years? That’s right, because everything is backed by their dollar and if you follow the paper trail, you’ll learn that our banks haven’t really been our banks for a long time – they’re owned by US banks and financial institutions. When they fall, we go with them. The fact that our dollar is up there gives us a nice feel good moment as we go shopping south of the border. However, when our dollar goes up, the US does not buy raw goods from us to support their industry, because they can’t afford to and they’re our biggest customer. So while it may be groovy to say you got a $300 purse in the US for $25 at a town-sized outlet store, just bear in mind that you’ll need to use that purse to stuff your belongings in when our economy collapses and you find yourself homeless.
But yes, in the meantime, load up on shooters and beer and get drunk because Bin Laden is “dead”.
Orlog/Wyrd
These two concepts go hand in hand. Understanding them not only helps you to understand the mindset of your ancestors (if your ancestry happens to be European, particularly Northern, or Germanic, either term is acceptable) but these concepts give you a framework for discussing aspects of pagan spirituality indigenous of Europe without having to borrow from other cultures. Here and there you will see me refer to “karma” because this is a term that all of us in the Western cultural neopagan movement are very, very used to hearing. Most of us, though, have a very weak and diluted understanding of this word but we use it because it is in our source texts, many of them also very weak and diluted.
I like how my friend Hárekr summarizes wyrd and orlog for those who just want the quick explanation: Orlog is the chess board and rules of the game, the pieces you play with and how you play the game make up your wyrd. You can’t change the rules and you can’t take away the board or else you’re no longer playing chess, but you can change how you function within those parameters, determining if you play a good game or a lousy one, regardless of whether or not you win or lose.
Wyrd
Wyrd is the complex interwoven series of events – past, present, and future – often symbolized by weaving, threads, and tapestries in European mythology. The word is Anglo-Saxon in origin and it derived from an Indo-European root, “uert”, meaning “to turn”, among other things. Wyrd is that which has turned or that which has become, but since the threads of wyrd are always being spun, and the tapestry always woven, nothing stays what it has become. So then wyrd also embodies the perpetual state of “becoming”, where everything is always being changed into something else as it is woven together with what it was and as the tapestry grows, then becomes what it will be, which can change at any moment.
Wyrd assumes responsibility. Each one of us is responsible to live righteously according to our own understanding. As our knowledge of the world around us grows, so does our responsibility to live true. This is not the justification of a thing. We can justify anything, but that does not make it right or true. Wyrd will not let you hide behind holy books or rules – it demands truth. In this regard, a person’s knowledge – their words and actions – set the tone for how their future will be woven. Think about it, how many times have you cheered for the underdog in a story or movie, who broke every rule, but did the right thing? It is still very much present in our collective un/consciousness.
This is in sharp contrast to the current Western understanding and application of the word karma. A lot of folk still have this wyrd=karma business stuck in their heads. Now remember, I say “Western understanding” because I’ve never actually had anyone from India or anyone who studies South Asian belief systems explain to me what karma is – just a lot of North American New Agers. So when I speak of karma I am using the word incorrectly and knowingly, in the way that is understood by the bulk of the neopagan and mainstream populations. In this regard, karma is a very facile and surface explanation of Universal Law. According to the dictates of karma as per chapters one through three of most introductory New Age or neopagan books, whatever you give, you will receive. In some cases it is expanded to include receiving something three times over. In the real world, this is not always the case as many good people work their tails off and succeed at nothing, yet always give out good energy and many evil people live long and well, their deeds going unpunished. This use of karma seems more like an enforcement of fear-based morality that seems more in line with Middle Eastern monotheistic thinking. Universal Law goes beyond society’s sensibilities. There are times when you must grow claws to fight the bear – you can not stand by wringing your hands in fear of crossing some imaginary line because you might not be “good”.
Orlog
Our pre-Christian ancestors understood the past in circular and spiral movements, not linear as is the case now. Because of this thought process, the past is always growing – a huge repository of wisdom upon which to draw. As time spirals upward, the circular motion of the spiral means that the future will touch upon the past continuously as the circle completes and begins anew. We still retain some of this knowledge in adages like “what goes around comes around” or “the past catches up to you”.
Orlog is a compound word, “or” meaning primal, original, or “the first” and “log”, a plural of lag, meaning strata, layer, that which is laid into place, or law. In essence, orlog is the most important thing laid down – those actions from the past that bear the most importance in our lives. They do not have to be the actions of the individual – they could be the actions of a distant relative, a past political event, a weather event, or even some seemingly inconsequential family decision made before the native was born. For example, I have no doubt that Hurricane Katrina will be a prominent factor in the orlog of many people of the American South for generations to come. The devestation of Japan will affect the orlog of an entire nation and the land those people call home, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the planet. Over in the Middle East the orlog of several groups is being added to, and the wyrd of many will shift. We see this manifesting quickly, as many people, such as doctors, teachers, and delivery drivers – people who never picked up a weapon or considered that they would one day use one – are now receiving ten minute crash courses in the operation of rocket launchers as they fight to overthrow dictators. These are, of course, more dramatic examples, but this process goes on quietly and subtly all the time. It will never stop as long as there is the existence of something.
In the 19th and 20th stanzas of the Voluspa we are told:
I know an ash that stands called Yggdrasil –
High boughed, wet with white water:
From there comes the dews that fall in the dales;
It stands ever green over Urdabrunnr.
From there come the maidens, great in wisdom –
Three from the sea that stands beneath the tree:
One is called Urd, another Verdandi,
Skuld is the third:
There, they scored on slivers of wood,
They laid laws,
They chose the life for the children of men,
And spoke urlag.
In the Grimnismal, stanza 26, we read:
Eikthyrnir, the hart is called which stands upon
Herfadir’s hall
And eats from Laerad’s limbs;
Moreover, drops from his horns
Fall into Hvergelmir –
From there, all waters rise.
In the Gylfaginning, Snorri writes that each of the three great roots of the World Tree stand over one of three aspects of Urd’s Well. They are relegated to specific worlds within Northern European cosmology: Urdabrunnr is within Hel, Hvergelmir is within Niflheim, and Mimisbrunnr is in Jotunheim. Each has their own function but all act symbiotically.
Hvergelmir is the oldest. This is a compound word, hver meaning kettle and gelm, related to gjalla, gel, and gellan meaning to roar or to make loud noises whose sound carries – the Roaring/Resonating Kettle, sometimes called simply, “The Old Kettle”. It is the origin of the primal waters which boil/seethe upward into the other components of the well. This is the source of the upward push or momentum that causes the wyrd to turn. It is the force underpinning the ever present state of becoming.
Mimisbrunnr, the next level of the great well is tended by Mimir. The name “Mimisbrunnr” is derived from the this jotun’s name. He is the keeper of all that is, and ever was. He guards the Well of Memory, protecting the or-essence. That which will shape the becoming exists at this level. In mythology, Odin sacrificed an eye for a drink from Mimir’s Well, to gain his wisdom. Once something has been placed in Mimir’s Well it cannot be undone. It becomes part of the ever-growing repository of past knowledge, of the “wisdom of the ages”, accessible to all still connected to the All-consciousness (like a Northern version of the Akashic Record or the more secular “collective unconsciousness”).
These waters continuously push and boil up through Hvergelmir and Mimisbrunnir. The patterns set forth in these layers or waters now affect Urdabrunnr, the top layer of the collective “Well of Wyrd”. This is the most active stream of energy, having been patterned and shaped by that which rests beneath (before) it. It is from this level that the Norns draw the sustenance which nourishes Yggdrasil. By doing so, they set in motion the turning of wyrd. This energy flows into the World Tree and through its branches to the Nine Worlds where it manifests. Referring back to the Grimnismal, to the hart who sits at the top of Yggdrasil, eating leaves that were nourished by this essence – as the leaves rustle while he feeds, the water droplets on their membrane (a manifestation of this energetic process) drip down his horns where they fall back to the farthest reaches of Hvergelmir, to keep the cycle going.
By watering the roots of of the World Tree as a gardener or farmer waters his plants, the Norns are literally “laying down the laws” as the expression goes, ensuring that that which was laid down in the deepest reaches of the sacred wellspring will manifest. This is the incessant energy that turns wyrd. This is but one of many symbolic wellsprings or sacred waters of life that frequent world mythologies. While I am not of the belief that one should mix and match the diverse beliefs and deities of so many world cultures, it is interesting to note how such symbols transcend ancient culture, language, ethnicity, and belief.
Spinners, weavers, plants, wells, and according to my son “this is like when we distill and recycle water in science class” – all ways at looking at the cycle of becoming. Rich!!! And yet people still think the ancient Northern Europeans were a bunch of dumb bastards who spent all their time raping and pillaging….hardly!!!
You are right on about Thurisaz moving in two directions (said in response to a friend in a closed group and kept here as the opening statement because it is relevant). The rune poems generally agree that this rune is used to designated a Jotun, and they can be interpreted as forces of nature. This rune is related to Thor and although it is his job to slay giants, he does not slay them all. He only slays enough so that those living on the earth can survive. The forces of nature should be balanced, not removed, which validates offensive and defensive postures.
The Norwegian rune poem:
Thurs causes illness in women:
few rejoice at bad luck.
The Icelandic poem tells us:
Thurs is the torment of women,
and the dweller in the rocks (or cliffs),
and the man of Vardh-runa
The Anglo-Saxon poem says:
Thorn is most sharp for every thane
who grasps it, it is harmful, exceedingly cruel
To every man who rests among them.
All three rune poems agree that this rune is symbolic of dangerous energy. The Anglo-Saxon poem takes a more literal approach, thorns being shaped very much like the rune itself. Thorns in the form of bramble bushes are also barriers both physical and metaphysical. The hag-tessas (hedge riders, or witches) were said to cross the thorny barrier to visit other worlds. Hedges were often grown to protect homes, and today many of us plant hedges in our front yards without really understanding the tradition behind it. The first two poems refer directly to women, while the last one could be suggestive of women because hags, hag-tessas, and hedge witches are female references. The name Vardruna translates literally as “Warding rune”, and it is interesting that this rune in the Icelandic poem is the torment of women AND of the man/husband of Vardruna. Now whether this is a member of the mythical Jotnar or a symbolic relationship between the rune user and the rune itself (or the rune user and the spell they cast) remains to be seen. Vardruna could be a Jotun from folklore that is lost to us, but over the years I’ve come to see that statement as being symbolic of what I mentioned above.
This is one of the most powerful runes for use but it is explosive and dangerous. It has been used over the years to heal and destroy, and gets paired with other runes to keep the work going. Its presence can symbolize a need to take stock of things, to review your path in life, or to hunker down and seek shelter from the storm. Thurs can be the rebel and/or the adversary, the one who seeks to shake things up. Properly channelled this energy can be a motivator and bring about revolutionary change.
OR
How I spent my Mercury Retrograde
Mercury goes direct today. Thank bloody fuck. You know, I never paid much attention to retrogrades or void moons or anything like that because I never found that they affected me that much. Why this retrograde, this time, I do not know. It’s one of those cases where I have always intellectually known the concept, but now I have experienced it. Oi.
In the last three weeks I have had constant site disruption; I’ve not been able to access the platform for my websites, only here and there intermittently. I have either experienced or borne witness to, several downright nasty exchanges that just came right out of left field and made no sense whatsoever. I almost stopped speaking to a girlfriend completely because of the way she suddenly started to act. I have been through two UV light units at work because the brand new one from January simply refused to work one day and then when it decided to work again, wouldn’t cure anything properly. The replacement, also new, decided to behave the same way. I brought in a light unit from home, this one worked. Except it would not cure the nails of two women – my biggest bitches of clients. Of course nothing would work on them. Of course. A funds transfer that should have taken two days ended up taking a week. I got a letter from a collection agency – yup, a collection agency – for a bill that I paid TWICE last year….I checked the calendar and wait for it folks, during a Mercury retrograde in 2010.
The kicker? This is a $20 bill for UPS brokerage fees. Oh. My. God. Who sics a collection agency on someone for twenty bucks? It probably cost more to get the agency to look at the request. So now it will end up costing me about $60 to broker a $10 carbide drill bit for my electric nail file, that arrived on my doorstep last AUGUST. A drill bit that I will never use, by the way, because it costs too damned much.
Oh but it doesn’t end there. I have had problems accessing the voice mail in my Blackberry throughout the whole retrograde. Apparently people have been trying to get a hold of me, but either nothing shows up in voice mail or I can’t get into it.
Yesterday I texted a message to facebook to update my status and it went into an OR Members group instead. I got responses from OR members wondering what the hell I meant by wanting to change my nail site around now that it was down. Down you say? Yup, down. In another retrograde twist, while having issues accessing the management platform for my nail site, I was also trying to get them to change my renewal. I didn’t need all the space I’d purchased last year because I never used it. I was operating my site through WordPress and that seemed to work just fine. They sent me a form. The link did not work. They sent it again. Again it did not work. They sent me another link. This link worked but once filled out, the form would not send. They cancelled everything instead of just the space. Yay.
Last week, my Blackberry began to randomly reboot itself. A couple of times it just plain wouldn’t power on, until I pulled the battery and did a reboot. One morning I had to reboot it four times in a row before I could actually use the bloody thing.
Last night, as I was getting ready for a shower, I was undressing and heard KERPLOP and I looked over my shoulder. There was my Blackberry, sitting happily in the bottom of the toilet, fully submerged under water. I fished it out, I took it apart, I dried it as best as I could. Today, it booted up – I cheered – then came the white screen of death and it died. Nothing since.
I will be in a corner with my bag of Eostre chocolate, a bottle of Cabernet Franc, and my favourite blankie while Mercury goes direct. For your own sake, do not disturb.
Christianity is the belief, that some cosmic Jewish zombie, who is his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul, that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. – makes perfect sense.
And they think my belief system is fucked up
And a happy subverted Anglo-Saxon pagan holiday to you, too!!!
Well, I am a kitchen goddess, so I probably should let out a few recipes here and there, even though the term “kitchen goddess” has nothing to do with cooking. It actually comes from a Canadian Film Board documentary titled “The Kitchen Goddesses” and documents the huge amount of psychics in my home province of Nova Scotia. We rock:)
But, the word kitchen implies that I cook, and cook I do. Currently I have swapped all of my recipes that rest on the Cape Breton Food Groups of Salt, Pork Drippings, Flour, and Carnation Milk to embrace healthier cooking. Still not skinny yet, but we’ll check back on that in a year.
Low carb cooking is proving to be a similar experience for me as vegan cooking was in the mid 90s. There are certain things you are just going to have to give up, as I learned 15 years ago. No matter how hard you try to swing it, cheese made from soy protein is never going to be the same as cheese made from milk. Cake made from exotic organic flours from places with unpronounceable names and flax-based egg substitutes will never taste like the cakes that mom made – unless mom was also a vegan. It is the same with low carb cooking. Like fat, processed carbs give flavour and texture that we enjoy eating. When you take them away, you take away a big portion of the North American modern diet. However, I am trying to give new things a go.
This recipe originally started out as a pancake batter recipe from a book called “Carbohydrate Addicted Kids”. I am using this book as my eating model because it is more forgiving than the adult-oriented versions of low carb eating plans in that you are allowed to eat whatever you want for supper so long as supper only lasts for 60 minutes and the meal starts with one to two cups of raw vegetables. Breakfast and lunch have virtually no processed carbs and serve as introductions to healthy fats and lean proteins. It means I won’t lose weight as quickly as I would on something like Atkins or Protein Power Plan, but it also means that I don’t have to make multiple meals or sit there with naked chicken and salad on a plate while my family chows down on burritos.
At any rate, over the last several years I have tried to make this pancake batter recipe, only to have it turn into scrambled eggs in the frying pan. So, being my nosy self, I decided to change it up a little after noting that my pancakes sort of looked like flatbread when I did them in the oven in a moment of desperation during Sunday brunch. These flatbreads aren’t going to taste like “bread”. They just won’t. If you’re expecting panini, you’ll be disappointed. The thing about making dietary changes is that you have to either let go of your taste expectations or you have to just eliminate that food item completely. I think these taste good, and I use them in place of pancakes and make open-faced sandwiches on them.
3 jumbo eggs, separated
1 cup cottage cheese
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1-2 capfuls of white vinegar
cinnamon
pinch of cream of tartar
coconut oil
Preheat an oven to 300F. Line a cookie sheet with tinfoil and grease with coconut oil.
In one bowl, mix the coconut flour, cinnamon, and baking soda. In another bowl, mix the cottage cheese, vinegar, and three egg yolks. With the mixer on it’s highest setting, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar in a third bowl, until stiff peaks form.
Combine the coconut flour mixture with the cottage cheese mixture. Fold into the egg white mixture.
Drop by large spoonfuls onto the cookie sheet, spreading gently. Don’t worry if it’s not perfectly even because it will grow a little and spread out during baking. Bake for 25 minutes, checking halfway through to see that it is browning evenly. If not, turn the sheet and drop the temperature a bit. Remove from the oven when done, allow some time to cool and use a pizza cutter to slice up pieces of flatbread to your liking. The total amount of insulin affecting carbs in this recipe is approximately 22 grams – but remember that is the whole tray. If you divide it into 9 pieces then each slice of flatbread has 2.4g of insulin affecting carbs. Cutting it into 12 pieces reduces it even further to 1.8g and if you can squeeze 15 pieces of flatbread then you are down to 1.5g. However, at 9 pieces it looks like flatbread, lol, at 12 and 15 pieces they are significantly smaller, but I do find this “bread” to be filling. I usually cut it into 9 pieces and then use one piece for an open-faced sandwich. It doesn’t toast well in a toaster but it does ok in a toaster oven. This recipe will last me a week, tightly wrapped in the fridge, with a couple of slices left over to serve as “pancakes” with a bit of sour cream and a thinly sliced strawberry or two on Sunday brunch.
I use coconut flour instead of the soy flour that other low carb folk seem to be so fond of. I hate soy flour with the burning passion of a thousand flaming suns. It is FOUL. The benefits of coconut products are widely available for perusal online, so I won’t repeat them here. Coconut oil has become the staple oil of my cooking, and it also gets used on sandwiches, etc in place of margarine and/or butter. In fact, you can replace most hard animal or processed vegetable fats with nice, unprocessed coconut oil and it will work just fine with all sorts of extra health benefits.
The rivers are set to crest in about eight days, maybe a bit sooner. So far the floodway is helping to divert the bulk of the water away from the city, but the outlying communities in all directions are all under a state of emergency. This is a shot of the Provencher Bridge, from one of the footpaths at The Forks. Despite the fact that everything is “OK”, there is still flooding and pretty much everywhere in Southern Manitoba is threatened, floodways or not. For most folks who live in this area, it is business as usual, as I learned when I moved here six years ago. The flood happens, everyone knows it’s coming, so why bother getting all flapped up? LOL We’ll see how the flood systems hold up when the rivers DO crest here, next week:P
