KEEN-wah: Adding Quinoa to Your Diet

It seems like lots of people are going gluten-free these days. Quinoa (pronounced “KEEN-wah”) can help fill the grain void in a gluten-free diet. It’s high in protein and fiber.

I don’t eat gluten-free, but I’ve tried a handful of recipes for quinoa. Lately I’ve been passing out recipes to friends who are trying to figure out how to add quinoa into their diets. So, I put together this mini-blogpost as a resource.

The following recipes are ones that I’ve tried and liked. If you like stronger flavors, try adjusting the spice amounts…say, doubling them…to get the flavor just how you like it.

Curried Quinoa

Lemony Quinoa

Quinoa Tabouli

Quinoa Salad with Dried Fruit and Nuts

Quinoa and Black Beans

Quinoa Pancakes (not gluten-free)

Baked Quinoa with Apples

You can also try recipes that use couscous and substitute quinoa in for the couscous. Note, however, that quinoa and couscous have very different cooking times and adjust the recipes as needed.

If you’ve got some yummy recipes to add to the list, leave me a comment! Happy cooking 🙂

Things I Will Miss about Costa Rica…and Some that I Won’t

I wrote this post while still in Costa Rica, but just never published it because my husband and I got so sick with sinusitis the last week and half of our trip, and then we topped that off with a pinched nerve in my neck and pneumonia and a ruptured ear drum for my husband. Ugh. Not a fun way to end our trip. Anyway…here are some things that I will miss and a few that I won’t:

What I’ll Miss

The Beach!!!

Living in Nashville these last six years, after growing up in Southern California, I have really missed the beach. Even just SEEING the ocean. And in Costa Rica, unlike SoCal, the ocean is warm! I have loved surfing, playing in the water with my kids, gathering shells as my special souvenir of our trip, and seeing Luke so stoked to be surfing again (and getting Devon out on a board).

The View

Seriously, the view from our house is amazing.

Monkeys in our Backyard

Back in Nashville, we will no longer see monkeys right outside our door. Going to look for the monkeys will no longer be a regular activity. Aria will no longer be talking to the monkeys…except maybe at the zoo, which simply can’t compare to seeing a dozen or two outside your house.

Delicious Tropical Fruits

Pineapple, papaya, mangoes, bananas, plantains, watermelon, avocados….all sooooo good here. We have definitely been taking advantage of the fruit. We even bought a juicer upon arrival and have been enjoying fresh juice and fruit smoothies. Yum!

The Adventure

We have so many stories and special memories from this trip. Almost every day, it seems, we have some kind of adventure: beach-going, surfing, exploring, experiencing the animal kingdom (monkeys right outside our door even as I type this), locking keys in the car, traveling on dirt roads, navigating without street names or addresses, and the list goes on and on.

Gorgeous Sunsets

We’ve taken a ton of sunset pictures here. We can’t help ourselves. So gorgeous.

Perspective

Getting out of our regular routine, especially in a “second-world” country, helps me see my life a little differently. It helps me really appreciate things that I can easily take for granted at home (e.g. air conditioning, a big house, access to just about anything I could want). It reminds me that the rest of the world is not like my little circle. Things that would normally be easy can be very difficult here, so you better be creative and resourceful. I’ve also been thinking about how life is what we make of it. I mean, we can find adventure in Nashville, too. We can do family stuff during the day in Nashville, too. (We’ve done that a little bit, but could sure do more since Luke can make his own schedule.) We can go to the beach….um….at the lake? Hmmm…NOT the same, but we can give it a shot and explore other things Nashville has to offer.

Speaking Spanish

I really enjoy practicing my Spanish. Although there are plenty of Spanish-speakers in Nashville, I would have to consciously seek them out rather than having opportunities regularly presenting themselve like they do in Costa Rica.

Devon’s Awesome Daycare

Though we didn’t plan on putting Devon in daycare, that’s what we ended up doing. Five mornings per week. They only speak Spanish there, so Devon has been learning the language via immersion. They do all sorts of crafts and fun stuff and Devon always says, “I had so much fun!” when I pick him up.

Fresh Fish

Our neighbor spearfishes for a hobby, so we’ve loaded up on just-caught fish. Super good, healthy AND super cheap. Can’t beat that.

Geckos

They’re like pets that take care of themselves. They hang out on our ceiling, and watching them hunt bugs provides nightly entertainment.

What I Won’t Miss

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!

Centipedes, beetles, spiders, mosquitoes, wasps, all different kinds of ants and a plethora of other insects. And that’s INSIDE the house. I will especially not miss the tiny ants crawling on me almost continuously and appearing en masse on any particle of food that sits on the counter/sink/floor for more than two minutes (NOT exaggerating!). And I won’t miss the tarantulas and scorpions. Egad!

Our Rental Car

A 1992 Jeep Grand Cherokee with 244,000 miles on it, no air conditioning, manual locks and windows, passenger door lock that the key won’t open, headlights that don’t work, windshield wipers that barely work….and did I mention no air conditioning in the heat and humidity? At least it got us from point A to point B, and for that we are very grateful. (In case you’re wondering, this was rented from a friend, not a rental car company.)

A “Backyard” Dangerous for our Kids

The “backyard” here is just a deck with an unsafe railing and a pool. We had to watch our kids (ages 3 and 1, especially the 1yo) like hawks to make sure they didn’t fall off the back deck or into the pool or down a crazy set of stairs. Since it’s so hot here and the house does not have central air conditioning, we had to keep the doors open to keep the house cool (relatively speaking!), so we didn’t have the built-in safety of closed doors. Looking forward to being “off-duty” in that regard.

Washing Dishes by Hand

Yes…I miss my dishwasher. Call me spoiled. Whatever.

Living out of a Suitcase

Everyone knows living out of a suitcase gets old after awhile. Ten weeks is a long time.

Being Away from our Friends Back Home

We’ve made friends here in Costa Rica, but I’m definitely looking forward to seeing our loved ones back in Nashville. Two months is a long time to be away from all of those relationships.

We’ve had a great trip, but yes….I am looking forward to going home.

Cloth Diapers: How I Got Started Step-By-Step

While pregnant with my first child, I did a lot of research on cloth diapers. The idea of throwing thousands of disposable diapers into a landfill and having those diapers sit there for eternity…well….let’s just say the environmentalist in me couldn’t stand the thought. Of course, there are myriad other benefits as well–cost, baby’s health, etc., but I’ll cover that in another post.

In doing my research, I found the amount of information out there can be overwhelming (and sometimes even conflicting), and it can be a very time-consuming process to dig through it all and figure out how to make cloth diapering work for you. Not everyone has the time to figure it all out. So, I put together this post to hopefully make it easier for you to actually do it. It’s basically a summary of my research and links to where I actually purchased everything I needed. Bear with me for the long post, but I wanted this to be a useful how-to guide.

Diapers

You can do cloth diapers many different ways, depending on how much you want to spend and what seems easiest to you. Prefolds with covers and washing at home is the cheapest way to go. If you want to spend a lot more, you can get all-in-one diapers, which are basically the cloth diapers with covers attached, so it’s as easy as putting a disposable on. The all-in-one diapers are pricey (say $18 each), and you have to have enough of them to get you through at least two days if you want to do laundry every other day. I opted for prefolds with covers.

The infant size prefold works for babies up to about 15 pounds (approximately 3-6 months). Then you move up to the next size. With 36 diapers, you need to do a washload about every 2-3 days, keeping in mind that you have to have enough clean diapers out of the wash to last you through the time it takes to do the load of laundry (which is a little while as you’ll see when I explain about the washing below). By the way, there are Chinese prefolds and Indian prefolds. Indian prefolds are softer but Chinese prefolds are more durable. I chose Chinese for durability and they are soft enough for me. By the way, cloth diapers you find at Babies R Us or Target are pretty worthless from what I’ve read online. (I haven’t purchased any myself.) Good for burp cloths only, but not thick enough for diapering.

The website that I use for my prefolds is alpinebabyhub.com

Some friends of mine also recommend Cloth-eez prefolds from greenmountaindiapers.com

Covers

There are different types of diaper covers (fleece, wool, polyurethane…). The polyurethane ones seem like the most hassle-free and the most waterproof to me, so that’s what I bought. There are sized covers (XS, S, M, L, XL) as well as one-size covers (which have snaps to adjust the size up and down so that you can use the cover all the way from infant to toddler). I opted for sized covers, because I wasn’t sure if the one-size covers would fit as well. I tried to go straight for size small and skip the newborn size since baby #1 weighed 8 pounds 4 ounces at birth, but that didn’t work. Small was too big, so I had to go back and buy the infant/x-small size. I bought 4, but 6 would have been nice. You need multiples for when poop gets on the cover and you need to wash it before using again. I bought a couple Thirsties brand, a ProRap one, and a Bummis in the infant/x-small size. I’ve decided ProRaps are my favorite. They are the cheapest of the ones I found and they work really well. The Thirsties ones seem to take a long time to dry out. The Bummis ones are fine, but they have a flap on the inside front that helps hold the cloth prefold in place, which seems unnecessary and it takes a little bit longer to get the diaper on baby. We now use ProRaps almost exclusively. By the way, ProRaps Colors are completely different from Classic ProRaps (which are white). I recommend the classic white ones over the colored ones for the sake of durability. I do have 1 one-size cover now which I like. We’ll see if it’s durable enough to last through all the stages that it will fit through.

The website I use for diaper covers is nickisdiapers.com

I love that Nicki’s Diapers has free shipping on all diaper covers and on orders over $75. They also carry lots of different brands. When you’re starting off, it’s nice to buy several different brand covers so you can see what you like best and what works best for your baby.

Diaper Pail and Liner

For a diaper pail, I bought a large kitchen trash can with lid (Sterilite 13 gallon from Walmart). I originally bought a Mommy’s Touch Diaper Pail Liner, but it was coming to pieces after 8 months. I made it work til 12 months, because I didn’t want to spend the money to buy another one. I finally gave in and tried a different brand — Blueberry — which was a few dollars more ($20-$24). After more than two years, it’s holding up GREAT….so I would highly recommend a Blueberry one.  You can purchase from the Blueberry website. Or, you can purchase through Amazon and combine it with another item to get free super-saver shipping. The Nicki’s Diapers website linked to above also has diaper pail liners, but I can’t comment on them since I haven’t tried them.

Baby Wipes

When using cloth diapers, you might as well use cloth baby wipes also. I originally bought 45 wipes. This number worked well for me. I usually use one wipe per diaper change.  You may want to order more if you use multiple wipes per change. When I had my second child, I purchased another 30 wipes (plus extra diapers) just so I wouldn’t have to do laundry quite as often. Anyway, you can get flannel wipes at the Nicki’s Diapers site for $10.50 for 15 wipes.

When using your cloth wipes, you can make your own wipe solution to moisten the wipes. They sell pre-made solution, but it’s so easy and cheap to make your own. There are more complicated recipes you can find online that use essential oils, but the basic recipe is:

1/4 cup oil (olive oil, almond oil, etc)

1/4 cup baby wash/shampoo

1 cup water

Pour these into a spray/squeeze bottle in this order (the oil makes the baby wash slide right out of the measuring cup) and shake to mix. Voila! Squeeze/spray on a wipe right before using.

On the Go

You can buy a wet bag for on-the-go. A wet bag is a little mini waterproof bag to put in your baby’s diaper bag for dirty cloth diapers (or wet clothes). I bought a Mommy’s Touch wet bag through Amazon.com, but you can also get wet bags through Nicki’s Diapers or Babies R Us. (By the way, if you’re interested in cloth diapers, but the idea of cloth diapering when you’re on-the-go doesn’t appeal to you…..one option is to do cloth at home and disposables while you’re out.)

For wipes, you can buy a travel wipe case, fill it with cloth baby wipes and then add enough baby wipe solution to moisten them so they’re ready to use.

Washing Diapers

There are two methods for handling dirty diapers — the “dry pail” method and the “wet pail” method. With the “dry pail” method (my chosen method), there’s no need to rinse out dirty diapers prior to washing. Just throw the soiled diaper into the diaper pail and sprinkle some baking soda in. The “wet pail” method seems way too messy and totally unnecessary to me. It means you throw soiled diapers into a diaper pail full of water. It typically also means that you rinse out the diapers before putting them in the pail. Um…no thanks.

When your baby gets older and starts eating solid foods, the poop becomes more solid. At this point, you’ll want to start dumping the solids into the toilet before putting the diaper in the pail and sprinkling baking soda on it. You may want to use diaper liners, disposable things you lay on top of the diaper to catch the poop and then lift it off into the toilet. I haven’t used those, but they exist.

You’ll need to wash diapers every 2-3 days. The diapers, covers and diaper pail liner all go into the washing machine. Run a cycle on cold with an extra rinse and no detergent. (This helps rinse out the initial gunk and the cold water helps prevent stains.) Then run another cycle on hot with detergent and an extra rinse cycle. Dry on high for an hour and a half. You need that long for the diapers to dry and to help sanitize the diapers. Washing and drying takes me about 3 and a half hours. To help with stains, I add 1/4 to 1/2 cup each of vinegar and baking soda to the load on the hot wash cycle. That seems to really help. Also…when throwing dirty diapers into the diaper pail, I sprinkle some baking soda into the pail. This helps with odors and also helps with the stains.

It is very highly recommended that you use special detergent for your cloth diapers. This is to make sure that the cloth diapers don’t irritate baby’s skin AND so that you don’t harm the cloth diapers. Certain detergent additives can actually make your diapers water RESISTANT rather than absorbent. Several websites list a bunch of different detergent brands and rate them for cloth diaper washing. Since the websites disagree on some of the detergents, I just tried to find one that everyone agreed on. I ended up ordering a 10-pound box of Country Save detergent online. We have a high-efficiency washer and that first box of detergent lasted 8 months. I bought it at countrysave.com

They now offer 5lb boxes for $9.99 with free shipping.

How Much Will This Cost?

Here’s a rough estimate of what cloth diapering (with prefolds and sized covers) cost me for the first 3-6 months:

3 dozen infant size prefolds: $33

4 newborn covers: $36

4 small covers: $36

Diaper pail: $10

Diaper pail liner: $20

Wet bag: $10

Cloth wipes: $32

Detergent: $10

Spray bottle: $1

Baby wipe solution: $15

Total: $203 (plus some shipping charges and extra costs on my water/electric bills for laundering)

After the initial 3-6 months, your costs will include bigger prefolds and bigger covers, detergent, wipe solution, and the additional costs for your water and electric bills (which are minimal, especially if you have an HE washer and dryer like I do). Keep in mind also that you can use all these items on subsequent children and multiply your savings 🙂

Phew! Thanks for sticking around to the end of this post. I hope it was useful to you. If you have any questions, helpful suggestions for others interested in cloth diapering, or a go-to website for your cloth diapering needs, please leave me a comment.

If you know someone who might be interested in cloth diapers, please send them to this post to get some info and hopefully save them some time 🙂