A little cheating never hurt anyone...

except in marriage, school, competitive sports, ok cheating usually hurts everyone.  However I'm talking cheating in canning applesauce and tomatoes.  Did you know you can just freeze them?!? It's amazing and easy and all fear of botchalism is removed.  That's a good day in my book!  For the applesauce just wait til it's cool and then pack it into a freezer bag. Tomatoes can be put in whole.  Once you pull them out rinse them and the peel will come right off. I made tomato sauce last night by pureeing  frozen tomatoes, onion, basil and parsley.  Once on the stove I added greek yogurt, garlic, paprika, and sharp cheddar, so good!  Happy Freezing!

Iced Coffee

I have gotten into the habit, if there is extra coffee in the pot in the morning, to make it up like I normally would (cream and sugar) and then put it in the fridge for an afternoon ice coffee treat. It tastes so refreshing! Not, sure what I like more right now, sweet tea or iced coffee. I'd say they are equal. Well, maybe sweet tea with summer meals and iced coffee as an afternoon treat.

I have recently learned from a friend about doing a cold brew to make iced coffee. I haven't tried it yet, but basically you put your coffee grounds directly into the water in some sort of container and keep in the fridge for 24 hrs. Then you just drain out the grounds and there you have a nice thick cup of iced coffee! Can't wait to try it! Anyone do this?

Healthful Blueberry Muffins

Stop guffawing and taste the miracle!  If I had an ad for these muffins that would be it.  

Here's the Recipe;

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

pinch of salt

2 beaten eggs

1 cup milk(a bit more if it seems dry)

1/2 cup applesauce

2 Tbs chia seeds

2 Tbs flaxseed

1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries (choc chips are great too)

(maple syrup for sweetness if you would like)

Grease muffin cups.  combine dry ingredients in one bowl and wet in another. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients.  Add egg mixture all at once to the dry.  Stir just til moistened.  Fill muffin cups 2/3 full.  Bake @ 400 for 20 min.  Cool in tin on a wire rack for 5 min.  I circle around mine with a knife and then pop them out.  My two favorite toppings right now are almond butter and fig butter from Trader Joe's.  Yummmm!!
We are finding everyone a song in our family to go with their name.  Here's the gem we found for Lily;

Last night's dinner!

I spoiled Andy with an all from scratch meal/dessert last night.  Kansas City Ribs, mashed potatoes, homemade applesauce, and strawberry shortcake.  How do you spoil the loved ones in your life?  My family loves food, food, food!!

This is us in 30 years(;

Homemade Bug Spray

The mosquitos are horrible here in MI! Anybody with me? Now that I have kids that want to be outside 24/7 I had to come up with a safe bug spray. I was hesitant to apply regular bug spray b/c of all the chemicals in them, so I did some research on making my own. Let  me tell you, there are TONS of homemade recipes out there! I personally decided to go with the cheapest one to make and see if it works, if not I won't feel bad b/c I didn't spend much money on it! I went with this recipe.

It's SO SO SO easy. I'm happy to say too, that the one evening we all used it, not one mosquito bit any of us! Of course I need to test it some more to give you a full report, but I was SO happy with it that night!

If you have a lemon, rosemary and water, you can make this bug spray! 

Cut the lemon into thin slices and chop up the rosemary (1 TBS fresh or 1 tsp dried)

 

 Put the lemons and rosemary into a large bowl and stir to combine

 

Pour 4 cups of boiling water onto of the lemon/rosemary mixture and allow to cool completely

Strain out the lemons/rosemary

 

 

Add to a spray bottle. Done!

 

 

Apply all over! It's not sticky and it smells good. 

 

If you decide you don't want to make your own, this is a good chemical free, 100% organic bug spray that is safe for kids. I found this at a local health food store. 

 

And let's not forget the Friday blog party!

Click to view the featured nursery

 Keep Checking out the other style contributors when you can

Vivid Hue Home

Rhymes with Smile

Little Black Door

Fancy Free Me

Design Post Daily

Sweet Tea Recipe

When the weather gets hot, I make Sweet Tea! If you come to my house late spring-early fall, you are bound to be offered a cold glass of it. 

Here's an easy recipe I have come up with over the years. It's fast to make. I'm pretty sure I've made it at least 100 times. Maybe that's an exageration, but you get the point. 

Ingredients
8 regular sized tea bags (I usually use Liptons)
1 cup sugar
Water
Ice cubes

Tie the tea bags together and remove the paper label and staple. (tieing them together just helps when you have to take them out of the water) Place the tea bags in the smallest pot you have and fill the pot about half way with water.  Bring to a boil then turn the burner off allowing the tea to steep for at least 10 minutes. (watch it as it comes to a boil, bc it can boil over easily) Fill a pitcher half way with ice. After the tea has steeped for at least 10 minutes remove the tea bags and add 1 cup of sugar to the strong tea mixture. Reheat to dissolve the sugar. Add the tea concentrate to the pitcher over the ice. Fill the pitcher with water to the top. 

A recipe worth repeating!

Are these bananas the sign of a terrible housekeeper?  No!  They are a sign of banana bread! Pretty healthy banana bread too!!

I had an aha moment!  I was adding oatmeal instead of flour all over the place which made recipes lumpy... My friend Jill was like, 'Why don't you pulse it to make it finer?'  It worked and was a quick easy step!

So here's the recipe:
1 cup butter (for the super healthy version,coconut oil or applesauce)
1 cup honey
4 eggs beaten
3 cups pulsed rolled oats
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 cup plain yogurt
Chia seeds (as many as you desire;I sneak in a lot)
5-6 ripe bananas
1 bag of dark choc chips(if you're crazy and prefer nuts, I guess walnuts would be it(;

 I first pulsed my oats and set the butter out to get soft.  I then whisked together the flour, oats,baking soda and salt together.  Cream butter and then add honey,eggs, yogurt,chia seeds and bananas, beat well.  Stir wet ingredients into dry til everything is combined   a.k.a. no flour clumps. Finally stir in choc chips.  grease 2 loaf pans and there is usually enough for another mini loaf.  bake @ 350 and check at 45 min.  Be patient, the hot chocolate chips will burn your mouth, not that I would just eat it right out of the oven.

Kid-tested and approved!

A cleanse of sorts

It's spring, renewal is in the air, and we needed a renewal of eating. We always have the best of intentions with food, but it's hard to always be saying, 'let's not eat that', or you travel, or you are a guest....  What do you do?  You get back on the horse, so to speak!  No one can deny the benefits of a plant-based diet, or the good in cutting out refined sugar.  So for our family we are eating pure for 5 days. Veggies, fruit and  60 ounces a day of a lemonade concoction.  I'll let you know if we  see any amazing result, but really our purpose was to get back on track.  

The lemonade(taken from the master cleanse)

10 oz of  purified water

2 Tbs. freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 Tbs. organic grade b maple syrup

1/10 tsp cayenne pepper

This is our lemonade ad, are you buying it?

A natural facial cleanser.

I'm giving this a try!  It's disturbing what goes into our beauty products.  Check here to see what I mean.  My skin is combination with redness thru the nose.  I don't break out easily, but my skin gets gritty...Does that make sense.  So far I am loving the results!!  If you want a straight up cleansing pad just do the witch hazel and tea tree oil.

Castor oil:great for reducing redness and breaking up scar tissue.  Make sure it is cold pressed.

Witch Hazel:astringent and anti-inflammatory

Tea tree oil: Smells yummy and treats acne. 

I'll let you know how it goes!

Slow Sunday Morning

Sometimes we just retreat.  No alarm clocks, no rushing, just being.  These were the perfect thing to look forward to on just this type of morning.

You set them out the night before.

They bake for 20 minutes @ 350.

Set a pretty table.

Perfect setting for Sunday morning convo.

Thank you Aaron and Jessica for making me feel so welcome with this tradition from your family!

Kale Chips Recipe

Let's start this week off with a healthy recipe...Kale Chips!!! Sound exciting? I'm just discovering how healthy kale is for you! I feel like I am behind on this new craze! It seems everything I read now about health food has something to do with Kale. So, I have been buying it and either having all kale salads or adding it with red leaf lettuce. It does have a thinker/bitter taste to it, but I really don't mind it. There is something to me about eating something really good for you that makes me want to eat it more!! 

I came across a recipe for kale chips and thought I would give it a go. I love a good chips and thought this would be a good alternative to a salty snack when I was having a craving.

Here it is...

-Set oven to 275
-Take a large bunch of kale and wash, DRY, and rip into bite sized pieces (emphasis on the dried part because I read if you don't dry it thoroughly then it can steam in the oven instead of bake which would result in a more soggy version of kale chips)

-Lay out on a baking sheet

-Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt on top. Mix it around with your hands to coat
-Bake until crisp, turning the leaves halfway through, for about 20 minutes.

This recipe did NOT disappoint! My kids and I both loved it! My husband was not really on board with them. He's more the kind of guy that would just rather eat regular chips if he is going to be eating them in the first place.

I did read that dehydrating them is better for maintaining the nutritional benefits of kale, but I don't have a dehydrator. There are also lots of options for kale chips, so explore for some variations on the recipe.

New spin on an old recipe

If you don't like peanut butter and chocolate together, well, I just think you are crazy.  If you are the majority of people, this recipe is a little twist on that!

This is the end result and I eat too many to count!

In a large bowl mix 2 cps rolled oats, 1 1/2 cp brown sugar, 1 1/2 cp whole wheat flour, 1tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda.  Cut in 1 cp coconut oil til mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Stir in 1/2 cup chopped almonds .   Combine 1 3/4 cp crumb mixture and a bag of choc chips.  This will be your topping.  

For crust stir in an egg to the remaining crumb mixture.  Press into 13x9 pan and bake@350 for 15 min to form your crust.  

While baking, combine 1 14-oz can of sweetened condensed milk and 1/3 cup almond butter for your filling.   Pour filling evenly over baked crust.  Finally add your topping(shown below) and bake for 15 more min!  Less if you love the goo(=  

Soup and drop biscuits

There is no easier and delicious meal (in my opinion) than a hearty soup and drop biscuits.  Here is the recipe I follow for the biscuits.  Milk is interchangeable for the buttermilk.  It seems  I always have to add a bit more milk too, to make it a sticky consistency.   I have been trying to not use bouillon cubes.   Here's what went into the soup;

Soup recipe;

2 Sweet potatoes (bite size pieces)

5 carrots diced

2 cps of quick cooking barley

4 strips of bacon

1/2 an onion chopped

Spices used; garlic salt, celery salt, sea salt, cumin, curry, and anything else your family might enjoy.  This made the broth, so I wanted it to be flavorful.

1.  I filled an 8 qt pot half full, and threw in all the spices and just kept tasting til it had enough kick and flavor for us.  It surprised me how much of the salt spices it took!  I threw in the swt potatoes and carrots, brought it to a boil and then brought it down to a simmer and covered it for a half hour. Next I cooked up the bacon along with the onions.  When the bacon was done and the onions sauteed I cut up the bacon and added it to the large pot, drippings and all.   This soup needed some fat(=  The final step was to add the barley, I like it pretty thick with it, so I just add what looks good to me.  I think I may mix it up and  add some lentils next time too!  The quick barley only takes 10 more minutes at a boil.  The bouillon cubes are so mindless, but also have ingredients that are pretty dangerous to the system.  I like knowing exactly what's in our meals. 

Crunchy Black Bean Tacos

I pinned this recipe a while back on Pinterest and then a friend reminded me of it when she posted about some Pinterest recipes she had tried. Let me just tell you, they were DELICIOUS! It was fast to make and it lasted me for 3 meals. I just put the extra bean mixture in the fridge and then pulled out what I needed to make 1 or 2 depending on how hungry I was. I topped it with salsa, sour cream, and guacamole!

Source

Light and Fluffy Marathon Pancakes

My friend, Meredith, who wrote a guest post for us a few weeks ago has the BEST pancake recipe around. They are seriously delicious. They require a few extra steps, but it is well worth it.

We lived in Blacksburg, VA for 4 years while my husband was in medical school. We loved it there. We had the very best community I have been a part of. God really blessed us with several other couples that really stuck together and supported each other. It was sad to say goodbye to such good friends, but we left trusting that God would provide what we needed when we moved. 

While living in Blacksburg, the girls in our group put together a really awesome cookbook. We even had a cookbook launch party in a beautiful garden setting just for fun. This pancake recipe is in the cookbook and you should all try it. I promise you won't go back! 

 

 

Hummus at Home

Tomorrow I will post all about our Valentine's, but one more recipe for this week!  We love hummus around here.  I was very happy with the end result of this!  Andy and the kids loved it, and as the saying goes, 'The proof is in the pudding.'  Bode even ate it as baby food.  Here's what I did.

1/4 cup tahini
1 15.5 oz can of chick peas drained and rinsed
2 lemons worth of juice (we love lemons!)
salt and pepper to taste
Garlic to taste
2 tsp. of olive oil
2Tbs of water
Put all ingredients in the food processor and taste as you go, til it is your desired consistency and flavor. Easy, cheesy, lemon-squeezy!

Hail Brussel sprouts!

I love brussel sprouts!  Quite frankly I crave them!  Here's a quick recipe that makes other people in your life love them too,  or at least take a bite(;

Recipe

1 bag frozen brussel sprouts

4 strips of bacon(that's a lot for the bacon lovers in your life)

1/4 cup balsamic vinaigrette 

1 Tbs mustard

1 Tbs maple syrup

Roast brussel sprouts 25 min @ 350.  Whisk the vinaigrette, mustard and syrup together/ shake in a mason jar.  Crumble the bacon.  Toss all together!  Makes a great side and serves 3-4.

On Making Homemade Detergent

This is the recipe I follow and have been very happy with.  It requires 3 ingredients, sold at Walmart that equal around $12!! Here's the best part, you will make 3 large size containers out of these 3 ingredients.  Cheap and it works!  Who doesn't love that?

Love when my kiddos can help!

1/3 of a bar of the Fels Naptha soap dissolving in 6 cups water over med heat.

Only 1/2 a cup of each of these ingredients go in.

1 Gallon and 10 cups gets mixed in a bucket with everything else and then pour bucket of ingredents into empty large container of detergent.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!!
Let me know what you think.  

Adventures in Vegetarian Cooking!

I want our family to eat more veggies, but being a breaditarian would be much easier for all of us.  so I have decided to work my way through this great cookbook.  One recipe a week.  I can do that!

I would encourage anyone interested in cooking more with veggies , but wanting great flavor, to order this!

Up first, a soup!

Boil sweet potatoes til soft.

Sautee' onion and garlic.

Mix spices together!  I also added in Mustard for zip!

Combine in a food processor!  It called for oarnge juice, but I don't like really, sweet soups.  I added back in some of the water the potatoes boiled in as well as the juice from a lemon.   

Garnish with sour cream!