Favorite Things...

Wow has it really been that long since I posted?! Yikes! No wonder I have been in a bad mood. Blogging is a great release for me and I really do need to get back on it. The holidays are busy for everyone so I thought I would put a few of my favorite things right now out there.

Favorite thing right now : Advent calendar. Every year we do some thing different. Last year it was something fun to do every night as a family.

It was a cute idea but it was overwhelming. Add in no where near possible this year with 4 nights of sports practice so this year we are doing a book advent calendar.

Every night we take the next book in the stack and read it.


It has been a blast so far and it MAKES us read to the girls (and boy sometimes).

Another favorite : reading in the girls' tent that we made them a couple weeks ago. It is just the right size for us.


Another favorite : Gingerbread Cookies made from this recipe from Annie's Eats (which is a great site!!)

They are soft and spicy. Perfect gingerbread in my eyes!!

Another favorite : our meals this week. We have had some yummy meals this week that have helped keep me focused on the holiday's and not my bad mood. Plus throw in that it was / is a short week around this kitchen and this momma is one happy camper. Here are the meals with links....

Sunday - Chicken Parm Meatballs and Twice Baked Cauliflower- both of these were delish. I will be making the meatballs again to store in the freezer and to also have for the girls at lunch. I didn't have fresh mozzerella and it I would almost say it is a must for the next ones. But they were still good. And the cauliflower, it was so good as well. Throw some cream cheese, bacon, and cheese on just about anything and it will be good.

Monday: Herb Crusted Salmon and Creamy Tomato Pasta - again both of these were delish. The salmon has already been requested again by the hubby

Tuesday : BBQ Chicken and potatoes in crockpot - this meal was awesome in lack of planning and time spent! My only complaint was the chicken was really dry. Next time, I will just add some more sauce or chicken stock as it cooks.

Wednesday : Tuscan White Bean Soup with No Knead Bread - this was a very hearty and healthy soup. Next time I will be adding in a ham hock (possibly) or the rind from a parmesean cheese wedge. It just needed a little something else. I also made the beans from scratch. Not sure if I will do that next time. I don't think they cooked long enough but any longer and it would have been mush.

Thursday: Brenner (breakfast at dinner) WOO HOO! Yep, I'm a little excited.

Another favorite of mine right now : throwing away CRAP that has been in our lives for far too long. I said goodbye to ALL of my food dyes today. Threw those oil laden chemicals in the trash and will be replacing them with all natural food dyes. Here is a recent article I read : 7 Reasons I hate artificial food dyes. It is not the only article out there about Red 3 and Red 40 or Yellow 5. Check it out for yourself!

And my last favorite thing: my husband. Life around this house has been a little crazy which makes this momma a little crazy. Ok, bitchy not crazy. I hate it. It will get better. I know it will. He makes it all better, all the time. He made the night tonight bringing me home a flower. Definitely my favorite.

Meal planning made easy

I had a super fun evening to share with everyone. This is a fun and easy way to make meal planning a little easier. I decided to host a Friday Freezer Night at my house this past Friday night. The basic idea is to bring enough ingredients to make one meal 5 times. Here is an example : I decided to make Beef Barley Soup. I bought enough ingredients to make this soup 5 times (because I had 5 ladies coming over). This way each of us left with 5 different meals (6, if you made your meal for your family) to either cook this week or put in the freezer for later use. It was a blast! The ladies all came with such yummy food to share! We prepared it all here at my house which took all of an hour. That's right, ONE hour to prepare these 6 meals. I can handle one hour and get 5 other meals in return. Here are some pics:


To get prepared I tried to set up various stations of utensils and stuff that we might use.


Here is my set up for my station


I also made some yummy sweet snacks : Nutella Brownies and Gingerbread Muffins


My new favorite fall drink is Honeycrisp Apple Sangria. It was a hit with the ladies and with me!! PS: I used Brandy instead of Peach Snaaps, it was just as good.


This young lady made her meal before she got to the house so she got to help out and read cookbooks while the rest of us slaved away ;)


We made messes but it was soooo worth it!!


See, the sangria was a hit and a well needed drink while we were mixing. We were working hard!


Yummy spaghetti for spaghetti pie


Oh yeah!!


This young lady made the best chicken salad pasta that my family has snacked on all weekend! It never even made it to the freezer.


The best part of the night was the 3 hours of conversation afterwards. It is so important to connect with other mommas. It makes us feel normal and less stressed about our lives and children. Our conversations were heartfelt and allowed us all to get to know each other a little more. It is nice to feel connected with strong, smart, and loving women in our big town. We weren't meant to be momma's alone, it isn't good for our souls. Then throw in a freezer full of food, it was a great night to say the least!

A huge THANK YOU to all 5 mommas that came out to my house carrying huge bags full of supplies and food to try an idea I had. You all had delicious meals to share and your friendship means a ton to me.  We had a good time! We talked of continuing this and I can't wait to stock back up that freezer and refill my "feel like an adult" bank.

My last pic will be of this stuff: Christmas Crack.

I made this for a football party last night. It is ridiculously delicious. It is SO incrediably bad for you but that doesn't even stop you from eating it. Good thing I am only making it once, never again for the pure fact that I can't keep my hands out of it.

Menu

My menu for this week is  below. I was super excited to try a few new recipes! This week was a little different as far as prep goes. So far all meals are made! Yep, they're done, finished, ready to be cooked or reheated throughout the week. As tired as I was on Friday after cooking all these meals, I am super excited that I don't have to do much of anything throughout this week for dinner. Open the oven door and stick in the pan, my kind of cooking :). I would like to say I will continue to do this but we all know that life tends to laugh at us when we make grand plans. I didn't however like all the washing I did. My kitchen looked like this :

Every time I turned around. So back to the sink I would go. It was what was so exhausting. Oh well. I will enjoy it this week!

Sunday: Buffalo style cauliflower - wanted to try this for a while
Sweet potato enchiladas with creme sauce

Monday: Shepherds Pie

Tuesday: Butternut Squash soup with homemade crusty bread

Wednesday: 2 Bean Chicken Soup - I had a bowl of this last night just because I couldn't wait. This is so delish with a cut up avocado in it. I made both types of beans at home which made it so much better. If you haven't tried to make black beans (or any other beans) at home from scratch, try it. It is super easy. Throw a pound of dried and rinsed off beans in a crockpot with 6 cups of water. Cook on high for about 3 to 4 hours or on low for longer. You can add in any spices. So good and so healthy and soooo cheap!


Thursday: Eat out of the FREEZER night. After some looking yesterday, our freezer is full of little odds and ends that could make a good meal. There are a couple pieces of salmon so I am sure me and the hubs will eat those with some veggie. There are veggies and other various odds and ends the kids can have.

Friday: Homemade chicken nuggets with some baked carrot sticks (substitute for french fries). The girls are going to decorate their own leaf cookies since we are having a little sleepover.

This week for lunch the hubs and I are trying a new salad recipe. Since the craziness of football practice is over, working out can commence! I am soooooo ready to get back into the gym. But with that said, I have to start eating more protein to help me actually make it through a workout :). I found this great recipe for an asian salad that will go great with our quinoa patties that we both love. I will be making those today and portioning them out for both of us to enjoy at lunch each day this week.

No where to turn

My years teaching in title 1 schools are over but they are not long forgotten. For teachers in these schools, the children are forever etched in our minds and have permanent residence in our hearts. Maybe not all of them but the ones that are forgotten, led astray by neglectful parents, or just plain abused, these angels never leave our hearts. This is one of the biggest reasons I left and will not be returning even though I loved teaching more than anything. My heart overflowed for these children and I bent over backwards to make sure they had the same chance in life (or at least 2nd and 3rd grade) that every other kid. I can honestly say there isn't a day that goes by that some of these kids aren't on my heart. But that stress and dismal outlook on life took its toll on me and my family.

Since leaving teaching, wonderful angels, like the ones I had in my classroom, rarely cross my path, our families path. We are involved with sports with parents who care, who support, who attend. We are blessed and lucky and don't take a minute for granted. This football season an angel, like one in my classroom, crossed our path. He is a great kid. Kind, quiet, so incredibly polite it is almost unreal how genuine he is, handsome, and so desiring attention from anyone. We have taken him to most practices and taken him home afterwards. We take him to all games (ok maybe one we didn't) and we take him home afterwards. We have him over to play and take him out to eat with us when we go. We offered to take him to a college football game. We found out he was walking over 2 miles to school and home, EVERY SINGLE DAY. We paid for his bus services the next day. (Do you know how far that is? Can you imagine sending bubba out the door at 7am to walk to the school and then walk home, every single day?!) We (and others on the team) give him clothes and shoes and feed him every time we take him home. I have grown to love this kid.

Tonight was our very last football game, ever. Tonight was the last time this group of boys will play and be coached by dads. Tonight was bittersweet. I was so glad for practice and late night freezing cold games to be over but I didn't realize that it meant the end to making sure this angel is ok. This was the last night that we might have to take him home, the last time he might get a balanced meal, the last time he would be so polite when saying thank you for giving him a ride home even though we take him home, every night. I didn't realize all those feelings I used to have while I was a teacher would come back. The fear of whats to come of this young man. The sadness that he doesn't have a good home to go home to. The anger I feel towards his family and the circumstances. The overwhelming feeling of loss of having him in our lives and being able to help him, to now be gone. The frustration that I feel towards his parents for not even being able to come to his VERY LAST GAME and listen to the awesome words spoken about their son. Words that were powerful enough to move this momma to tears and he's not mine. The utter disgust I have for parents who neglect their children. The devastating loss this world will have if he is left to fend for himself, even longer than he already has. But my mind goes back to all those angels that have permanent residence in my heart. The children of our world are suffering in great numbers from something other than hunger (which is a huge need don't get me wrong) and abuse (which again is huge) but they are suffering from lack of love. It is huge and it is the hardest to say you have to have. Which has left me here, tonight. Crying on my couch because there is no way, other than a few things here and there that I can do to help this baby, this angel. He has no where to turn and neither do I.

The worst feeling I have is embarrassment. I am embarrassed because all of us are no better than his parents. We make every excuse to not help him and to hold his parents lack of judgment dictate what we will do for him. We avoid get togethers because he stinks or is a little socially inept. We moan and complain because taking him home or picking him up causes us to be in more of a hurry. We are no different than his parents. We are forgetting that he didn't choose this life and/or lifestyle. We are forgetting that he is a part of OUR world, OUR community, OUR school, OUR FOOTBALL TEAM, OUR hearts. We are forgetting him. I refuse to feel this anymore.  I am left here to think of ways to help him throughout this next year. Putting reminders on my calendar to call his parents to see if he can come over, spend the night, maybe make it to that college game, and make sure his holidays are good. Make sure he knows that our home is a safe place to come. We aren't perfect but our kids get love, attention, and unconditional support. I refuse to be embarrassed anymore.

To this angel these few times a year that we invite him into our home might be the best, they might be the worst, but I know it will hopefully break the endless cycle he is on. It only takes one to break the chain, right. He is worth it. Just like my kids would be worth it if the tables were reversed. I would hope someone would show them what love looks like. So my prayer tonight is for this angel to be etched on my heart and for God to help guide him and his parents to find that love. I want so much more than the dead end I am feeling right now for this young man.

Favorites

I have a few favorite recipes I would love to share with everyone. These are three of my favorite dishes to serve to my entire family.

Favorite #1 - Baked Oatmeal
This is a HUGE hit with the family, even family that visited. Here is the basic recipe : Baked Oatmeal

Lay those yummy berries and bananas on the bottom of a buttered pan.


Mix up the oats with some baking powder and brown sugar. Dump that on the berries and 'nanas


Dump on the egg and milk mixture. Then dump some more berries and 'nanas on. Throw in some chocolate chips and walnuts in. Then you bake that until all sorts of bubbly and brown around the edges. There are no pictures of this one done. That's a first, no picture. It is too good to stop and take a picture.

Favorite #2 Crockpot Apples
I made these last night so that when we got home from Chase's choir concert we would have a warm and yummy treat waiting for us. Throw in that these are pretty good for you, about as good as desserts/treats go.

Core out your apples. I cored them out pretty good to have a pretty good pocket to put the filling.


Here is the filling: 1/4 cup oats, 1/3 cup br sugar, 2 T butter, 1 t cinammon, 1/4 walnuts. Put that in the food processor and pulse just a few times. Not too much. Fill your apples, pushing the filling into the apples.


Place your apples in the crockpot. Place 1 cup of water or apple cider or apple juice in the bottom of the crockpot. I put a little maple syrup in this water as well. Not sure if it did anything but hey it couldn't hurt. Cook these yummies for 2 hours on high or 3 hours on low. Oh man, these were so good.  You could add a scoop of ice cream but I thought they were delish all by themself.

Favorite #3 - Mashed Cauliflower

Now I know you naysayers out there are totally going to skip reading this but don't! Even if you don't make them for your family to try, make them for yourself to try them. But let me say this. They are NOT mashed potatoes. They will not magically taste like potatoes but they come close and are a little healthier. I have made them all sorts of ways but here is my favorite.


Peel and dice  1 russet potato and chop up one head of cauliflower. Cook the potato first in boiling water for about 10 minutes. Then throw in the cauliflower with the potato into the water. Boil these until they are tender.
Drain/strain these once they are done and let the sit in the strainer for a while. The more water you get off the better the mash turns out.


I throw the strained and tender veggies into my kitchen aid mixer with the whip attatchment. I throw in some greek yogurt and a little bit of butter. Throw some salt and pepper. Turn on the machine and whip until your desired consistency.


These are yummy substitution to meals where potatoes are used. I used them with my salisbury steak and it was a perfect match with the mushroom gravy.

So those are a few of my favorite recipes that are being used on a weekly basis. What are your favorites?

Menu Time

The craziness that is our lives has prevented me in a lot of ways from keeping our house as clean as I would like it and from doing those fun crafty things with the girls. I will get back to those soon enough. But my meal planning has gone off the deep end. This is not ok. I need menu's. I need meal planning. Our budget needs meal planning.


Without further or do, here is our menu this week. I have linked recipes for those items / meals that I will be making.

Friday: Baked potato soup with salad

Saturday: Yay! Date night with hubby before the boys football game

Sunday: Salisbury Steak with brocolli and mashed cauliflower ( if you haven't tried these yet, you must. They're really good. No really, they are really good)

Monday: Stuffed red peppers - making stuffing with black beans and quinoa

Tuesday: Turkey burgers with fries

Wednesday: Spooky shepherds pie...I made this last weekend for my inlaws and they loved it, so did the fam. This time I will make little ghost "plops" with the mashed potato/cauliflower mixture on top with little pea eyes

Thursday: Grilled Chicken with mushroom kabobs and zuccini

Breakfast on weekdays are either cereal (this is a cereal with very few ingredients) or oatmeal

Snacks this week: I have wanted to try this recipe for Lemon Buddies. I just love lemon!! We will eat this all week as our after school snack. Or it might only last for a few days. We always have fruit or veggies in the house for those days that we don't have a "sugar" snack.

Dessert: I am going to be making crock pot apples to enjoy after the boys choir concert on Monday night.

Lunch: For me and the girls: this is the best time to pack my girls full of veggies and a little fruit. I try to really focus on veggies. I usually try to give them some sort of protein here as well.


I try to always limit our processed food intake. Here is what I am buying that is processed: greek yogurt, cereal, roterserrie chicken, white chocolate chips, powdered sugar, brown sugar, cheddar cheese. I always look at ingredients and always try to buy those items in the organic or health section of our store. But this isn't always better. Reading labels takes a while but is so worth it!!

Apple Picking Time

We are very lucky to have a few orchards around our neck of the woods. We visit one in particular about three times in the fall to gather and devour our fair share of their wonderful crop, apples. This past weekend we took advantage of some time in between football and baseball games to make our first visit. We picked and tasted and picked and tasted and tasted and tasted and picked......


Now that we are home and the apples are all washed, it is time to get to work. Here is what I did with 1/2 bushel which is about 75 apples of the small to medium size.

Apple Pie:
I always make an apple pie with the apples. It is usually the first thing I do when we get home :).




Apple Pie Filling:
In order to ensure we have some little part of summer in the middle of winter or at our Thanksgiving table, I make a few bags of apple pie filling. Basically, you just make the filling like you were going to dump it into a pie shell, just DON'T dump it in. Dump it into a ziploc bag. Try to get out as much of the air as you can. Label it and throw it in the freezer for a nice surprise in the dead of winter.


Applesauce:
We go through jars and jars of applesauce every month. Between the kiddos eating it for snack or lunch and me using it in place of oil in alot of my bread recipes, we need it :). So with majority of the apples we made applesauce. This is a great way to get the kids involved. Let them throw the apple slices in the pot, dump in the other ingredients, and with your help of course, they could help stir. There are TONS of recipes out there for applesauce so there is no excuse for not giving it a try!


After all of that we still have about 25 apples left. I will leave them out for us to snack on and they are a great addition to my lunch shakes. These are just a few ideas for what you can do with apples. I think my favorite apple cake will be in the works later this week! I hope everyone had a great weekend!!

Fun and EASY

Here is a delicious and super easy afterschool snack. Pop a few bags of popcorn.....back up.....I haven't told you about making your own microwave popcorn have I? Let's start with that....

I saw this on , you guessed it, pinterest a couple weeks ago. With our goal to eat less processed foods, popcorn was the first out the window. Have you seen what is all in that stuff?! No thank you. One night I was craving some popcorn so I looked up how to cook it. Found out it was so super easy.

Here's all you need:
* paper lunch sack
* 1/4 cup popcorn kernals
* microwave

Throw the kernals in the bag. Fold the top down a few times. Sit it in the microwave, folded side up or you can even put it on its side. Pop for about a minute and a half. My microwave took 1:35. Then its done. YAY! Yummy fresh popcorn and I can reuse the bag!

Back to our original snack. I popped 3 bags of popcorn, since there are 3 kiddos that eat snack. I spread each bag of popcorn on a cookie sheet that I lined with parchment paper (or you could use wax paper). Then I drizzled some caramel and hot fudge over top. Then I sprinkled it with sea salt, because my kids have sophisticated tastes. Just kidding, it was for me. I have to say this is a delicious little snack. Salty and sweet.


Combine the fact that you are eating just plain ole' popcorn and you can control how much caramel/chocolate you put on, it is a win/win in this house!! It is a bit messy which makes it fun to eat. My kiddos were licking the parchment paper when the corn was all gone. Ok, so maybe that was me, but who can let homemade caramel sauce go to waste. Happy Snacking today!!

Fast Yummy Dinner

Tonight it the only night we have ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NOTHING NADA ZILCH to do or to be at. No football practice. No parent meetings for school. No parent meetings for sports. No playdates. NOTHING!! Oh how I miss these days and how I can't wait to get them back after football. Anywho, tonight for dinner I wanted to make something fun and yet still fast. I don't want to spend forever in the kitchen, I want to be with the family.

I found this great looking dip on pinterest, Pizza Dip, and decided it would be super easy to make individual portions. Here is how I did it:

In each of your ramekins, place a few spoonfuls of ricotta cheese.


Then spread a layer of pizza sauce. Homemade is always better :) but canned is quick.


Sprinkle on some italian blend shredded cheese.


Top with some turkey pepperoni's that have been diced up. You could use italian sausage as well. You could also top with some olives, yummo!!


I covered mine with foil for the first 15 minutes of baking them at 350. Then uncovered them until they were nice and bubbly. This was about 15 more minutes. So a total bake time of 30 minutes.


I stuck them on a plate (when they were cool enough) with some homemade naan or flatbread and that my friends was dinner.


Throw in a salad and we were all happy!


Kid approved!
This would be a good dip at parties because you really have to use a spoon to get some dip out and spread it on your dipping device. Which means no double dipping, yay!

Speaking of naan. If you haven't tried this Indian flatbread, you must.

It is super easy to make at home. It takes about 3 hours from start to finish, but majority of that time is letting it rise. It is not hard, I promise. Plus, it is fun to make it have all those yummy bubbles!! Here are a few recipes I like. Budget Bytes has a great recipe that uses greek yogurt, these little beauties are SUPER soft and so yummy! Today I used AllRecipes recipe. It doesn't use yogurt and these were still really good.

Happy Wednesday....I hear my patio chair calling :)