Greener Food

One of my goals (and I have many) is to get my family eating healthier. That includes more greens. We aren't bad eaters. We do eat good food, but we also eat a lot of snacks. Some weeks more than others. The boys will eat some vegetables but each one likes different things so some nights one will have a feast and the other will have a famine. At least with the vegetable portion.

I had read about a year ago about 'green smoothies' and while they sounded fascinating, I just couldn't imagine being able to afford getting all that organic produce. I do buy some things organic when I can, but whatever anyone may say, it's expensive around here. My garden doesn't yet produce what I'd like so that's still not an option. I'm working on it little by little but for now, I don't have all organic fresh greens growing whenever I need them.


I went ahead and tried the green smoothie and you know what? It's good!!! I buy organic when I can but don't stress over it (and please don't leave a discouraging post about how bad it is to use produce that isn't organic!). I have made smoothies three different days. If you don't believe me when I say it's good then you should look at the photos below.



They both love it! How great is that?!?

Here's our favorite recipe so far:

2 Handfuls of Kale and at least one cupful of water --Put in blender and get the greens broken down. (If you have a fancy blender ie Vitamix, you don't have to do the extra step.)
Add in:
One banana
One cup frozen mango
One cup pineapple
Ice to taste

Pour and enjoy!!! I like to use the fancy wine or cordial glasses to make it an extra special treat. It's also something the boys think is extra special. They aren't normally allowed to use those glasses.

This is a great way to get some extra fruits and veggies into your diet and your kids diet. The really green color is almost half the fun! So much food aimed at children has that bright color from unnatural sources. This is bright, green, sweet goodness! There are about a bazillion different recipes to use in this. You can even check YouTube for green smoothies. Find a combination you like but make sure to change it up now and then. I'd like to find a way to get berries into our smoothie without it turning a gross brown color. There's a trick to it I'm sure. This week I hope to try it again using spinach. I had read you can use frozen spinach but I wouldn't recommend it. You can definitely taste the difference. (Ew.)

Right now our frequency isn't the greatest. One per week. However, once the weather gets warmer this should be a perfect cool treat to combat the heat. You could even turn it into popsicles I guess if you wanted to. Wouldn't that be a riot?!? Pull one out and surprise your kids' friends that are visiting. LOL

Happy green goodness everyone!

Farmer Boy=Doughnuts

One of the free reads we've been working through is Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We've sort of skipped over the beginning in the Little House series as I wanted them to connect to the stories and I thought starting with Almanzo's story (being a boy) would foster that.

Tigger absolutely loves this book. It's his favorite. Pooh on the other hand suffers through it waiting for Peter Pan's turn to come up. He says Farmer Boy is "boring".

Weeeelllll, about 2 weeks ago we got to chapter 7 entitled 'Saturday Night'. In this chapter Mother makes doughnuts. We were just drooling with the thought of those doughnuts! Hot, crisp and sweet! Oh wow, I think I'm drooling again!!! Anyway, by the time we were done with that chapter I was looking up doughnut recipes on Google. (Who can live without google? Not me!) I tried looking for a recipe that would tell me how Mother did it. The book describes hers as twisted doughnuts that were twisted just right so that they would roll themselves over while frying. I did find that there is a book published with loads of recipes from the Little House series. You can find it at Amazon (another place I wouldn't want to live without.) However, I decided I wanted a recipe where I could throw the dough into the bread machine. I looked around and found one I thought looked easy enough (I'm not going to recommend it for doughnuts though because it just wasn't sweet enough.)

From the different descriptions I found while googling, this is what I came up with as far as making our doughnuts:

Once the dough is ready (remember! i used a machine), roll it out about a half inch thick. Cut into strips of half an inch thick...

Fold the strip in half and twist it like you would with two pieces of yarn.

Place on greased cookie sheet and let rise.

Fry, sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy!!!

Mine didn't come out like Mother's. LOL First, as I mentioned, the dough wasn't a sweet dough. I plan to find another dough recipe I can use next time. Also, when I had mine frying they didn't turn over by themselves. However, the texture was really good and they rose well, so I'm not complaining. The heavy dose of powdered sugar compensated for the lack of sugar in the dough. I was really surprised by how dark they came out but a friend who just recently made her own doughnuts said hers were dark as well. I'm guessing that's normal? It would be fun to see if any of you try it how yours come out. Let me know if you do!!!

I don't have any photos of Chapter 8 but let me tell you, it was another chapter that had us drooling. It started out with a big stack of fluffy pancakes with syrup and everything. Then it moved onto chicken pies and hop n john. Oh My!!! I didn't make my own chicken pie. I cheated and instead got 4 of those little chicken pot pies from the store. Those were a big hit with Pooh. He ate his and asked for another. LOL I didn't have any more that day but I now have 4 more sitting in my freezer.

I know Farmer Boy isn't supposed to be about the food but we sure are having fun with that aspect! It's a great book for seeing how hard children used to work for their families. Life lessons in an enjoyable format. For those that may be like me and have never read any of the series, you're in for a great education and great treats by delving into this book!

The Pot Is On

When the cold winter weather sets in we all break out our comfort foods. In this family, soup is a favorite. We can be happy with simple fare or with dishes that are a little more complicated.

Our simplest soup is Ramen Noodles. Not the healthiest. However, ever since we've been married, my Latin King has taken a simple pack of ramen noodles and doctored them up. It becomes a vegetable noodle soup. We add stewed tomatoes, onion, garlic, celery and cilantro as basics. At times we add other things such as: corn, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach or green beans. He's even been known to simmer an egg in there. Evidently that was done commonly in his country and he enjoys that. It's a very inexpensive meal and I always feel better about it when we add all those healthy additions. (I don't have a picture of that right now--when I get one I'll edit this post.)

My pictures for today are of two other soup we love around here. The first soup is Leek & Potato Soup. So yummy that we hardly ever have leftovers!

I start by sauteing leeks and garlic in a little olive oil and butter. I used the stalks of 4 leeks.

Then I cut up and added about 16 red potatoes. The big lump you see in this one is a quart of turkey broth I had in the freezer. You should add enough liquid to cover the potatoes. I think mine came out to be between 3-4 quarts.

After the potatoes soften, I use an immersion blender to get a nice creamy texture. After that I added seasonings of salt, pepper, red pepper (just a bit for a little kick) and some dried rosemary. It's a hit with both boys too!

The green leaves of the leeks were left over to be used in the next soup.

The beginnings of my Olive Garden imitation of Zuppa Toscana. I love that soup! I've sauteed mild and hot italian sausage together in my cast iron pot (found at Goodwill!).

In the soup pot I add in chopped onion, the leek greens and more garlic. I used about half a head of garlic in each soup. Hey, it's good for ya!

I forgot to get photos of a couple of steps but here's the finished product. Basically, you proceed as follows: After the veggies have sauteed, add in your liquids in the form of broth and/or water and about 6 chopped potatoes. After about 10-15 minutes, add in your sausage and a few handfuls of chopped kale. For seasonings I added salt, pepper, and italian seasonings. The sausage will spice it up a bit so don't over do it. Little by little is the best way to add them.

Tigger prefers the Leek and Potato soup because this one has 'green stuff'. He ate around the kale. LOL

Pooh, on the other hand, loves the kale because it's so similar to spinach which he also loves. You go boy!

What's your winter comfort food?

Family Dinner

We don't eat at the table together every night but we do eat together often. Probably about 4 times per week. We do make other times to hang out together. Sometimes it's breakfast together, sometimes it's tea or cocoa time. These times are important for families. Conversation is always on a different level when you are sitting around a table with other people than at any other time. Even riding in a vehicle talking doesn't produce the same type of conversation. I wonder if it's because the table is designed so that everyone is facing each other and you're sort of forced to "see" each other.

I want to improve our diet. For all of us. I'm even looking into making 'green smoothies'. These are smoothies that include some type of green veggie, many times spinach. I made of these on Thursday and even the boys said it was good and drank a full wineglass of it. (I put it in wineglasses to make it more appealing. The boys know that usually only mom and dad get to use those glasses.)

These are photos of our dinner together that night. We had salmon (a recipe that uses a layer of mayo and ketchup on top for flavoring), broccoli and baked potatoes.

Adding a little fresh pepper to the baked potato.

Mashed potatoes are Tigger's favorite. He tackled his potato first.

Despite the face, Pooh really enjoys his dinner. He LOVES broccoli and many times will ask for seconds. Plus, he's growing and eating more now.

Here's a close up of my plate. My men, both big and little, were not as adventurous as I. What is that purple stuff??? It is a purple sweet potato and I must say that I think it was tastier than a regular sweet potato. It's not sweeter but somehow it was much better.

One advantage of eating together is that I can convince the boys to try new foods. They did take a taste of that purple potato. I even told Tigger that there is a blue potato. It's a type of heirloom potato. We're going to be checking out the farmer's market for it and maybe they'll even like it!

The Wrath of Grapes

I have to say that processing my 15 gallons of grapes was an interesting experience. It would have been lovely to have been able to take readers' suggestion of using a special steam pot to get the juice. Alas, I had no money to buy one and the grapes were waiting impatiently to be taken care of.

Here are my grapes. As you can see they are a white variety. I believe they were either mislabeled or came up from below the grafting area (if indeed these are grafted vines) because they have seeds and have a very muscadiney flavor. Which isn't what they're supposed to be. They do taste good though.

I was unprepared for the cleaning process. You'd think all you have to do is rinse them right? Oh no, once you start rinsing you realize that there are all sorts of insects that come crawling out of the centers. Earwigs, beetles and other 'things'. All my grapes were rinsed and double bathed in the sink. I gathered bunches of earwigs and threw them out. Can we just say a big "Ewwwww" together?

My first try at juicing the grapes was with this JuiceManJr. My theory (laugh, I know you want to) was that I would get the nutrition of the skin and seed along with the juice by using the juicer. Once again, I was unprepared for what happened. Seeds. Yes, the seeds were spitting out of the machine all over my kitchen. Evidently, this juicer isn't capable of handling the seed situation. You can bet I wasn't going to deseed 15 gallons of grapes. In addition, the bag that was holding the discards (grape waste), was actually very juicy still. I wasn't letting that juice go to the garbage! I will, however, be finding grape seeds throughout my kitchen for the next five years.

So I started boiling. I didn't take off the skins like most recipes say. Too much work for me. I just started boiling them and used my immersion blender to whip up the skins in the juice. It made the resulting juice cloudy but I felt better thinking I may have added a bit more nutrition to my juice and jelly. (Hey, if you know otherwise, don't tell me. Ok?)

And straining with the dreaded cheesecloth. (This is actually my tomatoes draining--I forgot to photo the grape mush draining.) My setup was a colander lined with several layers of cheesecloth over a clean 5 gallon bucket. Works great as long as you don't accidentally drop the colander into the bucket. Ask me how I know.

My reward. Several gallons of juice. This will be used for the jelly.

More in the freezer for drinking.

These are my bottles of grape cordial brewing away.

This cordial is from some red grapes that ripened about 6 weeks earlier. Can't wait for my cool winter evening when I pop open one of these!

I realized when getting this post ready that I never did take photos of my jelly. Oh well. I managed to get about 22 jelly jars full, plus 3 quarts of juice canned, plus what is in the freezer. It took two days (and I processed some tomatoes too). I'm a novice, what can I say? Would I do it again? In the phrase made famous this past year, "You betcha." As a matter of fact, my dinner tonight was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made with MY jelly. Woo Hoo! LOL

The excitement never stops around here.

Off my groove for the day--Grape Harvest

Yesterday evening I finally got around to harvesting the grapes from my back fence. I should have done this about 2 weeks ago, but with our camping trip and all it just didn't happen.

I started by bringing a big soup pot out there to collect them with. Then after I cut about 5-6 bunches realized that I was going to need something a lot bigger. I grabbed an empty 5 gallon bucket. Within 5 minutes that was getting close to being full. The Latin King came to help and bring more buckets.

We ended up with three 5 gallon buckets of grapes! I couldn't believe it! That's my biggest harvest ever!

I bought these little grape vines at Lowes. I think they were mislabeled because they all have seeds in them, even though I KNOW some of the tags said seedless. Therefore, even though they have a good taste, the boys won't eat them. They are seed phobic, especially Pooh who doesn't eat strawberries because of the seeds on the outside.

What am I going to do with all those grapes? Whatever I do has to be fairly easy and uncomplicated since I'm really not into details. My brain stops functioning when the process is too complicated. So, last night I processed one bucket into glass jars for cordial. Very easy. I just smoosh the grapes (either with hand or masher), fill into jars, add Vodka, top them and sit them on my counter. Then for about 2 weeks (or until I get around to the next step) I'll turn the bottle over to give a little shake each day (or when I remember). After two weeks you strain out the juice, add some sugar to it and put it back into clean jars to sit for at least two months. I usually let mine sit until winter and then will break open a jar on a cold winter evening for a nice little glass of grape cordial. So good and so easy!

Something new I'd like to try this year is to make grape jam/jelly. I have a juicer and I read about juicing the grapes (seeds, stems and all some say--but I think I'm leaving out the stems) and then making the jam/jelly. I don't think this will turn out like regular jelly because 1. my grapes are white and 2. juicing them will probably make it a little thicker (I don't have much patience for cheesecloth). I'm going to try it and see how it works. At the very least I can freeze the juice for drinks throughout the year and/or making fruit leathers with my dehydrator.

So I'll be off my schooling groove for the day as I process 10 more gallons of grapes. Better get to it!

1/19/09 Menu Plan

I'm still at it! Can you believe it? It must be good, if I'm actually sticking with it. (Being easy to do helps too. ;D)

This week I'm laying out the plan first and will give a few comments afterward. Here goes:

Monday:
B-French Toast Casserole
S-Fruit
L-Chicken Sandwich or wrap
S-Muffins
D-Shepard's Pie

Tuesday:
B-Eggs/bacon/toast
S-carrots
L-Soup
S-Yogurt
D-Salmon burgers/roasted veggies

Wednesday:
B-Leftover french casserole
S-cheese/crackers
L-tuna sandwiches
S-muffins
D-gumbo/rice

Thursday:
B-Crockpot Oatmeal
S-Smoothie
L-Pizza
S-Rice cakes with pb
D-Black beans/rice

Friday:
B-cereal
S-fruit
L-pb &j
S-cookies/hot tea
D-pasta

Last week we ended up having a leftover night on Wednesday which pushed the lamb to Thursday. So, tonight it's lamb taquitos by the King and I've moved the Shepard's Pie to tomorrow. With the menu planning it's easy to see and use leftovers and make needed adjustments.

My goal would be eventually to get all prep work done for the each day the night before. This would cut down on having to think so much in the morning of how to schedule in food prep for the day. Who wants to think about preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner at 8 o'clock in the morning? For instance, I would love to be able to do the following tonight:

Put chicken in fridge to thaw for Wednesday's Gumbo
Prep the French toast casserole so all I have to do is pop it in the oven in the morning.
Get chicken salad prepared for tomorrow's sandwiches.
Prep potatoes-wash, peel, cook, mash for tomorrow's pie.

I'll probably only get two out of the four done realistically. I also have 3 heads of hair to cut tonight. AND tonight is PBS's version of Wuthering Heights on Masterpiece Theater. I'm a bit of a Masterpiece Theater addict. I love how they've done all the Jane Austen novels lately. I think I managed to videotape all of them. (Satisfied sigh.....) AND I'm seriously behind in the laundry area. That's what happens when I cut down on watching a TV show before I go to bed, I forget to do the laundry. Eeeeek! Guess I need a new system for that! Yes, I'll be doing laundry while watching Wuthering Heights. LOL

Off to eat Taquitos!!!

1/12/09 Menu Plan

Ok, on to week 2 of using a menu plan!! Last week was terrific and made my life so much easier. As one commenter pointed out, the menu plan helps in actually making stuff ahead of time so it's ready and there's no last minute stress on getting things together. The boys continued to be ruled by the planner for the whole week, so hardly any complaining. Which, frankly, is a minor miracle as far as I'm concerned.

I'm currently suffering from a very congested head so I hope that my current plan doesn't fall apart in actually doing it. We'll just have to see. I'm not thinking the clearest right now. I do know that Monday's snack #2 will be on the road. Wednesday I plan on taking leftover drumsticks, carrots and the granola bars with us on the road for munching, but also know that we will be hitting McD's in the afternoon due to several errands I'm running that day (and i'm meeting someone there so pretty much have to plan a meal there ;D).

Last week's make-aheads included getting the crock pot going the night before for the oatmeal, leftover homemade bread for the french toast casserole, preparing the tuna salad sandwiches while preparing breakfast so they were ready for our lunch out (same day as the nature walk---that worked out wonderfully well!), and muffins made ahead of time. Also, I'm able to see what needs to be thawed from the freezer in plenty of time to use it and marinate if I so desire.

This week I'll make ahead bread, muffins, thaw bagels for Friday's breakfast, thaw this week's meat. Pancakes are already made for tomorrow's breakfast.

Here's the outline for this week:

Monday:
B-pancakes
S-smoothie
L-pb & j sandwiches
S-cheese n crackers
D-bratwurst, cabbage, potatoes, salad

Tuesday:
B-hot cereal
S-carrots
L-tuna sandwiches
S-yogurt
D-chicken drumsticks/veggie/rice

Wednesday:
B-cereal
S-fruit
L-eat out
S-granola bars
D-lamb shoulder/rice/veggie/salad

Thursday:
B-eggs/bacon/english muffins
S-muffins
L-hot dogs
S-rice cakes/pb
D-shepards pie

Friday:
B-bagels/cream cheese
S-muffins
L-cheese tortillas
S-hot tea/biscotti or cookie
D-lasagna/salad

The Power of the Menu Plan

You know, I kept hearing people raving about how wonderful a menu plan is. My response has been characterized by: Uh huh. Whatever. I'll get to it one day. How great can it really be?

There's POWER in the menu plan. Amaaaaaazing power. I'm in awe. And I've only been at it for two days.

There are two powerful aspects of the menu plan that I've experienced so far. (My experience is very limited and there may be many more that I haven't discovered yet.) The first power operates on me. I can look at my simple list located on the frig and know what's happening. So simple and yet so profound! I'm not hunting down recipes an hour before dinner is supposed to be ready, wondering what on earth I'm going to do with the leftover ham. I know! I don't have to think about what I'm feeding the kids for snack. I know! It's so freeing! I have a different breakfast planned for each day. I'm using that butternut squash that's been sitting in the pantry for 3 weeks. I'm using the quinoa I've had in there for forever too!

This was all planned around food I already had in the house. No shopping or even last minute runs. If I didn't have exactly what I wanted, I substituted. My ham and potato casserole turned into a Ham and Sweet Potato casserole. (There's a lot of ham in our menu this week due to wanting to use all our leftovers from baking a spiral sliced ham on the weekend.)

The second power to be noticed was the one that was exerted over the children. Ahhhhh. This is something I've never seen mentioned in the accolades of the menu plan. This is a big secret. Are you ready?

If it's on the menu plan, that's what we eat.

No arguments, no griping. A simple "I'm sorry. Cookies aren't on the plan. It says we have to eat carrots for snack this morning." AND THEY DO IT! No kidding! They may say "ooohhhhh, I wanted something else" but it doesn't change the fact that we follow the plan. I think Pooh will even start reading the plan himself soon. He's kind looking there when I say "hmmmm, it says we're having waffles for breakfast". Pooh is also the child more willing to try foods and will at least partially eat things even when he isn't crazy about them. Go figure!!!

I'm not making two separate sandwiches for lunch. "Today is ham, tomorrow is tuna." I was amazed at how fast they ate. The only thing that didn't go over well was the Crockpot Oatmeal. That's because they both dislike oatmeal. I told them they needed to learn to like it. :D Today they had French Toast Casserole for the first time ever and gobbled it up. They ate the butternut squash. The quinoa was a bit iffy and so was the ham casserole on Tuesday's dinner. BUT, they're trying it and they are eating more than they would have if I hadn't done a menu plan.

So I consider this a success. Now I just have to keep it up. Consistency has never been my strong suit.

For those that wish to know, I'm including my plan for this week. It's only a M-F plan. Also, the meals are listed in this order: Breakfast, Snack, Lunch, Snack, Dinner. They usually have another snack before bed, but I didn't include that one because it's never an issue.

Monday:
Crockpot Oatmeal
Cheese n Crackers
Mac n Cheese
Carrots
Delicata Delish (allrecipes)

Tuesday:
French Toast Casserole
Carrots
Ham Sandwich
Fruit
Ham & Potato Casserole (with broccoli)

Wednesday:
Waffles
Pb crackers
Tuna sandwich
Yogurt
Split Pea Soup

Thursday:
Eggs & Bacon
Muffins
Mac n Cheese
Carrots
Pasta and roasted root veggies

Friday:
Hot Cereal
Smoothie
Hot Dogs
Muffins
Pizza