Creamy, Bright and Nutritious

Lots to do today so I needed something quick for breakfast to fix for myself (hubby fixed food for the kids). Looking on the counter, I saw what I expected to be a rotten avocado.  Turns out, it was perfect!  So, I threw together a quick guacamole that is good by itself and tortilla chips or on top of fried or scrambled eggs.  I just used what I had on hand:

• 1 avocado
• 1 roma tomato
• 1/2 of a lemon
• garlic powder
• dried onion
• cilantro 

Cut avocado in half, pop out seed and with the meat still in the hull, make close slices one way and then turn 90* the other way and make close slices again.  Take spoon and scoop out the avocado.  With fork, mash to consistency you prefer (I like a bit of bite instead of mush).  Dice up tomato (if you are using a juicy one, I'd squeeze some of the seeds out first) and add to avocado.  Add garlic, onion, cilantro and any pepper/heat to taste.  I didn't use salt because the chips are salty but if you're going to be using this with eggs, you might want some to taste.

I have a much more in depth recipe that I like but this was great for breakfast and should keep me filled up for a while.

To Blog or Not to Blog......

I really am not in the mood to take pictures tonight but I really wanted something sweet and fast and at the prompting of a friend of mine to please share the recipe, I'm blogging and am NOT going to take a picture.  So there LOL!  Not like they're all that great right now anyway.  Maybe one day I'll have Martha Stewart quality shots but I wouldn't hold your breath waiting.

These are Chocolate Peanut Butter No-Bake Cookies.  And I'll say right now, they are NOT healthy at all so these are going to be called our Sinful Delights.  (Is that an oxymoron?)  My first time making them was yesterday for our church's pot luck lunch and there was nothing to bring home to the hubby afterward.  That made me feel good.  I made them again tonight but made a few changes to try and make them a tad bit healthier.  I'm sure there is some crazy healthy way to make them and if I get around to looking that up and if they are any good, I'll share it.  But for now, why fix what's not really broken?  All things in moderation as usual.

This is the original recipe I started with.  And here is what I did different yesterday and then today.

Mix 3 and 1/2 cups of Old Fashion Oats together with 4 Tbsp. of cocoa powder and 1/4 tsp. of stevia powder (I get the pure white powder from Honey N Spice).  Set that aside.

Instead of two cups of sugar, I went down to 1 and 1/2 and then down to 1.  I put it in a sauce pan and turned the heat to med.-high.  Let the sugar sit.  Don't touch it.  Just watch.  It'll take a bit but soon you'll see liquid gold.  No, not colostrum but almost as lovely *teehee*  Once you start to see the golden syrup, you can start to gently fold the white crystals into the syrup but do it slowly, no need to rush.  Once all of the sugar is liquid and gold, add in 1/2 a stick of butter (instead of a whole stick).  Be careful because the butter will "fry" and molten butter and sugar may spit up at you.  If it boils too rapidly, turn it down to medium for a bit.  Once the butter is almost melted, add in 1/4 of a cup of coconut oil (see, that makes things healthier, right?), peanut butter (crunchy is really good) and then 1/2 of a cup of milk.  Stir until all melted.  I bet almond or coconut milk could be used in place of milk.  If/when I try this, I'll update with that and let you know how it comes out OR if you try it and it comes out yummy, please feel free to add that and/or any other changes you make below.

Turn off the heat and add the dry ingredients in and mix until all of the oats are fully coated.  You can spoon this out but I prefer to just oil a cake pan with some coconut oil (rubbing it into my hands when I'm done) and then patting it firmly into the pan and popping it into the refrigerator until set.

If you have a nut allergy, you can omit the peanut butter.  It won't hold together as well but it is still good (yes, I forgot to add it in tonight).  I bet dried cherries would be really good in here, or flaked coconut or.....I'm sure the possibilities are endless and the start of a healthy treat just around the corner.    

Loads of Veggies, Meat and Yummy Flavor!

Foodography is definitely not my gifting so my apologies up front for not being able to deliver a mouth watering image of this yummy dinner from tonight.

Cauliflower has been a new veggie for me to experiment with and so far, I am finding it an easy one to sneak into our meals.  Tonight's new veggie was eggplant.  I've not done much with this; can probably count on one hand the times I've ever eaten it and I've not been overly thrilled with it.  I decided to give it another chance tonight and dinner was very yummy.  It is a hit or miss with the kids, my daughter has plowed through hers and asked for more, my youngest is still munching and my middle two didn't want anything to do with it.  They're at least not crying for something else.  Maybe their just stuffed from our yummy potluck lunch at church today.

Tonight's dinner was a meat and veggie filled lasagna without any pasta.  No reason in particular for me to leave out the pasta.  I'm not cutting carbs, gluten or the sort.  More out of curiosity and flexibility; to be able to omit the normal if needed and still be able to satisfy our food needs and wants.  Taste and heartiness was amazing.  Presentation, not so much.  It looked good on the outside but the whole inside was very soupy.  The good side of using whole wheat pasta cooked al dente before putting the how thing together is that it soaks up some of those juices.  So, I don't know that I'll be doing another pasta-less lasagna unless someone has a good idea for making these veggies not so watery.

Here's what was in it:

• 1 lb ground beef, browned and drained
• 1 lb ground sausage, browned and drained
• 3 eggs
• 1 container of cottage cheese
• 2 cups or so italian cheese/mozzarella
• 1 cup or so of feta cheese
• Parmesan cheese to taste and to top
• 1 eggplant sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 1 zucchini thinly sliced
• Large jar of pasta sauce
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• oregano, thyme, garlic, onion and other spices to liking

Mix meats, tomatoes and sauce together.  In another bowl, mix eggs and cheeses and herbs/seasonings.  Add a bit of sauce and meat on bottom of baking dish.  Then layer eggplant and then zucchini.  Add half of the cheese/egg blend evenly over veggie layer.  Repeat with meat/sauce mixture, veggie mixture and then cheese.  I topped (packed more like it) the rest of the meat and sauce on the top and then covered it with parmesan cheese and a strip of zucchini slices for decoration.  I baked it for an hour at 350* and then let sit for about 20 minutes.

This would be a good place for feed back from any foodies that are reading this.  How could this be made and not be so soupy at the end?

Cool, Crisp and Refreshing!

Today's lunch is one I could eat more of!  Lunches have always been the hardest meal for me to get creative with.  So the meal planning is really paying off here.  Today's idea comes from Key Ingredient and is Feta Avocado Chicken Salad.  Depending on where you live, you may or may not have an Aldi's nearby but if you do, you should really check it out if you have not.  The produce there is amazing!  My change is in the lettuce.  I like romaine but its sort of boring.  Aldi's had some beautiful lettuces in heads packed in plastic boxes.  I pulled a whole head out, chopped it up and it was the perfect amount for this.  Instead of cherry tomatoes, I used romas.  A lot less work and that's what I had on hand so no need to spend more money.  I also used canned chicken.  It made this so much faster then having to cook or cut up left overs.  Just drain and dump.  I'm not a fan of bell peppers but my kids eat them like candy so I thinly slice them so that it's not huge chunks at one time and the kids get a veggie they love.  I'm about to go back and get seconds it is so good and I'm not usually a salad gal.  Oh, and I added a cucumber too.  I think you could make this salad as versatile as you want it to be.  Chick peas would be yummy too!  I look forward to playing with this one more.

Breakfast Success!

I actually got to eat this morning!  And it was really yummy.  For my older two, plates were cleaned and a bit of an extra portion even asked for.  My younger two are still plugging along but that's normal for them and supposedly, little people eat slower than us big folks.  So, just trying to keep them motivated to eat quickly so they can get on with the day because momma has lots to do and I've got to get school work in there somewhere too.

This morning's breakfast was originally going to be one thing but evolved into my own creation and I am so glad I did it the way I did.  Cauliflower Hashbrown Pancakes with Fried Egg and of course, a nice ice cold glass of milk.

• Half a head of cauliflower
• 2-3 small potatoes
• 2-3 Tbsp of flour
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• Pepper to taste
• Crushed red pepper flakes to taste (I don't use a lot since my little ones are not fans of spicy food)
• 1/2 tsp of garlic powder
• 1 and 1/2 tsp of dried onion
• Diced Bacon
• Oil (Coconut oil is good for this)

Grate the cauliflower and potatoes together (I used a hand grater because I like the texture of it better than a food processor).  Brown bacon and drain (I used turkey bacon so I didn't have anything to drain).  Add to the cauliflower and potato.  Add in egg and mix to blend.  Add flour and seasonings and mix thoroughly.  

Pat into firm balls, like making meat balls and then put onto a greased non-stick griddle pan that has already been heated up to about medium high.  Press them flat and with spatula, press sides in together to form a pancake shape.  Cook until golden brown, flip and repeat.  Add more oil if needed.

Clean off griddle, add more oil and cook eggs to liking.  If frying, it tends to be better if I do one at a time, two if I'm feelin' lucky!  I prefer to leave the yolks runny so that I have a nice sauce to dip the cakes into or to have the egg on top of and run over.

Good Morning!

It's almost 7 in the morning.  Usually I am still in bed at this point.  I'm not much for getting up but when I have to, at least I can hit the ground running.  My husband, not so much.  We both wish we had the energy levels our kids have, but then again, don’t all parents?  Even with being able to get up and go when needed, breakfast has never been a priority for me.  Now that I have kids, that has had to change.

Breakfasts for me growing up were nothing interesting.  I ate so much Raisin Bran and PBJ's that it took me YEARS to eat a PBJ and I still won't eat Raisin Bran; too many bad memories.  Then there were the hard boiled eggs just still gooy in the middle sliced over buttered bread and lumpy Cream of Wheat from time to time.  I hated breakfast and I HAD to eat it.  I grew up and breakfast became a non-issue; it didn't exist!  But is that how our bodies should really live?  Is it good for us to run on fumes from the meal we ate 12 hours ago?  Simply, no.  Never-the-less, I often go without breakfast because either I sleep as long as I can and then run out of time to eat before I have to leave or my little piranhas eat it all up and I just don't care enough to fix more.  Regardless, I end up crashing and running for the quickest thing which usually is junk.  Today, it was three mini candy bars.  The horror!!!  Thankfully I've not reached an age where my body weight is an issue because no doubt, that can't be a good thing for health or weight.

Carnation Breakfasts have been my life savor for a while.  It got me through all four of my pregnancies when I was too sick or tired to eat.  I don’t feel guilty about drinking it like I do eating a candy bar.  Still not healthy but at least it’s not totally empty and there are lots of ways to spruce it up and make it a bit better for you.  If you’re looking at sugar, you’d die at this thought I guess but sugar doesn’t scare me.  I just try and keep things in moderation.  Bananas are great pureed into the milk chocolate as is peanut butter or both at the same time!  Strawberries are good and pretty much any fruit that goes well with chocolate.  There is vanilla and those made really good fruit smoothie add ins for a creamy touch.  I don’t drink them daily like I used to and part of that comes from learning more breakfast meals and cooking enough for me to have some too. 

Usual breakfasts for us include oatmeal (usually with some fruit and nut added in), Malt-o-Meal (which is amazing with maple syrup and dates) and the quickie Multi-Grain Cherrios.  With three chickens that are laying, we usually have a surplus of eggs, so long as my dog hasn’t had some for a snack.  So, scrambled eggs and grits find their way on the table a lot too.  Then there are pancakes.  I don’t know what it has been about these lil’ treats but they have been my biggest experiment.  Pancakes have always been nothing more than an ok way to eat cake for breakfast.  I’ll never forget my mom flipping out when my dad served me chocolate cake for breakfast one morning.  His response was something along the lines of, it’s ok to eat pancakes covered in syrup but not cake?  I totally understand the confusion!  Being the sweet-o-holic that I have always been and am even more so after having my fourth child, I have been hell-bent on making these blood sugar bombs something healthy and more than good to eat for breakfast.  And by-george I’ve done it!  This has been the recipe to evolve the most over the years and is the most varied in flavor combinations.  Coming across the new hit Trim Healthy Momma has only taken it further for me.  I don’t know much about THM but after looking through many different recipes, I’ve discovered cooking with not just bread flour, whole wheat flour and even flax seed flour, but also how to cook with coconut flour, oat flour and hopefully soon I’ll get to try almond flour.  I’m not interested in a gluten free diet.  Personally, unless you have a legitimate allergy, I think the gluten free diets are just another crazy idea out there to get publicity and a cult-like following.  I am shocked at how hostile moms can get over another mom eating gluten.  My goodness!  Like there are no other major and far more important issues to get all fluffed up over.  What I like about cooking with these other flours are the health benefits that come from them as well as the new flavors.  Coconut flour is like sunflower seed oil; it is going to impart some bit of that flavor to what you are cooking but so far, savory or sweet, it has worked in small amounts.  I’ll get into more detail on those proportions when I start getting these recipes up. 

And to add even more to the list of breakfast foods comes the surplus of eggs I have.  I really don’t like hard boiled eggs unless it is for egg salad.  My grandmomma’s old time chili sauce makes them pretty ok but other than that, there is just only so many scrambled eggs I can enjoy.  Occasionally, I fix fried eggs (in coconut oil and non-stick griddle of course) to go with toast and gravy or over grits leaving the yolks runny to make a nice sauce.  But that is time consuming and by the time I’ve cooked four, my lil’ piranhas are ready for a second round.  Thus we get back to momma not eating breakfast again.  So I discovered egg muffin but got bored with those until I found Trim Healthy Momma and there have been some really yummy ideas to bring those morsels back to the table and healthier than ever.

I have a new casserole to try this week for breakfast this week and am very interested to see how that goes.  I’ve never done a casserole like this before.  I could make this ahead of time and just pop it in the oven when I get up to make eating first thing in the morning even easier.  So a big part of the meal planning is to meal plan for breakfasts so that I take better care of my body, feed my kids better in the morning and raise them up in good habit to carry with them when they grow up.

This week’s recipe experiment is going to be: Omelet Quesadillas from Taste of Home. 

·         1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms

·         2 tablespoons chopped onion

·         1/2 cup egg substitute

·         2 tablespoons chopped fresh tomato

·         2 flour tortillas (10 inches)

·         4 thin slices lean ham (1/2 ounce each)

·         1/4 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

·         1/4 cup shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese

·         3 tablespoons salsa

Directions:

In a small nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray, cook mushrooms and onion over medium heat until tender. Add egg substitute and tomato; cook and stir until set.

Place one tortilla in a large nonstick skillet; top with ham, egg mixture, cheeses and remaining tortilla. Cook over medium heat, carefully turning once, until lightly browned on both sides and cheese is melted. Cut into four wedges. Serve with salsa. Yield: 2 servings.

Of course, as with most all of the recipes I use, I’ll modify them to fit our tastes and eventually, recreate it to fit us.  When I do, I’ll update with that!

Two Week Meal Plan 2

Here is my second Two Week Meal Plan.  I'm starting to see a theme of items that I have been using a lot of and know that I usually do use it so it is time to keep an eye open for sales so that I can stock up on those items for the future when we have the extra money to do so.  

Breakfasts:

·           Cauliflower Hash Browns with Fried Eggs

·           Sausage, Eggs, Biscuits and Gravy

·           Sundried Tomato and Sausage Egg Muffins

·           Strawberry Vanilla Coconut Smoothie

·           Omelet Quesadilla Recipe

·           Zucchini Pancakes

Lunches:

·           Sandwich Wraps

·           Savory Zucchini Sage Muffins

·           Feta Avocado Chicken  Salad

Dinners:

·           Roasted Cabbage with Bacon, Black Eyed Peas and Ham

·           Stuffed Peppers and Risotto

·           Tostadas

·           Pan-Roasted Chicken With Lemon-Garlic and Green Beans

·           Lasagna

·           Spinach Stuffed Beef Tenderloin

Food, Family and Flavor

I have grown to love cooking but I'm picky still on what it is about it that I do love.  I'm not the talented kitchen superstar that can take seemingly nothing and create a master piece.  I'm not overly creative in coming up with my own unique creations either.  I usually start with a recipe and spring board from there to make my own unique dishes.  The more I learn about food and what is healthy and what is not, the more my creations evolve.  It is rare that I make the exact same dish twice.  They may be close but because I do a lot of toss this in, shake a bit of that in, a pinch here and a handful there, the tastes shift from a bit to a whole new creation at times. This is what makes cooking so interesting to me and helps keep me from getting so board in what I'm eating.  My taste buds must be highly sophisticated.

Family is a hard part of cooking.  We all have our individual likes and dislikes and I refuse to fix more than one dinner at a time.  I'm the mom that puts it on the table and you either eat it or don't eat it.  I figure if someone gets hungry enough, like it or not, they'll eat it.  So far no one has starved to death.  But, I do like for my family to enjoy what I fix.  There is a great satisfaction to be had in not only my kids cleaning their plate and asking for more, but for my husband to do so as well.  Put fast food down on the table and there's not much fuss to be heard however, put something healthy in front of them and they may be sitting there for a few hours until they finish it.  If I'm going to slave over the hot stove and oven, sweating and crying and bleeding....ok, that might be a bit dramatic but I have done all three at some given point in time or another....I want them to eat it.  I hate throwing food out.  I was raised up to think about the starving children around the world and while it's usually just another one of those gimmicks parents use to manipulate their children into doing what they want them to do, it really did impact me deeply and is something that I do use as a tool to teach my children and to help train them up to be thankful for what they have.  I don't want to have to feed my family garbage in order to keep their plates clean so looking for flavor combinations that will make the taste buds do a jig and the body grow healthier and stronger is a constant goal of mine.  I've had some amazing winners lately (pizza made with cauliflower crust for instance) and some absolute disasters (spaghetti squash with browned butter and garlic; great concept but something went terribly wrong and it has something to do with how I cooked the squash).  But I keep on keeping on and one day, I hope to put together a cook book for my children to take out of the home with them and into their families filled with recipes and pictures of not only their favorite foods but of them enjoying them over the years.  Gotta put my photography skills to work somewhere.

Money is a huge factor in eating and the ability to feed my family is growing harder and harder.  Some moms rock the couponing thing.  I don't get it.  I got the basic concept but even then it just wasn't worth it.  The burden of going grocery shopping was added to the burden of how much money we'd not only spend on groceries that would feed us for less than a week but also the cost of feeding the family dinner as we rushed home at almost bed time after getting those groceries.  We were spending a ridiculous amount of money on fast food and my spirit hurt every time I saw my children eating it.  We'd get the "healthier" options but I knew that not only physically was the fast food bad for us but financially it was as well.  If I'm going to ask God to bless us in our finances, I have to be wise with what He already has given us and aside from a once in a long while treat, fast food is far from wise.  I had played with meal planning before but for a lot of factors, I got away from it and I kept meaning to and intending to but procrastination was just so much easier.  I had enough though and did it.  It took me several hours to put together my meals and grocery list for two weeks of food but I felt a sort of high when I was done and the bill was even more to celebrate and we didn't eat fast food that night either.  In fact, I did two weeks of grocery shopping all on my own with four kids 6 and under!!!  Yeah, I'm a superstar at that!  So, four weeks of two meal plans and what ever short runs up the road to buy a gallon of milk here and there cost, we saved a load of gas and time and money.  We spent about $460 for a month of food for 6 people and that is huge for us.  And even better, the fast food has not been a part of our diets for the past month and that actually brings tears to my eyes.

Being a mom is a huge responsibility and one I do not take lightly.  I got lazy with my parenting in this area and my children's lives are impacted by that.  I want to make sure that my children love food, are healthy and that my husband is blessed with a bit of peace when it comes time to do the check book.  So, for love of food, my family and great flavor, I step out on this adventure, this discipline and a new lifestyle to make sure that my family is happy and healthy as best is possible.