Recycling for Christmas

Maybe at last I am taking things to the extreme, but I have determined to wrap our Christmas presents in recycled materials. My 6 year old thought it was cool until she realized that recycled wrap is not shiny and covered in Santa Claus. It's just shiny.

Anyways, hoarded a stack of old magazines expressly for this purpose. The fun part was making the bows.
First, I cut skinny strips of magazine paper and folded them into a figure 8 pattern and stapled them in the middle. Then I crossed 3 or 4 of of the figure 8s, stapled again, and then made a loop and stapled to the top.

I loved the way they turned out. So I wrapped packages in magazines and topped with the bows. I used colored sharpies to write directly on the package in lieu of gift tags.
Although my daughter hates it, I think the gifts look even more colorful than normal, it recycled magazines I otherwise may not have had a use for, and it cost me nothing!


I love it when being green helps me save money! :-)

T-Day Breakfast

Yes, I know I am behind, and I really know it's December, but I have to share my Thanksgiving breakfast. Since my oldest was born, I have always tried to do a special breakfast for each holiday.

This was the easiest ever! When we make pancakes, we make 2 or 3 batches, and freeze the leftovers in a large ziploc. To eat, you just pop them in the toaster oven for a few.

Anyway, for the older child, I cut out a turkey shape using a steak knife, and arranged fruit around it. Voila. And it was quite cute (if I do say so, my ever-humble self!)
Ingredients:
apple slices (red)
tangerine slices
1 raisin
1 pancake

Arrange as shown. Sure to delight an approximate 6 year old.




For the baby, I didn't want to feed a pancake, so I did the same arrangement with toast:
He was delighted too, but he's at the age where he just likes to eat. Period. He did not care one bit that it was a turkey.

Recycling the Turkey Carcass

Now everyone, or most everyone I know, delights in turkey leftovers. My personal favorite is turkey with cranberry sauce on bread. But whatever floats your boat. What do you do with the not meat parts?

This year, I did not cook a turkey, but my parents did. Before it was even cut, I asked my dad for the carcass. Now, my dad thought I was crazy, but cheerfully ziplocked it up for me once the bird met its untimely end.

Word to the wise.. this is easier if you disassemble it. I, however, was stuffed and lazy on turkey, and did not. I took my larger crock pot and force-fed it the turkey carcass. Literally. I shoved the thing in there until it fit. I added enough water to cover it, threw in some garlic and chopped onion, both of which were already in the fridge, and turned it on low. A few hours later, I went back and added more water and went to bed. The next morning, I strained the broth and refrigerated it to cool off. Putting it in tupperware containers and labelling, I stuck it in the freezer. If you are freezing liquid, leave a 1/4 inch or so at the top of your container empty. Liquid expands with frozen and this will save you from a slushy mess.

Next, I dumped more water on the turkey carcass and did it all over again. I got, in all, about 30 cups of broth, absolutely free, minus the cost of water and electricity. And finally, I threw the leftover bones into the compost pile, where they will not take nearly as long to break down as they might've, since I have cooked them until they are like rubber.

And all that broth? I can add it to many things. Or heat it and drink it straight if I get sick.

Roux-making

Don't know how to make a roux? Well for some reason, it puzzled me for years. It's basically just a mixture of fat and flour which can be used to thicken soups, stews, and sauces (the three yummy s's of fall and winter cooking, in my humble opinion!)

Basically, you need to take equal parts. For some recipes, this could be 1/4 cup, for some a number of spoonfuls. Some recipes also have you season the roux. For best results, remember to ALWAYS season after cooking. I am using butter below, but you can also use lard, olive oil, or whatever your favorite fat may be.

Basic roux recipe:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour

Over low heat, melt the butter in a skillet. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly, sprinkle the flour into the butter a bit at a time. Stirring constantly, you want to dissolve the flour as much as possible into the butter. Keep adding until it gets gloppy. If you need a darkened roux, you will then cook it some more while constantly stirring to get the appropriate flavor. Once you are finished, remove from heat and add the seasoning to your glop. Then, add your beautiful roux to one of your delicious S's (soups, stews, and sauces) and you are ready to go!

Broccoli Soup

Otherwise known as, I got three pounds of broccoli florets (fresh!) on sale for 99 cents and had no idea what to do with it!

This was pretty easy and tasty, with absolutely zero complaints from the peanut gallery.

Recipe:

• center of a bunch of celery (incl. leaves)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 lb. broccoli florets, chopped
• 4 tsp. non-bleached flour
• 4 tsp. organic butter
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. ground mustard
• 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 3 slices white american cheese
• black pepper, to taste
• seasoned salt, to taste
• 2 cups of milk

To answer your question about the first ingredient, yes the leaves are edible. And yes, I know noone likes the center of the celery. That's why you are putting it in the soup. Reducing waste, my friend. Other ways you could green it up, make it a bit healthier.. use a raw cheese, and/or raw milk (aka Amish milk), and get rid of the seasoned salt in favor of a good-quality sea salt.


In a large pot, saute celery, onion, and garlic with the nutmeg, black pepper, seasoned salt and ground mustard. Once the veggies are getting soft, add the broccoli. In a separate pan, you will need to start working on your roux. Don't know how to make a roux? Click here: http://mymemasway.blogspot.com/2009/12/roux-making.html
Meanwhile, once the broccoli has sauteed enough to get a bit of extra flavor, add the milk. You may need to judge how much milk you like, I wanted my soup more filling and less soupy, but adjust to suit you. When your roux is done, add it to the soup along with the worcestershire. You want to cook this pretty low, with no risk of scalding the milk. Scalded milk is nasty in case you've never had the experience, I promise you can skip it. Stir occasionally and cook for about 20 minutes or until broccoli is pretty soft. Add cheese to the soup. I simply laid the slices on top and let them melt, then stirred them in really well.

For serving, I made this a family friendly meal to make everyone happy. For my six year old, I took a whole wheat bun and cut it out, breadbowl-style, which was a delight to her. For my husband, I topped it with salsa and gave him a bowl of leftover tortilla chips.

Smiles all around.

The next morning, to go ahead and do away with the little bit of leftover I had (about 1 1/2 cups), I made a quiche.

Recipe:

1 1/2 cups broccoli soup
1/2 cup fresh broccoli florets, chopped
4 eggs
1 ready made crust
shredded cheese

Break eggs and beat with soup. Add fresh broccoli. Pour all in ready made crust and top with about 1/2 cup of cheese, more or less to your taste. Bake in a preheated 350 oven for about 25 minutes or until top is "set" and doesn't jiggle too much when you shake it. Voila! Breakfast!

Sour Cream Chicken Quiche

Morningtimes around my house are chaotic, to put it mildly. Two lunches to pack, two dogs to feed, 1 baby plus 3 other people to feed, homework to look over, people to dress, diaper to change, at least two arguments regarding cartoon watching, and one episode of "Where is my.....?"

So I have been trying to do more of the make ahead breakfast variety. We'll make homemade pancakes and freeze, or something. And quiche is a big winner. Here is the variety I made last night. It is good, but not my best. Anyway, something savory that will please the whole family and is quick.....


Sour Cream Chicken Quiche
2 shredded chicken thighs
1/2 c. chopped celery
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. chopped bell peppers
2 tsp. butter
1/2 tsp. ground mustard
1/2 tsp. sage
3 eggs
2 tbsp. sour cream
3/4 cup whole milk
1/2 cup shredded cheese
a piecrust (homemade or store-bought)

I keep saying I will make my own piecrust. For some reason it sounds impossibly hard, though, so we'll see. I used a frozen one this time.

Preheat oven to 350. In a skillet, saute the celery, onion, and bell pepper in the butter. Season with sage and mustard. Once the veggies are soft, add the shredded chicken until well blended and seasoned. Pour the mixture in the bottom of the pie crust and spread out. In a bowl, beat 3 eggs with the whole milk and sour cream. Pour over the other mixture. Top with shredded cheese.

Quiche is a funny thing, and if you are using a store-bought crust (which I am primarily opposed to because of the disposable pie tin) you never know how even it is on the bottom. For this reason, I always put a cookie sheet on the bottom rack of my oven and then place the quiche on the top rack. This helps reduce cleanup if your quiche overflows like mine did.

Bake about 30 minutes or until the quiche sets up. Don't know what that means? Pull the quiche out of the oven and jiggle it. If the innards flow around like a river, it's not done. If the innards hang out like a solid.. you've got a winner. (Hmm.. maybe next time I should use this as a science lesson to demonstrate the difference between liquids and solids.)

Let it cool about five minutes before serving. If you are making it for a quick breakfast, let cool about 20 minutes and refrigerate. It can be served for breakfast hold or cold. (My family likes it hot. Me, personally, it's quiche. I'll eat it anyway it comes.) This particular quiche is heavy on the other stuff besides the eggs. I like a really eggy quiche, but if you don't.. this is a good one for you. At any rate, about half of it is gone this morning already. I think I need to make my own piecrust so I can make quiche in a rectangular baking dish.

I hear you can also freeze quiche, but I haven't tried it.

Chicken Lasagna Soup

So it was wet, cold, and gray yesterday. I couldn't decide what to make for dinner, had completely forgotten to try to use the crockpot. I wanted soup. Or pasta. Soup and pasta are comforting on a blah cold dreary GA day. But soup makes my husband starve. The solution? I invented a chicken lasagna soup!


Chicken Lasagna soup
4 cups chicken broth (I made mine while cooking the chicken)
4 shredded chicken cooked chicken thighs
1/2 onion diced
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. crushed bay leaves
5 or 6 sliced mushrooms
2 tsp. minced garlic
1 bag homemade marinara
1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 cup frozen spinach
1 cup garbanzo beans, cooked (yes I still had some from previous post)
3 tomatoes, chopped
2 cups ricotta cheese
1/2 box lasagna noodles (I like whole wheat)
fresh basil, for garnish

If you are making chicken and chicken broth, boil the chicken in about 12 cups of water with some onion, celery, garlic, etc. Shred chicken and reserve, return bones and skin to pot and let simmer for the duration of your cooking. Strain and freeze leftover broth.

Now, sautee onions & mushrooms with olive oil, garlic, bay leaves & black pepper. Once onions are about half cooked, add chicken & celery. Cook about 3 minutes and add the frozen spinach. Continue to cook until spinach is thawed, add marinara, 1 cup of broth, and the garbanzo beans. Simmer on low for about 20 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes and 3 more cups of chicken broth. Simmer another 20 minutes or until you just can't resist any longer. Break up lasagna noodles into bite size pieces (this is a great job for a first grade or so child running around driving you nuts) and boil about 10 minutes in a seperate pot. Once the noodles or done, drain and stir into the soup.

To serve, fill bowls about 3/4 full with soup, and scoop 1-2 tbsp of ricotta cheese on top of each bowl. Garnish with chopped fresh basil. Serve with toast or other bread item.


My daughter declared it yummy and my husband waited about an hour after eating and decided to go for thirds INSTEAD OF raiding the Halloween candy.

I felt like it need some cayenne. If you are a spice lover, you may want to add this. You could also make this in the crock pot, if you planned ahead.

Date Night-- Indian Food

So we finally got a date night, but were too broke to go out, so I decided to make the experience at home. And without kids, we could have spicy without complaint, so I made Indian food. Some of this is from scratch, and some I cheated a little. Also, I am a big believer in reducing and reusing, even extending that to food. You will notice I am using leftover garbanzo beans from when I made falafal.



Tandoori Chicken

1/2 cup tandoori paste (I like LAXMI brand)
1 cup greek yogurt
4 bone-in chicken thighs, skin removed
1 small onion
1 small lemon

In a mixing bowl, mix together yogurt and tandoori paste. Spread on chicken on both sides, and marinate in the refrigerator for five hours. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Next, put in a fairly shallow baking dish, with all of the paste mixture.

Slice the onions and lemon and arrange around the chicken. Cook for about 35 minutes or until juices inside the chicken run completely clear.










Lentils & Rice
2 cups jasmine rice
1 cup lentils
2 tsp. parsley
1 tsp. tumeric
1 tsp. mint
1 tbsp. sesame oil
salt

In a pot, bring 4 cups of water and 2 cups of rice to a boil. Add sesame oil and salt, reduce heat. Simmer, covered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Towards the end of cooking the rice, add the tumeric, mint, and parsley. Meanwhile, in a separate pot, bring 2 cups of water and 1 cup of lentils to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer 40 minutes or until lentils are soft. Drain lentils, if necessary, and mix with rice.



Chana Masala
1 cup of cooked garbanzo beans
3 cups frozen spinach
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 tsp. tumeric
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. garam masala
1/2 tsp. parsley
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. olive oil

Sautee the chopped onion in the olive oil, until almost clear, and add garlic to the mixture. Add all spices and stir well. Once all is blended, add chickpeas, and stir to coat with spice mixture. Add frozen spinach and stir occasionally until cooked through. Sprinkle lemon juice to taste.



Serve the rice & lentils, chana masala, and tandoori chicken with pita bread, naan or tortilla. Garnish with lemon slices for squeezing over the chicken.



For dessert:

This is a simple idea I read in this month's Marie Claire.

Peel, dice, and de-seed oranges (I used tangerines). Sprinkle with honey and cinnamon and serve. It's nice and light and refreshing!



Notes about this meal: This was delish, but killed our stomachs. Not for the faint or heart and/or tummy. I buy my Indian spices at an Indian grocery, but Amazon also carries a lot of them.

Venison Tomato Pasta

So I had a pound of ground venison that a wonderful friend was kind enough to give me. And my daughter has decided she is only eating animals she doesn't like, which means in order to avoid a showdown, I need to disguise things. I decided to make a spaghetti-like pasta dish, which worked out really well except it disappeared so quickly I didn't get any pictures....


Ingredients:
1 lb. ground venison
2 cloves garlic
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp. oregano
1 pinch sea salt
1 pinch crushed bay leaves
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. rosemary
1 tsp. parsley
2 tsp. balsamic vinegar
1 can tomatoes
1 jar of marinara or bag of homemade marinara sauce
1 bag of whole wheat egg noodles


Cook ground venison with onions and garlic until venison is starting to lose the pink. Add all other ingredients except for noodles and cook on low heat for 30 minutes or so, long enough for the flavors to meld. While sauce is cooking, cook bag of pasta according to package directions. Serve with sauce on top of pasta and salad and garlic bread.

The good things about this-- the balsamic vinegar was just enough to add an unusual sweet twang to the sauce. The venison was strong enough to stand up to the other flavors so that you could get the flavor of the meet. And my daughter? She ate seconds before asking for Halloween candy for dessert (a moment in history!)




A good thing about having my blog I discovered on the next night? I couldn't find my falafel recipe after moving, and realized I could look it up here. In case anyone else should go back and make it, a couple of pointers: Falafel needs to be fried in a farely dry, well heated pan. Also, tzaziki sauce is better when made with american style vs. greek-style yogurt. (Some things you have to learn the hard way. C'est la vie..)

Comfort In the Midst of Downpour

So it's been raining in GA for ah, like weeks. Flooding in some places even, so far we have been spared. When it's cold and wet like this, I tend to want soups, stews, and the like, that warm you from the inside out.

I also like to curl up under a blanket and be lazy, so I am crock-pottin' it again today, making Smoked Turkey & Lima Bean Soup!


Smoked Turkey & Lima Bean Soup
1 bag dried lima beans
2 green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic
6 cups chicken stock (approx.)
2-3 smoked turkey drums
1/2 celery stalk, chopped finely
1 can of tomatoes
3 heads of chopped baby bok choy
3 sprigs of thyme

Rinse the beans and pick out any icky ones, then soak overnight. In the morning, add all ingredients. I used my leftover chicken stock from mole night, but you can substitute in whatever you may have on hand. Cook on low all day long.

Before serving, you may want to shred the turkey. In my house, if I skip the turkey shredding, everyone fights over the chunks. You also may want to add additional seasoning, sage and/or cayenne would work well here.

This would be excellent with cornbread were I not out of cornmeal!


And, by the way, my six year old, who wanted to eat dinner with Nana and Papa because she didn't want lima beans, ate a 2nd dinner once she had a taste-- she ate 1 1/2 bowls!

Holy Mole Chicken

Yum, Yum, YUM!!!!
So yesterday I was in the mood for Mexican, and I started looking around and realized I didn't have the ingredients to whip up something simple. Enter my inspiration for mole chicken...


I of course read about 20 recipes before attempting to create my own. This is a recipe I would make some substitutions for seasonally, i.e. earlier in the year I would have used FRESH tomatoes.

But here are the ingredients for the SAUCE:

1 can tomatoes
2 cloves minced garlic
2tbsp cinnamon
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
3 dried chilis
1 star anise
1 tsp mint
1 tsp coriander
1 red onion, chopped
1 tsp. crushed bay leaf
3 tbsp. chicken bouillion and 1 cup of water or 2 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 block unsweetened baker's chocolate



For the chicken:
4-5 chicken thighs, bone in
6 cups of water
2-3 slices of onion
1 clove garlic


Place chicken, water, onion, and garlic in a stock pot on the stove and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes or until chicken is completely cooked through.

While the chicken is cooking, work on the sauce. Toast the dried chili peppers in a skillet, just until they start to look like peppers again. Run the fan while doing so, toasting chili peppers smell. Add cinnamon and a bit of water and the star anise to the pan. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and simmer for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, pour the can of tomatoes on aluminum foil with garlic and roast in the oven for about 20 minutes. (You don't have to line the pan in aluminum foil... it's totally on you how much of a mess you want to clean up.)

Put the onions in the blender and add a little water. Pulse until the onions are mostly mush. Add the tomato & garlic mixture and blend some more. Finally, add the other spices and the sesame seeds. Blend again.

Back to the pan on the stove. Using tongs, remove the chili peppers from the skillet. Then, using a fork and knife, or glove, or other method of protection, slit each one open and remove the seeds. Unless you like blazing hot stuff, in which case, skip this step and throw 'em in the blender. Either way, add them in and blend. Make sure you can't see any chunks of chili pepper floating around. Add the block of chocolate to the water/cinnamon/star anise on the stove. Cook until the chocolate is just melted. I also used the tongs to pull out any stray chili seeds as I was cooking for kids and didn't feel like dealing with "too spicy" complaints. Add the chocolatey goodness to the blender, and blend a final time.

Back to your chicken. Remove the pieces one by one and shred with a couple of forks. Return any skin, gobs of fat, and bone to the chicken pan. Continue to simmer.. you can turn this into chicken stock later and freeze to use again. Put the shredded chicken in a pan with about 1/3 of the sauce and simmer lightly until you are ready to eat. I also simmered a little on the side to top the other food with.

Serving suggestions:
I made homemade tortillas, similarly spiced vegetables, and rice. We smothered the rice in mole sauce too. My DH and I loved it, M liked everything BUT the mole. And R was too little to eat the mole, so next time, I'll just leave all the seeds in and have yummy spicy mole for us adults.

I did take pics, so they'll be up by tomorrow. :-)

Autumn Breakfast-- can be quick and easy

This morning I had promised to do breakfast duty in exchange for my husband doing dinner last night. I made one of my go-to crowd pleasers, sure to make everyone happy on the way to church. I have made them totally from scratch in the past, but this morning was not THAT morning.

Chocolate Pumpkin Pancakes
1 box of devil's food or other chocolate cake mix
1 can of pumpkin


Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees, spray muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray. Mix the two ingredients together until there are no dry bits of cake mix left. It will be quite thick and goopy. Portion into muffin tins, makes 6-12 muffins. Cook for about 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.


I was going to put pictures up, but they dissapeared too quickly.


Why are these the bomb? Pumpkin is excellent for you (look it up, really) and they are easy and you get to be a superhero mom for serving chocolate for breakfast. The family won't even know they contain pumpkin unless you tell them....

Yard sale treasure

I've been dying for a new grill since we moved and some bamboo blinds... stopped by a yard sale today and got both for $10. Pictures to come.

I am mentioning this because yard sales are a great way to go green if you're interested. Also to stock up on good quality heavy-duty cookware. Just a thought.

Laziness, Moving, and Catching Up...

For the past couple of months I have been completely slack about updating my blog. I started a new job, moved, and went through another few ups and downs that contributed to it. But now that we are somewhat settled in our new digs, I have been reinspired to work on my blog by reading on this one: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ which is totally awesome.

I still desire a traditional diet for my family, but for several reasons we have backed off on some of it. So I will just share my cooking I am doing.

Tonight, inspired by the crockpot blog, I created a recipe, I'll have to let you know how it goes. I used:

1 LARGE carrot, diced
2 wilted pieces of celery
1/4 sliced red onion
1 large head of broccoli
4 minced garlic cloves
1/2 package grape tomatoes, washed
4 frozen chicken thighs, bone in
1 tsp. rosemary
1 tsp. dried mustard
2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. sage

I layered the veggies on the bottom, chicken on the top, and set to cook on low and plan to let it cook all day. The chicken started looking rather plain towards afternoon, so I sprinkled some dry mustard and chili powder on it.

It turned out awesome!


While I am mentioning that other blog, I made her crockpot lemon chicken last night and it was great!

Upcycling & Craftiness

I used to make fun of my mom when I was younger for wanting to make everything and being so crafty. Now recently I borrowed her sewing machine to make diapers, and suddenly have 75 projects to do. And when surfing the internet, I have stumbled upon the concept of upcycling.. that is, taking old things and remaking them to a new and possibly better use.

So here are a few projects I've been working on:
A gift bag made from an old pair of jeans.



Coffee cup cozis or sleeves Made from sweater cuffs.A business card holder made from a brownie mix box.

And an old table we are recovering in mosaic to make a patio table....


And that's where we are at.


Today's lunch was sandwiches. Grilled cheese with turkey pastrami and sungoat pesto. Yummy!

Back to Cooking, and How to Occupy a Whiny Six Year Old

So I haven't cooked much in a few days, as a matter of fact, I was stumped for meals and pointed to leftovers for my family. I also had a several day fight with my breadmaker. I think this was due to me deciding to use 50/50 whole wheat/white flour and Wolfgang Puck did not agree with my choice.

Too bad I was too mad about the thing to take pictures..my bread was turning out like a science experiment!

But last night I decided to make manicotti based on the fact that, well, I had the ingredients. I worked at a restaurant in high school/college that made it with spinach, and I have since adopted and tweaked the recipe to make it my very own. This is typically a hit, with, well, pretty much anybody. And it's pretty easy.

What you need:

a container of ricotta cheese
a container of cottage cheese
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
some sliced mushrooms (canned)
frozen spinach
2 boxes of manicotti noodles
1 onion
either a jar of ragu or your favorite marinara sauce or some homemade
basil
rosemary
thyme
oregano
black pepper
salt
olive oil
shredded mozzarella cheese
a large bowl, large pot, skillet, lid for skillet, and large baking dish

First of all, put some spinach in a skillet on low and put a lid on it. You just want to steam it enough to thaw out. Fill a large pot with water, put a dash of salt and olive oil, and bring to a boil. In a large bowl, mix together ricotta cheese, cottage cheese, mushrooms, garlic, about half of the onion, chopped, and about 1 tsp each of basil, rosemary, thyme, and oregano. Add salt and pepper to taste and stir in the spinach.

Once your water is boiling, drop in the manicotti noodles one by one. Boil them about 8 minutes, stirring carefully to keep them from sticking together and breaking. Go ahead and preheat your oven to 350. Once they are done, drain and rinse with cold water. Too bad I forgot to take pictures of the next part-- it would make more sense that way. Carefully slit open a noodle with your finger and put two teaspoons of filling into it. Roll the noodle closed. If you want to be all perfectionistic about it, seal it closed by closing it with a little water. If you're like me, you'll simply flip it over and put the slit side face down in the pan. Once you have your baking dish full of manicotti, pour your marinara sauce of choice over it. Bake for about 15 minutes on 350, then remove and smother with shredded mozzarella. Bake until cheese is melted, about 15 additional minutes. Serve up with garlic bread and salad. Yum!



Oh, and here's how to occupy a six year old. Have said 6 year old mix together filling and stuff the noodles. The stuffing takes a lot of time, and with careful placement of compliments, can be accomplished with a minimum of whining.


And the final product minus a couple of slices (they dissapear quick)--



This week I've also been working on upcycling some different things. Will be posting pictures of coffee cup cozies and such later in the week.

Why Being Green is a Christian Value and What I Intend to Do About It

Pre-warning: I am on my soapbox today and will be expressing my personal religious views. You are welcome to comment and agree or disagree. But if you are going to get offended, you may want to skip this one. Just a warning, I know everyone may/may not agree with me, and I know my connections in my head can make my thoughts rather off-the-beaten path.


I completely, wholeheartedly consider myself a Christian. I believe in God, I believe Jesus Christ is the son of God who died on the Cross for our sins, I believe in the Holy Spirit.

I believe in the basic (and the not-so basic) teachings of the Bible. Am I perfect? NO. Noone is. But I try. Do I believe 100% of the Bible is applicable to today? Yes. But does the Bible address everything we encounter today? That's a definite maybe.

During the time God's word was written, there were no ziploc baggies. No cars, paper towels, juice boxes, designer jeans, and no water bottles. Period. Now God may have thought of those things, but they didn't exist in the day-to-day of human experience.

Are you with me so far?
"In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1
"Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." Genesis 1:26

So God created the Earth, and put us in charge of it? Wow. That's a pretty heavy responsibility. I mean, if God puts you in charge of something, shouldn't you take it more seriously than anything else? If you are a parent and God has gifted you with children, you take that responsibility seriously... (well some of us do, but that's a topic for another day.) So it stands to reason that we should take care of the earth.

Wow. Pardon my language, but we have totally failed on that one. It was a little easier to do when there were 10,000 or so humans in the world. But with a current estimated population of 6, 706, 993, 152, things are a little more complicated. Our impact on the planet is obviously on a much larger scale.

Hence the reason when I was a rebellious teenager, I would scream, "Litterers, litterers, SINNERS, SINNERS" out the window when I saw someone littering out of their car. Now that I'm all grown up, I realize that screaming at people doesn't really help, and you obviously can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. And I also realize that I should start with myself and my family, as Jesus said, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." John 8:7
I am certainly not without sin, let alone environmental sins.

So I am doing my best to "green up" my act and that of my family. I thought I was pretty green until I really looked at it. Jeez. Just cleaning out my car on any given day could give you a peek inside our world-- I have two kids. They love disposable things!

So here are some things we have started:

1. No paper napkins. We use cloth. Always.
2. Converting to cloth diapers. (We make these out of old clothes, thus recycling them!)
3. Turning off lights when we leave the room. (Very difficult for some of us for no apparent reason.)
4. Reducing use of ziplocs.Bought a reusable sandwich container to pack sandwiches for my husbands' lunch
5. Buying rice in bulk. It is cheaper, offers less packaging, comes in a cloth bag, is organic. Less has to be packaged and less trips shipped to us is great.
6. Growing our own vegetables. They don't have to be shipped, packaged, waxed, sorted, none of it. We just walk out and pick.
7. Composting. We are throwing out at least 1/3 less since we started composting. And it's rather easy!
8. Repurposing (upcycling) things. T-shirts into diapers, pants legs into little girl purses, baby food jars into containers, etc.
9. Recycling. It's so easy. I mean, really. Where I live our trash service picks it up, but if yours does not, just throw it in the back of your car and drop it off when you see a spot. (Or email me to help you find one.)
10. Take cloth bags to the store instead of getting disposable. Agh! This is hard for me because generally getting two kids safely in the store is a trial, and remembering my list and coupons is hard enough. And when I do take them, I always feel like people in the store are going to think I'm trying to steal something. But I am really working on it. The reader that gives me the best idea how to remember will get a special green gift from me.
11. Carrying reusable water bottles. I love them, they're stylish. I just have to remember to clean them properly. Tip: if you have the aluminum kind, a little baking soda and vinegar can totally help with cleaning of all germs and smells. Just rinse well unless you want to be drinking vinegar water.
    

These are all in progress, but we will be starting more that I may blog about from time to time. I figure if I make an example to my kids, it will help them. And maybe friends will see how easy it is, it may help them, and like a little seed, it will spread on the wind...

Sloppy Joe Omelets & Baby Food

Once again we owe a special thanks to Mr. Sid for the sauce, for I used the leftover sauce to make sloppy joes the other night. They were incredible, even to M who doesn't love sloppy joes. And the morning after, I made sloppy joe omelets:

Ingrediants:
1/4 lb. sloppy joe meat leftovers
1 cup saurkraut
4 slices american cheese
6 eggs
Yield: 2 scrumptilicious omelets

Heat sloppy joe meat and saurkraut together in a skillet.

Break open 3 eggs and beat well or put in a blender for extra fluffiness. Heat oil in bottom of another skillet and pour eggs in. Shake the pan gently while eggs cook until just runny on top. Add meat mixture and two slices of cheese. Fold carefully with a spatula. Serve piping hot. Repeat for the second omelet.

It was a big hit with the adults, and M tried a bite and declared it delicious until she found out it was sloppy joe...

I've been trying to control what R eats as he enters the solids world. Baby food has so much junk added to it in the form of preservatives and what not, and many of the containers contain BisPhenol A, rumored to cause all sorts of issues. So I am, for the most part, making his food.

It might make me sound paranoid, but let me tell you, it is also more economical than buying the food at the store, and cuts down on packaging waste since I don't have all those little containers. Environmentally sound, healthy, cheap-- I'll take it.

So far, he's had bananas, apples, zucchini, carrots, and beets. My process is very simple, really.

I steam the food (except the bananas) and then puree in the food processor. With the exception of the carrots, that's it. The carrots I had to add some water to. I then freeze the food in ice cube trays, pop them out and place in large bags, and we can thaw out a block or two at a time. The only thing he has refused is the beets, but he will eat them mixed with carrots.

And he already doesn't want to be fed. He wants to feed himself. See how much he loves carrots?

Carnivores, Herbivores, & Lamb Stew

This week's theme is dinosaurs, so we have been studying plant eaters, meat eaters, and fossils. Bringing out some of my own rock collection, I showed off a few fossils to M. We then mixed up a simple salt dough (4 parts flour, 1 part salt, 1 part water) and made fossils. She rolled it out on the floor. She then pressed things into it to make "fossils". She used a dinosaur, a branch, and a coffee scoop. I'm not sure what type of coffee scoops lived millions of years ago, but I do try to encourage creativity. We baked the fossils at 350 for about 50 minutes.
Did you know that fossils can burn??
Anyway, the idea was that she would paint it the next day, and section off a dinosaur footprint to make a necklace the day after, but she loves it so much as-is that she is keeping it a decoration in her little kitchen.

The Farmer Joe outfit she is wearing in the pic is leftover from when she was a cotton picker at school in a play earlier this year. It was her choice of what to wear when I said to wear something she could get messy.

The same evening, I decided to have lamb stew. I already had half a bag of lima beans cooked in the fridge that I need to use up before they went bad. I also had an open bottle of red wine lurking around that it seemed noone was going to drink. I looked around on the internet but just couldn't find a recipe that suited me.
So here's mine:

1 onion, sliced
1/4 tsp. fresh rosemary, crushed
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. dried basil
3 garlic cloves, smushed
3 tbsp. fermented ginger carrots
3 tbsp. fermented ketchup
3 potatoes, sliced
2 lb. lamb stew meat
1/2 bag of dried lima beans, pre-soaked and cooked
1 cup frozen spinach
3 cups of beef broth
olive oil
sea salt
pepper
1 cup red wine


As you'll note, this recipe could be difficult to duplicate if you don't live in my kitchen, as I have several of the ingredients on-hand from what I've homemade. But you could always substitute.

To start, brown the lamb in a couple tablespoons of olive oil. About halfway through the browning process, add the onions. As they start to become clear, add the wine and the beef broth. Turn the fire down to low. Put a lid on the thing and leave it for about an hour. (You can check on it if you like). Add your smushed garlic and the other herbs. Add some water if you need (I didn't). Put the lid back on and continue to cook for about 30 minutes. Add the potatoes and carrots. Put the lid back on and cook about another 30 minutes. Add remaining ingrediants and continue to cook for about 20 minutes.

I served this up with some homemade garlic bread I made in the breadmaker, using a recipe that came with it. I honestly don't know which was more of a hit.
My husband, however, who is not a huge bread eater, ate 3 pieces of bread.

Coming up: homemade baby food and sloppy joe omelets.

Jamaican Night

As my husband's family is from Jamaica, my mother-in-law and I decided that once a month we should do Jamaican night so that the kids will get more exposure to that part of their heritage. This weekend we made Jamaican oxtail. Although I was a bit skeptical, it actually turned out to be an AWESOME dish!

The night before I marinated the oxtail in:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp. black peppercorns (whole)
1/2 finely minced onion
2 tbsp. allspice
4 finely minced cloves garlic
1/2 tsp. sea salt
2 tbsp. thyme


The day of cooking, we browned them. You can do this in a pan, but we did it in the broiler for the time to pass more quickly. We then put them in a pot to boil, along with about 3 tsp. tomato paste, a diced tomato, and more of the same seasonings. A couple of cups of water, and we cooked them in a pressure cooker until they were tender enough to be falling off of the bone. M and my husband then made spinners, which are basically flour and water "spun" into little dumpling like concoctions and cooked in with the oxtail.

While the oxtail was cooking, we boiled some lima beans that had been soaking overnight. Once the oxtail was nearly cooked through, we added the lima beans in with it. We served the resulting dish over rice. It was delicious as you can see by M digging in below. She is usually skeptical of any kind of meat other than "chicken" (which can mean anything from salmon to pork chops) but she loved it even though she knew it was oxtail!

Mr Sid's Chicken!

Last night for dinner I decided to use up the fresh veggies lingering in my fridge and also a bottle of Mr. Sid's barbeque sauce. Sid is a friend of my dad's, and M calls him Mr. Sid and his wife Mrs. Sid. Anyway, Mr. Sid has a secret recipe barbeque sauce and since it's a secret, I got him to give me a bottle. I marinated some drumsticks in it and then basted them as they were grilling. I only thawed out 4 drumsticks, and the result was so good I thought the family members with teeth were going to get into a fist fight over the extra. THANK YOU MR SID!!

For the veggies, we had corn on the cob with my jalepeno lime butter, which is very simple to make and just really enhances the natural flavor of the corn.

1/2 stick butter (NOT MARGARINE)
12 slices of pickled jalepenos
juice of one lime

Melt the butter. While butter is melting, chop the jalapenos finely. Mix all together and put in a container in the fridge to harden if you want to spread on the corn. If you prefer to roll your corn in it, leave melted.


We also had homefries, which I fried up in some olive oil in the iron skillet, with some onions, garlic, salt, pepper, and a little cayenne. I did this after scrubbing them with my new veggie brush, because I prefer to leave the skins on. (M used to complain like a lot of kids, but I chose to ignore her until she realized resistence is futile.)

My family has a tendency to ignore me when I tell them that an item is for a specific purpose they have a tendency to ignore me. I had this fear that someone would scrub the dishes with my veggie brush and then there would be cross-contamination issuwes, which I'm a bit of a freak about, so I borrowed a trick from my Pepa and labeled it with a Sharpie. Surely to goodness they can figure this out:


One would hope anyway, right?












We also had some kale, which I made up with onions, garlic, fresh ginger, tomatoes, and carrots. I used some chicken broth that I thawed out right in the pan. M complained, did not like it with the broth, and said it wasn't as good as what I usually make. I think she prefers the kale & garbanzo bean mixture, which I completely forgot existed until she complained!


This week's them was Native Americans, which we studied by reading books from the library, making several crafts, and visiting the Etowah Indian Mounds in Cartersville, GA. Our crafts included an Indian headdress and a "leather painting." We made the "leather" by crumpling up a paper grocery sack, throwing it into some water, and drying it out overnight. M painted a story on it, which was pretty cool.

The Indian Mound site was a bit above her head I think, but they had improved it quite a bit since last time I went. They have a museum now and a replica daub house. I explained to M that when you are digging up daub in Georgia, a way to differentiate between daub and Georgia red clay is to put it in your mouth. If it stick to your tongue, it's daub. Thank goodness she's not a fan of dirt or she probably would have been tasting the whole site! The museum featured some pot sherds of the same variety that I dug up on my first dig, a fact which completely failed to impress her.

What did impress me was that I climbed Mound A with R in my Ergo carrier. Now Mound A does have stairs and the Ergo is extremely comfortable as far as carriers are concerned, but it was rather steep:
At the end of our field trip I asked M what she had learned about Indians, and she replied, "They built big hills and had smelly houses but they couldn't help that."

I'm not sure that's what I was going for, but c'est la vie. After we got back from Cartersville, we went over to a friend's for dinner (she made delicious tacos de papas) and we took the kids swimming. It was R's first time, and he LOVED it!

Falafel and Tzaziki! Yummy yummy!

I must start by saying that although I used to get several "mommy" magazines, I am rarely seduced by the "easy" recipes in them. Usually they don't appeal to me. But several months ago I came across a recipe for falafel in one (I think Family Fun magazine) and thought, why not?

If you are a fan of Mediterranean food at all, or chickpeas at all, you MUST try it:

4 tbsp. olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
2 (15 oz.) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
handful freshly chopped cilantro or mint
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
3 whole-grain pitas cut in half
1/2 cup shredded lettuce or mixed baby greens
2 plum tomatoes, sliced
mango chutney for garnish (optional)

1. Heat 2 tbsp. of the oil in a small skillet. Add onions and garic and saute until soft and golden, about 5 minutes. Place in the bowl of a food processor and add the chickpeas, cumin, and coriander, pulse until the mixture becomes a thick puree. Transfer the mixture to a bowl, stir in the chopped cilantro or mint and season with salt and pepper.
2. Form mixture into 12 balls and flatten them into patties. Heat 1 tbsp. of the oil in a medium skillet. Add half the patties and cook until they are golden brown, about 5 minutes on each side. Repeat with the remaining oil and patties. Let cool completely.
3. Place 2 falafel patties in each pita half. Top with lettuce, tomatoes, and chutney (if using)
Note: Don't worry if the patties break apart. Just stuff them into the pitas and your kids will never know the difference.


My notes: I use chopped mint. We don't love cilantro. This time I used dried garbanzo beans instead. I soaked them a full 24 hours before using them, 1 bag=approx. 2 cans. The results were great. We have used mango chutney in the past, to rave reviews from M, but I made tzaziki sauce this time and she was stubbornly not impressed. It sounds much more difficult than it is, my husband and I had to swap out in the middle of cooking as I recieved an important phone call. And although I don't purchase vegetable oil, I have used it in the past and it does make it easier. This time we used coconut oil.


For my tzaziki sauce I looked at several recipes on the web and invented my own:
1 large container of plain yogurt, excess liquid drained
6 cloves of garlic, crushed and minced
1 handful chopped fresh mint
juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 cucumber, peeled and grated
salt and pepper to taste

It was heavenly. We ended up with the container between us, dipping out spoonfuls and dolloping on everything. (I used Stonyfield organic full fat yogurt, the carton I had removed the whey from earlier in the week for lacto fermentation)

I also made some greekish-style potatoes:
2 medium potatoes, scrubbed and sliced thinly
2 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup water
1 clove garlic, crushed and minced
2 tbsp oregano
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt and pepper to taste
goat cheese

Lay the potato slices out in baking dish or dishes. Mix together oil, water, oregano, salt, garlic, and pepper. Pour over potatos. Cook in a 400 degree oven approximately 20 minutes. Top with goat cheese. (I used a Dill Chevre bought from the farmer's market.) These are also good with the tzaziki sauce!

The same day, I checked my carrots, which turned out, ahem, interesting. I guess I was expecting them to taste like a Morrocan ginger carrot salad. They are more of a sour, spicy carrot relish. Once I figure out what to eat them with, I'm sure I'll love them! :-)


Coming up this week: Apple Butter, Strawberry Preserves, and Oxtails!

Old Ladies and Concrete Don't Mix, the Art of Kimchi

As I mentioned before, we were out all day on Friday working on building a stone wall. Now I have been known in the past to believe I am She-Ra, Wonder Woman and Super Girl all rolled into one, but typically these days I skip all that. So I was picking up smaller pieces of concrete and moving them. Ahem, apparently not small enough. Saturday afternoon I was sitting on my parents' couch nursing R and I starting having spasms in my left shoulder. They were so bad I nearly dropped him. Fast forward thirty minutes and he was asleep on the guest bed and I was begging for Tiger Balm. (For those of you unfamiliar, Tiger Balm is the best stuff ever-- discovered it when I was doing archaeology professionally.)

The end result was I played hookie from the driveway yesterday and caught up on some cooking. I made my prettiest loaf of sourdough yet, oddly enough, by reading several recipes and winging it. I had to write it all down as soon as I saw how beautiful it was so I won't forget.

I used:

4c unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 c sourdough starter
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp yeast
1 cup of goat's milk


I put all the wet ingredients in first, then dry, then made a pocket in the dry for the yeast and dropped it in. Cycle 1 on the bread machine, and three hours later it was picture perfect. (Tasty, too!) I'm sure that it would work if you did it by hand, and I'm sure it would work with cow's milk, but I had goat's on hand and 50 projects in mind.


As a matter of fact, I had so many projects in my head that after the sourdough loaf I forgot to take pictures. (I know, I know, bad, bad, BAD blogger!)

I also had promised my dad a batch of kim chi, and he wanted it spicer than the last. I shredded about 4 large, peeled carrots, 1 head of napa cabbage, about 1 1/2 tbsp. ginger in the food processor. I mixed this with 2 tbsp. of whey, 2 tbsp. of sea salt, 1 tbsp. red chile flakes, and about 1/4 c. of kim chi sauce. I also minced about 5 cloves of garlic. Once I mixed this all together, I put it in my smaller crockpot and mashed it with my marble pestle until the mixture produced enough juice to cover itself. I topped it with two saucers and on top of that a soup bowl half-full of water. (Yes, I am a half-full person. Watched too much Disney as a child, so sue me!) I then covered it with a clean dish towel and put it in a corner of the kitchen. I will check it every day, he wants a very strong taste so it probably won't be ready for about 5 days. My last batch took 3. I will update with a picture once it's ready. I also used looking at various recipes to create my own for this.

Next, I made a batch of Sally Fallon's "Gingered Carrots," from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook, as I've read a lot of things online suggesting that kids love them. M has decided carrots are gross, which I personally believe is from overexposure to the mini-already peeled variety that lose their flavor quickly in the fridge. It was pretty easy, but the taste has yet to be seen.
4 c shredded carrots (shredded at the same time as the ones for the kimchi)
2 tbsp whey
1 tbsp shredded ginger (shredded at the same time as the ginger for the kimchi)
1 tbsp sea salt
Mix it all together, put in a wide mouth Mason jar, and mash down until the juices cover the carrot mixture. Cover tightly, and let ferment approximately 3 days.



An update on the marmalade I made a couple of days ago. It is quite sour and quite salty. As I didn't use pectin, also quite runny. I'm thinking of marinating chicken in it instead of using it on toast.

Last night for dinner we had oven fries and bison burgers, both so quick and easy it was ridiculous!

R is teething badly now, half of my day in between doing all of the above was spent letting him gnaw on me!

Building from Stone (Now THAT's Traditional)

So my plans for the busted up driveway that is ahem, on top of my driveway were thwarted. Apparently although I had a vision for a large fire pit/grill in the sink hole in the backyard, my husband had a vision for a retaining wall. And as his vision was closer to the driveway and immensely more practical, he won.

So we spent most of the day yesterday (Ok, he spent most of the day yesterday, I spent about two hours) moving busted up chunks of concrete off of the pile in our driveway to the bottom of the hill adjacent to it and forming it into a rock wall.

It's actually turning out pretty good, I think. But the chunks of concrete are much heavier than they appear. Couple that with a crying baby and a whining 6-year-old, and I wimped out early. But after our 4th of July celebrations I'll be back at it. It is a great workout for the arms. And back, and legs, and.. well I have a 5 month old baby and haven't lost the weight. So I can use the toning. Besides we are recycling what would otherwise be fill, so I'm all for it.




The night before the building of the great wall of our house, M picked out mini-Asian pizza appetizers from her latest cookbook. Little did she know they would turn out not to her liking since she only looked at the picture and didn't read the ingredients. Kids! At what age do they learn to listen?

So they were pretty basic, using eggroll wrappers, ground pork or chicken, soy sauce, mozzarella, and Chinese 5 spice powder. Of course, I didn't have all this on hand, so I did some substituting.

I used:
wonton wrappers
shredded beef from my soupbones from yesterday's stock
soy sauce (low-sodium)
shredded mozzarella
canned tomatoes (completely drained)
cooked turkey bacon, shredded
shredded turkey pepperoni
shredded leftover buffalo wings
cinnamon
star anise
ginger
fennel seed
black pepper
sea salt

I know, I know. It seems like a big departure. But not so much really. I took the won ton wrappers and fried them up in olive oil and put to the side. I pulled the beef out of the still-going stock pot and pulled all the meat off, reserving the bones for doggy treats. I had M shred the beef and remove the fat once it cool down. I then soaked the beef in the soy sauce, ginger, cinnamon, star anise (ground), salt, pepper, and ground fennel seed. The spices were my approximate substitution for 5-spice powder. Using two cookie sheets, we laid out the won-ton wrappers and topped them. M used pepperoni and bacon (SO annoying since the other was from HER recipe.) I used the beef on all but three and put buffalo chicken meat on the other. We topped with mozzarella and a couple of bits of tomato. Baked in the oven at 450 for 5 minutes and all done. Despite my complaints about the beef, it was delicious and I really didn't mind her not eating it! And the grand bonus.. we used grass-fed beef and the entire meal which fed those of us on solid food cost about 5 bucks!













I used the leftover wonton wrappers and filled them with spinach dip and pizza dip leftover from a Tastefully Simple party (which I attended but didn't host and do not sell) and fried wontons. They were DELISH!

Whew! A Busy Week and Lots Accomplished

For some reason this week has just been extra busy, but I have still been working diligently on making things, and trying out new things. First, I think an update on the rock candy from Rock Week is in order. It turned out great-- beautiful and tasty. Now I'm trying to figure out how to keep M from eating it!




Yesterday, I decided to try to make some marmalade out of the plethora of clementines that always seem to be inhabiting my fruit drawer. I converted a recipe for oranges, and since clementines are much smaller, it may turn out to be horribly sweet. But we'll see.

First, I sliced them quite thinly and then quartered the slices.

Next, I put them all in a mason jar and mashed them lightly.

As I am doing a lacto-fermented marmalade, I mixed together salt, whey, brown sugar, and water, and poured over the clementines. I covered tightly and will let sit for approximately three days. I can't wait-- if it's good-- to but some on some homemade bread at breakfast! Yum! Note: This recipe/process is NOT to be confused with canning and preserving. This marmalade will not be shelf-safe to store for a long time.

I also made fresh coconut milk to use at a later date in a recipe. This required a bit of help from my husband as I bought a different type of coconut from what I've had in the past, and couldn't figure out how to split it. One I brought in the strong arms to handle that (as you can see in the picture next to a crock pot simmering with grass-fed beef broth), I moved on to scooping out the coconut milk. After scooping, I put it all in a blender and blended with the coconut water i had reserved when we split the coconut. I let it blend until there were no chunks, and it looked creamy and a bit frothy. Yum! I use coconut milk a good deal-- in Thai currys, in Jamaican rice and peas, occasionally to flavor jasmine rice, etc. It's also great in coffee in a pinch when you run out of milk.
A couple of other notes:
Whenever I state I am using salt in something, it's always sea salt. A good quality sea salt contains essential minerals not found in your standard iodized table salt. The beef broth (or stock) I was making is almost a constant in my house, although typically I make chicken broth. But I made the beef because my farmer I buy eggs and milk from sold me about 2 lbs of grass-fed beef soup bones for $2. It was a heck of a deal. And my husband will eat grass-fed beef, just not conventional. If you want to know why, let me know and I will explain.

Today's adventures will include more truffles, this time chocolate and peanut butter, making an outdoor grill out of a busted up driveway, taking pictures of the diaper my husband made (grr.), and making chicken cacciatore in the crock pot. (M's dinner pick for tonight.) Also, tomorrow's post should include Asian Mini Pizza appetizers that we made last night (another of M's picks.)

"Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it." Confucious