Greek Quinoa and Advacado Salad

I made this salad today for lunch and it was super delicious!!!!

Menu Plan Monday

This weeks meal plan...

Monday- pot roast, mashed potatoes, and corn
Tuesday- meatball subs, french fries  breakfast for dinner, eggs (scrambled and fried), grits, biscuits. bacon

Wednesday- garlic chicken and broccoli, rice meatball subs, french fries
Thursday- sweet and spicy glazed chicken (crock pot)
Friday-  mozzarella chicken roll ups over noodles
Saturday- (if we are home) chicken marengo

Fresh Spaghetti Sauce

Today I worked on some homemade spaghetti sauce.  I had all these beautiful tomatoes from my grandmother's garden that needed to put to good use before going bad.  We all love tomato sandwiches in my house but we couldn't eat them fast enough.  I also ended up finishing off all the basil on my plant.  I used a lot more than what is shown in the first picture.  I got 3 good bags of spaghetti sauce.

First I blanched and peeled all the tomatoes.  I chose to use a "raw" recipe. 

Then I seeded all the tomatoes (Shannon be glad you weren't over today :)

The juice from the tomatoes to put back in the blender

The first batch was a little more runny than we like, so I cut way back on adding the tomato juice back in the next two times.





 

The sauce tasted really good.  When I actually use it I will add more goodies too it :)

Pretzels!

Today the children and I made pretzels!  It was super easy and tons of fun!  We got lots of interesting shapes!  Near the end I finally started to perfect the way they should be rolled out and folded.  Everyone thinks they taste really good.  I'm not much of a pretzel fan but these were pretty tasty!

All finished!

Banana Pudding

Here is just a simple picture of the banana pudding I made for the ladies game night I host in my home.  I really love this recipe for banana pudding because it has cream cheese as one of the ingredients and I love cream cheese!

White Bean Vanilla Cake

So, I have another recipe here using beans.  I also received this recipe from my friend Carrie.  Well, I tried it the other day. And it turned out pretty good.  It does need some adjustments though.  Shane(my husband) and Shannon(my friend) both thought it tasted more like sweet cornbread.  When I made this I didn't use the Vanilla Creme liquid Stevia, I doubled the vanilla extract.  I used all 6 eggs and I used all purpose flour instead of coconut flour.  Next time I make this I am gonna make sure I puree it a little longer.  I'm either gonna add more honey or try the liquid creme stevie (if that is sweet).  It needed more sweetness to it to be a cake.  I am also gonna hunt for a good icing to put on it.  I didn't put any on this one.  All in all it was a good recipe.  All three of my children loved it and kept asking for it.  You could not tell there were beans in it.

White Bean Vanilla Cake

 http://www.thespunkycoconut.com/

Add to food processor

2 cups cooked white beans, room temperature, so they don't cook the eggs 

6 eggs

3/4 tsp Vanilla Creme liquid stevia (do not measure over the batter, just in case it spills out)

1 tsp vanilla extract (increase to 1-1/2 or 2tsp if you don't use the vanilla stevia)

1/3 cup honey

Puree well.

Add:

1/4 cup coconut oil, liquified

1/3 cup coconut flour, sifted (or 2/3cup other flour)

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp baking soda

1.5 tsp baking powder

Puree well.

Pour into cake pan, lined with unbleached parchment paper on the bottom, and greased all around.

Bake at 325 degrees for about 30 minutes. (I like to check to see if it's done by inserting a knife into the middle. If it's comes out mostly clean, it's done.) Bake for about 22 minutes for cupcakes.

NOTES: This recipe only makes 1 small 8-9inch layer.  I have made this 2x, once as a single layer and once as cupcakes.  You can actually decrease the eggs.  Someone said they have done it using only 2 eggs.  I wasn't so brave to deviate that far from the recipe so I only decreased it to 4.  Makes good strawberry shortcake and I plan on trying this for a modified pineapple-upside down cake. :)    If you don't have stevia I'm sure you could sub in honey or something else.  I haven't tried that yet so not sure.  Testing it out w/honey the next time.

Healthy Grain Free Brownies

Ok, today I tried these brownies a friend referred me too.  The ingredients sound really weird, but these brownies are really yummy.  My whole family really liked them and they are a great source of protein!  Which is really great for my youngest son.  He even liked them and he doesn't like food, lol.  So give them a try.   Let me know what your family thinks.

 

ps.  They do have a slightly different texture than traditional brownies, but definitely a great substitute if you are looking for a healthier chocolate fix!

 

Healthy Grain Free Brownies

From naturallyknockedup.com

• 2 cups cooked black beans, well-drained (or 1 can of no salt added)
• 3 lightly beaten eggs
• 1/3 cup melted coconut oil (or melted butter)
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup honey (or other equivalent sweetener) 
• 1/2 cup chopped up bittersweet chocolate (or semi-sweet chips if you don’t mind the added refined sugar in them)
• 1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans -optional

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease an 8×8 pan. Toss all but the final 2 ingredients (the chopped up chocolate and walnuts) into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Fold in the chopped chocolate and walnuts (or sprinkle on top of batter after pouring into pan). Pour into the pan and bake for about 30 minutes.            


NOTES: These are good enough warm, but both the taste & texture improve when they have been chilled.  They make great snacks, lots of protein and a good source of iron. These are also great as dessert w/strawberries & cream, whipped & lightly sweetened w/maple syrup. 

I love this salad!! It's a rice and bean salad that I made for my game night tonight!

Now this is a yummy omelet!! Made from our chicken's fresh eggs.

Turkey snacks

We didn't get around to doing our "Project Thursday" this week. It has been a very busy week driving back and forth to Duke. But today we did make these cute little turkeys out of oreos, candy corns, kisses and icing. They turned out really cute and as usual the children and I both had fun.

Tonight's Dinner

For lack of actually having any crafts to post, here's a pic of tonights dinner.  Spinach, blue cheese, and bacon stuffed chicken, pasta salad, and green beans with garlic.  It was sooo yummy.

As far as crafting goes I have been working on a knitted blanket for Jhet's birthday which I'm not gonna be finished with in time.  I lost alot of time for knitting while we were in the hospital.  Oh well.

Fresh Baked Bread

Since I haven't really posted anything lately I decided to post my bread making today.  Usually I do it on Saturdays but we ran out of bread so I made some today :)  On a side note I am still sewing/quilting I'm just having a hard time finding time and getting the materials I need for everything right now.  

So first up we have the grain in the buckets.  On the left we have bronze chief grain and on the right prairie gold.  I usually use both grains when I make bread since they both contribute different vitamins and such to the bread.  ( I need more grain)

Here's the grain in the grain mill.

Here are the other ingredients being brought room temperature.  Vital wheat gluten, yeast, and milled flax seed.

Here's the grain all ground.

Blending my first ingredients together.

Warm water has been added.
Here it is sponging for 10 min.

All covered.

The other ingredients to be added after the sponging.

Adding the oil.

Adding the honey.

Adding the salt.

Mixing it all up.
Adding more flour.

Kneading dough for 10 min

In the pans and ready to rise.

All risen and ready to in the oven.

Fresh out of the oven.

Nice looking bread and ohh soo good!

I Made Butter!

Well, today I decided to try my hand at making butter. I used this tutorial to show me how. I had alot of fun and it was sooooo cool to see the process happen.


I used 64 fluid ozs of heavy whipping cream.
Here's the cream coming to room temperature

Thankfully I have an automatic whisk that I was able to use to make the butter.

Here it is becoming more stiff

Here it is turning to butter and separating from the buttermilk.

I got about 1 quart of buttermilk from it. Which homemade buttermilk tastes pretty darn good.

Here it is while I'm still trying to get all the buttermilk out.

Here I am rinsing the butter with water to completely clean out the buttermilk. I probably rinsed and stirred it 15-20 times. I wanted to make sure it was really clean :D

Here I'm trying to get all of the water out. (this was the part I hated the most)

Here it is all finished. The butter in my tupperware is in my refrigerator waiting to be used. And the two wrapped up are in my freezer.

It tastes really good!!!