Random Photos & This Week's Meal Plan *UPDATED*

*UPDATED to add the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin recipe and a link to my (well, my mom's) lasagna recipe (see the very bottom of the post for the lasagna link.)  :)  It's delicious!

Hm.  Hesitating to post this at all, because these photos appear blurry, yet they weren't so on my phone.  Sorry.  

Pumpkin muffins with cream cheese are the kids' favorite muffins so far this season. This past weekend I tried two varieties, and you can see what their new favorite appears to be:

Regular on the left, and chocolate chips added to the right.  We began with twelve of each.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins (makes 12 muffins)

Mix:
1 2/3 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or more if you prefer)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin
8 T butter (I actually used 1/2 cup of applesauce and 4 T melted butter)

Then take about 4 oz of cream cheese and in a bit of sugar (maybe up to a Tablespoon?).  Optional: If you want to add chocolate chips, add them to the cream cheese mixture.

Fill the bottom of the (greased or paper) muffin cups with a heaping spoonful of the batter, then add a dollup of cream cheese mixture, then add another spoonful of the batter to sandwich in the cream cheese mixture.  Bake at 350 for 15-18 min. 

~

And this is what our window box looks like this season:

I discovered these small pie pumpkins at the grocery store for a little over a dollar apiece, so I brought five home and set them on the table with sharpie markers and this note: 

Preparing dinner for tonight, which was Pumpkin Chili. I tweaked the original recipe a bit, omitting the green chilies and one can of tomatoes and opting for more pumpkin and some beef broth.  It was very good!

And here's our meal plan for the rest of this week:

*My recipe for lasagna is in an older post called Sauces!

Garden goodness: Preserving it all

My apologies for the delay in getting a new post up, friends.  It has just been busy around here.  Mark and I were able to get away for a few days last week, just the two of us, which I am so thankful for. We stayed at a bed & breakfast, took long walks together, watched the Olymics, watched a movie, read our books, prayed together, ate great food, and rested well.  It was delightful.

Prior to that I did a lot of dehydrating.  Lots of apples.  And then I made some applesauce:

Have I ever shown you one of my favorite things?  THIS is my making-applesauce friend:

You just slice the apples (removing the core, but leaving the peel on), boil the apples in a bit of water for a few minutes until they're soft, and then dump them into this sieve thing, and use that wooden mallet to shove them down and to the sides, add cinnamon and sugar to taste and you get applesauce. 

I also made some jam and did some canning:

 

Our garden is growing lots of green beans right now.  I wasn't up to canning beans, so I used this method again to pickle some vegetables to keep in the fridge. This year I did carrots, green beans, onions, cucumbers and peppers (the carrots and green beans were the only thing from our garden.)  

We're also getting tons of these delicious Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes, which I've dried and frozen whole and eaten fresh.  But my VERY FAVORITE way to eat them this summer is to roast them.  Slice them (or any other tomato from your garden) in half and put them on a cookie sheet (on parchment paper or silpat).  Peel some garlic cloves, slice them, and throw those in there, too.  Then add some fresh herbs.  Basil or thyme is what I have, so that's what I've done.  Then drizzle a bit of olive oil on the top of it all, sprinkle some salt, and roast in the oven for about an hour (at 250 or 300 degrees).  This makes them all mushy and yummy, like a paste.

If you have a baguette or some crusty bread or crackers or anything like that?  Grab that, spread on some goat cheese, and then dollop some of your yummy roasted tomatoes on the top of that and you will be SO HAPPY.  Yum.

Later this week I will get back to my Evaluating our School Year homeschool series.  Which feels weird since I'm actually beyond that, now, and am in full-on planning mode already for next year, but I will press on.  ;)

Oh!  You may notice some changes here on the blog- with design and layout.  I'm working on changing it but it will be wonky until it's all settled.  Bear with me. 

Love to you all,
~Stacy

Breakfast Of Choice

I'm sure I've mentioned that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I almost always eat different things than the kids-- I'll make them muffins or scones or pancakes or coffee cake, but I rarely eat those things for all the calories (except those Raspberry White Chocolate Scones.  I ate TWO).  So if I can squeeze in ten minutes to make myself breakfast and about five minutes to eat it, I am a happy girl. :)  This is much easier when I'm not trying to homeschool, also, so summertime is such a treat for me.

Now you get to hear about my Breakfast Of Choice for the past several days.  I'll keep eating it as long as I have ripe tomatoes in the garden and crusty bread, because YUM.

I take a piece of french bread or sourdough and toast it.  While that's toasting, I head outside to pick some fresh tomatoes (these are Sungold) and some fresh basil leaves.  Then I spread or crumble some chevre cheese on top of the toast (maybe 1-2 tsp), and fry up an egg or two and dump it on top of the toast.  I then slice the tomatoes and snip or tear the basil on top and then top it all off by drizzling some balsamic reduction over it all.  It is so delicious.  And it makes me so happy.

Is your mouth watering?  Do this. Or some variation of it.

My kids had breakfast cookies, which they were quite happy about:

I even added mini M&M's.

Gluten-Free Rhubarb Muffins

Okay.  I've made these muffins twice, and even changed up the recipe a bit the second time around and they were still good.  They are the best gluten-free item I've baked thus far, (and I've baked quite a bit this past week), so I can confidently share this recipe with you!

~

The How Can it be Gluten Free Cookbook is where I got the recipe for the flour blend I made and used the first time around:

The America's Test Kitchen Gluten-Free Flour Blend (makes 9 1/2 cups)

24 ounces (4 1/2 cups plus 1/3 cup) white rice flour 
7 1/2 ounces (1 2/3 cups) brown rice flour
7 ounces (1 1/3 cups) potato starch
3 ounces (3/4 cup) tapioca flour/starch
3/4 ounce (3 T) nonfat milk powder

Whisk all ingredients together in a large bowl until well combined.  Transfer to airtight container and store in the fridge for up to 3 months.

I made that and then moved on to their recipe for Blueberry Muffins, but adapted it a bit, so here's my recipe:


Gluten-Free Rhubarb Muffins (makes 12 muffins)

11 ounces (1 3/4 cups plus 2/3 cup) ATK Gluten-Free Flour Blend (see above)
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
5 1/4 ounces (3/4 cup) granulated sugar
8 T unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups rhubarb*
the zest of a lemon
turbinado sugar (optional, for sprinkling on top of the muffins prior to baking) 

*or any other fruit, really.  (We love rhubarb, and have some in our garden, so I used that.  I washed it and diced it, then put it in a pan on the stove on medium heat with a bit of water- maybe 1-2 T, and sprinkled a bit of sugar on top, then cooked down for a few (4-5?) minutes till the rhubarb was soft (but not mushy), and finally drained it in a colander lined with a paper towel.)

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Stir dry ingredients (flour blend, baking powder, salt, and sugar)
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the melted, cooled butter, the yogurt, eggs, and vanilla
4. Fold the wet mixture into the dry mixture, and then add the drained rhubarb and the zest of a lemon.
5. Let the batter sit for 30 minutes.  (This is important, so the muffins will not have a gritty texture.  The resting time allows the brown rice flour to hydrate and expand, apparently.)
6. Fill 12 greased muffin cups, and bake for 13-15 minutes.
7. Let the muffins cool for about 5 minutes before removing from the pan.
Enjoy!
 
The second time I made them I used my friend Jodi's flour blend of:
3 cups brown rice flour
1/4 cup potato starch
2 tsp xantham gum

I used applesauce in place of about 1/3 of the butter (see applesauce note in this post), and I increased the rhubarb to probably 3 cups, and they were also delicious.  The consistency was slightly different; the muffins produced more peaked tops, more of a biscuit consistency, not rounded like the photo above. I'm not sure if that is due to the flour blend or me subbing out some of the butter, but we all loved them regardless, so it doesn't matter.  Next time I'm going to try to reduce the sugar and add honey or maple syrup in place of it.  But I'm happy for the time being to have a go-to muffin recipe.

Overall, I think we had a pretty good week of gluten free.  I might have cried but for these:

(Which we used several times.  For breakfast burritos, chicken salad wraps, quesadillas and burritos.)  There were two exceptions:
1) I had already pre-planned our meals for the week (without having decided about the g-f thing) and one of the things we were having was stuffed shells (jumbo pasta shells stuffed with ricotta and spinach with marinara and white sauce over the top.)  And though I tried looking for either gluten-free jumbo shells or gluten-free lasagna noodles (that I could wrap), I couldn't.  So we did eat those on Saturday night.
2) Sunday night our two oldest kids went to a BBQ and had hotdogs and cupcakes or cookies and completely forgot about the no-gluten thing.  (Which is fine, I likely would have told them not to worry about it anyway.)

Isaac Update (& Eliminating Gluten)

One of the things I've been researching over the past several weeks due to Isaac's health issues- is the whole idea of going gluten-free.

Now, if you've read here for any length of time, you know that I love baking. Breads, scones, muffins, coffee cake, cinnamon rolls, amongst many other things-- are favorites around our home.   So I wasn't keen on that idea. At all.  Anytime it was mentioned I inwardly cringed.  I kept telling Mark that if we were to go that route, I would need an entire WEEK to revamp our pantry and meals.  It's not like that would be a small thing.  Or an easy thing.

I didn't want to venture into that territory at all unless we had to. Right? Why make a lifestyle change when you don't need to?  So, instead I checked out books at the library, found some GF blogs, and have done a lot of reading and researching.

Then the doctor said Isaac doesn't have Celiac Disease-- the scopes showed no sign of inflammation or damage. So I felt like we could put the whole GF idea to rest.  (Whew!)

Toward the end of last week, Isaac began complaining of stomach pain and cramps, and blood started showing up in his stools again.  He still has intermittent joint pain and a sore throat.  He came to me, discouraged one night this past weekend, asking why his stomach-- his first symptom way back at the beginning of March-- is really not much better?  In fact, with the new pain and cramping, it's worse.  He feels nauseous in addition to the sometimes-pain-or-cramping, and like he "always has to go to the bathroom".

I don't know the answers to that.  I'm puzzled because the gastroenterologist gave his stomach and intestines a "clean bill of health!" Yet, his stomach is clearly not normal.  Yesterday he had dark red blood in his stool again and when I texted my friend Michelle about it, she asked if we'd tried any period of time eliminating gluten.  *cringe*

SO.  FINE.  We'll give it a go.  For at least a week.  If eating gluten-free will help my boy feel better, I'm all in.  I don't know that it will help, but it's worth a try, right?  Or maybe I just feel the need to DO something, anything.

Flours for experimentation.  This felt ridiculous.  And ridiculously expensive.

Since I have a stack of GF books and recipes next to my bed, I figured I might as well begin.

So we began.

Yesterday.

Tonight's meal marked Meal #4 of our GF-eating.  I am quite proud of us.  And yes, us.  I told the kids if Isaac can't eat gluten, we're all in. (I'm not making two separate meals, nor am I going to eat or serve up homemade bread or baked goodies when he doesn't get to partake.)

Meal #1: Dinner: Peruvian Chicken w/ sweet potatoes, and spinach salad with craisins, honey chevre cheese, sweet and spicy pecans, and balsamic reduction.  Dessert: rice krispie treats.

Meal #2: Breakfast: Scrambled eggs and cereal (rice krispies and multi-grain cheerios) with milk.

Meal #3: Lunch: (Snacky lunch) Corn tortilla wraps with ranch, smoked gouda cheese and ham slices, popcorn and craisins.

Meal #4: Dinner: Baked potatoes with options: chives, bacon, sausage, ranch, sour cream, salsa.  And-- (drum roll, please): my very first baked gf muffins.  LOOK!!!!

I was VERY skeptical about gf baking, and did not have high hopes.  I warned the kids that they might taste terrible.  Or they might look normal but have a weird texture or taste.  I was first impressed that they baked up fine, and rose well.  But then we ate them and we were all pleasantly surprised.  They were really good.  I'll post the recipe if anyone is interested.  I tweaked a blueberry muffin recipe and did Rhubarb Muffins (with lemon zest).

So that's where we're at.

What's going on with Isaac? [Part 8: Biopsy results]

The GI called me with Isaac's biopsy results yesterday.  He said that it's all great news.  All the biopsy samples that he took from both the upper scopes and lower scope are completely normal.  There was no evidence of inflammation, no evidence of any allergy, no evidence of mastocytosis.  So from a scope standpoint, a completely clear bill of health.  (He suspects that his symptoms were more on the viral spectrum based on that information.)

So that is great news. I truly am thankful. And perhaps we should just accept that and move on? Except that Isaac is still having stomach issues: several trips to the bathroom each day and increased stomach pain. (Which is puzzling, obviously, because of the clear-bill-of-health statement from the GI doctor.)  For the most part his joints are almost completely better.  For the past two days he has noted pain in his finger joints, but that's it.  His hives seem to have cleared up. He hasn't eaten enough for me to judge his appetite yet.  He is weak, but seems to be getting stronger each day and for that we are so thankful.  I feel like we're settling back into normal.

But even if he didn't still have a smattering of symptoms, I don't know if I can just think, "Well, that was strange..." and move on with life.  Because two weeks ago he wasn't able to move.  And there's a reason for that.  (Right?!)  Even if all of his symptoms were from a viral infection, what is going on in his immune system that would make it respond that way? It's just not a healthy immune response.

{yesterday's breakfast}

We still plan to see a rheumatology specialist, which could bring us some answers- but since his joint pain has cleared for the most part, it almost seems like an afterthought.  We're waiting for a referral.  And we still have one follow-up appointment with the GI specialist, next week.

I had planned on eliminating gluten from his diet this week, just in case it was Celiac Disease, or in case he was having an allergic reaction to something that was triggering all of this (or some of it), but the doctor says it's not Celiac-- the biopsy would have shown that. So he said that's not necessary.

So we just wait, I guess.  And watch him and see how he does.  

As always, your opinions and ideas are always appreciated.  Please do weigh in on this if you have thoughts.  And again, thank you for your prayers and concern.   You have been so kind, and you are so dear to me, all of you.  

Blessings to you and yours, 
~Stacy

 

In Which I Drizzle Balsamic Reduction on Everything

I really like food in general, and some foods I love, such as guacamole dip.  Other such foods I will always love?  Burritos, chips, ice cream, bread, berries in the summertime, lemon bars, sweet potatoes, crunchy apples in the fall, cheeses, eggs for breakfast, salads.  That may sum it up, actually.  I'm pretty sure I could be perfectly happy always eating the things from that short list.  I would also be quite LARGE eating only those things, but aside from that, I do think I could be perfectly happy.

And then there are seasons where I go through a phase of loving One Thing, and I will eat that One Thing all the time.   Like the year I ate this little concoction constantly.  It was my favorite thing.  (So much so that I sort of panicked if I ran out of any of those ingredients.) But that was a few years ago, and it is no longer my thing.  (I passed that obsession on to my friend Michelle, who is still eating it and ranting and raving about it to me every chance she gets. ;)) 

Right now my One Thing is balsamic reduction.  And I'm drizzling it over everything.
This photo right here was my dinner: Spinach, roasted sweet potatoes, homemade croutons (from homemade bread), ground turkey (bacon would have been far better, but we were out) and sliced almonds.  And then I dumped balsamic reduction over the top of it all.  (I also drizzled a bit of honey.  And sprinkled some feta.)  SO yummy.

This morning, for breakfast, I roasted sweet potatoes and onions, made some homemade croutons, fried an egg,  and drizzled balsamic reduction over the top of it all.

For lunch today we had open-faced cheese sandwiches, and I spooned out some balsamic reduction onto my plate so that I could mop up my cheesy bread in all of that goodness.

So so delicious.  For those of you who are missing out on this: Heat 3-4 cups of balsamic vinegar and 1 T of sugar or honey over medium heat until it reduces by half and is syrupy in consistency.  Put it in a covered jar and keep it in your fridge and then drizzle it over everything.

You're welcome.

Now you can list your favorite foods in the comments-- you know, the ones you would be perfectly happy eating always.  :)

PS: Tonight (after I'd written this post), I went to Trader Joe's and noticed these Coconut Strips on the shelf.  I briefly looked at them and then passed them by until some woman came along and reached across me to grab several bags of them to stick in her cart.  Clearly I needed to take a second look.  (I do love coconut, afterall.)  So I bought a bag.  Then I sampled them on the way home and told Mark the second I walked in the door that had I known they were going to be so good, I might have purchased SEVENTEEN bags of them, because: YUM.  (Don't worry.  I will refrain from dipping these in the balsamic reduction.) 

Rotisserie Chicken and Homemade Bone Broth (in the crock pot)

Yesterday morning I put a whole chicken in the crockpot.  This is my favorite way to cook chicken.  If you've never cooked a whole chicken before, try this!  It's so easy, your house will smell delicious all day long and you will likely have meat for more than one meal.  

Rotisserie Chicken for the Crockpot
Rinse the chicken, remove the innards and pat it dry. 

Combine the following together in a bowl:
2 tsp salt
1 tsp smoked paprika (or any paprika you might have)
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp black pepper 

Rub this mixture all over the bird, inside and out.
(At this point I usually quarter an onion and peel some garlic cloves and stick them inside the bird.) Put the bird breast-side down into the crockpot.  Do NOT add any water.
Cover and cook on high for 4-5 hours, or on low for 8. 

After about six hours (on low), I scooped out half of the chicken to use for that night's meal (Chicken-broccoli casserole).  Here it is, cooling:

When it had cooled, I pulled the meat off the bones (Do NOT toss those bones!) and broke it apart with my fingers to make smaller pieces, then added it to our casserole and finished making dinner.  

When the casserole was in the oven, I turned off the crockpot and removed the other half of the chicken and did the same thing (usually I would do this in one fell swoop but I had to get the casserole in the oven).  Put that chicken in the fridge to use for a meal later on in the week.

Now.  For the stock: you can pull out the onions and garlic when you see them, or leave them in, and then dump all the bones back into the crockpot, add water to nearly fill the crockpot, and cook the bones for several hours (I usually cook them on low throughout that entire night and the following full day).  Then you've just made yourself some good bone broth which you can use anytime a recipe calls for chicken stock (or any other stock for that matter.)  I pour it through this fine strainer I have and into containers to stick in the freezer.

Favorite meal of the week (it might surprise you!)

One of my favorite times of the day is when we gather around our table and eat dinner together.  Often we'll all tell our "best" or "favorite" parts of the day.  The kids love this.  The other night Ella asked each of us what made us laugh that day, and so we all shared what had made us laugh, and then Ella finished with what had made her laugh--- something God said to Joshua about getting up off his face.  :)  I treasure these times. 

I love to change things up when it comes to making meals for our family.  I can't handle eating the same thing all the time.  I need some variety.  And I got a new cookbook for Christmas-- I LOVE getting new cookbooks--- so I've been trying some new recipes, which is always fun.  :)  This past week I tried two new meals out on them.  I told the kids they were allowed to rank them, since I'll need to know if I should ever make them again.

So.  One of the recipes I had on our meal plan for the week was Chow Mein, from The Pioneer Woman's Dinnertime cookbook.

I love Chow Mein and wanted to give it a shot even though I was fairly certain that none of my kids would appreciate it.

Of course, when I was at the grocery store shopping for our weekly meals, I realized I hadn't written down the ingredients for this particular meal, so hurriedly found the recipe online and we shopped off the online recipe.  Then we thought we might never get the chance to try it at all since the recipe calls for "thin lo mein noodles."  And Ella and I spent approximately ten full minutes in the appropriate section of the grocery store looking for the words thin and lo and mein all on the same noodle package and trust me, there is no such package.  There are no thin lo mein noodles.  No lo mein noodles, even.  No thin mein noodles.  Whatever, Ree.  We came home with these:

Because we're smart like that.  Basically, the recipe has you saute some onions and cabbage and carrots in soy sauce and peanut oil (which I didn't have so we went with sesame oil) and then you boil these noodles for 3 minutes and stir fry it all together with soy sauce and voila!  Dinner. (See why I chose this recipe?)  Also, rewind to the onions + cabbage + carrots part.  (See why I thought the kids would hate it?)

I have this little fixation with thinking that every meal I serve must contain meat.  (I'm not sure who I should thank for that.  Probably one of my grandmas or my mom.)  But I genuinely feel like it cannot be a complete and proper meal unless there is meat somewhere, so at the last minute I thawed some chicken breasts and sliced those up and stir fried those, too.  (Bonus points for the kids who were going to have the Ew! look on their faces when I served them up their cooked cabbage and carrots. They could enjoy the chicken, then.  And the noodles.  And just tolerate the rest.)

I was personally super excited about the meal, but told Mark before calling the kids to the table, "I'm sure that none of them are going to like this." He shrugged and said something to the effect of, "They don't have to like it, they just have to eat it."  And we called them to the table and served it up and they all loved it.  Loved it.  As in, wanted seconds and would have asked for thirds if it weren't all already gone.  So there.  Thank you Ree and Sun Luck and my kids.

Here's the official recipe from the book, should you want to give it a try:

1 T peanut oil
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 cup julienned carrots
4 green onions, sliced
1/2 head napa cabbage, thinly sliced
8 oz thin Chinese noodles, cooked according to the package directions (aka: thin lo mein noodles, as listed here)
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil

My paraphrase of what to do:
Saute the onions first, stir-fry for about 2 minutes or until onions start to soften.
Add in carrots, saute for 2 minutes.
Add cabbage and half the green onions.  2 more minutes.
Then add cooked noodles, soy sauce and sesame oil.  (I added my cooked chicken at this point, too).
Finally, add the rest of the green onions, and there you go.  Dinner is ready.

My notes: I already mentioned that we didn't have peanut oil, so I just sauteed everything in sesame oil.  I doubled the recipe but out of compassion for my kids, I used only half an onion total.  I grated my carrots because I don't have any fancy julienne tool, if there is such a tool.  I used maybe 3/4 head of cabbage, but had two 8 oz packages of the noodles.  And 3 chicken breasts.  Probably less soy sauce since I just drizzled it in-- my guess would be that I used about 1/8 of a cup, total. 

She has all sorts of variations listed in the book, such as adding GROSS mushrooms (which will never ever happen in this house ever because they make me gag.  My apologies to Mark, who loves them.  But he also loves me, so he's very understanding that I won't let mushrooms enter my home.  And he orders mushrooms practically every time we go out to eat, so he's just fine.)  But if you'd like to add them to this recipe, be my guest.  ;)

Did any of you receive cookbooks for Christmas?  What's your favorite cookbook? 


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Fall Deliciousness

One the of the grand things Mark and I decided for this school year is that when he gets a day off, he's going to sub in for me, following our normal school routine, and I get the day off.  As in, off.  While the kids are still getting school done.

I can't even describe to you how delightful this is.

This morning--- wait, let's go ahead and begin with last night, because I think you should all know that I single handedly ate an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream.  But that's not all.  I also ate approximately half a bag of Kettle Honey-Dijon chips.  You may think I'm exaggerating but I'm not.  Also a lime+coconut+rum blended drink Mark made me.

It's been that kind of week.  PMS hits hard and fast these days and on Sunday night I was bawling and feeling like this life of mine was impossibly overwhelming, was suddenly exasperated and irritated about all the mess everywhere, all the noise, everything that had to be done, anything on our calendar, any and all questions and all the interruptions.

So last night was absolutely necessary.

Oh.  And yes, I'm still counting calories.  I think I'd saved about 800 calories for last night's snacking, but we all know I went over by about 4000.  I figure that's just fine to do once a month.

Anyway, all that to say that today is a much-needed day off.  I woke up at 7:30 (that's sleeping in for me!).  Mark was already up with Adelia, reading books on the couch.  I went for a jog, came home, showered, got ready-- all while Mark was busy with the kids in their getting-ready-for-the-day, chores, and breakfasting routines, and now I'm at Starbucks with an iced latte and my Bible, journal, colored pencils and the laptop.  George Winston's December CD is playing happily in my ears.  It's my favorite soothing music.  I chose a sunny table by the window where I have a view of the fireplace but also get to sprawl out all my stuff.

This post is titled Fall Deliciousness because this may be my favorite time of year for cooking, baking and perusing cookbooks.  I've tried out some new recipes lately and wanted to share them with you.  Sorry for the long and winding intro.

First up: bread.  Is there anything better than freshly baked bread this time of year?  NO there is not.  So I've been baking bread.  Lots of it.  Our favorites are my grandma's white bread recipe, because it makes four loaves and because it's pure comfort to me to read her instructions in the recipe and to think of her baking it.  And the smell of it and-- it's the perfect bread for sandwiches.

I also have another whole-wheat bread recipe that I alternate with for sandwiches.  And this recipe for Honey-Oat bread that I bake to use for dinnertime.

New to me but equally satisfying is this recipe for crusty bread.  (Thank you, Sarah E!) I have ALWAYS wanted to make this type of bread but don't have a dutch oven so I figured it was out of the question.  But a couple of weeks ago I decided to try to use an old Corningware dish I have that has a glass lid, and I'm so thrilled because it totally worked!  I made two loaves and they were perfect:

Secondly: soup.  Please do yourself a favor and make this recipe for Slow Cooker Butternut Squash soup.  (Another thank you to my friend Sarah).  I've made butternut squash soup before but this recipe is by far the best.  I think it's the coconut milk you add at the end.  Plus, you chop everything up and throw it in the crock pot and then your house smells like pure fall goodness all day long.  I think those are the best kind of meals.  [Just a couple of my notes on this recipe: I used sweet potatoes instead of the carrots and will do it again.  Because we just love sweet potatoes at our house.  Also, I peeled my apples.  I don't own an immersion blender so I just poured it into my food processor and pureed it in small batches.]  We all loved this soup!

A terrible picture, but here it is--ready to cook all day!

Serve the soup with some of that crusty bread and it's a perfect fall meal.  Or make up some quick Yogurt Biscuits but add something savory like parmesan and sage or whatever you have on hand.

Last but not least, please make this recipe for Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies from Ashley Rodriguez.  Just... yum.  It's the variety of sugars and the salt on the top.  I keep making them.  Double the recipe, for sure.  And I know she says to refrigerate the dough but who wants to wait for that?  Plus, then you have hard dough that's tough to work with so just ignore that part.  And use whatever chocolate you have and like.  I use milk and semi-sweet. 

(Recent) favorite cookbooks to pore over: Date Night In (which is where the cookie recipe comes from) and The Forest Feast (which is just pretty and inspiring.  I love her dressings and salads and her photos and illustrations throughout.)




Please share any of your favorite fall recipes in the comments.  We love to try new recipes at our house!


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Yogurt Biscuits

Really, I should do a whole series on the food we eat around here because I feel like that's ALL I DO. My life revolves around these three meals every day for all these people and it's just a lot.  :) Must everyone eat so much?!?!  ;)

This is one of my go-to recipes because they are quick and easy to make and they are versatile.  I'll give you the recipe and then talk more about them.

Yogurt Biscuits ~makes 15 biscuits

2 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup applesauce* (organic, no sugar added~ this replaces the oil the recipe originally called for)
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup plain yogurt*

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine dry ingredients, then add wet ingredients. The dough will be somewhat sticky.  Drop by spoonfuls onto greased baking sheet. (I use a Silpat).  Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until just starting to brown.

* Some notes on versatility:

The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup of oil.  I substitute applesauce nearly every time a recipe calls for oil.  Because you can.  And it's better for you.  This is what I use, because you can purchase it in a 4-pack at Costco:

But if you don't have applesauce go ahead and use oil.  Or melted butter.  Or whatever you have on hand.  :)  The other thing I often switch out is the yogurt.  Sometimes I don't have yogurt.  But I have sour cream!  Or cottage cheese!  As long as you get a cup of something creamy in there, you're good, whether it be a cup of yogurt or a half cup of yogurt and a half cup of sour cream.  Or milk.  Whatever you've got in the fridge.

Our favorite way to eat these is obviously with butter and jam.  Because YUM.  Or butter and honey.  We often have them for breakfast with fruit or eggs.  It's like a healthy scone.  ;)  I've even added lemon or orange zest.  Mmm.

Or we'll have them for dinner as a side with soup or whatever meal we have that I feel needs something extra.

But once I was craving hamburgers and had no hamburger buns and guess what I used in a pinch? This recipe for yogurt biscuits.  I formed smaller hamburger patties and we had mini hamburgers on yogurt biscuits and they were an instant favorite.  Seriously delicious.  I've made them as hamburger buns several times since.  YUM.

And when I decided to make breakfast sandwiches the other morning and didn't have english muffins?  Yogurt biscuits to the rescue.

You see why you need to have this recipe, right?  Yes.

And name me a child who doesn't like bread.  So this is a handy recipe to have.

Three photos from this week

From my journal: praying through this verse this week (from Romans 2), particularly in my interactions with the kids.  I've been asking the Holy Spirit to alert me when there is an opportunity for kindness, and to repent when I have not been so.

Happy news: my "little" brother Micah and his wife Tara had a baby boy! Finn.  He's darling and perfect and I am always in wonder over the miracle of pregnancy and birth; the whole amazing process, and the tiny, perfect babies that God creates.  I get to be an auntie again and my kids are over the moon excited about having a new cousin!

And: breakfast.  I make this in some form or another for breakfast every morning, so I decided to snap a picture of it in process.  This is from this morning, and it's about a T of chopped onions, a cup of chopped spinach, a few T of corn and some ground turkey (2 oz).  Then I fry an egg into the middle of it and add salsa on the top.  Sometimes I switch out the meat, depending on what we have (bacon, sausage, ground beef, leftover roast), and corn is a new addition, but it's almost always onions, spinach and the egg with some meat thrown in.  Sometimes I sprinkle smoked paprika and/or cumin on top and YUM.  Love.

Happy Saturday to you!  I'm off to make myself a latte and tidy the kitchen, then my room (so: at the very least: make my bed), while the kids do room clean-up, then make a meal plan and get a grocery list ready, then pick up my Ella from her cousins house, where she slept over.  (Missed her!) and do some Easter baking and cooking.  Love to you and yours,

~Stacy 

This Week for Dinner

{breakfast one day last week: buttermilk pancakes with mini chocolate chips}

 Hello~

This is kind of a cheater blog post because it's 10:30 on Tuesday night and the post I intended to write today (Books and Podcasts: What We're Reading and Listening To) will take too long to write, so I'm going with meal plans instead.  Mark had the day off today, and I had grocery shopping to do, and we hosted a huge small group at our home this evening.  It's been a busy day!

Here's what we're eating this week.  And next:

Week 1
Monday | Slow Cooker Mexican Pulled Pork (w/ tortillas, avocados, sour cream, salsa)
                     *I've used this recipe several times and we love it!
Tuesday | Chicken Caesar Salad and bread
Wednesday | Green Enchiladas
Thursday | Pulled Pork Sandwiches w/ coleslaw
Friday | Cauliflower Soup   
                *This is one of our very favorite fall soups and I'm so excited to be eating it again!
Saturday | Potato dish with sausage
Sunday | Nachos

Week 2
Monday | Mozzarella Meatballs, rice (because it was in the loop last time but we had a rough day so we picked up pizza instead!)
Tuesday | Man-Pleasing Chicken (if you haven't made this yet you are SO missing out)
Wednesday | White Chicken Chili
Thursday | Beef and Bean Burritos (These were on the rotation last time, too, and were such a hit (and so easy for me) that we're doing a repeat on these again.)
Friday | Chicken Mirabella
Saturday | Meatloaf, potatoes
Sunday | Goulash

:)

Odds and ends {meals and school}

{ sorry for all the picture-less posts of late.  our camera is broken! }

Meals
I've been terrible about making meals lately.  Lots of breakfast for dinner or quesadillas with beans.   Or grilled cheese.  Does anyone have any great meals they want to give me a link to?  Or just tell me the last three meals you've made.  It'll give me some inspiration!

Tonight we're trying this one: Slow Cooker Parmesan Honey Pork Roast.  Except that I took the roasts out of the freezer halfway through the day, thawed in hot water for about 20 minutes (so, not enough), and then threw it all into the crockpot on high.  I think it should be done in four hours.  It sure smells good.

School
Yesterday for school we only did Bible and narrations.  [Since the rest of the day was taken up in doing Adelia's hair, which everyone loved because they got to watch videos.]  Anyway.  School:  We read in Joshua about the divisions of the land for each tribe, so for narrations I handed out blank maps and re-read where each tribe settled and the kids each completed a map including a compass and a color-coded key for the twelve tribes.  (So that's geography, too, right?)  Right.

A friend of mind told me recently that her impression from reading my blog was that I was so organized and that we have these complete school days.  Or something.  Um.... no no no.  If we have anything on our schedule for the day, school is basically shelved.  We take the day off when Mark has a day off.  The other days we do a few things off of our schedule (which is pictured at the top of this post).

On school days we usually always cover Bible, narrations and chores, most of the time we try to hit Math and piano practice, and reading aloud.  And all the other stuff?  Well, we tuck other things in when our days are running smoothly.

Today we did the following:
-Bible and narrations (15-20 minutes, during breakfast)
-Chores
-Storytime (picture books with the girls) (10 minutes)
-Poetry: I read our two March poems (3-5 minutes)
-Memory work (we reviewed the OT & NT books of the Bible- I quizzed them by calling out a book and they took turns calling out the next one.  We also reviewed our family ways.)  (20 minutes)
-I read Shakespeare's Macbeth- (the Charles & Mary Lamb version), while the kids drew pictures. (30 minutes, but only because I had set up the younger girls with embroidery needles and thread and burlap in hoops and I kept having to tie knots and thread needles during Shakespeare!)
-The older three did Math at the table (20 minutes)
-I then did Dictation with Ella and Isaac (the same passage, and from another Shakespeare play.  Macbeth was so depressing and the kids (well, Ella) disliked it so much that I pulled a passage from their favorite play so far (A Midsummer Night's Dream) to make up for it.  (20ish minutes, maybe 30)

And that was a really full day.  We maybe have one of those each week.  Tomorrow morning we'll go to Bible study at church.  And after that, the kids have piano lessons and so I know we won't do any school tomorrow.  Thursday and Friday we're back on.  And my guess is that NEITHER of those days will be as full as today was. 

Now they're all playing outside until lunch.

***

I'm wrapping up this post after eating.  [The roasts took nearly 5 hours on high, due to the partially-frozenness of them].  Our dinner (link above) was really tasty.  I served it with basmati rice, caesar salad (made by Ella), and homemade sourdough.  ALSO: lemon bars for dessert.  Which are basically the best dessert ever, in my opinion.  I told the kids they could each have one and I was going to help myself to the rest of the pan later.  That's an exaggeration, but I will likely have a couple (few?) more.  YUM.

For the rest of our school day, the kids played outside, except for practicing piano and quiet times.  I played a game of UNO with Adelia, reheated leftoevers for lunch, cleaned the kitchen, had a dentist appointment, worked on Precept (Bible study) homework, and made dinner.

Mark and the kids are cleaning the kitchen, and then Mark and I will likely correct math.  When the kids go to bed, we'll probably watch a little of The Voice while we eat lemon bars.

How was your day?

NOT back-to-school activities

Everyone seems to be heading back to school this week.

Not us, though.

We're drying fruit.  (That's school, right?  The girls are helping.)

Our bounty: mostly apples and prunes, but some bananas, blueberries and pears in the small jars

Audra, my early-morning helper yesterday

Adelia and Ella, my early-morning helpers this morning

I have several boxes of (free-to-us) apples and prunes sitting on my kitchen floor ---oh, and in my fridge, too, and in my mom's fridge!--- so our trusty dehydrator is hard at work.

Mark has a hard time seeing any food go to waste, so as he's out delivering mail on his route, and walking through peoples' yards all day, he sees apples lying on the ground, and he knows the people who live there, obviously- so he'll ask them: "Are you going to use these apples?" and well, they aren't. So we've gone out to his route to pick some and my mom and brother-in-law have prune trees, so we've got plenty of fruit!

Homemade fruit leather

God has been so generous to us this season- our garden was more productive than ever, and we've been able to put up so much food, and we keep getting more from others, too.  A couple of weeks ago my aunt and uncle offered us green beans from their garden, and so we went out and picked and after canning it all we ended up with 16 quarts of beans.  Then this weekend they called again and had extra corn, so we got nearly 50 ears of corn, and my aunt had already done the work of husking it all.  What a gift!  So now we have corn in the freezer, too.

 

Corn for the [exceedingly grateful] chickens!

I do hope to post more about school soon.  And next up is the "Part 2" of our chore system.

Oh, and: comments are back on.  In order to try the no-comment thing I have to remember to turn off the comments on each post, which I kept forgetting.  So nevermind that.

Hope you have a great day!
~Stacy

Today.

Working on chore "charts" for the kids.

Almost done.  I'm finishing up some little drawings and then I'll add them and we can begin the new assignments.  There is so much managing to be done in even the assigning of chores: who can do what, who works well together (or near one another), who will be offended if I remove them from a job they've liked doing, who needs to be near me (or an older sibling) in order to work diligently and be trained in that chore.  A LOT of time and effort goes into the assigning of chores.

Also, today... I baked some bread.  We were out and it seemed easier to make some than to pack up all the kids and drive to the store for some.  Plus, now we get to smell the aroma of freshly baked bread.  Which makes me think of fall, which is quite nearly here.

Moving from summer to fall... as evidenced by my mantel-- the "summer" bunting is still up, and there are cheery sunflowers-- isn't a sunflower just the happiest flower ever?  I love sunflowers.  Must plant more next year -- but the pumpkin candle is out already and another candle is lit today. 

Hope you're having a good day!

Meal planning

Summers are the WORST for me as far as meal-planning goes. My poor family.  I'll hit my groove again in the fall with soups and bread and hot casseroles and meat and potatoes in the crockpot.  I miss my crockpot.

But summertime? Aack. I hardly know what to make. It's hot and I don't want the oven on.  Especially when I've spent the morning canning and my kitchen is already sticky with heat.  If it were just me, we'd just eat a salad every night.  But my children can only handle so many salads.  As I write this, I feel certain I've typed this exact same paragraph in a blog post before.  My apologies.

In an effort to get back into the discipline of meal-planning, I sat down to create a plan. 

The tools: recipe binders, computer (for new recipes I've bookmarked), Sharpies, a master grocery list, and my meal list to post on the fridge.

Shown: meals for week 1

Why do I always forget that it's really as simple as formulating a plan and getting the necessary ingredients?  Then, with the plan in place, the thinking part of the work has already been done for me and I can easily tackle the to-do portion of it. 

So.  We're back at it.  Handy little list-on-the-fridge-that-I-appreciate.

meals for week 2

Saturday morning

breakfast, this morning- before baking

Good links

This photo has nothing to do with this post but I'm posting it anyway.  Mark took it on Mother's Day.  I'm so grateful to get to be a mama to these five.

Good morning, all.   It's just after 8 and Ella is sitting next to me reading Return to Gone-Away by Elizabeth Enright. My Bible, journal and reading materials are all in my room (where Audra is still sleeping after crawling into bed with us early this morning), so I'm composing a post instead.  Adelia and the boys are playing in the boys' room.

Some links for you:

• I really liked this post on friendship.  Katy Rose writes of authenticity, spurring one another on and this:  "Relationships thrive when thoughts of care turn in to acts of care."  I want to be this kind of friend.
• I liked this post on homeschooling over at The Busy Mom blog, which reminds me of another post I read recently by this same author called Raising our Sons to Seek After God.
• This is my new favorite salad dressing.  NOTE: the original recipe listed makes something like a gallon of dressing, which is clearly more than you'll want to make.  Here is the scaled-down recipe:

Greek salad dressing
3/4 cup olive oil
1 cup red wine vinegar
1-2 cloves of garlic*
2 tsp oregano
2 tsp basil
1.5 tsp pepper
1.5 tsp salt
1.5 tsp onion powder
1.5 tsp Dijon mustard
(optional: add feta cheese to the dressing)

*the original recipe calls for garlic powder but I just ignored that and put the real stuff in.

I've been chopping up romaine, cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, peppers and feta and adding some of that scrumptious dressing and eating it regularly for lunch.  YUM.

Blessings to you for a wonderful day!

~Stacy

"Live at home"

"Learn to do common things uncommonly well; we must always keep in mind that anything that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable."  - George Washington Carver

During the night I dreamed about our vegetable garden.  That's probably because last night I was poring over our garden plans and reading up about each item in this book:

--which is a great resource and one I go back to, again and again.  I've added a few more things to our list: nasturtiums (did you know that the entire plant- flower and all- is edible?)  And they're pretty.  (those leaves!  and the colors!  love them.)

{photo from here}

I'm also considering garlic (is it too late to plant this?  Anyone know?  It's still relatively cold here.) and tomatillos.  (Apparently they're fairly prolific and grow well in cooler climates.)

I'm making note of what I hope to preserve this year, too.

For the freezer:
I'm hoping to make strawberry jam, strawberry-rhubarb jam, raspberry jam and blackberry jam.  Possibly blueberry jam, too.  I'm not a big fan but I'm sure some of the kids will eat it.  (I'm trying to remember how many batches of jam I made last year but I forget.  Somewhere around 10 batches, I think.  And we just pulled our last jar from the freezer.)  And applesauce.  I will likely can some applesauce, too.  We're planting sugar pumpkins for the purpose of making and freezing some pumpkin puree.

To can:
We always can beans- and we never can enough.  So we're planting both pole and bush beans this year in hopes for a large crop.  We also want to can dilly beans this year, too.  I want to can salsa- it's been a few years and I'd love to do it again.  And dill pickles. 

***

One of the biographies Mark read aloud this year was George Washington Carver.  Carver (1864-1943) was a brilliant scientist who defied people's expectations of him- because he was a black man.  He had been born into slavery and was not allowed to attend public school but he yearned for an education and had an insatiable appetite for learning.  Even as a young boy, his neighbors called him the Plant Doctor.  He knew plants.  Every morning by 4:00, he went for a walk in nature and to spend time with his Creator, and he studied whatever he saw.  He dug up plants and studied them and wondered at their purposes. He studied the soil.  If he came upon someone working at a skill that he was unfamiliar with, he asked if he could learn.  In 1896, Booker T. Washington invited Carver to come to the Tuskagee Institute and head up the Agricultural Department.  (By this time Carver had collected several thousands of specimens and understood soils, grafting, and cross-breeding.) 

Carver was devoted to his agricultural students, but he had great compassion for the poor black cotton farmers in the area.  He saw the miserable conditions in which these farmers lived- in broken-down shacks, with no nearby trees or flowers or anything planted nearby- other than cotton- and he wanted to reach out to them and help.  Their whole life was cotton, and yet he soil was poor.  Carver knew how to bring health back to the soil.  He came up with the idea to create an Agricultural Experiment Station at Tuskagee, in order to show the farmers what could be done on the worn-out soil.  He came up with ways to treat the soil that would be available to the farmers, he printed bulletins and recipes.  Then he realized that the farmers weren't going to be reading the materials, so he started a Farmer's Institute, where he invited the farmers and their wives to come- once a month- and SEE what they could do.  He told them in simple language how they could work their land more effectively. 

He happened upon an old black farmer one day- Henry Baker- and was invited in for a meal.   They ate a typical meal: side meat, corn bread and molasses.  Carver noted that there were no vegetables or proteins.  They ate the fat of the pork instead of real meat.  There were no eggs.  He began sharing with them how they could 'live at home'; that the growing season in the south was long, and they could plant a garden and have fresh vegetables, year round.  He offered to bring them some seeds.  He told them they could raise peaches and pears and cherries and persimmons, berry bushes and walnuts and pecans.  He told them to get some chickens.  He told them he'd bring them a coop himself and teach them what to do.  As he was leaving, Henry Baker said, "I want to thank you, Professor, for your kindness.  I is just one farmer, and you done took all that time telling me how I should live.  But Professor, I got neighbors that's worse off than I is.  I owns my land.  They just rents it.  If you tell me when you're going to bring them seeds and that chicken coop, I'll get my neighbors here.  And you can tell them all about how it ain't good for the land to grow just one thing all the time- and about 'live at home'."  Carver promised to come the following Saturday, and told Henry to invite the farmers' wives, too. 

Carver spent all that week cooking and showed up that Saturday with a big wooden box full of jams, eggs, cured meat, vegetables, and packets of seeds.  Twenty farmers and their wives were crammed into Henry Baker's cabin and they listened to Carver tell them about the land.  They sampled all he'd brought for them.  He showed them how to raise hens and told them about curing meat.  He taught them how to make things.  "'Live at home'", Carver told them, "Don't buy everything you need at the plantation owner's store.  Grow your own food.  A garden is the best doctor there is."  Then he gave each man some garden seeds and some flower seeds. 

There's much more to his life story, but we were inspired by his vision to 'live at home'.  On our little city lot there's only so much we can do, but we can use the land God has given us, and be good stewards of it.

After reading that biography, Mark and I encouraged each of our (older) kids to choose just one crop (from our yard and garden) this year to oversee: to read up about it, to study it, to plant it, tend it, weed and harvest it.  I told them that I would then buy from them what I would normally purchase from the store.  So as I plan for our garden this spring, they are busy plotting and planning, too.  Isaac intends to take over the cucumbers, and to plant dill and make dill pickles- and sell them to me.  Ella is researching carrots.  Isaias is still contemplating what he'll take on. 

We'll see how our little project turns out.  :)