Cleaning out my Pantry and Getting Real

Once a Month mom has a "Get Real 2012" challenge. It's a year long series of helping you change to "whole foods". I did the "100 days of real food" challenge back in the fall. I only did the "mini" challenge of 10 days. But let me tell you, I never felt better. I'm not going to lie and tell you it was easy, it's hard to come up with recipes your whole family can eat. And cooking goodies, that's another challenge. Love the re-fried bean recipe.

One of my new years resolutions was to try and eat vegan. That has only lasted for 4 days. I miss my cheese and eggs. I'm defiantly stopping the meat though. This series from Once A Month Mom will help me to get back on track with healthy whole food eating. They have every month planned out with different topics each month. Jump over and check it out.

January is Pantry cleaning with Lisa from "100 days of Real Food".
I'm headed to the kitchen for a little cabinet cleaning. Join me and clean out your cabinets.

Happy New Year 2012

Welcome 2012! A new year and new goals.

Last year I meet a lot of my goals:

-replaced back door
-removed skylights
-paid off two credit cards
-got 4 more chickens
-got rid of bamboo

Still working on:

-paying off last credit card (only 2 payments left)
-saving up 3 months worth of monthly bills

Goals for 2012:

-Give More (give more of God's money back to him)
-eat more meals at home
-try to eat as much of a vegan diet as possible (I love my cheese)
-expand my garden to be more fruitful this year
-finish master gardener class and get certified (starts Jan. 11)

All in all, I'm very blessed to have what I need. God is good. Let's see what He has in store for 2012.

Growing Shiitake Mushrooms

Has anyone every grown shiitake mushrooms? A local farmer told me that you can make pretty good money growing these and selling them to local restaurants. I have done a little research and am thinking about growing some. They don't seem to hard to grow, just need time. Any suggestions would be GREAT!!

Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Oat Muffin

These muffins are so moist and yummy they won't last long. If your trying to find ways to sneak in healthy foods for your kids, this is your muffin. Just tell them it's pumpkin muffins. It worked for my nephew. He didn't know a thing. You can use pumpkin if you don't have sweet potato or butternut squash.

Muffins:
1 cup pureed sweet potato
1/2 cup cane sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup softened butter
1 egg
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp homemade vanilla

Topping:
1/2 cup quick oats
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp melted butter

-Preheat oven to 375 degrees
-Grease muffin pan
-In a large bowl mix cane sugar, brown sugar, egg and softened butter until creamy. Add sweet potato and mix well. Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and cloves. Mix until blended well. Stir in vanilla
-In medium bowl combine topping ingredients and mix until well incorporated
-Pour muffin batter into pan, filling about 3/4 full
-Spoon heaping tablespoons of topping on top of muffins and gently push down to make mixture stick to muffins
-Bake for 25-30 minutes



These muffins with some homemade applesauce and breakfast is done. Or toss a muffin in lunch with homemade fruit leather. Your kids will love it.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

STOP!!! Don't throw out those pumpkin seeds. Roast them and eat them.

Once you have all the seeds out of your pumpkin, rinse seeds off with water to get off all the stringy stuff. Pat dry with paper towel.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Take 1 Tbsp. oil or butter and grease small cookie sheet. I used a 10 x 5 pan. Mix seeds and spices together until evenly coated. Pour onto cookie sheet. Make sure the seeds are evenly spread out. We want every little seed to get even baking time. Bake for 20- 30 minutes.

Garlic Pumpkin Seeds:
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup pumpkin seeds


Pumpkin Pie Pumpkin Seeds:
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup pumpkin seeds

Veterans Day: Thank You!!

Thank you to all the men and women who have served or are serving our country. Freedom is not Free and I pray for our soldiers who are away from home that they will return safely. Thank you for all you do. May God bless you and keep you safe.

End of the "10 day Pledge to Eat Real Food"

The 10 day pledge to eat real food was pretty easy for me. The hardest part was when we went out to eat for my mom's birthday. We went to our local Mexican restaurant and I ordered veggie fajitas and only ate the veggies and re-fried beans. I really wanted to eat the fajitas but no "white" breads. It was only the 3rd day and my niece quiet on me. Thanks for trying Kia :)

Salads were on the menu a lot. I really missed my thousand island dressing but I adapted to my homemade oil & vinegar dressing. Much better for me and very inexpensive. This food pledge opened my eyes to eating more at home and less eating out.

Example: I ate out two meals last week, one was $4.19 and the other time was $9.93 = $14.12 spent on TWO meals for only ME.

Solution: Eat at home = money saved. Went to Whole Foods and bought a 4lb whole chicken = $7.72. Cooked it in the crock-pot and had garlic mashed potatoes with parmesan bread sticks. Total cost of meal= less than $10. Plus I had enough chicken left over to make two chicken salad sandwiches for lunch and more chicken for my home made chicken noodle soup. The chicken noodle soup made about 3 quarts. It freezes well too.

All and all I had a great time coming up with different recipes to eat. Not to mention the 5 lbs I lost in 10 days. Now back to the kitchen for some home made honey blueberry muffins.