I'm REALLY trying!!!

Ok, so here we go again... Once again, I've got tons of pics and recipes, but it seems like my days are getting shorter? Wait, I thought spring was on it's way, aren't days supposed to be longer? I must've missed something! ;)

Anyways... This week is already been a bit crazy! The hubs is away for a DM Conference, where lucky him gets to preview 2 Christian movies that aren't out yet! AND they are REALLY good ones! Sigh, oh well, the downside is being in meetings all day for a few days...

So the fact that he is away, and I do it all, makes for a sometimes long week! The kids always test me more too when he is gone! I don't know why, but they do! Plus 2 of them were starting to get sick, then one of them is cutting teeth, so it's been a bit crazy! Trying to comfort 3 of the 4 kiddos, while the 4th one feels left out, so she acts up a bit! I just can't win!! hahaha ;)

So with that all being said, I am "HOPING" to get one posted while they are "napping", in between my 20 loads of laundry too!

Ok, I really don't have 20 loads, but some days it feels like it!!! ;)

I hope y'all have a GREAT day and keep checking back, I PROMISE I will get them posted!!!!!!!! Thank you for being so patient with me!! :D

Dried Apples

These smelled sooooo good while baking! I have a good dehydrator and have used it many times this summer with fresh strawberries and apples this fall... But I've never made it in the oven.

For a few reasons I tried it in the oven...
1- I wanted to see how long it would take...
2- See if it tasted any different - and
3- Well, I was just curious! ;)

It is easier to do it in the oven because it didn't stick to my stone at all! Now, if you use anything else, or a stone that isn't as seasoned as mine, it may stick a bit more.. I really don't know. You could always use some parchment paper on the pan before putting your apples, or whatever fruit you decide to do...

I tried making some fruit leather with banana's, strawberries and orange juice, I blended it all in my Vitamix. I poured it on my parchment paper on a stone, (the bar pan it's called). I didn't like how it turned out, so will change the temp setting and how long I keep it in before I post it all. Not only is fruit leather healthier for you, it's WAY cheaper! You have the option of putting sugar, if ANY in it! I chose not to put any in, you don't need any! The fruit is soo good by itself, and if it a bit tart, just add some banana's or something that would mellow it all out!

Ok, not that I have kinda gone away from the dried apples... ;)


Dried Apples

2 Apples of your choice (I used Macintosh, GREAT flavor! I think Honey Crisp and Granny Smith would be awesome as well!)
Lemon juice, only if you want your apples to not turn a brown color right away... ;)

Grate your apples and spread them on a cookie sheet.
Place them in a 280d oven until dried and slightly crispy.
Take off pan if you have any left by the time they are done! ;)
And store in an airtight container or baggies, and ENJOY!! I am telling you, they won't last long at all! I recommend making more than one batch at a time!!! :D SUPER easy and SUPER healthy! You can do thin slices if you want! ;)
(Hopefully this makes sense and if it doesn't, call, e-mail or leave a comment and will talk you through it! But really, it's soooo easy!!! I think I baked mine for about 5 hours? not 100% sure on that one though! :\)



Peel, core and I cut mine in half, your apples


Grate your apples onto a pan


Here they are... They turned kinda brown, but it's ok! Thin it out as best as you can! You could put them in a bowl and sprinkle lemon juice over the top and stir a bit before placing on a pan to help prevent them from browning...


Tried to take a pic of how thick it is... ;)


Here they are, all nice and brown and PERFECT!!!!!! :D


I seriously ate half the pan before they were even done! The kiddos really didn't get much! But, I got some more apples and will make some more for them! I can see these going REALLY fast!!!!

Fruit and Oat Muesli

Once again, I am back! It's been crazy! I can't believe it's already Thursday! Not only that, but FEBRUARY!! What happened to January?

My lil man who got the black eye is doing soo much better! I am tellin ya', if I wasn't putting that arnica on it, it would be way worse!

We also had some company this week-end, so I put off posting recipes! But I am ready to go, and am praying that I will have the time to keep getting on up everyday!!! Ya know, running around after 4 lil ones, and teaching 3 of them, it does have it's challenges! But I LOVE it and I would NOT trade it for anything!!! :D

I wanted something easy and fast, but healthy and good for my kids this morning. My kids love oatmeal, and I still have a ton of it in my freezer, but I didn't just want to do the basic, same ole same ole for them. SO.... Got my creative juices flowing and this is what we did!

They LOVED it, I tried it, in all honesty, I am not a huge fan of it! I think it's the greek yogurt. They LOVE it, me, not so much. You could use regular yogurt as well. I am thinking if I would've used that, then I could've eaten it...


Add your orange juice....


And milk.....


And yogurt....


And vanilla to a bowl... stir to combine


Then add your oats


Stir it up to combine


Here's what it looks like after it's sat for 10 minutes!


Add your chopped, diced apples (you can peel them or leave the peeling on... For the sake of my littlest one, I left the peelings off... )


And then the chopped almonds (I got a little slap happy with my Vitamix and chopping almonds! ;))


Here it is all done! Sorry, I didn't take the time to photoshop these pics, esp this one, it's a bit orangey looking... My kitchen lighting stinks! ;)




Fruit and Oat Muesli

2/3 cups orange juice
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup plain greek yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups quick cooking oats
2 medium peeled and chopped apples
1/2 - 1 cup chopped almonds
3 bananas

Mix orange juice, milk, yogurt and vanilla in bowl until well combined. Add oats and let sit for 5 - 10 minutes.
Add chopped apples and almonds, stir to combine. Add the sliced bananas and stir.
Serve!
Enjoy!!!!

Roasted Cauliflower

Ok, so I had really good intentions of posting this blog last nite! Really, seriously, honestly!

But, as the way the weeks have been going, something super exciting has been happening, and that something happened last nite! AHHH!!!!

My lil man was upstairs "sleeping". I went up to check on him, not really go in, but listened at the door. He was playing nicely, so I went back downstairs to clean my dining room. I knew that if I went in, I wouldn't get him back to sleep, so I just went back down. I also knew that if I got him out of bed, my dining room would NOT get clean!

I told my oldest to go get the bread, which is on a storage wire rack by the stairs. A short time later, she comes back in and was holding my youngest. She quickly said, he was crying, so I went up to get him and mom look at his eye!!! She was almost to the freaking out stage!

I take one look at his and eye my tummy churned just a bit! :\ It was all swollen and there was some blood! I grab him and take him into the bathroom so I could clean up the little bit of blood and then put a cold washcloth on it to help with the swelling. He has a cut right below his eyebrow and then a really small on under his eye! His whole eye was completely swollen and so was his cheek!

I put in a Veggie Tale so I could do my motherly thing and take a few pics! Then I try to apply a cold pack, but he would have NONE of that cold pack! So, I put some Arnica gel on it and gave him some Arnica.

We still aren't 100% sure what happened! Other than the fact that he got out of his crib, and then after that got hurt! I am kinda thinking he climbed up on his big brothers bed, then feel off? He has drawers in the bottom of his bed and a couple were pulled out.. So... Maybe that? We really don't know!

So in all that excitement, I still had to fix supper because we were having some friends over! I got supper done, we ate, had fun, and when they left, I was pretty much toast! I fell asleep on the couch watching a movie, wow, go figure on that one! ;)

So I apologize, I really had good intentions of getting this up yesterday, but really, there is NEVER and I mean N-E-V-E-R a dull moment in this house!!!

So without further ado, here's the recipe!

SUPER easy, SUPER healthy and SUPER good! My kids loved this as well! My lil man loved it too! After he was done eating his plate of fish and cauliflower, he climbed up on my lap and proceeded to eat what was on MY plate. I got more after he polished mine off and he kept eating! We didn't have a whole lot of leftovers! ;)



Cut your cauliflower and place in ziploc baggie with coconut oil, or olive oil


Add curry powder and salt


Here it is after I shook it up! This is a great way to get kids involved, let them help you shake the bag, or help add the ingredients! They may actually want to try it if they aren't big into cauliflower if they help you make it! :D


Then add the onions, peas, ginger, lemon zest and salt and pepper


All shook up!


Place into baking dish


I used my cast iron pot that I got for Christmas!


Here it is all done, sooooo good! I could've eaten the whole pot!!!!



Roasted Cauliflower

•1 head of cauliflower, trimmed and cut into florets
•1-2 t. olive oil or coconut oil
•1/2 t salt
•1 1/2 t. curry powder
•3 T. chopped onion
•2 cloves garlic, minced
•2 t. ground ginger
•1/2 - 1c. frozen peas
•1 t. lemon zest
•salt and pepper to taste

Cut the cauliflower, place it in ziploc bag with the melted coconut oil. Zip it up, shake to coat.
Add the salt and curry powder. Zip back up and shake again.
Open the bag, add the onion, minced garlic, ground ginger, frozen peas, lemon zest and salt and pepper to taste. Zip the bag back up and shake to combine.
Open it and place in a baking dish. Bake uncovered at 400 degree oven for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

Eat and enjoy!!!

Swordfish Steaks

Ok, so if you REALLY know me, you know that I REALLY dislike fish, or any form of seafood! Ok, let me rephrase that... I don't like the smell of seafood, or the consistency/texture of certain fish/seafood, so it's hard for me! ;)

I have tried tilapa, halibut, and crab cakes. Now I can add swordfish to my list! :)

At first I wasn't too sure, because it was kinda starting to smell "fishy"!!! But then after I plopped it in the skillet the smell actually went away!

These took a bit longer to cook as well... These bad boys were THICK!!!! But I am not gonna lie, they were good!

I am going to get these steaks again and try to make it one other way now!

And on another note... All 4 of my kiddos LOVED this!! They all wanted more!!!! I made roasted cauliflower with this as well.. YUMMO!!! A complete meal, success! All new "firsts", was a HIT!!!!!!!!!!! That's BIG and awesome in my book, seeings how I don't like fish! ;)

I didn't really take any pictures! I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out! Infact I didn't think it would, so I didn't bother to take a ton of pics! I know, that's bad! But it really is easy!!! :)



Place your marinated swordfish steaks in skillet




Here it is done with roasted cauliflower! (cauliflower recipe coming either later today, or tomorrow!)



Swordfish Steaks

4 cloves garlic-cut in half
1/3 sherry cooking wine
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon Old Bay
Salt and Pepper to taste
4 swordfish steaks

Combine all the ingredients minus the swordfish in a gallon size bags. Close the ziploc bag tightly and shake a bit to combine. Open it up and add the 4 swordfish steaks.
Marinate for an hour, flipping the bag over every 10-15 minutes.
Heat a bit of oil in a skillet and put steaks in. Cook until done or temp reaches 145 degrees.
Serve hot!!! Don't over cook or it will be nasty!

Going Green Smoothie

Boy is this GREEN!!!!!!!!!!! The greener it is, the more my kiddos wanna drink it!! :)

This dif has a shot of spinach in it to keep you going! I sure needed that this morning! Wait, who am I kidding, I need it EVERY morning, I could use another by lunch time as well!!! ;)

Super easy and super yummy and super healthy! On days that you need something fast, fix a smoothie! You could even fix a nice breakfast and drink it with it! ;) I made this this morning with the creamy baked oatmeal. The kids LOVED both!!!

This recipe called for fresh pineapple, but I didn't have any. So I had bought a bag of it at Aldi's, so that's what I used.... It still tasted good, and this frozen stuff was almost like eating it fresh!




All the ingredients in my Vitamix ready to go! Again, you can use a regular blender!




Once again, I mixed it up and totally forgot to take a pic of it in a cup! Oh well... Here's the finished product! ;)


Going Green Smoothie

1 cup water
1 cup fresh pineapple (I didn't have any fresh pineapple, so I used frozen, worked just fine!!!)
1 medium banana
2-3 cups fresh wash spinach
1/2-1 cup ice cubes (depends on how thick you want it!)

Place all ingredients in Vitamix of blender in the order listed. If using Vitamix, place speed to variable 1, then turn to 10 quickly, then to high. Blend until the consistency you want it.

Enjoy! Super delish if you ask me!!! :D

Egyptian Tabikh

I just love a meal where I have leftovers, and I can use them for another recipe, but not in the same way! Did that make sense?

Take this for instance... I made it one nite, then the "sauce" part I was able to re-heat it for the next nite, but I cooked noodles to put the sauce over instead of the rice like this recipe calls for! That's a major score in my book!! :D

The name sounds complicated, but really, it's sooooo easy! This is one of those meals that if you don't feel like cooking, or don't have the energy, or simply don't want to pick something up from the drive-thru, this is what you can cook!

Also, the possibilities are pretty much endless for this dish! I put in carrots, mushrooms, onions, zucchini, and green beans. I think that's all I put in, I don't remember now! ;)


Here are all my cut up veggies!!! Minus the mushrooms....


Here I added some mushrooms! My hubs was like, wanna add some mushrooms to it? He was joking, but it was good with them in there!



Here is it... yummo!!!!


All done! Super delish and healthy!



Egyptian Tabikh

Prepare for cooking:
Green beans
Zucchini, squash
OR a vegetable mixture

Instead of cooking in water, cook in tomato juice.
Thicken the juice with a can of tomato paste, if desired.
Add sauteed onion and seasonings.
Serve over rice.

*Option:
Cook small pieces of meat in the tomato juice until tender. Add vegetables during the last 15-20 minutes.

I got this recipe form More-With-Less cookbook.
I grabbed 2 cans of diced tomatoes, and a can of tomato paste and put them in my Vitamix and blended it all up. Then I put it in a saucepan with all my veggies and cooked until tender. Served it over jasmine rice. SUPER good! The kiddos all loved it! :D
You can add as many veggies to this as you want! If you don't want it chunky like ours was, then add less.... I also cut the carrots, mushrooms, and zucchini, but left the green beans the way they were. ;)
One more thing, I didn't sautee the onions before putting them in, I just cut them up and added it with all my other veggies.. I was being a bit lazy I guess.... ;)