Thursday, July 7, 2011

Kimmie in Real Life! (week 5)


Happiness is...
having a family that accepts and embraces the life of a "frugal family" and their willingness to joyfully embrace each and everything we do in our lives. 

However, this week I learned that Ethan struggles and gags when I add nuts to our salads...he loves salad (minus tomatoes) and loves nuts, just doesn't like them together.   
SO, I just blended his salad greens up with some lime, pineapple and honey dew and he enjoyed his salad as a smoothie and enjoyed eating his chicken plain.

We took our dinner to the park and enjoyed FUN…
 I made a batch of Hoagies and German chocolate cupcakes, we loaded the car with our cooler and Weber Q grill headed to the park…Ethan ran and splashed in the water, while Tracy grilled hot dogs and I got our buns ready and we enjoyed the HOT weather, great food, LOTS of family fun that ended in rolling around our “Freeze and Play” ball and made ice cream and enjoyed cupcakes for dessert.

Helpful TIP…
 I just mixed together my ketchup and mustard put it into a small container and then I didn’t have to pack the ketchup and mustard bottles in our cooler.  
SO much easier to do this.
It also makes it where kids have to eat whatever you have and they don’t complain.

Helpful TIP… 
 I sauteed up onions before we left and while they were cooking I filled one of our Thermos’s with hot water, then dumped the water out and then put the onions in and we were able to add hot onions to our Nathan's hot dogs.

Asian Chicken Salad was my favorite meal this week.
I pulled 2 chicken breasts from the freezer and defrosted them,
cut them into thin slices, then dipped them in flour,
dipped them in a mixture of beaten egg, water and soy sauce,
 put them in a pan with 2 Tbsp. melted butter, coated well with butter and sprinkled generously with Sesame seeds and baked at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes.
Put the chicken slices on yummy salad and topped with homemade Asian dressing.

Can you say yummy!!
I love taking basic ingredients and turning them into something delicious and especially something that is fun like Fudgesicles, OR, Chocolate Peanut Butter Milkshakes!

These truly are as good
(or in my opinion better) than anything you can get at any store and make the happiest kids and adults to have a yummy treat to cool off in the hot weather and aren’t full of artificial ingredients and additives.  
I love seeing my kids holding their sticks of yummy-ness and knowing that I was able to use food storage to create these.

I realized I had a bunch of random veggies which were perfect for Veggie cobbler.  
I didn’t have butternut squash, so I just peeled up a sweet potato instead and it was just as tasty, in fact, I think I like the sweet potato better than butternut squash. I didn’t have frozen corn, so I left this out.   
Jade and Tracy asked if we could make this up again soon!    

This is SO nourishing and full of SO many healthy things.
The veggies cook up so tender that if you have a little toddlers, this is perfect for them to eat and also gets their palettes used to a variety of different tastes and textures.
(wished I would have had this recipe when my boys were toddlers)

I had cooked a double batch of garbanzo, lima and red beans this spring and froze half of them.
I pulled the beans out, added them to cooked ground beef, onions, garlic and homemade sauce, put them in the crock-pot on low while we were out working in the yard and we enjoyed a hearty afternoon lunch that gave us the energy to finish the rest of our afternoon yard work.

I had used up all of my Artisan Bread dough over a week ago and with going on our little trip, hadn't made any up for the past little bit.  
SO, Friday I mixed hot water, kosher coarse salt, yeast and unbleached flour together and got another batch going.
My parents stopped unexpectedly on Saturday and so I was so thrilled to pull dough out of the fridge and bake another 2 loaves of Artisan Bread to enjoy with our beans and to also send them home with a loaf.  
I am hooked on this bread and SO thrilled that it works so well to bake a fresh loaf of bread, when you have unexpected company.
This is one of my very favorite recipes!! 

 
We are hooked on Smoothies…
 each day Tracy is jealous as the kids and I have enjoyed a smoothie almost every day for lunch since summer vacation started.   
Smoothies are SO yummy, so healthy and I love that I can use up the many frozen berries/fruit that I in my freezer!  Such a great way for kids to eat fruits/veggies and a great way to disguise things as well.
I must add VERY economical way to eat as you don't put that much fruit/veggies in when you blend it up, but you get LOTS of smoothie to enjoy.
So happy that we spent the money seven years ago on our Vita Mix…at the time we had “sticker shock”, but it is SO worth the price paid and has definitely paid for itself.

 Along those lines...
My Vita Mix, 
Kitchen Aid hand AND free standing mixer, 
and Nutri-Mill wheat grinder
were well worth the price paid also. 
I am SO happy to have spent the money on them as they have greatly helped us in being
frugal” and in having quality appliances and time savers to make the yummy things we like to make.

 Friday Night the kids were wanting some kind of pasta and so we made up a quick batch of Baked Mac & Cheese. 
VERY yummy and before anyone could get seconds, I took the last four pieces and put them in the fridge and we heated them up the next morning and enjoyed breakfast on our porch together with green smoothie, applesauce muffins and and Baked Mac & Cheese...it was perfect!

June 26th - July 2nd
Sunday
Pancakes with homemade preserves
Omelette Eggs/Grapes

Monday
Steel Cut Oats
Green Smoothie, Pasta Salad
(Tracy) Pasta Salad, apple, carrot sticks, string cheese
(made Hoagies/German Chocolate cup cakes)
Went to park for FHE and roasted hot dogs, rolled around 'Freeze and play' ball and made ice cream and ended by enjoying German Chocolate cupcakes

Tuesday
Steel Cut Oats
Green Smoothie, Tuna Sandwich on Homemade buns with fresh tomato slices
Asian Chicken Salad, German Chocolate cupcakes

Wednesday
Steel Cut Oats
Green Smoothie, string cheese, Fruit and Nut cookies
(made a quick trip to SLC to my friend Ann Marie's dad's viewing and stopped and ate burgers at "In-N-Out")

Thursday
Steel Cut Oats
Green Smoothie, Garlic/Cheese bread
Veggie Cobbler
German Chocolate Cupcakes

Friday
Steel Cut Oats
Leftover Veggie Cobbler, apple slices
Green Smoothie, Baked Mac & Cheese
Fudge Pops

Saturday
Green Smoothie, leftover Baked Mac &Cheese, half an applesauce muffin
Fudge Pops
Fresh fruit (watermelon, pineapple and grapes), Artisan Bread, Sunshine Bean Casserole
Chocolate and Peanut Butter milkshakes

3 comments:

C Smith said...

I am getting a Kitchen Aid mixer...finally! I am so excited. Travis ordered me one for our anniversary. I guess I'll keep him another couple of years. Lol. I have been loving your hoagie recipe but looking forward to making it and your sugar cookies with my new mixer!

Our Paper Plates said...

Yummy, yummy, yummy. I'll have to find one of those freeze ice cream balls. Sounds like so much fun!

Connie said...

Love the look on your boy's faces when they're eating those fudgesicles. You can tell they love their mom and they're happy to eat all the yummy food from your food storage! I'm so glad we have links to all your recipes.
I'm getting your chicken salad recipe for my daughter's bridal shower on Saturday.

Thanks so much for inspiring us!