Kimmie in Real Life! (week 13)

 This week I enjoyed SO much time and fun with my family.

I got to be there to send them out the door with a yummy breakfast and a big hug and kiss for the first three days of school.

These are the moments that I so hold on to so dearly and they are cherished as priceless memories...

time with my family, truly is my most prized possession!!

Here are the food highlights 

from our week!

These photos just make me melt!!
I have to admit that my kids have the greatest dad in the world!  

He always takes time for them and is never in too big of a hurry to let them help him out. 

Ethan had to miss out on the monthly scout camp-out and so Tracy told him he could help him fix Skillet Breakfast in the Dutch Oven for our Sunday morning breakfast. 

This is SO easy, SO yummy... 

I don't know why we don't think to make this more often. 

The sun was shining so wonderfully, 
 it was warm and so we loaded our plates and headed to our
lovely back yard picnic table and enjoyed our yummy breakfast!
I'm going to miss these moments
when winter comes and we are no longer able to enjoy eating our meals outside.

I made a batch of tortillas on Monday afternoon 
 and I took the leftover skillet breakfast and heated it up and
made breakfast burritos for dinner to enjoy with our smoothie.

We had an abundance of cherries,

Ethan wanted pudding cups

SO, I decided to make a batch of cherry pie filling, 

made a batch of pudding cups

made a batch of cupcakes,

I cut each cupcake in half,

took a pudding cup and covered the cupcake in pudding 

and we spooned pie filling on the top.

Can you say, yummy!!

Tracy and the boys had a hike to go on
and so I took leftover tortillas, cooked up a chicken breast and we made chicken wraps....

spread tortilla with cream cheese and mustard,
top with chicken, tomatoes, bell pepper slices and chives,  
roll it up and TA-DA!  Delicious lunch to enjoy on the trail.

String cheese, granola bars, 
dried and fresh fruit were enjoyed for trail snacks.

I had purchased some shirts on sale
around Easter-time for Ethan to wear this fall to school ($1.99 each shirt) and when I opened the bag to get the shirts, I noticed a loan bag of Easter ROLO's  that I had purchased for our Easter Egg Hunt that had gotten lost in the bag of shirts...

SO, I took the ROLO's, unwrapped them, and made up my 

Double Chocolate cookies...

only I left out the chocolate chips and just wrapped the dough around the ROLO,
put the cookie dough balls on a cookie sheet,  
baked at 350 degrees for 14 minutes and we had  
decadent chocolate/caramel cookies 
to enjoy in our lunches for the first day of school!

I asked the kids what kind of bread they wanted for the first day of school sandwiches and they both said "Honey Whole Wheat". 

I must have been inspired to bake this bread, because I froze 2 loaves and they ended up coming in handy for the weekend sandwiches on our Huckleberry picking adventure!

Pineapples were on sale for $2.36 a pineapple
and so I purchased 3 of them, cut them into chunks, bagged them up and now I have pineapple for us to enjoy during the winter months as we add it to our weekly smoothies.

Tracy had been asking if we could make this up,
however, they were hiking all day and I didn't feel confident with my Dutch Oven skills
and so I made this up and cooked it in my oven.

I had some random broccoli, mushrooms and celery that I added to the recipe and made it with 1/2 brown and 1/2 white rice.  

I have to say, it was SO good!!  

The leftovers we enjoyed later in the week with some steamed broccoli and cantaloupe.

I was craving something made with Huckleberries 
 and I wanted to make something yummy for the kids for breakfast  
(since it is a celebration to have all of us home together in the morning in the middle of the week)
SO, I pulled out a bag of Huckleberries from our freezer and made a batch of muffins.

LOVE my muffin recipe with my new addition...
 I added in 1 heaping Tablespoon of ground flax seed,
1/2 cup fresh ground whole wheat flour and 1-1/2 cups unbleached white flour.

That combination gives the PERFECT texture and makes the muffins hearty!

I made some mini muffins with the extra batter and the kids enjoyed the mini muffins in their lunches for a snack.

Such a great recipe for blueberries or huckleberries.

LOVED being there to send my kids off to school!! 
Priceless moments...sad that they are growing up so fast.

Jade is 17 and is a Junior in High School

Ethan is 9 and is in 4th grade (last year of elementary)

Our back to school meal was an absolute FLOP!!  

Kids heading to activities, none of us were home at the same time, so needless to say, the VEGGIE pizza, was good, but not the usual WOW!!   (when I get time to make this up again, I will post the recipe)

For now, I'll share what I did.

Made up pizza dough and let it rise for 2-3 hours in the afternoon.

Took zucchini, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms and tomatoes and sauteed them until tender.

Mixed one (8 oz) can of tomato sauce with some basil, oregano and garlic powder

Cooked the crust for 10 minutes

topped with sauce and veggies and chopped olives,

Topped with cheese and let it cook until the cheese was nice and melted (another 10-15 minutes)

Jade REALLY loved it
and was glad there was leftovers for him to enjoy in his lunch the next day.

 Our last week of daily smoothies!!
We savored and enjoyed each and every one of these glass fulls of nutrition and yummyness!

We went to a luncheon this weekend and they had made this salad.

I have always made mine with chopped cabbage and had never thought to use broccoli slaw, but seeing how much my family loved it , I decided I had better make some up for us to enjoy.

However, I didn't completely follow the recipe as I added in cooked chicken and grapes and only a sprinkling of the seasoning packet and this was such a YUMMY lunch. 

Jade has begged me to make more of this next week for another one of his lunches.

 I know people have debated back and forth on which recipe tastes best...homemade OREOS made from a box of cake mix, 
OR, made completely from scratch...

Hands down there is no competition...my family votes  
from scratch OREOS truly are the tastiest!    
(Tracy made me promise to make another batch the following week for him to take to work so his co-workers could enjoy them!)

 I knew we would probably heading out 
to pick huckleberries on Saturday morning
and so Friday afternoon, I pulled a roast out of the freezer, defrosted it and put it in the crock pot on low for about 15 hours until it was tender and fell apart. 
I then shredded it all up and put some in a container to take in our cooler to make roast beef sandwiches and then I froze the broth and rest of the roast to make future sandwiches and I'll use the broth to make some kind of soup.

I pulled bread out of the freezer before we headed out 

and put it in our cooler and by the time it was lunch time it was unthawed and I sliced it up, spread it with mustard and mayo and we had such a tasty lunch to enjoy in the mountains.  

We also enjoyed some SunChips, apple slices and OREO's for dessert.

Week of August 21st to 27th
Sunday
Cantaloupe, Skillet Breakfast that Tracy and the kids cooked in the Dutch Oven...enjoyed eating breakfast out on our picnic table enjoying the wonderful morning sunshine
(had a luncheon at Shae and Sheldon's house after they had their baby blessing) 
Enjoyed Cantaloupe and donut peaches for an evening snack before bed

Monday
Steel Cut Oats
(Tracy) Leftover Lentil Stew, cherries, banana and apple
(kids and I) Green Smoothie
(snack) plain white cupcakes
Breakfast burritos with rest of leftover Skillet Breakfast, green smoothie
FHE treat of homemade cupcakes, topped with homemade vanilla pudding and cherry pie filling
(Made tortillas for burritos for dinner and wraps for Tuesdays lunches) also made cupcakes, vanilla pudding and cherry pie filling)

Tuesday
Steel Cut Oats
(Tracy, Jade & Ethan Went on hike with our local young men’s group...took chicken/veggie tortilla wrap, homemade granola bars, string cheese and apple
(me) Chicken Wrap, Pluot and apple
Chicken and Rice in Dutch Oven, Double Chocolate Cookies with ROLOS in the middle) 
(made Honey Whole Wheat Bread)

Wednesday (First day of school for my kids)
Smoothie, boiled eggs on whole wheat toast
Tuna Sandwiches on whole wheat bread, chips, apples, Double Chocolate Cookies
Homemade Vegetarian Pizza with garden veggies

Thursday
Green Smoothie, Whole Wheat Huckleberry muffins
Tuna sandwiches on whole wheat bread, apple, mini muffins, chips
Cantaloupe, Steamed up some broccoli and mixed it with the rest of our Chicken and Rice

Friday
Green Smoothie, Whole Wheat Huckleberry muffins
(Tracy and Jade) Broccoli Salad, apple, string cheese, mini muffins
(Ethan) Tuna Sandwich on whole wheat bread, chips, string cheese, apple, mini muffins
(put roast in crock pot so we would have some sandwich fixins' for our trip to the mountains on Saturday)
(Made homemade OREO cookies)
Dinner...steamed artichokes

Saturday
Smoothie
(headed out to pick huckleberries)
Lunch break...Roast Beef sandwiches on whole wheat bread, chips, homemade OREO's
Dinner...stopped and got Pizza at Heise Hot Springs after a long day of working hard picking huckleberries

Links to Recipes used this week:
Honey Whole Wheat Bread
Homemade Tortillas
Blueberry OR Huckleberry Muffins
Skillet Breakfast
Lentil Stew 

Broccoli Slaw Salad 
Dutch Oven Chicken and Rice
Granola Bars
Double Chocolate ROLO cookies
Homemade OREO cookies
Vanilla Pudding Cups
White Cupcakes
Cherry Pie Filling

As I sat on a hillside in the mountains this week with my family around me and alone to my thoughts, I reflected on the simple message of this quote:

"Abundance is not a number or acquisition.

It is the simple recognition of enough-ness".

Alan Cohen