I've spent a surprising amount of time in the kitchen this past week doing the dishes, making meals and green drinks, dehydrating all the extra fruit Henry's mom gives me, preparing our emergency food storage, and baking a cake with Hayden!

I've been spending a lot of time with my little brother Hayden over Skype recently. Earlier this week he mentioned that he really wanted to learn how to make fondant so I told him we would figure it out on Tuesday. We ended up baking cakes from scratch, cutting them in the shapes of hearts for Valentine's Day, and making a marshmallow fondant for decoration. They turned out not perfect, but very cute! Best of all we had a good time working on it together. 

I've been spending my Fridays organizing and working on our emergency preparedness storage. Since I got a food dehydrator for Christmas, I decided to make an emergency meal plan using dehydrated recipes that you can just add water to (all from the recipe book I got called, "The Dehydrator Bible.") If you're interested in doing this yourself, let me know and I'll send you the meal plan I made (you'll need a dehydrator!) I'm still working on a master list of supplies one would need in an emergency situation. 

Here are the first two meals I put together. The one on the left is Caribbean-Spiced Rice and Beans (for Sunday lunch) the one on the right is Brown Rice Porridge (for Sunday breakfast). We tried some of the first recipe since I had extra, and it was really tasty! 

This is definitely taking time, but I feel better already knowing we're on our way to being prepared for an emergency!

Stay Healthy All Winter Long

Do you by chance have a New Year's goal to be healthier? Here are two things I've discovered recently that  have made a huge difference in my energy level and overall health...

Green drinks! Yes, they look like Nickelodeon slime, but it's a super great way to get all those servings of veggies your body needs each day. It also helps to alkalize your body (a subject for another post). There are many different green drink recipes online, but here's what I do...

Ingredients:

2 handfuls of spinach

1 cucumber

2 stalks of celery

little bit of parsley

little chunk of ginger root

juice of 1 lemon

an apple or kiwi (or both) if you aren't used to the pure veggie taste

Directions:

Blend it all in the blender and enjoy! I drink at least two a day--one in the morning and one before dinner.

This next recipe has saved me from a nasty cold that keeps trying to get me for the past several months. Every time I feel a hint of sore throat, aches, chills, or whatever else I make a batch of this garlic soup. Within hours I feel all better! 

Ingredients:

2 entire bulbs of garlic

olive oil

1 lb. potatoes, peeled and chopped

4 cups chicken broth

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Cut the garlic bulbs in half (hamburger bun style). Drizzle oil on them and wrap tightly in tinfoil. Roast in a 350 degree for 40 minutes or so. 

2. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves into a saucepan. Add the chopped potato and chicken broth and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 12 minutes or so until the potatoes are soft. 

3. Add parmesan cheese then, in batches, puree the soup in a blender. 

4. Eat with your favorite bread (then go rinse with mouthwash cause your breath probably stanks!)

Hope these will help you to stay healthy all winter!

Shout Out to Noura

I've been mentioning my sister-in-law, Noura, in a lot of my posts today. She's awesome! She's given me lots of craft ideas lately and led me to some fun new blogs (check out my updated "Favorite Blogs" on the right side column). She's also given me a few great tips on healthy things to eat during the week: 

You probably can't tell from the pic, but this is a tuna salad sandwich. Noura informed me that you can use cottage cheese instead of mayo to cut down fat intake and boost protein. Tuna's great for you too! I like to add lemon juice, salt and pepper, celery or pickles, and onions. 

Thanks to Noura, I buy a couple tubs of vanilla yogurt each week and for breakfast or a snack, I add berries and almonds for Henry (almonds in nut form give me cankers). Yummy and good for you! 

Thanks for the tips ichti ("sister" in Arabic)!

Guilt-Free Bread

I had to post this recipe I tried today because I'm so excited about it! It's a recipe for almond-flour bread! I love bread, and I can get feeling a bit guilty about eating too much of it. Ya know, carbs and too much gluten/wheat isn't real good for you. Well this bread is gluten and guilt free! It also doesn't have very many carbs and is packed full of protein and other nutrients.

Here's a link to the recipe. I used honey instead of Splenda. 

It's a bit dense, so I'm going to try making some banana bread with almond flour to get a moister version. I think I want to try making breads out of other healthy, guilt-free things too. Maybe oatmeal bread? I don't know I there's such thing, but I like learning and experimenting.  

Make Your Own Almond Milk

Henry and I drink almond milk instead of regular milk. I don't have anything against regular milk, but we've just always had almond milk ever since we started dating. We would eat cereal with vanilla almond milk as a late night snack every night we were together! Fond memories...

Anyways, almond milk is fairly expensive when you're buying multiple cartons per week, so I tried making my own using this recipe. 

Turned out good! I'll have to tweak the recipe a bit until I come up with the perfect batch, but it's definitely cheaper buying a bag of almonds instead of cartons of almond milk! Plus, I just like to make things. :D

Sweet Treats

I've had a bit of a sweet tooth lately. These two recipes have hit the spot... 

Whipped Sorbet 

blend 3 frozen bananas with 1 cup frozen berries 

Super yummy and healthy!

Applesauce!

It's a great way to use up all those apples that didn't get eaten. I wish I could put a smell on my blog, because this one smelled so good while it was cooking!

Mini Party at the Little Red House

Henry had some school/business friends over last Friday night for a little get together. I was in the mood to have a party with "snicky-snacks" (as mom calls finger foods)! Here's what I ended up throwing together...

Pea-Cilantro Hummus 

Blend 1 can of green peas, 1/2 cup cilantro, 4 Tbsp. tahini, 4 Tbsp lemon juice, 2 garlic cloves, 1/4 tsp ground cumin, and salt to taste.

Chipotle Salsa

I love these organic blue corn chips with flax seed in them. No preservatives!

Deviled eggs. 

Cut hard-boiled eggs in half. Scoop out yolk and mix with mayo. Put a spoonful back into the egg white. Sprinkle with paprika.

Halloween Sugar Cookies

I also made mini burgers and put them on home-made rolls. 

Our friends James and Stacey came in to town that night and came up for a bit to say hi. All in all it was a yummy night!

Veggie Burgers Using Lentils

Tried a new recipe today! We're not vegetarians, but since we're trying to save money as best we can, I tend to make quite a few vegetarian dishes (cheaper than fresh meat). I especially use a lot of dry goods like rice, nuts, flour, etc. in my cooking since they're cheap, go a long way, and store for months.   

Anyway, I had some lentils that I've been looking for a way to use, and found a recipe for Vegetarian Lentil Burgers. I put the patties on home-made wheat rolls instead of using them as buns like the recipe link does. They turned out good with some ketchup!

I had made this bread dough in my bread-maker weeks ago then froze it.

Not the prettiest looking things I guess, but yummy and healthy!

No-Preservatives (Feels So Good!)

Homemade wheat bread and a glass of fresh squeezed OJ.

It feels so good knowing your food doesn't have any chemical preservatives in it! A bread maker keeps it real easy to have preservative-free bread each week. Just dump the ingredients in and press "start!" I'll let you know when I find a wheat bread recipe I really love. 

The fresh squeezed OJ takes a bit longer if you want a full pitcher, but can be done while watching a show or listening to "Conference" like I did this morning.

Healthy Turkey Sandwich

   I'm excited about my new blog! The only trouble is now I want to take a picture of every ordinary thing I find the least bit beautiful... One thing that did pop out enough for me to actually take a picture and want to post is the healthy turkey sandwiches I make and pack for Henry's lunches. We're trying to go preservative-free in our diet (at least when we're eating at home, which is most of the time), and this sandwich is preservative free when I make it on home-made bread!

turkey, tomatoes, sprouts, mayo, and a dash of pepper on pita bread