Homemade Chicken Nuggets

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It’s hard to believe Grocery Shrink Plus is already in it’s 5th week!  If you haven’t signed up yet you are missing out.  We’ve been trying all sorts of new recipes and tecniques.  It’s so much fun!  And I’m really loving the facebook group.  It’s so fun to see the photos of everyone’s family and food.  The ladies are so encouraging!  I love to see little notes like this one:

We’re really enjoying these recipes, Angela!  Everything is so easy to make, healthy, and delicious.  I feel so much more organized in the kitchen as well. Thank you so much!–Stephanie

With Grocery Shrink Plus, everything is laid out for you.  I hope this is freeing.  Freeing enough that you can relax and let your kids help you in the kitchen.  The day we made chicken nuggets, little Brandon stopped in to help.  I was surprised how good at it he was! Read more…

The Twins

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I’ve been haunting craigslist for a china hutch for the dining room. Nothing seemed quite right until I saw a matching pair. I called immediately and found out that the price I thought was “each” was for “both!” But also that they had sold just a few minutes before. Bummer.

I mentioned the bummer a few times over the next few days and Darren urged me to “get over it.” Not long later, I saw the very same cabinets pop up on craigslist again.  The lady that bought them only needed one and was selling the twin.

I took a risk and called her pleading with her to consider selling both.  As it happened a minor crisis that occurred after she bought the cabinets made her a willing seller. So here they both sit in my dining room

The table is a folding church style banquet table and seats 10. It was hiding in the basement when we bought the house. I cleaned it up and bought a rental style table cloth for it from Amazon. It is perfect for us!

The chairs are another craigslist find. They were salvaged from an old restaurant and are really sturdy, but most impotant to me, they match (each other).  They are mission style and the cabinets are French country, but some darling slips covers will have the styles melding in no time.

I’d like to paint the room pale turquoise above the chair rail and white below. Crown molding and higher base boards would be lovely. I’ve seen those things on Craigslist too.

As a side note the menus are coming along swimmingly. We now have a lively facebook group where we can discuss the recipes and make new friends. It’s not too late to sign up for this week’s menu with the mini lesson of artisan bread in 5 minutes a day. And the next week will focus on making and using homemade mixes.  Here’s a picture of the breakfast bars from this morning’s breakfast.

In the Lunch Box

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I have two kiddoes that go to school every day.  When the school lunch menu comes out each month, I let them write their intials by one meal a week that they will purchase.  That’s a special day for both of us.  It’s a relief not to have to pack a lunch.

I’ve been watching closely what comes back home in the lunch box and my ideas of a good school lunch have changed.  They don’t have time to eat a lot of food and I’ve learned to pack half of what I think.  My rule of thumb is one protein source; one fruit or veggie; and a carb for energy.

We get stuck in the sandwich rut so I was proud of myself the day I made this:

I used little silicone muffin cups to separate the little things.  I was shocked to see the pepperonies come home–I thought I was giving them a treat.  They do the best with a half a sandwhich some grapes or berries and a whole grain cookie.

What typically goes in your child’s lunch box?

Sweet Potato Chips

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Daddy is in the big overstuffed rocker holding Grant while they both sleep.  Caleb has a friend over and I can hear their muffled voices talking excitedly through the door and the chink, tinkle, of legos as they look for just the right piece.  Every so often a little boy chuckle adds percussion to the happy song. The two friends have been kind to include Heather and the two little brothers in their play.  Heidi is curled up in her brand new room with a good book.  This is a happy time :).  So I am taking a few moments while the house is calm and happy to catch up on some blogging. (Ooops, wrote too soon–now the screaming commences…I’ll be back…)

I’m on the search for new foods that will fit into my healthy lifestyle but still give me the satisfcation that junk food did on the comfort side of things.  Enter the baked sweet potato chip.  Yum!  The key to doing this well is selecting a sweet potato that is long and thin and relatively uniform.  Wash it well then slice it right through the middle (the short direction.)

I use a mandolin slicer to make the slices uniform, and work from the middle towards the ends.  This gives me the best looking slices with the least amount of waste.

Next I lay them edge to edge on a cookie sheet covered with a silicone baking mat.  Spritz them lightly with olive oil (or non-stick spray) and sprinkle with sea salt.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  Then take them out and flip. Spritz and sprinkle the second side with oil and sea salt and return to the oven for 13 minutes.  At this point, I turn off the oven and leave the door shut, letting the chips crisp up as the oven cools down.

I can’t tell you how delicious these are!  My daughter, Heidi, and I had the first batch gone before the rest of the kids trickled in the kitchen and asked “What smells so good?” and “Can I have some?”  My solution is to make them often enough that they aren’t such rare treats, lol.

Creamy Southwest Soup: A slow cooked masterpiece

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I ♥ pinterest.  From homemade Valentines, to kitchen remodel, to new healthy recipes–the inspiration is all there.  Tonight’s dinner is no exception.

Mondays and Wednesdays I play Mama Taxi and arrive home at dinner time.  By then blood sugars are low and tempers are high, so using the Slow Cooker is a must.

The original recipe for this dish came from Jenna at Held Scraptive.  I modified it to fit my pantry stash and to enlarge it for our family.

Creamy Southwest Soup

2 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 can tomates and green chilies, undrained

2 cans whole kernel corn, undrained

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed (we used 2 cups of black beans cooked from dry)

1 brick, 8 oz,  1/3 less fat cream cheese

1 envelope ranch dressing mix (I had some of JPs Bacon Ranch Mix that was a gift that I used, but next time I’ll use a homemade ranch mix recipe.)

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp garlic salt

1/4 cup cilantro chopped

1 cup brown rice, cooked (we had some leftover from Sunday so I threw it in to make the soup stretch.) (I also threw in half a can of leftover enchilada sauce, just to use it up.)

In a 4-5 quart slow cooker, combine tomatoes, corn, and beans.  Place the brick of cream cheese on top, in the center away from the sides. Place chicken in a single layer over the top, sprinkle with spices.  Cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours.  Turn off the heat.  Shred the chicken with two forks, and stir in the cream cheese, brown rice, and cilantro.   We served ours with cornbread muffins.

How it went over with the family:  I thought it was delicious (but I will eat anything….). It fit in well with my FYM healthy eating plan.  1 Cup has 255 calories; 22g carbs, 7g fat, and 22 g protein.  Darren said, “Wow, this has great flavor but it’s going to be spicy for the kids.”  Heidi drank 3 tall glasses of water but ate her whole bowl.  She declared it tasty but HOT.  Caleb, Heather and Brandon ate it all without a word (but I had to feed Brandon’s to him).  Dub didn’t mind the spiciness but hated the look of it, especially the tomatoes.  Darren had to feed him every bite and hid the tomatoes under stuff.  All in all for as picky as my family is, this is a recipe that I would try again.

I am just about sold on boneless skinless chicken.  It has been going on sale around here between $1-$1.39 a lb and to come home and just shred with 2 forks and eat was a huge mind reliever.  If DH was out of work, I would have used a $.69/lb whole chickens and not complain, but wowza was this easy and delicious.

Banana Ice Cream

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This treat is amazing, if you like bananas.  There’s only three ingredients and it only takes a few minutes…but it tastes so good.

Slice 4 ripe bananas onto a cookie sheet lined with a silicone baking sheet (or wax paper.)  Freeze until hard, about 3 hours.

Place 1/2 cup milk into a blender.  Add a few banana pieces at a time and blend into a puree.  Keep adding until all the bananas are used and you like the consistency. (Note:  I have a Vitamix blender and made the mistake of adding all the banana pieces at once.  It was really hard on my machine though we finally did get to the creamy ice cream texture.)

Variations:  Add 2 Tablespoons of peanut butter or peanut butter powder (PB2) to the milk.  2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder is also good.  Up to 1 cup of other fruits can be added like frozen strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, mango etc.  The bananas are essential to the creaminess of the dish so the more bananas you have the better it will be.

Emergency Snacking

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There’s a time of day when the 4 year old should have had a nap, but now if you lay him down he won’t sleep tonight.  It’s the time of day when he sees his sister’s chocolate protein bars that are tucked away in her closet, so her brothers and sisters won’t eat them, and she can have them for after her pointe class.  The time when he brings the box to her with his big baby eyes and says, “Can I have one?”  And she has to say, “no” because if he gets one then they all will want one and she won’t have what she needs for dance class.

Then his cute little lip sticks out, and big alligator tears trickle down his cheeks and your heart breaks and melts into a pile of enabling goo.  And you know if you don’t do something, that sad little moment will turn into a kicking, screaming, thrashing, a “oh why didn’t I give the toddler a nap?”, moment.

When this happens, I take him by the little hand.  And put a spoon in it.  Then we pour honey, peanut butter, cocoa powder, and oats in a pan and wait for the magic to happen.

Snack Balls

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup honey

2 Tablespoons cocoa powder

1 cup quick oats

Place honey in a saucepan over medium high heat.  Stirring until it is very runny.  Turn off the heat and add the peanut butter and cocoa powder, stirring until smooth.  Add oats and stir until mixture forms a dough.  Roll tablespoons of dough into balls and let cool for a few minutes (or don’t.)  Eat right away and store the leftovers (there won’t be any) in an airtight container.  Then cuddle your boy with a good book.

Strawberry Spinach Salad

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Here’s my lunch today–and it was even tastier than it looks.  And talk about healthy!

Strawberry Spinach Salad–Serves 1

2 cups spinach leaves

4 oz sliced fresh strawberries

4 oz grilled chicken breast, sliced (I throw mine on the Foreman grill)

12 almonds, chopped, and toasted in the microwave on high for 1 minute

2 Tablespoons (1 oz) Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette Dressing

Layer all ingredients on a plate and eat right away.

A Yummy Green Smoothie

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Yes, I’m drinking my smoothie from a Cottage Cheese carton.  All of our glasses are too small to hold an entire smoothie, so this was my solution ;p.

I found this recipe via pinterest and traveled to the blog to read more–aak and now I can’t find it!  I’ll update with the link as soon as I can.

Her recipe was pretty good, but I made a slight change to help it be colder and thicker.

1 small banana, sliced and frozen

1/2 cup skim milk

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon peanut butter

4 cups fresh spinach

1/2 cup ice

Blend all until smooth.  Drink right away :).  This was the first green smoothie I had that I liked!  The banana and peanut butter covered the green taste really well. To save costs I bought my spinach in a huge bag from Costco.  It has 3 produce servings for the Fit Yummy Mummy Plan which really helps towards the 10 a day goal.

Italian Eggplant Bake Revised

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I’m thrilled that so many of my lovely readers are still here :).  Every time I get a comment from you it makes me smile and want to blog again.  I’ll have to admit that I enjoyed my break from the blog, even though sometimes I felt guilty about neglecting it.  I was enjoying my family so much that most of the time I didn’t even think about it.  I think I’m ready to start writing again, even if it’s just a few times a week.

Someone brought a huge box of eggplant to church last week.  We waited by the box until the crowd thinned so we could take 2 of them without feeling greedy :).  I looked up my recipe created this summer for Eggplant bake and cut the cheese in half and added a half cup of parmesan for flavor.  It was delicious and only had 300 calories a serving, which is a generous 1/8th of a 9 x 13 pan. 

2 eggplant (1 or 1.5 lbs each)

1 jar spaghetti sauce (26 oz)

2 lbs ground beef

2 cups mozarella cheese

1/2 cup parmesean cheese

1 tsp garlic salt

Place ground beef in a large skillet and sprinkle with garlic salt.  Cook meat until no longer pink, drain and rinse of excess fat.  Slice eggplant into 1/2 inch thick slices.  Cook for a few minutes on each side in a hot skillet until lightly browned.  Grease a 9 x 13 casserole dish.  Place 1/2 cup of spaghetti sauce in the bottom of the dish.  Cover the sauce completely with eggplant slices.  Sprinkle with half the ground beef, half of the cheeses and half the remaining sauce.  Repeat the layers once more.  Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes.  Let stand a few minutes before serving. 

We served ours with a huge spinach and romaine tossed salad, green beens, and peaches. If you aren’t watching you carbs, garlic bread would be perfect :).

I’m off to put the children in the tub.  It’s Saturday night, whether you need it or not…..

P.S.  I did not peel my eggplant.  I try not to peel anything if I can help it, because usually there are lots of vitamins in the peeling.  When I served the leftovers to my mother for lunch she looked shocked.  “You didn’t peel it!?”

“Oops, Was I supposed to?”

Mother:  “What did your recipe say?”

Me:  “Ooh, recipe, that would have been a good idea…”