Because … sometimes you feel like a nut…

No-bake sugar-free Almond Joy treats.

These things are really addictive.  I just made some – they take about 15 minutes to make – and I’m thinking there might not be any left by the time the kids get home from school…  Oh well, maybe I’ll just make another batch.

10 oz. whole, pitted dates

3/4 cup slivered almonds

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup unsweetened, flaked coconut

4 tbsp cocoa

whole almonds

Put the dates in your food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped.  (It’ll combine into a ball.)  Add almonds, vanilla, coconut and cocoa and process until well-mixed.  Take a spoonful of the mixture and press an almond into it.  Shape the “dough” around the almond, covering it completely.

And, if you’re not feeling like a nut, leave out the whole almonds and make “mounds bars.”

Sufferin’ Soycotash!

(Sorry for that.  I just can’t help thinking of Sylvester the Cat every time I make this salad.)

I’ve never been a fan of lima beans.  I’ve discovered that they’re pretty good fresh, but frozen, not so much.  So, while lima beans are not in season at the farmer’s market, I use edamame in my succotash.  Therefore, it become soy-cotash.

Isn’t that pretty?  Vegetables can look so appealing some times.  My kids love this dish and it’s made completely of vegetables!  It makes me happy to see them ask for seconds of their vegetables at dinner.

Soycotash

1 cup frozen edamame

1 cup frozen corn

1 medium red bell pepper, chopped

1/4 of a small vidalia onion, chopped (red onion works well here, too)

3 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tbsp lemon juice

salt, pepper to taste

Thaw the edamame and corn.  Mix with the pepper and onion in a medium sized bowl.  Whisk together the oil, vinegar and lemon juice and pour over the vegetables.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy your veggies!  :)

Five days of spending all of my time in the kitchen!  It was fun trying new recipes for OnceAMonthMom, but I am glad to be done.  So today I am taking a break from anything food related.  Here are some ideas for DIY kids’ room decor.  We recently redid my daughter’s room and she wanted everything green and pink and girly.

My absolute favorite project was the butterfly mobile we made to hang above her bed.  Modeled after the Pottery Barn Kids’ butterfly mobile, it was a cinch to make (just a bit time-consuming).

1 embroidery hoop

colored card stock

butterfly punch

ribbon

thin twine or heavy thread

clear beads

needle

Use just the fixed size ring of the embroidery hoop.  Create a lattice by tying twine across it.  I had a four by four grid.

Add string to one end to hang the mobile.

Cut lots of butterflies from your card stock.

Cut the remaining twine into desired lengths to hang from the mobile.  I made the strings longer in the center and getting shorter towards the edges.

Thread your needle and “sew” your butterflies onto the twine.  (I have not had any problem with my butterflies slipping down the string, but you might want to add a dab of glue to each one to hold it in place.)  Add a bead tied to the bottom to weight the string down.

Then tie each string onto your grid where the cross strings meet.

Wrap your embroidery hoop with some pretty ribbons and hang from the ceiling.  Lay on bed and enjoy the view.  :)

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll feel like getting back in the kitchen and I’ll have a new recipe for you!

I have not forgotten about this blog!

I know it might seem that way lately because I haven’t been very good about posting every day.  I really wish I had all the time in the world to devote to testing recipes and writing about them.  But, if you met my kids, you’d know that I really don’t!  :)  We are still one-hundred-percent committed to our unprocessed pledge and I promise to have some new recipes soon.

Most recently I’ve been testing some recipes for a site called Once a Month Mom.  This fits right in with my plan to fill the freezer with pre-made meals for those really busy days.  The idea is that you spend one day a month making a TON of meals in bulk and then freeze them.  It is a ton of work and I don’t ever have one full day to devote to cooking. (I get about 2 hours while the twins nap and that’s it – they refuse to let me get anything done when they’re awake.  :) )

I was also busy with a family get-together we hosted.  It is so much more difficult to have people over when you are making everything from scratch – BUT I’m not complaining.  I’m very proud to say that we have made this commitment and we’ll all be better for it at the end of this year.

So, I promise that tomorrow I will have some DIY kids decor ideas and later this week I’ll have some more new recipes.

Is that a vegetable or a dessert??

It might just be both.

My kids rarely complain about eating their vegetables.  And I think that’s mostly because I think I prepare them in a way that tastes good.  I’ve never just opened a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, boiled it and offered it to them.  Mostly because I don’t want to eat that myself.  I like to try to make them taste good.  Lots of vegetables taste good and have a sweet taste that appeals to kids.  And using fresh vegetables makes a difference, too.

Last night we ate what the kids dubbed “Squash and Mystery White Vegetable Salad.”  They did eventually think of what the “mystery vegetable” was – parsnips, but I think that it will always be know as SMWV salad around here.

I added a little honey after roasting the vegetables and it almost tasted like dessert.

1 large butternut squash

5 medium parsnips

2 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

2 tbsp honey

Peel and chop the squash and parsnips into bite size pieces.  Toss with the olive oil, salt and pepper.  Spread on a rimmed baking sheet and roast at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes until tender and starting to brown.  (Stir about every 15 minutes.)  Remove from oven and drizzle on the honey.  Serve warm.  Optional: sprinkle with chopped pecans.

Have you ever looked at the ingredient list on a bottle of salad dressing?  I don’t even know what most of the things are in there.  We’ve been making our own condiments for a while now.  It’s really not that much extra work (especially making salad dressing), but you eliminate a lot of questionable ingredients from your diet by making your own.

I’m happy with just a mix of oil and vinegar for my salad, but the kids need a little more to encourage them to eat their salad.  Here’s our recipe for kid-pleasing dressing:

Sweet and Sour Salad Dressing

3 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp mustard (if you don’t have homemade, dijon would work)

1 tsp maple syrup

1 tsp sesame oil

Whisk to combine.  Makes enough for a couple of meals at our house.  Feel free to adjust amounts based on what your family likes.

And, unless you know what disodium guanylate (listed as ingredient on ranch dressing) is, don’t pour it all over your vegetables.  :)

Some days you just want some comfort food.  The problem is most of those “comfort foods” aren’t so great for you.  That’s when you need to take matters into your own hands and make your own healthy comfort foods.

My favorites:

Mac and Cheese (check out the recipes page – no one can resist mac and cheese )

Cheesy mashed potatoes (mash potatoes with butter and milk; mix with cottage cheese – you could even sprinkle with cheddar and broil – so yummy!)

Apple Crisp (I made this just the other day when it was gloomy and rainy out and I thought everyone could use a little pick-me-up)

5 medium apples

2 tbsp white whole wheat flour

2 tbsp evaporated cane juice (or raw sugar)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup white whole wheat flour

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup evaporated cane juice (or raw sugar)

1/2 cup butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Peel and thinly slice the apples.  Toss with 2 tbsp flour and sugar and cinnamon.  Spread in an 8×8 baking pan.  Combine flour, oats and sugar in medium bowl.  Melt butter and stir into the flour mixture until you have a crumbly mix.  Sprinkle over the apples.  Bake 35 minutes.  Enjoy warm from the oven.

** This recipe freezes well.  So make two and put one in the freezer for another day when you need a quick treat. **

When I talk to people about our family’s plan for the year, I am always asked “how do you have time to do this?”

The short answer to that is, “I don’t.”

Or, at least, “I didn’t.”  It’s not as if I had free hours in my day and just decided I would fill that time with making all of our food from scratch.  I do have four children.  It’s a matter of what you decide to make a priority in your life.  For now, this is our priority.

And, as I’ve said, it’s an experiment.  I don’t know that I’ll be making our own condiments for the rest of our life.  :)  I definitely will keep making the ketchup.  So worth the effort.  :)  I do know that our eating habits will be forever changed.  We won’t always eat perfectly, but we will eat well and focus on real foods.

In the meantime, I will continue to look for ways to make eating unprocessed foods more manageable.  Here are a couple of tips:

1. Double a dinner recipe once a week.  (You know you’re going to have those days when there is no time to make dinner from scratch.  If you have a premade dinner waiting for you, there’s no need to rely on convenience foods!)

2. Spend a couple of hours on the weekend making a big batch of snacks for the week.  (Even if that just means cutting up carrots or cheese cubes and packaging them for snacks.  Or making packs of dried fruit and nut trail mixes.  If they’re packaged and ready, the kids can just grab them and go.)

3. Make a weekly dinner menu.  (This is probably the most important.  It’s much easier making dinner during the week if you know you have all of your ingredients.)

This site is called Simple in the Suburbs – I want the idea of making your own food to not seem so overwhelming.  This is day 1-2-3.  I thought it was a good day to give some easy tips.  :)

It’s a very happy day in our house.  PB&J’s have made their triumphant return.  :)

We haven’t had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches since we gave up processed condiments a couple of months back.  We had plenty of peanut butter.  (That’s super easy to make.)  But I was reluctant to try making jam.  I’ve made jam before but most of the recipes call for A TON of sugar.  So, I finally tried making some sugar-free, fruit juice-sweetened jam and it turned out great!

Sugar-Free Strawberry Jam

2 16 oz pkgs frozen whole strawberries (substitute fresh when in season)

1 cup frozen juice concentrate, thawed (I used blueberry pomegranate)

4 1/2 tbsp no-sugar/low-sugar pectin

Combine strawberries and juice concentrate in large saucepan.  Cook over medium heat until the strawberries are thawed and soft.  Use a potato masher to mash the fruit to your desired consistency.  I kept mine a little chunky.

Stir in your pectin and bring to a rolling boil.  Boil for one minute, stirring constantly.  (Skim foam, if necessary.)

Pack into jars for immediate use or can for later use.  This recipe makes 4 1/2 half-pint jars of jam.  So yummy on a pb&j sandwich!  :)

I am so thankful for a helpful husband.  I was feeling a little under the weather this weekend, so he was kind enough to try out some of the recipes from the site.  He made the wheat thins, granola bars, maple corn muffins and yogurt.

So, we are set for snacks for the week in the house and it also was a good test of how easy my recipes are to follow.  All of his baking turned out great.  :)  We even had a happy discovery with the yogurt making.  I accidentally left the crock pot turned on for an hour rather than the ten minutes I usually do and we ended up with really thick, creamy yogurt.  I think we’ll be making that “mistake” every time.

If you have a minute, please check out the new recipes tab.  Let me know what you think!  I hope it’s a lot more user friendly this way.  Almost all of the recipes are linked up this way now, so I hope you find what you are looking for!