Adding Beauty

Pretty candle holder from the thrift store (5 cents), candles, $2
Bouquet from hubby, "just because."



I've been making a more concentrated effort to add beauty to my kid's lives, especially around the table. While I love simplicity, I want our home to reflect warmth, personality, art, and beauty, in appreciation for and reflection on our great God.

Yummy Meal--Mexican Casserole

8 oz ground beef
1 can (12 oz) whole kernel corn, drained
1 jar ( 12 oz) chunky salsa
1 can (2 1/4 oz) sliced olives drained
1 cup of cottage cheese
1 carton ( 8 oz) sour cream
5 cups tortilla chips
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup chopped tomato

Brown ground beef in large skillet; drain. Add corn and salsa. Cook until heated. Reserve 2 tablespoons of olives. Put remaining olives in beef mixture. In a separate bowl combine cottage cheese and sour cream in bowl. In a 2 quart casserole, layer 2 cups chips, half of meat mixture, 3/4 c. cheese and half of cottage cheese mixture . Repeat layers, cover. Bake in preheated 350 for 35 minutes. Line edge of casserole with remaining 1 cup of chips and top with tomatoes, olives, and cheese. Bake for 10 more minutes or until cheese is melted and chips are hot.

I've found that substituting black beans for hamburger works great too! If you don't like olives, try a different item, like green chilis, or onions, etc. My friend made this for me (pictured above) when we were going through our rough time with getting ready to move and house hunting and it was such a tasty meal!



I had trouble layering the cottage cheese mix so when I make this again I plan to just mix everything together, except the chips, and just skip the layering steps.

Sister Swap!

I was so excited to participate in the Noel Sister Swap this year hosted by sister bloggers, Carrie of With All That I've Been Given and Monica of Homespun Heart. It was my first swap and I ended up being paired with Carrie! I enjoyed making a new friend in her and found out we have lots of things in common, including a love for stationary, hot cocoa and chocolate, and simple living! A lovely card with a handwritten note on the back was the first thing I saw!
A lovely green crock to hold Christmas cards or even Christmas goodies.

Vanilla Bean Noel hand soap from Bath n' Body Works!

A wonderful holiday scent!

Look at how cute the homemade hot cocoa was packaged! We both sent each other some hot cocoa and a chocolate bar! You can't go wrong with those! Yum!

A yummy-smelling candle

Martha Steward Christmas cards and fun stickers to decorate them with!

Christmasy paper hankies and even a little gift for the kids: an advent devotional!

Also included but not pictured here was a chocolate candy bar from Germany (fair trade item--not sure what that means but I'm guessing it's buying international goods without exploiting the workers--offering them a fair compensation).

Want to see more pics of Noel Swap Gifts, including what I put together for Carrie? Visit her blog today!

How To Make a Monster Truck Cake

My little boy loves monster trucks and apparently he's not alone! When looking for cake ideas I noticed that almost all of the cakes had a THREE candle on top of them. Must be a 3-year-old boy thing! I combined several of the ideas I liked from cakes I found online and got some tips from a friend who made a monster truck cake last year.

Large glazed donuts covered in black frosting, make the wheels. Every mama of boys should have a jar of black food coloring around so she can make racecar/tractor/truck wheels, soccer balls, etc. I put Hershey's Kisses in the wheels for hubcabs.

One gal online had built a wooden platform for her cake. I decided to do something similar. I have a little wooden cutting board that is the size of a loaf pan. I covered it with foil and "glued" four baby food jars to the bottom with honey.

One person had made no-bake cookies for mud. I liked this idea, but knew that with all of the cake and ice-cream, we'd have enough sweets, and Mommy especially doesn't need the temptation of no-bake cookies around! So, I just took a few cups of oats out of my 50# bag and colored them with a couple of Tablespoons of cocoa and about 1/2 C. of water. They look lighter in this pic but they are actually darker and looked just like dirt.

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I didn't get pics of the body of the cake. Oops! I used one white cake mix and baked it in two glass loaf pans. I discovered that I could have used two cake mixes because the loaf pans were deeper than I had realized. Be sure to grease and flour the pans well so the cakes come out nicely. Cool completely in the fridge or freezer for a few hours. I dumped out the loaf pans and since one loaf of cake wasn't thick enough I put them together on top of the base board and then took a knife and made a diagonal cut down the front to make the windshield. The piece I cut off was then placed in the middle of the cake body to form the cab of the truck. Then I covered the whole thing in frosting. If I did this again I would probably use a whole cake mix in one loaf pan for the body and then a rectangular chunk of cake added on top from another loaf pan for the cab.

Reese's candies for tail-lights

I used homemade cream cheese frosting. One batch was more than enough for the whole cake. If you purchase your frosting, buy at least two containers of it. Jer wanted a green truck but you could make any color you choose. Laffy Taffy ropes make a nice roll-bar in the back. You can also use sour straws. Foil makes nice windows on the truck. If I ever make another (and no doubt I will with two little boys in the house!) I will add the child's name on the side of the vehicle.

If you want to get more dramatic you can even smash the little cars with a hammer before putting them in the dirt.

There are numerous monster truck cake photos online if you want more inspiration! Just google Monster Truck Cakes

Pretty Table Decorations

My sister-in-law Anna had a lovely autumn display on her table when we visited them a couple of weeks ago. I had to share it here!

When Mom, Ali, and I visited my brother and Anna we hit Sam's and the mall. Shopped till we DROPPED!

Jeremiah Turns Three!

Our sweet little boy turned three the other day! It's hard to believe how fast the time with him has gone. He had a delightful day and especially enjoyed his monster truck cake, his new monster truck toys, semi, and wooden train, and we went swimming in the evening at his request. My brother and his wife were in town for the weekend and were able to join us and my folks for homemade pizza and cake and ice-cream. We are so thankful God blessed us with our tenderhearted little man!

Baking/Cooking Day!

The results of my two day cook-a-rama!

Multi-grain roll mixes. I just need to throw a bag in the bread machine, add water, and 2 T. butter. I find that as a homeschooling mom, I have less motivation to bake so making mixes will get the ball rolling and could also be used for holiday dinners and/or church potlucks.

Results of Day #2, minus a couple of the pizza ingredients for my son's upcoming birthday (still in the fridge). I'm doing 4 homemade pizzas for a family birthday party.

Results of Day #1, not including 4 bags of tortillas (already in the freezer), and 2 batches of Chicken Tetrazzini (we ate one for supper and gave one to my mom as a fun surprise when she dropped by after work for a minute.)

Lots of food!

Did tortillas for a couple of hours while chatting with

a dear friend on the phone (kids were asleep in bed.)

40-ish wheat tortillas ready to go! My family will have these eaten in no time!

Healthier and cheaper!

Homemade cream of chicken soup. Used wheat flour instead of white. Using natural chicken broth (no MSG) and milk and spices makes a much healthier cream soup than store-bought.

Froze it in baby food jars and when I ran out I used plastic cups and when they are frozen I plan to pop the soup out and put in a ziploc.

Cramming it all in the freezer was no easy task!

Making pumpkin pancakes (triple batch) for breakfast

Cream butter imported from Denmark was on an amazing markdown deal this week so I snatched up a few. It is delicious butter!

Super yummy granola using this recipe. I substituted butter for the oil and did a double batch.

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Written Results of Baking Day:

4.5 cooked, shredded chicken breasts

1 dozen hardboiled eggs (kid snacks)

3 # elk hamburger cooked as taco meat

4 bags of brown rice

4 bags of chicken tetrazzini

5 C. zesty hummus

40 large whole wheat tortillas

2 dozen pumpkin pancakes

Pizza dough for 8 pizzas

Bagged 10# of mozzarella from Sam's Club divided into 2-pizza portions to freeze

4 multi-grain rolls mixes

4 cornbread mixes

4 large bags freezer potatoes

2 gallons honey/raisin granola

10 C. of homemade cream of chicken soup

All in all, I think it took about 10 hours of work in two days. We still did a park playdate, went to the grocery store, went to the post office, and did schooling one of those days (the other day my daughter wanted to nap, and since she NEVER wants to nap, I felt her body must really need the sleep!)

How did I get it done with kiddoes? About 6 of the cooking hours were when they were napping or in bed for the night (and my daughter colored pictures while the boys napped) and when they were awake I allowed them to watch one movie each day while I cooked. If Justus was awake he sat in his high chair and snacked or ran around in the kitchen or re-arranged my pantry (one of his favorite pasttimes.)

Sweet!

Sometimes the deepest love is seen in the little things. This post really warmed my heart today. I wanted to link to it, not to make you jealous of my friend Natalie's hubby, but to inspire you to likewise do the little things for your spouse to ease their burden and bless them abundantly. I know I often forget to do little things to show love to my spouse and often take his many thoughtful gestures and kindnesses to me for granted! I need to be more proactive, like Steve, about letting my spouse know he is one of my top priorities!

A Couple More Notes on Sam's Club

I forgot to mention in my post on what I bought at Sam's Club that I got a YEAR or more's supply of Oxiclean at an excellent price! For half of what it would cost to buy it on sale in our area. I realize it's not a necessity but nothing works quite like it when you have little children, especially little boys with a fondness for mud! I've tried the generic brands but Oxiclean Versatile works the best. So, I was happy to grab a box of it. Should last a long time and help keep our smelly dishrags fresher and keep our kiddoes' clothing looking better so we can pass it on to some of YOU! My friend who is a cleaning maniac (runs the toys through the dishwasher once a week, etc.) and who has the best-dressed little girls on earth turned me on Oxiclean! She knows what she's talkin' about!

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Something else I forgot to mention is that contact solution is a BAD deal at Sam's! For the brand I use, I discovered it's MORE EXPENSIVE to buy it in bulk there than to buy it at Wal-Mart. This is why it's important to pay attention to price per ounce of things.

Bulk Cooking/Baking Day

I'm excited to be joining the Bulk Cooking Days today and tomorrow with Money Saving Mom, Life as Mom, and about 200 other women. Though we don't have a deep freeze here in our small home (it's in storage right now since it won't fit in here), I do plan to make up some dry mixes and tortillas that will help me save time making meals. Stay tuned for pics of my results!

Sam's Club--What Was Worth It

My mom, daughter and I drove to one of the largest cities in Wyoming this weekend to visit my brother and his wife (who are working for missionaries there until they are allowed to go back to Honduras) and to hit Sam's Club. It was a quick, but fun trip and I got to experience shopping at Sam's for the first time ever. I'm grateful to my brother and Anna for taking us and letting us use their member card.

Whipping out my little calculator, I did price comparisons per ounce on everything I wanted to buy. I had heard that some things are cheaper than stores and other things are NOT so I was careful. I was disappointed to discover that diapers and wipes (two things I needed) weren't an especially great deal since I can often get them on super coupon deals. So, I skipped those. I was also hoping chocolate chips would be a great price with holiday baking coming up, but discovered that the autumn and Christmas sales at our local stores on that item are better.

Here are the things that were an EXCELLENT deal for me:

Kid's socks (Two older kids hardly have any socks that fit anymore and can never find any when we're in a hurry.) $10 for 8 pair of high-quality and adorable socks (Yes, the thrift store is cheaper but they don't have good socks there right now and this is the best deal I've seen on socks in our area)

Men's work socks--$11.50 for 8 pairs

Honey (unrefined)--$1o for 5# is a super deal for our area

Garlic--Got about 15 bulbs for $1

Brown sugar--7# for $4.40

Olive Oil--Came in at half of the local sale price at $15 for 101 ounces

Vinegar--$1.50 a gallon in a 2-gallon pack. This is 50 cents cheaper than Wal-Mart's price per gallon

Salsa--Pace Picante--Came in $1 cheaper than the Wal-Mart by-the-gallon price and we can use up a gallon in 2-3 months! $8.93 per gallon

Chicken Broth (no MSG or artificial ingredients) --$6 for 12 cans (Walgreens often has this on sale for 50 cents but never any in stock when I go so this was a great deal)

Pure Vanilla--$6 for 16 oz. In our area you would pay about $7 for 5 oz. of this stuff.

Smart Balance--I calculated that it was about 60% less to buy it at Sam's then to buy it on the best sale in our town.

Yeast--2# for $4.26 This is a year's supply for us to cover all of our baking needs. In the past I've purchased it for $6 for 1# and that was still an INCREDIBLE deal because otherwise you find yourself paying $1-2 depending on the sales for 3 packets of yeast that will make 3 batches of bread.

Mozzarella Cheese--5# for $10 isn't bad and we make a lot of homemade pizza! This price beats the very best sales on shredded cheese we've seen around.

Genesis Today Acai Juice--called "magical juice" by some for it's assistance in dropping weight, this stuff is $7 a bottle at the nearest Wal-Mart, but a little under $6 at Sam's Club. I bought some for my dad, my friend, and myself upon their requests.

Dill Pickles--$4 for a gallon and once they are gone I will have a nice glass jar to store flour or sugar in.

Things that were CLOSE to a good deal:

Refried beans

Diced Tomatoes

Classico or Ragu Spaghetti Sauce

Honey Bunches of Oats

Parmesan Cheese

Chocolate Chips

Chocolate Truffles and Cocoas for Christmas Gift Baskets

Foil--half the price per foot of the cheap foil I usually buy but who can afford to blow $15 of their grocery money on foil at one time?

Ziplocs--a great deal but I didn't want to spend $14 on Ziplocs even if they would have lasted me a year!

Tablecloths and restaurant style pitchers, salt shakers, cups, etc.

Sour Cream and Cottage Cheese (I wish I had brought a cooler--these were EXCELLENT deals! If you do bulk cooking these would be great buys for making lasagnas to freeze!)

Almost bought these things but realized that by paying attention to deals and utelizing coupons, I can probably find some of these things for the same price or even a little cheaper and then I wouldn't have to store them in our small home, not to mention that I could buy them a little at a time and spend less at Sam's.

If we hadn't of had more shopping around the town to do and a 2.5 hour drive home, I would have loved to buy a Cheesecake Factory cheesecake (Pumkin or Chocolate Truffle) to enjoy with my hubby. My brother ordered his wedding cheesecakes here and they were the yummiest cheesecakes many people had ever tasted. However, I knew one would spoil before I got it home and also knew that I didn't need the 500 calories-per-slice!

*Note: If you do have a membership and easy access to Sam's, they have great photo card deals for Christmas photos.


Because I don't get to the city where Sam's is more than once or twice a year, I'm not sure if it would be worth getting a membership for myself. One of my good friends recently moved there so I may just go with her when I'm there from now on. When I consider the gas money and time it takes, it probably wouldn't save me a bit if I was making that drive only to shop at Sam's.



However, if you're on vacation, have sports events in the area, go to concerts, have friends to visit, or a specialty doctor appointment it would definitely make sense to go there. Our pastor's wife buys a lot of the church supplies there (foam cups, paper towels for bathrooms, etc.) and shops there for food supplies for the annual Family Camp where she plans meals for over 100 people. She also has 4 kids (3 of whom were teens AND athletes) and she goes often simply because in the long run it saves her tons of money with the amount her kids eat. If Sam's was within 45 miles of where I lived I would definitely buy a membership and shop there often! It is very likely that when the kids are older and eating even more we'll get a membership to Sam's and make trips there every few months.

Not-So-Great Prices at Sam's:

Produce
A couple of examples:
3# of grapes for $5 (grocery stores often run sales on these for $1 per pound)
10# of potatoes for $3.89 (Safeway recently sold 10# bags for 99 cents)

Cereals

Crackers and Snack Products (not only loaded with junk and fat, but some things were more expensive per ounce than buying the item at a local store.)

Breaking it Down for Moms #3

Pantry Label Decoder

Organic Junk Food:

Kraft Organic Mac and Cheese

Claims to be USDA organic but the truth is that for an extra 60 cents a box, consumers save 20 calories and 1 gram of fat. They also gain 2 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, 50 mg of sodium and lose 6% of daily iron. The point is, even organic junk food is still junk food. Your body processes organic refined flour and powdered cheese the same way it does conventional, so at the end of the day it's still a high-cal, low-nutrient letdown.

If you must have mac, go for Annie's line of Mac n' Cheese, which cuts the fat by 72% over Kraft Organic

The Vitamin Vacuum:

Kellogg's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pop-Tarts

Claims to be a source of 7 vitamins and minerals. 5 of those 7 vitamins come from the enriched flour that is this product's first ingredient. That's the code word for "refined flour that's had nutrients added to it after it's been stripped of fiber."

The Cereal Conundrum:

Kellogg's Smart Start Cereal

It claims to be "lightly sweetened." Unregulated by the USDA, the word "lightly" gets tossed around like a Frisbee in the food packaging world. Always take it with a grain of salt. Lightly in this cereal means 14 g of sugar from 5 different sources, all of which adds up to a cereal with more added sugars per serving than Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes or Apple Jacks.

What you really want is a cereal with less than 10 g of sugar per serving (ideally less than 5), with at least 3 grams of fiber per serving.

The Fat Fake-Out:

Smucker's Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter

Claims to be 25% less fat than regular PB. It's true that Smucker's has removed some of the fat, but they've replaced it with maltodextrin, a carb used as a cheap filler in many processed foods. You're trading the healthy fat from peanuts for empty carbs, to double the sugar, and only saving 10 calories.

What you really want: The real stuff, no fillers, oils, or added sugars. Just peanuts and salt.

Bogus Bread:

Home Pride Wheat Bread

Claims 1 gram of fat per slice. Claims to be wheat bread.

This bread tries to distract you from the fact that each slice has 3x more sugar than fiber. Whatever wheat went into this bread was stripped of all meaningful nutrients. Tere are more than a dozen ingredients listed, many unpronounceable, chemicals, and additives.

What you really want: Ignore fat when it comes to bread. There's rarely enough in a slice to make a big difference. More important, seek out bread with more fiber per slice than sugar and with as few ingredients as possible.

Taken from pages 99-101 in Eat This, Not That, by David Zinczenko

Breaking it Down for Moms #2

Here are some statements I found in the book that made me chuckle:

Croutons-Think of these oil-soaked, enriched flour cubes as salad bar grenades-they'll blow your healthy salad away!

16 pieces of Sour Patch Kids--You would have to run a mile to burn off a small handful of these!

Starbursts--One Starburst serving per day for a year will add 21.5 pounds of body fat

If you must frost your cake, go with whipped frosting

Salsa--the planet's finest condiment

Ragu wins over Prego in nearly every matchup

Bertolli Alfredo Sauce-The fat and calorie glut comes from the heavy mix of cream, cheese, butter, and soybean oil (Choose Classico Roasted Red Pepper Alfredo instead)

Any bread (including Pita bread) that says "white" on it is bound to do a number on your blood sugar.

Even in the flavored varieties you just can't trust Mission's flour tortillas. They're just massive vehicles for refined carbs.

Sara Lee Deluxe Bagels, plain--This giant wad of bleached flour will send a sugar load into your blood-stream so fast that the button might fly right off your jeans!

Breaking it Down for Moms #1

I've been reviewing my library book, Eat This, Not That, an excellent resource on swapping healthier alternatives for foods that are terribly unhealthy. If these posts have interested you, please get the book! It is WELL worth the cost! I'm going to mention some of the swaps that I see, when flipping through the book, that would be most applicable for moms like me. I'll begin with snack foods:



Don't Buy:

Pop-Secret Popcorn
Jolly Time Blast O Butter
Pop-Secret KettleCorn
Newman's Own Pop's Corn, light butter
Kellog's Special K Bliss
Honey Nut Cheerio Bars
Kudos
NutriGrain Cereal Bars, Raspberry
Oreos
Nilla Wafers
E.L. Fudge Original
Chips Ahoy Big & Soft
Hunts Snack Pack Pudding
Little Debbies' Fudge Brownies
Starbursts
Skittles
Laffy Taffy
Hershy's Chocolate Bar
Snickers
M&Ms Peanuts
Butterfinger
Twix PB
Crunch n Munch Caramel Corn
Famous Amos
Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream Chips
Nutter Butter
Famous Amos cookies
Rold Gold Sourdough pretzels
Chex Mix Traditional
Munchies
Combos
Quaker's Quakes Rice Snacks, Cheddar Cheese
Ritz Toasted Chips
Pringles
Natural Cheetos, White cheddar
Wheat Thins, Reduced Fat
Chicken in a Biskit Crackers
Town House Flip Sides
Ritz
Cheez-Its
David Sunflower Kernels




Instead, Buy:

Sun chips, original
Baked Doritos
Baked Tostitos Scoops
Funyuns
Garden harvest Toasted Chips
New York Style Pretzel Flatz
TrueNorth Almond Cripsies
Snyders of hanover Sourdough Pretzels
RoldGold Sticks
Cheez-It Party Mix
Cheerio Snack Mix
Goldfish Crackers, original
Ak-Mak 100% Whole of the wheat
TLC 7-Grain crackers
Triscuit original
All-Bran crackers, multi-grain
Carr's Table Water crackers
Newton's Fruit Crips
Mini Chips Ahoy!
Craisins
David Pumpkin Seeds
Stretch Island Fruit Co. Fruit Leather, Apricot
Orville Redenbacher's Kettle Korn
Orville Redenbacher's Simply Salted
The Original Cracker Jack
Good Health Half Naked with Olive Oil popcorn
Nutri-Grain Fruit and Nut bars
TLC Strawberry Cereal Bars
Quaker Chewy Chocolate Chip granola bars
Fiber One bars
Chips Ahoy Chewy
Ginger Snaps
Oreo Fudgees
Pepperidge Farm Soft Baked Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Kraft Handi-Snacks Pudding (make them your default pudding cup)
Twizzlers Pull n' Peel
Jujubes
LifeSaver Gummies
Red Hots
Jelly Bellies
Reese's PB cups
Hershey's 60 calorie sticks
Lindt 85% cocoa Extra Dark Chocolate
Hershey's Take 5
100 Grand
Raisinets

The Trans-Fattiest Foods in the Supermarket

10. Pillsbury White Chunk Macademia Nut Big Deluxe Classics

9. Pasta Roni Fettuccine Alfredo

8. Jimmy Dean Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Croissant Sandwich

7. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (when made with margarine)

6. Pillsbury Perfect Portions Buttermilk Biscuits

5. Austin Cheese Crackers with Cheddar Jack Cheese

4. Pillsbury Grands! Flaky Supreme Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls with Icing

3. Celeste Original Pizza for One

2. Pop-Secret Kettle Corn

1. Drake's Cherry Fruit--The transfattiest food in the supermarket! 8 grams!

Taken from Eat This, Not That!

Eat This Not That--Continued

Worst Cereal: Quaker 100% Natural Granola, Oats, Honey & Raisins. (For the same amount of sugar you could have a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles more than twice the size and you'd get more fiber and save 60 calories in fat. It's the calorie equiv of eating 8 chicken wings)

Eat Instead:
Kashi GO LEAN

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Worst Packaged Side: Pasta Roni Fettuccine Alfredo (sodium equiv of 4 medium orders of McD's french fries. Eaten as a meal, expect this to top 1,000 calories, as a side dish, it still has enough calories to be a whole meal!)

Eat Instead: Pasta Roni Nature's Way Olive Oil and Italian Herb

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Worst Baked Good:
Otis Spunkmeyer Banana Nut Muffins

Eat Instead: Vitalicious Apple Berry Muffin

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Worst Frozen Treat: Toll House Ice Cream Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwich (If you're going to take in this much fat and calories in one sitting, it better be for dinner! Calorie equiv of two slices of pepperoni pizza at Pizza Hut.)



Eat Instead: Skinny Cow Low Fat Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich

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Worst Individual Snack: Hostess Chocolate Pudding Pie (In additon to the nasty ingredient list that should invoke your gag reflex, this has the saturated fat content of 2 McDonald's Quarter Pounders)

Eat Instead: Chocolately Drizzle Rice Krispies Treat

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Worst Stir Fry: Bertolli Grilled Chicken Alfredo & Fettuccine Complete Skillet Meal for Two (saturated fat content, per serving, equal to 22 strips of bacon)

Eat Instead: Birds Eye Steamfresh Meals for Two Grilled Chicken in Roasted Garlic Sauce


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Worst Frozen Pizza: DiGiorno for One GArlic Bread Crust Supreme Pizza (calorie equiv of 6 slices of Dominos Thin N Crispy Cheese Pizza

Eat Instead: South Beach Diet Deluxe Pizza

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Worst Frozen Entree: Hungry-Man Classic Fried Chicken (calorie equiv of 5 Krispy Kreme Glazed Donuts)

Eat Instead: Banquet Select Chicken Parmesan

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Worst Packaged Food in America: Marie Callender's Creamy Parmesan Chicken Pot Pie
(sodium equiv of 8 small bags of potato chips, fat equiv of 23 strips of bacon, calorie equiv of 7 Taco Bell Fresco Beef Tacos)

Eat Instead: Marie Callender's Oven Baked Chicken

Eat This Not That

I have been greatly enjoying my library book called Eat This, Not That by David Zinczenko. I enjoy reading about nutrition and was very suprised by this book! Many of the foods I buy were reviewed here. It's not only a book that compares the pricey or unhealthy stuff, but also gives a review of veggies, organic foods, meats, dairy, frozen foods, etc.

I highly recommend you get it through inter-library loan or purchase it if possible! It's a handy tool to have around when it comes to losing weight, maintaining weight, or just plain being healthy!

For the sake of brevity, I'm not going to type out all the explanations of each item. But I will list them and you can look at more of the whys in the book. The book lists other nutritional info on the foods, and also on the foods they recommend you eat instead.

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Worst Crunch Snack:
Gardetto's Special Request Roasted Garlic Rye Chips (fat equivalent of 3 strips of bacon per serving) Exceeds the amount of trans fat safe to consume daily by the American heart Association

Eat Instead: Snyder's of Hanover Sourdough Nibblers

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Worst Cookie:
Pillsbury Big Deluxe Classics White Chunk Macadamian Nut

Eat Instead: Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

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Worst Yogurt: Stonyfield Farm Whole Milk Chocolate Underground
Stonyfield is notorious for being a little too generous with the sugar, but the nearly 3 T. in this is bad even by their standards. Not even Ben & Jerry's makes a flavor of ice cream with this much sugar.

Eat Instead: Breyer's Cookies n' Cream YoCrunch Lowfat with Oreo Pieces

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Worst Candy:
Twix (Has the same amount of saturated fat as 11 strips of bacon!!!!!!!!!!)

Eat Instead: 100 Grand

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Worst Ice-Cream: Haagen-Dazs Chocolate Peanut Butter (fat equivalent of a McDonald's Double Cheeseburger)

Eat Instead: Edy's Slow Churned Peanut Butter Cup

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Worst Condiment: Eggo Original Syrup (sugar equivalent of 2 Haagen Dazs ice cream bars. First 3 ingredients after water are various forms of sugar).

Eat Instead: 100% maple syrup or Smucker's Sugar Free Breakfast Syrup

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Worst Drink:
AriZona Kiwi Strawberry
(Only 5% is actually any sort of real-fruit derivative. 95% high fructose corn syrup and water with the sugar equiv of 4 original fudgsicle bars)

Drink Instead:
Tropicana Lime Raspberry Fruit Squeeze

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Worst "Healthy" Pantry Item: Pop-Tarts Whole Grain Brown Sugar Cinnamon
A glut of vegetable oil and 7 types of sugar stuffed inside
Sugar equiv of a snicker's bar in 2 pastries.

Eat Instead: Sun-Maid Rasisin English Muffins with cinnamon

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Worst Frozen "Healthy" Entree: Healthy Choice Complete Selections Sweet & Sour Chicken (sugar equiv of 2 scoops of Breyers Reese's PB ice-cream)

Eat Instead: Kashi Southwest Style Chicken

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Continued tomorrow........

Centerpiece for Fall

GirlTalk recently had a post reminding us of the beauty of centerpieces and encouraging us to vary them to add beauty to our homes. It was a good reminder for me, as I can get so busy just keeping food on the table that I forget to add beauty to my family's life. These little pumpkins and gourds from the pumpkin patch were around 25 cents each and add some fall color to our table. I've also been using bowls of pears and apples (which have been on excellent sales) to add some natural beauty to our kitchen. I hunted at the thrift store and found a glass carafe that is perfect for both serving drinks and holding leaves or flowers.

Cooking/Baking Night!

As I mentioned in my last post, my kiddoes seem to eat non-stop! It can be a MAJOR challenge to keep food in the house, even though I feel like I shop a few times a week. What's a mom to do? Fight the hunger war by bulk cooking and baking! I've been interested in bulk cooking since I read all of my mom's books on the subject when I was a young teen, and have often done it, but have never NEEDED to do it so much as now. We're on a budget, have 3 kids who eat a LOT, and homeschool. Because of these things, I have to get creative about keeping my kids fed while staying frugal and having limited time to get it all done. I decided to spend a few hours on Monday night doing some bulk cooking. So glad I got this huge bowl (that came with a lid) at a yard sale this summer for a quarter. It was the only thing big enough to hold 12 C. of flour as well as many other ingredients when I made a double batch of cinnamon graham squares!
We always seem to be out of bread! I'm looking to buy some double-size loaf pans so I can make two HUGE loaves at a time. I would estimate that our family could go through 4-5 loaves a week.

Tilamook cheese was recently on sale for only $2 a pound! That's the best deal on cheese of any brand in our town! I really stocked up on it! I used the older model food processor a lady at church gave me to shred this 2 # loaf and bag it up to use in meals this week.

The results!

1 bowl and 2 jars of fresh salsa from garden tomatoes given to me by my mom

4 loaves of Money Saving Mom's wheat bread (Been making this recipe for 3 years and love it! Didn't use the bread machine this night because of doing the recipe x4, but I often do use it with this recipe!)

4 pans of Tammy's Whole Wheat Cinnamon Graham Squares for snacks (If they look darker it's because I couldn't resist tweaking the recipe to make them a chocolate version of her recipe! Added some cocoa, a little extra sugar, and some chocolate chips! Yummy!)

2# of dried black beans got cooked up to freeze and use in Black Bean soup this week

2 # of brown rice got cooked up to freeze and use in Plowman's Share.

The bowl of macaroni and cheese and the bowl of veggies were part of our supper. I doubled the batches so that we would have lunch for the following day and also vegetables to add with rice, cheese, and elk roast for Plowman's Share, one of our family's favorite meals.

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I started soaking the beans in the morning and left them all day. My cooking "night" began at 5 pm as I was making supper. I got the bread dough made and put it on the stovetop to rise, began cooking the beans and made a double batch of supper. I took my finish pic at 8:30 pm. Granted, I had to bag up the bread and squares after taking this pic, but during the 3.5 hours of doing this baking night I also dealt with kid's needs, served and ate supper, and cleaned up. So, it really didn't take longer than a few hours, even with bagging it all up and sticking things in the freezer. This was my first bulk-cooking event where I had a dishwasher and it made all the difference in the world! I merely had to run an extra load the morning after and clean-up was a snap!

Since we already had lots of roast elk leftovers (thanks to my super sweet brother Colter who got an elk and gave half of it to us) in the fridge, I used the rice and shredded cheese and veggies to throw together two pans of Plowman's Share the next morning and we took one to a family dinner and used the other pan for a couple of meals this week. Having the shredded cheese on hand sure has been handy for several meals this week.

My brother enjoyed the homemade bread I took to a family dinner so I ended up giving him a loaf. That's one of the joys of bulk cooking, you have things on hand to share! I also had a Ladies Craft Night to attend on Tuesday night so I was able to bring some of the graham squares as my contribution. Getting it all done at once sure made this week a lot easier for me. Though my house looked like a tornado for a while (dirty dishes, kids running around tearing up the place while Daddy watched them as I cooked), it has been much easier to maintain this week as I have less prep time for meals.

Bulk cooking is a tool I plan to continue to use often in my attempt to combat the hunger war here at home!

How Much Do Your Kids Eat?

Sometimes I wonder if other people's kids eat as much as mine do. Mine seem to be eating all the time (3 meals, 2 regularly scheduled snacks). My experiment with shopping every two weeks flopped. I seem to be in the stores more than ever and I'm getting tired of it but the fridge still seems perpetually empty! I realize that moms of teens out there are probably chuckling at me and thinking, "Just wait 10 years and then you'll really feel like your kids are eating you out of house and home!" But, even though my kids are little, they sure do keep me constantly busy buying, preparing, and serving food! I suppose it doesn't help that my hubby has the world's fastest metabolism either and works a very physically strenuous job!

Would you leave a comment and tell me what your kids eat in an average day? Just so I can see if my kids are normal or extra-big-eaters?

In an average day, here's what my kiddoes put away (the 3 of them combined)

Breakfast:

3 Cups of cereal topped with milk

3 C. of milk

10 a.m. Snack:

6 boiled eggs
3 slices of cheese
1 C. raisins
2 C. juice


Lunch:

4 whole PB and J sandwiches
2 Peaches
Water
1/2 C. yogurt


3 p.m. Snack:

Justus loves to eat a whole, large garden tomato for snack in addition to other things! The other kids won't eat tomatoes!

2.5 C. goldfish crackers
1-2 Apples, sliced up
3 C. milk


Supper:

2 baked potatoes
4 oz. chicken
1 c. brocolli
1 C. milk
3 C. juice + 3 C. water mixed together
3 brownies (although they'd eat more if I allowed them to!)

Whaddya think? Can our kids out-eat yours?

A Glimpse of Jesus in Today's World

There are some incredible men in our town who are being Jesus to the kids around them. Two of my dad's good friends formed a ministry that reaches out to boys without dads. It's called Fathers in the Field.

One guy involved in this ministry in our town is a hard-working local businessman and volunteers his time to mentor a young boy each week. The boy he mentors is very poor, doesn't have a dad, and has a difficult life. However, thanks to this businessman, he has a wise "father figure" in his life who regularly takes time to go on adventures with him, a new camoflauge coat to keep him warm this winter, and a Christian education (that's right, his Father in the Field guy pays his tuition so he can go to the Christian school.) This guy doesn't broadcast his good deeds, but I found out about his generosity quietly (it's a small town) and was so touched. With all the bad news out there these days, here is some good news! There are many men in our town involved with this ministry and it is growing into a national ministry. At the website there is even a video of one guy from our town, the main founder, being interviewed on TBN about Fathers in the Field.

Check out this website to find out more about Fathers in the Field. If you are an empty-nester man who wants to make a difference for the Lord and you enjoy the great outdoors, this may be a ministry God is calling you to work with. If you want to get your congregation turned on to this incredible ministry, find out on the site how you can get someone to come to your church and train your men to mentor fatherless boys.

I wasn't asked by anyone to post this, but I feel compelled to do so because it is such a God-glorifying thing that is taking place for hurting kids!

Vacation Pics #1

Since I didn't get around to posting a lot of vacation photos this summer, I thought I would share them now. These are pics from a little camping trip the kids and I did with my mom, brother Colter, and his wife Anna in July.