Summer Recipes

Super Green Low Sugar Smoothie 
This is yummy, super healthy and low sugar/low carb.  Yes, natural sugar in juices increase your blood sugar too and cause your insulin to spike therefore causing you to store fat.  Most green smoothie recipes I see are full of natural sugar and carbs.  This one I created myself and it's so full of antioxidants but low on the natural sugar scale as well.  My kids even love it!

1 cup ice cubes
2 cups frozen strawberries or raspberries
2 cups fresh, preferably organic, kale
2 cups green tea sweetened to taste with stevia (if the tea is still warm, that is fine, just add a bit more ice)
I sliced, cored green apple 

Blend in Vitamix or other high quaility blender and enjoy! This makes a large batch to share.  And don't worry if you don't have kale, really any healthy greens will do. 

High Protein Peanut Butter Cookies

Cream 1/2 cup coconut oil and 1/2 cup softened butter
Add 1/2 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup coconut sugar
After creaming together, add 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
Beat in 2 eggs
In a medium bowl mix 1 cup high protein defatted peanut butter flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup white flour with 2 teas. baking soda and 1 teas. salt
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients.
Blend well but not for too long and then add 2 cups dark chocolate chips.
Bake at 350 F for 8-10 minutes

These are so delicious!  If you don't have coconut sugar, then just add more brown or white sugar to bring it to 1 1/2 cups total of sugar.  Also, to make these really high protein and extra yummy, you need the PB flour, which is hard to find.  Trader Joe's no longer carries it and I couldn't find it at Whole Foods, so I order it from Netrition (they carry coconut sugar too but so does my Walmart.) 

Easy Barbecue Brisket

Grass fed brisket
Put in crock pot and turn on low
Add one bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce and 1/4 cup of Texas Pete
Cook slow all day and you're done!!!

The Science of Sweet Tea and Other Southern Cooking Shenanigans

Yes, I succumbed to my south Louisiana roots and had a live crawfish boil at my house over Easter weekend.  I kind of freaked out my husband's northern relatives : )

But, this is what you do in the south!  You make the most of the one time out of the year that you can get a certain food alive and fresh.  This might be fresh deer meat during deer hunting season, strawberries in the early spring, fresh blueberries right off the bush in the summer and of course live crawfish in late March.

After you boil the crawfish live with cajun spices and seasonings, you dump them on a table peel ( I had to teach everyone how to do this properly.) You are supposed to boil them with corn and potatoes, but I forgot about this at the last minute (big, oops in Louisiana!)

OK, I hope my Louisiana relatives aren't laughing, but we had to cook them on the grill.  I didn't have the big kettle that most cajuns do to do it outside.  But this is a great southern cooking tip.......cooking on the grill!  Really, anything can cook on the grill.

So, now on to the sweet tea and the science of how I make it.  Sweet tea is the drink you never ever make with a powdered mix and you always have on hand if you live in the south.  The following is my recipe that I made up myself.  It's the easy, cheap, healthy way to do it.

To make a regular 2 quart pitcher........
Fill a 2 cup measuring cup with water.
Add 2 large family size Luizianne decaf tea bags (you can use Lipton family size bags if that is all you can find)
Add 2 regular size plain green tea bags (I mostly do this for the antioxidant benefit)
Put in the microwave and zap for 5 minutes.  Then let it sit for 5 minutes.
Put 1/2 cup of sugar in the bottom of your pitcher.  Then pour in the hot tea to melt the sugar. Fill the pitcher the remainder of the way with cool water.  Stir and pour over ice.  Never put ice in the tea pitcher and never add lemon to the tea pitcher either (it will cloud and dilute the tea!)  Add a slice of lemon to each glass. When I make it for my large crew, I use a gallon size pitcher and a 4 cup measuring cup and double the recipe. We go through a gallon a day : )

And the biggest southern cooking tip...........always have pork on hand.  Bacon and ham make anything taste better.  And really, it doesn't have to be too much or too fatty.  We had 14 bean soup tonight for dinner with a little Virginia ham chopped in and it was healthy and yummy!  And every recipe that starts with "first, fry up a little bacon" has to be good : )

Thankfully Feeding Forty

The Kiddie Table

I think the number one thing I was thankful for this Thanksgiving was family.  I know that may sound cliche, but I hosted 40 (yes, 12 were my immediate family) and all of them were related to me in some distant way except for 1.  I looked around the room when we all shared each others thankful leaf that was hung on our Thanksgiving tree (see above picture) and my eyes welled with tears with thankfulness.  So many people are alone on the holidays or come from broken families and have broken hearts and memories.  It is only by God's grace and goodness that I have the family that I have.  Just about all of the guests were from my husband's family.  They were all down here due to a nephew getting married about 40 minutes from our house 2 days after Thanksgiving.  So, how did I do it all?  Since I keep getting that question asked to me, then I will tell.........

1. Delegate.  I asked everyone to bring things.  People like to contribute and most women like to cook, right? : )

2.  We started getting the house ready about 2 weeks in advance.  This included polishing silver, getting the carpets cleaned, etc.

3.  Lists!  I make lots of lists, regarding food, what needed to be done, etc. 

4.  Enlist help and borrow items if need be.  I really wanted everyone to have a table to sit at since it was Thanksgiving and because the weather was pretty warm, I was able to put 3 tables on the porch.  I was prepared to borrow an outside heater or a table if need be.

5.  Start cooking early.  I did this and put things in the freezer.

6.  Don't stress.  I think most people can feel if the hostess is stressed, strained or all the kids have just been yelled at because Mom is "loosing it."  You know, it's not worth it. Whenever I have a big gathering or party, I think back to all my other large events and realize that it always comes together in the end and I learn something to do or not to do the next time around. 

Well, here are some priceless pictures that my husband was able to snap during the craziness. 

Louisiana Cooking in a North Carolina Kitchen

I'm a south Louisiana girl, born and bred, and while not "officially" Cajun, I can cook Cajun food pretty well.  My sister, who by the way married a full blooded Cajun, says that anyone who was born and raised in South Louisiana and whose ancestors are from Louisiana, is Cajun.  (Cajun by the way means Acadiana French ancestry and we are about half Irish and the rest a mix of Native American, English, German and who knows what else : )
So even though I'm out of the bayou state, I still cook pretty much  the same food that I was raised on.  It wasn't until I went to college in Oklahoma that I begun to realize that not everyone eats gumbo, red beans and rice, okra, shrimp creole, oysters, etc.  I couldn't believe there was no grits or corn bread in my college cafeteria!  Well, I haven't done a food post in a while and even though everyone is talking pumpkin this and that with fall rolling in, I thought I would give y'all a good, authentic gumbo recipe.

This is the fresh vegetables you will need.  Green onions (no other onion will do!), bell peppers, and fresh okra.  Now if you can't find fresh okra, canned is the next best way to go and then frozen is OK too.  But please don't leave out the okra, it is what gives the gumbo the thickener.  And if you don't like okra, please try it anyway.  The tomatoes in the gumbo break the sliminess of the okra....I promise! Oh and this picture has purple okra because it was on sale and it was really good, but I usually buy green. 

    As far as seasoning, you will need Tony's (or some sort of Cajun seasoning, but Tony's is the best if you can find it), garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and crab/shrimp boil. 

 Every good southern cook knows how to make a roux.  You take equal parts flour and real butter (in this case 3 Tb. spoons of each).  You melt the butter on medium and then add the flour.  You cook it till it browns pretty dark, stirring at all times.  When it's almost burning you pour in 2 cups of water.  I took a picture of just the roux, but my camera fogged up from the steam and it didn't turn out.  This after I added the water and vegetables to the roux. 

You will need some good spicy sausage, preferably Andouille sausage.  But I know this is hard to find in places besides Louisiana, so whatever kind of spicy sausage you like.....even turkey sausage is fine.  Then get some good shrimp, not too big or too small.

Here's the finished product and boy was it good this time around.  My sister's authentic recipe below.....enjoy!

Shrimp and Okra Gumbo

Saute 3Tb butter with 3Tb flour until a very dark brown roux.
Immediately add 2 cups water. 
Then add:
1 bunch chopped green onions
1 chopped bell pepper (red or green)
1 pd. chopped fresh okra or 1 can okra
1 large can stewed tomatoes
1 teas. garlic powder
1 teas. cumin
1Tb salt
1Tb Tony's (Cajun seasoning)
1Tb chili powder
1Tb sugar
1Tb Worcestershire sauce
Cook on a low simmer for at least 1 hour.
Then add 2 more cups of water along with
1 pd. of raw, peeled shrimp
1 pd. of chopped sausage
1 teas. crab/shrimp boil 
Serve over cooked rice

Cereal Takeover

The past week we cleaned out our pantry.  Well, really just the bottom half.  I could not believe the amount of cereal we had!  My husband REALLY could not believe.  He put me on a cereal moratorium : )  The funny thing is, we really don't even like or eat cereal that much.  We also don't have that big of pantry (nothing like the Dugggar's ;) and we had a bunch of duplicates, most of them open of course.  Usually, I buy cereal because I have a coupon and they are also on sale, so I get them pretty cheap, sometimes for $1 a box.  But you know, if no one is ever going to eat it, then what is the point?  I tend to do this with coupons a lot.  I buy something not very healthy or something that probably none of the 12 people under our roof will eat or use.  This is where couponing is a little silly, I think.  But, I'll have to do another coupon post sometime because I do like to coupon.  Anyway, I had to throw a few old boxes away and consolidate some boxes that were duplicates. So now I'm happy to say that there are only 14 boxes of cereal in my pantry now.  That sounds a little more reasonable.  I read a great book by Vickie Farris, who also has 10 kids, and she said that everyday of the week they only eat cereal for breakfast.  She does this to save her time and sanity.  I mentioned doing this to my kids once and they freaked out, to say the least.  I wasn't really for it anyway, because cereal is so much more expensive than eggs or oatmeal and so much more full of "bad stuff."  Anyway, below is a picture of my favorite breakfast lately and yes, it is a cereal!  It's steel cut oats and it's super healthy and super yummy on a cold morning.  I'll put my recipe below.  Oh, and if anyone needs some cereal, stop by my house and pick up a box......seriously!

Steel Cut Oats

4 cups water with 1/2 tsp salt

Bring to boil and add 1 cup steel cut oats

Reduce heat to low and cover

Simmer for 15-20 minutes

Then add......

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup raisins

1 Tbs molasses

1Tbs ground flax seeds

1 tsp cinnamon

2 Tbs butter

Stir well and serve with cream on top if desired

Crock Pot Yum

Like I said, I'm doing a Crock Pot post!!!

Now, none of these recipes are complicated.  They are all very simple and don't require much prep.  To me, if you have to brown the meat, cook anything before hand or mix more then a few ingredients together prior to putting them in the pot, then what is the point.  But because these are simple, they are not very glamorous.  But they are good!  And all of my kids love them.  The recipes below are my simplest and easiest slow cooker recipes that I make  often.  They all feed my large nightly crowd (feeding 6-12 people depending on the size of your people : )  So, if you have a smaller family and don't want major leftovers, then you might want to half the recipe. Also, all these recipes are cooked on either low for 10 hours (this is preferred) or high for 5 hours. So, here goes!

Chicken Crock Pot Recipes

Barbecue Chicken

2 pounds chicken breast or tenders (can be frozen if cut up some)

1 jar barbecue sauce

1/4 buffalo wing sauce (can omit if you don't like things spicy)

throw in crock pot and that's it!

Creamy Chicken and Rice

2 pounds chicken breast or tenders (can be frozen if cut up some)

1/2 onion chopped

2 cans cream of chicken soup (can substitute other creamy soups if you need to)

layer in crock pot and turn on

Cook rice on stove and then stir in or serve over when chicken is done.

Roast Whole Chicken

Just put a defrosted whole chicken (with insides taken out : ) in crock pot with about 2 cups store bought chicken stock and a chopped onion.  When done serve and eat with whatever you like or use in another chicken recipe.  

Legume Crock Pot Recipes

Black Bean Soup

put bag of dried black beans, washed, in crock pot with 8 cups water.

about an hour before they are done, simmer a jar of salsa on stove with a little oil.  Then add to beans with 1 can corn and salt and pepper.  Top with sour cream and cheese when serving.

Louisiana Red Beans and Rice

put bag of washed dried kidney beans in crock pot with 6-7 cups water.  Half way throw cooking add some ham, ham hock, or sausage (as much or little as you want.)  

then brown an onion, 2 cloves garlic,1 bell pepper and 2 stalks celery with olive oil.  When cooked through add 1 tbs. Cajun seasoning, 1 tbs. sea salt, 1 teas. cumin.

Add to beans and cook another hour.

Serve over cooked rice.

Beef Crock Pot Recipes

Beef Stew

Just throw about 2 pounds beef tips in crock pot with 2 jars beef gravy.

When just about done add some frozen peas and carrots.

Serve over rice.

Roast Beef 

Put a good sized roast (I like rump) in the crock pot with 2 bags of onion soup mix.  Add 1 cup water and potatoes and carrots if you want.

cook and that's it!

Thanksgiving Menu and Musings

Making the holiday fudge with 3 daughters.

Menu:
Roast Turkey
Honey Ham
Cornbread Dressing
Gravy
Cranberry Sauce
Candied Sweet Potatoes
Mashed White Potatoes
French Peas
Green Bean Casserole
Mandarin Orange Jello Salad
Crispy Broccoli
Rolls


Pumpkin Pie
Pecan Pie
Hershey Bar Pie
Fudge
Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies


This is my Thanksgiving....Louisiana-North Carolina Style with a dash of Long Island thrown in.  We started cooking today and are preparing for our feast of 21 people tomorrow! So, what is something different that your family has on Thanksgiving? 


In the spirit of Thankfulness, I was thinking of some not so common things I am thankful for, you know, things that only a mother of many would think to be thankful for:


1.  Fences around back yards so your children don't toddle or crawl off the property.
2.  Large vehicles that can hold more than 6 people, even if they are kind of ugly : )
3.  The extra large bundles of things you can buy at Sam's or BJ's.
4.  Modern appliances....especially refrigerators and washing machines.
5.  A husband that does the dishes and loves to put the children to bed.


I could list so many others, but my kitchen is calling.  Let's all remember how blessed we are, even if we are doing all the cooking and cleaning by ourselves, we are so blessed and God is so very good!

Short Order Cook

Does anyone else out there with a good many small children feel like a short order cook?  I even find myself yelling, "Order up!"  I figured that on most days I make 3 meals and feed approximately 10 people each meal, so I feed about 30 people a day.  That's about as many as a small restaurant serves in a day!  And since most of my meals are made pretty fast and not too complicated, I think maybe I am a short order cook!  I don't make different things for each child, but they do have preferences and each has slightly different taste.....so my morning sounds like, "order up....scrambled eggs, grits, no toast."  Or "order up... grits only with butter and salt."  Then my lunches sound like, "turkey with cheese sandwich, extra mustard and no mayo."  Or "turkey and cheese sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes, mayo."  Then with dinner, I've started putting everything on the island, we say grace and then everyone (unless your under 6) makes their own plate.  This is my new thing and seems to take the stress out of making all the plates. I just have to watch and make sure certain children don't avoid all the veggies : )

Christian is my real helper in the kitchen.  He just helped me make homemade guacamole and in this picture is making yummy omelets.  He makes them better than I do.  He has gourmet taste buds so it's a good thing he likes to cook.  Everything has to be "fresh."  He keeps me motivated to make things homemade and with healthy, fresh ingredients.....well, off to finish the black bean soup to go with the guac!

Making Homemade Desserts More Healthy While Still Keeping Them Yummy

We have quite a bit of birthday cake, birthday cookies and birthday pie in this family.......just about one birthday each month.  And I love to bake desserts.  My passion with homemade desserts started when I was about 12.  I loved making elaborate homemade yummy things, and my family loved it too.  My mother and sister weren't much into cooking, so the deal was I cooked or baked something and they would clean-up.  Basically, it's the same now....just my kids and husband clean-up.  But my kids have gotten spoiled and every night they expect a homemade dessert.  I really love to cook desserts and eat desserts and see my children happy : )  So over the years I have figured out how to make desserts still taste great but are somewhat more healthy.  I don't ever use artificial sugars cause I like things natural and we don't have any children that really have to limit their sugar.  I've also tried the applesauce for the fat in a recipe and I really don't like the taste it produces.  Anyway, here are a few things I do to just about all my dessert recipes to make them somewhat healthy and definetly better tasting and healthy than anything store bought : )

4 easy things to do to make a homemade dessert healthier without compromising taste:

1. buy whole wheat pastry flour at Whole Foods or some other place that sells it and replace half the white flour with the whole wheat.  I've found that regular whole wheat flour is OK, but the pastry whole wheat is lighter and makes a better cookie, brownie or cake.
2. replace half the butter in the recipe with extra-virgin coconut oil.  You really can't taste the coconut flavor and it's much healthier.  Do a google search on coconut oil and you'll see all the benefits, but I especially like that it's supposed to increase metabolism.
3.  use the darkest chocolate that your kids will tolerate.  I never cook with milk chocolate (unless it's Nana Pie or "Having a Bad Day Pie" :)
4.  use about 1/4 less sugar than the recipe calls for.  Really, you can't tell the deference.  I just "eye ball" it and use less sugar in everything I cook.

And remember that a healthy dessert, even if you don't tweak the recipe, is always more healthy than something store bought that has all the chemicals and no telling what else in it.  Happy Cooking!

Dinner Meals

My Four Little Chefs in Training

It seems most days that I spend a large portion of my day in the kitchen.  I cook for  around 30 people (that's all my gang for 3 meals a day), so I feel like I run a small restaurant.  I like to have a dinner schedule so I'm not too unsure of what our big meal for the day will be.  What I did was I wrote down all the meals we like and that I cook regularly.  Then I put them into categories.  Then I designated each day of the week to a category.  One day of the week is for left overs or take-out pizza. Below is a list of my meals in their categories.  Hope this makes sense and can help someone out.  I posted this mostly for me so I can stay on track : )

Roasts           Italian            Mexican        Soups            Seafood        Chicken

Beef                 Spaghetti      Black Bean  Veg. Beef        Salmon          Grilled chicken

                                                 Soup

Chicken            Baked Ziti    Fajitas           Chicken           Shrimp           Chicken and Broccoli                                                             

                                                                         Noodle           Ettoufee

Ham                  Lasagna       Burritos          Red Beans     Gumbo           Chicken Pot Pie

                                                                          & Rice

Meatloaf           Stuffed Bell   Quesadillas  Spilt Pea         Tuna              Chicken and Dumplings

                           Peppers                                                        Casserole

Beef Tips          Tortellini          Chili                 Lentil            Shrimp          Chicken and Rice

                                                                                                   & Corn Soup 

Christmas Cooking Favorites

Above is MK with our "famous" scones.  This recipe is in my recipe section of the blog and they are so good and so easy (not really just for Christmas but I love this picture taken with my cell phone : )

Anyway, there are a few things that I just make over the holidays.  Here are few of them that are so easy and so good.  My absolute favorite this time of year (and my kids' too) is toffee.  The original toffee is the best but the cracker toffee is easier and my kids like it better.  Anna can even make it now by herself.  Below are both recipes.............

Cracker Toffee
Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2 1/2 sleeves saltine crackers placed on 2 cookies sheets
Bring to boil over medium heat 1 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar and 4 sticks butter.  Boil for 3 minutes.
Pour over crackers and bake in preheated oven for 5 minutes.
Remove from oven and top with 3 cups chocolate chips.
Cover pans with other cookie sheets so chocolate melts for a few minutes.
Spread chocolate over top and put in freezer (or outside if it's pretty cold) for about 20 minutes to harden up.
Break into bars and eat!

Original Toffee
Bring to boil 3 cups brown sugar with 2 cups (4 sticks) butter.
Grease 2 9x12" pans with butter and sprinkle 2 cups of chopped nuts over each pan (I like pecans the best but walnuts or almonds work as well)
Boil butter and sugar for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until it just begins to smoke.
Pour over nuts.
Sprinkle 1 cup of chocolate chips over each pan.  Cover with other cookie sheets so chips melt.  Wait a few minutes then spread chocolate around.
Place in freezer or outside for 30 minutes or so until hardens.
Break into bars and enjoy!

Both these recipes make great gifts.  I'm giving them to teachers, neighbors and my husband's co-workers for Christmas gifts this year, but I'm also putting some of my healthy granola in with it (that recipe is in my recipe section.)

These aren't necessarily "holidayish" but they are fun this time of year when I seem to keep finding bell peppers on sale.  You could make them with red and green peppers to look really festive.  They are so nice and warm and cozy when it's cold outside and my kids think they are really cool.  They also remind me of my childhood.  These are really easy and kind of  a tex/mex version.

Stuffed Bell Peppers
5-7 bell peppers with tops off and insides cleaned out.
Brown 1 pound lean ground meat
When browned, add 1 medium jar of salsa or picante sauce.
Then add 1 teas. salt and a small can of stewed tomatoes.
Add 2 cups cooked rice.
Stuff bell peppers with the above mixture.
Top with grated cheddar cheese.
Bake in 350 oven for 25-30 minutes.
Enjoy!

Grandmother's Famous Cranberry Bread

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teas. baking powder

1 teas. salt

1/2 teas. baking soda

1/4 cup butter

1 egg beaten

3/4 cup orange juice

1 1/2 cup golden raisins (or you can use brown or currants or a combination, whatever you have on hand)

1 1/2 cup fresh cranberries

Preheat oven to 350F

Whisk together dry ingredients

Next, cut in butter and mix until crumbly

Add egg and OJ

Fold in raisins and cranberries.

Pour into buttered loaf pan (I doubled the recipe to make the large one pictured above).

Bake for 60-70 min, until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Cool in pan slightly and then pop out onto wire rack.

Enjoy!

Sugar Cookie Cutter Cookies

After years of trying numrous recipes, I finally found one I love that doesn't stick everywhere or puff up way too much in the oven.  It's the Martha Stewart vanilla cookie recipe.  You can google it if you're interested.  We always have so much fun every year making these and I'm not a perfectionist so I just let the kids cut them out and decorate with a simple powder sugar butter cream icing!  I love these!

Managing Cooking

It's a good thing I like to cook, right? I started cooking and baking at 10 years old and no, my Mom didn't teach me, but that's another blog post :o)  Anyway, this is how I manage all the meals at my house.  

Since dinner can be the most overwhelming and is the largest meal in most american households, I will start with that.  What I started doing a few years ago is a schedule with each day having it's "main course".  Meaning I have a roast night (this could be any kind of meat roasted), a chicken night, an italian night, a mexican night, a seafood night, a soup night and a left-over night.  I brained stormed all the dinner meals we like and put them into one of the above categories.  I made a list so that I have 5 weeks of meals written down.  I do vary the days some depending on our schedule and how much time I have to cook or if I need to do a crockpot meal cause the afternoon will be crazy.  I also vary it some by what is on sale at my favorite grocery store for that week.

As far as lunch, we basically have sandwiches, left overs or frozen pizza.  We are big breakfast eaters though.  I believe in giving my kids a high protein breakfast, plus most of my children are like me and wake up pretty hungry.  I alternate our mornings with either eggs, cooked one of three ways, or a high protein shake with either hot or cold cereal on the alternate days.  I make waffles or pancakes on Saturday.  When it's "egg" day, we have toast or homemade biscuits or muffins with the eggs. I'll post my shake recipe in my recipe section of the blog.  Hope this isn't too confusing and maybe one day I'll post all our dinner meals.  Happy cooking!