My Real Food Journey & Next week Meal Plan

Over the last two years, I've been working to minimize and eliminate processed foods.  Last year I even incorporated grinding my own wheat off and on. That would be used for pancakes, waffles, homemade goodies, but I still bought store sandwich bread and crackers.  This year I hope to take my family to the next stage in our process -- eliminating refined sugars.  (We can use real maple syrup, honey, and I think minimally using sucanat.) And a complete elimination of refined flour. No more store bought bread.

My hubs in his infinite wisdom, really it was just thriftiness, suggested that we use what we have but don't buy more.  OK. I'm good with that.  I have not used refined sugar since the beginning of the year as an additive myself. Hubs made pancakes the other morning substituting for the sugar and 1/2 honey, 1/2 brown sugar combination.  They were tasty and I think the brown sugar could  easily be substituted with either honey or maple syrup and still taste great.

Add to this real food process, the desire for me to teach my kids better nutritional habits, and hubs and I both wish to lose weight.  So our biggest change is the lack of deserts we've had. We were a desert every night kind of family, often 2 times a day. But I want to really focus on good nutrition and limit this kind of thing. Monday, little girl had to make fudge pops.  We used 100 days of Real Food's recipe, and it was delish! And there's still more in the freezer.

I've been baking bread every couple of days. I have a recipe that actually calls for potato flakes, gluten, and vinegar as a dough enhancer.  But all the potato flakes I found had other additives so I've been leaving them and the vinegar out.  I've also been purchasing Bob's Red Mill Organic Stone Ground flour.  Although I do want to get back to grinding my own.

Two Thursday's ago, I had a fail at making pita's. Well, I thought it was a fail. They wouldn't rise - I'm blaming the cold house and a late start, so hubs did have to stop and buy some on the way home. I put the dough in the refrigerator and on Sunday I pulled it out and had a go at finishing them. They were the absolute best pita's I've ever had.  Little girl called them inflate-a-bread.

I used a Mediterranean spice mix I made up a couple of breasts, then we cut them into small pieces and cooked.  The vegetable mix was onion, garlic, red bell pepper, mushrooms, 1 zucchini, 1 summer squash, (all very small dice) and 8 spears of asparagus (cut into 1/2" pieces) and cooked.  Yummy! I think we found a new sandwich.  Sorry I forgot to take a photo until I was 1/2 way finished. I had stopped to add some tzatziki sauce to it from our previous gyro dinner.

The kids even had apples cooked with honey and cinnamon in one later for desert. And topped with vanilla ice cream.

I usually plan meals right around the payday's 1st and 15th. And I plan roughly for the 2 weeks. Although I always try to have planned until the Friday after a pay period.  I've found I really like shopping without kids on Saturday mornings. This should be my big planning and shopping weekend, but hubs had an evening out this past period and I had some extra meals built in, not knowing if we'd have leftovers and not knowing how many lunches hubs would need.

So for tonight, I'm blessed with leftovers from earlier this week.  

Friday night, we're planning on having steak, roasted asparagus, spinach with garlic and mushrooms.  Hubs wants a baked potato with his. But not for me.

Then dinners for Saturday - Friday, in no particular order

Pan-fried chicken Thighs with corn

white beans and cabbage (can't wait, my sister has said it's really good for breakfast with a runny egg the 

       next morning), green vegetable, fresh fruit

spinach polenta bake, corn, fresh fruit

chicken with mushrooms, buttered noodles, and green beans

wild rice soup with rolls

deer burgers, roasted sweet potatoes, corn

leftovers

White bean & tomato gratin (staple meal meaning I already have everything I need for this dish)

And depending, upon how much spinach and tomatoes are left - either pasta, chickpeas, and tomatoes or        chicken Florentine soup

Lunches

salads, soups, and leftovers.

Snacks

Fruit

cheese sticks with grapes for kids

apples with turkey

And I have a very small shopping list this week.  That's always a blessing!

What's cookin' with you?

I'm "Nuts About You"

Today I'm sharing a birthday card I made this past weekend for my nephew, Zach's birthday. I even got it in the mail by Tuesday.  That's like Stellar performance for me, who usually makes the card within days if not on the day of the event and then mails it a week later if it ever gets in the mail at all. ha.

I'm still plugging away at my swaps, but haven't had a lot of time this week.  I need another 2 week holiday where I get to craft almost every day.

WOYWW 241 & PL Swap Cards

WOYWWer's caught a glimpse of these beauties for a PL swap on my desk last week.

And here is the completed set.

This is the title card with both of the silhouette cut words.  Both words will be included, but not adhered so that each swap participant can choose or choose something different altogether.

And this is the extras that each swap participant will receive.  These are the things I cut out but didn't use on the cards.

And here is this week's mess of a desk.  I've got a little stack of sequins to glue to the cut/stamped jars. I've actually moved them Monday afternoon from the craft room to the downstairs, thinking I could do this while kids do school work or in the evening.  But each evening, I'm reading aloud to the family from The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan to the family and the school day yesterday was too busy. Starting at 8 and not finishing until 4, and then dinner had to be made.  Keeping my fingers crossed for today.

A happy Wednesday to all!

Make A Layout Monday 2

Still working on those video skills. My layout this week is "Chillin".  My goofy family in all their goofy glory.

And without further ado.

Gotta go supervise the girl as she makes fudge pops.  Yummy!  Have a great Monday!

Using Old Scrapbook Stash = Warm fuzzy feelings

Along with many crafter's out there, one of my goals for 2014 is to use my stash.  So during the holiday break, I was trying to get some layouts completed to bring me closer to my 2013 goals.  I had 3 different layouts that went nicely with the Bo-Bunny Mama-Razzi line from 2010.  A 3 year old line that I've used bits of but still had the whole collection pack from Hobby Lobby setting in my stash.  When I pulled the kit out for one layout, I went through the other 8 layout photos to see if any of them would work with it as well.  It was pure INTENTION here that got me using this kit.  I completed the following 3 layouts with it in 3 days!  They aren't masterpieces by any means, but they get my story told and they are done!

I have enough left over from the kit for one more layout as well. Now to go search for a photo that coordinates with the kit and get those last bits used.

 Recess Homeschool style. When my son took a break from studies he chased the dog around the house - through the living room, hall, kitchen, classroom and back to the living room. Unfortunately, the dog is faster and after she was almost behind him as opposed to in front, she stopped and waited for him, where the wrestled in the living room floor. And then they were off again.

Yep, my kids think they are clever and funny.  (me too)

After showing this layout to hubs, he laughed and then showed me his iphone. This is his wallpaper picture.  He then said, this was the very first photo he took with his new iphone.  He thought he'd just snap a picture of his family.  I cover my face. I'm reading one of the HP books outloud to the kids. DD is snuggled next to me oblivious. But not DS, nope, he gets up and starts making faces.  Yep. This is definitely our average, ordinary everyday life!  I wouldn't change a thing!

I feel awesome using my old stash.  I will have to get into the many use your stash challenges and kit challenges this year.  What are you're plans for using up your stash of supplies?

WOYWW 240

It's been a long time since I've played along with What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. And I've decided to join with my brand new blog.  We moved to our work in progress home in Michigan in May of last year, a 100 year old farm house that we're trying to refurbish.  But we decided to close up the house for the coldest months. Why pay two heat bills, I say. We are also hoping to go through and unclutter this house and put it up for sale this year. But instead of working on that, I am working on a project life kit swap that I'm participating in over at 2peas.  This is the start of the Valentine cards. I have sewing, stamping, and some more cutting to do.

I'm going to cut "love" on the silhouette out of one of those red cardstock's.  I just can't decide between the darker or the true red.  Which do you think would look better?

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Make a Layout Monday on Tuesday

Last year, I really tried to make everything on my layout mean something.  In other words, nothing would go on that didn't support my mood or reinforce my theme for the layout. I spent a great deal of time thinking about the various aspects of each page: journaling, mood/tone the story photo conveyed, papers, design and embellishments.  This year I have challenged myself to try to complete a layout every week. For those layouts, I can't hem and haw over details. I have to make decisions and make them quickly. Here is where I will try to be accountable for that. By posting my layout (probably from the week prior) to my blog every Monday.  And I'll be learning Adobe Premiere Elements as I go. 

Here is my first video. I must say that when I started the editing of the various clips yesterday evening, I had no idea how much I'd learn in 2 days.  I'm looking forward to becoming more proficient with PE.  

Things I've already learned.  That my camera should be zoomed in (Duh!), it's old and not a HD although it is digital. I'm now already drooling for a better quality one.  That I should put my video on a flash drive and use the computer that is connected to the internet directly instead of wifi to upload a video to youTube.  Seriously, the upload time was Cra-azy!  It is the reason this is getting posted on Tuesday instead of Monday. Thought I'd be able to eek into Monday's date as I started uploading my video at 9:30.  At 11:10 with 63% downloaded and 137 minutes left. I just left the computer on and went to bed.  And since the mid-west cold snap is in full force, a nice toasty bed was good.

Here's the video and the corresponding layout.