My Husband is BRILLIANT! No really, he is and about lots of things. But when it comes to things of the kitchen I'm sometimes left wondering until he shared an idea with me last night. OH MY HE IS BRILLIANT and I'm just about ready to let him take over all the cooking because of this idea. No it's not disposable dishes. However he has picked them up on occasion so I wouldn't have to "do the dishes" if I didn't want to. In fact he does the dishes for me all the time and often cleans the whole house too. My man IS a keeper!
Nope this idea involved the slow cooker and the mass amounts of chicken breasts I got on sale and was planning to George Foreman grill up. It happened to be one of those days that I couldn't get ahead of the mess and was topped off with a teething baby who was also fighting a head cold. Oh, and big sister got that cold too; probably because she keeps running off with his sippy cup and other "chew toys". Ah, siblings.
So hear I am, finally got the kids to bed. Still have another load of dishes to do and 9lbs of chicken that I needed to cook NOW and it's the last thing I want to do. I was whining to my Honey about having to cook said chicken, asking him about boiling it and he says "Why don't you put it in the crock pot?" I had cooked a whole chicken the day before and had my homemade broth cooking all that day. His idea, cook the chicken in that broth. I did and it was amazing, not to mention simple. Super moist, as slow cookers are known to make the meat and flavorful! (Next time I will add some, and by some I mean a ton, of garlic to the stock to add a bit more to the chicken.)
All the chicken is now cooked, weighed and put away in zip lock bags for use this week. Yes, weighed out into individual portions! We are trying to be more aware of the portion sizes and calories we eat as we are...work towards stronger and healthier bodies. We are pretty much just using the chicken for salads and mixed with vegetables. I'd done this last month by grilling the chicken on the Foreman and I'm sure I will still keep doing that but I like having this as an option too.
Do you have a food scale? I've found it amazing in training my eyes in portion control. It's even stretching our budget further because I am cooking only what we need to eat. I was even able to portion off a bunch of taco meat today for meals all month long. Well, if you do not have one I strongly suggest it, my kitchen will never be without one again.
Got to buzz, morning will be here before I know it.
-K
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
Summer Soup Almost Flop
I will admit it. I am one of those people who LIKES the rain! A cool day with a cup of hot tea and a good book next to the fireplace, listening to the rain fall outside. That is MY idea of a great vacation...even more so now that I have busy little kids that keep me on my toes. Another confession? I hope my kids like to read as much as I do! I love that my grandma and I enjoy the same books and want that same thing with my kids. At least one of them. At least they love mama reading them stories now.
Today the weather was cool, no rain but still a much needed reprieve, in my opinion, from all the great hot sunshine we have had. I enjoyed putting on pants and sleeves and not being a sweaty mess! And while the weather feels fall I wasn't ready for a hearty soup just yet, but soup still sound amazing. So I made a HUGE pot of vegetable soup with cabbage, yellow squash, zucchini, onion, garlic, celery and chili powder. (I just read that chili powder is a great natural source of vitamin e and I'm trying to eat more of my vitamins these days.) Well, the soup was a bit of a let down so I will not bother to share with you my recipe. However I redeemed it with my "it's got a kick" taco meat. Tossed a little into my bowl and the bland veggie soup was the perfect compliment to it. Woohoo, saved the soup and maybe even some calories by eating my taco that way instead drowning it with piles of cheese, avocado and yogurt. I'll save that for another day when I've roasted a bell or poblano pepper to use as my taco shell. YUMMY!
However, I needed a win today! My Macaroon is teething and fighting a bit of a head cold that he also passed to his sister. She is a trooper and was my big girl helper shopping today, but by the time we reached check out she was done. We were a sight! My oldest was at the play place (thank God!) but I had the baby in the front pack and my girl sitting on my hip. (Yes, I was holding both at the same time! Who needs the gym?) She was crying and snotting all over my shoulder as my checker rolled her eyes, the checker behind me tried to comfort her and the manager on duty tried to bribe her with stickers. (Let's be honest here, don't we all think this is the moment that they should be giving mom something? Like some high quality chocolate!) Well I had flash backs to my pre-kid days and thought "oh the judging that is going on right now." But now I have kids and I know that these moments DO NOT tell the whole story. Truth be told, I was pretty impressed with how calm I was during all of this. And how great she was doing despite the fact that she was feeling crummy. I'd like to pitch a fit like that when I feel crummy and nothing is going my way. Heck, I've done it! Just ask my poor husband. Wait don't! Just give him chocolate for being so patient with me!
Got to buzz, way past my bedtime and my little pastries wake up early!
-K
Today the weather was cool, no rain but still a much needed reprieve, in my opinion, from all the great hot sunshine we have had. I enjoyed putting on pants and sleeves and not being a sweaty mess! And while the weather feels fall I wasn't ready for a hearty soup just yet, but soup still sound amazing. So I made a HUGE pot of vegetable soup with cabbage, yellow squash, zucchini, onion, garlic, celery and chili powder. (I just read that chili powder is a great natural source of vitamin e and I'm trying to eat more of my vitamins these days.) Well, the soup was a bit of a let down so I will not bother to share with you my recipe. However I redeemed it with my "it's got a kick" taco meat. Tossed a little into my bowl and the bland veggie soup was the perfect compliment to it. Woohoo, saved the soup and maybe even some calories by eating my taco that way instead drowning it with piles of cheese, avocado and yogurt. I'll save that for another day when I've roasted a bell or poblano pepper to use as my taco shell. YUMMY!
However, I needed a win today! My Macaroon is teething and fighting a bit of a head cold that he also passed to his sister. She is a trooper and was my big girl helper shopping today, but by the time we reached check out she was done. We were a sight! My oldest was at the play place (thank God!) but I had the baby in the front pack and my girl sitting on my hip. (Yes, I was holding both at the same time! Who needs the gym?) She was crying and snotting all over my shoulder as my checker rolled her eyes, the checker behind me tried to comfort her and the manager on duty tried to bribe her with stickers. (Let's be honest here, don't we all think this is the moment that they should be giving mom something? Like some high quality chocolate!) Well I had flash backs to my pre-kid days and thought "oh the judging that is going on right now." But now I have kids and I know that these moments DO NOT tell the whole story. Truth be told, I was pretty impressed with how calm I was during all of this. And how great she was doing despite the fact that she was feeling crummy. I'd like to pitch a fit like that when I feel crummy and nothing is going my way. Heck, I've done it! Just ask my poor husband. Wait don't! Just give him chocolate for being so patient with me!
Got to buzz, way past my bedtime and my little pastries wake up early!
-K
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Getting Ready for School
I know it's been too long since I've logged on to blog when I cannot remember my password. This was one of those times! So what has had me so busy I've had no time? Getting ready for school! And all the fun of day to day life.
My oldest starts kindergarten this year and we have confirmed our choice to homeschool. I had no idea there were so many options on HOW to homeschool. So I have been researching styles, curriculum and reading, reading, reading other bloggers who have already been doing this home-school thing and books by the bag full.
We have settled on Eclectic Home-Schooling, for this year. (Funny that's kind of our style for decorating too. Hmm, maybe there is something to that.) Our main focus will be language arts (I've gotten pretty much everything I need for that for only the cost of printing), Bible history over view (next year we will be digging deep into the history), Christlike character studies (Fruit of the Spirit, yes we are still working on that, Armor of God and such) and unit studies. Our first unit of study, students choice, will be ancient Egypt. And I'm pretty excited to dive in!
Speaking of my oldest, we had a great moment this past weekend at the post office. The wind was blowing pretty good and our nations flag was whipping around in the wind. It was beautiful to watch. Well, when we were done with our mail trip the flag was not blowing and Pumpkin was pretty disappointed. So I took the time to teach him the Pledge of Allegiance. It was so cute to see his little sister quickly follow hand over heart and try to say the words to.
A few days later we were making that same trip and as soon as we exited the building I was asked. "Can we allegiance the flag again?" And so we did, it warmed my heart! By the way, I know have "add American flag" to my shopping list for curriculum this year.
If you would like more information of some of the curriculum I am using please use the following links.
Free Language Arts for Preschool and Kindergarten:
Progressive Phonics
This Reading Mama
American Sign Language:
Devotional Motherhood
Over all wealth of information and great deals:
So you call yourself a Homeschooler
Bible Based Homeschooling
Me on Pinterest
Got to buzz, baby is teething!
-K
My oldest starts kindergarten this year and we have confirmed our choice to homeschool. I had no idea there were so many options on HOW to homeschool. So I have been researching styles, curriculum and reading, reading, reading other bloggers who have already been doing this home-school thing and books by the bag full.
We have settled on Eclectic Home-Schooling, for this year. (Funny that's kind of our style for decorating too. Hmm, maybe there is something to that.) Our main focus will be language arts (I've gotten pretty much everything I need for that for only the cost of printing), Bible history over view (next year we will be digging deep into the history), Christlike character studies (Fruit of the Spirit, yes we are still working on that, Armor of God and such) and unit studies. Our first unit of study, students choice, will be ancient Egypt. And I'm pretty excited to dive in!
Speaking of my oldest, we had a great moment this past weekend at the post office. The wind was blowing pretty good and our nations flag was whipping around in the wind. It was beautiful to watch. Well, when we were done with our mail trip the flag was not blowing and Pumpkin was pretty disappointed. So I took the time to teach him the Pledge of Allegiance. It was so cute to see his little sister quickly follow hand over heart and try to say the words to.
A few days later we were making that same trip and as soon as we exited the building I was asked. "Can we allegiance the flag again?" And so we did, it warmed my heart! By the way, I know have "add American flag" to my shopping list for curriculum this year.
If you would like more information of some of the curriculum I am using please use the following links.
Free Language Arts for Preschool and Kindergarten:
Progressive Phonics
This Reading Mama
American Sign Language:
Devotional Motherhood
Over all wealth of information and great deals:
So you call yourself a Homeschooler
Bible Based Homeschooling
Me on Pinterest
Got to buzz, baby is teething!
-K
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