Such a cold wintery Nebraska night!  Perfect for Bread Pudding!  What do you need for bread pudding?  Eggs, a bit of sugar, milk, vanilla oh yes, and some raisins and a touch of melted butter.  This, so far is the best recipe I have found for bread pudding.  I love to have it steamy hot with a touch of milk.  Yum!  Warms me from the top of my head to the tip of my little toes!  What do I hear?  The timer!  Off to eat pudding!  Cheers!

http://allrecipes.com/video/976/bread-pudding-ii/detail.aspx

    

 Tis the season for looking at New Year’s Resolutions and making positive lifestyle changes for your family.  Reflecting on the past list of New Year Resolutions, when you create one behavior change that you are committed to, this is when real success happens. In preparation for this article, online data suggests that more often than not, resolutions relate to being more fit and eating healthier.  Although great ideas, achieving the goals of being fit and eating healthy can set one up for failure.  Eating and physical fitness are achieved by repetitious behavior change.  One of the key factors is to have everyone on board in your household.  Instead of such a broad goal, look at changing one aspect of this for each item.  The recommendation for exercise is to workout 30 minutes most days of the week for adults and 1 hour most days of the week for children. Begin with a goal of achieving a 30 minute workout every other day and build on this habit.   In relation to eating healthy, try embracing the concept of cooking as an art and a joy as opposed to a daily cumbersome task.

     Exercise is an activity that when embraced gives you more energy to get through your day.  This is definitely a change that needs to be embraced by everyone in your family.  Children tend to be active so if parents will join them, this helps everyone.  There are three components necessary for physical activity.  Basic stretching, anaerobic which involves increasing your heart rate and weight bearing exercise which can be such things as push-ups.  Physical activity does not require you to spend vast amounts of money on fancy equipment or memberships to health spas.  It is a matter of deciding on a time, a place and the activity.  Our family finds that the best exercise is that done right here at home.  We have a stationary bike for those days like today that the Nebraska cold prevents one from taking a walk.   We discovered that our cable network has Fit TV so we select programs that we like and record them to workout with at a convenient time for us.  We find that the easier the plan is the more apt we are to follow through.  

     The art of cooking, when you make the decision to cook, you reduce your fat, sugar and salt intake.  All of these are a recipe for improving one’s health.  In most cases, cooking from scratch is not much more time consuming than using products from a box and the best news is that you decide what to put in the dish.  I watched “The Chew” today and they made their own vinaigrette dressing.  The ingredients were fresh; they used less oil by blending the mix in an in-expensive food processor and reduced the fat, sugar and salt added to the dressing.  Not only is it healthy but saves you money at the grocery store as well. Consider a garden, a kitchen herb garden is a great place to begin to help you reduce your fat, sugar and salt intake by adding the flavor of herbs. 

Rosemary

Oregano

 

Parsley

The first step is to decide what it is you wish to change and then be sure it is something you want to change.  Fitness goals can be S.M.A.R.T goals while choosing to cook accompanies eating healthier.  I find personally that the easier I make the goal, the more it becomes reality and easy to obtain.  So, my first goal....I love French Onion Soup so I am going to have this for New Year's Eve!  More to come on this adventure!  As far as fitness goals, I will continue to play nicely with my stationary bike Burt, I may even keep my eye out for a replacement for Burt.  He is beginning to groan and a few of his spokes have broken.  So, perhaps it is time to find a new workout mate.  Also, I plan to work hard on a stress free lifestyle.  This will involve learning to say no to some things and feeling ok about it.  To you and yours, may you have a very prosperous 2013!

 

   

The Art Of Slow Cooking!

After having a week of crazy evening commitments and struggling to stay away from fast food alley, I am going to plan on pulling out my slow cooker, dusting it off and using it in the next few weeks.  I had high hopes that December would be slow....not so much!  

Recently, I have had a lot of interest in slow cook programs, so the following is a helpful idea on freezing the ingredients for slow cooking ahead of time along with one of my favorite recipes!  Enjoy!!

 Tips for Freezer Cooking with Slow Cooker Recipes

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  Cooking with a slow cooker can be one of the easiest ways to have a meal ready to eat when you walk in the door after a long day.  Slow cookers are great to use because all you have to do is place the ingredients in the slow cooker and turn it on.  Here are a few tips to make slow cooker cooking even easier:
  
  
  • Set aside time for food preparation.  Consider doing more than one recipe to prepare for more than one meal.
  
  
  • Chop vegetables and meat separate.  Be sure to chop pieces, especially meat, into small chunks.  This will prevent any food safety issues. http://www.fsis.usda.gov/pdf/slow_cookers_and_food_safety.pdf
    
  
  
  ·         Freeze meat separate from fruits and vegetables.  Place the bags or containers together for easy assembly of recipes.  If using bags, lay bags flat in your freezer to save freezer space. 
  
  
  ·         Attach the recipe or label the containers for easy assembly.
  
  
  The day before you are going to prepare your slow cooker frozen ingredients, remove them from your freezer and place in your refrigerator.  If they are still frozen, quickly run cold water over the container or bag long enough so they will be loose.  Place meat in a microwave safe bowl and microwave so that meat is thawed out.  Assemble and cook the food according to your recipe.  Handle leftovers in the same manner you would other food items.  Separate large amounts into shallow containers and refrigerate within two hours after cooking is finished.  Do not reheat food in the slow cooker, use your stove top or microwave and be sure the temperature reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Veggies chopped and ready to go!  Always cut meat on separate cutting board.

 .

 

Veggies in 1 bag, Meat in a separate bag

Lay flat to freeze(be sure to label)

 

Slow Cooker Chicken and Rice: (Serves 4 to 6 people)

Ingredients

4 to 6 boneless chicken breast halves, without skin

1 (10 ¾ ounces) can low sodium cream of mushroom soup

½ c. water

¾ c. rice, uncooked

1 ½ c. low sodium chicken broth

1 to 2 cups frozen green beans, thawed

Directions

1. Place chicken breasts in slow cooker.
2. Pour cream of mushroom soup and water over chicken.
3. Add the rice, chicken broth, and green beans. (Do not stir, keep it layered.)
4. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or until chicken is cooked and rice is tender.

**Slow cooking is a wonderful way to avoid Fast Food Alley!  Find time in your schedule to prepare ahead, freeze several meals in advance.  Pull the ingredients from the freezer the night before, and assemble before leaving your home.  It is a wonderful thing to come home to meal that is ready to go!  Be sure to contact me if you have any questions on slow cooking.  One more fantastic way to eat healthy, stay on your budget and avoid putting your money into those fast food places!

 A sound mind, sound body is the recipe to living happily ever after!  Have a happy and healthy holiday season!

Avoiding Fast Food Alley

Are you like most families this time of year and you find more than one night filled with activities?  Fast food alley on these nights beckons to me.  The bright neon lights with their messages of burgers and fries, tacos, delightfully wrapped in paper, just fly through convenient drive through, use the plastic card, and off you go.  The scene when I get home is one of delight, until we unwrap the delicacies, and they just don’t quite live up to the standard.  I smile and reason, it is just one time.  Then, I remember how much I spent and I think, I could have bought two bags of groceries for this convenient meal that really did not taste good and I will be thirsty all night long because of the excess salt on the food.  When I have these “fast food alley” moments, I remind myself that the aftermath includes not feeling good and the money going into the pocket of those lovely neon light places and not in my pocket for other things.  If I add it up, it could easily be money saved up to buy something our family really needs.  It is a given that if you have kids, they have events and not all events are nice and convenient and revolve around the dinner clock.  So what is a mom to do?  Get creative!

One night in frenzy at 8pm and no dinner, I decided to opt out of the neon lit fast alley and went home to prepare a quick meal.  As I drove home, I thought about what I had on hand.  Let’s see, eggs (we have our own chickens, so I had this on hand), broccoli, onion, zucchini, tomatoes and cheese, this would make a great Egg Frittata.  I had covered the protein group, vegetable group, and dairy group.  We had sliced watermelon and French bread.  Now, I have all the food groups covered and a meal that was on the table in 30 minutes!  Success!  I avoided fast food, and the food was very enjoyable.  So how do you make a Frittata?   If you know how to make scrambled eggs, you can make a frittata!

                                

 

Egg Frittata (Serves 4) Prep time:  30 minutes

 Ingredients:

6 eggs, beaten

1tsp. fresh or dried basil

½ c. vegetables, sauté in 1 tbs. olive or canola oil

1/8 c. onion (more or less depending on your liking)    ¼ to ½ c. cheese, cheddar or mozzarella

Directions:

Scramble the eggs, add basil and set aside.  Chop vegetables, sauté in oil until tender.  Add eggs to the vegetables.  Move egg mixture around just as you would scrambled eggs. When they are almost set, add cheese to top.  If you have a pan that is oven safe, you may finish this process by placing pan under broiler for 3 to 4 minutes until brown, watch carefully so it does not cook to long.

Menu Ideas:  Fresh fruit, whole grain bread or roll, and a glass of milk. 

Another great way to avoid eating out is to use a slow cooker.  More to come next week on this!  Until then, have a healthy and happy week!

 

 

BRING ON THE LEFTOVERS!

It is Wednesday night and already I am plotting for what to do with the turkey leftovers!  Call me crazy, but I enjoy the leftovers.  This is when I get truly creative in the kitchen.  I have lots of ideas and would love to hear from you if you have other suggestions.

Be sure to follow simple food safety guidelines to be sure you keep your food safe and your family void of food borne illness.  When your dinner is complete and everyone is full, enlist help to put leftovers in containers and into the refrigerator.  If you have some dishes that are large in size, be sure to divide them into smaller containers so they cool quickly as well as so they do not cause issues with the rest of the food in your refrigerator.  Personally, I work on taking the meat off the bone as soon as I can.  Be sure to keep the bones however, there is nothing like turkey noodle soup!  Left overs can safely be used for 4 days and then, throw them out.  Utilize your freezer so nothing goes to waste.

Now that your food is safe in the refrigerator, the fun begins!  This year, I am going to try my hand at a turkey potpie.  I have to admit that in college, I had my share of the frozen banquet pies and they were the best comfort food!  So, I am imagining homemade pastry, vegetables and turkey should be really good.  I found a recipe online at http://southernfood.about.com/od/turkeypierecipes/r/blbb187.htm , I have had great luck with recipes from this site.  I will more than likely be creative and use vegetables that may be in my leftover stockpile.  This is the beauty of leftovers, you can be creative!

One of my favorite things is to create a casserole that is a version of Shepard’s pie. In a 9X13 pan, I place gravy, turkey cut into chunks, and vegetables (again, what I have on hand), on top, I put left over stuffing or mashed potatoes, maybe even a little of both.  Put in oven and bake until heated thoroughly. I typically bake it at 350 degrees.

A family favorite is hot turkey roasters.  You got it, just like a hot roast beef sandwich except with turkey.  A slice of bread cut in half, scoop of potatoes in the middle, sliced turkey (However you prefer, slices or chunks), and gravy over top.  Talk about your comfort food! 

The last “hoorah” is the tried and true turkey and homemade noodle soup.  The beauty of this is there are always leftovers and I freeze them in quart self-sealing bags to pull out for a day that is cold and soup hits the spot.  The bones that you kept are put into your stockpot, cover with water and any broth you may have left from the original bird.  I add onions, carrots, cabbage and again, whatever else I may have.  Adding the vegetables gives the soup a wonderful flavor.  I also add a few fresh herbs from my kitchen garden, a little rosemary and thyme and a bit of cracked pepper.  While this cooks, I make my noodles.  Very simple, ½ cup flour to one egg.  For my family of four, I use about 2 cups flour and 8 eggs.  Slightly beat the eggs, add to flour, stir with fork.  Kneed this into a ball.  Then, refrigerate for 10 minutes to allow the gluten to work.  Roll out on a floured surface.  I have found a pizza cutter works great for cutting noodles.  If I have time, I let the noodles dry a bit.  If not, add them to the broth when it has come to a nice boil.  Before adding the noodles, you may want to strain the broth and remove the bones from the soup. 

From my kitchen to yours, I hope you had a very Happy Thanksgiving!  Enjoy your leftovers and let your creative mind go!