Angelic

Elijah at 3 months

A sweet and simple Thanksgiving

This year we had a very sweet and simple Thanksgiving. Only my brother John's family came including Joanie, Winston and Lily. We played football, had a fire pit, watched football, cooked and, of course, ate. My goal was to eat at 5:00 and when I looked at the clock to call Mike to pray it was precisely 5:00 on the dot. Ha! Only Singers (my maiden name) can appreciate this fact.
Lizzy scootering outside the kitchen window while I cooked ... this was actually very helpful! The other kids had a rousing game of kickball in the snow and took turns helping me peel and grate and chop.
Elijah sat on the counter while I cooked. He looks so concerned. Maybe over the amount of butter I was using.
Buzz Lightyear graced us with his presence ... it was nice to have a super hero at our house.

Lily and Mary

Mary, Lily and Anna
Lily and me
Football in the back yard.
I am thankful for Elijah.
Uncle John carving our whoppin' 25 lb. turkey! Yum!
Anna is ready to eat (and the boys in the background are engulfed in football).
Rachel pretended to be a puppy for the entire day ... woof.
Elijah and Mike waiting their turn ...
Lizzy and Winston
And, finally, the next day, Molly enjoying the centerpiece in peace.

Broth ... a miracle food ...

Since I've been singing the praises of soup this week I thought I'd also share about my love of broth as well. Broth is a healing, soothing, comforting food. Here's a great article to prove my point:

http://editor.nourishedmagazine.com.au/articles/beautiful-broth

The past few weeks we've passed around a rotten flu which included fever, sore throat, body aches and a horrible headache AND a miserable head cold. Here are ways to load up your family with this nourishing food:

*Boil your potatoes, pasta, rice and veggies in broth.
*Use broth instead of water when making sauces.
*Add broth to moisten left-over meat.
*Add broth to red sauces.
*Use broth instead of olive oil when sauteing.

Plus broth is amazingly easy to make.

Step One - Toss left over bones or an actual whole chicken or whatever into a big stock pot.
Step Two- Add onion, celery, carrots, a bay leaf or two, garlic or just your vegetable scraps. I have a bag in my freezer where I put the ends of carrots, green onion tops, onion peels, the end and leaves of celery so that I don't have to waste whole veggies for broth. If I do use whole veggies I puree them when the broth is done to thicken the broth.
Step Three- Add a few tablespoons of vinegar to leech out the minerals in the bones.
Step Four- Simmer for a long time. The longer it simmers the richer it will get. Taste and add salt or pepper to taste.
Step Five- Strain the broth and either use or freeze.

If nothing else your family will have glistening hair and long, thick finger nails!

I can turn anything into a soup ...

... seriously. I'm not just bragging here. And you can, too! A long time ago I started a "Soup Night" to save money. At first I thought I had to have a recipe ... then I figured out the basics and started just doing the basics ... and then one day, when there were few leftovers that were typical "soup" ingredients, I decided to wing it.


Here is how you too can create soup simply by digging through your leftovers:

Step One: BROTH - every time you cook a chicken, turkey, beef with bones or a ham make a broth. Simply simmer the bones or the neck/wings (from the birds of course because cows and pigs don't have wings) with an assortment of veggies and a splash of vinegar (which helps to leech out the nutrients from the bones). Simmer for several hours or put it in the crockpot. Strain out all of the goodies and presto chango you have broth. If you are a crazy frugalite like me save your veggie scraps, onion peels, green onion stems and so on as your veggies. If you do use "real" veggies whirl them up when the broth is done and stir them back into the broth for added nutrients. Freeze what you don't use for future use. When you get a ton of chicken super cheap toss them in a giant pot or roaster and cover with water and veggies so you have a stash of chicken and broth in your freezer. Freeze the chicken in broth. Have your less zealous family members save their bones for you. Grandpa is forever stashing ham bones in my freezer, unlabled, making me often wonder what died in the bag.

Step Two: PROTEIN - Beans or leftover meat. If you have odd amounts of meat left from a meal or a serving that a picky kid didn't even touch toss it in a ziploc bag, label it and freeze. Save leftover breakfast sausage, bacon, pepperoni ... anything. Once a week or so cook a pot of beans. None of this soaking, rinsing, cooking, rinsing business. Grab a few cups of beans, rinse them off, toss them in a pan or crock and cook until soft. DON'T add salt until they are done or they will stay hard. Cool and freeze in ziplog bags in the liquid. Leftover refried beans dissolve in the broth and thicken it nicely.

Step Three - VEGGIES - Save all of your left-over veggies. I mean anything. Cooked or raw, in a sauce or plain, canned or fresh or frozen ... save it all.

Step Four - STARCH (Optional) - I usually keep my starch separate because Mike can't have the carbohydrates. But for the rest of us I add leftover rice, potatoes, pasta, stale tortilla chips and so on. The tortilla chips are an awesome topping for chili!

Step Five - MYSTERY INGREDIENTS - Pumpkin, squash, kale, casseroles using noodles or rice, gravy, veggies no one liked, spaghetti sauce, beans and rice ... either chop and use as is or toss into your food processor or blender and puree. I KNOW this is weird but it works. No one will notice your mystery ingredients. The pureed ingredients and gravy will thicken your broth. The pumpkin and squash disappear. Shred the kale in fine bits and it will look like herbs.

That's FIVE simple, on-hand, at-your-fingerprints, healthy ingredients quickly tossed in a pot for a fast, easy dinner. Instead of throwing away left-overs you use them up. Essentially a free meal. I assure you this will work. If your family doesn't love soup then start by making it more of a Stewp (pronounces "stupe") with very little broth. Then gradually add more broth.

Tonight Mary and I made White Turkey Chili. Along with they ingredients called for in my recipe we added 2 cups of pureed pumpkin and 2 cups of diced tomatoes. The family gobbled it up. We topped it with stale tortilla chips (thank you Josiah for leaving the bag open EVERY SINGLE time you grab a handful filling yourself up so you don't want dinner ..) which soften up and are almost like noodles.

The most unusual thing I've added was a Chicken Cordon Bleu casserole I made. The chicken turned out dry and the breading was soggy but it was a ton of expensive meat and cheese ... I couldn't waste it ... so it was pureed in the food processor and added to a basic chicken vegetable soup. The casserole gave the soup a wonderful flavor ... ham, swiss cheese, chicken, breading all made for a delicious, creamy soup. I asked the kids at the end of the meal to guess the secret ingredient. No one could tell what I'd done.

The only rule you really need to follow is keep similar flavors and sizes together. If you have lots of Italian leftovers make an Italian soup. If you have stale tortilla chips or taco filling make a Mexican soup. Cut the ingredients to approximately the same size. This just makes it more appealing and easy to eat.

So, there ya go ... are you afraid to have lunch at my house now?

Menu for the Week of November 15th, 2010

It's Turkey Season! Sales, sales, sales! Jacob and I went to King Soopers and spent $120 but saved $230!!!!! I love it! So even though Thanksgiving is next week I can't resist ... we're having turkey this week.



MONDAY
Breakfast - Applesauce Muffins/Hard Boiled Eggs
Lunch - Bean Burritos
Dinner - Roast Sticky Turkey/Red Potatoes/Salad
*Put Turkey in Roaster at noon.
**Put Red Potatoes in at 3:00.
***Have Timmy make bread for breakfast tomorrow.

TUESDAY
Breakfast - Cinnamon Bread
Lunch - Mac 'n Cheese
Dinner - Turkey Chili and Cornbread
*Make cornbread after breakfast.
**Stir together pancake dry ingredients after lunch.

WEDNESDAY
Breakfast - Pancakes
Lunch - Baked Potatoes
Dinner - Shredded Turkey Quesadillas

THURSDAY
Breakfast - English Muffins
Lunch - Ramen
Dinner - Crustless Quiche with Fruit Salad

FRIDAY
Breakfast - Toast
Lunch - PB&J or Ham Sandwiches
Dinner - Pizza
*Make pizza dough after breakfast and refrigerate.
**Defrost pork loin.

SATURDAY
Breakfast - Chocolate Waffles
Lunch - Cheese Quesadillas
Dinner - BBQ Pork, Fried Potatoes and Green Beans
*Make Sunday bundt cakes and defrost sausage.

SUNDAY
Breakfast - Bundt Cake and Sausage
Lunch - Tacos
Dinner - Nachos (actually we have a special recipe but I forgot the name of it in Spanish ... it's essentially tortilla chips, black beans, Salsa, a fried egg, shredded cheese and sour cream ... the kids love this surprisingly.)

Joe's without braces!!!!!

A beautiful grin with 3 adoring fans! The ortho gave him this ice cream cake and Mike said, "We give him a few thousand dollars and he gives us a cake." Ha!

Soaking up every minute of fall ...

Every chance we get we have been going to the river to hike, play and fish. With snow looming in the horizon time is short. The river is also a great motivational tool for getting kids to finish school work quickly! The closest, easiest place to go to the river is about 10 minutes away at Lee Martinez Park. My brother John lives just blocks from here and jogs the trails.

Luke, Mary and the 6 littles starting down the path. A picture can't do justice to the blue skies, cool weather and changing trees. The little kids stop along the way to collect grass hoppers for fishing. When I asked Jacob where he was putting his he said, "In my pockets." Ewwww!
Uncle John led us to this hidden, cool tree off the beaten path. What I wouldn't give to have this in my backyard!
Jacob
Timothy
Luke and Anna
Rachel
Mary and Ben
The river ... it was very still and deep this day.
Luke on the rope swing ... splash ... just kidding ... he did fall in once last year and we're still laughing about it ...
Luke took this of Mary while up in the tree.
From Luke's vantage point looking down on all of us ...
Lizzy eating Twizzlers.
Anna turning two Twizzlers into a ...
mustache
Rachel wearing Timmy's fishing hat.
Ben's private fishing spot.
Ben and his fish ... we had to let it go as it was too small to eat.
Fishing.
Lizzy is ready for a nap.

New Pumpkin Muffin Recipe

I love my previous pumpkin muffin recipe ... in fact it's my favorite BUT it has a ton of ingredients. This morning I googled "easy pumpkin muffin recipe" and found this one. I made a few changes and they were fantastic. The kids enjoyed them more than my previous recipe too ... they are more cake like in consistency. They are on this blog:

http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2009/10/13/recipe-conection-one-bowl-pumpkin-breadmuffins/

As you move down the page you'll notice she not only lists healthy changes to make but also a "Healthy Remake" to the recipe. I didn't notice this when I made them but out of habit used 1/2 whole wheat flour and reduced the sugar. They are really delicious! I am almost addicted to fresh pumpkin in the fall. I just can't get enough of it! My next endeavor is a pumpkin cheesecake in a gingersnap crust.