Old Fashioned Popcorn

I absolutely love a yummy snack while watching TV or a movie. Popcorn is definitely one of my favorite snacks. Growing up as a child, my family had a popcorn maker. You'd plug it in, pour your popcorn kernels in it, and popcorn would come out the other side.

 Then we would get bags of popcorn to pop in the microwave. I'll never forget when "Movie Theater flavored butter Popcorn" came out to pop at home. My family was literally in heaven. Every Thursday night we'd rent Blockbuster movies, order pizza, and make some "movie theater flavored butter popcorn" at home! We couldn't believe we could make that kind of popcorn at home without going to the theater. What a treat, and such fond memories I have.

Now that I'm the mom and have a family of my own, we have family movie night once a week. We try to pick a movie that the whole family will enjoy (including my youngest who's two). We make pizza at home, and lately have been wanting to find a better alternative to making popcorn in the microwave in a bag. It's really full of...for lack of a better word: 'junk'. I was at Everman, our local  co-op grocery store and discovered that you can buy organic popcorn kernels pretty cheap in bulk. I bought some and brought it home and put it in a glass jar. So it's ready when we're ready to make popcorn:

Here's how I make it:

• I put some oil in a pot on the stove
• I pour about a 1/4 of popcorn kernels in the pot
• Put the lid on the pot so the popcorn doesn't pop out
• Wait for it to pop
• Once it slows down popping, bring it off the stove and pour the kernels in a bowl
• Add your seasonings: like cinnamon/sugar, dill & garlic salt,  butter and salt etc. The options are endless! I love homemade popcorn

The best part about making homemade organic popcorn is you know exactly what you're putting in your body! No junk, no additives, no chemicals, and definitely no GMO's!   I promise you that making it at home, takes no more than 3 minutes. Which is exactly how much time it takes to make it in the bag in the microwave. So why not make it on the stove as a MUCH healthier and cheaper option?

 Try it! I'd love to hear what you think. 

Cheesy Bread, a total flop...literally

I decided to up the ante with baking bread in the bread maker, from making simple regular whole wheat bread to a Cheesy bread. It honestly isn't that much harder. It really is just adding a couple extra ingredients.
I followed the directions completely! I put the ingredients in the bread maker just the way it said. I should've stopped there....however I have these instincts when it comes to cooking. Like to add a dash of 'this' or 'that', however whenever I get these instincts, I need to ignore them. They're ALWAYS WRONG! I keep thinking I can substitute 'this' ingredient for 'that.' Or 'this' seems like a good idea, however IT NEVER IS! I don't know why I never inherited the cooking gene, I just didn't.

So this is what happened:

The bread maker said 40 minutes left. It was on the last cycle for it to rise. So I opened the bread maker lid and thought, wouldn't it be great to put a layer of cheese on top of the bread? I would love to slice into a loaf of cheesy bread that has a layer of cheese on top. Doesn't that sound yummy? Can't you taste the ooey gooey cheese now? Well I put some cheese on top and then lowered the lid. I opened up the bread maker 40 minutes later to discover a TOTAL FAIL...or should I say flop!

The bread couldn't rise with the heavy cheese on top. So lesson learned...I should perhaps wait until the bread is completely finished baking to then add a layer of cheese. My poor looking bread, what a sad sight!

Despite the appearance of the bread, it did taste pretty good!

Churning Butter!?!?!?!

It honestly started as a joke. A few weeks before my 31st birthday I mentioned to my family I wanted a grain mill for my birthday, so I could start grinding my own flour. My parents joked that next I'd want to start churning my own butter too!  I laughed, but didn't say anything. The thought kind of stuck with me. How does one churn their own butter in this modern age? I found quite a few youtube videos that show you how to make butter. One of the things that shocked me is that Heavy whipping cream and butter are almost exactly the same! The only things I needed to make butter were: Organic Heavy whipping cream and my kitchenaid Stand Mixer.

Here are the steps I followed:

1. ALL you need is heavy cream!
2. Pour it into your kitchenaid mixer
3. Use the whisk attachment, and put it on high
4. Whisk until it looks like whipped cream...keep on going until it looks more like butter wading in milk
5. Strain the buttermilk out of the butter, so that the butter doesn't go rancid. But save the buttermilk for waffles, or pancakes.
6. Pour in a bit of water, and whisk some more
7. Strain out the water
8. put the butter in the fridge

1/2 a container of heavy whipping cream, after 10 minutes of whipping it in the kitchenaid mixer. It separated into buttermilk and butter. 

The finished product: delicious organic butter!

So why am I making my own butter? Well for a few reasons:

• To know exactly what is in my butter: (1 ingredient, organic whipping cream)
• To try my hand at making it, to see if it's something I could consider as part of my regular routine
• To save money, organic butter is quite pricey.
• Best part of all: it's extremely simple to do! Anyone can do it.

Tonight, I'm trying it on some homemade bread.

Homemade Delicious Bread

For my birthday about 10 years ago I would've been thrilled with getting a pair of boots, gift certificates to my favorite clothing store, or something along those lines. Is it because I'm in my 30's, or perhaps because I'm on this new journey about living the healthiest lifestyle I asked for kitchen products for my birthday.  I was hoping for a Green dutch oven from my parents, and a grain mill from my hubby. Of course I got made fun of, by my wonderful parents, who think I'll want a butter churn for christmas. My reply to them was "I don't need a butter churn, my kitchenaid mixer makes butter just fine." I don't think I'll be stopping their teasing much with that comment, but I'll ensure I don't receive a butter churn for Christmas.

The grain mill arrived in the mail the day after Thanksgiving. I couldn't wait to try it. The only downside: I know nothing about wheat, what kind to buy, where to buy, how much to buy, where to store it, how long it lasts, once ground how long will it last. I had a slew of questions and not sure where to start. Sarah Jones from Bread of life bakery was a HUGE help. I messaged her with many questions. I was ready to buy a six gallon bucket of wheat. She recommended buying 3-5 pounds of three different kinds of the main wheats to start. Here's what I've learned so far.

• Hard wheats are good for breads.
• Soft wheats are good for pastries.
• I realized I've never seen wheat before it was ground up. It looks kind of like rice to me. 
• I can grind corn, rice, oats for different types of grain
• buying the grain whole is cheaper than buying flour
• Whole grain can last 40-60 years, if kept in a sealed container

So I bought five pounds of each:

• Red hard wheat
• White hard wheat
• White soft wheat

I love the grain mill. It attaches right to my KitchenAid KSM75WH Classic Tilt-Head Stand Mixer (Google Affiliate Ad). I placed a bowl underneath it to catch the flour. I placed the white hard grain in the top and turn on the mixer. It took about 6-10 minutes to grind three cups of flour. While it was grinding I grabbed all my ingredients for the bread maker. I have to say I've made bread by hand, and I've used the bread maker. What a lifesaver a bread maker can be! There's so much kneading, and rising that I pop all the ingredients inside the maker and in 3 hours I have fresh bread, my house smells like bread and it's beyond delicious with some honey on it. 

3 cups of beautiful whole grain flour. 

There's my hardworking bread maker (thanks to a dear friend who gave it to me! Such a blessing). On the right is the 1st loaf of white bread I made. I made the mistake of opening the bread maker while it baking and the top of the bread sunk in. It didn't rise all the way. 

So why am I interested in grinding my own wheat and baking my own bread? A couple reasons:

• I'm always looking to save money
• I want to provide the healthiest food for my family. Store bought breads have so many ingredients in them, that I can't even pronounce. If I make it myself, I know exactly what 5-10 ingredients I'm putting in the bread. I can pronounce my ingredients.
• Flour bought at the store has been sitting on the shelf, for who knows how long
• If I buy organic bread, it can be expensive.
• The choice to use a bread maker is to make it easier, quicker, and less work. 

Girls Spa night!

I had the opportunity to host a 'Spa Party' at my home. Friends of mine started selling beauticontrol products. I chose a Detox themed party. There are many different kinds of spa parties they can throw. I was very excited to try their detox line of products. The 'beauty' of hosting one of these parties is the lovely ladies who sell beauty control do all the spa treatments to you! My part was just opening my home, inviting all my friends and of course, providing the food. So what kind of food do you prepare for a spa party? I assumed it would need to be a lighter fare. Here's what I prepared:

1. Fruit Kabobs 
2. Veggie Tray
3. Quinoa Salad
4. Semi Dried Tomatoes 
5. Hummus and pita chips (both were store bought)
6. Cucumber cups filled with olive tapenade
7. Organic Iced white peppermint tea (sweetened with organic cane sugar)
8. Iced raspberry tea (sweetened with organic cane sugar)
9. Coffee (organic sugar, organic cream, homemade whipped cream)

Instead of the usual fruit tray I would do, I got the idea to do fruit kabobs from Pinterest!  Their fruit kabobs had strawberries on them, and I agree they would've made the kabobs much prettier. Unfortunately when I went to purchase the strawberries they had doubled in price since I was there earlier in the week. I wasn't going to pay what they were selling them for...so I opted for blackberries since they were on sale. 

Nothing special. Just my regular veggie tray. Our Veggie tray included:

tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, green peppers, broccolini (tiny broccoli!), organic carrots and organic ranch dressing.

Cucumber cups filled with Olive tepanade. Courtesy of Kris Carr from her latest book Crazy Sexy kitchen. (if you're not sure who this girl is...she was diagnosed with cancer about a decade ago and have held her cancer at bay by completely changing her lifestyle. To learn more about her journey click here

Semi-dried tomatoes. These were so yummy! This is my first time blanching anything! It turned out great. After blanching them, they went into the oven on the lowest setting for 4 hours. Of course I topped them with yummy seasonings first. You can get the recipe from Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Kitchen Book.

Quinoa Salad. (sorry it's blurry). It tasted kinda like tabouli (one of my favorite mediterranean dishes). 

Us girls, had a great time. The comments at the party included:

"Do you normally eat like this?" -- haha. I'm not sure how to take that. I didn't find it abnormal...

"Do you do all the cooking at your home?" --absolutely not. My hubby does MOST of the cooking. I usually do it on my days off (2x a week).

"What is this?" --referring to the quinoa salad. 

I think the veggie fare was enjoyed by most...we hardly had any leftovers to put in the fridge. That's definitely always a good sign.

Farmers Market Finds

Early Saturday morning I headed to the Palofox farmers market, downtown Pensacola. The market has grown a lot since the last time I visited a few months ago. It seems like it's doubled in size. Not only are there homemade breads, organic breads, sweets, homemade popsicles, traditional vegetables, funky vegetables (i.e. vegetables I've never seen before), different kinds of honey, soaps and even all kinds of "artsy fartsy". My absolutely favorite is finding fresh vegetables and purchasing them directly from the farmers. It's such a great feeling purchasing your food and knowing exactly where it came from. There's such a neat buzz at the farmers market. I love it.

Here are my fresh finds from the market this weekend:

a big bushel of Baby Kale    $2.00
All those green peppers        $2.00
3 cucumbers                         $3.00 ($0.75 each)
yellow zucchini                     $1.00
Small butternut squash          $1.00
Button squash                       $1.00
Fairytale eggplant                 $0.50
_______________________________
TOTAL                               $11.25

Now what to do with the squash and the eggplant??? Not sure..sinee I've never used it. Those green peppers however are going into some salsa and pasta sauce. The kale is going to be part of a salad and/or putting in some juice I'll be making. I already used the cucumbers in a big greek salad.

Is that a goat in your garage?

Is that a goat in your garage? If so you must've read "urban farming"...is what it said on the back of the book jacket of the latest book I just finished reading.  What an intriguing thought....a goat in my garage, really? What kind of a book is this, that would inspire me to get a goat? --I thought.

I ordered it from Amazon for $16. It's a helpful book based on the experiences of a family who wanted to live more off the land than to spend most of their money commercially in the stores.  The chapters go through each kind of food we normally eat or purchase from the grocery store and how to make better choices. In the beginning of each chapter Annette (one of the authors) lists her original grocery list and now what she purchases at the store. For example in the grain chapter:
Original List:

• baking powder
• baking soda
• bread
• breakfast cereal
• crackers
• croutons
• flour
• frozen pizza
• frozen waffles
• hotdog buns
• oatmeal
• pancake mix
• salt
• yeast

Revised List:

• baking powder
• baking soda
• local grains
• salt
• yeast

It's so neat to see the progression she has made towards a greener life. Some of the chapters include: grain, chicken & the egg, dairy dilemma, growing your own, eating seasonally, preserving harvest, raising small animals for meat, soaps & sundries, just to name a few!

I loved reading about her journey. I am on the same journey of greener living. I never thought of myself as an urban farmer. However the title grabbed my attention because I want to live my best life with what God has given me. I find that local organic food can be pricey at times. I know it would be cheaper to grow my own....but the question I found myself asking as I read this book was "how far was I willing to take this?"

In every chapter there's a spot called "Opportunity for Change" for example in "The Chicken and the egg" chapter the are 3 different opportunities for change:

1. buy organic free range eggs
2. buy organic pasturized eggs from the farmers market
3. get your own chickens

I found myself evaluating why we do what we do, and what's the best choice for my family. For example with the eggs. We already are doing #1, we buy organic greenwise eggs from publix.  We definitely could buy eggs from the farmers market, it's just a 45 minute drive from our house on a saturday morning. The third option my husband and I actually talked a lot about after reading this chapter. Could we get chickens? What would our neighbors think? Would our two miniature schnauzers try to eat them? Would they keep us up all night? Then we thought, it would be neat to see the chickens grow, get fresh eggs....but the chicken would probably make a mess, they probably stink, they're probably a lot of work...so the conclusion we made was: we'll continue to buy our organic eggs from the store. Perhaps we'll try #2 and actually buy them from a farmer, or from the farmers market. We'll see! So it's a no on chickens (for now).   What I loved about this book is it had me considering all the options, and not feeling like I have no control of where I get my food and how it's processed. I can be part of process!

The idea of a goat in the garage is hysterical! The goat provides milk, but she warned about the goat being destructive and pulling siding off your house. I am absolutely 100% sure we're not getting a goat.

However she highly encouraged knowing where you food comes from and being part of the process. There are many ways she's doing this, that I can't do (or I choose not to do). I am really excited about the following ideas that I want to eventually try at my house in the coming months.

Here's what I plan to do:

1. Getting a wheat grinder attachment for my kitchen aid mixer to grind my own wheat KitchenAid Stand Mixer Attachment Grain Mill - KGM (Google Affiliate Ad)
2. buying eggs at the farmers market
3. Canning. I'm so excited to try canning (tomato sauce, salsa, jam, fruit, applesauce, pickles to name a few)
4. turning most of my land into a space to grow food. Like fruit trees, vines growing that grow grapes or kiwis, a plentiful herb garden. (she has a whole chapter to help you figure out what produce your family eats most of, and then figuring out how much you need to plant each season. That's such an organized way to garden! I love that idea)
5. composting (i'm still really not sure about this one. I know it's good for the soil, I know it's good to use my leftover table scraps...just not sure about the bugs and stink! I can buy a bag of manure that'll hopefully have the same effect on my garden for $2 at home depot)
6. making my own tea from my garden

So even though there are some ideas in this book that I can't fathom doing (like killing my own hog for meat). I can appreciate and respect the path she's on. I love hearing the heartwarming stories as she experienced trying to live a greener life. I love being on that same journey and I too am going to continue to expand my horizon and find more ways to have Green Moments.

Want to learn more? Annette Cottrell has a blog: sustainableeats.com

Homemade Tomato Sauce

One of our favorites in our home is tomato sauce.  Once a week we'll definitely have whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce. We'll also make a pizza on Thursday or Friday night and use tomato sauce. Let's just say we use a lot of it.

I ALWAYS buy tomato sauce in a jar. I LOVE it! I love having the choice of  "cheese blend", "basil" or "oregano". I just love all the choices.  My favorite place to buy pasta sauce is at Publix, because usually every other week they have a certain kind of pasta sauce on BOGO (Buy one get one free)!  I love a deal! So instead of $2.69 a jar. It works out to be $1.35.

One of the things I love about buying pasta sauce in the jar is having the jar to reuse afterwards! I save them, glue ribbon around them, and spray paint the lid. I use them to store dry goods in my pantry, or to give gifts in. I love these jars!

The jars started out in my pantry like this:

Then I got my creative and made them pretty! I love my pasta sauce jars in my pantry!

Tonight I decided to try my hand at making pasta sauce:

- 4 cloves of garlic sliced

- 1/3 cup olive oil

- 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes

- basil, oregano, salt & pepper to taste

It turned out great! I loved it, what's even better is that my family loved it! It was a hit!  Not only did homemade sauce taste a lot better, it's cheaper to make and much better for you! I looked at one of my jars of pasta sauce and it had 50 grams of sugar in it!  Why on earth would pasta sauce need 50 grams of sugar? That's roughly 12 teaspoons of sugar in that 1 jar!!!! Ridiculous. What I love about making my own sauce, is that I know EXACTLY what is in it.

We made the switch to whole grain pasta about a year ago. It was pretty tough since we loved the white stuff (even though it was bad for us). We made the switch to it during the Daniel Fast. I'm so glad we did. The whole wheat is so much healthier for you. I think if I make the switch to making our own sauce I'm going to miss the pasta sauce jars more than the actual store bought sauce. I'm going to have actually start buying mason jars.

Homemade Applesauce

A few people have inquired about my homemade applesauce made in the crock pot.  I found a killer recipe on Pinterest.   It was SUPER easy, and extremely delicious. This is definitely something you should add to your Autumn Bucket List. If you don't have an Autumn bucket list you need to add "making an autumn bucket list" to your Autumn bucket list. haha!

I didn't follow their recipe exactly. This is how I made the applesauce.  I

8 medium granny smith apples (it made the applesauce tart, which I love! But you could use whatever kind of apples you choose.)

Zest of 1/2 a lemon - use a vegetable peeler

1 tsp fresh lemon juice 

1 tbsp Cinnamon 

5 tsp light brown sugar  (or you can use agave)

1.  Peel, core and chop the apples.

2.  Add the sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice and cinnamon stick.

3.  Set crock pot to low and cook for 5 hours. Stir apples occasionally, apples will slowly become a delicious applesauce.  (I used a whisk, which gave the sauce a nice chunky consistency.)

4.  Can and process as you would other recipes or keep refrigerated up to 3 weeks.

It was delicious! I definitely would never buy store bought applesauce again. It not only tasted good, but was so simple and easy to make!  Try some homemade applesauce yourself. You'll love it, I promise!

This is where I found the recipe for the applesauce:

http://mommymakesitbetter.blogspot.com/2012/04/crock-pot-applesauce.html 

Pumpkin Spice Creamer

Fall is here. I love this time of year. I'm not sure what says Fall to me more than a Pumpkin Spice latte from Starbucks. Last week Starbucks began serving them for the first time this season. I would love them all year round, but they're only available in the fall and they cost close to $5 a piece!

I thought about buying pumpkin spice creamer at the grocery store, but have you ever read the ingredient list? It's a bunch of stuff I can't even pronounce. I'm not even sure if there's even any milk or cream in it. So i hunted on pinterest and I found a pumpkin spice cream recipe. 

Tonight after we got the kids to bed. I got started making my very own pumpkin spice creamer from scratch!

1 cup of organic milk

1 cup of heavy cream milk

4 tablespoons of pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

4 tablespoons maple syrup ( i prefer real maple syrup)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk milk, cream, pumpkin, syrup, and pumpkin spice together over medium heat. When it gets steamy remove from heat and add in the vanilla. Use a strainer to transfer the cream into a glass container! Let it cool down and chill it the refrigerator. 

The recipe was delicious! I will definitely be enjoying my pumpkin spice at home a lot this season.  The only thing I will do differently is put some whipped cream on top & perhaps sprinkle some pumpkin spice sprinkled on top.  Hope you enjoy. It was really simple to make.