Cheesy Lentils and Brown Rice

2 cans stewed tomatoes
1 C chopped onion
1 C brown rice (uncooked)
1 1/2 C lentils (green or brown)
4 C Chicken broth
2 C cheddar cheese
garlic powder to taste (or use some of your Ethiopian spices)

Drain the tomatoes (reserve the liquid) and chop (I chop with my kitchen scissors). Add the tomatoes, their juices and ALL ingredients (except the cheese) in 9x13 and stir well.

Bake at 350 covered for 1-1 1/2 hours or until rice is slightly undercooked and much of the liquid has evaporated. Remove cover add the cheese and cook to melt the cheese.


***I made this to freeze. I did NOT add the cheese, but cooked until the liquid had evaporated and removed from oven. I let it cool in the fridge overnight and put in the freezer until I was ready to use it. You can bring it out to thaw or defrost it in the microwave (I made mine in a Glad reusable container). Then I cooked with foil cover for about 30 min. then added the cheese and melted the cheese. ***

It is yummy topped with sour cream or served with injera.

homemade play dough...and a good way to entertain all the kiddos

One of the challenges for me has been to carve out time with just the big girls. My time and energy is monopolized most of the day by 2 little guys (well - honestly the littlest one in our bunch). I have been trying to skip the nap for mommy when I put the boys down for rest and do something with the girls.

One afternoon, we decided to make some play dough. I have had this recipe for years and have never done it. Not sure why...just too busy, I guess. But when you are cocooning at home and looking for something to do...you bring out all your ideas and try to keep the little ones entertained. This is a fun book with cool recipes for all your homemade goodies. Our next project will be homemade bubbles. I'll let you know how it turns out.
The girls often enjoy working in the kitchen with me and although this was fun, it wasn't quite as fun as making brownies or cupcakes and getting to lick the bowl clean.


I made a REALLY big batch and here is the recipe I used to make enough dough for all the kids to share.

4 cups boiling water
2 cups salt
4 cups all purpose flour
4 tablespoons alum
4 tablespoons veggie oil

Remove the boiling water from the stove and add the salt. In medium bowl mix the rest if the ingredients. Add the salted water and mix the dough. Add food coloring if desired. Kneed it by hand when it has cooled a bit.

Once the boys got up from their rest time, they got to play with it too. I just had to let them know we don't eat it. And as you can imagine around here, I act all of those concepts out to communicate to them what I need to get across.


I love how these kinds of activities bring all the kids together and allows them to bond and connect as siblings.
If you look closely, you will see little man Tate smiling (well, kind of a smile that says "watch out, I am a handful"). He is so fast it is hard to catch him smiling. Well, that and I am using my phone as a camera. I still haven't gotten back to taking the time to uploading real pictures. Good thing I can snap a shot and email it to myself. At least I am documenting our life here at home.

Sunday Salad Spectacular

If I could eat crunchy food today, this is what sounds good to me. Taco Salad. Yum !! I always make it the same way, lettuce, tomato, cheese, black olive, taco seasoned ground beef, Frito chips, topped with catalina dressing.

We eat a lot of salad around here and most of our meals are meatless. I have made this with boca burger meat, but it just isn't the same. I mix it all up together and serve it with the dressing on. Chuck likes his with extra dressing. =) He is all about the condiments.
I am feeling a little bit better today with my mouth. Still very sore and honestly, I haven't eaten much since Wednesday night. Eating even soft food really brings on the pain. On a positive note, it is a good way to shake a few pounds.

I feel like I haven't done anything all weekend and I am hoping to have enough energy to get all the needful done tomorrow. The girls are taking swimming every Monday and Tally heads back to the ortho for an adjustment. BTW, her teeth have responded very well to the braces. Her two front ones look almost normal. (HERE for the beginning picture) We also have another adoption education class tomorrow night, we are working hard at getting all of the requirements done. Hope to get that homestudy done in the next week or 2.

Oh...one last note, I didn't make it to church this morning (thanks to the oral surgery), but I heard Tally volunteered to say the verse from memory up on stage in front of everyone. So proud of her and her confidence. I love that they are hiding God's word in their hearts.

EDAMAME !!!!

My new favorite food from the fresh farm produce. I LOVE it. I had never had it before this year and it has been fun to try something new. I wasn't sure what to do with it. I figured I could cook it up (I use either the microwave or steam or boil it). Then I let it cool a tiny bit and then I enlist the girls for their help. They race to see who can pop it out of the pods the fastest. The looser sets the table.
I have done my usual with it. Stir fry some other veggies ( squash - I have gotten TONS of that this year) and onions. Toss it with whole wheat pasta add the edamame and spinach and top with cashews. For flavor we add soy sauce.



I seriously LOVE this dish. It is yummy. It has a Chinese food taste, and the edamame adds a nutty flavor. Even the kids like it. If my goal for joining the farm produce was to get me to try new things, than it has worked. I now am a fan of edamame.

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies

So honestly, you can't really taste the zucchini in these cookies, they are moist and have more of a cake consistency than regular chocolate chip cookies. If you don't tell your kids, they may never know that you are sneaking in a healthy veggie in their cookies.



I doubled this recipe because I had a HUGE zucchini and it was enough for a double batch. I started off by shredding the zucchini to see how much I had to work with. But here is what the recipe calls for...

1/2 C sugar
1 egg
1/2 C butter
1 C grated zucchini
2 C flour (I used fresh ground soft flour)
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t cloves
1 C chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar together, combine dry ingredients, blend together and stir in zucchini and then chocolate chips. Chill dough for one hour ( I even did mine over night) and bake at 375 for 8-10 min.

I tried baking mine on a stone and then moved to parchment paper. It worked better on the paper and regular tray. And I am still getting used to my oven and it took longer than 10 min. for min. Closer to 12-14 min., but my cookies were pretty big.

Sunday Salad Spectacular (and a scooter update)

This one is a little bit of a salad stretch...but I wanted to share it anyway. And again, I am not sure what to call it. Maybe Tuna Salad Topper (maybe Chuck can help with a creative name).

I learned this from some friends that were from England. If I remember correctly, they said it was common to find a baked potato cart (like a hot dog cart) where you could put different toppings on your potato. It all sounded yummy until they mentioned tuna. That's right...TUNA SALAD on a baked potato.

Let me just say...give it a try. It is actually pretty good. Here we have a baked potato (cooked in the microwave, so it is fast and doesn't heat up the kitchen) and yummy toppings. I topped it with tuna (I like the foil package tuna flavored like herb and garlic), cheese, tomatoes and green onions.

I made this twice this week for lunch when Chuck was home. It sounds kind of odd, but it is surprisingly tasty.

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And just one quick note...the scooter that was stolen last week has been found and is home. It looks like some kids took it and joy rode it (scratches all down the side). What a blessing to have this answer to prayer. Thanks for praying for us. Someone called the police after seeing it behind a vacant building here in our town. Bummer no finger prints were found on it and we don't know who took it (nor will they get punished for it). But alas...it is home.

Sunday Salad Spectacular

Wanted to pass on a recipe (that I kind of made up) for a warm salad. Not sure quite what to call it, I should ask Chuck to come up with a good name, he is creative. This idea came from trying to mix up some of our produce from our crop share program that I mentioned earlier. One of the reasons I wanted to do this crop share, was to force me to widen my recipe repertoire.

I made some bow tie pasta to use as a main filler (to make the meal stretch).

I cooked up some red potatoes and green onions with oil (or butter) and tossed with fresh rosemary. To make this go a little faster I cooked them in the microwave for a few min. (They almost had the consistency of breakfast potatoes).
I add these to toasted pine nuts, raisins, and a diced cooked chicken breast, cooked broccoli (or asparagus). Then I added fresh greens and tossed with olive oil and grated fresh Parmesan cheese.

I have made this a few times now and everyone seems to love it. I think the pine nuts really make it taste great. Hope you are inspired.

blessings after discouragement

We have gotten 4 estimates on the fallen tree and after some sticker shock of what it will cost to cut up and haul away just the stuff on the ground, we decided to do as much of it ourselves as we could.

We got out there yesterday after throwing a party for 9 little girls in the morning and worked in the rain. Needless to say, we are TIRED. But we are also blessed. My parents came to help. Our next door neighbors came out to help and so did the neighbor behind the tree.
We used up one chain saw yesterday until it locked up and now needs some repair. And this morning a neighbor went and rented another one so we could work some more. We worked again for hours this morning and afternoon. Kids, grandparents, moms and dads all working together. It felt a little like an old fashion barn raising. Neighbor helping neighbor. What a beautiful and unexpected blessing after a tragic tree day.


The news so far is to try and save the rest of the tree. It will cost quite a bit to thin it out and lessen the weight of the top of the tree. Again, not money we were looking forward to spending, but it is all God's money and we are following where He leads us.After the kids were done working, they played in the creek. With all this rain, we have quite a little creek forming at the back of the yard. We were all drenched after working so hard and it was good to go in and get some homemade potato soup. Recipe HERE.
I did manage to come in this afternoon and sleep for about 4 hours on the couch. I guess I was pretty tired. Yep...tired and sore...but grateful and blessed.

The Tale of the Turkey Tetrazzini

OK friends, I am sorry I didn't take a picture of this meal. It did turn out great. I will make it again and then add the picture if I think of it. I got a new recipe book at Christmas (I bought it for myself at a scholastic book fair). And everything in that book looks fantastic. I really wanted to try the turkey tetrazzini but I didn't have any turkey. At the store (late one night this week) I found a fresh turkey breast on sale (that needed to be cooked by the next day) and snagged it. Got up early, made the turkey breast and took all the meat off. I boiled down the "bird" to make stock and got some more meat off for soup (that is now frozen for another time). I froze about half of the breast meat for anther meal, and took the rest to make the turkey tetrazzini. Being the homeschooling mom that I am, I took this as an opportunity to show the girls that math really is needed. I told them that the turkey was about $12 (I rounded up) and if I made 3 meals out of it, how much was each meal going to cost. Tally quickly figured out $4 each. And then I said, what if I didn't boil it down and make soup, I would have only gotten 2 meals out of it. The she figured out $6 for each meal. I also took this as a chance to show them that nothing creepy was going into this dish. Basically turkey, noodles, sauce and cheese. I think they are more likely to eat "new" foods if I show them it is all safe.

All that to say...here is the version of the recipe that we made the other night (with my tweaks to it).

1 - 2 1/2 cups of cooked turkey (or chicken) diced
1 T minced dried onions
1/4 t tabasco
1/4 t marjoram
1 (10 oz) can cream chicken soup
1 (13 oz) can evaporated milk
1 (8 oz) package spaghetti -
broken and cooked according to package
4 0z cheddar cheese
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese


Combine the turkey, onions, tabasco, marjoram, soup and milk and mix well. Divide the cooked noodles into 3 parts. Cover bottom of 9 x 13 greased dish with 1/2 of the noodles. Then add half of the turkey mixture. Then add half the cheddar cheese. Repeat - noodles, turkey mix, cheese, then we added the parmesan cheese. We covered ours with foil so the noodles wouldn't dry out. Cooked between 30-45 min. at 400. (I might have done 350 because I think my oven is a little hot). Let it stand for 10 before serving.

I served mine with cesar salad and green beans. I seriously had to step away from this meal...yummy...or I would have finished the turkey tetrazzini right out of the dish.

I am really trying to make healthy foods

After living in a temporary home for 3 months and feeling like I couldn't really make much for my family...I have a renewed vision for feeding my family. Not to mention making snacky meals while Chuck was living in another state and I only had to make dinner for the girls and I. I needed the boost, for I have been in a bit of food slump for awhile. I feel like I make the same 10-15 meals and I am getting a bit tired of it. This year one of my goals was to have half of our meal be fruits and veggies. I have spent some of my free (which, let's be honest - I don't really have free time right now) time pouring over recipe books (one of my favorite things to read) and I am making a menu and working off of that for my shopping and meals. I thought by putting it out there it might make me feel a little accountable for it.


I tried a new recipe for roasted veggies. I got the recipe from another blog (HERE). I didn't use exactly the veggies that it called for, but when I was shopping that week, half of my carriage at the store was full of produce.
Here it is before I roasted it. I am loving this stoneware. Everything turns out great in it.
I made this with a few other new recipes that night. I will post later about the whole wheat french bread (yum).

Last night I made turkey tetrazzini (another new recipe) and we all loved it. If I hadn't had company over for dinner I would have taken a picture of that too. =)

So, I will try and post some recipes that I have tried and liked. Maybe I can inspire someone else out there who is in a food slump. Any fantastic healthy recipes that you have I would love for you to share. Bring it on, inspire me. =)

EASY (whole wheat) drop biscuits

I am trying to widen my repetoire of meal options. The truth is, I buy the same things at the grocery store each week and we tend to eat the same meals. Part of my dilema is that Chuck is not here to enjoy the food and the girls have a minimalistic way of eating. Seriously, 2 chicken nuggets is about all Tristen would eat (not that I ever serve those around here).

So I thought I would try some new things (my nephews are coming for Thanksgving and I can only imagine that 1/4 of a cup of dry cereal wont fill them up like it would for Tissy). Here is the easy recipe for drop biscuits.

2 Cups freshly milled flour (hard white)
1 Tbs. baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup oil
1 cup milk

Mix together the dry ingredients, make a well in the middle. Combine oil and milk. Pour liquid into well and mix with the dry ingredients. Drop by scoop or spoon onto greased cookie sheet (or parchment paper). Bake at 425 for 10 min. Makes about 1 dozen.

This is the recipe from the Break Beckers book that I got with my mill. Because I am using fresh milled wheat, it has the added benefits of being a whole grain. While these were baking I cooked up some little sausage patties to go inside. Move over McDonald's sausage biscuit, same idea but better for you. Pretty hearty breakfast and very inexpensive. I think it would fill up any growing boy.

This morning, Tristen was my baking helper. We ended up making our biscuits big and only made 9 instead of 12. They were great for lunch with butter and jam.

Sorry my pictures are so fuzzy this time. Must have been poor lighting.

Homemade Crayons

I got this idea from my friend Debi who watched my girls last week. They had such a nice time there and I was so impressed that the girls did some crafts while they were there. They made crayons out of broken pieces. We gave it a try tonight and it worked pretty well.

We pealed and broke the crayons and put them in muffin cups (I would have used double cup liners next time or better yet, foil muffin liners). We melted them in the 325 oven for 5-8 min. and let them cool for a few hours. ( would link to Debi's post on this but I think her blog is private ~ hers turned out really cute).


I think these would be great for little fingers (pre-school age). The colors are so pretty. And, a great way to use up old broken crayons.

homemade whole wheat tortillas

Chuck requested homemade whole wheat tortillas for his birthday this month. Since I have never made them before, I figured I needed to try a few batches to perfect my recipe (I tried this recipe HERE). I love learning new things, and this was the first time I have attempted fresh milled whole wheat tortillas (or any tortillas for that matter). {Fresh milled post HERE}I figured it wasn't worth getting the big Bosch mixer out for these. I just mixed them by hand.
I was interested in trying this recipe because it calls for flax meal (ground flax seed). Flax seed is great for heart health and also for asthma. Notice from the picture I also use "real salt" which hasn't been processed as much as regular salt.After mixing and letting the dough rest, you divide into balls and let them rest again.
Rolling out the tortillas. Getting a 10 inch round one wasn't really happening. I just embraced the "natural" look of these.













Cooking the tortillas on a dry skillet. Notice the picture on the left has the bubbles that let you know that they are ready to turn.
I served these tonight and they were pretty good for the first try. The girls always like their with cheese or peanut butter. I made a wrap with mine stuffed with chicken and cheese. It was great, not to mention filling. One tortilla really filled me up.

Basic Bread Recipe

I have mentioned before that I make our own bread and I wanted to share the recipe that I use to make it. (Click HERE to show pictures of the pizza and milling the wheat.) Lately I have accidentally let the bread rise a little too long and that has resulted in the bubble at the top. It doesn't hurt anything, it just doesn't look as pretty. I use this basic bread recipe for bread, pizza dough, cinnamon rolls...it is pretty universal.

1 1/2 cups of hot water
1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup honey
2 t salt
1 egg (optional)
2 T lecithin
1 t gluten (optional)
4-5 cups fresh milled flour (approximate)
1 T yeast

Combine water, oil, honey, salt, egg. Add lecithin, gluten, 2 cups flour. Mix thoroughly. Add yeast and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic (about 2-3 min in my Bosch ~longer in kitchen aid.) Shape and let rise until double. Recipe makes 2 loaves.

350 for 25-30 min for bread (a little shorter for cinnamon rolls and pizza)

For the cinnamon rolls I roll out the dough, use 1/2 stick of butter melted and spread over the dough. Then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.