7 or So Layer Bean Dip

This can be any number of layers you want.  Just start with the bottom layer of beans and add whatever you like!  SUPER tasty!  In fact – sometimes I just make this dip and that’s dinner, one of my husbands favorite.  This time I brought the dip into the front room, set it on the floor with a towel under it and announced we were having a picnic in the front room for dinner.  The kids were delighted! (hey its Jan in ID – too cold to go outside for much right now)  It was a fun family activity.  So here is how I did the one in the picture. (sorry about it being half eaten – dinner didn’t make it into the front room before everyone started eating it! I guess that means the really like it!)

Bottom Layer to Top Layer.

Beans – Vegetarian Canned (you fart less if you eat the Vegetarian canned beans)

Sour Cream – full fat enjoy this mean

Avocado mashed in a bowl with a fork

Salsa

Cheese

Sliced Green Onions

Sliced Olives

You can also add things like

Cooked ground beef

Guacamole

Peppers

Canned corn

Chopped Tomatoes

What ever you and your family likes, toss it in. 

Makes a great party dip, and once in awhile dinner.

Optima D34/78 YellowTop battery

Usually I am all about a good bargain.  But in life there are some things I just wont scrimp on, cars and car parts being some of them.  If it is hauling my family around I want it as safe and reliable as possible.  My family loves cars. We love engines.  To that end we love what we put in them.  I always laugh when I watch car shows and people lift the hood and they have a wimpy battery when they went all out with everything else.

You don’t need a super racer, you can put it in your daily driver if you want too.

I know how to jump a car if I have too.  But I don’t WANT to, and I defiantly don’t want it to happen while I have the kids with me.  So here is one of my recommendations Optima D34/78 YellowTop battery.  It rocks, enjoy!

* If you are going to buy this battery please click on the link to Amazon on the side bar on the right.  If you purchase through that link, then we will get a percentage of the purchase and it will help our family, and help us pay for college! Thank you for looking!

The Happiest Baby on the Block

The Happiest Baby on the Block is a DVD and BOOK. This is the BEST DVD and book. Its by a UCLA Pediatric Dr who kept seeing shaken baby syndromes, and couldn’t understand why, because many other countries don’t have this problem! He did 30 years of researching how other countries raise and handle there babies and came up with the 5 S’s. These are 5 things to do to sooth your crying baby. A quick overview .. Swaddle tightly, Shhhhh (in there ears), Side (holding not laying them down), shake (not for real, its like a gentle giggle), and Suck (pacifier). For a quick preview you can see some of it on YouTube, HOWEVER you absolutely need to buy the DVD because it has 3 sound tracks on it, to duplicate the noise your baby heard in the womb. One is really loud to calm them down from a crying fit, one is a med noise to calm for just gentle crying, and the last one is 40 mins long of gentle womb noises to help them sleep. I PROMISE they work great! We have used it with both our children and the cry less and sleep longer and both our kids were breast fed. This is the BEST DVD and Book to have if you want to have a happy baby and get more sleep yourself!

So I suggest getting the DVD LONG before the baby comes, watch it a bunch of times and PRACTICE swaddling on dolls – it helps! Then buy the book and the book goes into a lot of detail as to WHY these things work so well. By educating yourself as to why these actions work, you will be better able to understand what your baby needs.

You will be a better parent for having watched this DVD, reading this book and implementing it in your family’s lives.

There is also a second book for “The Happiest Toddler on the Block” it works too!

Good Luck and go have a Happy Baby!

* If you are going to buy this book or DVD please click on the link to Amazon on the side bar on the right. If you purchase through that link, then we will get a percentage of the purchase and it will help our family, and help us pay for college! Thank you for looking!

Green Chili Pie (for Breakfast or Brunch)

This is a favorite breakfast food around our house. Mostly sat mornings or it I have time Sundays too! As you can see it went faster then I could take a picture of it!

In a glass backing dish (make sure to spray cause this sticks)

1 7 oz can of diced green chilies (I use 2)

½ lb grated cheddar cheese (I just do a giant plateful)

1 dozen eggs, beaten (you can use less if you don’t have 12)

Spread Chiles on the bottom of the dish. Then lay the shredded cheese on top of the chilies – should be a layer about ½ inch of cheese (loose not packed) Pour beaten eggs evenly over the cheese.

Bake at 350 F about 30-45 mins. I usually do 40 and its fine. Cut and serve, it comes out real hot, so you have to allow time for cooling too. Enjoy!

Bridal & Baby Shower Chicken Salad

This was served at both my kids Baby Showers and is just a fun party / gathering food. Takes a bit of preparation but oh so worth it!

1T oil (I use Veggie Oil)

1 chicken breast (cooked and shredded) – I used 3 Sam’s Club cans once it was fine

¼ c minced onions

½ c fine chopped celery

¼ t ginger (I didn’t have this once and left it out, tasted fine w/o)

1 c mayonnaise

¼ c red wine vinegar

1 ½ t soy sauce

½ to 1 t curry powder depends on your taste

1 8 oz can sliced water chestnuts (I chop them up even more)

1 c chopped pecans (walnuts work fine too)

1 c sliced red grapes

Slice chicken into chunks or shred. Toss oil, onions, celery, ginger, mayonnaise, vinegar, soy sauce and curry powder together. Add chicken, water chestnuts, grapes and pecans, toss again. Serve on rolls. Need to be soft or squishy rolls, croissants are the best (buy the huge package at Costco or Sam’s Club.

Artichokes boiled in a Pot

This is one of my all time favorite meals. Clean your artichokes by running them under hot water. Turn them sideways and chop off the bottom just at the base where the steam starts (don’t chop too far up on the blossom)

Put in a pan with about 1-2 inches of water.

Add about a cup of lemon juice for 3-4 artichokes

Then shake Tabasco Sauce on it to taste. I like a lot.

Garlic salt to taste

Black pepper to taste

Bring to a boil and then a good simmer for approx 45 mins.

Turn the artichoke upside down and stick a fork in the bottom, if it slides in easily its done. Put it on a plate and let it cool off.

Serve with a small bowl with mayonnaise in it and you take a leaf off, use it like a scoop and put a tad of mayonnaise on the bottom of the leaf. Put the leaf in your mouth the curved side of the leaf up (like a spoon). About half way up the leave gently bit down – you are not trying to bite the leaf in half just grab firmly with your teeth, then pull the leaf out and your teeth will scarp the “meat” of the leaf. Do this for all the leaves.

One you eat all the outside leaves, you will get to a point where the leaves are too flimsy and no more meat. Now grab the top and bottom parts of the blossom and bend gently and take the top off the bottom. You will see the “choke” of the artichoke. This is BAD BAD BAD to eat! Take a spoon and scoop out the choke with ONE scoop of the spoon (takes practice to do it in one scoop) you through that part out and put the spoon in the sink or dishwasher right away. Now look close to make sure you got all the choke out. Then (this is the BEST part – so worth all the effort!) you can dip the bottom part of the blossom that was just above the stem in the mayonnaise and eat it! SO Yum!

Homemade Italian Bread Sticks yum!

I got this recipe off an you tube channel I enjoy watching! Thank you Noreen! She is also the one who really inspired me to go ahead and try canning. LOVE watching her cooking and recommend that channel. (http://www.youtube.com/user/atticus9799)

Anyways I got my new Kitchenaid mixer for my 11^th wedding anniversary (I wanted one the whole 11 years!) this was one of the first recipe’s I tried. LOVE it. Enjoy!

In your mixer

3c flour (I tried both bread flour and all purpose flour both are fine)

Add

3T instant yeast

1t salt

1t sugar

1 ¼ c warm water (approx 110-115 degrees F)

1 ½ T Olive Oil

Put on your dough hook for your mixer, lock it down, and turn it on low. Mix about 4 mins. Until the dough starts coming away from the side. Put Olive Oil around a bowl (just use your hands to make sure the bread wont stick to the bowl) and then rub your oily hands all over your ball of dough and place it in the bowl and cover, lets it rise for about 5 mins (builds the glutens)

Oil the backing sheet you are using to cook it on. Preheat oven to 350 degree F.

Place dough on backing sheet and press down and out with your hands filling up the sheet at approximately the same height all around. Put a bit more olive oil on top of the spread out dough. Season with what ever you want! I use

-garlic powder

-Italian seasonings

-sea slat

-parmesan cheese (NOT that giant green bottle – get the shredded real stuff in the refrigerated section! Much more yum!)

Back for 15 mins. EAT!

33 lbs of tomatoes makes 15 pints of spaghetti sauce

I really wanted to can my own spaghetti sauce this season, so I looked and looked for the best price I could get on tomatoes and then got to work. (BTW at WinCo I got tomatoes on the vine for .78 cents a pound! WOOHOOO) I couldn’t find a canning recipe that sounded just what I wanted. I had made one batch before this, but the directions called for coring the tomatoes too and I only got 4 pints out of it. So after researching on the internet and tweaking the recipe a tiny bit …. I made this! WONDERFUL!

I blanched the tomatoes and tossed them in ice water and pealed them (took two hours to do 33 pounds!) then I cut out the blossom end, cut them in half and squeezed out the juice and put them in a bowl.

Take a whole white onion (big) chop it up small and then cook in a bit of olive oil until translucent or golden brown, add them to your tomato mixture.

Then I put them on the stove, to cook off some of the excess moister and by cooking and stirring the tomatoes break up into a sauce (if its not go ahead and use your potato masher) When you like the consistency of your sauce, then add the spices and don’t forget to add lemon juice to raise the acidy if you are going to can in the water bath …. If you are pressures canning you don’t need to add the lemon juice. If you add meat to your sauce it HAS to be pressure canned, so if you don’t have a pressure canner and want to have meat in your sauce just cook it up that day and add it to the sauce when you heat it up on the stove.

Scoop into your sterilized jars and leave about ½ inch headspace. Water bath for 30 mins (adjusting for your altitude – I have to add 10 mins to everything I can)

We also made a home made pizza dough and then made a pizza with this sauce, YUMM!

Banana Carrot Muffins YUM!

Well I am trying to save money by making things from scratch and not mixes. I am also trying to cut out unnecessary ingredients and dyes. Well that had lead me on a search for more yummy recipes! This one is a HUGE hit with the family! It takes some prep, like buy the bananas a week early so they are nice and brown when you are ready to use them. Also I get carrots on sale and buy a lot and then just spend an hour or so shredding them and putting them into plastic baggies and freezing them for later. But that is the two most time consuming parts of this recipe!

2 C white whole wheat flour or sprouted wheat flour.
1 t Baking Soda
½ t salt
½ t ground cinnamon
1 ¼ cups mashed bananas
1 C brown sugar
¼ C veg. oil
2 eggs
1 C finely grated carrots
½ C chopped pecans.

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Lightly grease pan or use muffin tins

Mix together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and set aside.

I a large mixing bowl combine the Banana’s, sugar, oil and eggs. Beat at Med speed. Stir in dry ingredients, then fold in carrots and nuts. Fill into muffin tins and bake for 25 to 28 mins.

Cool on rack, makes 12 muffins!

Canning You Should Do it too!

OK to be very honest I never ever had the intension of canning, nor did really know that much about it. Well in the last year we moved from sunny southern California (in the big city of LA) to a small town in Idaho. Let’s just say … social complexities changed. Here it’s a way of life to can. There is even a season to do it! WHO KNEW?

Well it sounded like a good idea and almost all of my new friends canned something in some way or another. So I decided to give it ago too. And staying true to my own form … I went all out. I got a recipe book and read it almost from cover to cover. I hopped on line to learn even more. I started watching YouTube videos to watch people can. I was hooked.

And as I was canning this season I had a lot of my friends on my FB page say, well you don’t have a garden so you really aren’t saving that much money. But that type of comment got me to thinking. True … this year was expensive because I had to buy everything! But I did get better then supermarket prices when I bought straight from the famers, and I was supporting a farm directly. I felt good about that. And I got to talk to the person who grew the food I was feeding my family. I liked that. Then when I prepared the food and canned it myself I know (and can pronounce) every ingredient that went into my food AND I know what it does. I LOVED that.

I am trying to feed my family healthier foods. That is my main goal. Second is to cut out all unnecessary non food items in our food. My husband jokes “there is no food in my food” and that scares me! And saving money really is kind of fare down on the list. I will admit it is a necessity in our family finances to save money. But by this years canning extravaganza, I have learned a lot that I would not know if I hadn’t been researching the canning.

I have a few farmers I can go to next year, for different foods. I found out my dad has a couple of very expensive pickling crocks, so next year we will preserve some pickles too! I found a place where we can rent land for the growing season, and we will have our own garden too next year. Next year, we WILL be saving a lot of money, and having the taste of summer all winter long.

So, yes I think you should can. Support local growers, and know what is in the food you are feeding your family. I feel a great sense of accomplishment when I open my pantry doors and see all the food I canned. I feel good when my family eats it because I KNOW it isn’t bad for them. And yes, I will be saving money too.…. Next year!