30 cups down

Since I've been both frantically and passively working on prepping my kitchen freezer and my parents for stress free new baby time the past 36 hours have been broth creation. Roasting beef bones to then stew overnight to add veggies from the freezer stockpile of veggie odds and ends this morning. All told there was 30ish cups , which is over 7 pots of really big stews/soups /rice flavoring. We made up a chili with it this evening and sent the rest off to the freezer depths. The most torturous bit was waking up to the amazing smells and not actually having any food involved with it yet!

Hopefully it makes my life a little bit easier for the initial hurdles.

Quinoa de hummus

Very filling and nutritious and vegetarian, vegan even? Huh, I was just out of feta which I heard went well with the spinach/quinoa /chickpea conglomerate. So almond butter and extra salt and garlic for mine!

1 cup quinoa
1 can chickpeas
1 cup pureed spinach
Juice of a small lemon
2 tblspn tahini
1 heaping tblspn almond butter
2 tsp garlic powder (or more, your taste)
Salt and pepper
2 tblspn olive oil

After time the next day it was still a fleet of garlic, vampires beware !

Tears of curry fry

Start with your oil and make it the flavor base of the dish. My case was for lots of cloves of garlic and a medium sized serrano pepper.

 We added lots of veggies and I even forgot the green beans of course but everyone went through until there was a bare few bites left, so success! Plus capsaicin is good for your immune system or something like that of course. Veggies of the evening were half a bag of little carrots slimmed down to slivers,  2 bell peppers, 1 onion, 2 heads of bok choy. Is that the phrase? A head of bok choy? Or would it be a bundle? Parcel? Anyway, add the bottom portion of the bok choys in with the veggies and stir in the top tender portions a bit later so they don't wilt to death.

Proof of leftovers, we were all a bit starved beforehand.

Disclaimer, it made everyone cry and sniffle except for the wimp of the family who managed to go last and not pick up a single pepper flake!

Bonbons until you drop

There is a family month long mess at the house starting in December. For years we have made pounds of candy and send out batches to other relatives and friends.  It's time consuming but the easiest stuff once you get a groove.  My sister and I roll out the confection while someone dips them in chocolate,  taking breaks to let the peanut butter chill out again.  We would roll them up while watching movies/ chatting, the whole holiday cheer! The recipe is simple but it will be long in the making. We've also deterred from our traditional set by making almond butter or white chocolate or peppermint variations. They freeze well but we've never seen any make it too terribly long !

Adaptation

Years ago I found a recipe for blueberry muffins that used pecan meal as a flour replacer in some gluten free muffins. They were so soft and moist and used a lot less sugar which was a bonus for my partly diabetic audience. Knowing that it is indeed possible I went searching yesterday for a similar recipe including pumpkin.  Nothing like what I wanted! So I searched up some paleo banana nut muffins and did the Magical substitutions.
2 cups smashed pecans and walnuts (try to make sure some looks like ground nut meal)
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp Baking soda
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup almond milk
1 cup pumpkin
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 tblspn molasses

Mix dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients, combine. Bake for 25 minutes on 350. It's a muffin, you know the drill. Stuff your face!

Cornbread and beeeeefy chili

Cornbread is a food group, part vegetable part whole grain, you just can't go wrong. Add some stew beef style chili and it's a match made in heaven. Especially since it is getting to be that chilly time of year where soups and thick stews are oh so necessary.

Southern soul

This is beyond yummy, pecan shortbread cookie bars ! I was skeptical at the limited amount of butter but they turned out crumbly but delicious.

Pecans are a must at Christmas for me, frosted pecans are up later in the week and a batch of pecan/walnut muffins (they turn out super moist as a gluten free muffin which is how I discovered them). Get all the omegas and whatnots? Plus I saw some paleo granola that involved just roasting a bunch of different variety of nuts and binding them together with sunflower oil, which was actually pretty tasty. So there's a trial for that coming up.

Dawn of the First Day

Well I only sort of woke at dawn, I managed to finally drift back off by then. But first day's business has been to get emails of the  ten bazillion variety unsubscribed from. This new exciting life as a stay at home mom means I'm getting things in gear! I hope, I have two months to get a system in place before my new planetoid comes to wobble the whole solar system. Sounds like a working deal, right?

What goes on popcorn?

Nutella and almond butter popcorn?

Yeah.

Absolutely, then sprinkle a little salt and tell yourself you are letting it dry before eating as you stand there with a spoon scooping it into your face because then you can make it stir around the pan and coat easier, right?

I used maybe 3/4 cup of almond butter nutella concoction , stirring them into the last bits of the almond butter jar. Which when I microwaved I discovered that the little bits of aluminum safety seal were indeed still flammable when partnered with said microwave. But since both were already goopy it's all good and I only burned a little bit of the container that I was emptying of contents anyway. Move to microwave safe container next time, then it will spread out more evenly across the popcorn.

Transitions

Sometimes life changes,  big or small.

Best way to engage these changes is with a good yummy start to the day, try it. It's hard to be grumpy after good things have had a one, two punch.