Raising Cubs in a Campground

I've made other granola's before but nothing compares to the flavor of the one I found at The Kitchen Sink. Kristin's whole site is FULL of wonderful mouthwatering recipes so be sure to visit and see what she's been up to recently! The photo below shows the version I came up with but check out the link above for the real deal. I do have a few recipes posted on this little ol' blog - pie, chili, chicken pot pie, beef barley soup, and probably a couple of others. It's nice to know that I can always look up the family favorites on my blog when I can't find them in the recipe drawer. Do you make granola too? Mix & bake at 375 degrees, stirring every 10 minutes. (I cooked mine 25 minutes, but should have only cooked it 20) Kristin suggests a foil lined pan but we don't use aluminum at our house so I sprayed a little olive oil on my Pampered Chef roasting pan and that worked like a charm!

Lindsay hosts Tasty Tuesday over at Our Lives in a Nutshell ...you know, when she's not on bed-rest or dealing with the worst flood in over a hundred years. So far their basement is staying dry, but one look at the pictures she's posted and you can see first hand that her town has quite a fight on their hands. May God continue to protect your precious family Lindsay! We are slowly but surely trying to weed out the additives, preservatives, and unpronounceable ingredients from our diet. When it came to Taco Tuesday* night I was dropping the ball. The packets of taco seasoning you buy at the store have MSG in them. It bugged me that I was knowingly putting it into my family's bodies. So on my last trip to the grocery store I bought a few new spices and tried making taco seasoning from scratch. It wasn't hot by any means, but it was certainly tasty enough. I think next time I mix a batch I'll add more cumin and possibly more chili powder. Don't want it to ...

My blogging friend Lindsay hosts Tasty Tuesday and I have a beef stew recipe to share. A winning combo if I've ever seen one! After taking the kids skiing yesterday we enjoyed some leftover stew. (That's the secret.) It gets thicker after you reheat it. We almost always make a double batch so we are guaranteed to have leftovers. Taken from my More With Less Cookbook: Oven Beef Stew Shake in Bag* - 2 T flour, 1 t salt, 1/4 t pepper, 1 lb beef cubes Heat in skillet - 2 T shortening (I use olive oil instead) Brown beef cubes, then place in greased casserole dish (I use a glass dish that doesn't need to be greased.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees Add 2 c. tomato juice** 1 onion, chopped 1/2 t. dried basil Cover and bake 1 hour Add 4 small/medium potatoes and 3 carrots, cut into 1" pieces (This is a good point to reevaluate whether there is enough liquid in the dish. Lots will cook away so add more juice at this point to stretch the recipe further if you want.) Bake 1...

Jenn hit the nail on the head with her comment on my previous post. The beauty of this recipe is that it only dirties the mixer, bread pans, one kettle, and the measuring cups/spoons. Here's the recipe straight out of the More with Less Cookbook: (I'll add my two cents at the end.) Combine in large mixer bowl: 3 cups whole wheat flour 1/2 cup sugar 2 T salt 3 pkg dry yeast Heat in saucepan until very warm (120-130 degrees): 2 cups water 2 cups milk 1/2 cup oil Add to dry ingredients: warmed liquids 2 eggs Blend at low speed until moistened. Beat 3 minutes at medium speed. Stir in by hand. Add 5-6 cups white flour Use enough flour to form a stiff batter. Cover and let rise until double. Stir down and spoon into 2 greased 9x5 inch bread pans. Let rise 20-30 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes. I wouldn't consider this a true whole wheat recipe since there's more white flour than wheat. At the point where you add 5-6 cups white flour, if I have enough wheat ...

During the summer (when these pics were taken) we spent part of Mondays making bread in an effort to eat healthier and save money . I wish I could say I kept up with that tradition, but alas, I've returned to buying bread from the store. (We still make these muffins though.) Without any good way to store the loaves they were getting moldy too fast and I've yet to figure out a way to slice the bread so I can use it for sandwiches. It probably has something to do with the recipe I use, but I don't have a bread board either so I can't use a recipe that requires kneading. Does anyone have a good sandwich friendly no-knead recipe? It was fun while it lasted and I think the kids got a lot out of it. They practiced taking turns. They worked on motor skills when they dumped the ingredients. They learned that you have to work for what you want. They practiced their math skills. They learned to be patient. They learned that things you make yourselves always taste better. If y...

Hi. My name is Carrie and until last week I'd never cooked a whole chicken before. Phew! That felt good to get off my chest! I felt like the only woman in her thirties who hadn't plopped a bird in a giant pot of boiling water before. If you were like me, let me be the first to tell you that there's nothing to it! Don't be a chicken! Buy yourself some bone-in chicken (or in our case, thaw a bird given to us from Brian's cousin's farm), control your gag reflex as you cut it into manageable pieces, and prepare yourself to eat some of the most delicious chicken. All you have to do is keep an eye on it so it doesn't boil over and when the meat is no longer pink and is falling off the bone, times up! I strained the broth, let it sit in the refrigerator for a day so the fat would harden at the top, and picked the meat off the bones to use in various recipes throughout the week. Brian made a big pot of chicken noodle soup a couple days ago and I swear it taste...

We're potty training Julia almost a year earlier than Sam and to be perfectly honest it's because we are trying to cut our expenses as much as possible. More than ever before I'm glad we invested in cloth diapers to fill in the gaps while she's training. So where does the More with Less lesson come in? Instead of buying candy as a reward for going in the potty I bought a bag of these TollHouse treats. I get more candy and spend less money AND I indulge my sweet tooth at night with a small handful. I'm also getting more with less by using the old fashioned Gerber plastic pants instead of the fancier diaper covers. For less than the price of one cover I get three (better fitting) ones. Other reasons we've decided to start potty training is that she talks so well and it's much easier to train in the summer months. It would be silly to wait until next summer. She's totally on board now so why wait? With the warm weather we're having she simply ...

A few weeks ago I did a post about how my family has made some significant changes to our diet, to what food we choose to buy, and how to get/do more with less. Other than my persistent sweet tooth (see yesterday's post), I'm happy with our new lifestyle. Sam is eating veggies like he hasn't since I made homemade baby food for the first year of his life, nobody is eating processed crackers or snacks anymore, and the kids are learning how to bake. (I think they are learning more from the process but that's different post.) Besides our weekly bread making ritual we've made Refrigerated Bran Muffins from my More with Less Cookbook. Place in bowl: 2 c. ready-to-eat bran cereal Pour over: 2 c. boiling water Set aside to cool Cream together in large mixing bowl: 1 c shortening 1 1/2 c. sugar 4 eggs Add and beat in: 1 qt buttermilk* soaked bran mixture *If you're like me and don't keep buttermilk on hand you can make your own For each 1 cup buttermilk called...

There are things that are unique about this summer that I don't want to fall between the cracks in my memory. For the fun of it, what are some of your favorite memories of the summer so far? Here are mine: This is the summer of getting back on the water after 2 long years. ...watching Sam get the hang of tennis (and baseball) the summer the kids became playmates instead of just siblings The summer we went to the beach almost every day The first summer we had friends over to frolic in "our" lake The summer it was a real treat to go anywhere because of $4 a gallon gas (Como Zoo) The first summer that I was home with only my kids. Stay at home mom? Not even close. Photography or park work keeps me hopping. The summer we had cool weather well into June the summer Sam flew a kite all by himself the summer we got extra time with Daddy now that he works 10 minutes from home * The wedding anniversary we celebrated at a bar...with the kids * The summer of two playgroups at loc...

...don't go well with rising food prices. At the beginning of the month when I swore off a diet consisting almost entirely of processed foods I didn't realize the scope of the challenge I was taking on. I knew it would be hard to give up the junk food, but what I didn't realize was how difficult it would be to find a variety of healthy alternatives that we could fill our tummies without emptying our bank account. Over the past three weeks I've picked up a few things that I thought I'd share with anyone else out there who's looking for healthy and affordable options. It's nothing fancy, but what do expect for a $50 a week food budget? Please keep in mind some items carry over from other weeks shopping trips. The goal is to coordinate meals that will use every last mushroom, green pepper, and leaf of lettuce before they go bad in my crisper drawer AND to make things my picky children husband will eat. Spaghetti with whole wheat pasta.- I buy one of the ...