After daily nagging encouragement on My 1/2 Dozen Daily to try Green Monster Smoothies, I finally had the incentive I needed: wilty spinach and soft grapes. I pulled out my blender and finally made a smoothie! In the above smoothie I used: 1 cup of cranberry pomegranate juice 1 scoop of rice based vanilla proteinRead More

I almost didn’t share this recipe with you. I tasted it about 15 minutes after it came out of the oven and I wasn’t crazy about it or its appearance. My kids liked it; my daughter even went so far as to say she preferred it to regular oatmeal scotchies, but she prefers “wholesome snacks”,Read More

This recipe is inspired by my Hummingbird Cake recipe. I decided to make it just a little bit healthier, so I wasn’t serving my kids cupcakes for breakfast.  I used a combination of heartier flours (I chose gluten free flours, but feel free to experiment with whole wheat flours). I also used unrefined sweeteners and replaced the oilRead More

I chose to play in the garden on my first day back from vacation instead of restocking the refrigerator, so the first couple days of this menu are pantry/freezer meals. My husband did make an emergency store run for milk, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and dark chocolate M&M’s. I will reluctantly return to my schedule ofRead More

When we vacation, I try to make arrangements so that we do not have eat every meal at a restaurant. We usually stay in a hotel that has at least a small refigerator and microwave, so we can prepare some simple meals in the hotel. Occasionally, we are fotunate enough to have a small kitchenRead More

Each week I participate in Food Waste Friday hosted by The Frugal Girl. Monitoring my food waste, and documenting it with a picture, keeps me accountable and motivates me to remain vigilant in my goal to minimize, if not eliminate, food waste in my household. I planned so carefully this week to use up allRead More

In less than a week, we head to San Diego for a much overdue family vacation. So this week our menu is driven by the need to eat all of the perishable items before we leave. We have a lot of fruit, vegetables, and Grilled Chicken on hand. Some of the items can be frozen,Read More

My menu plans have changed a lot over the years; primarily to meet the needs of my family. I have done once a month planning and cooking, a bimonthly rotation, a weekly plan that included breakfast and lunch, and a very loose plan where we had certain planned nights (i.e. Italian, Mexican, Pizza, salad, etc.),Read More

I have found that time passes quickly if I read blogs on my phone whenever I am in a situation where I have to wait for a while (and blogs are so much more informative and entertaining than the magazines in waiting rooms). Below is a list of some of my favorites posts from theRead More

I am afraid that I spent more time feeding all of the animals on our property yesterday than I did my family. After fixing the horses heated water buckets, my husband jumped in and made waffles. There was much snacking on cookies and cocoa and we made a dinner of leftovers and popcorn, so nobodyRead More

I experimented with making jam from frozen strawberries from last fall’s harvest. I was disappointed that the berries were not sweeter so I compensated by adding honey. The jam took longer to set than when I have made jam with sugar, but it did set within 24 hours. It also was less red in appearance,Read More