On Being Grateful For Your Spouse

It may be awful to say, but I am so thankful for my husband every time I hear about something terrible a friend's spouse did/said/didn't do.  Is it bad that other people's hardships in marriage/partnership make me so very happy to have a normal and functional marriage?  Not that our marriage is without fault or that we don't have problems; we all do.  But I am talking about those issues your friends tell you about that you just. cannot. believe that one person would do or say to the person they love most in the world.  So and so lied about what they were doing, said this horrible thing, was chatting with other people on a dating site, really really screwed up the relationship with brother-in-law.  Whatever it may be, I just cannot imagine my husband EVER doing anything horrible to me or anyone else. 

I may not have this marriage thing totally figured out, but I do know how we make it work for us.  It is a work in progress, like all relationships are.  That is actually something that many young couples don't realize; you have to work on your marriage, EVERY day, if not every moment of every day.  Throughout the day, you have your sweetheart in your mind, and in all you do think about how what you choose to do will benefit them and help them.  That sounds harder than it is!  Aren't you thinking of them off and on anyway?

I believe that you will be much happier in your marriage/partnership if you realize your partner is the way they are whether you like it or not, and they will never change because you want/ask them to.  Instead, support them with their unique traits in mind.

If your spouse is forgetful, remind them gently about commitments periodically, or if they have a phone with a calender, ask them to schedule events and appointments they need to attend, or times you need them home for whatever reason.  If your spouse has a tendency to get angry quickly, think of ways you can either avoid that happening or healthy ways to cope with it yourself (go for a walk to give them time to cool off, take a bath/shower, go engage in some retail therapy, etc.).  I'm not saying it is your fault if someone gets angry, but you do get to choose how you react in any situation.

In the over 10 years I have been with The Hubby, the last 4 have been the best for us, as far as understanding each other and working with that knowledge to help each other with everything.  I know that he needs time to unwind, and I can just tell when the unwinding needs to happen.  He can tell when I am about to lose my mind with the kids or life in general, and will take over a task or just pitch in.

I'm not sure how we got to this point exactly, but things can happen to you that make you grateful for what you have, or just push you into a downward spiral of despair and self-pity.  Since we decided to have me stay home and raise the kids after our second was born, and live on one income, I have found so many opportunities to be thankful and grateful for what we have.  Not a day goes by when I do not think about how lucky we are and that we are able to make this situation work.  It might change in the future, but for the last 3 1/2 years it has worked, and we have relied on each other for encouragement and to help keep our eyes on the prize.  (The prize being we raise our kids, and not pay someone else to do it.  I'm not hating or judging if you do that, just stating that that is what we have chosen to do in our family.)

We often say to each other how much we appreciate what the other does for us and for our family, how much we love each other, how grateful we are for each other, our kids, our house, our everything!  I love that quote that goes something like, "There are no happy people, just grateful ones.".  I'm sure I have that wrong and I cannot find it anywhere to check if I have it right.  But I love it, because it is the truth!

I guess what I am really trying to say is, be grateful.  Don't take anyone or anything for granted.  You never know when things might change and who wants to have regrets in life?  Life your life without regrets, and say thank you for everything. 

Make It From Scratch: Hashbrowns

It's been a short while since I posted, and I'm sorry for that if you have been checking in.  I had to take a little break for Easter, and I was even sick for that holiday.  But having the house to myself all day on Easter was not depressing, it was, in a word, bliss.  Even though I was sick and I felt horrible, having hours to myself was very restorative.  I recommend it to every parent out there, minus the being sick part, naturally.

Crispy potato goodness

Today I am very excited to share with you how to make your own hash browns.  These are, arguably, much cheaper to just buy frozen, but not if you want organic.  Potatoes are one of those foods that if you can, you should buy organic because they store more pesticide residue in them say, sweet potatoes.

Our family eats a lot of hash browns for breakfast, because we prefer cheaper and more nutritious foods.  Meaning, no breakfast pastries or cereal at our house.

These make a perfect accompaniment to sausage patties, ham, or bacon, along with some delicious fermented vegetables and some fresh avocado.  I prefer mine plain, not drowning in ketchup like the rest of the family likes them.  Blech!  Honestly I think putting ketchup all over your potatoes basically cancels out any possible nutrition you are getting.  And potatoes aren't exactly the most nutrient dense starch out there.  But a mom has to feed her kids something!

There isn't really a recipe for home made hash browns, more like a method.

Spuds

When I make hash browns, I cook 5-10 pounds of potatoes at a time, because it doesn't take much longer to do a large batch, and then you only have to wash your equipment once and you are set for a quick breakfast (or lunch, or dinner...) for a week or even two, depending on the size of your family.

First, wash and peel your Russet, or baking potatoes, or you can use yellow potatoes or white.  They all work, but Russet potatoes cook up the best, getting perfectly crispy and perfectly tender in the middle.

Ready for their steam treatment

Place your peeled spuds into a large pot (like a pasta pot) with a steamer basket in the bottom.  Fill the pot with about 1-2 inches of water, and set it on the stove.  Turn it up to high, and once the water is boiling, turn the heat down to medium and cover the pot.

Steam your spuds about 15-20 minutes, then check for doneness.  Since we will be cooking them further when we fry them up, your spuds should be only about halfway cooked when you take them off the heat.  Otherwise, your hash browns will be hard to shred, and then they will get overcooked.

Cook your potatoes about half way done

With a large spoon, scoop the hot spuds out onto a cookie sheet/sheet pan and let them cool to room temperature.  Then pop the tray into the fridge to chill overnight.  This is the secret to perfect hash browns, people!  Leftover cold cooked potato!  You can even skip these first steps, and just used cold leftover baked potatoes from last night's dinner to make hash browns, we just eat so much that it makes sense to cook our potatoes specially for hash browns.  And my kids are picky and won't eat hash browns with potato skin in it.

Cooling spuds

Now here comes the fun part.  The next day, get your nice cold spuds and shred those bad boys.  I use my food processor, because, duh, 10 pounds of potatoes to shred.  A box grater also works perfectly.  Little people like to help with the shredding, too!

Helpers make crispy potato heaven come sooner

Half of my mountain of shreds

Mountain of shreds, ready to fry

 Now you are ready to cook some of these up!  Preheat your griddle, cast iron pan, or electric griddle.  We use a cast iron stove top griddle that came with our stove.  I have also successfully made these on a cast iron griddle that was a 12 inch round, the Lodge preseasoned variety.  If you have a nonstick pan or electric griddle, you can certainly use that, too.

You want your pan preheated on medium to medium-high heat, depending on your stove and pan.  I use medium low heat with my gas stove, it runs hotter than an electric stove.

Grease your griddle with some nice solid cooking fat like coconut oil, lard, tallow, or bacon fat(these fats are best for cooking).  Put some of the shredded potatoes on your griddle, in a nice even layer about an inch thick.  Keep them together in a nice square or rectangle.

Make a flat pile of shreds

Now, season with salt and pepper if you like, and DO NOT TOUCH THEM.  This is where most rookie screw things up.  You want the potatoes to brown and get crispy, and they never will if you fuss with them.  Nobody wants steamed shredded potatoes for breakfast.


After about 5-10 minutes, you may see some browning around the edges of the potatoes.  Now you may carefully lift up an edge with a spatula and check to see how brown your spuds are.

Needs some more browning time

 In the picture above, these are browning, but not quite browned enough.  I will give them about 3-5 minutes more.

When your hash browns are nice and browned, flip them!  I break the big rectangle up into serving size portions as I flip them over.

It's breakfast time!

And you are done!  Turn off your griddle and serve up some home cooked love on a plate!

From start to finish when you are browning up your hash browns, they cook up in about 15 minutes, so you can even make these during the week as a quick, hearty breakfast.  Just scramble or fry up some eggs to go with and breakfast is served!

Crispy potato goodness time!

You can store your shredded potatoes in the fridge in a covered container for about 1 week.  If you need to store them for longer you can freeze them.  Just sprinkle some shreds all over a sheet pan in an even layer, then place it in your freezer.  Once the shreds are frozen, transfer them to a zip top bag and keep in the freezer for 3-6 months.  You can cook frozen shredded potatoes exactly the same as fresh.  It might take a few extra minutes, but they turn out perfectly.

I hope this inspires you to try making your own hash browns for your family, I promise you you will never go back to store bought again!

Watercolor Art Invitation

Watercolor art invitation

 I have read a few things online lately about art invitations, and thought we would give some a try.  Basically you set out all the supplies for an art activity, and clear the work area of everything else.  I'm not sure if you purposely lead your child/children to the art table or if you just leave it for them to discover on their own.  I kinda did both.  Out of three kids I had only two takers, which worked for me.  (kid #3 is my 2 year old niece, who had a BLAST making a watercolor mess)

 This particular art invitation involved watercolors, my favorite for the kids since it is the easiest to clean up.  Ha!  You draw a swoopy curly line on the paper, and let the kiddos paint it however they like.  Maybe they will paint inside the bubbles, or on the lines......

Swirly lines

Painting a flower...

 Or just disregard the lines altogether, like my kid.......

Well, I guess she painted inside some of the bubbles eventually....

Creation number 1: flowers, rainbow, some letters

Creation number 2: letters, swirly letters, dots

 Finally I just had to show Big Sis the possibilities of watercolors and the swirly line.  We did these ones together, and after I showed her she got excited about choosing what colors to do in each bubble.  We made one in all browns and blues for daddy, since brown is his favorite color.

Our art

This was very fun, and made art time a bit more interesting than usual.  I have plans to try out some more art invitations, and will venture into the messy ones, too (the ones with sand and glue....ack!).  I want to add that these can be great quiet time activities, as well as a time for you to have a couple minutes to yourself to get one of those things done that requires no children clinging to you.  Perfect!

Make It From Scratch: Crackers

Crackers, the perfect crunchy snack with cheese and sliced deli meat.  Or to go with tuna or chicken salad alongside some crunchy sliced veggies.  The perfect quick lunch for kids and grown-ups alike.

Crunchy goodness

 There are definitely some good quality crackers out there, but if you know how easy it is to make your own, and if you care a lot about what your family eats, then this is a great snack food to try and make yourself.  The following recipe is grain free because that is how we eat most of the time.  But don't be put off by that, the flavor of these crackers puts that box of generic cardboard flavored disks to shame.  And this is a great recipe to get the kids involved, too; just measure everything into a bowl and stir it up.  Easy!

Cracker making helpers showing me the turmeric.

Super fun to measure and dump herbs.  Letting the kids help with the cooking is fun.

Stir stir stir

Adding the olive oil to the dry ingredients

A cohesive dough

Smoosh it out with oiled hands

The finished dough before it is baked

Baked and cooled, just break it into pieces

 Grain Free Italian Seed Crackers

Ingredients

2 cups almond flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
2 Tablespoon hemp, flax, or sesame seeds
1/4 cup sunflower or pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons olive or avocado oil

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Lay a silpat or parchment paper on a sheet pan/cookie tray.

In a medium bowl measure all dry ingredients and combine with a spoon.  Pour in oil and water and stir to form a cohesive dough.  With oiled hands press the dough out on your silpat or parchment, pressing gently with your fingers and palms, using more oil as needed to prevent sticking.  Press to about 1/4 inch thickness.

Place in your preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes until firm and the edges of the crackers are lightly browned.  Let cool completely, then break into pieces.  Store in an airtight container for up to a week.


This would also be delicious with different herbs like fresh rosemary or thyme.  If you cannot have nightshades, omit the paprika and pepper and the crackers will still be fantastic.

Delicious!

Make It From Scratch: Jerky

Welcome to our first installment of the Make It From Scratch series!

Mmm...jerky...

Let's all admit it: you like jerky.  Everybody likes jerky.  Easy, fast protein, great for hikes, road trips, and camping, you can stash it in your bag to have for emergency protein whenever and wherever hunger strikes.  To most people, this is a food item you always buy if you want to eat it.  The time and equipment involved to make your own jerky is not appealing at all, especially if you have a job and/or kids.


I honestly felt the same way, and also felt I could not justify buying a huge hunk of beef to just dry it out, since we prefer to buy grass fed beef (which is a tad on the spendy side.....).  But we stopped buying jerky a couple years ago when my oldest was diagnosed with her food sensitivities, because one of her no foods is ...soy!  Which is in pretty much every single commercial jerky in the form of soy sauce.  That delicious, savory, salty flavor that IS jerky flavor...now forbidden.  Bummer!  In those type of food situations I tend to just say:

"Oh well, no jerky.  Moving on!  Find an alternative and just forget about jerky forever." 

But then a couple months ago I decided to give homemade jerky a try, just to see if it was easy or affordable or doable for me.  And boy was the result amazing!  Have you ever had homemade jerky?  Oh man, oh man.  It is so good!  The flavor is better, the texture is better, everything about it is better than store bought!

I used a recipe from a cookbook I have.  You can find recipes for homemade jerky pretty easily, but below are the basic steps to making homemade jerky.  It is totally worth your time; this is one convenience food that you will be glad to have in your repertoire.

 Equipment:

Cutting board
Sharp knife (If it ain't sharp, just go make something else.  Really.  Any knife less than super sharp is worthless for cutting food.)
Medium bowl
Wire rack
Sheet pan/jelly roll/cookie tray that above wire rack fits into
Foil or parchment paper

 Ingredients:

1 pound lean meat (beef, chicken breast, turkey breast, etc.  I use a cut of beef usually labeled London Broil.  It is nice and lean so perfect for jerky)
Sea salt
Soy sauce, Tamari, or coconut aminos (we use coconut aminos)
Seasonings of your choice like garlic powder, onion powder, honey, paprika, chili powder, etc.

Method:

Place your protein of choice on your cutting board and proceed to slice it with or against the grain of the meat, depending on your desired end result.  If you slice it with the grain your jerky will be chewier and not fall apart, which is how I prefer it.  If you slice it across the grain it may fall apart after it is dried, but it will be much less chewy.

See the grain of the meat running left to right on the piece to the left?  I am going to cut with that grain for nice chewy jerky.

 Slice your protein about 1/8 of an inch thick.  Try to be as consistent as possible so all of your meat will dry evenly.  As you slice it place it in your medium bowl.  It can help to freeze your meat for about 30 minutes prior to slicing it to firm it up a bit.

Slicing 1/8 " thick

Pile 'o' meat

 Once all the meat is sliced, wash your hands.  Now add your seasonings!  Use anywhere from 1 to 3 teaspoons (or more!) of your choice of seasonings.  I use a teaspoon each of granulated garlic and onion, plus a heaping teaspoon of pepper.  Add a 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and then slosh in about a third cup of soy sauce, tamari or coconut aminos.  Mix it all up with your hands to get it evenly coated.  Wash your hands again!

Adding seasonings

Marinated jerky

Place your marinating meat in the fridge or leave on the counter for one hour.  Go catch up on emails, sitcoms, laundry, whatever.  After an hour, set your oven to 200 degrees F.  Get our your sheet pan and cover it with a sheet of foil or parchment.  Place the wire rack over it and begin to place your strips of meat on the rack, close together, but not touching.  You may need a second rack and sheet pan.

See, I needed two trays for my batch of jerky.  More jerky!

Now, gaze upon what you have created...the hardest part is over!  Oh, wait, scratch that, the next step is the hardest.  Put your jerky in the oven and smell it's deliciousness for 2 hours, then check it to see if it is dried out so you can just eat a piece warm from the oven.  Mmmmm, so good, right?!

This has been drying two hours, it is just right for me.

If you want it more dried out, check it every 30 minutes or so until it is dried to your liking.  Let cool completely, then put in an airtight container and store in the fridge.  Yes, yes, I know.  You want to be able to keep it in your bag for emergency protein.  Well, go right ahead!  Just be sure to actually eat it that day or the next.  Trust me, you won't be able to help yourself anyway.


This amount of jerky will last us a few days, maybe a week if we ration it out.  The kids even like it which is amazing.  Now go forth and make jerky!
 

Weekly Series: Make It From Scratch!

Hello, friends!  I am launching a new weekly series here at TGN, and I am super super excited about it.  Every week I will be blogging about a different food that many people typically buy at the store, and sharing how you can make that food yourself, from scratch.  Some will be a bit more involved, like pickles or tortillas, and some will be super easy-not-really-even-a-recipe recipes.  You are going to love it!

Something I love to do is cook, and I look at making my own crackers as a fun project with tasty results.  Since we discovered Big Sis's food sensitivities we have been making even more foods from scratch than ever before.  Honestly, it is so very satisfying, and the girls love to help out.  As The Hubby and I are both cooks (no longer professionally, but still...) we are making it a priority to teach the kiddos how to cook.  And kids love to help!

I will be doing a mix of original recipes as well as directing you to other blogger's awesome recipes that I make over and over at home.  There are a lot of great and talented people out there, so I'm going to share the love! 

Check back soon for the very first Make It From Scratch post!

Mmm....bacon...

As if the world didn't already have enough information out there about bacon: how to cook it, how to cook with it, how to make it into dessert, jam, candy; how to decorate your home or adorn your body with versions of it.  But I can't help myself; I need to add a little something to that bucket of bacon knowledge.

You see, like most meat-loving humans around here, we love our bacon, too.  In fact, if I cook bacon for breakfast, I may as well not bother cooking anything to accompany it for the kids.  They don't even look at anything else on their plates, having eyes only for that crispy, succulent portion of the "pig meat!".  That is what they sometimes call it; I am trying to teach them that the meat we eat comes from animals, not just from the store.  More on that another time.

I thought I would share how we cook our bacon when we have it for breakfast (or lunch, or dinner, for that matter.  If we cook it when Hubs isn't home, then us girls get to eat more of it.  Shhhh, don't tell him!  Mu wa ha ha ha!).  We bake our bacon in the oven, not just because it cooks more evenly, but because we can cook a whole pound at once, and the stove isn't splattered with bacon grease either.  I also don't have to babysit it, I can be preparing the other breakfast dishes (not that there are ever multiple breakfast dishes, I'm talking some kinda vegetables, and perhaps throwing a bowl of sliced apple on the table).

Our kids prefer almost perfectly cooked bacon, as in "squishy ones", which the Hubs and I find disgusting.  Now, don't get all worked up, we are certainly not serving our children raw bacon!  As if.  They just prefer the deliciously crispy and unctuous fatty parts of the bacon, over the meaty bits.  And in our oven, our bacon cooks a bit unevenly.  The 4-6 slices of bacon in the center of the tray are a bit less done than the perfectly rendered slices on the ends of the tray.  So, kid bacon in the middle, grown-up bacon on the ends.  It works out perfectly for us.  And the grown-up bacon is especially good when you crack some black pepper on top of it before you bake it.

The bacon we love and splurge on is sold at our local natural market.  It is Beeler's, (Beeler Pure Pork)and they make a garlic pepper flavor as well as uncured hickory bacon.  We have tried it and it was delicious, but the kids do not like pepper bacon.  So we just pepper our own slices of bacon, and everybody is happy.  If you have never tried Beeler's bacon, you really should.  We have tried many of the "natural" bacons over the years, and this one is consistently the most delicious and the best price.  Now, we do buy Applegate when we have seen it at Costco, but it really pales in comparison.  We also love Beeler's hot dogs and pepperoni sticks.  Great for once in a while quickie kid protein, and mom-on-the-go protein, respectively.

Without further ado, here is our method for baking bacon.  We have a gas oven that heats from below, so your oven may cook it quite differently.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Get out a jelly-roll pan, baking sheet, sheet pan, whatever you call it.  Lay out your bacon directly on the tray.  Crack some fresh black pepper over some or all of the bacon, or none!  Place your bacon in the oven and set a timer for 15 minutes.  Check it to see how far along it is.  If it still looks raw or not done, set the the timer for 5 minutes and check it again.  You should also rotate the tray when you check it after 15 minutes.  It is very easy to forget about your bacon in the oven and it could get over done on you.  We despise over done bacon, but some folks like that sort of thing.  We like our bacon to have the fat about 95% rendered, and the slices nice and caramelized.  Our oven takes a total time of 25-35 minutes to cook our bacon to our liking.  Plenty of time to make some hash browns and coffee, and maybe saute some mushrooms and peppers to go with it.  If you can eat eggs, obviously, those would be perfect.  Us girls here are unable to eat eggs, but the Hubs certainly has them.  Just keep checking on your bacon every few minutes to get it exactly the doneness you like.  When it is cooked to your liking, place the slices on a paper towel lined plate or tray, and serve.  Save that bacon fat to cook with!  Liquid gold!  We use it especially for fried "rice", sauteed green beans, and for oven fries.  Delicious!

I'm sure you have seen someone say that the best way to bake bacon is on a rack in the oven, and I do agree that that works very very well.  But not for us.  Number one, I hate hate hate washing that rack!  So difficult to get scrupulously clean, the way I like to clean my dishes.  And I have found that washing the tray itself is much easier and faster.  A quick soak in hot water to loosen the brown bits, scrub scrub scrub and it is clean!  Lots of hot water, soap and clean it right after breakfast, not the next morning.  It is much easier to clean pots and pans right after the meal, before the food particles have dried on.

So there you have it, my little bit of bacon knowledge for the home cook.  I hope you found it helpful, or at least somewhat informative.  So, how do you cook your bacon?  Perhaps you can try a different way next time and see if it works better for you!