Southwestern Vegan Chili

I am not a vegan, but I am continually trying feed my family in healthful and tasty ways. This Chili hits the spot. Serve it with some savory, sweet corn bread and a green salad. Our scorecard was pretty good; Jack really liked it and ate a bowl and a half {phenomenal}, Sam ate a small bowlful, outfitted with tons of tortilla corn chips and said it was okay{typical.} Blake ate two bowls full, also with chips. {wonderful} Added to the chips were shredded cheese and low fat plain yogurt. Claire ate two bites, Aah well, three out of four isn't bad for this extremely picky family.

You wish to know if Skip the carnivore liked it? Well, yes he did. Of course he did mention chili isn't chili with out meat in it. So I will call it "Black Bean Stew" for him.

Look at this,it is calling to you. Ready to warm you up, from the fall chill in the air.

You Can really add what you like, more of one thing or less of another. It is really all about flavor, right?

Southwestern Chili {Black Bean Stew}

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large chopped onion
1 medium orange bell pepper { about a cup}
4 cloves{or more} chopped or pressed garlic
2 fresh serrano chili or bannana chili whatever kind you like for heat and flavor,seeded and finely chopped
two 14 1/2 oz canned diced tomatoes{ if you can no salt added}
three 15 oz cans of black beans { no salt added}
1 1/2 cups veg broth or water
1 1/2 tablespoon chili powder{more if you like it hot, less if just for flavor}
1 tablespoon of cumin{I love this spice!}
1 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 cup of frozen sweet corn
1/4 cup fresh cilantro {or more if desired}

In a dutch oven type pan cook onion, bell pepper, chilies, and garlic in olive oil for five to ten minutes, till soft and tender. Stir frequently so they don't fry.

Stir in the rest of the ingredients, except corn and cilantro, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes{ at higher elevations you might need to add more liquid. I had a problem with this in Denver.} Give it a good stir, then add frozen corn and cilantro. Cook uncoverd for about five more minutes, stir and serve.

We like it with a little cheese and low fat plain yogurt. Chips are good too. Enjoy!

Breakfast Cookies

Main cast of characters!
Flax meal, Whole Wheat Flour, Whole Wheat bran, Oatmeal-Heart Healthy
Dark Chocolate Chips- antioxidants
Mix it Up! with Pumpkin!-vitamin A and potassium Bake for 20 min
Chewy, yummy, Delicious cookies!

Claire loves them! Plus they are good for you. { Why on earth are you eating on the couch? Because I am soft!!!}

These cookies are very yummy. Great for a quick morning breakfast! My Mom gave me a recipe and I modified it a little.

Here is the result:

1 cup of oats

2 cups ww flour

1/2 cup bran

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp all spice

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup flax meal

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 1/3 cups mashed pumpkin

1/4 cup nonfat milk {almond milk}

1 to 2 cups Dark chocolate chips or raisins

1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Have parchment lined cookie sheet ready, or greased cookie sheet.

2.Combine first 10 ingredients

3.Blend in remaining ingredients.

4.Drop from Tablespoon onto cookie sheet.

5.Bake for 15-20 min{bottom of cookie should be brown}

Enjoy!

Eat Meat Sparingly

For the past 18 years I have not eaten red meat. It is not because I am a animal rights activist or anything. I just saw some news program that really grossed me out so I stopped. I have tried numerous times to try and eat red meat, but to no avail. I just get sick every time. I don't eat pork either. I do dabble in bacon. I consider it a seasoning.

I believe the " Word of Wisdom" states that we should eat meat sparingly. I think I try to do this. It is a little hard when you live with a carnivore. I try to have at least three nights a week meatless. We do toastadas, salads,... Tonight we had Sweet potato fries ,salad , strawberries, and oven roasted chick peas. The kids all ate it up. Skip was not here he came home and devoured Tonies pizza rolls.

We eat alot of grains and fruits. Veggies are a little harder to get them to eat. I put them in a smoothie. We have been eating these smoothies for about nine months and I think they really make a difference. I feel more energized. I hope that I am getting calcium into Claire through these smoothies. Kale and spinach are both good sources of calcium and she gets a cup of fresh greens everyday.

So to meat, which I do enjoy, I will try and eat less of you and hopefully feel stronger like Daniel of old.

Recipe Club

Last night we had our monthly Recipe Club. This month the theme was healthy foods. I decided to Wow the girls with my "Green Smoothie". I wish I had pictures. My demonstration skills leave allot to be desired. As I started out the spinach and kale wouldn't go down into the blender very well so I, in my great wisdom, stuck a knife into the blender to scoot the greens down towards the blades. Of course the blade caught the knife and Green Smoothie went all over. Sorry about the kitchen ceiling Suzi! I hear spinach is good for your hair and face.

The other thing that I absolutely thrilled me was that everyone loved my shoes.{ I know this sounds vain, but like Claire says" I am a Girl."} They are very cute. Maryann supplied me with many shoes while I was in UT and they are all fun and adorable. Thank you, Thank You, Maryann! { don't look at my pedicure}

I have to give kudos to my Mom, She is quite awesome. She makes amazing bread. While my Mom wasn't there last night her bread was via;Beth via; Jeremy. You rock Beth. I hope you have that baby soooooon! I have given out my Mom's recipe to many people in my ward and they love it. Here is the recipe. I Cut it in half all the time and it works out really well.

WHOLE WHEAT BREAD

4 cp warm water (hot water will kill the yeast)

1t. sugar

2 packets rapid rise or any kind of yeast or 2 T yeast

2 T salt

2/3 cp olive or any kind of oil

2/3 cp honey or sugar

4 T gluten

abt 8 or 9 cp flour

Put warm water, sugar and yeast into mixer bowl and let yeast proof. Add salt, oil and honey. (If you measure oil first and use the same cup, the honey will slide out of the cup easier.) Add gluten, then 6 or 7 cups of flour and mix until smooth. Add more flour and mix until the dough is holding together and pulling away from the sides of the bowl. Check to see if the dough is sticky. If it sticks to your fingers, add flour a little bit at a time, until the dough is tacky but not sticky. When you get the right consistency, let it knead for 10 minutes. The dough should start to follow the dough hook after about 6 minutes. At this time, you can add a little more flour or a drop or two of water, depending on how the dough feels.

Divide dough and put into 4 1lb greased loaf pans (you can use cooking spray) and place in a warm place to rise. Let dough rise until it is well above the sides of the pan. Place dough in oven and turn on oven to 350°and dough will rise a bit more as it bakes for about 25-30 minutes, depending on the oven. Bread should be medium golden brown color when done and have a hollow sound when you tap the top of the loaf.

·

FLOUR: I have been buying “Wheat Montana, Prairie Gold”, 100% Whole Wheat Flour, at WalMart and it works well. It is made from Hi Protein, Hard White Spring Wheat, but this is the same recipe that I have used for years with Hard Red Winter Wheat.

· Using the gluten seems to help with the rising and make the bread more moist and holds it together.

If the bread cracks on the sides you have either used too much flour or not allowed the dough to rise enough before baking.

· My daughter and I have used applesauce to replace all or part of the oil in the recipe. It works well.

Here I am in all my morning glory; zit cream Ala' Laurene. {Jack took these picture and he said, "Are you want your face in these pics?" I wondered what he meant by that. Now I know. My beauty secret is out.}

Well, I am making some delicious pancakes. My friend Cindy gave me this great recipe. I love that it uses the wheat freshly ground, that is when you get the best nutrients. Notice the nutritious smoothie in my hand. {what you don't see is the left over chocolate cake that I will be washing my breakfast down with. I need all those antioxidant fighters to keep me feeling GOOOOOOD!}

Whole Wheat Blender Pancakes

-1 cup whole wheat kernels

-1 cup milk

put in blender and blend for 3 minute

-1/2 cup milk {blend for 1 more minute}

Add and Blend

-1 egg

-1/4 cup oil{or applesauce}

-1 TBL sugar {honey}

-1 tsp salt

-1 tsp cinnamon

Optional

-2 tsp baking soda

-1 TBL lemon juice

These turned out great. They were fast to make and light and fluffy.

Sam Out to Save money

Sam,"You know what Jack?"

Jack,"What?"

Sam" Well, these whole wheat pancakes are great for a little snack. Just pop them out of the freezer and into the microwave for about 10seconds then add a little butter and another 10seconds and there you go great snack." "When I am older and have to go to the office, I will grab some of Mom's pancakes and some of her bread, put them in a cooler and on the way to work pick up a freezer and a microwave. Then I can save time and money at work by eating while I am working in my office. This way I can get home earlier and I play with my kids."

I am so glad to know I will be making bread and pancakes for Sam when he is an adult. At least he loves them now.




















'

Free Chickin....Yeah Baby!

My good friend Suzi called me at lunch time and told me if we dressed like cows we would get free meals at Chick-fil-A. Of course I thought, what a hoot, let's go for it. We spent the afternoon making our costumes. You would think it was Halloween. Blake was totally into it. He wanted us to save his costume for Halloween. We will see if it makes it. Jack was not too into it. "He is 11." Skip said. "Who cares," I said "live a little. Go a little crazy!"


Sam was using his ingenious imagination {Same kid that was a "Stone cutter" from the movie Mountain to the Lord, "Candle" and a "laundry bag" for Halloween}

He decided that cows have pink utters. He also thought that they would be better 3-D. They looked hilarious!

As you can see Skip is not in the pictures. I asked him if he wanted me to bring a cow costume for him. He declined. He did however, meet us there and thought we looked odd.

1.Free food
2.Happy People
3.Imagination

What to eat?

It has been raining, OK it is a big storm, which is great, but it wreaks havoc with my Internet service, not to mention the satellite TV and the electricity. What do I expect we do live in the country, but don't you think technology could reach us here? Anyway, to post is a little difficult. It can take up to three hours to load the pictures. Very frustrating! And this happens every time it rains. It rains allot in the spring here. Although I do love this way of journaling, I don't have all the time in the world to do this. So pictures may or may not be on this post.

I was watching some news show last night while waiting for my post to publish pictures. They were interviewing Michael Pollan an author of "In Defence of Food" and other books on whole foods. I had read several articles by him recently and found his views on food to be interesting. I am by no means an extremist. I do believe in the moderation of things. I do however, want to feed my family good healthy food. I try to do the best I can.

He made several points or as he called them rules to live and buy food by. Here they are:

1. Don't buy any type of food that your great grandmother wouldn't recognize. { I think this includes Go-Gurt, which is a staple of Claire's diet. What to do?}

2. Shop mostly on the outside walls of the grocery store. { I really try to do this, I have been shopping this way for about ten years. It is a lot more expensive I must say.}

3.If it claims to be healthy for you, that claim is on the box and is probably a processed food, don't buy it.{ We eat very little processed food, that is unless you count TEQUITOES, No really you can ask Skip he is always trying to find something fast to make and everything we have requires time and prep work.}

4. If the food doesn't go bad in a reasonable amount of time then it probably has preservatives in it, don't buy it.{ I must say this is troublesome I do loose some produce because my kids are not fan of veggies, I have to put them in the smoothies.}

What do you think? I am constantly trying to do better.

I do have strong opinions on things and this may sound a little radical, but having listened to this man and read his writings, and having made the one positive observation. I have a negative observation to site. I believe that he is correct in talking about eating whole organic foods and trying to stay away from processed foods, but one thing he talks about is how the effort to produce our own food is pretty much futile and that there is no hope for industrial farms. This contradicts what I have been taught about providing for ourselves and teaching others in poorer areas how to grow gardens to sustain themselves. This is how Satan works, he gives us a package all neatly wrapped in what seems good, what sounds to be good, and then weaves in his philosophies of men. Too bad.

A garden would be nice. I don't know if it will happen this year though. Kudos to you that are making the effort. (you know who you are!)

no Tequitoes!

I do try to feed my family healthy food. Monday night tequitoes are not the usual fare. Tonight we had " Whole Wheat Cinnamon Squash Waffles" With Blue Berry Kale Flax meal Smoothies" They were both quite delicious and we all gobbled them up. {No Skip was not here to enjoy them} The smoothie recipe is on the BLOG. If you want it, select food and you will find it. Here is the waffle recipe. You can also make pancakes with it too.

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups non fat milk

2 TB butter

4 TB apple sauce

3 eggs

1 carton of Gerber baby food squash

6 teas baking powder

6 TB sugar or suganat

3 teas cinnamon { more or less, or none if you like}

1 1/2 teas salt

2 TB Lemon juice

Directions- Warm up milk, just so the butter will melt in it, and add butter to melt. Add applesauce and eggs, beat lightly. Mix baking powder, sugar, and salt together. Add to mixture. Stir in lemon juice { it will be bubbly} . Add flour a little at a time, mix until wet and blended. You might have to add a little more milk so it is not too thick. Use as you wish, waffles or pancakes. Enjoy!

I like to add Homemade strawberry jam, applesauce, or fresh strawberries and bananas. Yummy!

The question I have is, if you add "Mrs. Butter Worth" does it void the whole nutritional thing?

Cinco

I went to pick up Blake and Sam from a friends house yesterday. {which I was late} When I came in, the house smelled of wonderful food. They had been cooking something delicious to honor "cinco De mayo." Her husband was there and they were going to eat{ at 5:30 a ridiculously early hour for dinner. Who's husband gets home before Seven.} I digress. They had fresh salsa and guacamole. Some sort of skirt steak with cilantro and lime I can only assume for fajitas. They inspired me. We came home and I popped some taquitos from the freezer into the oven. Instant celebration in seven minutes. We add a Little Pace Picante and there you have it. A meal fit for south of the border!

I Have An Angel

Her name is Sherry Whyte. She saved me from going to the store and saved me from dinner. Lucky for me she is always prepared and was able to bring my family some delicious chicken soup and homemade applesauce. Now you know my kids are picky, Augh! But here is the tally.

Jack one and a half bowls.

Sam one small bowl .

Blake four bites.

Claire two bites.

The Applesauce was another story. Everyone gobbled it up!!

The Last On the Subject......For Now

OK, I did rant a little bit about feeding my kids. I feel that I was honest. Jack felt that I was being mean to Blake. He posted on the comment section of my Blog, to be nice,and since I am the administrator, I deleted it, so beware!.... I just stated the facts. Just to show that my children can eat without falling apart, here they are eating pizza and grapes, not a one complaining. It was good pizza, but don't kid yourself if it is sub par frozen or anything that taste remotely like cardboard they won't eat.{You can only use ranch to mask so much}. In fact Claire will simply say "I Don't like it." And promptly throw it on the floor.{ we are working on manners}.

On another note Blake did choke down his dinner for breakfast, after he begged me to heat it up, which I did not. {it's all about follow through...Right?} He sputtered and choked, gagged and cried and in the end my point was taken ....I think? This parent thing is a real challenge.

HOW MUCH DO I HAVE TO EAT!

I love food. I like to eat good food. I love all sorts of flavors, cooked in diverse ways. I like to mix salty and sweet. I like to mix savory and sweet. I like most any food with the exception of Peanut butter and sauerkraut, respectively.

I don't mind cooking, in fact I prefer my cooking to eating out. I do despise cooking for my children though. I find no joy in sitting at the table, with a meal in front of me, that looks as tasty as it is, anticipating the first bite only to hear, "HOW MUCH DO I HAVE TO EAT?" Lovely, doesn't that just ring in your ears? Sounds just like nails on a chalk board to me. I deal with this about five out of seven nights in a week. Fun, Fun!

1. My son Blake is not the worst in my line of complainers, I won't crown anyone as the worst since they read this blog, But he doesn't like rice or potatoes. These two items I like to keep in the rotation and I haven't really found a substitute for them. Tonight we had Teriyaki Chicken with sticky rice and broccoli {I served strawberries too, everyone loves them, Claire could eat a quart by herself}

   Blake proceeded to fall on the floor like a rag doll when he found out what we were having. He quickly got up, when I pointed out that a five year old doesn't act like that and added he would not get dessert if he continued.

We sat at the table and listened to him whine while the other two boys, that had about a tablespoon of each of the items, said "How Much Do I... you get the picture. What a joy, I was truly able to savor each bite, NOT. Claire was fine as long as I kept her fix of strawberries coming {she's a task master}. By the end of the meal both Jack and SAM had consumed enough food to appease me. Blake had eaten nothing, claiming that, "I don't care for dessert because it was ice cream and high in fat and not good for me anyway." Thus he was not going to eat till breakfast. I said, "Fine, your breakfast will be what you see in front of you now, Chicken ,rice and broccoli. Your brothers had to eat theirs you will eat yours." {Breakfast is going to be exciting. I can't imagine what will happen.} To this Blake took the stubborn silent face that he has and said, "fine, wrap it up." and I said, fine.......... Look at this picture, I mean come on who could live on this.

Let Them Eat Cake!

We bought a sheet cake for Sam's baptism in Feb. I froze half of it to use for Claire's birthday in March. { Sheet Cake from Costco, they are Huge!} Her birthday was last Saturday and we are still grazing on it; late night snack, FHE refreshment, more late night snack, and a little of this and that during the day. Should I refreeze it so it doesn't go to waste? How long should you keep a sheet cake for, two...three... Months. Come on, I am sure this is not great for the waist line or anywhere else for that matter, but I love frosting. I don't want to know how it is made, I just want to eat it. Someone come and throw it away for me. PLEASE!!!!

Yummy Smoothies

A friend on another blog posted this recipe for a really nutritious smoothie and for two weeks we have been having them everyday. So if we start to look a little like Violet Beauregarde {Charlie and the Chocolate Factory} you will know why.

-6 to 8 oz OJ{we used water on a couple of occasions and it tasted fine}

-1 1/2 cups of spinach or Kale { to which Blake responded "you're putting salad in my smoothie?" "Yes" I said with a smile

-1 1/2 cups of blue berries

-4to5 frozen strawberries

- 1 frozen banana

-1/4to1/3 flax meal

They love Them! You will too!