In some hot water..

After my date with pressure canning potatoes, I decided to do some hot water bath canning at home with some of my fruit. 

I never did understand why it is called canning when we are using jars, and using jars came before metal cans.......all those unanswered questions. ;)

 I had to get a little creative since I do not actually have a hot water bath pot, so I used my pasta pot.







I can fit 5 of the 8oz jars in the pot and it BARELY fits to fill the water level to above the jars, so I will either need to upgrade and buy a bigger pot or can everything into small portions. ;)

I made a blood orange marmalade with some almond extract and sugar in water.  Added some cornstarch to thicken it a bit. 

I canned the pineapples in nothing but water, no extra sugar.









 




I cooked the pears in light sugar and water to soften them.









To my delighted surprise every can sealed!  I was worried that they would not seal well with my makeshift set up, but I guess I got lucky. 

Labeled and Ready for my shelf! :)

HAPPY "JAR-ING"!! 

Blood orange Marmalade

Orange segments

water 

sugar

cornstarch

almond extract

put oranges in pan and add enough water to cover. Sprinkle sugar over them and bring to a boil.  add a tsp or so of corn starch and let boil until thickening and over half the water is gone. Add almond flavoring to taste and more sugar if you wish. 

put in clean warm jars to can.

Pears

peel and slice pears, remove the seeds.

cover in water

sprinkle sugar over them, bring to boil. 

Let boil 2-3 minutes or until the desired amount of soft.

use slotted spoon to fill the clean and warm jars with the pears only, then top off the jars with some of the liquid.

Pineapples

Cut into chunks

put in pan with water to cover.

bring to boil and immediately turn off the heat

use slotted spoon to put pineapple into clean and warm jars, then fill up with water.

A night of jarring fun. ;)

I left my kids with the hubby and took the night off to hang out with my friend and do some crazy exciting stuff.  Like all mom's do when they get the night off, we sat around talking. Then peeled and cooked potatoes and pressure canned them.  We had a blast!  

I had never pressure canned before. I had done a bunch of hot water bath canning growing up but never pressure canning, so when I got the chance to play with the pressure canning, I got excited. 




We peeled and diced a 5 lb bag of new potatoes, then boiled them until mostly soft. 

Whe then drained them and put them into jars, added some hot water and salt, then put the lids on and slipped them into the pressure caner.

 They cooked in the pressure caner for about 40 minutes.
 I got to take one home too!! 
 Very excited.  
 I really need to get into jarring my own foods.  Most of the time I freeze my food, but I like the idea of not taking up all my freezer space. :)

I have a bunch of apples left over, that I think I should jar up for later use. Maybe make some apple butter. :)





 Before we did the potatoes, we had some spaghetti and salad for dinner, then she made some banana pudding for dessert per request of her kids. After realizing that she did not have any vanilla wafers, the idea to use nutter butter bites instead sounded fabulous, and it turned out great!  :)  You just can't beat peanut butter banana pudding. :)

All in all, I had a great night out!  Thanks to my friend Kim for all the fun and pictures. :)

HAPPY PRESERVING!  :)

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Say "Queso". :D

For days every time I asked my hubby what he wanted to eat, he would say "chips and queso"  So I just decided to make ships and queso for dinner. :)

I first cooked the ground beef, that is the easy part. ;)

While that is cooking I chopped up:
1/2 onion
1/2 jalapeno (I could have used the whole thing, but wasn't sure if they kids would eat it that spicy, it turned out really mild)
1 red sweet pepper (mini one)
2 potatoes, peeled
1 tomato, save the juice. 













 
Toss that all in with the beef and cook it all up.  













 


Then add your cheese.
I used some cheapo velveeta because my husband loves it.  
When I reheated it the next day I mixed in some pepper jack and it was much better, so you can start with some as well. Let the cheese get mostly melted first, then start adding your milk slowly until it is the consistency you want it to have. 










Other things you can add into it for good hearty queso is black beans (canned or precooked), corn, mushrooms, and anything else that suits your fancy.  Let me know if you try any mixtures that work good for you and your friends/family.  It took me a couple variations to get this recipe down.  Since it has the meat in it, I just let them eat it with chips and call it dinner. :)  Not the healthiest dinner, but every now and then you just have to feed them something fun and yummy. :)

 Feliz Comiendo!

(Happy Eating!)

Breakfast stuffed Potatoes.

One of the things from Pinterest that I have tried that I really like so far. I didn't follow the recipe per se, I saw a picture and went to town with the idea. :)



 

I hollowed out a couple raw potatoes.

I cracked one egg into each.

Cooked ground breakfast sausage ontop and cooked them at 350 until the egg was cooked and the potato felt soft.






 
 Sprinkled the cheese ontop and but it in.  Switched the oven to broil and melted the cheese.

I could have used with a little salt and butter in the potato before I put the egg and it would have been better. As it was, once you ran out of bites with the sausage and cheese, it was a little bland. ;)








To fix that slightly bland flavor, I ate it with salsa and it was yummy.  I shared it with a friend of mine and he liked them too.  If you hollow out the potatoes the night before and the sausage/bacon/ham is ready, this is a very quick breakfast to make that comes out all warm and yummy for those cold mornings.  I will be making this again to share with more people.  Very Easy.  I will add and variations I play with to this blog later. :)

 HAPPY EATING!

 

You will need:

Raw potato

1 egg per potato, raw

cooked breakfast sausage (or chopped up bacon or ham)

Shredded cheese of your choice. (next time I am trying pepperjack slices)

Salt, Pepper, and butter if you wish.

Spiced Citrus Pork Chops

My local meat market had a deal on some big fat pork chops.  I had to get me some. 
I wanted to try a version of a recipe that I used a long time ago and that did not go over very well. I wanted to use the idea, and make it better.  Well, not to pat my own back, but I succeeded!! :)

Pork Chops with Oranges and Pears

I took the raw Pork Chops and put them on a covered baking sheet.  The oven was at 350. 
I sprinkled them with cloves, paprika, and garlic salt with parsley.
Then I placed the segments of blood oranges and slices of pear along the top.  
(I ran out of orange segments so for the last two I put some ground mustard with horseradish on them.)
I then put them in the oven.

Garlic Mashed Sweet Potatoes

I served them with some Garlic mashed sweet potatoes. 
Peel and chop the sweet potatoes and put in pot of water. 
Bring to boil and let cook covered until the sweet potatoes are soft enough to slice with a fork easily.
Drain the potatoes and mash them.
Add butter, garlic salt with parsley, and pepper. 

Corn Meal Sauteed Green Beans

I also paired them with corn meal green beans
Take your fresh green beans and trim them, or just get some frozen green beans and thaw them. 
(most of the time you can saute frozen green beans just fine from frozen but because of the corn meal, you want them thawed so the extra moisture wont clump your corn meal too much)
Then heat your saute pan to medium, add olive oil, when the oil ripples, add the green beans and toss until covered with oil.
In a bowl mix corn meal and seasonings of choice together, then when the green beans are hot but not dried, sprinkle them with the corn meal mixture and toss. Then turn  the heat up so you can toast the outsides. 
(In this meal I used garlic salt and pepper only with the corn meal.  Other days I have used Paprika and garlic, Italian seasoning and sea salt, chili powder and sea salt, etc. You can play with the flavors until you find one you like the most.)

HAPPY COOKING!!

 You can do the same seasonings with Beef Steaks of Chicken breasts if you do not eat pork.

PORK CHOPS

5 pork chops

1 orange (any variety)

1/2 pear (any variety)

Cloves

Paprika

Garlic Salt (or sea salt and garlic powder)

Olive Oil

GARLIC MASHED SWEET POTATOES

2 sweet potatoes (peeled and chopped)

1/8 cup Butter

Garlic salt with parsley

Pepper

GREEN BEANS

Green beans 

Olive Oil

Corn meal

Garlic Salt

Pepper

I know there are not any amounts on here, but I didn't measure and it varies based on your preference and the amount you are making. :)

Snack Time Riddles Solved!

We as parents have an enormous responsibility to raise the next generation to be as mature, smart, healthy, and non crazy as possible. Doing so is quite a lot of stress when you have to worry about their grades, clothes, shoes, underwear, toys, are they watching too much tv or playing too many games?, what if they are learning games is it the same?, are they reading and writing at the right level for their age? are they the right size for their age, are they athletic enough, etc, etc, etc. You take all of that and ADD feeding them right and most parents just do not have the energy left and they will feed them anything that the kids will eat that they can just take out of a package and hand them with as little effort as possible.  
Well, as per request from a reader, I am going to make at least one meal a little easier. Snack time. 

When you get home from picking up the kids from school or the little ones just got up from their nap everything seems to go crazy and chaotic. At least at my house with my 3 girls. They all want something right away and want to tell each other everything that happened today while telling me about their homework and status from school all in the same breaths.

Here are some of my kids favorite snacks for snack time:
Tak: Apples and peanut butter
Roxy: Apples and pepperoni
Arcee: Strawberries and Hazelnut spread/peanut butter

Some of the other ideas we do are:

Cottage cheese and fruit. (pears are great along with any berries)

Peanut butter and celery (with or without raisins)

Yogurt, nuts, and apples

Cheese and cold meat  (this can be anything from string cheese and sliced deli meat to cubed cheddar cheese with left over cold chicken or turkey to sliced swiss and summer sausage or pepperoni slices. ANY combination you like! My favorite it pepper jack cheese cubes and some cold chicken!)

Oranges and nuts (they love sea salt almonds and plain pecans, but they go gaga over pistachios and cashews too)  Cashews are the highest fatty nut, so eat those in more moderation then they other nuts.

cottage cheese and wheat thins with green olives (this one just me and one of my kids will eat, but we love it)

carrots and ranch dressing. (get the lowfat yogurt based veggie dip for the healthiest choice and only give them a little bit)

baby tomatoes and cheese (since tomatoes are sweet and tart, a nice cheddar, swiss, or sharp cheese goes good)

Broccoli and cauliflower with ranch dip or cheese. (you can just sprinkle some shredded cheese and microwave just a little to melt it a tad, then let them eat with fork)

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is always a classic. (if you are trying to cut our breads then you can do peanut butter in a celery stick with a little dollup of jelly on top and it is quite nice, or go with another classic and just cut up a banana and get a scoop of peanut butter and enjoy!) :)

Then of course, you could ask my husband and he would tell you chips and queso. ;)


When I get a container of cottage cheese then we will have cottage cheese and different fruits all week, the same with the cold chicken and cheeses, etc.  You cannot expect to have a different snack every day of the week, that is just crazy!  But find a few things on this list that your kids like enough to eat regularly and then just swap them around. My youngest would eat almost anything with peanut butter or strawberries, and my oldest likes salty things better, and my middle kid is my least picky kid and just goes with the flow. :)

Just rememeber, if you let the kid choose, they will not always choose right. That is why we are the parents and in charge of them. Most kids will develop a taste and a preference for vegetables if we give them to them and basically make them eat it.  Did your moms ever let you just not eat your veggies?? HECK NO! I was once made to sit at the table until it was gone, and I fell asleep at the table, but the next day I just didn't feel like fighting that much and just ate the darn peas. ;)
All kids will push their limits to see what they can get away with and it is no different at the kitchen table. They are kids, when they are hungry, they will eat.  I am not saying to starve your kids and make them only eat what is on my list, but just don't allow your children to run your house. Find something that they like that is healthy and build on that. I had to start with carrots then add some broccoli, then the cauliflower, etc one step at a time. Now the kids that would only ever eat carrots now they hardly touch them because they would rather have the broccoli, radishes, celery, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, etc.  

                               GOOD LUCK! 
                       AND HAPPY SNACKING! :)

Turkey Asian Slaw

I needed to use some cabbage that I got in the Bountiful baskets that I get and was looking for a different idea then just cabbage and sausage. As much as I love a good batch of cabbage and sausage, I am the only one in my house that does. :(

I decided to do a spin off of cole slaw that could be a little meal in itself. 

I had some turkey pieces in my freezer that I had left over from a large turkey, so most of it was dark meat pieces. 




 

I used a box grater and grated up some carrots and english cucumber. Then chopped up some mushrooms and some onions and mixed that together.













I then thinly sliced the cabbage and mixed that together too. 


 





 
 





The turkey pieces were thawed out and I broke up the pieces so they were about bite sized and then mixed that into my cabbage mixture.

 


Next I made some sauce with peanut butter, mayo, sesame oil, stone ground mustard, and a little soy sauce. This was pretty good. I wanted to give it an Asian sort of flavor since most of my kids are not big fans of just standard cole slaw style flavors. :)

Happy Eating!!  

As requested, here is a written recipe:

1/2 head green cabbage

2 carrots shredded

1/2 Cucumber shredded

1/2 onion chopped 

2 mushrooms diced

Sauce: (approximately)

2 Tbsp Peanut Butter

1/2 cup Mayo  (I used the olive oil mayo)

1 tsp sesame oil 

1 Tbsp ground mustard

just a dash of soy sauce. 

 Mix together then add to the cabbage. It will be dry, but keep mixing until everything is blended. 

The flavors will blend even better as it sits in the fridge for about 30 minutes. 

Enjoy!! Let me know if you try it and how you liked it! :)

 

 

Red Velvet Pancakes

I found myself in a bind recently, I had a quart of buttermilk that was going to go bad in 2 days.......what to do??
I had decided to make a big batch of buttermilk pancakes and then make some buttermilk biscuits to freeze for baking later.
I woke up early and was getting the buttermilk pancakes going when I decided to surprise my kids with some pink pancakes for valentines day, and then it hit me, that I just needed to make them red velvet pancakes. :)








So this is what I did:
I started with the buttermilk pancake recipe that I use.

Buttermilk Pancakes

3 cups Flour
3 Tbsp white sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

3 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1/3 cup melted butter

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Melt the butter in a liquid measuring cup. Then add the milk and eggs.
Then mix it all together and add the buttermilk.
Do not over mix, the key to fluffy pancakes is to leave it lumpy. 

To turn this recipe into Red Velvet Pancakes, you need to change just a few things. 
add an extra 1/2 cup flour, 2 Tbsp cocoa and 2 Tbsp sugar to the dry ingredients. 
When you have the measuring cup with the butter, eggs, and milk in it I add 2 dollups of sour cream to that and stir that together.  
When using a 2 cup measuring cup, you just need to top it off to 2 cups with the sour cream.
Then mix together and add the red food coloring to make it red. :)

This made some fantastic pancakes, and its totally worth the trip to the store to get some buttermilk. :)

Happy Eating!  

and in the words of Garfield:

"Next time a little less pan and a little more Cake!"

The Guns Show! :)

I work at a gym and I am addicted to working out and the feeling of completing a great workout!  I absolutely love it. :D   

I hear and see so many people using creatine as a work out supplement. Being a nutritionist I have made it a point to find the natural sources to all of the supplements out there. I personally would rather eat real protein then buy and use a whey protein powder, so I looked into creatine as well. I am surprised that I did not write a blog back then about what I found. To remedy that, this is that blog. 

Creatine is an amino acid complex. Meaning that it is created with amino acids. Specifically, Arginine, Glycine, and Methionine. Using these 3 amino acids that can be found in your food, your liver uses them to create creatine.  Creatine helps hydrate and saturate your skeletal muscles, it has been shown to super hydrate your muscles using cell volumization; it literally draws water into the muscle cells. With your muscles super hydrated, it gives you the "pump" needed in the gym.  The extra hydration also allows the lactic acid to disperse easily so that recovery is quicker. 

Personal trainers that I have talked to tell you to supplement with 5-10grams within 30minutes of a work out.  But Body builders have told me that for the first 3-5 days you need to get 20-25grams a day in 4 doses and fully saturate your body in creatine, then maintain with 5-10 grams a day.  But both have said that your body will go through a spike then plateau so it is a good idea to do your load days, then 6 weeks of maintain doses, then take at least a week off. Then load and go again.   I have not tried this personally, but I am thinking about doing it to help with my goals for the 90day challenge at work. I will check back and let you know how it goes. 

Now, for the nutrition part of it:
Where do these amino acids come from??  They are naturally derived and our body makes creatine on its own without the supplementing, so how could you increase creatine without a powder?

Foods high in creatine are: 
The most abundant dietary source of creatine is the meat from wild game. Commercially raised meat contains lower levels of creatine due to the inactivity of the animals. The meats highest in creatine include beef, cod, herring, pork, salmon and tuna. Trace amounts of creatine are also found in milk, cranberries and shrimp.

But if you want to help your body create creatine, then you can try and up your intake of the 3 amino acids needed for your liver to produce its own levels of creatine.




Arginine:

Spanish peanuts top the list, Close behind are peanuts; almonds; dried sunflower seeds and kernels; English walnuts, hazelnuts, raw lentils, Brazil nuts, cashews, and pistachios,.
Other plant sources include flax seed, raw kidney beans, all varieties, pecans,  raw French beans, raw green soybeans, tofu, extra firm, and whole-grain wheat flour,










Glycine:
The best food sources of glycine are those rich in protein, such as meat, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs and beans. Some of the most concentrated food sources of glycine are beef, chicken, pork, ostrich and spirulina seaweed.

Methionine:

High methionine foods include egg whites, Parmesan cheese, sesame and sunflower seeds, Brazil nuts, butter, cheese, mollusks and cod.

Important to remember is that creatine with pull water into your muscles from your body, so you have to keep your water intact up not just while you are working out, but after as well.  Hydration is key to a healthy body. :)

Happy Pumping!! :)

Have a great Monday! 

Thanks to livestrong.com for my food sources and some creatine information. :)