Making Bone Broth

So my last post was all about roasting a chicken. Now hopefully you saved those beautiful bones because its time to make some broth and its EASY!

                                          The Benefits of Bone Broth:

                                                Fantastic for your bones, joints, teeth, nails

Helps your digestive system

Immune System Support

Throw those beautiful bones into your crockpot.

You can add: celery, carrots, onions, garlic and herbs if you want! (I always do for flavor and nutrition)

Add 1 T Apple Cider Vinegar (Helps pull the nutrition even more from the bones)

Cover with filtered water.

Let that baby simmer for 24 hours or until the bones crumble. 

Strain off the bones and veggies.

You can use the bone broth right away to make soup or just drink. You can also store it in your fridge for up to a week or freeze. 

Enjoy! Wasn't that easy?! Now stop buying those silly cartons of "broth"!

Roasting a whole chicken

I LOVE roasting chicken (I feel like I start every post by claiming I love something...)

Here I will walk you through what to do to make an awesome chicken.

Here she is, in all her glory. Preheat your oven to 425. Give her a good rinse and then pat dry with some paper towels. Proceed to tuck your hands under the wings and make her dance on the counter... Kidding, I mean WHO does that...

What you'll need:

1-2 T olive oil

1-2 lemons (I did 1 1/2)

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

2 T fresh cilantro (or whatever other fresh herb you have on hand!) + more to go inside the chicken

 Place your chicken in a pan and then drizzle with olive oil. Cut the lemons in half and squeeze the fresh lemons right onto the chicken. Rub around on the skin, you can even make her dance again if you like. Place one of the lemons right inside the chicken with an additional 2-3 tablespoons cilantro. Stick it right in there, where the sun doesn't shine.

You can place the other lemons beside the chicken in the pan.

 Then sprinkle the 2 T cilantro, garlic and onion powders right onto the chicken and rub into the skin.

Place the chicken inside the oven and roast for 15 minutes. Then reduce the heat down to 375 and roast an additional 50-60 minutes or until it registers 165 in the thigh. I never check the temperature, I just cut right at the leg to make sure the juices run clear, here's a picture:

 Let the chicken rest for 15 minutes before carving. We enjoyed this beautiful chicken with roasted cranberries with brown and wild rice with a side of asparagus.

Then any extra chicken pull off the bone and save for a meal later this week. I like to make Mexican with leftover chicken but this week I made a chicken and wild rice soup.

Once you've removed any extra meat, place the carcass (every single bone) of the chicken into a storage bag or you can throw it right into the crock pot to make bone broth! Bone broth is one of the best things you can feed your family (personal opinion...). I'm going to write a whole post on bone broth but I wanted to give you the heads up not to waste those beautiful bones.

Roasted Red Pepper and Feta Hummus, OOh La, la

Roasted Red Pepper and Feta Cheese, two flavors that BELONG together...

 

 So I've made hummus before, a few times actually and each time the kids wouldn't eat it! It wasn't creamy enough and I don't think I got the flavors right...I'm not sure what happened but they didn't like it. But not this time! I found this hummus (below picture) at the farmers market and couldn't get enough of it!! So I decided to give it another whirl..

Making your own Roasted Red Peppers:
I bought red peppers from the farmers market, at 25 cents a piece how could I go wrong! I roasted 4 red peppers. Its easy! Throw them in the oven at 500 drizzled with a little olive oil, about a tsp and flip them about every 5 minutes until they look cooked, about 15-17 minutes. They should be sizzling a little but don't burn the poor things to pieces, just lightly charred... When I do this again I'd roast the garlic too!

Here is where I found the recipe:
http://www.cookingforkeeps.com/2013/02/26/roasted-red-pepper-feta-hummus/

To give credit where credit is due. BUT I made some changes and learned from experience what I would do differently, so here is my own version slightly:

4 whole roasted red peppers (don't do canned, its not as good and this isn't hard to do!)
4 cloves of garlic (I LOVE garlic and it definitely tasted garlicky so you might want to go lighter if your not quite with me on this)
4-5 tsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cans of chickpeas, drain and reserve the liquid (set aside but don't add to blender yet)
2 T olive oil
Small container of Feta cheese, I'm not sure on the ounces but the small size.

Throw everything but the olive oil, feta and chickpea liquid into the blender. Blend until smooth, add the 2 T olive oil slowly while blending. Then if needed add some of the liquid from the chickpeas until its well blended (or you can use filtered water instead of the chickpea liquid). Add the feta cheese and blend until smooth. It will thicken in the refrigerator, so if it seems softer than usual, relax, its going to be fantastic!

Refrigerate and eat it up with a week, shouldn't be too hard. You can easily half this recipe if you need to do a silly thing like that...

Granola: its whats for breakfast!

I'm a nursing mom, I have an 8 month old and with my other boys I struggled with "producing enough" so this time I've done what I can to make sure I'm a milk machine. Oats and beer are two things I've incorporated into my life and I must say I haven't had a problem this time. I eat granola almost everyday.

I LOVE it!

 

I love making it because I can play with the recipe a little bit which I encourage you to do as well. If you don't have all the ingredients on hand feel free to substitute things or alter to your own taste. If you have some over ripe bananas on the counter add those in next time! If its fall and you've made yourself some pumpkin puree add that it!

 

 

You'll save yourself money, know all the ingredients and have the satisfaction that you MADE it, so what are you waiting for? Make it a family event/project, my boys are quite helpful with making this.

 

My granola recipe:

 3 cups oats
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup ground flax
1 cup almonds...
1 cup walnuts
1 cup pecans
(You can put the nuts through the food processor if you want then smaller which I do!)
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes (sometimes I use the huge ones and sometimes the finer ones, or both!)
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Mix dry ingredients together in large bowl.

Combine wet ingredients in a sauce pan on the stove at medium low until combined:

 3 T coconut oil
1/2 cup maple syrup or honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup water (or substitute mashed banana or applesauce for a different flavor! My favorite is the banana)

  Combine wet and dry.

Spread on a pan (do not grease it!). Bake at 325° for about 30 minutes stirring it every 10 minutes. Last 10 minutes you can add in raisins and/or cranberries, add as much as you like. 

 

 I double and triple this recipe to last me a month or so. Store in a sealed container for up to a month. Play with the recipe adding things you like. Great on yogurt or just as a cereal! My boys love it on plain yogurt with strawberry honey jam.

 

 

Frozen Grapes: Money saving, delicious idea

This post will be short and to the point.

 

Its hard to find organic grapes at a good price, they are just expensive.

 

But when you do...

 

...buy lots of them and freeze them!

My kids say they are like mini popsicles.

 

Sometimes I will throw them right into a smoothie but my kids prefer to eat a bowl of them.

 

Delicious.

 

 

Spaghetti Squash, Oh I LOVE...

Spaghetti Squash! It may be one of those things you have seen at the grocery store or farmers market and haven't been sure what to do with it so you walk right past but its time to live it up a little,

go get one!

I got this one from the farmers market for $4 and look at how huge it is?! It fed us for 2 entire meals and was my lunch for 3 days... Try finding yourself some good quality pasta at that amazing price, not going to happen.

Lets bake this squash at 375 (go preheat it) but before you put the squash in you are going to want to pierce the squash all over with either a knife or fork, I chose the fork. This is important or you might have a squash EXPLOSION in your oven. Once you have pierced it throughout put it directly into the oven for an hour. You will know it is done when you can easily pierce the skin with a fork, it should go right through.

For dinner I chose to do a tomato sauce and I added Italian sausages John (my husband) found from the farmers market. I only used two sausages thinly sliced to feed all four of us. Meat is one of the most expensive things so save yourself a little and go a little lighter on it. Look at that pretty package:

Cook the sausages first in the pan, let them cool and thinly slice them while the tomato sauce is warming up. Throw the sausages in and add a few handfuls of shredded spinach and

 let that cook down.

Pull the spaghetti squash when its done and slice it carefully in half (beware steam). Then scoop out the seeds which you can save and roast if you so choose (they taste like pumpkin seeds!). Then take a fork and pull the strands of squash out and serve right up. Top with your sauce and dinner is served.

While I love this meal I will say I normally need a snack before bed, grab some pistachios or something good or home made pumpkin pie...