Question of the week?

What is your favorite summertime activity?

Lunch update - test week completed

The test week of primal lunches for the children has gone better than I expected.  Most days the children ate most of their lunch and seemed to enjoy it.  Today Hannah did not eat all of her lunch.  She just wasn't hungry after her snack at Vacation Bible Church this morning.  I served turkey rollups, carrot sticks, and nectarines.  We are officially out of 'test' mode but will continue to eat healthy primal lunches the majority of the time.

I did not post a lunch update yesterday because we were out of town attending a funeral.  The kids made memories visiting with a great-grandmother regardless of what type of food was served.

The Story of Cosmetics

Check out this video.    It does a great job explaining the chemicals in cosmetics.

Paleo lasagna

I created this dish one night when I was craving lasagna.  My family likes it better than "regular" lasagna. Both kids gobble it up. 

Ingredients
1 lb. ground buffalo (you can substitute any ground or diced meat)
1 onion, chopped
olive oil
5  medium zucchini, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans diced tomatoes, drained
italian seasoning
15 oz. ricotta cheese
1.5 cups mozzarella cheese

Directions
1.  Brown the buffalo with the chopped onion.
2.  In another pan, heat the olive oil and garlic.  Sauté the zucchini and carrots until they are tender.
3. In a separate pot, combine the tomatoes and the italian seasoning. Heat until bubbly.
4.  Spread some of the tomato sauce on the bottom of an oven-proof baking dish.
5.  Alternate layers of ingredients (veggies, buffalo, dollops of ricotta cheese, sauce) in any fashion you like.
6. Top with the mozzarella cheese.
7. Cover and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.  Remove the cover and bake an additional 5 minutes.

Lunch update - day 3

Today the kids didn't seem very hungry.  In retrospect I should have just served a nibble tray to last them through the afternoon.  I made turkey burgers (without the bun of course), carrot sticks, and berries.  Ben ate all of his burger and Hannah ate a few bites of burger and a few strawberries.    I'm going to save their plates and they can finish their lunch for snack later.

Farmer's market finds

We found such amazing deals at the farmer's market this week!  Paul and I had talked about freezing some summer produce if we found any great deals but were not prepared for the large amount of fruits and veggies we found.  We bought over 70 lbs of fruits and vegetables!

Tomatoes were $10 for a 25 lb. box.

Peaches were $25 for a 25 lb. box.

Bell peppers were $5 for a box that weighed in at 17lbs.  That is about 40 bell peppers!

This 67 lbs of yumminess was destined for our freezer.  We also bought sweet potatoes, nectarines, onions, grape tomatoes, and zucchini to eat this week.  We had a hard time getting it all to the van!  We had to make multiple trips with the stroller loaded down.

Once we got home I got right to work processing the food.  The bell peppers were very easy.  I just washed and dried them, diced and sliced, flash froze, and put into freezer bags.  I diced and sliced them so I have options when cooking. The diced peppers can go in casseroles and omelettes while the sliced peppers will be perfect for stir fries.

The peaches were pretty easy too.  I wanted peaches in every form possible so I decided to freeze some and dehydrate some.  First I washed and peeled the fruit.  Then I removed the pit (buying freestone peaches makes this easier) and started slicing.  Sliced peaches were dipped in orange juice and laid on a baking sheet to freeze. The o.j. helps retain the "normal" peach color.  I also pureed some peaches and froze in ice cube trays to add to iced tea.  Finally, I pulled out the dehydrator.  I diced the peaches and laid them on the trays.  I also put a bit of leftover pureed peaches on a tray to make peach fruit rollups.

The tomatoes were a bit more time consuming.  I washed them and peeled them.  To peel them, cut a little 'x' on the bottom and drop into boiling water for 1 minute and then plunge into ice water to halt the cooking process.  Then you can rub the peel off with your hands.  I decided to make some a lot of tomato sauce.  I didn't really follow a recipe, just winged it.  Hopefully it comes out okay.  Has anyone ever made sauce from fresh tomatoes?  It takes a long time to simmer - like 4-5 hours!

It is a little crazy how happy this freezer full of summer yumminess makes me!  I just love saving time and money while feeding my family healthy meals.  A little time in the kitchen now will save me a lot of time later.

Lunch update - day 2

We had another fantastic lunch today!  I served scrambled eggs, bacon, strawberries, and grape tomatoes.  The kids ate everything except the tomatoes.  I'll take as success.