Monthly Archives: August 2014

I am not a big jam person at all.  I like my homemade strawberry freezer jam because it isn’t really like jam, it is more of a spreadable preserve.  The way I like it.  My neighbor had given us some rhubarb this year and of course I took it and froze it and thought what can I make with this?

The answer was freezer raspberry rhubarb jam.

You will need the following for this:

• 6 cups fresh or frozen sliced rhubarb
• 4 cups sugar
• 2 cups fresh/frozen raspberries
• 1 -3 oz pkg raspberry flavored gelatin

In a large pan, combine the rhubarb and sugar and let it stand about 15 minutes or until sugar is moistened.  Since mine was frozen, I turned my burner on barely warm simmer to help melt it a little.  Then when it is all moistened, turn up your burner and and let it boil.  Boil, uncovered for 10 minutes.  Stir frequently so it does not burn.

Add your raspberries; return to boiling.  Boil hard for 5 minutes, stir frequently.

At this point, I take my potato masher and smash the raspberries to make them look like jam.  Add your pkg of gelatin and stir until dissolved.

Ladle this into freezer containers.  Place lids on and let stand at room temperature for several hours or until jam is set.  Store up to 1 year in your freezer.

 

We have been slowly chipping away and taking steps to rid ourselves from processed foods by making them ourselves.  It is interesting because it does not cost me much more time to cook homemade healthy foods.   I do when I am learning how to do something like make my own pantry staples–ranch mix, taco seasoning, etc.  But after it is already made and I need to make more it really doesn’t take much time at all.

Our grocery bill has gone done significantly.  I am definitely using up what foods we have in our pantry and freezer currently before buying more.  Even though I shop each week and buy fresh fruits and veges usually about every 1 1/2 weeks, it hasn’t made our grocery budget higher.

One of the last things on our list was to make  most of my grocery budget go to fresh fruits and vegetables.

This has been fairly easy right now.  We have a local farmers market come to the area each week and I have been able to go and pick up in bulk items we can eat for the week.  I was able to get 1/2 bushels of cucumbers and early apples and that is great snacking food for our family.  It cost me $14 for a half bushel of apples but it has lasted us almost a week and a half for snacking on.  If I bought 3 bags of Doritoes at the store it would cost me roughly the same and we would have devoured it in a sitting.  I know in the weeks to come, apples will get even cheaper and we will be able to purchase bushels for fairly low price and have and endless supply of snacking.

Our progress to get rid of snacking 3 times a day has worked out greatly.  The only person that I give a snack to in the morning between breakfast and lunch is the 2 and sometimes 3 year old.  I can usually tell if they are exceptionally whiny that they just need something in their bellies.

For our afternoon snack, I usually just have the children grab an apple or whatever fruit we have on hand.

Our night time snack used to be popsicles but we have FINALLY eaten all of our popsicles that we made this summer.  I only had to make 2 big batches of frozen treats but they lasted through many friends visiting and many nights of having a cool treat.

If I know the children did not eat much of their dinner, I might offer a banana, or some small snack before bedtime.

For the most part, if I know a child can go just a little bit longer till the next meal, I say, “well it is good you are hungry then I know you will eat most all of your dinner.”

Our last goal for foods was to replace our store bought meats/poultry with organic, farm raised, animal products.

We currently have chickens and ducks that we let graze on the land in our yard.  This supplies us with an endless supply of eggs.

We don’t currently buy organic farm raised chicken or beef.  We would like to look further into doing that in the near future.  We don’t eat tons of meat and most of the meat that I do make, I add plant products to help stretch it such as bulgur burger.

In time, Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither will my food habits be changed all at once.  It gives us something to look forward to doing.

Look for our last week of the month’s menu here.

I am a little behind putting up my weekly menus on time.  Here is our week 3 menu of eliminating processed foods from our diet.

 

Sunday

breakfast

cheerios and milk

**We had been giving some Cheerios breakfast cereal and my children were quick to gobble it up this week for breakfast.

lunch 

leftover day–my husband was working this weekend so the children and I had leftovers from when we had our friends over this past week.  Sandwiches, leftover noodles, veges and fruit.

dinner

we grilled hamburgers that we had made ourselves.  I did use store bought buns.  In the foil we did onions, mushrooms, and butter.  We also grill some zucchini from our garden.

 

Served this with leftover noodle salad and watermelon.

I can honestly say I DID NOT feel well after this past week.  We had eaten TOO MANY processed things and TOO MUCH of it.  I could tell I was definitely feeling the effects of not eating well.  I was bloated, had headaches, felt lethargic, and just overall genuinely not good. My children were crabby and  some excema came back on a child, I knew I had to get back to good foods.   I was honestly glad to DETOX myself a bit this week.  Cutting way back on my portion of foods and sticking with lots of water, fresh fruits and veges. My husband and I also started drinking my homemade kombucha on a consistent regular basis.  It made all the difference in my total well being

Monday

breakfast

cold cereal and milk–was nice for myself not to have to make breakfast:)

lunch

yogurt smoothies made from homemade yogurt, frozen berries, and homemade granola

veggies and hummus

peanut butter and homemade jam or honey on bread

dinner

sausage, red beans and rice

 

Tuesday

breakfast

cold cereal

lunch

leftover red beans and rice

dinner

minute steaks cooked with green pepper and onions and served over over mashed potatoes

Wednesday

breakfast

cold cereal

lunch

peanut butter and honey sandwiches, fruit, and veges

yogurt smoothie made with frozen fruit and homemade granola

dinner

coney dogs and tater tots

watermelon slices

**this was for a child who was not having a good day and has been asking me to make coney dogs forever.  I finally gave in because it had been in the freezer for a while.

Thursday

breakfast

oatmeal with blueberries

lunch

egg mcmuffin sandwiches

dinner

waffles and eggs

**this was our monthly breakfast food freezing day.  We were using 50 eggs to make breakfast burritos and 3 huge batches of pancake muffins.  My 14 year old enjoys making waffles so I have him make a quadruple batch for us.  I froze some for later on.

Friday

breakfast

waffles–leftover from last evening

yogurt smoothies

lunch

lentil rice casserole on tortillas with lettuce, salsa and sour cream.

watermelon slices

dinner

cheeseburger casserole

Saturday

breakfast

breakfast burritos

lunch

lentil rice burritos–leftovers

 dinner

mexican haystacks

Sunday

 breakfast

pancake muffins

lunch

leftover lentil rice burritos

dinner

Today we had a celebration for our 2 year old for his birthday and had friends come celebrate.

hotdogs, hamburgers, bbq chicken over fire

macaroni and cheese, radiatore salad, baked beans watermelon slices,

chips and homemade salsa, veggies and homemade ranch,  hummus and pita chips, spinach dip and pretzels

cupcakes

**this day was fairly decent, we bought the hotdogs and hamburgers–because of the high amount we needed.  The BBQ chicken, we made from ketchup and brown sugar, the noodle sides were from white noodles, the radiatore had chicken lunchmeat in it but the dressing was homemade. All the dips were homemade and we bought the chips, pita chips, and pretzels.    cupcakes were made from a cake mix.

Snacks

This week we had apples and plums to munch on for snacks.

I also made some homemade bread to eat with butter or homemade jam.

I continue to put out our kiddie snack mix. I added a bag of puffed rice to it.  Seems the little ones like it now.

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This week was better than last week.  We are using up the things that we have in our pantry and still making some “processed” things until we use them up.  I am excited because we have slowly shifted from store bought almost everything to making it from scratch.

My refrigerator used to be filled with lots of bottles and containers of foods but now is starting to look like this:

Most everything is in containers.  From the bottom up:  apples and plums and hummus on right.  Chopped up onions, peppers , strawberry jam, salsa and veggies cut up.  Top shelf leftover noodle salad, beans, and spinach dip.

The side door is getting better.  It used to be filled all the way down with store bought items.  I have our leftover dressings at the top that are waiting to be used.  I do have a large container of mayonaise I will be using up as well.  And coffee creamer—I will be doing without it this next week.

My veggie drawers contain lots of local grown produce.

 

This has leftover lunchmeat and bread.  Stuff we had on hand and are still going to be using up this month.

My pantry is also starting to look “less filled.”  We are slowly moving away from buying so much prepared food and making it all ourselves.

Keep reading our journey part 9

 

The challenge: to make small gradual changes

Some wise words from Martin Luther King :

 

How true that is for our challenge this year.  I have written about 52 small changes that you can make to help simplify your lifestyle.  Most people that you talk to WANT to make changes to their current lifestyle but most find it difficult to do. They start looking at the entire picture of what they want in their life, whether it be a better body, change of diet, a cleaner house, more organized life, or a better personal relationship within themselves.  But instead of looking at the entire picture and getting overwhelmed they need to just take  a step.  Just one.   Taking one small step towards a larger goal is better than not taking any step at all.

Why make the change:

We have been giving this great life that we live.  We need to live it.  We should stop being in the rut of daily hum drum tasks and just do it.  Stop making excuses.  Trust me, I have been one that has done that.  My excuses these last few years are:

• I was too tired
• I am too busy
• I will worry about that later on

But guess what??  Later on will never  come.  You will ALWAYS be too busy.  We can throw a million different things into our days, but we NEED to decide which things are worth pursuing to be most effective in our days. You will probably always be too tired as well, but it doesn’t take much of working on our goal even if it is for 20 minutes a day.

One of my husband and myself’s favorite quotes is by Henry David Thoreau and it is true for most people in life:

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

How many of us have big dreams that we only DREAM about in our life?  Most everyone does.  It is the very few that actually go forward and make strides to attain these goals.

 

How to make the change:

How do we go about making these changes?  We all have a resistance to making a change.  Why go AGAINST the flow when it seems you are just sailing along?

Take small steps

Instead of going from point A to point D in one full swoop, because you can, go from point A to point B.  It is much easier to start small in our changes then making drastic ones.  A person can get used to gradual changes much better than one who jumps right in and then sometimes jumps right back out because it was overwhelming.

That is why we start small.  If you desire to lose some weight, start out by exercising for 5 minutes a day every day.  Gradually start working your way up.

Finding joy

In order for anyone to stick to something they need to find JOY in doing it.  For myself, I despise exercising.  I do not like to do it at all.  Sweating, doing mundane tasks like running are just not what I enjoy.  I have done it, but it has been very easy for me to step back and not do it as much as I would have liked to.  I had to change my mode and do something that makes me enjoy exercising.  For myself, I include my husband or children.  We goto the park and walk the bike path or my little ones and I will dance and do exercises in the living room together.  Whatever I can do to make it more enjoyable is what is going to keep me motivated in doing it.  Maybe it is seeing that counterspace clean in the morning that will motive you to want to keep going organizing your home.  We are all different, we ALL need to find the joy that makes us happy.

Keeping it part of your daily routine

Remember you can make tons of changes and see great things happen in your life and then suddenly you gain back 10 pounds, or you start buying processed foods, or that shelf starts accumulating junk again. To integrate change into your life, it needs to become part of your normal everyday routine.  If you desire to stay fit, then make sure that everyday after dinner you walk.  Maybe you desire to pray more, set aside a time specifically like after you shower and before your morning coffee that you do it.  It is like having a trigger for you to remember when to do it.  The more times that you routinely do the tasks and are reminded by your “trigger” the easier it will become part of your normal everyday life.

 

Lastly, remember that you will fail.  I say this lightly.  Know that you are human and you are going to make mistakes, you will slip up.  Using failure as a stepping stone and building upon it for the next try will make all the difference.  We learn from failures, we learn how to not do that again and do better the next time.

 

I hope you have enjoyed my series on 52 weeks to living a simplified lifestyle.  My pray is that it has encouraged you to WANT to make some changes and I pray that you actually DO make the changes to help simplify your life.  We all deserve a happier life and that begins by making one small change.

 

 

 

FreeDigitalPhotos.net” by Serge Bertasius