Big Brood

We love granola for breakfast, snacks or really any time to be honest!  I have always used a recipe from this cookbook.  It is really yummy and healthy!  I haven’t been able to eat this granola since the discovery of gosling 6’s allergies so I decided to try a new recipe that is a little more gluten/dairy free.                                                                                           http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/peanutbuttergranola.htm  I only had to change one thing.  I used soy “butter” instead of the margarine called for.  The only thing I can say is YUMMY!!!  I think it will be gone before gander even gets home from work.

Our favorite healthy, filling, budget breakfast is crockpot oatmeal.

I finally sat down to figure the cost per serving. This following recipe feeds about 5. You can increase or decrease as needed for your family.

Crockpot Oatmeal

• 2 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
• 5 1/2 cups water
• 3 dried apricots, diced
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/3 cup craisins
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 an apple, diced

Before you go to bed at night, add all of the ingredients to your crockpot, turn crockpot to low. Wake up to breakfast already made.

Feel free to add or subtract ingredients that suit your family. Some options would be honey instead of sugar, raisins instead of craisins, etc. I have heard some families add chopped pecans before serving too.

The cost is around 19 cents per serving. You could certainly decrease this by taking away some of the dried fruit or using fruit that is locally in season.

Ways to get more fiber in your diet was brought up recently on a yahoo group I subscribe to.  Here is our basic bean recipe. 

I make a big pot of brown rice to serve with this. 

Crock-pot Refried beans

3 cups dry pinto beans

8 1/2 cups water

1 onion diced

1/2 jalapeno pepper, de-seeded and minced (I use two dried chile’s from last years garden but I am sure anything would work, even red pepper flakes or ground cayenne pepper)

3 cloves garlic minced

1/2 tsp cumin

2 tsp salt (sea salt is best but any will work)

1/2 tsp pepper

Preparation:

Rinse beans in colander.  Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker.  Cover and cook on Medium-high for 8 hours.

Drain out most of the water, Mash beans with potato masher (I use our immersion blender), adding back some of the liquid to desired consistency.  Will keep well in fridge for up to 1 week and will freeze well.  You can also add diced kielbasa or andouille sausage if you want meat in it.

Gander has this in his lunch on most days with the rice and some homemade yogurt, it keeps him full.  Oh, and the occasional chocolate chip cookie (his favorite!)

One of the biggest challenges of raising a big brood is the never ending question…what’s for dinner? I was truly struggling with the dreaded dinner hour until about 2 years ago. I started freezer cooking (once a month cooking) with a friend. We started small, we each made 3 main dishes and 1 side. Needless to say, like anything, it has grown into an obsession. For a while before the discovery of gander 6’s allergies I was involved in 2 freezer exchanges and still cooking with the same friend every 2 months. Each of the freezer exchanges consisted of about 6 mom’s cooking enough of a single meal to feed 6 families (about 6-8) servings each. That would give me 15 or so meals in the freezer each month. This was enough with leftovers and one made-from-scratch meal a week to feed us for the month. It was fun to have new dishes to try and I enjoyed the variety. Everyone else missed the goose’s cooking though.

I have a couple of tried and true websites and cookbooks I use pretty consistently.

• www.30daygourmet.com To be honest, I don’t use a lot of recipes from this site, but what I have used has turned out fine. It is a great starting point with loads of information for a newbie to freezer cooking though.
• www.recipezaar.com They have a huge OAMC (once a month cooking) section of recipes.
• My favorite freezer cookbook is: Dont Panic - Dinners in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead
• I also like: Dream Dinners: Turn Dinnertime into Family Time with 100 Assemble-and-Freeze Meals
• This one is also very popular with some freezer cooking friends: Holly Clegg’s Trim & Terrific Freezer Friendly Meals: Quick And Healthy Recipes You Can Make in Advance (Trim & Terrific)

You might wonder how to begin freezer cooking. I usually start by looking through my stack of favorite cookbooks and websites. Depending on the season we have some favorites. For example as we are heading into warmer weather I am thinking about things that can be put in the crockpot or grilled outside, marinades are really good for this. I recently started a freezer cooking binder where I keep my favorite recipes printed off the Internet as well as notepaper with my monthly list of freezer meals and where they can be found (the name of the cookbook, page,etc). This has been a great help and certainly streamlined things. Once I have a few ideas I start watching the ads for sales on meat, which usually narrows down my recipes. I won’t be making 3 chicken recipes if I can’t find chicken breast on sale somewhere for example. I have become strict with myself and try not to buy chicken breast unless it is below $2 a pound and when it is I stock up the freezer. I usually email back and forth with the ladies I am cooking with until we all get our recipes decided. We all try to keep our numbers of beef, chicken,pork,soups,marinades,etc. as even as possible so we don’t have 6 beef meals and 3 soups.

On cooking day everyone is usually at my house by 10:00 am and we are usually finished by 4:00 pm. Depending on whether we have little babies that need attention or are 9 months pregnant which does happen amongst my crowd more often than not, we sometimes make a meal or two ahead of time to make the day go more smoothly. We usually stop for a quick lunch somewhere in the middle and we all share in the clean-up.

I am back to cooking once a month with my dear friend who has 4 little ones in her brood. We have similar cooking tastes and styles and really enjoy our Saturdays cooking and chatting. My sister-in-law has since joined us to help cook for her brood of 5. So I still get plenty of meals in the freezer and more time to spend cuddling, reading or playing outside with my brood in the late afternoon.

This is adapted from Lent and Easter in the Domestic Church. I have a “talent” for always slightly altering every recipe I come into contact with, it drives my gander CRAZY! His theory is if there is a recipe it should be followed, mine is if there is a recipe there is probably a better way to do it!

• 2 cups white bread flour (I am sure all purpose would work)
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 3/4 cup cold butter, diced
• 1 1/2 cups golden raisins
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 cup sour milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add first 5 ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Using a pastry cutter, blend butter into flour mixture until it resembles fine crumbles. Add raisins to mixture, stir to distibute. Add honey and sour milk. Stir with a fork until it is moistened but not smooth. Spoon into a large round pan. I use a 12 inch stone with sides (like a round cake pan only bigger.) A 10 or 11 inch heavy skillet may work well too, just be sure to butter the pan first. Bake for 1 hour or until the middle is set. Cut into wedges and serve warm with butter and honey. YUM!

How do you drive your gander crazy?

[Updated: 9:48pm our time…]

Gander and I received this for Christmas:

For some the idea of making yogurt at home seems quite daunting and strange.  Even as crazy as I am about making everything from scratch I didn’t think this would be something I would dive into.  I like the idea of feeding my goslings something fairly healthy and wholesome that has “curdled” on my own counter top, so I decided to give it a try. I guess curdled wouldn’t be the correct term among yogurt gourmets, but close enough at our pond. The price is right too. I have been buying the quart sized yogurts at my favorite mega buy-anything-you-could-possibly-need-or-want store for about $2.25 per quart (for the name brand that had the better bacteria in it, I am told). I figured with non-hormone added milk at $2.94 a gallon I am spending approximatly 75cents per quart of homemade yogurt. Not bad for just a little bit of work.

To be honest there isn’t much work at all involved in making yogurt. Most of it is just a waiting game.

1.I measure out 4 cups of milk (usually 2%) into a saucepan and bring it up to about 185 degrees (just before boiling). This is to kill all the bad stuff, to get technical.

2. Then you have to wait and wait and wait until it comes to room temp.

3. Whisk in 2 Tablespoons of plain yogurt.

4. Pour into the yogurt maker cups, make sure said yogurt maker is turned on (oops!) and then wait 8-10 hours.

I usually do this before bed and then we wake to nice warm yogurt for breakfast.  Gosling 1 likes to add a little honey (or a lot, depending on whom you ask) and it makes a great breakfast with a little bread or toast.

Sadly, I haven’t been able to test out my success since I am on a dairy and gluten free diet to help out gosling 6’s allergies (more on that later).

I would really like to try making kefir which is similar to drinkable yogurt (at least in the goslings opinion).  Kefir is supposed to be even better for you than yogurt, containing so called probiotics.   I am certainly no expert but this sounds good to me.  I haven’t decided if I will try this kefir starter or give a cheaper option a try, possibly purchasing some of this  plain kefir at the grocery store and using it as a starter. If you want more info about kefir than you ever thought you needed or wanted to know, check out this site.