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.

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.