Food Issues

I have been a terrible blogger as of late, and I am truly sorry, but it's really mostly been because of the lack of good pictures to put on!  

Ok so what I was wanting to write about today is how much of a hard time I'm having with food. I have been trying for years to eat "healthier", by which I mean trying to eat more of a whole foods diet and less of a crappy processed cupcake sort of diet. I have been pretty successful at making small changes gradually. My biggest obstacles have been things like budget, Shayne's taste preferences, and my own will power, but I'm finding these thing are easier and easier to overcome as time goes on. 

I keep tons of whole grains in the house, I'm trying new vegetables all the time and slowly removing most of the meat from our diet. It's really strange to me, but I don't really enjoy eating most meat. I'm not really motivated to be a vegetarian for moral reasons, but I just don't really like to eat meat the vast majority of the time. Is that weird?

Baking Bread

I have been so absolutely in love with baking bread as of late. I have been really loving the WHO bread recipe from Soulemama

The loaf above was actually a store bought 

frozen for when I'm feeling sort of lazy type of 

thing. The yellow bag underneath is my first

attempt at sewing a bread bag.

I even went out and bought a bread machine! 

And then Jackson promptly broke it...

It's ok I think I can still use it...  

Kettle Corn

I should not try new things. I'm not bad at making up recipes, but I'm no good at following them. I wanted to make kettle corn and I failed miserably. I burnt it and set off the alarms and made my house stink like mad.

 Any-who I still wanted kettle corn so I air popped some pop corn and melted 1/4 cup of salted butter and 1/3 cup sugar together on the stove(we don't own a microwave!) until it was syrupy and then drizzled the sugar mixture over the popcorn and tossed it all with a touch more salt. It was delicious!

Brittany's Famous Chicken Soup

I love chicken soup, it is my absolute go to meal. Shayne thinks it's about the only thing I can cook well, and, I'll be honest, he's probably right! Anyway I thought I'd share my "recipe" (if you can even call it that, it's more like guide lines) with you.

Ok here are the basic ingredients:

•chicken breast - I usually use two

•1 can of cream of chicken soup - you can sub a healthier homemade version if you like

•8oz of milk - I use whole, but I doubt it matters

•1 32oz box of broth - chicken or vegetable, I use whatever I have on hand and even make homemade vegetable broth from time to time

•two sticks of celery chopped into half inch pieces - I don't always have celery on hand so I don't always use it

•two large carrots peeled and chopped into bite size pieces - depending on the amount of other vegetables I have on hand I might use three

•three medium or large potatoes peeled and chopped into bite size pieces - again this depends on what else I have

•one large parsnip peeled and chopped - I don't always add this

•two turnips peeled and chopped - another of those if I happen to have it veggies

•one can of green beans drained and rinsed

•four cloves of garlic peeled, chopped, and crushed - I love garlic you can add as much or as little as you like

•garlic powder to taste - like I said I LOVE GARLIC

•onion powder to taste

•pepper to taste

• one or two bay leaves

•if I happen to have some onion I'd throw that in

•a couple spears of pepper - the color isn't important I buy one at a time slice it up and freeze most of it, when you need some you just pull out a spear and break it or cut it into whatever length you want

Ok so get your self a big pot and throw everything but the green beans and celery in. Simmer for like an hour and a half, take out the chicken, and shred it. If it needs more liquid add milk. Toss in the chicken, beans, and celery. If you want you can make some dumplings or add some gnocchi. You can eat it whenever you're ready. I recommend serving it with these bread sticks.

"Ice Cream"

In this house if you don't eat dinner I force you to eat "ice cream"!!! Really it's half a banana, a handful of berries, a handful of spinach, a handful of broccoli, some flax seeds, and cod liver oil. I'm told it is actually delicious...

Secret Chocolate Cake

I have been craving sweets non stop and since we desperately need to go grocery shopping we don't exactly have many options. I found this cupcakes for two recipe and tweaked it a bit.

• I was out of vanilla so I added three tablespoons of cocoa powder
•  I creamed the sugar and butter instead of melting the butter
• I used one whole egg instead of egg whites since the color doesn't matter after the addition of cocoa powder
• I baked it in a glass pan for just one cake instead of making cupcakes as I do not own a cupcake pan. I baked it for twenty five minutes
• I doubled all other ingredients
• I topped it with a sprinkle of powdered sugar

It turned out a lot more fudge like than cake like, but it was still tasty.

Now here is where the secret part comes in; I made it and ate it by myself (because I'm disgusting like that) in one afternoon and my husband and children don't ever need to find out...