Hamburger Soup

This is one of our favorite soups for winter time. I remember my mom making this a lot in winter when I was growing up and it was always a hit, so much so that I remember several times requesting to have it in a thermos in my lunch the next day! I kind of forgot about it for awhile pre-kids and then I remember asking my mom for the recipe for it and she gave me the cookbook it was in. It was an old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (she had a series of these that each slim volume was something different, Poultry, Italian, Chocolate, Cakes and Cookies{those last two were my favorite!})  and this recipe was in one appropriately called Soups and Stews. I remember reading through the recipe the first time cause I couldn't believe how short the recipe looked and I quickly realized why my mom made it so often in winter, It's so easy! It's also easily adaptable and freezable and it serves 6 full bowls (I grew up in a family of six) So without further adieu I give you Hamburger Soup.

Hamburger Soup

1 pound lean ground beef (preferably grass-fed pastured, or you can use ground bison or venison etc)

1 16-ounce can diced tomatoes

2 medium carrots, sliced

2 medium onions, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1/3 cup pearl barley (omit for paleo version and substitute with extra veggies in recipe)

1/4 cup ketchup

1 tbsp instant beef bouillon granules (I substitute gluten free Worcestershire sauce for paleo friendly)

2 tsp seasoned salt

1 tsp dried basil, crushed

1 bay leaf

In large saucepan cook ground beef till browned. Drain off fat. Stir in remaining ingredients and 5 cups water. Bring to boiling. Reduce heat cover and simmer for 1 hour. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove bay leaf. Serves 6.

Local Food (and our paleo journey)

    So, I've sat down to write this post a couple of times, and every time I do I don't know where to start :) So don't mind me if I just jump right in....
     I don't know if you've noticed (I know all my blogging lately has been sporadic!)but my recipe sharing has gone downhill in the last few months.This is (partly) because I've been learning a whole new repertoire of recipes in following the Paleo (or Paleolithic) diet. Honestly I hate calling it a diet cause it isn't just a weight loss diet, it is a lifestyle change. If you haven't heard of the paleo or primal diet here's the gist of it:

Enjoy:                                            Avoid:
Meats                                            Grains (not just wheat)
Vegetables                                     Legumes
Fruits                                             Dairy
Nuts                                              Processed foods
Seeds                                            Alcohol
Healthy fats                                   Starches

    Now, I'm not going to give you a full synopsis of the diet, there are a bunch of resources you can check out if you are interested and I am by no means a professional at this whole thing. What I do want to share is why I am doing this (and why I'm "dragging" the whole family along with me :)

   Over the last three or four years I have become more and more aware of our impact on this earth in a environmental sense and (like a lot of people) more and more aware of the impact of our "conventional" food  and farming systems. All that coupled with my long held dream of having a farm and my hubby and I's wanting to grow more of our own food has taken us on this path to finding a piece of property large enough to be able to grow/raise our own food. The paleo/primal "diet" encourages the freshest most healthy sources of food possible, and what could be more fresh than growing and/or hunting it yourself?


(these fish we had awhile ago were very fresh and local, Gabe caught them in the lake we live close to (2 minutes away close!)

Ordinary days

Our kids have been really into helping out in the kitchen lately,which is wonderful most of the time (a pain in the butt when I just wanna get something done fast!) Last night they were super meatball makers :)

Christmas fun

This weekend we did something fun together as a family, we made a gingerbread house! We don't usually do these things (gasp!) but we got one of those kit thingies last week ( thanks Gramma Bev!) and Gabe has been pestering asking me all week to make it. So on Sunday we had nothing going on (for once!) and we decided Gabe had pestered waited long enough. It was actually pretty fun once we got through the arguments of who's being fair and who's hogging all the candy :) We even had my sister here to help.

Raspberry Cream Muffins

These muffins are by far our families favorites. They are the one kind that everyone eats, even my most picky eater. So here we go and hope you enjoy some with your family :)

Rasberry Cream Muffins

2 cups                  All purpose flour ( you can use whole wheat flour if you want, I do!)

1 tsp                     baking powder 

1/2 tsp                  baking soda

1/2 tsp                  salt

1/4 tsp                  ground cinnamon

1/2 cup                 butter or hard margarine, softened

2/3 cup                 granulated sugar

2                           large eggs

1/2 cup                 sour cream

1 tsp                     vanilla

1 cup                    coarsely chopped frozen raspberries ( they should definitely be frozen otherwise they just                 squish into mush)

Measure first 5 ingredients into a bowl and stir well.

Beat butter and sugar in medium bowl. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Add sour cream and vanilla. Beat to mix. Add flour mixture. Stir just until moistened .

Fold in raspberries. Fill greased muffin cups almost full. Bake in 350F (175C) oven for 30-35 minutes until golden. Let stand 10 minutes. Remove from pan to cool on rack.

Makes 12 large muffins. 

Banana chocolate chip cookies (or Erin's cookies)

Hi! Today I'm sharing with you one of our absolute favorite cookie recipes. I got this recipe a few years ago from my wonderful friend Erin and I just have to share it with you because these cookies are sooooo yummy and soooooo easy! :)  They may not look all pretty and all but they taste like little cakes, nice and soft and sweet. So here we go!

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

2/3 cup butter or margarine ( I always use real butter in my cookies, tastes so much better)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/4 cups flour (I use whole wheat flour)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 cup mashed banana (about 3, I almost always make these with frozen bananas and I just throw them in when they defrost without mashing)

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients together with a mixer and spoon onto greased cookie sheet. Bake in 375 degree oven for 10-12 minutes. Best stored in fridge. Freeze well.

Enjoy!

Plum Crazy

Remember a few weeks ago in this post I was telling you about all the plums we had to pick? Well one of the things we ended up making was some homemade HP sauce that my mom had a recipe for. It turned out really yummy so I wanted to share with you the recipe for it. So here goes...

First you need some freshly picked plums (the purple kind)

No More Baggies!

         This year, for the beginning of school I started a new tradition. I was getting so tired of feeling guilty about sending little plastic baggies in my kids' school lunches ( I do use reusable containers but once you add up a container for a sandwich, a container for cookies/muffin, and sometimes a container for fruit )it starts to add up and then they don't fit in the kids cute lunch bags. Pretty soon you're buying a huge honkin' lunch bag as big as their backpack and where do they put their agendas and homework or library books?! Well, my solution in the past has been to pack their cookie or muffin or other snack item in plastic snack baggies. But no more!

        My new tradition is going to be to let each of my kids pick out a cute reusable snack baggie! And this year as I was ordering up the snack bags I decided to add a set of reusable sandwich wrappers as well, because honestly a lot of times I would just wrap their sandwiches in plastic wrap or throw them in a plastic sandwich baggie because it was easier/fit better than containers. Aren't they cute?!

Homemade Raspberry Jam

From the vine...

to the freezer :)

Really Rad Raspberry Cream Muffins!

This is one of our all time favorite muffin recipes that everyone (even the picky one!) enjoys. In fact, it is difficult to actually snag one around here when I only make a single batch (a single batch makes 12 muffins).

Raspberry Cream Muffins


2 cups     whole wheat flour
1 tsp        baking powder
1/2 tsp     baking soda
1/2 tsp     salt
1/4 tsp     ground cinnamon (I usually put in a 1/2 tsp as we like cinnamon!)

1/2 cup    butter or hard margarine, softened
2              large eggs
1/2 cup    sour cream(or plain yogurt)
1 tsp        vanilla

1 cup      coarsely chopped frozen raspberries


-Measure first 5 ingredients in a bowl. Stir well.
-Beat butter and sugar in a medium bowl. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Add sour cream and vanilla. Beat to mix. -Add flour mixture. Stir just until moistened.
-Fold in raspberries. Fill greased muffin cups almost full. Bake in 350 F (175 C) oven for 30 to 35 minutes            until golden. Let stand 10 minutes (if you can stand to wait!) Remove from pan to cool on rack.

I haven't tried it yet with fresh raspberries, but they would probably get mushy. As I'm writing this I'm thinking this recipe would probably be really good with blueberries (and just about any berries) too!

So.... Enjoy!

What is your favorite muffin recipe? I love muffins, but the only thing I don't like is washing the pan, all those little cups are annoying!

Real Food

Last week I was tootling around Pinterest and saw this intriguing pin


                                    source

So, I went on over to Lisa's BLOG and checked it out and it is great!

     Lisa is tackling an issue that is close to my own heart which is to feed my family as healthy as possible. I've always been aware of eating/cooking healthy, I nearly always made homemade baby food for my kids and continue to make sure they eat lots of fruits and veggies, but it was easy to let other "convenience foods" sneak into our diet like granola bars, fruit cups, yogurt tubes etc.

     Since reading Sharon Astyk's books a few years ago and now discovering Lisa's blog and well as a few others, I am committed more than ever to ridding our pantry and fridge/freezer of convenience foods.  I started two years ago by making the transitions slowly first by (almost) eliminating store bought bread and making my own. I either make it by hand or, until it broke, with our breadmaker. Then in the last year I've slowly been working on a difficult one for our family which is eliminating store bought cold cereal. I was never one for buying Fruit Loops or other sugary cereals like that, but even things like Cheerios and Cornflakes add up cost wise with a family of five. So, what have we been eating for breakfast you may ask? Well, my youngest two love oatmeal (not instant, or even quick cooking, the old whole oats kind) and it is really easy to make. I just pop 1/2 cup oatmeal in a microwavable bowl with one cup water, stir it a bit, put it in the micro for 1 min, stir it again then 1 min more. When we take it out we add some (unsweetened) applesauce, cinnamon, raisins or dried apricots, almonds or walnuts and a dab of whole milk and voila! Yummy fast breakfast! Nyla doesn't like oatmeal so she usually has homemade bread with peanut butter and honey or jam.  Sometimes we make scrambled egg burritos with cheese or if I'm really on the ball, whole wheat pancakes with a bit of maple syrup and some type of fruit.

     So even with those changes it was good to read Lisa's Blog and be reminded of the hidden sugars and bad stuff added to seemingly "healthy" foods like peanut butter, salad dressings, even pre-shredded cheese! I think she is doing a fantastic job of living by example and sharing it all with the rest of the world. I am now committed to checking label and making sure that they have 5 ingredients or less and that the ingredients are "real food". I'm also committed to growing our own vegetables and fruits as much as possible and if not grown then bought locally and/or organically in season.

(these are some of our homegrown plants hardening off)

    We are very lucky where we live as there are a lot of small farms growing organic produce. There are also a bunch of farmers markets in the area as well as a local grain CSA which I hope to become a part of hopefully this year. We live right by a large lake with abundant salmon and trout as well as being surrounded by mountains full of deer and elk and grouse etc. As most of you know, we sold our house and now we are on the lookout for a good sized piece of property in order to have our own small farm where we hope to raise/grow about 90-95% of our own food.

So how about you? Are you aware of all the hidden "gems" in processed food? Are you working on eliminating them from your diet? Or are you just fine with store bought food the way it is?

Please keep checking back as I share with you all the ups and downs of this adventure :)
Have a great Wednesday!

Rainbow Cake

Remember this baby from this post  a couple of weeks ago? Well, today I am going to share with you how I made it :)

I made baguettes!

And a whole bunch of other yummy stuff!!

It feels so good to make homemade food for my family. This should last us all week for lunches and a few suppers :)

From the bottom left corner around clockwise we have:
Sausage and lentil soup, Hamburger soup, Sour cream coffee cake, two loaves of 100% Whole wheat bread, baguettes, gingersnap cookies, and raspberry cream muffins.

 Did you have a good weekend? We certainly did! It's finally spring around here and  the snow is almost gone! Yay!

A Bright and Colourful Birthday Party

Just to warn you, this post has a ton of pictures!

Oat Delights (aka Bear plop cookies :)

Charlotte, this is for you! That's my sister for those of you who don't know. I thought it was time to share another favorite recipe of ours. My sister and I have made these together quite a few times and can't help but giggle when we put them on the pan as they always look like bear poop (hence the name) Anyways, I like making them for a few reasons, #1 They are easy, #2 You don't need eggs or flour, #3 You don't need the oven as they aren't baked #4 the kids like them! #5 They're so chocolatey! So without further ado, here's the recipe,

Oat Delights

2 cups sugar
6 tbsp cocoa
1/2 cup butter/margarine
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup shredded coconut
3 cups rolled oats

Combine sugar, cocoa, butter, and milk in saucepan, bring to a boil. Boil for about two minutes, stirring constantly. Add vanilla. Remove from heat and stir in coconut and oats. Drop by teaspoonfuls (or tablespoons like I usually do) onto wax paper lined cookie pan; chill. Makes about 4 1/2 dozen

Enjoy!
Can't believe it's already February, can you?

Did you figure it out?

It's..........Almond Roca! Yum!

Cady was my little helper as we made some yesterday :) She was the official taste tester :)

If you want to make some yourself, here's the recipe,

Almond Roca

1c butter

1 c sugar

1   4oz pkg sliced almonds

6oz semi-sweet chocolate, white or dark

Cook sugar and butter for 6-7 minutes on medium high heat, stirring constantly. Add almonds and boil another 6-7 minutes until mixture is caramel coloured and nuts pop.

Remove from heat and pour on  a cookie sheet.

Coat top and side with melted chocolate, sprinkle with nuts when cool.

Turn over and coat other side.

Then when all that is done, you break it all into pieces and enjoy! Or maybe share.

I cannot believe how fast the last couple of weeks have gone by, can you?! The countdown is on and I only have a few more things to wrap and I think I can say I'm ready for the big day :) How about you, are you ready? I'm going to try and be back tomorrow and share our holiday decor.

Christmas Treats

Last week, the kids and I made some special treats for the girls to give to their teachers. I had some hard working helpers :) Lucky thing I have three kids as there were three jobs to do.

Gabe worked on his colours as his job was to sort the m&ms into separated red and green piles :)

Cady's job was to unwrap all the Hershey's Hugs, she did really well although hers ended up being the bottleneck so I helped her out a bit :)

Nyla got to sort the pretzels and only put non broken ones on the cookie sheet :)

After everything was sorted and nicely put together, we stuck them  in the oven for a couple minutes so the hugs could get a little melty,

Oh and Rudolph helped a bit too :)

Then we took out the slightly melted pretzels and hugs and added some Christmas colour....

And voila! Some super easy, fun Christmas treats called Pretzel-hugs :) They were pretty yummy too, kind of like chocolate covered pretzels with extra chocolate. I got the idea to make these from one of my favorite blogs to read and you can see the original post here. Unfortunately ours don't look quite as perfect, fortunately, I'm pretty sure they TASTE as good :)

This is a little snapshot of MY favorite Christmas treat to make and eat (or the ingredients for anyways) Can you guess what it is? I'll give you a hint, it's my sister, Charlotte, and I's favorite thing to make and eat this time of the year :)

Four simple ingredients to yumminess. Well, you'll just have to come back tomorrow to find out and get the recipe!

One Summer Day

Last Monday we had a wonderful time at one of our local beaches (I love living so close to a lake!)

I have to say that it was quite the hike to get down there, but it was sure breathtaking once we got there! It was so lovely and we were so lucky to be the only ones there, that is the five of us and my brother.

Sorry about the date stamp on these pics, I think Cady accidentally turned it on when she was taking a few pics the other day :)  Uncle Matt taught them the perfect way to enter a freezing cold lake (although it's nice and refreshing once you're in there)

Just run in and take the plunge!

We also did some fishing. This little guy is getting so good at casting! But, don't worry, there's no hook attached there's just a bobber and a little bit of weight :) He sure loves practicing his casting though.

 And Cady did some fishing of her own, while Stella watches patiently :)

Daddy even caught one! (actually he and my brother caught a few before the kids and I got there) and since the hook was so deeply embedded and the fish was just big enough, we kept it and roasted over an open fire, so yummy!

Nyla was being her typical self and thought the whole ordeal of gutting it etc was disgusting. She wouldn't even go near it, but miss Cady was so interested in it and carried the meat like it was her pet :) She was so excited when she finally let go of it and saw that the fish left some "sparkles" on her hands :)

  So we had some hot dogs and some fresh fish and some regular potato chips and some cucumbers for our supper, delicious!

I think these goof balls had a wonderful day!

Oh, and these goof balls as well :)

I'm looking forward to this weekend as we're planning to go to one of my favorite places to hopefully do some boating and some hiking and some more beach fun. Hope your summer is going as wonderfully as ours has. Have you caught any fish lately and eaten them fresh? How about jumping into an icy cold lake?

The easiest chocolate chip cookie recipe ever!

OK so this isn't the prettiest picture ever, but you can see what they look like right?  I've been making these super easy cookies a lot lately because, #1 they are super yummy, #2 they are super easy to make, you don't even have to spend time making each individual cookie since they are a slab and you just cut them up (I guess you could use cute shaped cookie cutters if you wanted, I just thought of that now! hmmmm, gonna have to make some more and try that!)

Without further ado, here is the yummerific recipe;

Chocolate Chip Slab Cookies

1 cup margarine or butter (or half of each, I use all butter)

1 cup  Brown sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

2 cups Flour

1 cup Chocolate chips

Cream margarine/butter and sugar together, beating thoroughly (the secret!). Add vanilla and flour. Mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Pat mixture onto a greased 15" x 10" cookie sheet that has sides. Bake at 350 degrees F (180 degrees Celsius) for approx 25 minutes. Cut into squares (or shapes with cutters) while warm.

And THAT'S IT! So easy, hope you enjoy!

Special Movie Night and a Pizza Recipe

  Ahhhhhhhh..... It's Friday. I love Fridays, but then again, who doesn't? Around here, Friday nights are called "special movie night" and that of course means a movie, but what makes it special is that all of us are home together and we all sit down and watch a family movie together. Sometimes it is a movie we rent from our local movie store...

( Doncha just love the paint job they did?) Anyways the picture about is our local movie rental store( no blockbusters here :) . We live just outside a tiny town of about 10000 people and it is really cute and artsy.

But back to our evening, we watch a movie and I always make pizza for supper. Sometimes I make simple margarita pizzas (doesn't that sound more interesting than just cheese, it's what the family I lived with in Switzerland a long time ago called plain cheese pizzas :) Sometimes I go fancy with a more greek style (red onion, feta cheese, spinach, kalamata olives, grape tomatoes) and of course the kids always have either plain, pepperoni or ham & pineapple ( although if I make the Greek one, Cady and Gabe like to steal the olives!)
I make it from scratch 99% of the time because I have the best crust recipe ever, tasty and easy! So without further ado here is my special pizza crust recipe!

Pizza Dough   (makes one 12 inch crust, I usually double it for my family of five)

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tbsp fermipan yeast
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup lukewarm water

Oil pizza pan (I use EV olive oil) and preheat oven to 400 degrees C / 200 degrees F.
Put 1 cup of the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and water in a large bowl. Beat well with a wooden spoon.
Add last cup of flour, mix till it forms a ball.
Let rest 15 minutes
Spread oil on top of dough and spread in pan to sides. Add toppings (I usually use tomato paste and oregano as my sauce)
Place on rack in middle of oven  and cook for approx 20 minutes.
Enjoy!

These are some calzones I made a few weeks ago, and they were quite good, basically you make the dough and separate it into about four small lumps, then press into a circle, add toppings and fold one side over, squeezing the edges together. Yummalicious!




What do you do on a Friday night? Does your family have a weekly tradition? Please leave a comment below (I think I fixed it) I'd love to hear from you!

Have a good weekend!

Sam