Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.
~C. S. Lewis
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Category: MISC
Give Me 5 Memorable Things I’ve Done
hosted by Becca at Becca’s Buzz
1) Married my best friend ~ we had an awesome wedding and reception
2) Alaskan Cruise & the steam train up into the Yukon territory
3) Been a part of a Magic Castle magic show
4) Toured the Hawaiian Islands by Helicopter
5) Made my own quilt, piece by piece
2) Alaskan Cruise & the steam train up into the Yukon territory
3) Been a part of a Magic Castle magic show
4) Toured the Hawaiian Islands by Helicopter
5) Made my own quilt, piece by piece
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Monday Munchies
Today’s Recipe: Healthy, Homemade Energy Shake
I mentioned last week that I was moving soon and needed to use up a lot of food I have lying around. I’ve also noticed that moving and packing is hard work, and I need an extra boost of energy to get everything done. Most energy drinks are full of sugar and make you jittery, though, so I thought I’d come up with my own alternative.
I mentioned last week that I was moving soon and needed to use up a lot of food I have lying around. I’ve also noticed that moving and packing is hard work, and I need an extra boost of energy to get everything done. Most energy drinks are full of sugar and make you jittery, though, so I thought I’d come up with my own alternative.This is a great recipe for a breakfast, snack, or dessert shake. It’s more like a milkshake than a smoothie.
Ingredients
1/2 cup fruit (frozen works best, or just add a few ice cubes)
1/4 cup prepared pudding OR 1/8 package pudding mix
1/2 cup milk, any kind (3/4 cup if you’re using pudding mix)
It’s very simple – just combine the ingredients in a blender until smooth. The fruit is a good source of carbohydrates, which give you a quick burst of energy that’s healthier than the sugar rush you get from candy or caffeinated drinks. The milk provides protein, which helps keep you going without a crash. The pudding adds sweetness and creaminess and takes away the need for unhealthy ingredients like white sugar or ice cream.
You can use any combination of fruit and pudding flavors. Two of my favorites are dark chocolate pudding with raspberries and lemon pudding with blackberries. The shake pictured above uses peaches and vanilla pudding. If you’re making it for dessert, add more pudding and less milk to make a thicker treat.
—> Budget-friendly Tips
- Bananas are very inexpensive and make a delicious, smooth shake ingredient paired with almost any pudding flavor.
- Inexpensive boxed pudding mixes, individual pudding cups, and homemade pudding all work, with adjustments. Use whatever is most affordable for you.
—> Health-friendly Tips
- You can use skim milk or soy milk, as well as sugar-free pudding.
- Add any supplement to make the recipe healthier. I often use this granola-flavored vitamin shake mix in this recipe.
—> Kid-friendly Tips
- Serve like a diner-style milkshake with a swirl of whipped cream and a cherry on top.
- You can sneak veggies into this recipe! I know firsthand that a little shredded carrot is undetectable in a well-blended peach shake, and even spinach leaves should be hard to find in a chocolate, blackberry, or blueberry shake.
Simply Delicious Sunday ~ Spiced Apple Ginger Pie
SPICED APPLE GINGER PIE
SPICED APPLE GINGER PIE
FILLING
7-8 firm, juicy Granny Smith apples, cored, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup golden rum
1/2 cup water
1 cup golden raisins
2 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup+ packed brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons honey
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CRUST
1 1/2 cups crushed gingersnaps
1 1/2 cups crushed vanilla wafers
1/2 cup crushed walnuts
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons lime juice
1/4 cup melted butter
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Mix water and rum together and soak raisins in the mixture while your are preparing the apples.
- Drain the raisins retaining the rum mixture.
- In a large skillet melt the butter. Add the rum mixture.
- Add apples and simmer until apples are tender, about 15-20 minutes.
- While apples are simmering, prepare crust. Finely grind the vanilla wafers, ginger snaps and walnuts together. I use my mini Cuisinart and do it in just a few small batches to get the crumbs extra fine and then cut everything else in with a pastry blender. Add the seasonings, melted butter, lemon and lime juices until well blended.
- Press 1/3-1/2 of crust into a greased deep pie plate.*
- When apples are tender, sprinkle sugars, flour and seasonings over the apples.
- Fold in the lemon juice, vanilla, honey and raisins.
- Simmer until gooey.
- Pour into the pie plate and top with remaining crust.
- Bake 50-60 minutes until golden.
- Cool.
- Serve with vanilla ice cream.
*I sometimes sprinkle 1/3 of the crust mixture between layers of apples.
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Menu Plan Monday
| DATE |
BREAKFAST |
LUNCH |
DINNER |
|
| MONDAY |
8/17 |
CEREAL |
SANDWICHES | Recipe Experiment Night |
| TUESDAY | 8/18 |
TOAST |
LEFTOVERS |
At the STATE fair for our Anniversary |
| WEDNESDAY | 8/19 |
YOGURT |
SOUP |
Tuna Noodle Bake |
| THURSDAY | 8/20 |
FRUIT |
CHEESE & FRUIT |
Michelle’s Cashew Fettucini Alfredo |
| FRIDAY | 8/21 |
OATMEAL |
C.O.R.N. |
|
| SATURDAY
SUNDAY |
8/22
8/23 |
S.O.S. or S*$# on a Shingle | PICNIC | Sausage Lasagna |
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Simple Supper Saturday
I always shoot for very simple suppers on week nights and had to make my menu plan super easy this week since I’ve been working ten hour days. On Sunday I made an large (bulk) eye round roast beef with a minced garlic and herb rub. I made all the yummy sides for Sunday – homemade country mashed potatoes, fresh green beans and dinner rolls. For the first leftover meal on Monday I sliced it very thin and served warm and piled high on “everything” bagels with chips and coleslaw. The second easy leftover night is the dinner I’m featuring here today …
This is a beef stew I made simply by cutting the rest of the leftover roast beef into bite sized chunks, plus 6 cubed potatoes, baby carrots, and a package of mushrooms cut into halves. I added the pan drippings from the roast (fat skimmed from the top), 4-5 cups of water, a packet of beef stew seasoning and thickened with a little cornstarch dissolved in cold water – simmered until the veggies were done (about 30-40 minutes) and then served in big shallow bowls over Pepperidge Farms puff pastry cups.
It was delicious, quick, easy, made a very pretty presentation, and it was a big hit with the whole family!
Spiced Apple Ginger Pie
I did something today I try to NEVER do, but after all the work around here and getting ThE KrAzY KiTcHeN going, that I finally was forced to admit to myself that I had no other choice. I marked all read in google reader for the 1st time. I’m so sorry I’ve been so busy and hope to get back to reading and commenting regularly on all my favorites!
SPICED APPLE GINGER PIE
Don’t forget to stop by ThE KrAzY KiTcHeN to play along tomorrow.
Don’t forget to stop by ThE KrAzY KiTcHeN to play along tomorrow.
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♥♥What did you bake today: Flax Wheat Bread
This is a really healthy, low glycemic bread. It is dense and makes fabulous toast (I like mine with Adam’s peanut butter, as you can see in the picture below…I almost ate the last slices before taking any pictures ~ YIKES!)
Flax Wheat Bread:
1 cups warm water
1 cup white flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup ground flaxseeds (flaxmeal)
1 Tbls oil
1 Tbls honey
2 tsp salt
1 Tbls yeast
In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add the oil, honey and salt. Add 1 cup whole wheat flour, flaxmeal and white flour. Beat with a dough hook in a mixer. Add remaining wheat flour and knead thoroughly. Let rise in a warm place until double in bluk. Punch down and shape into a loaf and let rise in a greased loaf pan. Bake 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until done.
You can make this in a bread machine. I did it this way, to prevent the house heating up too much, but I have technical difficulties with bread machines…the bread almost always rises too high and then falls when I use a machine. I like the control I get when I make things by hand. If you use a bread machine, select whole wheat bread and light crust. Put ingredients into machine in the order your machine specifies.
House Update – Chronicles of a Bungled Real Estate Deal – Almost never seems close enough Part 3
Habitat for Humanity Restore is one of my new BFF’s. These old doors were original to the house and needed replaced for warmth alone due to the single pane glass.
We were able to pick up these great solid oak doors at the Restore from an old high school for $25 each compared to the Home Depot price of $300 each. With some minor alterations they are installed and will provide the necessary insulation for winter and more privacy from all the plain glass.
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House Update – Chronicles of a Bungled Real Estate Deal – Almost never seems close enough PART 2
To refresh your memory the closets in the master bedroom had to be ripped out way back when due to the mold problems. This was no big loss as they had been installed on either side of the chimney that runs up the center of the back wall and were only 2 foot wide with teeny tiny doors. We thought long and hard on this one. We wanted to make a walk in closet with plenty of storage. Well we succeeded. There are 5 built-in shoe racks, a dual rod for 8 feet and 3 feet of space for extra long garments like dresses.
We originally ordered French louvered doors from Home Depot that came with the casing, but their supplier was canceled and we were forced to look elsewhere. No one else had exactly what we were looking for and then we found some at the Habitat for Humanity Restore and are building our own casing and refinishing the doors which will be hung Monday. We do have the molding up though which is a real plus as the finish molding always seems to take the longest!
Many of you may remember that the kitchen counters still needed to be done and I had used peel and stick tiles in the interim. Today by complete accident we found an awesome deal on marble tiles. I had originally wanted a sheet of marble, but the price was so exorbitant that we kept looking. Well today we found these close out tiles for 25% of the original price and I’m going to get busy this next week. Ironically the grout color name is ‘biscuit’.
I also am in the middle of refinishing the bathtub. Do you see that moth that landed on my wet finish? He’s going to cost me an additional 3 days and another resurfacing – oh well.
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♥♥House Update – Chronicles of a Bungled Real Estate Deal – Almost never seems close enough
I bet many of you thought I’d dropped off the face of the earth, but no I’m here, just been extremely busy doing all those projects to tie up loose ends here on this investment house. So here is the much neglected house update. This ugly ‘room’ was the concrete ice room from the turn of the last century. The outside door is even still in place for ice insertion.
We created internal walls, ceiling and floor as well as added shelves for gardening tools, hooks for mops and brooms and have turned into a utility/broom closet/mud room as it is as you enter from the deck, but before you reach the kitchen. The basement stairway is also located here. Hubby and the electrician had to cut away much of the original siding to re-do the electrical wiring and install the dryer vent so that also need to be repaired and we are in the process of painting the entire stairway in a bight BEHR Oklahoma Wheat color.
The floors are stained and need a final sanding before we move on to the existing hardwood floors to refinish.
Along the way I’ve also been sorting for the big VFW rummage sale and packing too as I go.
I’d been doing this for most of the year. We had brought everything with us so that we could do just that through the cold winter and it’s is just about done! YAY! How is it we accumulate so much stuff? I had things from my grams, my dad and my mom that also needed gone through, but it really is hard sometimes. The thought of repacking it for a cross country move is what got me in gear. The less the better to move home.
This is the last batch. I’m working on next years batch now!
See how clean the barn is now! It would stay that way except the VFW will be storing their stuff there until next year again.
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♥♥Healthy Helpings – Breakfast in a Cup
These little “muffins” are great for breakfast on the go.
4 oz reduced fat loose breakfast sausage
1/4 cup chopped green peppers
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 c liquid egg substitute or 4 eggs
1 large egg
1 can (4 oz) sliced mushrooms (drained)
1/2 c (2 oz) shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese
- Coat a 6-cup muffin pan with nonstick spray. Preheat the oven to 350F
- In a medium nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, cook the sausage, pepper and onion for 5 minutes, or until sausage is browned.
- Spoon mixture into a bowl and cool slightly.
- Stir in egg substitute and eggs, and the additional egg and mushrooms.
- Spoon mixture evenly into prepared muffin pan.
- Sprinkle with cheese.
- Bake 20 minutes, or until egg is set.
2 pts – ww (using egg substitute)
107 calories, 12 g protei, 4 g carbs, 5 g fat, 1 g fiber.