I discovered this Cranberry Apple Zinger tea back in the winter in a fruit tea sampler.  I loved this particular tea, but had a really hard time finding a box of just this kind.  Eventually I did, but had to buy it in bulk, so now I can share the fun with you guys!

Although I loved this tea in the winter, I’m really enjoying it this summer.  I make it into a cold sweet tea, which is a flavorful beverage–with zero calories!  It’s super easy to make:

I use my 10-cup coffee maker for this.  In the filter basket I put 3 tea bags.  Then fill the water reservoir all the way full, and brew.  After it’s done, let it cool.  (Make it at night and let it cool overnight)

In a 2 quart pitcher I put about 4 droppers full of regular Sweet Leaf Stevia, and all the tea from the coffee maker carafe.  Voila!  Sweet Cranberry Apple Zinger!

This is what is in my crock pot right now.  Super easy, not expensive, and for my anti-tomato children, this is a chili they actually enjoy. 

Soak one pound of dry white beans overnight in the crock pot (without the heat on).  I used navy beans, but Great Northerns work well too.

In the morning drain off the water, and add in six cups of chicken broth.  The best choice I know of right now, for avoiding glutamates, is the Imagine Brand Organic Free Range Chicken Broth.  It comes in cartons (like rice milk).

Also add in 2 teaspoons of minced garlic, and a chopped up small onion.

Cook on high for a couple of hours until beans are soft.

After that, sautee

3 Tablespoons of olive oil

3 teaspoons of minced garlic

another chopped onion

Once those are lightly cooked, throw in a pound of ground turkey, beef, or venison and cook it up, breaking the meat into small pieces with your spatula.

Add in 7 teaspoons of the homemade taco seasoning mix that I told you about two days ago.  (or one packet of chili seasoning)

Once the meat is cooked, add it to the beans in the crock pot.  Also add in about two cups of frozen corn.

Cook on low until it’s time to eat!  (when it’s getting to within a half hour of dinner time, add one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar)

If you are not going to be home for doing those steps in the middle of the day, I see no reason why you couldn’t just throw the cooked meat and everything else into the crock pot first thing in the morning and cook on low.  **The one exception to this would be the seasonings.  If you add salt to beans before they are cooked, they prevent the beans from getting soft.  Not good!  So, if you want to leave this chili to cook on low for the day, hold back the spices and just add them as soon as you are able to before eating, but after the beans are soft.

I used to keep a lot of leftovers on hand, but lately I am just freezing the leftovers into containers that are good sizes for my husband to take to work for a meal, or for us to have for dinner another night.  This recipe makes a lot, so we will almost definitely end up with enough for two dinners for us.  Especially if I serve some homemade bread or salad with it. 

For today’s lunch I threw together this veggie taco meal and my husband and kids loved it.  So, of course, I have to share it with all of you. 

Start with melting about 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet.  (You could use olive oil instead)

I added about a teaspoon of garlic and one small diced onion.  (whizzed it up in the food processor)

after sauteeing that for a few minutes I added in four carrots and one zucchini, both of which I had whizzed up into small pieces using my food processor.

Also added three cans of beans:  1 kidney, 1 black bean, 1 pinto.

Plus 7 teaspoons of my homemade taco seasoning mix.  (basically equals on taco seasoning packet from the store–will share the recipe at the end)

I stirred this up while heating, making sure it didn’t scorch on the bottom.  Brought it to a boil, then covered and simmered for about 10 minutes or so to get the carrots cooked.  Then uncovered and continued to cook and stir at medium temp. for about 20 more minutes.  Basically, once the carrots aren’t too hard, you can be done.  (I liked leaving them just a little crunchy for texture)

We had hard taco shells and soft tortillas.  You can probably find whole wheat tortillas at your grocery store.  I also had

organic lettuce

guacamole

sour cream

colby jack cheese

and taco sauce to put on these.

My kids do not like tomatoes, so this recipe really made them happy.  Of course, you could add some diced tomatoes while cooking, or just have them to add afterwards for those that enjoy them.

It was definitely a messy meal, but everybody ate happily and there were no complaints.  A golden recipe for my arsenal! 

I am sure you could use more or less veggies, different beans, etc.  This is a great “cooking from the hip” recipe because it’s hard to mess up.  As long as it’s hearty, and not too liquidy, you are good to go.  This recipe did seem a little runny in the skillet, but once it started to cool off it turned into a perfect consistency for tacos.

If you plan ahead you could soak and cook the beans ahead of time.

Zucchini is so great for adding into recipes like this.  When we get excess zukes in the summer time I just whiz them up in the food processor and freeze ‘em in ziploc bags.  They don’t have a strong taste, so they are easy to throw into soups, stews, casseroles, and other stuff to add nutrition and heartiness without setting off anybody’s “veggie alarm.”

To make your own homemade taco seasoning just mix up:

6 teaspoons chili powder
5 teaspoons paprika
4 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
3 teaspoons onion powder
2 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

I just stick it all into a Tupperware spice container and have it on hand for times when I need taco mix.  It saves money and helps avoid the unhealthy fillers that are in so many pre-packed mixes.

My 15 year old son needed to bring a Mexican food to a Cinco de Mayo celebration (which is today, Dos de Mayo, but hey….whatever!) and so we made this super easy and delicious soup.  I am HAPPY to say that it is healthy, inexpensive, quick, and MSG-free!  Woot!

In a crock pot, combine:

two 15-ounce cans black beans

two 14.5-ounce cans of diced or stewed tomatoes (read those labels–I found stewed tomatoes with high fructose corn syrup in it!  ugh)

28 ounces of vegetable broth

15 ounce can of corn, or the equivalent of frozen corn

15 ounce can garbanzo beans (aka chick peas)

2 cups of diced potatoes

2 cups frozen green beans

1 cup salsa

Cook on low for 9-11 hours, or on high for 4.5-5.5 hours.  You can serve it with a dollop of sour cream if you want to. 

If you want to be even thriftier, you can always use dry beans and just soak them overnight.  Drain off the water in the morning, and throw those soaked beans into the crock pot to cook along with everything else.  I would say that you would probably only need about a cup-and-a-half of the black beans, and about 3/4 of a cup of the garbanzo.

I’ve noticed that a lot of crock pot recipes require you to do a whole lot of advance cooking before putting the stuff into the pot.  I like ones where you just throw the stuff in and come back later to a meal. 

We’ll be having this soup tomorrow night along with a loaf of fresh honey whole wheat bread.  Yum!

So earlier this week I tried my hand at cheesemaking, using the mozarella kit that I purchased from cheesemaking.com. We bought a gallon of milk (we used 2%) and got to work. The description of the kit had said that it would help you make about a pound of mozarella and some ricotta cheese as well, all in about a half hour.

Yeah, well, don’t believe everything they tell ya.

First of all, it takes quite awhile to heat a gallon of milk to 88 degrees without scorching it on the bottom. So, my children, who had previously been set up to help me make this cheese and observe this scientific wonder gradually faded away to the back yard while I stirred, and stirred, and stirred a slowly-heating pot of milk.

Eventually the milk got warm enough and we moved on to the stage where you add another thing (I can’t remember if it’s the rennet that you add now, or the citric acid….one gets added at the beginning, one at the point where the heating is done) and then wait for the milk to firm up into curds and whey. (Hellooooooo Little Miss Muffet!) This took about 15 minutes for us (or, more time for uninspired children to play on the swingset) and then I got into the highlight of the experience, which was trying to *separate* the curds from the whey. Also known as the “Why did I think this was a good idea and why did I think it would be fun?” stage.

I used a slotted spoon to try to fish out the curds, which are like milky, slippery jello pieces floating in a yellowy sea of liquid (whey). As you fish out the curds, you get a lot of whey with it. According to what I learned from watching the cheesemaking DVD, the curds are quite fragile, so if you do not treat them with tender loving care they will break apart and end up being too small to corral into your cheesemaking process.

Again, this portion of the process is not on that exactly keeps children on the edge of their seats. They walked in, saw me fishing out curds, pronounced it “looks gross!” and went back outside. Who could blame them? I was up to my elbows attempting to fish out curds for probably 20 minutes (which feels like a lot longer when you’re doing it, let me tell ya!).

I had a lot of trouble trying to pour off that pesky whey. You’d think it would be a no-brainer, but for me, it wasn’t. I think that by the time I finished I learned that I could have worried less about the whey and just moved on to the next step without trying to be too thorough about it.

Eventually I got annoyed enough with the whole curds-and-whey thing that I did something that they tell you not do to on the DVD, which is to pour the rest of the curds and whey into a colander that was inside a bowl. Apparently some curds are just too fragile to even be poured this way, but I felt like it was either that, or stand there all day fishing for my long-awaited curds, or waste a whole lot of material that was supposed to be turning into cheese. I was willing to throw cheesemaking caution to the wind and take my chances.

I got a good amount of curds from the colander, and then I used the cheese cloth to line the colander and poured the whey through it again, so that I could catch all of those teeny-weeny pieces of curd that I had traumatized thus far in the process. That worked out fine and I probably got another cup and a half of curds that way.

After you get your curds together you microwave them for about a minute, then do some kneading or stirring, and this is where the curds start sticking together and it becomes a lot easier to pour of the whey. (Next time I’ll worry less about the whey and just get on to microwaving.) You microwave a little, add in your cheese salt, then stir and knead and stretch a little, microwave again, etc. until you get to the point where the whey is gone, and your cheese is now looking like it should. By the end it is shiny and stretchy and doesn’t break apart even when you stretch it for a long way. At that point I started feeling pretty excited. “I made cheese! Yessirree I did!”

When your cheese is done, you plunge it into icy cold water to cool. One tip that I thought was fun was to stretch the cheese into lines (log shapes) before cooling it, and you end up with string cheese. I also did some twists of cheese as well. And the rest I just left in a circle.

It tastes very good, just like it should. Nothing weird about it, nothing objectionable in any way.

It took me about an hour and a half, and that didn’t even include ricotta, which I found out was not something that could be done with the leftover whey as I thought it would, but required a whole other gallon of milk. And, frankly, I just didn’t care at that point.

I did save all of the whey by pouring it right back into the gallon jug. I was amazed to see that there was about 3/4 of a gallon of whey. Seems like a lot of waste to me. Apparently you can use this in any recipe that needs sour milk or buttermilk, and it can be used when making baked goods, pancakes, etc. Of course I made pancakes the other day and forgot to use the whey, but am thinking of making a big batch of pancakes for the freezer, so I can use some of it up then.

Overall, it was a learning experience, and although it didn’t go super-easy or super-fast, I feel like I will enjoy trying my hand at cheesemaking again. It would be a decent activity to do while doing some other kitchen things and chatting with my husband. There were some really interesting ideas and suggestions for things you can do with the cheese where you combine the cheese with herbs and so on that seemed like they might be really yummy. (and in true “If You Give a Moose a Muffin” tradition, this made me think that I really, really need to get started on growing my own herbs….ha ha!!)
I don’t consider cheese (or milk) to be all that healthy, but have found that it is something we just aren’t ready to entirely part with yet. Now that I know about the various chemicals that are added to cheeses that are sold in the store (brick cheese as well as shredded) I am more motivated to try to get better at this cheesemaking thing and see if I can fit this into our regular life.

The DVD (included with the kit, as well as a very nice book with lots of cheese recipes and instructions) of the cheesemaking was very interesting and I learned about many cheeses that I had not heard of or been familiar with. I think that the DVD is a lot more interesting for children since it edits out all of the boring wait time involved, which is a whole lot of it.

I did get a hard cheese kit as well, so that I can make my own cheddar, colby, and so on. I think I will need a cheese press to get into that, so haven’t tried it out yet.

Each kit has enough ingredients to make many pounds of cheese (I think between the two kits I have enough material to make 100 pounds of cheese!) so when I look at it like that, it was a decent investment. I plan to keep my radar up for bargain organic milk ever time I pass by Kroger.

I did notice that they sell the Yogotherm at cheesemaking.com, and they also have *kefir* which I mentioned a few weeks ago as having been on my radar. Apparently in the yogotherm you can make cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, buttermilk, kefir, and a bunch of other fancy-shmancy sounding soft cheese that I am not cultured enough (ha ha punny!) to be familiar with. So, I will have to think about whether or not it would be worth it to me to try that out as well. ($69.95—I’ll have to be pretty sure, won’t I?)

I do think that cheesemaking has the potential to be a fun activity and to provide for some creativity that could be a fun thing to dazzle people with at the meal table. Loving to be an enigma as much as I do, adding “I make homemade cheese” to the list is quite appealing, I must say. (even cooler than “I make homemade bread and grind my own wheat”!)

My cheese-making kit!  I am so excited.  (bouncing, bouncing, bouncing)  Not sure when I am going to have time to make some of it,because today and tomorrow are fairly busy days.  But….it’s HERE!  This is gonna be fun.  I’ll let you know how it goes. 

Are any of you planning on getting involved in a CSA in your area?  (Go here for more info on this and to find available CSAs in your neck of the woods)

The basic concept is that you commit to purchasing a box of produce weekly through the growing season from a local farmer.  Usually you have to go to a common location to pick up your super-fresh grown-with-care goodies each week.

The idea of Community Supported Agriculture really appeals to me, but so far I have not found it convenient enough to join.  In my area I would have to drive 40 miles round trip each week to pick up my $20 box (a half bushel box) of produce.  This drive is not on my way to anything else that I do.  And, you don’t get to pick what you get–it’s just a mix of what they have growing at that time.  For adventurous eaters and those with the patience to learn how to prepare new foods, I think that might be really fun–like a treasure chest every week!  But, honestly, between the extra expense of the gas to drive 40 miles out of my way, the time involved in the driving, all to get who-knows-what and then have to figure out how to use it…..I just can’t bring myself to do it.  (it’s not like burning up 40 miles worth of extra gas in my Suburban is going to be better for the environment because I supported a farmer, right?)  I’d rather spend $20+ a week on organic produce at my own grocery store that I won’t be making an extra trip to, and buy stuff that I already know we’ll eat.

If it was closer to us or at least one the way to something else, I’d be more interested in giving it a try.  But for now, I’m still just not there. Wish I was, though!

I finally had time to bake bread properly on Saturday morning, and I thought I would share my recipe with you. (Plus, if I go a long, long time before making bread again sometime in the future, it would be handy to have the recipe here to refer to. )

Supermom’s Family-Favorite Honey Whole Wheat Bread

In Bosch mixer combine:

6 cups warm milk (not too hot! You don’t want to kill the yeast) (also, if you’re low in milk, you can use part milk and part water)

6 Tablespoons baking yeast

3 Tablespoons lecithin

1-and-a-half sticks of butter, sliced

1 cup of honey

1.5 Tablespoons sea salt

Plus freshly ground whole wheat flour. (I use a Whisper Mill) Basically, I grind 8 cups of wheat into flour and pour all of that into the Bosch. Then I grind 8 more cups of wheat, but just add it roughly by the cupful as the mixer goes round and round. You only want to add enough flour to get to the point where the dough comes away from the sides of the mixer bowl cleanly.  (the extra flour is used making pancake mix)

Leave the cover on and let the mixer do it’s thing for 10 minutes. (electronic kneading!!)

Though this recipe was originally given to me for 6 loaves, I find that it works better for us to make it into 5.  So, just grab blobs of dough and try to distribute it evenly between 5 loaf pans that have been sprayed with no-stick spray.  Lovingly pat the dough into shape, and then cover all of it with a tea towel and leave it alone to rise for a half hour.

I leave the loaves on the stove top for the rising, because about 15 minutes into the rise time I start pre-heating the oven.  I think that the heat that radiates up to the stove top helps it rise better.

Preheat the oven to 325 or so.  (350 is too much, but if you have a fancy-shmancy oven that allows you to be even more precise than 25-degree increments, I would not be surprised if you find that 330 or 340 degrees works even better).

After the half hour of rising you just need to uncover your bread and pop it into your oven.  Bake for 22 minutes.  (Seriously.  Not 20.  Not 25.  22.  Or at least, that’s what brings about bread perfection in MY oven.  Yours may be different.)

My family loves this bread so much that I try to plan for it to come out of the oven about 15 minutes or so before lunch time.  They will gladly eat some fresh bread with butter, honey, jam, or peanut butter for lunch. 

I took the plunge!  Now that I know about the baddy-cat ingredients added to pre-shredded cheese, PLUS the fact that I now regularly find Horizons organic milk marked down to $2.59 a gallon at Kroger, I decided to go ahead and buy some stuff so I can learn how to make my own cheese.  I got stuff to make mozzarella and ricotta, as well as hard cheeses like colby jack and cheddar.  I will be sure to let you know how it goes!  (I bought my cheese-making goodies here, in case you want to check it out.)

Ever optimistic,

Supermom

Learning about all of the covert ways that MSG and it’s baddy cat cousin Glutamate make it’s way into our food has sure been a bummer. One of the biggest disappointments was my discovery that my feel-good “No MSG added” chicken broth powder still had the junk in it. Rats! What’s a girl to do??

I can be somewhat challenging to find a chicken broth substitute that doesn’t have MSG or glutamates in it. At Walmart all I found had problem ingredients in it. But at Kroger I hit the jackpot with Imagine brand Organic Free Range Chicken Broth. I bought the low sodium version (which still has a lot, but it’s better than the regular). You’ll have to check the ingredients at your own store, because a lot of products are manufactured at more than one place, so they might not be 100% the same everywhere. (Feel free to leave a comment and let us know)

I wanted to make my healthier version of The Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Spaghetti Casserole, but to do that I would have to make my healthy version of canned cream soups. So….I had to get creative.

The recipe I used to use features the “no msg added” chicken broth powder. I wanted to experiment with the organic broth instead. So…here’s what I came up with:

Melt one and a half sticks of real butter on medium-low heat.

Once melted, add 3/4 cup whole wheat flour. Stir with whisk until well blended, and let it cook a bit until it gets bubbly.

Then I added two cups of the organic chicken broth, plus four cups of Horizons whole milk that had been pre-heated.

After that I just stirred with the whisk for about 20 minutes while reading a magazine and chatting with my daughter.

It came out great!

From there I made my version of the casserole. Here’s what I did:

Supermom’s Healthier Chicken Spaghetti

3 cups cooked chicken–cubed or shredded (I always cook my chicken ahead of time in the crock pot. Just buy a big bunch of chicken breasts on sale and throw ‘em all in the crock on low in the morning, all done by evening. Refrigerate or freeze.)

2 cups of shredded sharp cheddar cheese (I learned that there are glutamates in the pre-shredded cheese, so once I use up the supply I have on hand, I am either going to start buying bricks of cheese and shredding them with my food processor, or learning to make my own. Haven’t crossed that bridge yet.)

half a sweet onion–chopped (throw it in the food processor with the chicken. Easy!)

about a pound of whole wheat spaghetti–cooked (break it up into smallish pieces to make stirring and serving a little easier) (even if you normally hate whole wheat pasta, try it! you won’t even notice the taste in this casserole)

1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon Cayenne pepper
Salt & Pepper to taste

Some more cheese to sprinkle on the top (if you like cheese overkill)

And maybe 2 cups of the canned cream soup alternative.

Optional: Feel like a better mom by adding in some frozen corn and/or peas and/or broccoli.

Directions:

This is super easy. Just mix up everything except for the cheese that goes on top. Start with all of the dry ingredients, then add the cream soup stuff and stir it all together (I use a really big bowl so that I can stir with wild, reckless abandon) until it seems like you’ve got enough to make a nice, creamy casserole.

Stick it all in a no-stick sprayed 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle that extra cheese on top. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes. Or, if you just made all of the ingredients and they are already hot, it only takes about 20 minutes to heat it through. Then it’s time to eat. Yum!

I often make extra spaghetti during some other meal and then use the leftovers to make this casserole.

Now I have one and a half quart jars of the cream soup alternative in the fridge, so that will make other meals very easy for the next week or two.

Enjoy! (I’m going to eat now….)