I can think of at least 38 other types of eating plans that would be be more difficult for me .  I LOVE fresh juice so I didn’t mind drinking it so often at all.  I did however, have big temptations at night.  My initial plan was to eat dinner with my family but avoid desserts.  I did okay for the first few days but somewhere early on I had dinner with some friends at Red Robin.  The dessert menu was calling my name and a friend at the table offered to share a mile high mud pie with me and I caved.  The stinky part was that even though it tasted great in the beginning, by the end I was totally done, it was TOO sweet.  Sadly, I can’t even report that it ended there.  That mud pie was some sort of gateway drug for me and each evening after that I decided that dessert would be okay.  *sigh*  I kept having mental debates with myself about why I was doing this, if it was important to not have desserts or if I should just be more flexible, it was really quite entertaining (to myself).

In retrospect I think I did myself a big diservice by allowing that first dessert past my lips.  But oh well, I am giving myself grace and am still glad that I did the rest of my challenge.

One blog reader emailed me asking how I juice frozen strawberries (as I had mentioned that was one of the foods we often included in our juice).  I realized that was not very well explained on my end, sorry!  Below are a few tips that might help if you are new to juicing:

Juicing tips:

1. If you are making smoothies in a blender or VitaMix type machine you can of course just pop in the frozen items as-is.  However, for juicing, frozen foods must first be thawed.  I often try to set them out the night before on the counter, but if I forget I will put them in the microwave briefly (I do try to avoid that step when possible however as I have a tendency to not trust that appliance).

2. If you are juicing both soft and hard things, to do some soft (such as oranges, spinach or thawed strawberries) followed by some hard (such as apples or carrots). This helps push the softer foods down and through the juicer more easily.

3. I have been thrilled to discover that spinach has such a mild flavor that I can easily add at least two handfuls to my juice (followed by something hard to help push it through) without any major flavor change. The color of course will be SUPER green. I use the organic plastic rectangular box of spinach from Costco.

4. If you think your kids might turn their noses up at the color of your juice, you might try hiding it for the first few times in a sippy cup like these stainless steel ones from Kid Basix where they cannot see the color. I did that a few times and then we ended up talking about Popeye and how it was our “power juice” and made us strong and they were won over and now they don’t care at all that it is green.

5. The first few times that I introduced the green juice to my kids I made sure to add some extra amounts of strawberries so it was really nice and sweet. After those first few times I backed off on the amount and they didn’t notice.

Do you enjoy clipping your baby’s nails?  I used to worry about accidently clipping their fingers.  In fact, I have a scar on the end of my index finger from when my mom cut my finger by accident when I was a baby. If this is something you worry about from time to time, this week’s giveaway is the solution for you!

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Beans, beans the musical fruit, the more . . .

Let’s talk about beans today!

One year ago I shared that my goal for 2011 was to add more whole grains, nuts and grains into our diet.  I took the plunge by purchasing 5 large 25 pound bags of dried beans (kidney, pinto, Northern, black and garbanzo) from Azure Standard.  Prices range depending on the variety but average just slightly over $1 a pound. For most beans: 1 pound dried beans = 2  cups dried = 4 – 5 cups cooked beans (source).  I split each bag with a friend allowing both of us to enjoy the savings of buying in bulk without having to store a ton of beans.  I found room in a guest bedroom closet for the bags and simply stocked and labeled Mason jars in my pantry for each type of bean.

I am super pleased to say that I am getting ready to place a restocking order through Azure for more beans.  Although I don’t feel that our bean consumption last year was where I want it to be, I feel it was a good start that I can build on this year.

Cooking with beans.

When it comes right down to it, the main two things that have kept me from cooking more often with beans is simply a lack of advanced planning and a lack of bean recipes.   Cooking with dried beans is not hard (in fact it is quite easy) but it does require planning ahead.  I simply can’t cook with dried beans unless I am meal planning.

Planning out my meals in advance is a crucial step for me because:

• It allows me the opportunity each evening to examine what I will be making the next two days and if necessary begin the soaking process (details on how to do this below).
• It provides me with the opportunity to be intentional about finding and scheduling bean based (or supplemented) recipes.

I found this one page PDF summery explaining how to soak and cook dried beans very helpful.

Bean Recipes.

Bean based recipes are not something that I have felt very equipped with in general.  I do have my favorite standard Chili recipe and within the last year I have discovered some other great favorites such as:

Black bean brownies

Slow cooker refried beans

Easy (and super yummy) hummus

Mexican Bean Burgers

But lets be real, refried beans are a side dish and hummus is more of a dip/spread.  These are not meals.

Lucky for me I have also been reading the Kitchen Stewardship blog.  Katie has an ebook called The Everything Beans book which (even after cooking with beans for a year) has been a wonderful resource.  Not only do I appreciate having an entire recipe book filled with new bean recipes as I plan out my weekly meals (this recipe book includes appetizers, soups, main dishes and desserts), but I have also found Katie’s detailed instructions on how to soak and cook beans to be extremely helpful.

I have learned things such as why it is helpful to do long bean soaks whenever possible, what foods to eat with beans to help make them a complete protein and helpful tips on how to reduce the gas that bean consumption can create.  I also realized how easy it is to simply cook more than I need and refrigerate (for about a week) or freeze the extras for another meal!

I also was SHOCKED to learn that bringing my kidney beans to a boil for at least 10 minutes is absolutely essential to deactivating a toxic compound called phytohaemagglutinin.  This compound can cause horrible nausea, vomiting and diarrhea by consuming as few as four-five beans which are raw or improperly cooked.  Because I like to use my slow cooker, this was really good to learn because cooking kidney beans in a slow cooker without bringing them to a boil can actually make the toxic effects five times worse!

Don’t let that last bit scare you away from adding this healthy, economical and versatile food to your meal plans!

Do you already cook with beans?  Why or why not? Which beans do you like best?  What recipe(s) are your favorites?

Please note: I am an affiliate of Kitchen Stewardship’s eBooks, which means I’ll earn a small commission from any sales made through links to her book. I first read and used her book personally before deciding if it was one that I felt you would find valuable.

So when I saw this twitter post saying “i.hate.you.mom.4.life.” you can understand why I sat there staring at my computer screen for a few minutes trying to decide if this was directed at me or this woman’s actual mother.  After checking out her profile and seeing that see was a college student I decided to feel sorry for her mom.

How about you, do you prefer twitter or facebook (or neither) and why?

Do your child’s hand-me-downs fit as well as they could? Is the waist often too big for your little ones pants?  Does your child struggle with a traditional belt? Keep your child’s pants up where they belong with this week’s easy-to-use and affordable giveaway!

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I upped his rations and things had been going well.  Then last week, I got this one:

I think he is starting to figure that as long as he is going to be making requests, he may as well throw in an extra.

For those of you well read in children’s literature, this all sort of reminds me of the children’s book “Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type“.

I am only half tempted to send two carrot sticks tomorrow and see if he throws in a third request .

Knowing what I am going to make ahead of time:

-Helps me to stratagize what we eat to make sure we are getting a good balance of nutrition.
-Allows me to plan a good mix of new recipes that I want to try with some old reliable favorites.
-Presents the opportunity to be more prepared to bless others in need with a meal.
-Avoids last minute 5:00 dinner stress or unnecessary eating out spending.
-Enables me to buy only what is needed and thus less food is wasted.

What typically goes wrong, and how I am trying to avoid it:

However, after a few weeks of regular planning, an inevitable a holiday or break in routine will bring an end to the plans and I somehow get sucked back into the “I don’t know what we are having for dinner” stress.  I am not naive enough to think this won’t happen again.  But I can try to anticipate the hangups that have caused problems in the past and seek to avoid them.

• After reading Tsh’s suggestion to plan two weeks ahead at a time I feel that is a good fit for me. In the past I have only planned one week in advance and I feel that left too much opportunity to drop the ball between weeks.  Planning at least two weeks out keeps me feeling more prepared and gives me a little more time to get the next two weeks done.  Plus, as long as I am taking the time to plan one week, doing two doesn’t really take much more time.
• I have at times gotten too excited to try new recipes and packed my schedule full of “newbies.”  Making new recipes inevitably takes more time and has a higher “risk” factor involved (who will like it?).  To combat this, I am now asking the older two kids and my husband to each pick one homemade meal per week (i.e. if they want Mac & Cheese it is my rule that it will be a homemade version).  They choose what it is and I get to choose what night to make it.  This helps guarantee that everyone has at least one meal they can look forward to and only leaves me with a few nights to plan out myself.  This week Hunter’ picked homemade pizza.  I enjoyed making the dough ahead of time and then allowing everyone to roll out their own pizza to bring over to the “topping bar” where they could choose their choice of sauce (we had spaghetti and Alfredo sauces–both bases to other recipes in the week) and toppings.  It was a hit and Hunter already plans to use it as his “pick” again soon.

Suggestions:

• Plan to double your recipes as often as you can and either freeze the extra or have fun blessing others with a meal.
• Try to be strategic about the meals you plan in the same week.  Doing so allows you to prepare less to be used for more and is also helpful for saving money.  For example, as I mentioned above, last week we had our family’s favorite Alfredo recipe the night after we had homemade pizzas (allowing us to use the sauce for two meals).  I also used a large jar of Spaghetti sauce for my Baked Spaghetti, Chili and for our homemade pizza recipes.  My Costco rotisserie chicken was used for our lime tacos, white chili, pizza topping and to make several jars of Chicken broth.  If you find a great weekly combination of meals I encourage you to save it and reuse it.  Once you get a few great weeks you can rely on them as handy “stand by” weeks for times that you don’t feel like coming up with something new.
• If you don’t already have a system in place for meal planning, I suggest considering a free service such as ZipList or Cozi or a paid and slightly more robust service such as Plan to Eat.  A while back I made a review video for Plan to Eat that you might enjoy.  In addition, if you sign up with Plan to Eat, please “friend me” (my user account is “mom4life”) which will allow both of us to automatically see each other’s recipe box (and save those we like to our own).

What do you do for meal planning?

Do you have a system that is working well for you or no system at all?  I would love to hear your thoughts or see a link to some of your favorite recipes!

Keep your kids close by, while still supporting their independence with this week’s giveaway!

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I want to thank Kristina for this great guest post on how to make your own homemade lip balm!  ~Heather

After having some trouble finding an all natural lip balm that I liked, I started looking around at lip balm recipes.  I was floored by the amount of ingredients in some of them.  Five ingredients?  Ten???  The cost just to set up was staggering.  Not only that, many of the ingredients I would use only for the lip balm, making the cost seem even more dizzyingly high.  I just wanted something easy, something simple, something natural.  That’s why I was delighted when I stumbled upon Green Bee’s recipe for homemade lip balm.  Super quick, super easy, and only three natural ingredients!

Of course, like most recipes I find, I modify them just a bit as I see fit.  Below you find my slightly modified recipe for a nice mildly minty lip balm.

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons grated beeswax
• 2 and 3/4  teaspoons sweet almond oil (not bitter almond oil!)
• 5 drops peppermint essential oil

Materials needed:

• 2-3 lip balm tubes
• small pot
• Pyrex or heat resistant 1 cup measuring cup

Step one:

Grate the beeswax, then measure out 2 tsps.  Place in your measuring cup along with the oil.  Mix together.

The original recipe called for melting the wax mixture in a double boiler.  I don’t have one, so I get around it the same way I do when I make lotion: add water to the small pot, then place the whole measuring cup carrying the wax and oil mixture into the pot.  There should be enough water on the outside of the measuring cup in the pot to go a little above the wax/oil mixture line.  Place pot with measuring cup on the stove and heat on medium/low until melted, stirring occassionally.

Step two:

Once the wax is melted, remove from heat and add 5 drops peppermint essential oil.  Stir.  Now you are going to fill the tubes, but be very careful!  Remember you are handling hot oil and melted wax!  I suggest holding the lip balm tubes with pliers so you don’t spill on your hand.  My husband was kind enough to make me an impromptu holder out of a piece of scrap wood.  Pour melted mixture into lip balm tubes most of the way, but don’t fill all the way yet.  Allow to sit for a minute or two because as it cools, a divot will form in the center.  After a few moments, fill the rest of the way.  This will give you a nice smooth top.

filled most of the way up

filled the rest of the way up after a short settling time

Step four:

Allow to cool for 20 minutes or so, then you’re done!

Don’t want to take the time to make your own lip balm but love the idea of having something natural to put on your lips?

The Peppermint Lip Balm that Heather offers on Mom 4 Life is affordable at just $2.99 with free shipping and consistently gets great feedback from moms (just check out the reviews in the product listing).

The ingredient list has the following natural and safe items:

Sunflower Oil, Coconut Oil, Beeswax, Cocoa Butter, Vitamin E, Peppermint Oil

And congratulations to Lauren C. who was our winner last week for the Parking Pal! Didn’t win? Lucky for you the Parking Pal is on sale for the next week at 20% off so grab yours now!

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