Puppy Cookies

We spent some time together making some dog treats, or as Pandi calls them, puppy cookies.  It was a lot of fun for the girls.  We used this recipe, largely since we had most of the ingredients and didn't have to leave the house, and also because Appa really likes peanut butter.

I like to include the girls in cooking.  I think it helps them take ownership in the food we eat, teaches them great skills like measuring, counting, and following directions, and it's also just fun to see how excited they get over stirring.

Pandi's first time using the mortar and pestle
to crush sunflower seeds-our substitution for
chia seeds since we didn't have any.

We used a Hello Kitty cookie cutter. 

I think the best bonus of doing dog treats, other than how simple it was and how fun for the girls, was that, when you're making dog treats, you don't have to be quite as worried over kitchen hygiene.  For instance, Appa is much less worried if someone sneezes in his food than I am.

Trying the first puppy cookie.

The results are in, and Appa is really enjoying them so far.  Ours came out softer than a Milk Bone, so we are keeping them in a Ziplock baggie to keep them fresh.  It made a pretty big batch.  All in all, we are really pleased.

Decluttering Challenge:

I am also doing an August decluttering challenge.  It is from the blog of a wonderful Australian woman that I've been following for years, Down To Earth.  I stumbled on it Googling backyard aquaponics and was really amazed by their setup for growing tilapia fish in tandem with veggies.

I am following along with the August challenge and have, so far, tackled the girls' closet.  I cleaned out a garbage bag full of clothes that they have outgrown and will pass them on to someone who can use them.  We cleaned out and gave up so much when we moved to our new state (cutting down from a large four bedroom house to only what would fit in a 12 foot box trailer), but I am amazed by the things that could have been further pared down.  There are still things that haven't been used in our year here, things that I originally thought were important.  Those things are all going to be going in the next few weeks.   It's incredibly liberating to cut the ties to the things that I used to think I needed.  It makes me feel independent and light to know that there are very few things tying me down.  I am excited about the challenge and hope to have some more updates on it soon!

Second Go at Slow Cooker Monthly Meals

I finished my second night of Once a Month Cooking last night.  This time around, rather than using a menu that was set up by someone else for their family, I searched through the internet and some cookbooks to customize a menu for us.  The result:  4 weeks of meals (plus two weeks of lunches and some snacks and breakfast items) for $194.32.  I feel really pleased.

I tailored the menu to foods that I knew we would eat, with a few new recipes I wanted to try.  Last time, all of the recipes were new, and honestly, it was too much.  Every night was sort of a gamble, and while we did like a lot of them, particularly the Thai Coconut Chicken, it was kind of like playing dinner roulette.  I prefer to know that, at least 5 nights out of seven, we will for sure like what we're having.

One of the new recipes we tried

That said, here is our menu for dinners:

--Turkey Chili with Apples
--Creamy Chicken Stew
--Slow Cooker Jambalaya
--Saucy Pork Chops
--Beef Fajitas
--Pizza (this is not done in the slow cooker, we make dough in the bread machine)
--Breakfast for Supper
--Chicken and Dressing Casserole
--Island Pork
--Hashbrown Casserole
--Italian Stew
--Tacos
--Spaghetti

Each of these recipes were doubled so that we could eat them twice in the month.  We had our first new recipe this evening, and it was super good!  You can find the recipe here.  It is so autumn-y and filling!

Turkey Chili with Butternut Squash and Apples---Yum!

In my next blog entry, I'm going to make a list of things I wish someone had told me before I started Once a Month Cooking.  I'm sure as I go along I will think of a million more!

Monthly Freezer Cooking

All the moms on one of my favorite forums, Diaper Swappers, love to chat about once-a-month cooking.  It seemed like a lot of work to me, especially considering a lot of the dishes shared (such as lasagna) are completely pre-cooked, requiring a lot of oven time on the day you do your cooking.  Since we are in the last days of summer, I really couldn't justify keeping my oven on all day and heating the home up.  But, after finding a link to this post on Ring Around the Rosies, I was inspired!  It seems so logical to put together every ingredient and then simply cook it in the crockpot on the day you want it!

I also downloaded the e-cookbook she recommends from Mama and Baby Love.  There are a lot of good recipes in here and we have tried almost all of them in our first month of once-a-month dinners.  We've liked most of them so far and I think it was worth buying just to get some ideas.

To get started, I first brainstormed recipes.  Using the e-cookbook was a good starting point, then we just added in things that were already favorites with us.  I used this menu to make a shopping list, going through each recipe and writing down every ingredient we'd need.  In the recipes from the website mentioned above, each recipe is set up to make two full meals, so you can eat one and bank the other for a supper down the road.  I don't think I've ever bought so much meat at one time in my life!  But, knowing it was a full month's worth of meals plus some, I went ahead.  I was surprised then, when I only spent $267, and that included a lot of spices and things that I won't need to buy again for a long time (such as coriander, cumin, and curry) that I didn't already have on hand, plus breakfast, snack, and lunch things for us.  Those can add up really fast!  And that's still a lot less than the $700 or so that the average American family of four spends on groceries a month.  For the rest of the month, I only anticipate buying milk and fresh fruit and veggies for snacks.

We brought home all our ingredients, along with the recipes, and started the assembly line!  It was actually fun.  We did it after the girls were in bed so we didn't have any little "helpers" to deal with, and we enjoy just hanging out together anyway, so it was nice to keep our hands busy and talk.  We assembled each recipe, split the ingredients between two gallon ziplock bags, and added the meat last.  In some recipes, I substituted cuts of meat that were less expensive or that I already had on hand.

It was not an orderly assembly.

As we got each bag finished, we made a label with the ingredients, the assembly date, and the cooking instructions, such as adding a cup of water to the slow cooker and cooking four hours on high.  Each bag was then smashed flat with all the air removed for storage.

The bags were stacked in the freezer, and my menu put on the front of the fridge for easy reference.  Each day, I simply take the bag I want out of the freezer (hopefully without an avalanche...there's a lot of meals in there!), and stick it in my Crock Pot.  So far, it's been smashing success.  It is super nice to not have to think about what we're having for dinner.  It's even nicer to empty a bag into the slow cooker at eight in the morning and not think about supper for the rest of the day.  All told, it took about four hours to assemble the meals, and I could not be happier.  I will definitely be doing this again.