Making your own Kombucha

Fall Cheese Crackers

It's fall in South Georgia, and it actually feels like it!  Low's in the 50's and highs in the low 70's. Aubrey and I had some girl time this weekend for the first time since we moved to Bloomingdale, GA.  We went shopping twice, watched UGA win another game, and saw Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day at the movie theater.  We did sneak in some stove top popcorn...oil, popcorn and salt...that's all we need!  Aubrey keeps asking for cheese crackers,  so we decided to make some tonight. We used out mixer attachment with the "NINJA" (c).  Here are the results.

Recipe:
1 Cup whole wheat all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
4 T cold unsalted butter
8 oz shredded sharp shredded cheese
3 T water

Directions:
Put flour, salt, and butter in NINJA mixer (or food processor), and blend to crumbles

 Add cheese a little at a time, and blend after each addition.

                                                                               Pour out and leave in refrigerator for at least 2 hrs.

WAIT......WAIT.....WAIT





After 2 hours, roll out dough to about 2-3 cm.  Use desired cookie cutters, or cut shapes with knife.



Bake for 12-18 minutes depending on thickness.  They are ready when they look crusty around the outside. Wait to cool before eating, or they will be a little gooey on the inside.  Aubrey discovered this because she just couldn't wait to try them!

Enjoy!

















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School's out for Summer!

Lot's has happened since February! Gymnastics season has ended.  Baseball season began, and now we are playing in Little League All-Stars. We are moving away from Athens, so I have been cleaning out, and packing.  I haven't had much time for blogging, even though school has been out for a month.  Some quick, easy, and healthy dishes that we have had has been cabbage rolls, veggie pot pie and tortilla chip bake.  We are mostly eating salads, sandwiches, yogurt, and fruits.  We made a banana bread one day and it was delicious!  One of my best friends shared a kefir starter, and a kombucha starter with me today.  I was excited to get these, and plan to keep them going.  Health Benefits of Kombucha!  Health Benefits of Kefir!

Recipes:

Cabbage roll:
1/2 lb of combined ground deer meat and wild boar
1 onion
1 C. diced tomatoes
1/2 c. baby bella mushrooms
1/2 head cabbage
1 tsp crushed garlic
1 TBL butter
1 C. brown rice

Directions: preheat oven 350
Cook ground meat.  While meat is cooking, boil water in a large pot.  Pour one cup of water in small pot for rice.  Cut up veggies.  Once ground meat is complete, take off heat and let cool some.  Put 1/2 C rice in boiling water in small pot, give a quick stir, cover, and lower heat to simmer. Place cabbage in large boiling pot of water (cook for 5-8 minutes). Heat a buttered skillet for veggies.  Cook onions and garlic first for 5 min stirring so not to stick.  Add tomatoes and mushrooms and cook for 3 minutes.  Turn off heat.  Drain cabbage, and take leaves off one at a time.  You need 8 whole leaves.  Rice should be ready.  Now, all you have to do is fill and wrap!  You can mix all ingredients first if you like and add salt and pepper to taste.  On a jelly roll pan, fill the leaves with the fillings and roll the cabbage.  Once all cabbage leaves are filled and rolled, place in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.  As that is cooking, chop up remaining cabbage to serve on the side.  Season to taste! 

Aubrey loved this so much, she wanted it for lunch the next day!   *I really love tomatoes, so I put a little extra on top as it was cooking! 

 

After practice quick dinner: Tortilla Chip Bake w/ Veggies

 

Ingredients:

Store bought tortilla chips (I like On the Boarder restaurant style)

Left over ground meat (this came from frozen meat used for the cabbage rolls)

Cheese (we had mozzarella, so that's what was used!)
1 Onion chopped
1 Pepper sliced
1 tomato chopped in 1 in. cubes
EVOO

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.  Pour desired amount of tortilla chips on jelly roll pan. Sprinkle desired amount of meat and cheese over chips.  Place in oven to warm.  Leave in oven until cheese melts.  As this is in the oven, sauté onion, and pepper until soft in the heated EVOO.  Add tomatoes to sautéed onions and pepper.  Cover and let sit in warm pan.  Turn off heat.   Take chips out of oven if cheese is melted.  And voilà!  Dinner in 10-12 minutes.

Quick Veggie Pot Pie  serves 2 (286 calories)
(okay, I used chicken stock....that's all I had!) 

Ingredients:
1 canned or frozen mixed vegetables
1/4 C. veggie stock
2 tsp. corn starch
*to add more richness, you can add some butter, or cream of mushroom soup. 

1/2 C self rising flour -sifted, or you can whisk the flour for a second or two.  (I like White Lily flour for this!)
1 tsp butter
1/4-1/2 C milk

Directions: Preheat oven to 375
Mix corn starch and stock in small casserole dish. Make sure starch is mixed in well.  I usually only mix with a small amount of liquid to begin, and then add the rest of the stock. There will be clumps of corn starch otherwise. Add the vegetables. Add seasonings.  (I just used a little salt and pepper, but add whatever you like with veggies!) Set aside.

In mixing bowl, measure sifted four and 1 tsp butter.  Cut in butter using pastry blender, or fork. You are just incorporating the butter in the flour as evenly as possible.  Only takes about 30 seconds to incorporate. Pour in measured milk and mix with the fork just until all is wet and just barely pourable. Add more milk if needed.   

Pour flour mixture over vegetable mixture.  Put in oven for 20 minutes or until crust is browned.

This was quite satisfying!  You could always put any leftover veggies in this dish!

 Pictures of my Kombucha and Kefir:

Doesn't look like anything special today, but the Kombucha will be ready in 10-21 days. Then, I will add wonderful flavorings like fresh blueberries, pineapple, or relaxing chamomile leaves into individual glass bottles. 

The kefir will be ready in only 2 days!  I'm thinking about making a smoothie with it, or adding berries that have been blended with the immersion blender.

Fun at the Park!

Happy Weekend!

Our weekend started early as Aubrey had a gymnastics meet at the Wilderness at the Smokies convention center Friday morning.   She did a good job.  Although, there were some mishaps, and Aubrey wasn't happy with the results:(  After the meet, we went to the indoor water park and the Wilderness Adventure Forest, an indoor fun place.  While there, Aubrey had a big pretzel, and that got me thinking about making a whole wheat pretzel at home.  So, I looked up a recipe, and gave it a try.  The recipe comes from Mr. Alton Brown, and can be found on the following link: Homemade Soft Pretzel

Of course, we substituted whole wheat flour.  We sifted the flour and used about 3 and 3/4 Cups of the sifted flour. I think I will try it with 3 and 1/2 cups next time because it still looked a little dryer than I thought it should.

Here are our pictures of the pretzel adventure we took at home!

What the water, sugar, salt and yeast looked like after 5 minutes

kneading

We let it rise for 1 hour, cut into eighth's, and rolled into 24 inch rope

 

Shaped into pretzels, boiled for 30 seconds in water and baking soda.

Placed on pan, coated with egg wash and salt




Baked for 12 minutes



Final result......

 


They were so soft in the middle and had a good texture on the outside!  YUMMY :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

This morning, we had a heart healthy plate!  The plate consisted of whole wheat pancakes made with pureed strawberries to get that pinkish color,  heart shaped eggs, heart shaped apples and some bacon that wouldn't shape well.  Aubrey was ecstatic, but Kameron just wanted to eat!

Whole wheat strawberry pancakes

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 egg

3/4 C milk

10-12 pureed strawberries

Sift the flour into bowl; add egg, milk and pureed strawberries and whisk together.  Add more milk if needed.   Pour on hot, oiled griddle (or med/hot pan).  Brown on both sides.  Use a cookie cutter to shape or a serrated knife to cut into a shape.

ENJOY

Lucy came back for Valentine's Day!  

Valentine's Day Dinner

Steak with mushroom wine sauce, salad, broccoli and baked potato.  I used to make this mushroom sauce all the time with a cheaper beef.  Today, rib eye steaks were on sale, so Kris and Kameron got their favorite tonight.  Aubrey and I went with the grass fed organic sirloin which was also a good price.  

Mushroom Sauce: 

Ingredients: 2 T butter, 4 oz mushroom chopped, 1 clove garlic, 6 shallots cut in two, 3 T cooking sherry, 1 C organic beef broth, 1/2 C. organic whipping cream, 1/2 t. thyme, salt and pepper to taste

Directions: In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the mushrooms, garlic, and shallots.  Cook, stirring frequently, until the mushrooms are tender, about 10 minutes.  Add the sherry and stir for a couple of minutes.  Add the broth and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer until the liquid is reduced to about 1/2 cup, about 12 minutes.  Stir in the cream and simmer until the sauce is thickened, 6-8 minutes.  Stir in the thyme, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Set aside and keep warm.

Tonight, we used our homemade bar-b-que sauce on our crock pot pork ribs.  With that, we had grilled homemade pita bread, roasted red potatoes with rosemary, and coleslaw.  I made up a new coleslaw recipe but didn't really measure the ingredients well, but I will estimate :)  This meal was very filling!

Coleslaw
1 head cabbage
1/4 C. real mayonnaise (make it yourself, or Trader Joes has a good one)
1 T. Dijon Mustard
1 t. salt
1 t. pepper
3 T. apple cider vinegar
4 T. dill pickle relish (I had to chop up some dill spears we had)
2T honey (I did two swirls)

Cut the cabbage to put in food processor. Chop cabbage in food processor.  Put cabbage in a bowl and add all other ingredients.  Stir well and taste.  Put in refrigerator for 30 min. before serving.

For dessert, we had homemade ice cream made with real maple syrup.  Aubrey said this was the best ice cream!  I told her to tell the boys it was ready and she whispered to the boys (who were downstairs in the basement) that it was ready so they wouldn't hear ;)


Recipe:
1 C. organic heavy whipping cream
1/2 C. real maple syrup
2 C. unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1 t. vanilla flavoring
1/2 C. unsweetened cocoa

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and transfer to ice cream maker.

Meatball Soup:  This came from a stop at Publix.  It's a good veggie soup with a yummy meatball.  I changed the meatball recipe so it did not have bread crumbs, but you could put in Italian bread crumbs and it would be delish as well!

Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped (I used 2 tsp crushed)
1 1/2 lb lean ground meat, 1 egg, beaten (or 1/4 cup egg substitute)
2 tablespoons sun-dried tomato pesto
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon pepper, divided
1 tablespoon olive
1 onion
3 cups fresh spinach leaves
1 cans cannellini beans (15–19 oz), drained
1 (32-oz) box unsalted chicken stock

3 celery chopped
1-2 bell peppers chopped

Combine ground beef, egg, tomato pesto, ricotta, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper until blended. Shape into 1-inch meatballs (about 25–30); wash hands! Preheat large stockpot on medium-high 2–3 minutes. Place oil in pan, then add meatballs (in batches); cook and turn 6–8 minutes or until browned. Remove meatballs from pan and set aside. Add diced onion, celery and bell pepper and garlic to pan; cook and stir 2–3 minutes or until onions soften. Add spinach; cook 2–3 minutes or until spinach begins to wilt. Reduce heat to medium-low; stir in beans, stock, meatballs and remaining 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper; simmer 5–7 minutes or until meatballs are 160°F and soup is hot.

Put leftovers in single serve containers into the freezer and it's an easy lunch to grab if needed!