What’s For Dinner?

    Happy New Year!  It's that time of year to reflect on the past year and think about what we want to do to bring in the new year.  What are your New Year's resolutions?  Are you trying to take care of your body more by eating healthy and exercising?  Or maybe it is working towards that new job promotion?  

    One of my New Year's resolutions is to eat and cook healthier.  Easier said than done right?  Trying to make meals that are affordable and healthy has its challenges.  And is it just me, or does anyone else struggle with coming up with meals for the family that EVERYONE will like?  I find myself asking my family everyday, "What do you want for dinner?", just to get the same reply of "I don't know", which makes me just want to pull my hair out!  

    Since I sold my business, it has allowed me to have more time home and more time to cook, which I really do enjoy.  I love feeding others and love being resourceful with recipes that use up what we have in the fridge.  But somedays, I just feel like I am making the same thing every week.  I get bored easily, and maybe not everyone else does, but I need to change things up a bit.  

     I try to make most meals from scratch if I can, to try and limit the amount of preservatives that we put into our bodies.  And I do struggle with one picky eater in general.  We also have a child with severe nut allergies, so we have a few limitations.  But it seems like the only thing we eat these days are some form of pizza, chicken, potatoes, cheese and pasta.  

    We have big breakfast eaters in the house, and sometimes we eat two breakfasts in a morning (the joys of homeschooling).  We get good protein from eggs and try to make the healthiest pancakes, French toast and waffles.  Plus not to mention and breakfast pizza's and casseroles.  For me, the struggle is the veggies and the fruits.  

    This week on my list of new things to try, I am going to attempt to make homemade gummies.  I got the molds and the gelatin a while ago, but have been too intimidated to try it.  I have plenty of fruit in the freezer and lots of canned fruit to use up.  In my experience, everything always looks so much easier online on TikTok and Facebook.  Could it be too good to be true?  I will let you know when I decide to pull out the blender and give it a whirl!

The Big Thaw

    About every 6 months or so, my giant extra standing freezer decides it wants to ice up and stop working.  I naturally always have way too much food in it (some may call me a hoarder, but I can't pass up a good deal) I then have to figure out a way to save all of the food so I can thaw it out and restock it again.  This time, it didn't completely die yet, I was just planning on organizing it and taking inventory of what I actually have (I know I'm a complete nerd) and realized the bottom was totally icing up.  I looked at the forecast and saw that we had a couple of days in a row where the temperatures outside were favorable.  I live in Vermont and I love that I have access to my "outdoor freezer" aka my front porch in the winter.  

    So I decided to take the plunge and empty everything out of it.  I have one huge cooler from Costco that I absolutely love that always saves me when I have to do "The Big Thaw".  While taking items out, I put the all the meat in the fridge (I don't trust the outdoor freezer method for meat). Cheese and veggies went in the cooler on the front porch.  (Soooo many tomatoes from the garden that I didn't get to process yet).  Bread just went out because it will be fine if it thaws for just a day.  We also have a kegerator that currently is just being used as a fridge, so in the rest of my items went that could be ok if they were just in the fridge for a day.  Needless to say, we are packed solid....everywhere.  

    I did discover some cranberries, some oranges and some strawberries.  Since I was running out of room, I decided to attempt to make Christmas Jam.  I have never made it before but needed to be creative in order to save space!  See "recipe" below.  

    In the end, I was able to thaw the freezer and get everything back in the following day.  It was nice to have everything organized and to be able to actually see what we had!  Now for some creative ways to meal prep with what we have!  

"Recipe"

    I don't have any measurements but had about half of a Costco size bag of cranberries, 3 cups of oranges and 3 cups of strawberries and threw them all in a pot to cook down.  I blended all of it together in my blender and back in the pot it went along with some cinnamon, allspice and clove.  I then added about 2 cups of sugar.  I am not the best at making jams and jellies, sometimes they come out and sometimes they don't.  Mostly because I can't follow a recipe, I like to add in what we have and make use out of everything!  I didn't use any pectin, I just cooked it down pretty good.  It came out pretty tasty. 

Cheese for Dinner

Well it's that time of the year.  I can feel it in the air.  The leaves are falling and the anticipation of the holidays are just around the corner.  It's Halloween and I am ready to start my Holiday planning!  There's just something about the holidays and how food always brings people together.  I like to say I'm a professional snacker, because in all honesty, I could skip the main meal all together and just snack for days!  I am a natural grazer at heart!  

I love the nights where I don't feel like cooking and I ask my kids, "Can we just have snacks for dinner?"  It is always a cheerful response and more often than not, they want to help make it.  I love that my boys love cheese as much as I do!  Plus, it's a great way to spend time together, so it's a win-win.  

Our kid friendly charcuterie boards have definitely been interesting some of the time AND there usually needs to have some sort of random candy thrown in there, but you only live once.  

My youngest has mastered the art of using savory and sweet items together with various types of cheeses.  He could eat goat cheese with some homemade jelly on a wheat thin all day!  My oldest on the other hand is not as exploratory and could eat a whole block of cheddar cheese if I let him!  All in all, we usually try to find a balance of cheese, crackers or bread, some type of meat, jelly and some sort of fruit or vegetable.  We do like to add hummus sometimes, I feel it is a bit random, mostly because I can't get my eleven year old to even look at a vegetable, but he will request hummus, so on it goes!  By the way hummus is so good with pita chips, naan bread or pretzels.  If you haven't tried it yet, you need to, it is a game changer.