Valentine's Day

About 5 years ago, I got really sick of all of the candy the kids were getting for Valentine's Day, not to mention the fact that every holiday was turning into an event where my kids expected to get things.  We have enough "things" at our house, so I had a little brain storming session with myself.  I decided that we were going to pick a family or inidividual every year who we thought might like a loving surprise, or maybe needed cheering up, and we would do a heart attack for them.  After we would go home and eat heart shaped Jello jigglers.  The only reason for the jigglers is because I love them.  We've now being doing heart attacks for 5 Valentine's days, and the kids love them.  Most of the time we are able to stay anonymous, but this year they found out it was us.  They loved it, and took pictures, and they said their neighbors all loved it too.

This was Natalie's lunch.  Since Josh can't have bread or peanut butter, I warmed him up a corn tortilla, put some of his "butter" on it, and did the heart shaped sugar sprinkle.  It wasn't appetizing looking at all, but he loved it.

 The kids, with a friend, in front of the house we attacked.

Potato leek soup

We got small Yukon Gold potatoes and leeks in our Bountiful Basket this week, so of course, I had to try making some potato leek soup.  I have to say it was pretty simple, and super yummy!  I will definitely be making this again!  Even three out of my five kids loved it.  The other two don't count because they're super picky.  Here's where I got the recipe, but I'll type out what I did because I changed it a bit.

*two large leeks, cut in half lengthwise, then chopped
*a bunch of small potatoes
*dairy free margarine (so Josh could eat it) or oil, whichever you prefer
*salt and pepper
*2 cups water
*some chicken stock
*more water
*I made up these spices the other day (minus all the salt and brewer's yeast) and put in 3 tsp
It's very technical, I know.
I put the leeks and margarine into the pot on low/med heat with the salt and pepper, and let them get soft.  Once they were soft I removed it from the heat while I chopped the potatoes and put them in.  Then I added 2 cups of water, some frozen chicken stock I had, and then topped it off with some more water until it was just about 2 inches below the top of the pot.  Then I added the spices and brought it to a boil.  I lowered the heat and let it simmer for about an hour, until the potatoes were soft.  Then I took about half of it out, and pureed it with my Magic Bullet.  I didn't measure exactly half, I just kept taking more out and pureeing until it looked creamy enough for me.  Then I let it simmer some more until dinner time.  I like to let soup simmer a long time because it just gives the flavors more time to blend together.  And that's it!  Some recipes called for it to all be blended, but I like the chunks. They add some texture.  We ate it with Great Harvest Dakota bread (gluten free for Josh and me), and it was a perfect texture blend with the somewhat creamy soup, and seedy bread.  Yum!  I can't wait to eat more for lunch tomorrow!

Breakfast burritos

A few months back I started getting our fruits and veggies from Bountiful Baskets.  It's a food co-op, and I LOVE it!  It's making me get a lot more creative in my cooking, and I'm making things fresh from scratch, rather than buying premade.  One thing I've been trying to do is double up on the menu planning.  One of my favorite ways to do this is to bake a bunch of potatoes, and have baked potatoes one night for dinner and also have some left over the next night's dinner.  So the next night, I slice up the potatoes, fry them, scramble some eggs with onion and green bell pepper, and put them on a corn tortilla (or flour, for those who eat it) with cheese, and top it with my homemade creamy cilantro lime dressing.  Oh my YUMMY!  It's become one of our favorites, and my little girls and I had it for lunch today. I will NEVER buy frozen hashbrowns or potatoes o'brien again.

My husband was gone this last week, so I was going for fast and easy dinners.  One afternoon I put a couple of chicken breasts in the crockpot with about half a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's (personal favorite for crockpot bbq), and after a few hours on high I shredded it, and we ate it over a bed of pasta with some Costco organic corn.  Yum!  The next night we had the baked potatoes, and then for lunch for DAYS after that I was eating a baked potato covered in melted cheese and topped with the leftover crockpot bbq chicken.  I was actually very sad today when I got the last baked potato out of the fridge, and realized I had finished off the chicken the day before.

One of the best things about these meals is that they are easy to adapt for those of us who eat gluten free, and my son who is also dairy free.

I'm always looking for ways to double up on meal prep, so if you have any good ideas, send them my way!  

Sorry there's no pictures of our yumminess, but it was gone so fast, it would have been a picture of an empty plate!  Here's a picture of my cute kids instead.  :)