Freezing tomatoes!

Tomatoes have been one of the easiest things to grow in my garden this year.   I never realized just how long it takes tomatoes to ripen! I felt like it took forever for them to turn red but once they did BAM!  we had a lot.   I knew you could can them, but I had never done so, and quite frankly am very intimidated by the whole thing.

One day I was chatting with my sister in law Ashley and she showed me her tomatoes that she had frozen from last summer.... frozen?! Really... I don't know why I didn't think to freeze them!  So off I went to look up how to properly freeze tomatoes!

It's recommended to peel them first because freezing makes the skin tough once you thaw them back out.  The best way to peel it is to blanch them first.  (Blanch just means to boil something briefly)  Something else I learned this year! :)  It only takes a few minutes and most of the skins will start to split.

Just pull them off!  Next I squished as much of the seeds I could into a strainer and let the tomatoes sit and strain while I worked on the rest. 

Discard the seeds, and you have some really good tomato juice to use later! 

I used my roma tomatoes which have a nice thick meat to it so the sauce I make will be so thick and yummy! 

Put it in a freezer safe bag, I used my food saver!  And Voila!!  Summer tomatoes ready for the fall and winter.   If it stays in the freezer that long of course! :)  

What's your favorite way to preserve your garden veggies?  I would love to hear!  

Happy Gardening yall! 

Weekly meal plan week 1

Hey friends!  I thought it would be fun to share the meal plans I create each week for my family.   I love trying new recipes and while I'm not at the point yet where I create my own recipes, I can tell you where I got them from, and if they were a success!

I try so many recipes from different websites that sometimes I forget where I got them from so now I'm making it a point to print off, or write down the recipes we love so I can eventually create a monthly meal plan rotation.

Currently I plan for the week.  I can't stress enough how important meal planning is!  It saves you time, money and stress having a plan for the week.  I refuse to go to the store without a list now.   Also we get a weekly share of vegetables from a local farm, and veggies from the garden I've started this year :)

I'll share with you the meal plan from last week so I can actually give you a review of it.  So here we go!

Sunday:  Moussaka  I found this recipe from allrecipes.com  I love that they have a search by ingredients.  I knew I wanted to use the grass fed ground beef I got at the market, and the eggplant from our share.  And this recipe looked delicious!   I had never heard of it before but it was SO GOOD.  I had never thought to use cinnamon or nutmeg in a beef dish but wow.  Definitely a keeper!

Monday: Leftover Moussaka!  {Really happy to start off my week with dinner already made ;) }

Tuesday: Chicken with leeks and sun-dried tomatoes in white wine sauce with a side salad.  I love using skinnytaste.com for recipes!  This recipe was ok.  Nothing spectacular about it, but great if you have leeks you need to use up! I also am a fan of anything with sun-dried tomatoes :)  The side salad included lettuce and cucumbers we got in our share.

Wednesday: Morroccan Mahi Mahi with Mango Quinoa and fresh green beans.  Recipe from 100daysofrealfood.com  This recipe was AMAZING.  Seriously try this at least once!  This recipe is flexible in what fish you use,  I bought fresh caught Mahi Mahi.  In her recipe she used couscous, but I was out, and had quinoa on hand so I used that instead.   The quinoa, mango, cilantro and lime combination is so heavenly.  Especially fresh cilantro from my garden :)  The green beans we had from our share, I just steamed them and tossed with a little olive oil and garlic salt.

Thursday: Veggie Quesadillas  This is another from 100daysofrealfood.com.  You really dont even need a recipe for this one.  Just cook up some veggies, or use ones you have left over from previous meals, and add some cheese in a whole wheat quesadilla :)  I added some pinto beans I needed to finish up from the week before, and used some of the morroccan fish to add a little protein in Jeremy's.  

Friday: Total cheat day.  Jeremy worked a 24 hour shift so I sent him to work with some left over quesadilla and fish.  I had every intention of cooking a meal for me and Caden but because I had to run an errand for Jeremy and didn't get home until 6 Caden and I got pizza :) 

Saturday: Wedding food!!  We attended a wedding and ate some yummy BBQ :)  

There you go!  Our meals for last week.  Hope you enjoy! 

What does the bible say about Grains?

Grains. It seems as though more and more people are moving to a grain free diet now and it has sparked my interest! Why this has become so popular? I love grains and breads so the thought of giving it up makes me want to rebel and stock up on as much as possible. There's something in me that when I try to cut something out of my diet it makes me want it that much more. Does it have that affect on you?

Anyway what sparked my interest in whether or not grains are really good for us was so many friends of mine have been doing the Paleo diet. Basically you eat real food except Dairy and grains. The real food part I'm totally on board with of course! Isn't it weird that we have to specify that we want to eat REAL food now? I find it mind boggling. But the dairy and grains part I have a difficult time accepting.

So, I decided to read more and educate myself on grains, and of course what the bible says. If you have read the bible at all you have most certainly come across passages referencing wheat, barley, & bread. Jesus calls himself the bread of life.

"Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." - John 6:35

I also like this passage in Deuteronomy:

"For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land —a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills;
a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing..." Deuteronomy 8:7-9

Surely God doesn't intend for wheat to be bad for us. Or unhealthy.

NOW, here comes the scientific part. Grains we have today are nowhere near what they had in biblical times. We typically get our grain in the form of flour, processed and bleached from the grocery store. Grain that is genetically altered to resist disease, and sprayed with pesticides. They are refined which strips them of their vitamin and mineral components. So they need to go back and fortify it with extra synthetic vitamins that are of little value and possibly even dangerous to our health!

It's no wonder so many people have negative reactions to grains these days.

We also need to look at how Grain was prepared back then. They soaked, fermented, and sprouted grains to make them ready and more easily digested.
In whole grains there is a substance called phytic acid. This is what blocks the absorption of the essential nutrients. Whole grains also contain enzyme inhibitors that interfere with digestion. Soaking, sprouting or fermenting grains before eating them neutralize the phytates and enzyme inhibitors, which essentially predigest grains so that all the nutrients are available to you.

Those that are allergic to grains can tolerate them when properly prepared. Isn't that interesting?

So, what I've concluded is that if you can't prepare your grain using one of those techniques, it's best to avoid the processed flours and breads we have today. They are all essentially fake. By the time it makes it to your home, it's been processed, refined, fortified and turned into something not even close to it's original form.

Of course this isn't just something so easily done!! It takes time to change our ways. I'm going to attempt to sprout my own grain. It's totally been on my to-do list for weeks now so hopefully now that I've talked about it I'll get on it and share the how-to/results with you :)

What are your thoughts? Do you eat grains, or have you cut them out?


-Jessi

Let's be honest #6: Food choices

Hey yall! So sorry this post is a day late! We've been super busy around here. Trying to get in a routine involving Jeremy (only to have him leave again for three weeks starting next week), and preparing for a wedding in the family out of town this weekend, with my sister in law visiting for two weeks I feel like I'm running around in circles!

You know when you clean your house and it still doesnt seem clean? That's been my issue since the hubs has been home! I've gotten used to just picking up after myself and Caden. Now we have Daddy and all his military gear!

Anyway, on to this week's topic. I wanted to start a discussion with yall about food. Real food. It seems as though there are waves of diets and health research that constantly contradict one another. And until recently not many people paid attention to whether or not they were eating REAL food. It was all about convenience. And I'll be honest, growing up I never thought about whether a food was real or fake! If it was sold as food, why would it be fake?

Before I became a stay at home mom I had no interest in cooking. I actually despised it. It was a huge chore after having worked all day. Now that I stay home I can actually meal plan, grocery shop, and cook a meal from scratch and get this.... I LOVE IT! I enjoy creating meals for my family and finding new recipes to try each week. (I still have yet to master the whole comparing sales and couponing thing) Maybe one day!

So in this new found love for cooking, we actually enjoy meals cooked at home way more than going out to eat. Not to mention the money it saves! Now if we choose to go out, it's for a date night.

I've also found a new interest in what kinds of food are best. We go back and forth with vegetarian type meals, gluten free, no red meat, etc. There are tons of websites, books, and magazines out there that promote each lifestyle and I would get so overwhelmed trying to figure out which was best!

So this got me thinking... In everything we do each day we should be seeking the Lord, and diving into the word for answers. But when it comes to what we eat, the focus is on the latest study, or research, which changes every other day, rather than what the Bible says! Food is such a BIG, GIANT part of our every day life, so I really want to know what God has to say, not what the latest fad is.

I'm just beginning in the research, but what I can say so far is that we know that eating REAL food, not processed fake foods is what's best for our bodies. Seems like something that's common sense right? And yet for many it's not!

So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! Have you looked at scripture for guidance on food choices?





Link up with me!

Post Reboot Update

So for those of you that followed our little Fruit and veggie reboot I wanted to update you on how we are doing now two weeks later.  Because I'm sure that's all you've been thinking about right? What have we been eating? Well worry no more! I'm here to tell you!! :)

Anyway I really wanted to update yall because I think it's really incredible how after just 5 days on the reboot our tastes and cravings have changed dramatically.  Before, while we were eating a fairly healthy diet, I would still crave fast food like Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A, Pizza! And not to mention my crazy bad sweet tooth mouth....  After dinners Jeremy and I would absolutely have to have some sort of dessert.  Ice cream, candy, whatever. 

Now, we crave veggies. fruit.  The good stuff.  I want a refreshing juice blend instead of a soda.  We've been eating meals that are made up of veggies and feeling completely satisfied.  During the reboot it felt like something was lacking from our diets, I didnt feel satisfied, I wanted cheese, whole grain, milk, yogurt!! Now that those are back in our diets along with the major amounts of fruits and veggies we feel great! And yes even Caden eats everything I've put in front of him.  He even is eating raw broccoli if you can believe that!! I'm always sure that he's going to turn his nose up at something because he normally doesnt like tomatoes, or carrots, or peas! But now he has eaten all those things and more without a fuss.  I'm convinced it's because I've been making him his own little fruit and veggie juices.  They taste more like fruit juice to him because of the apples I include, but perhaps it's allowing his taste buds to adapt to the veggies that are in there without him knowing it! Whatever it is. It's working and I LOVE IT. 

I dont get that bloated feeling anymore like I sometimes do depending on what heavy foods I ate that day.  I feel leaner and healthier and more vibrant.  Now I still indulge in some sweets, and I have had some soda but those kinds of foods are no longer something I crave.  I could live without it.  But I'm not banishing it from our diets because that's when it becomes so much more appealing! I just know and can feel the difference from when we eat fresh and when we dont.  I recognize if I didnt get enough veggies that day. 

So if you were considering trying it out for yourself I highly recommend it.  Join the Reboot .  Get healthy, feel healthy!

Reboot DONE!!!

We are done. Thank goodness!  Something about telling ourselves we cant have something makes us want it so much more! That's why I dont diet.  I prefer to cut back on bad foods and make sure I stay active.  But the point of the reboot wasnt to diet.  It was to reboot our bodies and pump them full of nutrient rich food and get rid of the crap built up in our bodies.... literally! haha!

I definitely see how this would work for those that need to drastically change the way they eat and lose weight.  If you were like us and just need a quick jumpstart. Do the five days!  I do feel healthy but not as energized as I had hoped.  By they end of the day we both felt unsatisfied and that something was lacking.  So it was difficult for me to want to get into the gym.  I finally was able to go this morning and I'm glad I did! It really boosted my energy levels. 

This morning we had a breakfast smoothie, a juice and leftovers for lunch. Didnt take pictures because you've seen it all before.  But here are some pictures of the very delicious celebratory dinner at Outback!! :)

cheese fries. The ranch dipping sauce couldnt be more heavenly.

The bread is awesome. With honey butter. yum, yum, yum.

Wine!

I got the quesadillas.  I know, who gets quesadillas at a steakhouse. But it had mushrooms, chicken and bacon in it... and CHEESE! lol.  I just needed cheese yall.  And I have left overs for lunch :)

yay for food!!

I feel like I can get back to normal now.  Fueling our bodies with many more veggies! 

So what did we learn from this?  That we need more veggies in our diets.  And a great way to add them in is to juice them! So here's to a continued healthy diet with a few more veggies! Happy juicing!

Reboot Day 4....

Day 4 complete. Oh my we are so over this!!  LOL.  Tomorrow is our last day and to end it we are going to celebrate at Outback Steakhouse! :) We are both craving cheese fries.  What's funny is that at the end of each day we both talk about what we craved that day and it's always bread and cheese.  So we definitely know we are meant to eat whole grain and dairy!  Your body craves what you need! 

We cannot wait to get back to our normal cooking.  Just including a few more veggies!  We will probably include a juice drink each day to make sure we are getting all the quality nutrients we need.  Even little man needs one since he doesn't enjoy a ton of veggies yet.  He loves lima beans and occasionally broccoli and green beans.  We are so glad we've tried this but my goodness we want our bread and dairy products! :)  

Anywho, this is what we ate today:

Breakfast I forgot to take a picture of, but it was a citrus fruit salad.  It had kiwi, grapefruit, orange, mango and pineapple.  Yes it was delicious!

Mid morning Snack was a juice called Mexican style Jugo.  It contained cucumbers, cilantro, a poblano pepper, lime and a green apple.  It was actually really really tasty! I think this was my favorite juice so far!

Lunch was a large cucumber salad and sunset blend juice.  The Juice contained sweet potato, carrot, red bell pepper, beets, apples and an orange. The salad was good, I would love to make this in the future, just with a sandwich on the side! And the juice was good too.

Dinner was sweet potato and carrot fries again. Which we loved of course. And then a zucchini bake.  The bake was good, I just have made zucchini bakes in the past and it really needed some mozzarella cheese! :)  Other than that it was good too. And we have left overs of the bake for lunch tomorrow.

So we did it! Day 4 complete. One more 'day' to go.  Then dinner time it's ON.com!!! Outback watch out! LOL jumping into greasy fries is probably not the best for our systems but hey, its fun! And we need to celebrate actually making it 5 days on JUST fruits and veggies! 

I'm also having a glass of wine with my meal tomorrow ;) It's the little things!  

Reboot Day 3

Day 3. Yep. We're still doing it!  I soooo wanted to cave today.  But we are motivating eachother and keeping eachother in it! Today's meals werent bad. Just not very exciting.

Breakfast: Maple and Cinnamon baked apples and pears

Mid morning snack was a minty fresh berry smoothie. Yum.

Lunch was last nights left overs. The stuffed acorn squash and soup.  

And Dinner was baked sweet potato and carrot fries with vegetable soup.  The fries were of course yummy! We each got a huge plate full of them, I just started chowing down before I remembered to snap a picture :)  And the soup was alright. 

So, two more days.  We are getting pretty tired of the blah recipes.  But this was hump day. So I hope the next two days go quickly!

Reboot Day 2

Yesterday I was surprised I had no caffeine headaches... well I spoke too soon! Had a terrible one this morning.  It did go away as the day progressed and I ate more fruits and veggies and drank water but oh man it was killer.   And both of our energy levels were way down.  So needless to say today we were both a little on the grumpy side ;)

Every day starts and ends with an herbal tea.

For Breakfast we had a huge Blackberry Kiwi Blend. It had it all. Pineapple, banana, kiwi, mint, pear, blackberries, coconut water & flax seed oil.  It was delicious!  But why wouldnt it be? It's an awesome smoothie!

Mid morning snack was a different story.  It was a V28 juice.  28 because there was a total of 28 veggies in it. IT. WAS. GROSS.  Jeremy texted me right after he drank his as I was just about to drink mine letting me know how nasty it was! haha.  It took me forever to finish it.  But I did. And that was actually what helped my headache go away!

This thing had everything in it. 4 tomatos, 3 beets, 2 carrots, 1 jalapeno, 12 radishes, parsley & 2 stalks of celery.  If I added vodka to it I dont think you could tell over the strong taste of the radishes!! LOL. Glad we're passed that one! *shiver*

Lunch was just a big salad again with the ginger honey soy dressing. Very delicious. I forgot to take a pic but you know what a salad looks like :) 

Dinner was SO GOOD!  Much to our relief :) hehe.  Roasted Acorn Squash stuffed with mushrooms and sage. And a Green vegetable soup.  

The squash was so good. I wanted more! The soup was delicious too. Jeremy did have to modify it though because the recipe was VERY BLAND.  oh man.  Just water, salt and pepper and the veggies simmering together. So he used his culinary skills to add some flava.  We still stuck to the plan though and only used all natural stuff.  He kind of did a mustard soy thing.  very yummy. 

Today was a challenge to stick to the reboot.  Making caden his food made my mouth water! LOL.  I made him a butternut squash grilled cheese sandwhich and the little bit he didnt finish I had to fight myself away from! I'm not craving junk food, just bread and pasta, and butter! :) Oh and yogurt.  But we did it! Day 2 down.  3 more to go. And then on to a jumpstarted metabolism and healthier inside!

Reboot day 1

I have been in the kitchen ALL DAY. I didnt realize it would take so much work preparing all this food! First day has gone ok.  We are still truckin.  The meals have definitely been interesting.  Today's meal plan was as follows:

An herbal tea with honey and lemon

Breakfast: Cherry cinnamon Apple Bake Sounds delicious but oh man the recipe called for way too much cinnamon! We still ate it but yuck!

Then we had a late morning Green Juice for a snack but of course I forgot to get a picture. It included Kale, spinach, ginger, cucumber, celery, and apples. It tastes ok. Not my favorite!

Lunch was much better! Arugula Spinach Salad with Mustard vinaigrette Dressing.  The dressing was even made from scratch. SO GOOD.  I seriously want to make our own salad dressings from now on.  It's so easy! I'll share a separate post later with the recipes for dressings we make.  And we also had a Raw Carrot Ginger soup.  The soup was actually good, it had Cayenne pepper, salt, ginger, avacado and carrot juice all pureed together.  It was strange eating cold soup but it was still good. 

Dinner was just a big salad of whatever veggies we wanted, and steamed broccoli, snow peas and green beans.  The steamed veggies were drizzled with an amazing Ginger Honey Soy dressing. 

Caden is not participating in this reboot of course :) So tonight he ate chicken nuggets and broccoli!  He's definitely going through a growth spurt because he's been eating a ton the past few days! He downed 8 chicken nuggets and all his broccoli.  He loved the dressing on the broccoli so much he kept asking for more and saying mmmm while he ate it :) hehe.

Because this is a reboot all we are drinking is water and herbal tea. No caffeine whatsoever! And surprisingly I have not had one caffeine headache today! I thought I was starting to get one before lunch but I just drank more water and it was gone.  I'm so surprised!

So day one down!  We are having a lot of fun with this even though all the meals arent that great ;)  We just laugh at eachother and at how much food is on our plates!  It's unbelievable! I dont think I've ever had this many vegetables in one day.  I feel awesome though.  I have energy, my skin is glowing, and I just have an over all sense of healthy!  I am craving bread though. LOL! 

 I'm looking forward to incorporating lots more veggies into our meals after this is done.  No we are not looking to become vegetarians! We're from Texas yall!!  haha. We love our meat.  And mexican food...... ok no more talk of mexican food, I have four more days to go!  

Fruit & Veggie Reboot!

Hey friends!!  We have been so busy lately the blog has been on hold.  Summer's are like that! But now that we are back home and can get back into a somewhat regular routine I can jump back into blog world! :)

I wanted to share a journey we are about to go on.  We recently watched a documentary called "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" It was really eye opening and although we all know how good fruits and veggies are for us, it's somehow really difficult to get enough in our diets! In the movie, Joe takes a 60 day journey just juicing fruits and veggies.  Dont worry we arent going 60 whole days :) And while his goal was to lose weight, ours is not! We simply want to reboot our bodies by taking control of our diet, and improve our health and wellness by eating more fruits and vegetables. 

I checked out the website Join the Reboot and was happy to see a couple different Reboot programs to choose from.  They have a little assessment you can take asking questions about your current health and diet to help figure out which of the three plans is best for you.  Jeremy and I took the assessment seperately and both have the same result! It is the Express Reboot Program.  The standard program is 15 days, ours is only going to be 5.  And we dont need to just juice everything.  We will be eating and drinking nothing but fresh fruits and veggies! 

Thankfully they provide a meal plan for the 5 days so I didnt have to sit there and try to come up with recipes on my own.  We like to eat fruits and veggies but I've never based a whole weeks worth of meals on just that!  And using thier meal plan will broaden our veggie palate!  We went to the grocery store today to purchase everything and I bought things I've never bought before. Leeks, bok choy, collard greens (not excited about that one! ha!) and more!

Dont worry, I dont think we will be starving.  In fact we will probably be eating more than we typically do! I mean just check out everything we bought!

VEGGIES:

FRUIT:

I KNOW.  It's A LOT!  We will be juicing some of it too.  If you have ever used a juicer you know the ability to include A TON of food into one glass of juice! Far more than I would normally sit there and eat.  So we already had the juicer, we just had to bust it out again.  It's one of those appliances you dont tend to use unless you keep it out as a reminder!

We are starting tomorrow and are pretty excited! I plan to do an update each day with the meal plan we did that day and how it's going.  So if you're interested, or just want to see if we make it, stay tuned! :) It's only 5 days so it shouldnt be too hard. Until tomorrow!