Life is busy, take time to cook

People keep telling me now that they are looking forward to reading my blog, so I guess I should write something! There are so many things I want to write about and I don't even know where to start. I guess I will just have to start somewhere and we'll go from there. :)

As some of you know, last fall we started trying to cut out most processed foods. Notice the words, "trying" and "most". I'm not super strict on this, but I have been making all of our own bread, tortillas, and granola bars since last September! When do I have time for this you may ask? Well every weekend I make 4 loaves of whole wheat bread (using local honey as the sweetener). We use it for toast and sandwiches throughout the week and that will usually last us until the following weekend. I make the tortillas whenever I can find a good 30-45 minutes one evening during the week. They are super easy and only have 4 ingredients - whole wheat flour, olive oil, sea salt and water. Yep, that's it! They are super yummy for wraps or just general snacking! I will post all the recipes I use at the end of this post. I also just received my replacement pasta maker this week (the first one I received for Christmas broke after the first use, so Cucina Pro replaced it for free!) So my next challenge - homemade spaghetti! The fettuccine I made with the first pasta maker I had (before it broke) was awesome!

So this week, it's been chicken week around here. Sunday afternoon I cooked a whole chicken in the crockpot. When it was done, I removed all the meat from the bones, I put the bones back in the crockpot and filled it to the top with water and added a few bay leaves and let it continue to cook for several more hours. Voila....homemade chicken stock. From the leftover chicken and stock this week, I've made chicken pot pie and chicken noodle soup! Yum!!

I get most of my recipes from a site called 100daysofrealfood.com.
Here's the list:
whole wheat tortillas
granola bars/cereal
whole wheat pasta
the best crockpot chicken/chicken stock
chicken pot pie

I don't have a recipe for chicken noodle soup - I just make it up as I go. If I get that written down, I will post it here. And if you want to see even more great recipes...please follow me on pinterest (my newest obsession!!!)

If you try any of these recipes, be sure to let me know what you think or if you made any changes (I always change recipes to make them my own!)

Until next time....
Jenn :)

Here we go...

I've decided to try my hand at blogging. It seems pretty easy really and what better way to document all the memories of our lives than to capture it digitally right here. I hope to share with you (hopefully I'll have some readers!) my latest adventures and findings, stories about our crazy and wonderful little girls and our life together. We are currently trying to cut out most processed foods from our diets.. I say "almost" because come on...I mean you gotta have a couple oreos now and then, right? I love to cook and try new recipes, so I'll be posting my latest creations here. I'll share with you the latest Carmen comedy, the latest Lauryn horse love story, and of course how we function as a 2-working parent family. It's not easy these days to fit everything in, but somehow we get by. I love a good deal, so I'll post coupons and deals that I find online or at my favorite grocery store, Martins! :) I hope to be able to post here often, so check back soon for updates. Love to my friends and family out there...come back soon!