Our (Neurodiverse) Family

I don't really have any thing prepared for this week's Food Storage Friday, but I would like to share some of my favorite food storage websites. They are all on my blog roll, but I will provide links to them here and provide descriptions for them: 1.  Safely Gathered In Here you will get tips on how to use your food storage, including. the long-term stuff like wheat and powdered milk. There are two contributors, as well as the occasional guest post, and everyday they have some topic related to food storage. Here are the themes as follows: Monday there is a motivational quote to keep you going on food storage and emergency preparedness. Tuesday they give you an assignment for your three-month supply or 72-hour kit. Wednesday & Thursday  they post tutorials or articles on any given topic related to food storage and emergency preparedness. Friday  they share recipes that use only food storage items. They also have Food Storage Friday. I knew I wasn't original...

I haven't talked much about being a nanny. It's the hardest job I've ever had, but also the most fulfilling. Here are some reasons why I love being a nanny :) (1) I am figuring out what kind of a mom I want to be when I do have kids.  I have had much spiritual confirmation that one of the reasons I am caring for Snow Monkey is so I can learn how to be the mother I want to be. I don't want to be the mother who is always losing her temper at her kids, because really, what kid benefits from that? No one that I know. Kids need boundaries, but they also need to feel loved.  (2) Teaching the Snow Monkey new things .  Snow Monkey was graduated from preschool in January, so one of my challenges has been to keep his screen time to a minimum while still keeping him entertained. One day, I had him help me make strawberry freezer jam and bread. It probably took more time than it would have had I done it alone, but he had lots of fun helping me "smash" the strawberri...

Cooking is just one aspect of homemaking, there's also cleaning. My apartment got a little messy over the weekend, despite my best attempts... Here are the before pictures: And after: There's that other pillow I made on the bed :) There's probably a better way of doing this... That pile of clothes is clean; I just hadn't folded them yet. Promise! Better organized coffee table and couch. I assure you the floor is also clean.

Before I got married, I didn't like mint. Don't ask me why, I just didn't. But I married a mint loving man, and I got the Mrs. Fields cookie cookbook as a wedding present. He begged me to make these, and well, I actually liked them, and have slowly started liking other minty desserts. And since peanut butter desserts are forbidden from my in-laws' house , these are what I am known for. My mother-in-law keeps asking me for the recipe, but I keep telling her she already has it, since she has the same Mrs. Fields cookbook that I do. This recipe is the Mrs. Fields, except with how I approach it. In the original, you have to mix things in different bowls and then combine them in one big bowl at the end. I hate those recipes, because I don't like washing lots of dishes. So here is my modified one-bowl approach. Preheat oven to 300 degrees 1 cup of butter, softened 2/3 cup white sugar 3/4 cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon mint extract (or more, if you really like your cookie...

There is a food co-op in my part of the country called Bountiful Baskets. Basically, you sign up for and pay for your basket on Monday and then pick it up on Saturday at a designated location. There's a pick-up location very close to where I live. So, I ordered my basket on Monday, and woke up at six this morning to go pick it up. Here's what I got: All of this for 15 bucks. Pretty sweet, if you ask me. swiss chard (one bunch given to my in-laws) carrots mushrooms (given to my in-laws) chili peppers Fuji apples bananas corn blackberries mangoes cantaloupe (given to my in-laws) romaine lettuce tomatoes I've already got a few ideas as to what to make with these: smoothies, salads, maybe a Mongolian beef dish with the swiss chard we kept, and that's about it. Could you give me some more ideas? Maybe some recipes with them? Thanks! Linked to "Real Food Wednesdays" at  Kelly the Kitchen Kop .

The basic guideline to food storage is this: store what you eat, eat what you store. One of the biggest problems people have with food storage is thinking they have to store a certain item they think will be used when they don't use it at all, and then it goes to waste. Not only is the food storage item wasted, but so is a lot of money. I know the concept of storing a lot of food is overwhelming, but it can be done, little by little. So, go through your cookbooks and cupboards, and think about the things you already eat. Do your kids love granola bars? Stock up on them the next time they go on sale at your grocery store. Eat a lot of spaghetti? Buy lots of spaghetti noodles and canned tomatoes. Basically, stock up on stuff you use every time you go to the grocery store, especially if its on sale. You'll save money in the long run. And of course, don't forget to rotate your food storage. This means using the stuff you buy, hence "eat what you store" and buy...

I have long been intrigued with the idea of making and keeping a sourdough starter. Weird, huh? One of the reasons I find it intriguing is because the process of making sourdough is supposed to make the grains easier to digest and the nutrients easier to absorb. I'm always up for something easy to digest and nutritious. I just hope the end result (bread, and such) is delicious. So, I've been using the guidance of Laura at  Heavenly Homemakers  and her posting series on making a sourdough starter. I'm on day 3 of mine, but here's a picture of when I fed it yesterday: My cute assistant: Snow Monkey. He likes to help. Today, I put it in an even bigger bowl because that one got too small. And it does kind of smell when you drain the liquid off...phew. But that means the sourdough is doing it's job... Hopefully by this time next week, I'll have made a tasty sourdough bread. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to clean. Linked to "Try New Adventu...