Meatless Monday – Salad Bar

Posted in salads, things we like to eat by

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I know, it is a bit sad to do a post on a salad bar, but I love salad bar night! I try to not do it very often because I get complaints from certain members of the family but Jordan and I love it. It has been quite hot here lately and cooking is the last thing I want to do, so a big salad bar is the perfect summer dinner.

We sort of cheated – it’s not actually meatless, since I had chicken available for the complainers! But you can build your salad bar any way you’d like.

I chop up a ton of different veggies and keep them in separate bowls. Also lettuce (obviously), different types of beans, cheese, onions, olives, cilantro, etc. I also have some sort of yummy bread available. And of course, different salad dressing choices and croutons! Yay! The leftovers get stashed away for lunch the next day.

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A quick note on the salad dressing. I am a bottled salad dressing person. I know people who make their own dressing and that is great, I just don’t do that. However, I do “make” this dressing. It is my favorite! All I do is follow the recipe on the packet of Good Seasons salad dressing mix and use all of their measurements for vinegar, water and oil. The only difference is that I use Balsamic vinegar. It just gives it a rich flavor. I have tried using garlic olive oil and that is quite yummy too. Enjoy!
Cindy

Fashion Friday- Dreamin’ of Sweater Weather

Posted in Fashion Friday, obsessions by

I love summer. And even though I’m totally bummed that school has started, I am ready for it to get cooler. Because of that, here’s a post full of adorable cozy sweaters.

Perfect Solitude Marled Sweater

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This sweater is such a pretty color and the cut seems unusual.

Art Nouveau Printed Dress

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This is so cute- I love the print.

Apt. 9 Animal Sweater

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Oh my gosh- so adorable.

Tahiti Jeweled Fan Studs

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Aren’t these unusual and pretty?

Femme Embroidered Blouse

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I love this so much. The color, the fabric, the length of the sleeves, the detailing on the front…I love it all.

Sydney Sunset Buttoned Down Dress

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Autumn in Helsinki Long Cardigan

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This whole outfit is amazing, but I especially love the long knit cardigan.

Good Sport Lace Pullover

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This looks so comfy.

Darling Leaves Ring

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I really like this- it’s so pretty and delicate.

Razzle Dazzle Elbow Patch Cardigan

222846115My mom has a cardigan very similar to this that she actually found in the men’s section at Target on the clearance rack. I’m so excited to borrow it and get a “new” sweater 🙂

Jordan

Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

Posted in the important stuff by

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I know I’ve mentioned this, but I love our eggs -I love our chickens too, but not like I love our eggs. Weird, huh? I love being able to go out and collect eggs and then turn it into some delicious meal for my family. I love that we feed our chickens a super, healthy diet and in turn, have super, healthy eggs. I love that when you crack the egg you see that vibrant yellow color, and when you eat our eggs they really taste like eggs.

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One thing that we started doing was growing wheat grass for our chickens. We always have tons of weeds around and leftover veggies in the garden, but I read somewhere about how great wheat grass is so we started growing it. I buy wheat berries in bulk from our grocery store and just plant them and water them and that’s it. We walk out to the garden and grab a big handful and yank it up – roots and all and toss it into the chickens. If they are lucky they may end up with a tasty bug or two. They love it and it not only saves money on the cost of feed it makes for healthier eggs.

chickens

Cindy

Best Blueberry Muffins Ever

Posted in breakfast, sweets, things we like to eat by

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That’s what a friend said when he tasted one of these blueberry muffins! Wow! I love it when people are enthusiastic about my cooking.

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On a whim I decided to make these muffins and I’m so glad I did. I had about two cups of fresh blueberries left in a container and I wasn’t sure how long they would last. I needed to either freeze them or use them up in the next few days. I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com and after a couple minor modifications we were enjoying these yummy muffins.

I have been going to quite a few garage sales lately, looking for household items for Alex’s new place and dorm room stuff for Travis. I found a mini fridge for $10 not too long ago, yay! At one of the many sales, I found a muffin tin that makes HUGE muffins.

Even though I doubled the original recipe, I still only ended up with 8 giant muffins. I had a lot of extra leftover topping, which completely made these muffins. I ended up using the last of the topping on some zucchini nut muffins that I made a few days later, they were delicious too – but not as good as these blueberry muffins! I made a second batch of these muffins and put them into regular sized muffin tins and it made 18 muffins.

We used the leftover crumble topping on French toast and I have also been sprinkling it on my oatmeal. Too good to toss!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.

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Place vegetable oil into a 2 cup measuring cup, add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup.

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Mix this with flour mixture.

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Zest a lemon over the mixing bowl and then fold in blueberries.

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The dough will be very sticky. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.

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Crumb Topping: Mix together sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.

crumble topping

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes for the larger muffins or 15 to 20 minutes for the smaller ones. Just keep checking to be sure that they don’t over cook. Makes approximately 18 regular sized muffins and 8 giant muffins.

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These pictures don’t do the size of these muffins justice- they truly are massive!

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Best Blueberry Muffins
3 cups flour
1 1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
Approximately 2 tsp of lemon zest
2 cups fresh blueberries

Crumb Topping
You probably could get by with only making a half batch of topping – but why?
1 cup white sugar
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, cubed
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 2 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Zest a lemon over the mixing bowl and then fold in blueberries. The dough will be very sticky? Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.

Crumb Topping: Mix together sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes for the larger muffins or 15 to 20 minutes for the smaller ones. Just keep checking to be sure that they don’t over cook. Makes approximately 18 regular sized muffins and 8 giant muffins.

Cindy

Freezing Eggs

Posted in the important stuff by

Ok, so our eggs aren’t freezing – but did you know that you can freeze fresh/raw eggs? This comes in very handy when you have an over-abundance of these beauties.

I love our eggs – aren’t they pretty?

eggs in bucket

I just love the muted colors and all of the spots on each egg. One year as a homeschool project Jordan made a starfish mosaic out of the egg shells. She used white, different shades of brown and different shades of green – so pretty. I have it framed in my office area.

egg shells

To freeze eggs you want to start out with the freshest eggs. Take 4 eggs and crack and mix gently in a measuring cup. Add 1/2 tsp salt to the eggs and mix well. Pour into a ziplock bag and freeze. Frozen eggs will last for 8 months in the freezer. I clearly mark mine with the date, expiration date, how many eggs and how much salt I used. Then I can use them for quiche, scrambled eggs or really any recipe. We used a couple of bags of the frozen eggs on our camping trip.

It was so convenient to just pull the bags out of the refrigerator when we were ready to make breakfast.  Just be sure to allow enough time for the eggs to defrost.
Cindy