Whole Chicken in a Crock Pot & Homemade Broth

Posted on: September 23, 2014 by: Tara Canlett Comments: 12 Comments

I have seen other food bloggers making a whole-chicken-in-a-crock-pot and then using the bones to make homemade broth (stock), so I had to give this a try of course. And it’s so easy! I can’t believe I have been just throwing out the bones every time when I could be making this delicious broth. 🙂 We humans have been consuming bone broth since the caveman days. It is so healing for our bodies! To name a few reasons: It heals the gut and improves digestion, fights infections like the cold an flu, reduces joint pain and inflammation, helps with bone formation/growth/repair, great for the health of our teeth as well, and boosts the immune system. The broth contains a lot of iron too. It’s great to have chicken broth on hand when we get sick (which isn’t very often). Especially the times when you’re sick and don’t want to eat much.

This was very easy to make but it does take up your time so it may be best to do it on a weekend if you work during the week. Making your own chicken broth does save money too. This recipe was derived from 100 Days of Real Food. I added more garlic powder and some rosemary. Rosemary is great for memory! And we all know with Fibromyalgia we need that. 😉 You get a ton of chicken from a whole chicken too. From the last chicken we cooked we got 4 dinners, 2 chicken sandwiches, and 2 small chicken salads. Plus all the broth!

Whole Chicken in a Crock Pot:
(Scroll to the bottom to see the crock pot I use)

Organic whole chicken (up to 4 pounds)
1/2 an onion (I use yellow onion)
Other veggies, if desired (carrots/celery, etc.)
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt (I use sea salt)
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried rosemary (or whatever herbs you like)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

Make sure the chicken is completely thawed (or close to it – mine was a little frozen around the edges and turned out fine after cooking 5 hours). Cut-up your onion in large chunks and place it in the bottom of the crock pot along with any veggies you might want. Combine your spices and herbs in a small bowl. Remove giblets from the chicken (if there are any) and rub the spice/herb mixture all over the chicken, making sure to cover the chicken breasts underneath. Place the whole chicken on top of the onions in the crock pot, cover it, and turn it on high to cook for 4 – 5 hours. You don’t have to add any liquid. I know that sounds crazy but trust me, it works. The chicken will be done when it is falling off the bone and there’s no pink inside.

Homemade Chicken Broth:

The cooked whole chicken (or cooked chicken parts are okay too)
The juices from cooking the chicken
1 stalk of celery, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped (you don’t have to peel it but wash good)
1 bay leaf
1/2 an onion, chopped (unless you have onion from cooking the chicken, you can just leave that in or add more)
More herbs if desired (1 sprig of fresh parsley, rosemary, or thyme – 1 tsp of dried herbs work too)
1/2 – 1 tsp salt
Water

After the whole-chicken-in-the-crock-pot is done cooking, remove the chicken and leave the juice and everything else in the crock pot. After the chicken has cooled (and you have eaten what you want for that night), remove all the edible meat from the bones (check out the picture below of all the leftover chicken we had after eating some for dinner that night!). Put the bones and carcass back into the crock pot (basically everything except the edible meat). Add celery, carrots, the bay leaf, and you can add more onion and herbs if you want. I use rosemary and thyme, or whatever I have on hand. Add salt if desired. Fill the crock pot with water, leaving about 1/2″ to 1″ at the top. (I get a little paranoid about it bubbling over during the night so I leave 1″.) Turn the crock pot on low to cook for 8 – 10 hours either during the night or you can start it in the morning to cook during the day (it’s okay to cook even longer than 10 hours if you want and it will actually be even better this way). When it’s done, turn off the heat and use a sieve to remove all the bones/veggies/herbs etc. After the broth has cooled, you can freeze for future use (see information on freezing the broth below).

Freezing Homemade Chicken Broth:
I tried freezing in gallon-size ziplock bags and the bags punctured a hole and leaked all over my freezer. 🙁 Next I tried freezing in mason jars. This works great. Make sure to leave some room at the top of the jars because the broth will expand when it freezes. It is recommended that you use wide-mouth jars because of the liquid expanding and risk of the glass bursting. Some of mine were’t wide-mouth and they turned out okay so it’s up to you. If you don’t use a wide-mouthed jar then make sure you have extra room on top. It is also recommended to use pint-size jars, not quart-size but I did use a couple quart-size jars. I guess these are more at risk of breaking in the freezer but mine turned out okay. Again, it’s up to you, I’m just sharing the information I found. 🙂 (You can reuse the lids for freezing only. You need to use new lids for canning, unless you buy the reusable lids. I reuse my lids when freezing the jars and the sharpie permanent marker I used to write on the lid comes off after washing it! I just had to kind-of scrape it off. I keep the used lids separate from the new lids and make sure they are clearly marked.) I measured the broth into 3 cup and 1 1/2 cup portions. There’s also one with 2 cups. I made sure the jars were completely cool before putting them into the freezer. You could use plastic tupperware to freeze the broth too but obviously plastic is not the best choice, and you would definitely want BPA-free. You can also freeze some of the broth in ice cube trays so you have small amounts when needed. If you need some mason jars (or lids & bands or just lids) scroll to the bottom for a link through Amazon.

Uses for Homemade Chicken Broth:

Chicken Noodle Soup
Other Soups (Potato Soup, Split Pea Soup, Navy Bean Soup, etc.)
Use Chicken Broth instead of water when making rice/quinoa/potatoes/noodles
Baked Chicken & Rice
Other casserole dishes
Drink it! Yes, that’s right. Just drink it straight and it’s so good. I drank some after I made a fresh batch. I have heard of some people drinking a cup every day. Maybe I will do that one day.
Chicken Pot Pie (this recipe needs some improvement but I still stand by the filling!)
Use when making sauces

Uses for the Leftover Chicken (look at all this leftover chicken after we ate some of the whole chicken for dinner that night!):

Chicken Noodle Soup
Chicken Pot Pie
Chicken Fajitas
Baked Chicken & Rice
Chicken Enchiladas (use my beef enchilada recipe and substitute w/chicken or my cheesy chicken enchiladas)
Chicken Quesadillas (found in my party appetizer recipes)
Chicken & Herb Noodles
Chicken Salad (Cobb Salad)
Sour Cream & Onion Chicken Salad (recipe from 100 Days of Real Food)
Chicken Alfredo
Chicken Stir-fry
Chicken Chili (use my chili recipe and substitute the beef for chicken)
Chicken Sandwiches
Chicken Wraps
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Chicken Tacos (use my taco/burrito recipe and substitute the beef for chicken)
Chicken Lasagna
Chicken Fried Rice (you can add chicken to my Fried Rice recipe or substitute the bacon for chicken)

Here’s the crock pot I use and I love it! There are other options out there with different prices too.

Here are some Wide-Mouth Pint-Size Mason Jars or need some lids & bands? Or just lids?:

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Blackberry Cobbler

Posted on: August 20, 2014 by: Tara Canlett Comments: 1 Comment

We first made this cobbler for Thanksgiving last year and it was a hit! Now we decided to make it again with some blackberries my mom gave us. She has blackberry bushes at her house so we get a bunch every year. This time I reduced the amount of sugar. The original recipe was 3/4 cup of sugar and that seemed like way too much! Especially if you are putting ice cream on top, which most likely has sugar in it. And who doesn’t want ice cream on top?? 😉 If you have a ton of extra berries and need to make something, this is a very quick and easy recipe. You can use any kind of berries, or peaches.

Ingredients:

4 TB butter
3/4 cup flour
1 TB raw cane sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt (I use sea salt)
3/4 cup milk (I use organic whole)
2 cups fresh blackberries (or any other kind of berries/peaches) or 12 oz package frozen berries
1 tsp raw cane sugar (to sprinkle on top before you put it in the oven)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put the butter in an 8 x 8 baking dish and place in the oven to melt. Make sure to keep checking the butter and pull it out after it has melted. Whisk the flour, 1 TB sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Add the milk and whisk to form a smooth batter. Pour the batter into the dish with the melted butter. Scatter the fruit over the batter and sprinkle the remaining teaspoon of sugar on top. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until the batter browns and the fruit bubbles. Let cool a little, but serve warm. It’s really good with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top!

Black Bean Veggie Burgers

Posted on: August 16, 2014 by: Tara Canlett

One night I decided to make black bean burgers, just for something different. I thought these were really tasty. My son didn’t like the bell peppers and my husband said they were good but he prefers our grass-fed beef burgers. But the flavor was really good and everyone ate them up! You could add quinoa instead of the bread crumbs if you wanted. I would definitely eat these again but do love my grass-fed burgers as well. 😉 This is a great vegetarian option or if you just want to mix things up. I like meat but also like to have other sources of protein sometimes. I made my cheesy garlic mashed potatoes to go with.

The homemade buns are found in this post: http://organicfibromommies.com/2014/06/grass-fed-burgers-homemade-buns/.

Ingredients:

1 15 oz. can of black beans
1 egg
1/3 cup bread crumbs
1 TB chili powder
1 TB cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 TB minced onion or 1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup veggies like bell peppers, corn, carrots – chopped small

Directions:
Drain and rinse the black beans. In a medium bowl, mash the beans with a fork or a potato masher. Add the chopped veggies and all the other ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Make patties as shown in the picture below or the size that you want. Note: These do not shrink up like regular hamburger patties do. Cook the patties on a grill, stove-top or in the oven. They do not take long to cook at all and when I cooked them on the stove-top I had to grease the pan pretty good.

Mashing the beans with a fork:

Cooking the black bean burgers on the stove-top:

Here are the canned organic black beans I buy at Trader Joe’s
(Ingredients – organic black beans, water, and sea salt):

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Posted on: August 1, 2014 by: Tara Canlett

My grandma grows a lot of rhubarb and has extra every year. I have never taken any until this year, so I could make strawberry rhubarb crisp for the first time. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out because I had heard how tart rhubarb is. And my husband had made it very clear that no matter how much sugar I put in it, he wasn’t going to like it and that he has had it made every way possible as a kid. Well guess what, he loved it! I believe his words were that it was AMAZING. It was almost gone in 1 day. And there was no added sugar! I used maple syrup to sweeten it. If it’s real maple syrup, it’s definitely better for you than sugar because it’s high in magnesium, potassium, calcium and zinc. Regular maple syrup has: high fructose corn syrup, regular corn syrup, caramel color, artificial flavors and preservatives. Honey is better for you than maple syrup but this recipe needed something that would really sweeten it up since rhubarb is so tart. And I heard that Grade B maple syrup is better because it’s the second tapping and the syrup has more nutrients. Grade A is still okay to use though. As you can see in the picture at the bottom of this post, I have Grade A. Partly because I always forget which one is better, haha.

Note: I froze some of the rhubarb from my grandma. It is REALLY hard to cut after it has been froze, and it’s full of water. I reduced the amount of water in the filling recipe below by half when I used the frozen rhubarb.

For the Filling:

16 oz organic strawberries
2 stalks of rhubarb (about 2 cups, sliced thin)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup maple syrup
juice from 1/2 a lemon (I just do a few good squirts)
1/4 tsp salt (I use sea salt)
2 TB chia seeds (optional – I grind my seeds)

For the Topping:

1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup flour
2 TB melted coconut oil, or melted butter
2 TB maple syrup
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut up the strawberries into chunks and slice the rhubarb thin. In an 8 x 11 baking dish, mix up the filling ingredients with a large spoon. Mix the topping ingredients in a bowl until crumbly. Crumble on top of the filling. Bake for 45 minutes or until crisp and lightly browned. Let cool for 5-10 minutes and serve.

This is the maple syrup I use. It’s from Trader Joe’s, about $8. It’s 100% pure organic maple syrup, nothing else. Believe it or not that is a good price for pure maple syrup.

Coconut Oil (I heard this is a good brand):

Zucchini Recipes

Posted on: July 24, 2014 by: Tara Canlett Comments: 3 Comments

Zucchinis can get so huge! And I don’t know about you but our garden is producing a lot of them. So we have to come up with many ways to use them up. I think it would be boring to just make zucchini bread over and over, even though it’s delicious! I actually like zucchini bread better than banana bread, but I don’t care much for bananas (I force myself to eat one or throw one in a smoothie now and then). But, I just learned from a neighbor that you can pick the zucchinis when they are smaller and they taste better that way for salads/stir-fry. And when they are bigger they are better for bread/pancakes. I don’t know why I didn’t know this before…. Oh well. 🙂 I wouldn’t say this is the best zucchini bread I’ve ever had but I need more time and more zucchini to experiment. It was good though and the kids loved it, even without any chocolate chips. 😉

Zucchini is a summer squash that has many health benefits. They have anti-oxidants, potassium, magnesium, vitamin A, vitamin C, and B-complex groups of vitamins like thiamin, pyridoxine, riboflavin and minerals like iron, manganese, phosphorus, and zinc. And the peel is a good source of dietary fiber.

Fried Zucchini

1 1/2 – 2 cups zucchini (cut-up into triangles or circles)
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp thyme (or another herb you like)
Salt & Pepper (sprinkle desired amount)
1 egg

Heat up the oil in the pan. Cut up the zucchini into triangles (like the picture) or circles, depending on the size of zucchini you’re working with. Mix the flour, herb & seasonings in a small bowl. Add the egg to another small bowl and use a whisk to mix it up. Dip the zucchini into the egg, then into the flour mixture and add to the hot pan (make sure your pan is hot – probably on medium-high). Flip them after they are brown on one side, then cook until they are brown on the other side. Let them cool a little before serving.

Zucchini Pancakes – (makes 10-12 small pancakes)

1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 eggs
3 TB olive oil
2 TB melted butter
2 TB milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup grated zucchini

In a large bowl whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Create a well in the middle and whisk the eggs, olive oil, melted butter, milk, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth. Stir in the grated zucchini, (you can grate it with a cheese grater or use a food processor to shred it. After I grate the zucchini, I squeeze out some of the water before adding it to the bowl.) and stir the dry ingredients into the batter, mixing until just combined. It will be very lumpy. Grease your skillet (I use coconut oil) and set to medium. Once it’s heated, add a big spoonful of batter to each area on the skillet, depending on how big your skillet is and how big you want your pancakes. Keep checking the bottom and when it’s golden brown, you can flip them. Cook a couple more minutes so that they are golden brown on both sides, remove from the pan and repeat until all the batter is used up. Best served with real butter and 100% pure maple syrup, or raw honey.

Roasted Zucchini

1 small zucchini
other veggies like bell pepper, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, asparagus, whatever you like.
onion
1 – 2 TB coconut oil or olive oil
1/2 – 1 tsp garlic powder or minced garlic
salt & pepper (sprinkle desired amount)
Herb(s) of your choice (I used thyme). About 1/2 tsp.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut-up all your veggies and onion. In an 8 x 8 baking dish, add the veggies, onion, coconut oil/olive oil, herbs & seasonings and mix them up. Bake for 25-30 minutes, stirring a couple times.

Zucchini Bread
Note: This bread comes out dense and a little crisp on the outside but moist inside. I may adjust this recipe when I experiment more but the point is that the kids loved it and kept asking for more! 🙂 It was pretty good.

1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (I use sea salt)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 eggs
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup grated zucchini
Options: 1/2 cup chopped nuts, 1 1/2 tsp orange zest, 1/2 cup chocolate chips (you may want less honey if you add these).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Then make a well in the center of the bowl and add the eggs, coconut oil (should be melted this time of year), honey, and vanilla. Whisk the ingredients in the center of the bowl and then start whisking in the dry ingredients together. Stir in the grated zucchini and any nuts, orange zest, or chocolate chips you want (optional). Add everything to a greased 9 x 5″ loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes. Remove from pan and cool before slicing. (Need a loaf pan? See below.)

Zucchini Cookies

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (I use sea salt)
1/4 cup raw cane sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup grated zucchini
1/4 – 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, cinnamon, & nutmeg in a large bowl. Stir in the oats. Make a well in the middle of the bowl and whisk together the oil, butter, egg, and vanilla. Add the zucchini and mix everything in with the dry ingredients. Stir in some chocolate chips or chopped nuts if you want. Drop by the spoonful onto a greased cookie sheet. (I use coconut oil to grease it.) Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Other Ideas: Add to stir-fry, fajitas, fried rice, salad, make kabobs, Real Fit, Real Food Mom’s zucchini boats, zucchini muffins, zucchini brownies, add to veggie packs (packs of veggies/potatoes in foil you put on the grill), add to spaghetti sauce, taco meat, pizza, soups & stews, and I even added some to our grilled cheese sandwiches! You can add zucchini to many of your favorite dishes. I want to get a spiralizer (shown below) to make zucchini noodles!

Here’s a Glass Loaf Pan through Amazon:

A Spiralizer (great for making veggie noodles):

Coconut Oil (I heard this is a good brand):

A Cheese Grater (great for grating zucchini too):

Tacos/Burritos & Homemade Seasoning

Posted on: July 10, 2014 by: Tara Canlett Comments: 7 Comments

We love having tacos or burritos, so much that we have it at least every couple weeks or sometimes 2 weeks in a row. In fact, I have a sticky note taped to the inside of my cupboard with a list of seasonings for my homemade taco seasoning, since we use it that frequently. We use it in many of our favorite dishes. I make the filling and then everyone can either make a taco or a burrito with it. Then I use the leftovers for taco salad the next day! Or you can make nachos with it. 🙂 These are good all year around. For the burritos I use tortillas from our local food co-op. They have white or wheat available but they don’t have an ingredient label for some reason! I trust the co-op and know that they’re all natural and GMO free. And we like the tortillas so I continue to buy them. We also make quesadillas with them, beef enchiladas, or breakfast burritos. For the tacos I use Trader Joe’s taco shells with organic stoneground yellow corn. You can see the picture at the bottom of this post that also shows the ingredients. They are gluten-free too. For the filling, we use 1/2 lb of grass-fed beef mixed with refried beans and a homemade taco seasoning. Then you can add onions, peppers, olives…whatever you want. (For a vegetarian option eliminate the beef and use just the beans – refried beans or black beans would be good.)

These are pretty easy to make and much healthier than Taco Bell for sure! Have you seen Food Babe’s post on Taco Bell? You should definitely check it out. Here’s the link: http://foodbabe.com/2014/05/05/what-taco-bell-isnt-telling-us-about-their-ingredients-but-you-need-to-know/. I used to be obsessed with Taco Bell, even after I have worked there twice. It’s very addictive.

Homemade Taco Seasoning:

2 tsp chili powder
1 1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
1 pinch of red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp salt (I use sea salt)
1/4 tsp pepper
Optional: 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper for extra spice.

Just mix up the herbs and seasonings in a small bowl, or you can make a few batches up ahead of time and save individually. This is the amount of seasoning for 1 lb of hamburger but I use it for just a 1/2 lb and add beans. We don’t make ours very spicy so that the kids will eat it. You could add some cayenne pepper or whatever you want to spice it up.

Taco/Burrito Filling:

1/2 – 1 lb of hamburger (organic grass-fed beef preferred)
1 can refried beans (optional, we use this with 1/2 lb of hamburger)
Homemade taco seasoning (recipe above) and 1/4 – 1/2 cup of water
Other options: 1/2 cup of chopped onion, diced green chilies, black olives, corn, and/or bell peppers.

Brown the hamburger, add the taco seasoning and start with 1/4 cup of water. Mix it up and add more as needed. Add any other ingredients you want (onion, chilies, olives, corn, bell peppers). Cook for a few minutes on medium and then add the beans (if desired). Continue cooking for another 5 minutes or so, just to heat the beans with the meat.

There are so many options for toppings. To name a few: lettuce/spinach, shredded cheese, sour cream, salsa, olives, green onion, corn, tomatoes, cilantro, guacamole/avocados, maybe some jalapeños if you want to spice it up! You could even make some rice to put in with it.

For the taco meat, I cook a lb of hamburger, add the seasoning, cook for a few minutes and then split it in half. I freeze half and then add refried beans to the other half. This is just what I do. You can do a full lb or 1/2, and with or without the beans.

Here are the taco shells I get at Trader Joe’s. They are gluten-free too.

You could make your own corn tortillas using a tortilla press (shown below). Here’s a recipe from 100 Days of Real Food that includes a video: http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2011/04/26/recipe-easy-whole-grain-corn-tortillas/.

Summer Salads

Posted on: July 2, 2014 by: Tara Canlett Comments: 3 Comments

Summer is here and it’s almost the 4th of July. We will be doing a lot of barbecuing and these salads go great on the side. I hardly ever eat mayonnaise, so I don’t mind a little this time of year, however I have heard of substituting the mayo for greek yogurt. The amount would be the same. But I haven’t tried this yet. One of these days, I might. The healthiest salads from the options below would be the quinoa salad, green salad, and italian pasta salad. But it sure is nice to have a creamy salad every now and then! 😉 I used to buy those suddenly salads. They are full of MSG, corn syrup, GMOs, cottonseed oil (which is the worst oil because there are no restrictions on pesticides for cotton), and many other artificial flavors and preservatives. It is so easy to make your own!

Potato Salad:

4 medium sized potatoes
2 eggs
1-2 slices of bacon (optional)
½ cup onion
2 stalks celery
½ cup mayonnaise (or greek yogurt)
1 TB mustard
½ tsp paprika
½ tsp garlic powder
1 TB parsley
salt & pepper (sprinkle desired amount)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil (fill 3/4 full with water). Peel the potatoes and add to the water. Cook until tender, but still firm. About 15 minutes. Drain, set in the fridge to cool. Make the hard-boiled eggs (bring water to a boil, reduce heat to medium, place eggs in the pan gently-I use a soup ladle, cook for 12 minutes). Cool, peel, and chop the eggs. Cook the bacon. Chop the potatoes, crumble the bacon, chop the onion and celery, mix everything up with the mayo and seasonings in a 1 ½ QT dish. Chill for at least an hour. This is a basic recipe. You could add olives, pickle, other herbs and spices.

Quinoa Salad:

1 cup dried quinoa
2 cups water (or chicken stock)
1 can black beans-drained (optional)
1 small avocado, or ½ of a large one
¼ cup Red Onion (or white, or ½ tsp onion powder)
1 tsp Cumin
½ tsp Garlic powder
1 TB Parsley or cilantro
Salt & pepper (sprinkle desired amount)
Options: cucumber, tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots, green onion, whatever veggies you want.
Lemon or lime juice (a few squirts)
1 TB balsamic vinegar
¼ cup olive oil
Red pepper flakes (optional for extra zest)

Bring 2 cups water (or chicken stock) to a boil, stir in the quinoa, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 20 minutes. While it’s cooking you can cut up any onion/veggies you want. Add all the other ingredients to a large bowl (or 1 ½ QT dish) and mix it up. When the quinoa is done, rinse with cold water in a strainer and add to the bowl. Mix it up and serve immediately or chill until ready to serve.

Italian Pasta Salad:

2 cups noodles (any kind but we like the tri-color)
2 TB olive oil
1 tsp italian seasoning
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion powder (or chopped red onion)
salt & pepper (sprinkle desired amount)
½ cup shredded cheese (or cubed)
Options: chopped tomatoes, olives, and/or bell peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, cucumber, pepperoni, salami, you can add pesto too! There are so many options.
1-2 slices of bacon (optional)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add 2 cups of noodles. Cook at medium-high for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cook the bacon. Drain and rinse noodles with cold water. Crumble the bacon, shred your cheese and chop up the veggies. Mix everything up in 1 ½ QT dish. Serve immediately or chill until ready to serve.

Green Salad:

Mixed lettuces
Spinach/kale
tomatoes, chopped
cucumbers, chopped
carrots, shredded or chopped small
sunflower seeds/pumpkin seeds
Other options: radishes, red onion, dried berries, sliced almonds, pecans, walnuts, broccoli, cauliflower, endless possibilities.
Dressing: equal parts olive oil/balsamic vinegar, or one of your organic favorites.

In a large bowl mix up all the ingredients. I don’t measure but it’s probably about 1 cup of each item and maybe ½ cup of the sunflower seeds/pumpkin seeds. And I put pepper on my salad. Maybe a squirt of lemon? 🙂

Creamy Pasta Salad:

2 cups noodles (any kind but we like the tri-color)
1-2 slices of bacon (optional)
½ cup shredded cheese
½ cup mayonnaise (or greek yogurt)
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion powder
1 TB parsley
2 TB milk
salt & pepper (sprinkle desired amount)
Options: chopped tomatoes, olives, and/or bell peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, cucumber, whatever veggies you want.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil (fill 3/4 full with water), add 2 cups of noodles. Cook at medium-high for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cook the bacon. Drain and rinse noodles with cold water. Crumble the bacon, shred your cheese and chop up the veggies you want. Mix everything up with the mayo and seasonings in a 1 ½ QT dish. You can eat right away but it’s best chilled for about an hour.

Macaroni Salad:

2 cups macaroni noodles
1/2 cup mayonnaise (or greek yogurt)
1/4 cup sour cream
1 TB mustard
1 TB apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup diced celery
2 TB onion (red, or white)
1/4 cup relish (sweet or dill)
2 TB parsley (fresh or dried-chopped)
Salt & Pepper (sprinkle desired amount)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add the noodles. Cook at medium-high for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Chop the celery and onion. Drain and rinse the noodles with cold water. Add all the ingredients to a 1 ½ QT dish and mix well. You can eat right away but it’s best chilled for about an hour.

This is what we have for chopping up onion/veggies quick! It is very handy to have. And using this to chop onion helps prevent your eyes from watering. 🙂

Grandma’s Chicken & Rice Bake

Posted on: June 24, 2014 by: Tara Canlett Comments: 3 Comments

This is my grandma’s chicken & rice with a twist. She cooked the chicken & rice separately before adding to the baking dish and I just put it all in together and bake. This saves time and dishes! Which is always helpful. When eating homemade meals all the time there are a TON of dishes! I don’t know about you but I am sure tired of doing them. My kids help but are not doing it on their own yet. Anyway, this is really yummy and you can have it with or without cheese but we all know cheese makes everything even better. 😉 My recipes are for a small family of 4 like us but we usually have leftovers.

Ingredients:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 cup uncooked rice
12 oz. cream of mushroom soup
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup water
1 tsp minced onion
1/2 tsp celery salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp pepper
paprika, salt & pepper to sprinkle on the chicken
Veggies (optional) – 1 stalk of celery and 2 medium sized carrots, peeled
1 cup of shredded cheese (optional)

Directions:
Mix all liquids, seasonings and the rice in a 9 x 13″ baking dish. Stir in chopped veggies if desired. Cut up the chicken into quarters and season with paprika, salt & pepper. Add to the top of the rice & liquid mixture (see picture below). Cover and bake @ 375 degrees for 45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through, rice is tender, and the sauce is thickened. Stir the rice and add cheese if you like, let stand for about 5 minutes. I cut up the chicken into smaller pieces before serving.

The chicken is seasoned and added to the liquids, rice and other seasonings:

Done! With or without cheese:

Here’s the cream of mushroom soup I use:

I have found it at most stores that carry organic food, however they do not carry it at Trader Joe’s. You can also purchase it through Amazon:

Popsicles & Ice Cream Treats

Posted on: June 18, 2014 by: Tara Canlett

Can we still have popsicles and ice cream when eating organic? You bet! I make popsicles using organic juices and different popsicle molds. I also juice sometimes and add that. I have juiced a watermelon and my daughter loved watermelon popsicles or just drinking the watermelon juice. I do this especially if it’s a watermelon that’s too soft and no one wants to eat it but it’s still good (hasn’t gone bad). Also, I recently saw a fellow food-blogger post a great idea about filling popsicle molds with applesauce and freezing them. I have been doing this ever since and my kids LOVE them! And you can fill the popsicle molds with smoothies too.

The regular popsicles you buy at the store are filled with artificial colors & flavors and refined sugar, among other things. Food dyes (artificial colors) have been linked to so many problems with kids. I truly believe it has caused many problems with my daughter. And food dyes are in so many unsuspecting foods. Foods that don’t even have much color or no color at all. So that makes you think that maybe they are putting it in the foods for more than just coloring. We don’t need it. And these are banned in many other countries! Why not here too? And there’s no real fruit in them. Sure, you can buy a big box of Otter Pops for really cheap. But is it worth it? And kids suck those things down so fast, they end up having like 5 at one time. Believe me I know, I used to buy them and eat them. 🙁

So here are a few better options for popsicles/ice cream and other frozen treats:

“Push-up” Ice Cream – I bought some “push-up” containers that we fill with ice cream (see the link below). The kids love them! Just fill with your favorite ice cream and serve. You can wash them in the dishwasher too. See the picture above of the kids enjoying them.

Organic Ice Cream Cones – I came across these at a little organic market (Farm Fresh Market). See in the picture above. The ingredients aren’t perfect but still better than regular cones (ingredients are shown below). They only get to have these once in a while and usually when I give them the option between these and the “Push-up” containers they choose the “Push-up” containers. I think they just like pushing up the ice cream. 🙂

Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches – Just take two cookies (chocolate chip would be best but any kind will work), add ice cream in between the cookies, and freeze or eat right away. So yummy!

Frozen Strawberries Covered in Yogurt – Just cut the strawberries in half, dip in yogurt, and freeze! I wouldn’t freeze them all together because they get stuck. But other than that, it works great and my kids love them.

Smoothies or Milkshakes – We use our NutriBullet and make smoothies which usually consist of different kinds of frozen fruit, hemp milk, spinach, chia or flax seed. For a milkshake we usually do milk, ice cream and some kind of frozen fruit. Just add to some popsicle molds and freeze. I use the ones shown below.

We use these stainless steel reusable straws, and here’s where you can find a NutriBullet:

Popsicle Options – Use organic juices, juice veggies/fruit in a juicer-like the watermelon I juiced (pictured to the right), put applesauce in the silicone popsicle molds (see link below), you could also puree fruit or cut-up fruit in small chunks and add to the molds. I haven’t tried that last one yet but always see recipes and they look so good! If you do blend up some fruit, you could add chia seeds too to make them extra healthy. See tip below about filling the popsicle molds with liquid. Here’s a juicer similar to ours:
 
See pictures below on the different popsicle molds that I use. There are MANY options out there though.

Ice Cream Sundaes – You can do this with or without brownies but we made brownies (I will have to post my recipe to the blog soon), then we made whip cream using Organic Valley’s whipping cream, and added organic vanilla ice cream, the best maraschino cherries I could find, and organic chocolate syrup. So good!

You could even make your own ice cream. We really want to buy an ice cream maker. It would be so fun to make together and try different flavors. Here’s a Cuisinart ice cream maker we are thinking about getting:
 
I have heard many good things about the Cuisinart brand.

Here are the popsicle molds I use:

Jewel Pop Molds: Tovolo Jewel Pop Molds – Set of 6.

Silicone Popsicle Molds: Norpro 431 4-Piece Silicone Ice Pop Maker Set. (We lost our 4th one, so now we only have 3.)

“Push-up” Containers: Jokari Cool Cones Reusable Ice Cream Serving Cones – 2 Pack.

These are just various popsicle molds I found at Walmart/Target. But there are many different options out there. It’s fun making different shapes and sizes! I like the smaller ones so they aren’t having so much juice at one time. Even organic juices usually have sugar. But I put the watermelon that I juiced in the big popsicle molds. My daughter loved them but my son didn’t really care for it.

Tip: Don’t fill the popsicle molds all the way. You want to leave a little bit of room because when liquid freezes, it expands. See picture to the right for an example.

Organic Ice Cream Cones:

Grass-Fed Burgers & Homemade Buns

Posted on: June 14, 2014 by: Tara Canlett Comments: 2 Comments

Who doesn’t love a good burger? Especially one made at home with fresh, and much better ingredients. You can put whatever you like on it and these homemade buns add a special touch! I can’t take credit for the buns though. Real Fit, Real Food Mom has really encouraged me to use my bread machine, which is 10 years old by the way…. I had it just sitting in a cupboard, taking up space. Now I make bread once/week, and hamburger/hot dog buns periodically that we freeze and pull out what we need, when we need it. 🙂 What is a ‘grass-fed burger’? It just means the cows ate grass instead of grain. Cows are supposed to eat grass, when they can. Of course it’s harder for them to eat grass in the winter. Factory farms feed their cows grain all year long. And it’s filled with GMOs.

I served these with my cheesy garlic mashed potatoes and some green beans. You could also serve them with my garlic & herb roasted potatoes.

Here’s the recipe for the hamburger buns: Real Fit, Real Food Mom’s hamburger buns. I do use my bread machine but you could knead the dough yourself. I have never done that so I don’t have any tips, but if you want to purchase a bread machine the one below is a newer version of mine. You can use the same recipe for hot dog buns but you have to shape them differently of course.

Recipe for the Grass-Fed Hamburger Patties

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef (grass-fed/organic is best)
1 egg
1/3 cup bread crumbs
1 TB minced onion
1/2 tsp garlic powder
salt & pepper (sprinkle desired amount)
1/2 tsp chili powder (optional)
1 TB BBQ sauce (optional)

Directions:
Tip: The ground beef must be completely thawed. In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground beef and all the ingredients. Mix them up thoroughly. (I use my hands and that seems to be the easiest way.) Make patties like shown below. They will shrink up quite a bit. The ones in the picture turned out to be about medium-sized burgers, perfect size for the buns. You can grill the patties, cook on the stove-top or in the oven. We added cheese, ketchup, mustard, spinach and tomato. Add whatever ingredients you like.

Hamburger Patties:

My Homemade Buns: