Balsamic Marinara Sauce and Life with Two Kids

 

If your garden is like my garden, you have a ton of tomatoes. Our tomato harvest came just in time for the delivery of our second son, James. In the midst of cuddling and loving on my new little guy, I realized my tomatoes were desperate to be picked and eaten.

 

 

With family in town to greet James and help out, I had a few extra hands to help me make marinara sauce with the tomatoes from the garden. Boy, did it turn out good. Plus, you can basically throw all the ingredients into a pot and let them simmer away. I got the recipe from one of my favorite cooking blogs, Budget Bytes. I love it because all of the recipes are affordable to make and delicious. Score! So, here we go.

 

 

Credits to mother-in-law, Bev for helping me out with the prep-work.

 

I followed the basic recipe, but also added zucchini, ground cooked turkey and fresh tomatoes instead of canned. And for time sake, I didn't peel the tomatoes beforehand. I just cut em up and threw em in the pot. Easy. The recipe is for a slow-cooker, but since I was home and tending to the kids anyway, I just simmered it on the stove for about 2 hours and it turned out fabulous.

 

We started by shredding the zucchini.

 

Chop chop the tomatoes.

 

In with the basil.

 

Balsamic Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 28 oz Chopped Tomatoes
• 1 Can Tomato Paste
• 1 Med Yellow Onion, Chopped
• 1/2 Tbsp Minced Garlic
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 2 Tbsp Fresh Basil
• 1/2 Tbsp Dried Oregano
• 1 Tbsp Brown Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1 lb Extra Lean Ground Turkey

Preparation:

 

Chop onions and mince garlic. Add olive oil to simmer pot on medium heat. Sweat the onions and garlic a bit, then add tomatoes. Stir to combine, then add spices. Mix well, cover and set to low heat so that the mixture simmers. Cook for approximately 1-2 hours, or until desired consistency is reached. In a separate pan, cook ground turkey until done and add to sauce.

 

 

This was a great meal to enjoy with family. With two kids, I now appreciate more than ever healthy food that is easily prepared. My family enjoyed the taste and I felt good knowing that my ingredients were fresh and nutritous. That said, not everyone has a garden, so it's nice to know that even conventional produce at the grocery store offers health benefits. Simply feeding your family more fruits and vegetables is a great way to improve overall health.



Plum Jam And Other Things To Be Happy About

One of the things I love about our new house is that it came with a plum tree in the backyard. And right now, it's booming. The taste of a fresh plum really doesn't compare to what you find at the grocery store. The skin is super-tender and the meat of the fruit is perfectly sweet and tart. Having a tree is great, but you get a lot of plums RIGHT NOW. So, I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to make fresh jam.

When I was a kid, my grandma made peach jam from her peach tree. It was the most amazing thing I had tasted and so after that, and I was forever ruined for store-bought jam. This recipe is ridiculously easy. I just followed the instructions on the package of pectin. Fruit, pectin, sugar....done.

I had big plans to can my plum jam, but it didn't happen. I went the low-effort route so I could spend minimal time in front of the stove and maximum time kicking my feet up (I can do that...I'm very pregnant). 



When I finally DO can something, this Canning 101 guide will definitely come in handy. PS: the website is kind of addictive. 

While I was making my sweet spread, I glanced over a new book my friend recently gave me: 1400 Things To Be Happy About. I haven't read the whole book yet, but I'm sure "breakfast of fresh jam on toast and a rich cup of coffee" is in there somewhere. Until I find it, here's a glimpse at the first page. So far, I like.  

Plum Jam

Ingredients:

• 1 quart fresh chopped plums
• 1 package pectin
• 3 1/2 cups of sugar

Preparation: 

Bring chopped fruit and pectin to a boil. Add sugar, stir well. Bring to a boil again, stirring continually. Let cool for about an hour. Serve and enjoy.

Now, have some friends over, make brunch and serve your tasty homemade jam. Or just spend the morning in your PJs, sipping coffee, enjoying your delicious plum jam with toast....or a scone...or a biscuit. Up to you. I think I'm going with option B.

Adventures in Farming

This week I embarked on a rather unusual adventure: chicken farming. Five years ago, I would have laughed at the idea of me having chickens. Now, here I am four chickens later. It all started with a friend who raises chickens. She showed me how it's done and sort of took the mystery out of the whole thing. 

 One of the baby chicks
Editor's note: *squeal*....they're SUPER cute!

My husband had wanted to get chickens years ago, but I wasn't into the idea yet. Now that we have the space and live in a more rural, farm-friendly area, starting our chicken farm became a reality. 

Here's our coop, which still needs a fence around it. 

There seems to be a lot of pressure these days to buy cage free, vegetarian, organic, soy-free fed (etc, etc) chicken eggs. I was recently at a farmers market and found farm-fresh eggs for the bargain price of $9/dozen. All I can say is OMG. I didn't splurge for eggs that day, but it did remind me of the growing social pressure to buy specialty foods that are perceived to be healthier than conventional. That same day, I went to our local supermarket and bought a dozen eggs for about $2. That's better.

There are definitely arguments for choosing to buy organic or vegetarian or non-GMO, etc. So if you lean toward those food purchases, more power to you. The reality is that these foods simply don't fit into everybody's budget and the verdict is still out on whether these items actually deliver the health promises some people, websites, etc, claim they have. 

Personally, I'm convinced current research shows that - at least nutritionally speaking - an egg is an egg is an egg (Note that it's always important to cook eggs thoroughly to avoid possible food poisoning from Salmonella). In general, all eggs are great sources of protein and essential vitamins, and support a healthy body.

Yes, eggs have cholesterol. But - good news - we now know that the cholesterol in eggs doesn't necessarily raise your blood cholesterol. Rather, the total fat, saturated fat and trans fat levels in your diet as well as genetics appear to be more influential in determining cholesterol levels. The American Heart Association used to recommend limiting eggs to one yolk per week for those who have high cholesterol, but in light of current research, they've dropped that recommendation. Instead, they now recommend to eat foods low in total fat, saturated fat and trans fat (and eggs are low in all three!). 

For more information on the health benefits of eating eggs, click here. 

Do you have any experience with chicken farming? If so, please share your experience and advice!

Summer Fun

Summer is almost here and I'm pretty excited. Mostly because baby #2 comes in early August and I'm dying to hold him in my arms rather than my belly. Thanks to all the kicking and squirming, I'm feeling like a human punching bag lately.

But there are other reasons I'm excited for summer. The change of season feels like a good time to try something new. This summer, I've got a few things on my list. Some are healthy and some.....well, let's just say they allow me to take advantage of the extra 500 calories my body is burning in the 3rd trimester. Don't we all scream for ice cream?! Yes we do....

Summer-Fun List (Foodie Edition)

1. Buy Seasonal Produce

2. Better Yet, Get My Summertime Garden In Shape 

3. Make Ice-Cream!

4. Make Strawberry Jam

5. Host a BBQ (friends just make life better)

6. Make Sure There's Watermelon Strawberry Lemonade

7. Pick Fruit at a Local Farm

8. Make Pina Colada Pops

9. Try a New Whole Grain. For starters, Aramath Hot Cereal with Cherries and Walnuts

10. Try A New Hairystyle At Least Once A Week (not foodie-related, but absolutely necessary) 

So those are some of my plans, how about you??

Spruce up your salads

Spring is here and that means it's time for gardening. Okay, well at least at my house. I absolutely love spending time outdoors and seeing my little plants grow. Thanks to apartment living, I've always used small potted gardens (with variable success). But now I'm in a house....and this house, oh man, a garden it has! The planters hadn't seen much TLC in the last few years, so I gave them a little face lift and bingo, a garden is reborn.

My planters currently sport spinach, bell peppers, cilantro, basil, strawberries and tomatoes. From having grown spinach and tomatoes before, I'm confident I won't kill those (sorta).The others, well that's a gamble. I'm crossing my fingers that the odds will be ever in my favor (love hunger games!).

When I'm making recipes with fresh-from-the-garden produce, I want to make sure the other ingredients are super-fresh too. I like to make raw salads because it allows you to really taste the freshness of the veggies. Homemade salad dressings are not only easy, but they really compliment the ingredients nicely and don't have that artificial taste because....they're not!

So here are a few of my favorite salads and their homemade dressings:

Asian Salad Dressing from The Pioneer Woman

Lemony Vinaigrette Dressing from me!

Apple Cider Vinaigrette from Food Plus Words

Simple Greek Salad Dressing from Shutterbean

I always make extra dressing to keep on hand. It just makes life easier so that when I pick some spinach from the garden...

It becomes a yummy salad in no time...

Do you have a garden? What are you planting?

Eat Local

This week my son and I went apple picking at a local farm near our house. The apple picking was fun, but my son preferred simply eating the apples and petting the dog.

Eating locally grown or produced food is a real hot-ticket item in the media. But is all the hype based on truth? In a word, yes.

Once harvested, produce begins to lose it's nutritive value. So, from a nutritional perspective, locally grown produce is healthier mainly because it travels less time from the farm to your dinner table.  

Buying local produce (and other foods produced locally or regionally) is a great idea, but there can be barriers such as accessibility or limited funds. Thankfully, many grocery stores now offer local produce, which is convenient but often costly .

If you simply can't afford or are unable to buy all local produce, you're not alone. Try to buy at least some of your produce as local as possible (that can mean in your town, in your state or in the country).

Here are some tips for finding local produce and other foods at a price you can afford:

• If available, join a CSA (community supported agriculture) program to receive a weekly box of local (and often organic) produce at an affordable price.
• Shop sales and stock up when prices are low.
• Buy in season
• Purchase items in bulk and freeze for use throughout the year.

All this to say that fruits and vegetables are healthy in any form; frozen, dried, canned, etc. Barring they're not drenched in added salt or sugar, frozen, dried or canned varieties are both convenient and nutritious options.

The take home point is that priority #1 should be eating enough fruits and vegetables (think: quantity). The #2 priority is eating locally grown produce (think: quality).