My Current Go-To Recipes.

I know. It's been forever. I'm finding myself neck deep in homeschool, laundry, trying-to-be-a-good wife/mom/friend/daughter and coming off a month of birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hawaii (the last one I'm sure you feel very sorry for me :)). My heart really has been the last few days to dive back into my blog, but time will only allow me to dip my little toe in. So, I will post what we have been eating, which is a quick and dirty way to update you on a small facet of our lives.

Since cancer, I have done a lot of research on nutrition. Over and over (especially after reading this book (there is a lot of language in it, but I waded through it to get all the good information)), I'm realizing it's all about raw, vegan foods. Now, I'm not here to start fights with you carnivores, I'm just saying what a lot of research has pointed me to. Do note, too, that our family is not vegan. I have just taken this information and decided to offer my family (especially my kids) multiple times a day, raw fruit and veggies, knowing that is where they probably are getting the bulk of their nutrition. I try to avoid to much wheat (like pasta), but we do eat spelt bread. I didn't say we eat perfect...

Picture from Real Simple

Just last night I discovered a new recipe from Real Simple (pictured above) that was extremely tasty, albeit a bit misleading on the time required to cook it. The turkey barley soup  had one very lengthy ingredient to cook: the barley. The recipe said it would take 45 minutes total, and my barley wasn't done for at least 1 1/2 hours. The soup is good enough to repeat and spend that long on for sure, I'm just throwing out that warning. I used Costco's organic chicken stock (it's the first time I have tried it) and it was crazy delicious. I also doubled the recipe.

I also, once a week, make a roasted chicken with some sort of smashed potatoes and veggie. And I always throw the carcass in the crockpot for one or two days to enjoy our own stock. My go-to roast chicken recipe is Barefoot Contessa's.

Once a week, I also make re-fried beans without the refry. It's quick, easy, and makes tons of leftovers. Sometimes I just do black beans and we throw those in burritos and Abe eats on those for lunch for a few days. It's a very budget friendly meal, that's for sure.

Picture from Whole Living

Because I'm on a soup kick (and it's freezing outside), I make white bean and kale stew. It's cheap and crazy healthy, and well, warm. I pair it with crusty bread from this book.

I usually make a fritatta at some point because they are easy and full of protein and I can clean the fridge out. This week I am making one with mushroom and spinach. The kids might get cheese on theirs, if they play their cards right :).

Picture from the Budget Bytes blog

Since Abe eats a humungous amount of food, I try to fill him up on oatmeal first thing, hoping that will last him a couple of hours. I like baked oatmeal - I recently discovered it and love that it lasts him a few days. I just made the pumpkin pie baked oatmeal, but Samuel's favorite is blueberry banana baked oatmeal.

So that's it. I have many other things I cook, but these are the latest staples. What are you guys cooking?