Cooking for your freezer...

 Have you made any New Years Resolutions?  Is yours to be more prepared/organized in the kitchen? To eat  healthier?  

Gnocchi is a great go-with-anything freezer staple. It is a potato pasta that is fluffy like a dumpling. Gnocchi can be made with any potato; I can remember a couple of years ago my CSA basket was full of sweet potatoes and led to a lot of gnocchi. You can add cheese or veggies to the dough as well. It's super versatile that can be treated as a pasta with a simple sauce or often-enough at my house as a dumpling. 

Roast your potatoes in the oven until cooked through. Remove skins when cool to the touch. 

Get out your trusty potato masher or a fork and mash away. But not too much. The potatoes will be chunky. The less you do with this dough, the better it is. It is truly rustic. Add an egg and mash into the potatoes until combined. Next you pick your flour such as potato here...

Combine flour a little at a time until the dough starts to hold together. Cover it up and let it rest for about 20-30 minutes. It's tired. 😉

Tear off bits of dough and roll into logs. Use a light hand. It shapes really easily. 

Cut into bite-size pieces. You may want to toss a hand full of your flour onto pasta to prevent sticking. 

Place gnocchi into boiling salted water or as I do into boiling stock for lots of flavor. It cooks very quickly and floats to the top when done. 

Do as you wish with these fluffy beauties! Toss into a skillet with garlic and olive oil for a tasty side dish or make as a yummy main course. The best thing?  Toss these into a freezer bag, label, and save for those busy nights that a quick meal is in order. This weekend I used a batch as dumplings in my Rabbit & Dumplings...

Happy New Year Friends!!! 

Where Have I Been?

Well, to answer that question I will tell you that my husband and I opened our own business. It has been something we have thought and prayed about for a long time and when I lost my Step-Father who raised my brother and I... Things changed. Losing him so suddenly really put a lot of things into perspective for us. My husband and I married young and had to build up our "nest egg" for a long time. After a lot of prayers we started seeing God really working and opening doors for us that had not been there in the past. We decided to let God take control and we've never been more excited or busy!  Opening a business is not for the faint of heart and I have done more paperwork these past couple of weeks than I ever had. We have been truly blessed with a business that has been up and running non-stop since we made our decision. We have been blessed with Family and close friends rooting us on and passing out business cards to whomever they meet. As my role as my Husband's biggest fan and personal assistant is slowing down a bit... I wanted to share all of these changes with you all!  

Now to good stuff in the kitchen!  My crock-pot has been working overtime to fix dinner for me. We happened to have a rooster that needed to be put in a pot, so I was happy to oblige. We now have some beautiful canned chicken stock and enough pulled meat for a couple of different meals. Do you prepare ahead?

My Paleo Chicken!

One organic, free range chicken from my farm or yours... Or the grocery, Lol

2 stalks celery

3 medium carrots

1 onion quartered

Place all in crockpot and cover with water for at least 6 hours on low setting. Overnight is best. 

Remove chicken to pull meat when cool to the touch. Strain your stock to can or freeze ( I do both). 

Lunch Box Treats

It's Back-to-School time again!  I've been getting a lot of questions as to what to put in those lunch boxes in a pinch.  Easy enough!  I thought I would include a bit about what we have found to put in A's lunch box on those busy mornings.  We also enjoy these packable treats for soccer weekends because truth be told, when you're at a soccer tournament out-of-town or often enough out-of-state; it's not easy when you have food allergies.  I always pack up a cooler to take with us because there's not too many food-safe restaurant options that you can just grab and go..

www.vansfoods.com/our-products-crackers  These crackers make a great snack-time option.

www.mediterraneansnackfoods.com  They carry the tapaz2go which are a hummus and lentil crackers combo.  These are great for an easy lunch at school or between soccer games.  Hummus gives them the protein and good fat they need to help keep kiddos and grown ups full with some energy.

www.gogosqueez.com  My A loves the apple mango applesauce.  These are super packable and user friendly.

www.glutino.com  We cannot have all of glutino's options but have discovered a few that we really enjoy.  My A gets to take an afternoon snack as a part of her health plan at school.  The cereal bars or pop tart's are a great option for that.  She really enjoys anything with blueberry or apple.

www.enjoylifefoods.com  This brand is top 8 allergen free and has expanded so much just in the past year.  I always keep a few of their chocolate bars on hand at home.  Always!  You never know when Little Judy is going to have cupcakes to share.  Also, why wouldn't you want to celebrate that team win?  They also have out some new decadent bars that I can't wait to order.

www.gopicnic.com  These are our lunchables.  I do the subscribe & save option from Amazon and have them automatically delivered every 3 months.  My daughter can only have one version and I don't want her to get burnt out on them because of how easy they are for us.  Lots of options being added and I always go through and check ingredients for the moment we can add to our sunbutter & crackers.

www.chobanichampions.com  I place the tubes in the freezer.  For summer they are the best popsicles ever.  For the lunch box they work as an ice pack as they thaw enough for her to enjoy at lunch time.  They also have new chobani bites that are a sweet treat.  Yogurt is great!  I love to make it at home using our goat milk and these chobani options make it great for when we run out.

These are a few of the options we use to pack her lunch with.  We also use these to take on vacations, hikes, and her soccer tournaments.  She is a young competitive player who plays on multiple teams which means that large sections of our year are spent travelling.  I enjoy our farm life immensely but I also enjoy being a soccer mom to my daughter and a baseball mom to my son.  Now is the beginning of fall!  So go ahead and get those coolers ready all of you football, baseball, soccer, golf, and swim moms!

Honey Mustard Pasta with Turkey Meatballs

School has officially started for the Hill Family! We are starting to get a routine down and I'm getting my freezer, fridge, and pantry stocked up. We have discovered lots of new lunch box finds lately that I'm looking forward to sharing with you. Also, don't forget to stock up on those healthy dinners!  I've got a great pasta recipe to share with you. Enjoy it with a quickly made side salad and you've got a healthy and filling start-back to school celebration dinner! 

Turkey Meatballs

1lb ground turkey

1 egg

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

1 tsp turmeric

1 tbs garlic powder

1/2 tsp gr mustard

1 tbs herbs de Provence

Get your hands dirty and mix well and shape into golf ball sized meatballs. Brown both sides in skillet and then place on cookie sheet in oven on warm setting to finish through. This will help keep your turkey from becoming dry. Also, I have been known to add a little oil or bacon grease to my skillet. 

1 box brown rice pasta or your favorite prepared using directions on box. 

To Pan Drippings:

1 13.4 oz box organic cannellini beans with liquid. 

2 heaping tbs French Dijon style mustard. 

1 tbs raw honey. 

Stir well and use salt and pepper to taste. 

Add drained pasta to sauce and coat pasta with saucey-goodness. Add meatballs and salad plus a little vino for the grown ups!  Enjoy!

Lots of Changes....

I know that it's been a while and even now I feel it's too soon to be back at it. We suddenly and very unexpectedly lost my stepfather a little more than a week ago. He had been a father to my brother and I for more than 20 years and I ache that he's gone. We've been concentrating on taking care of my Mother and making sure she's getting established back here in Kentucky as they were in the process of moving back here from Mississippi. Needless to say, there hasn't been a whole lot of cooking going on at my house. Thank goodness for my Husband or I doubt anyone would have ate, Lol. I do realize now why people bring food when someone passes away; because the last thing I have wanted to do is cook. However, for those of us that have food allergy families- we don't have a choice. I am super grateful to my good friend Hilary for bringing lots of fruit to the funeral home for the kids to snack on. It was definitely appreciated. 

And now a week later I am sending my kiddos off to start their new school year. They are finally in the same school again which will make pick up and drop off much easier!  Meetings with the principal and school nurse have been had. Her microwave has been placed in appropriate classroom. And epi pen and new health plan has been signed, sealed, and delivered. Now that I feel like I can start to take a deep breath again, I know I need to get back into the kitchen!  I am super thankful that I have planned ahead to allow for easy, filling breakfasts by making up batches of waffles, sausage, and bacon. It makes school mornings so much easier.  Now to start preparing as many freezer meals as possible! Menu planning coming soon! 

Look at those two big kiddos! I'm one proud momma for sure. Notice her purse?  She eats lunch at school at 10:47. No really!! Therefore we have the perfect size purse to carry her afternoon snack as a part of her health plan. Today she's carrying a Glutino brand Blueberry Cereal Bar. I can't wait to hear all about their first day!  

Summertime Blessings

Philippians 4:19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Our family has been blessed with the bounty from our gardens. We try to live as sustainably as possible by growing much of our own fruits and vegetables. We gather eggs from our own chickens and have even been known to put a rooster or two to use. We are able to produce our own dairy products by using milk from our goats. We also have the noise of guinea fowl running rampant throughout eating the insects to help keep us organic.  Although my husband and I didn't initially seek out this lifestyle, we are truly grateful for all we have been blessed with. We turned our family over to God and have been blessed with the means and knowledge to help provide for ourselves. I tend to look at my recipes as a lot of semi-homemade meals. As a busy mom I like to use a lot of our farm fresh options combined with the help of items made easily accessible by the grocery stores.  Such as with the following shortcake recipe made semi- with the use of an allergy-friendly baking mix and homemade with our farm fresh eggs, blackberries, and my homemade extracts. Please enjoy!

Blackberry Shortcake

1 qt blackberries

1/3 cup sugar 

Combine and set aside. 

1/4 cup sugar

2 1/3 cups GFree Bisquick

1/3 cup coconut oil

Use a fork or pastry blender to combine ingredients until coconut oil has formed dry ingredients into pea-sized granules. 

3/4 cups coconut milk

3 eggs beaten

1 tsp of my lemon extract 

Stir wet ingredients into dry until dough is just formed; it will be lumpy. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto baking sheet and place in 425 degree preheated convection oven. Bake for 10-15 minutes until lightly browned. 

Recipe will make 6-8 shortcakes depending on size.