My daughter showed me this farm fresh egg last night and we could not help but wonder which hen laid this egg. She thinks it was a smaller one because the smaller hens are mighty when it comes to laying over sized eggs! Guess we will never really know.
Ripple or Sorbet? Cool Recipes for Frozen Treats
On a sweltering hot day, there’s nothing like digging through the freezer to find a chest of buried, icy treasure hidden in the freezer – especially if it’s homemade. It’s now possible to make your own ice cream in almost any flavour imaginable!
Case in point: Perry’s have brought out a chicken wing flavor, while rumor has it that it is possible to indulge in a pint of cheeseburger flavored ice cream in Venezuela. We’re not suggesting you try to top such taste insanity – instead, you can cool off with the following delicious treats, which the kids can help to make!
The Healthy One: Frozen Yogurt
For a lower calorie treat, try yogurt as a healthier base for your flavors rather than milk, cream and sugar. Bung some natural Greek yogurt, honey for sweetness, and a fruit or two of your choice into the ice cream maker for 30 minutes and await the perfect results. Peach, banana, kiwi and strawberry make for kid-friendly flavors that aren’t too tart.
The Chocolate One: Nutella
Fact: the number of Nutella jars sold in a year could cover the Great Wall of China eight times. Thankfully, for a swirl of chocolatey heaven in your vanilla, you’ll only need about half a cup for this recipe, which should be combined with whipping cream, milk and eggs once the ice cream maker gets going. Add crushed walnuts caramel sauce and banana for a banoffee spin.
The Takeaway Option: Popsicles
Your kids won’t want to miss a moment outside if it’s sunny, so opt for popsicles for a quick-fire cool down. Blend ripe watermelon with lemon juice and sugar and pour into popsicle molds for a healthy snack, or freeze chunks of banana and strawberry on skewers dipped in chocolate for irresistible fruit kebabs.
There are of course an endless number of different flavour combinations to create, so why not do some research, create a wishlist, and start making your own ice cream today! You’ll never turn back to store bought, once you’ve had the first bite….
This is a guest post.
Photo Copyright: foto66 / 123RF Stock Photo. Used with permission.
The little ones raided the garden one day and found these organic veggies! Can you say yummy garden harvest?
What comes to mind when you think of the word Chiquita??? Bananas of course! But I am here to tell you that the Chiquita brand is MUC HMORE than bananas! It is a whole variety of snacks and good things with fruits!
Chiquita sent us a bunch of products to try! They were great! So great that they got eaten REALLY fast in our house! We took the snack packs to a local firework show and shared with friends and family whose children thought they were equally yummy and fantastic!
The best part of the products we received is that the larger (multi-size) packs can be resealed and the smaller individual packs are hand sized and easily opened and eaten!
Here is what we reviewed:
Family Pack Green Apple Bites and Red Apple Bites
This family pack was great because it allowed us to open and reseal the bag! This is a great option if you want to buy in bulk and reseal for later. For the purpose of this review we ate a few apples from the family pack and resealed and ate the rest later. Normally our family would devour the entire family pack as we LOVE apples. However, the resealing worked great! the children were able to open and reseal with ease as was mom! The fruit inside stayed fresh and moist with the reseal option so this was good…also no browning!
The next product we reviewed was:
These little bags are AWESOME!!! Although we reviewed these in summer and found they are GREAT for picnics…I must say I will be buying them for school lunches this year! What a wonderful alternative to chips in the lunchbox! The packaging is easy to open and provides 1/2 cup of fruit for little tummies!
Finally…
These were by far the favorite…of course who does not like a dose of caramel with their apples! LOL! We loved these…they went fast at our firework picnic! Although … being at a picnic …at night… the caramel apples was probably not the best option because the caramel got everywhere and stuck to little hands because it was dark out and all we had for light were a few glow sticks. BUT…in normal picnic pr lunch situations … THESE ARE GREAT!!! The caramel cup is small and individual and the apples are yummy. We have tried competitor brand apples and caramel dip where the dip package was attached to the apple container and that always made a mess because when you pulled the tab to open the caramel it either flung the apples out of the package or the caramel dripped. THESE ARE SEPARATE and AWESOME… I like these 10 times better than the ones I used to buy since the caramel container is a separate “sauce” that comes inside the apple bites… it lets the caramel REMAIN separate from the apples and it opens with ease and no dripping (unless you tipped it over LOL)
OVERALL… I was very please to review these products … they will most certainly be purchased for the upcoming school year and packed into lunches! Way to go Chiquita!!!!
This is a partnered post.
Lately more and more food related articles can be seen in the headlines and on social media, which I think is great because consumers are becoming more aware of what they are eating and what they are putting into their bodies. From old news of mad cow disease to pink slime to buying all organic food and pastured meats, we are seeing an increase in interest and buying of organic, grassfed, NON-GMO products.
We use to buy traditional beef in the stores but stopped, finally, and ordered grassfed organic beef online from a farm which comes to the Green Market we sell at once a month. We order online and pick up on market day. It makes for very convenient ordering and buying.
So what are the benefits of organic beef over traditional beef?
1. No fillers (such as pink slime).
2. More Omegas-3 and much more nutritious. “In B-vitamins, beta-carotene (look for yellow fat), vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol), vitamin K, and trace minerals like magnesium, calcium, and selenium. Studies show grass feeding results in higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid, the “good” naturally occurring trans fat.” (Source: marksdailyapple.com)
3. No pesticides or chemicals. Generally speaking, organic and grassfed farms do not use pesticides or any other chemicals.
4. Cattle are happier and healthier. There are less diseases and illness among grassfed beef, if raised correctly. The cows get plenty of sunshine, fresh air and pasture. Only if a cow is not performing well or does not possess the breeding qualities a farmer wants to continue putting into his or her herd, will he or she cull (kill) or sell the cow.
5. NON-GMO. Most organic farmers do not use GMO products. Take us for example, when we planted our pasture we used NON-GMO seeds. Our grain that we feed our cows is organic, NON-GMO.
6. Less fat content. Organic, grassfed beef is typically lower in fat than traditional beef. That is why it has to be cooked slightly differently than traditional beef. (see #2).
If you would like to buy organic beef, visit
http://www.americanfarmersnetwork.com/beef.html
We try really hard to eat healthy, and as I always say, we are a work in progress. As organic farmers, I think the difficult part is walking our talk, which means avoiding GMO products as much as humanly possible when there are no labeling laws in the state of Illinois or much of the United States for that matter. Here is an interesting article that includes a map graphic of how many states have labeling, which ones are reviewing it and which ones have done nothing: http://onforb.es/1ls9AUE). Walking the organic talk also means eating organic, which we do but we are not at 100% yet.
We love learning about companies committed to offering us organic, Non-GMO products. That’s why I was interested in working with Emile Noel Non-GMO Artisan Oils.
Emile Noel is a family run business, started by Emile Noël in Southern France. Their website states, “The Emile Noël oil mill offers only organic products – farmed without chemical fertilizers, synthetic pesticides or GMOs. In 1972, we were the first oil millers in France to press organically-farmed seeds.”
Emile Noel Non-GMO Artisan Oils offers a variety of organic, virgin-pressed oils including: mild olive, robust olive, sesame, toasted sesame, sunflower oil, sunflower spray, pumpkin seed, hazelnut, walnut, and sweet almond.
We were sent a bottle of Sweet Almond oil. I have never used almond oil so at first I was at a loss as to how to use it. Then I decided I would substitute it for the oil we usually cook with.
We made egg muffins and used the Sweet Almond oil to cook the eggs in:
There wasn’t any difference in how the oil cooked the eggs and I don’t think we noticed anything different about the taste of the eggs either.
However, when I made homemade bread we definitely tasted a slightly nutty flavor and I don’t know if it was the oil or perfect weather but the bread turned out great, if I do say so myself! I just made regular bread with unbleached white flour.
For not having used almond oil before, I’d say that it was a good experience and you can expect us to purchase it in the future. I mean what was there not to like about the Sweet Almond oil? Nothing. My only concern would be finding a large enough bottle. I used the whole bottle making these two items. We usually buy most oils in a gallon size. But that isn’t going to be most families dilemma is it?
Visit http://usa.emilenoel.com/oils/seed/ for more information on these tasty non-GMO artisan oils.
Michal Siewierski is an Emmy nominated TV commercial producer and Filmmaker. He is making a new documentary film called, Food Choices, after experiencing the amazing effects that a plant based diet had in his own life and health. He lost over 45 pounds. Food Choices is a film about food that connects all the dots – health, environment and animal rights – topics often controversial. This film should empower you, the viewer, with explosive and ground breaking information that could be truly life changing!
Food Choices Documentary Trailer
Michal has been running a popular Indiegogo campaign which can be seen here:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/food-choices-documentary/x/7308429
The film is scheduled to be released in March 2015 in Chicago.
To learn more, please visit:
www.foodchoicesmovie.com
www.michalsiewierski.com
I don’t know about you but now that the hot weather is here my body is craving salads. I cannot wait to have fresh lettuce from our garden! We’ve already had a feed of spinach that we planted in our raised bed in the fall and it came up in the spring. Can’t wait to try many of these summer salads recipes!
What one would be your favorite?
1. Strawberry Black Bean Salad
2. Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing
3. Chicken and Strawberry Salad with Strawberry Dressing and Walnuts
4. Bok Choy and Chicken Salad with a Sweet Almond Topping
5. Easy Chopped Vegetable Salad
6. Leafy Green Salad with Fresh Fruit
7. Quinoa Salad with Chickpeas and Avocados
8. Tomato and Ricotta Salata Salad
9. Fresh Plum Caprese
10. Apple and Manchego Salad
11. Santorini Salad with Cucumber Basil Yogurt Dressing
12. Green and White Salad
13. Avocado Salad with Strawberry Sauce
14. A Very Green Gluten-Free Salad
15. Broccoli Craisin Salad
16. Strawberry Cucumber Salad
17. Chipotle Chickpea Salad
18. Vegetable Nicoise Salad
19. Carrot Pineapple Salad
20. Arugula Smoked Salmon Avocado Salad
21. Strawberry Spinach Salad with Candied Pecans
22. Quinoa Salad with Feta and Chia Seeds
23. Chinese Chicken Salad
24. Beet, Orange, and Kumquat Salad
25. Citrus Avocado Salmon Salad
It’s been a few months since I posted my ZonePerfect Challenge #1. I had to re-read my post to see what my 2014 resolutions were and here they are, as well as my update on how I am doing in accomplishing them:
1. Increase our income. (I *think* God is well on His way to answering this prayer…need a bit more time to be sure.) This is definitely happening, but we still have a ways to go yet. I am grateful for the improvement so far.
2. Nutrition. Eat and grow more vegetables to we can freeze and can our winter supply. This is in the works as we have 20-30 50 foot beds tilled and ready to plant veggies in for our family and our CSA members. This makes me very happy, but I am a little anxious because I want everything to grow beautifully!
3. Take our children on more field trips. This one…..needs more work! We haven’t gone on any field trips yet this year. However, we did go mini golfing! It was hilarious and lots of fun!
4. Get more organized as a whole family – mostly the house as it is an ongoing battle, that and getting the children to stay on task. Errr….this one is ongoing, challenging and seems like a never-ending task! I think it’s also the most frustrating.
As a part of this challenge, we received a complimentary box of ZonePerfect bars, which we thoroughly enjoyed. ZonePerfect wants me to let you in on a little something:
“Become A ZonePerfect® VIP & Save up to $10*
Your first coupon will be emailed to you. Join Now <<
*$10 in savings relates to savings spread across a one year period and may vary.*”
Have you accomplished any of your 2014 goals or resolutions?
Have you ever had sour burps or an upset tummy after you’ve eaten something spicy? What do you usually do about it? I usually just endure it. However, in using Gutsy Chewy Supplements I have found there’s no more need to endure but help is here in the form of a tasty chewy tablet.
• Gutsy Chewy products are available in two delicious flavors: Citrus and Wildberry.
• Gutsy Chewy supplements are safe, gluten-free, vegan friendly and lactose-free.
• Gutsy Chewy products are all-natural and made in the U.S.A.
• All Gutsy Chewy supplements contain a proprietary blend of apple cider vinegar, licorice extract and papaya extract (GiGs®shown to be effective in treating GutBurn™ and GutBloat™.
• Xylitol is used in Gutsy Chewy to aid oral health, while calcium and magnesium are included to fortify the bodies stores of these important minerals.
• Gutsy Chewy comes in a handy 8-pack tube that’s easy to travel with.
• The retail price for Gutsy Chewy ranges from $15.99 to $79.99 (2 – 12 tubes), depending on volume purchased. Each order also has a cost of $4.99 to cover shipping and handling.
The Gutsy Chewy comes in travel sized containers that are easy to tuck in your purse or bag when out and about. Digestive relief at your finger tips.
I like the taste and flavor of the Gutsy Chewy and it does seem to help with preventing those sour burps. I haven’t really had much of an upset tummy to comment on that sort of digestive upset. I also like that they are an all natural product made right her in the U.S.
Learn more about Gutsy Chewy Supplements:
youtube.com/user/GutsyProducts
Disclaimer:
Always check with your physician before starting any supplement product and specifically Gutsy Products. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Consult your healthcare professional prior to use if you are pregnant, nursing, taking any medication or have a medical condition. This product contains papaya and should not be used by people with a latex allergy. Keep out of reach of children.
