Monday, April 29, 2013

Playing With Their Food

My twins are all about family structure and pretending lately. This especially comes out at meal time and it quite amusing to watch. Here is a sampling of what goes down at meal time at our house;

'This is my mommy raisin, and my daddy raisin and my baby raisin, and my mommy raisins ladybug (also a raisin) and my daddy raisins ladybug'

'My owl (slice of apple) is hungry, he is going to eat my daddy perogie, nom nom nom'

'These are my guys (popcorn) walk, walk, walk, jump into the bowl!' 'My guys are in quiet time'



Food becomes daddys, mommys, babys, guys, owls, porcupines, deer, bunnies, etc etc etc. The best part is when they eat them, 'I am going to eat my mommy now'

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

For Your Reading Pleasure

There are a million parenting books out there and a million things people say you should do with your babies


I am not a big reader but have read a couple parenting book and my all time favorite that I recommend to everyone is Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches by Rachel Jankovic (you can buy it on Amazon for only $11 using that affiliate link) One of the best things about it is that it is readable, with short chapters that I could usually read in one feed when Cosette was little. She talks alot about our attitudes as mothers and is very encouraging and challenging. I have three copies so I can lend them out to friends, you can borrow one.

I recently started reading her second book Fit to Burst, and it has been as relevant, encouraging and challenging as the first book.

'We are a sisterhood of people who know about long days. That is true. But the fact that we all face the same temptations should give us a burning desire to conquer them, not wallow in them'
I only have one copy of this one, you can borrow it when I am done reading it, and I think I will buy a couple more, that is how much I love these books!

If you buy both the books from amazon you are only a few dollars short of getting free shipping so throw in something fun like this or this or this


 Happy Reading! 

Friday, April 19, 2013

Foodie Friday - Mango Chicken

This is one of my favourite GF-DF Crock-Pot meals, typing it out makes me want to go make it right now!

 6 Boneless, skinnless chicken thighs or breasts
1 bag (8 oz) frozen mango chunks
2 Red bell peppers, diced
1/3 cup raisins
1 shallot (I use an onion)

3/4 Cup chicken broth
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
4 thin slices of fresh ginger (when I don't have any I use the powder)
1 tsp cumin (I at least douple this, I love cumin)
1/2 tsp curry powder (again add to taste)
1/2 tsp whole cloves
1/4 tsp group red pepper 
Salt & Pepper to taste

The recipe says to brown the chicken and mix the broth and spices first before adding them but I just throw it all in the crockpot, mix it up and turn it on. I usually shred the chicken when it is cooked and serve over rice or quinoa. Cook on low 6-8 hours or High 3-4 hours. Garnish with cilantro if you are into that.

This is one of the recipes I put in a zip-lock for a even easier meal prep later!


Enjoy!

Monday, April 15, 2013

Even Easier Crock-Pot

You know that day I put baking in jars? Well my efficiency did not stop there, my Mom had sent me a blog post last summer about pre-making crock pot meals and I thought it was brilliant, so I donned my goggles (because onions make me cry) and started chopping.


I chose two crock-pot recipes I love and, like the jars of baking, wrote out all the ingredients I won't be freezing on a card. I chopped and measured out everything that can freeze and put it in a zip-lock bag, labeled and stapled the remaining ingredient list to it. Four crock-pot meals prepped in one afternoon, yes, please. Now, when I need an easy supper I just need to dump the bag in the crockpot in the morning and turn it on.




Thursday, April 11, 2013

Two Things and Jars of Baking

Remember a few years ago when everyone was posting `25 random facts about me`on Facebook? Well here are two random facts about me:

1. I love recycling

2. I love efficiency (but need to use spell check to spell it right every time) 


Recycling really makes me happy, I throw every little piece of paper and plastic in the blue bin. When I lived at home I put a second bin beside the garbage in the kitchen so it would be just as easy to recycle as throw things in the garbage. When I drive around on garbage day and people have their black bins out and no blue bins in makes me sad. RECYCLE PEOPLE! It is really easy, especially if you live in Calgary and have curbside pickup. Here is a cheezy video to show you just how easy it is.





Even more exciting than recycling however is efficiency. Assembly lines. Stack of paper to get through. Speed without sacrificing quality. Baskets to organize. Checklists. I get happier just writing about it all. Honestly working on an assembly line would be up there in my list of jobs I would love to do.

Last week I was feeling particularly ambitious and home-maker-like so I put my love for efficiency to work.


I had recently picked up an assortment of canning jars from the thrift store and I had lids for most of them in my stash of jars for baby food. I chose three recipes, Scones, Raisin Muffins and Brownies and measured out all the dry ingradients into jars, I wrote out what I need to add and how long to bake them on a card and put it on top in the jar and PRESTO! Easy peasy baking, when I need to make something I just dump my jar in and add the wet ingredients and I love it! I decided to make scones the other day to go with soup that was almost ready to eat and it was so quick, the slowest part was waiting for the oven to heat up. Efficiency people, so good.