Click on the picture below to get more ideas for family history activities. We all love doing this blog because it is really a family affair. My mom has talked about that a lot. It means a lot to me too. Alicia lives the furthest away from all of us, but no matter where any of us lives, we can contribute to this blog, and we're thankful to everyone who comes to read what we write, and take part in our activities and recipes. With the holidays upon us, everyone really starts focusing on families and it is great! I love families! I believe that families are forever. That is a pretty big concept in our church. We are big on doing our family history, because family is important. My Sister in Law Jessica is a family history guru/wizard/genius and she is always working on some great family history project, including a book she put together for my dad for Christmas last year. She even started a blog where she shares tips on how to do your own family history. She inspires me to want to be better at doing my own family history. Just yesterday I got my DNA results back from Ancestry.com and I am excited to see what connections I can make from that. Well, as you know, I do a weekly recipe post and I think family recipes are so important. What you remember your mother/father/grandmother/great-grandmother making in the kitchen, whichever cookbook has been passed down through the years, usually tells a story about where you come from and how you got here. So I love this activity that I found on the family search website! You can do it with your own family and gather all of your family recipes in one place! You'll learn a lot about your own family that way! My cousin Laura shared on Facebook the other day that she was trying to tell someone about our family recipe for Surprise Pudding, and lo and behold, the one that came up WAS her family recipe! It was ours from this blog! We have shared so many family recipes with you here and I am going to list a few of my favorites and then ask, what are your favorite family recipes? The Pie Series: We love pie in my family, so I obviously can't forget to remind you about these great pie recipes we've shared with you. 1. The Best Pie Crust: you have to start with a good foundation, otherwise there is no point. I use this pie crust for all of my pies, and I use it when I make quiche! It is the best and so easy! 2. Blackberry Pie: Fruit pies are a traditional American classic and we have some great recipes for them in our family! 3. Pecan Pie: My dad LOVES pecan pie, so this is a mandatory recipe at every family gather! I can't remember a Thanksgiving or Christmas without it! 4. Pumpkin Pie: Obviously! Did you think this one wouldn't be a family favorite? I LOVE Pumpkin Pie!!! 5. Apple Pie: I would contend that my mom makes the best apple pie in the world. I'm sorry, but it's true. Lucky for you, she shared her recipe here, and she also shared how to can your own apple pie filling here! Now your pie can be just as good as hers! Peach Cobbler: Growing up, whenever we went camping I knew that one night of the trip we were going to have peach cobbler made in the dutch oven. I looked forward to it so much! I still contend that my mother never made it otherwise. She disagrees, but I think if she made it at home she ate it all and never saved me some. So I still equate this recipe with family camping trips! Hot Cocoa Bombs: Of course I had to share this one, the one that started this blog. It's a pretty new family recipe, but it is special to us since we came up with it together. Don't forget to check out our Etsy shop where you can buy the booklet and learn to make your own Hot Cocoa Bombs! From our family to yours! I hope you'll take part in this activity and let me know your favorite family recipes. With the holidays upon us, it is the perfect time to learn more about your family through what you eat! Happy cooking!
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You know, getting an idea to do something you've never done before can be very exciting, but it can also be a lot of hard work. Lucky for you, I am putting in the work so you can learn from me and make your life a lot easier. As my mom told you in this post, I bought a bushel of apples from somebody in my church that was selling them. We decided to split them and I thought it would be fun to try making my own fruit leather. I've never made my own before, so I did some internet research on best practices, and I am going to share with you what did and did not work.
In the midst of all this, strawberries were on sale at the grocery store again. So I bought four cartons and thought, "hey, I know! I'll make two kinds of fruit leather, in two ways!!!" I am so foolishly ambitious. I ran out of steam and only ended up making the strawberry fruit leather, because, pregnancy +visitors coming to town to stay with us this week = I do not get to doing the kitchen things I planned on doing. Lucky for you however, there are still apples left, and I am going to make some apple butter with them. So hold on to your hats for that!
Making the puree was simple enough, and you can see the recipe below. I borrowed my parent's dehydrator (I really need to get me one of those). Here are a few tips.
1. In my internet research many people said you could use parchment paper to dehydrate your leather. That is a lie. Don't believe those people, they are not your friend. 2. My parents' dehydrator came with one fruit leather tray. The tray is really the best thing to use. I also tried to use nonstick lining paper. While it worked better than the parchment paper, it still didn't work as well as the tray that came with the dehydrator. If you want to do your own food storage and make your own healthy snacks I highly recommend buying your own fruit leather trays. I've provided a link below for your convenience. 3. Some dehydrators apparently have a temperature gauge as many places where I researched said to set your dehydrator for 140 degrees Fahrenheit. My parent's dehydrator does not have a temperature control. You just turn it on and let it to it's thing. So I would suggest checking your trays periodically and rotating them if necessary. My bottom tray was done right away and I feel like it got a little too dry in certain spots, while the upper trays still had wet spots. 4. Going along with evenness, try to spread out your puree as evenly as possible to avoid over drying certain spots. I smoothed mine out as evenly as I could, and your edges are still going to dry first, but you don't want to ruin half your leather while you wait for the other half to dry. If you use these tips going forward, making fruit leather really isn't too hard. Making the puree itself was quick and easy. I used my ninja to blend everything together and then poured it on one tray at a time. The wait comes from letting the dehydrator do it's work, but in the end you get a tasty snack that you know doesn't have weird added preservatives in it! Happy fruit leather making!
Did you know that the first Thursday in November is Men Make Dinner Day? Well, it is, and today would be that day!
So, I want to publicly express my gratitude for my amazing husband who makes me food on the regular. Since becoming pregnant I really have not been doing my fair share of the work around the house. I've gotten better, but especially in the beginning of my pregnancy, if PH didn't make dinner, nobody made dinner. If PH didn't do the dishes, nobody did the dishes, if PH didn't do the laundry, take out the trash, pick up clutter, vacuum, sweep, dust, mop, mow the lawn, clean the pool, do any other household chore, it did not get done. I am a firm believer that whatever the size of your household everyone needs to share the load. I just stopped doing my part and my husband was doing the work for two. He has never once complained about my lack of helping. He has never once made any kind of comment about being the only one getting anything done around the house. When we painted the nursery he had to get up into the hard to reach places and he ended up hurting himself, and still no complaining on his part. He is a real trooper and I love him so much. He is also a great cook! So, here is a list of some of the things he has made for me.
Remember my Halloween party appetizers? PH made the chicken wings! I'm thinking it's time to start cooking up some tasty side dishes for Thanksgiving and I am certain that he has some great ideas up his creative sleeve!
Then there was the time that PH went all out and sort of became a guest blogger (although I wrote the post, but he made the whole meal and made the table look awesome for my picture taking). He made this awesome grilled rasperry chipotle pork! I think some people stop grilling in the fall winter because it's so cold, but if you live in the heat of Arizona like we do, the fall is an awesome time to grill! You don't have to worry about dying of heat exhaustion while grilling! My birthday party was this past Sunday and PH made one of my favorite dishes. Stuffed shells! According to my sister in law Jessica and her mother Stuffed Shells are not a real Italian dish. I'll have to believe them since they are Italian, but I still think it's delicious! PH found out that growing up my mom would make stuff shells for me on my birthday as my birthday dinner and he had never had them. So he tried his hand at them and he loves them too! (What is there not to love about pasta, tomato sauce, and cheese?) Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them because we ate them too quickly. Family came over and helped us out so they were gone really fast! I promise you though, if you want an easy tasty, Americanized Italian meal, stuffed shells is the way to go! This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for any purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support! I haven't really cooked any food in like a week. I've either made PH do the cooking, gone to my parent's house for a meal, or we have gone out to eat. We lived off the appetizer leftovers from my post last week for a few days too. (Those mummified smokies were just so good!) The fact of the matter is, sometimes we all get in a food rut where we are too busy/tired to cook anything and we just want to eat something fast and easy. The moments that this happens increases exponentially when you are pregnant. Making a good meal takes planning, and sometimes I just don't have the energy to plan anything. For a week. Or month. Or until the baby comes. So last night for dinner I made myself a peanut butter and jam sandwich. I used the Strawberry Jam my mom and I made in this post. I love eating the jam we made! Plus I have a lot of it because I made another batch after the one we made for you in those videos. If you are still wondering how to make your own jam go to the link and follow our videos!
I started thinking about what some other great go to pregnancy foods are. So I asked around to my mom, my sister, and my sister in law. Here are there answers. My mom: I loved popsicles and oranges. Both of those sound great because they're sweet and refreshing. Especially because pregnant women tend to get overheated! I personally am a fan of Otter Pops, but you could also get a mold and make your own popsicles! Alicia: Pie and pizza. And her husband threw in that she'd eat a lot of tomatoes. One day she just ate 8 tomatoes. Those mini pumpkin pies I made last week really hit the spot for me. I LOVE pumpkin pie. We have a lot of great pie recipes on this blog, so you should go back and check them all out! Jessica: Jessica said she never really had any cravings, but she would eat apples with peanut butter, carrots, and broccoli. She said she doesn't usually eat very healthy so all those really healthy choices stood out to her. I am impressed that her go to snack would be veggies, because I am just not wired that way. Fruit yes, but just snacking on a bowl full of veggies is hard for me. The apples and peanut butter does sound really great to me right now. So those are our go to pregnancy eats. What is your easy thing to whip up when you're tired and hungry (and maybe also pregnant!) |
Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
July 2024
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