I am working on a way to share my recipes.  That was actually the driving force behind creating this site.  This is my first shot.

Homemade waffles are a family favorite around here.  When I make them, we usually have them for dinner that night and the leftovers are frozen for breakfast meals.  These taste great with my home-ground wheat and sucanat.  They are also, of course, great with store bought flour and regular sugar (which is what you see above).  My family is not such a home-ground-wheat-lovin’ family so I make them both ways depending on what ingredients are on hand.

I can now make these gluten free as well.  I will share that as a separate recipe.

•waffles•

•ingredients•

2 c. flour (you might need an extra ¼ c. if using home-ground whole wheat flour)
½ tsp. salt (I use Real Salt Sea Salt)
1 Tbsp. aluminum free baking powder
2 Tbsp. sugar (can substitute Honey Granules or Sucanat)
2 eggs, beaten
1 ½ c. milk
¼ c. melted butter
1 tsp. vanilla

•directions•

1. Preheat your waffle maker.  My waffle maker has setting options 1-7.  I like to use setting 5.
2. In a mixing bowl, mix the dry ingredients.  Turn mixer on low if using a stand mixer.
3. Add in eggs, milk, butter, and vanilla.  Mix until blended.
4. Ladle the batter into the preheated waffle maker and stay close by.  They cook pretty fast.

Enjoy!

•freezer tips•

This recipes freeze well. After cooking the waffles, I lay them in a single layer on top of a kitchen towel to cool.  Once completely cooled, I put 8 waffles in a gallon size freezer bag and store in the freezer.

•printer friendly recipe•

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I am in the free 30-day trial phase of PlanToEat.com and trying to decide whether I want to subscribe or not.  I want to make sure my recipes are easy  to import into Plan To Eat so I may have to tweak this later today.  

I decided to make Brunswick Stew and White Chicken Chili today.  I meant to cook these when the temperature dropped last week or the week before but never got around to it.  So while the kids were swimming for the first time tonight, I was inside sweating as I cooked 5.5 quarts total of stew and chili (for 1.5 hours)!

These were both meant to be side dishes for summer meals (they are main dishes in the winter).  The chili tastes weird so I am not sure what I will do with it.  The first thing I taste is bland chicken and beans, then I feel like I am eating straight from a spice jar.  I’m guessing the spices didn’t infuse with the chicken and white beans.  I went ahead and froze it as a chili but will likely drain off the liquid when I thaw it and use the filling for burritos.  It tasted like it would be good with salsa and cheese.  Who knows, I may have just created the perfect burrito filling!

I am still working on a way to share my recipes on here.  I’ve looked at several plugins and I’ve even typed some of them in Word and saved as a pdf which are easy to share on here.  I want the system to be perfect though before I start typing (or copying and pasting) all my recipes.  I want to be able to load them all onto my Kindle too.  I want the recipe to visually look pleasing in the post, and also allow you to print the recipe in a way that is easy to read.  I don’t want to junk up the page though with a lot of different printing options because this is not a food blog.  I am so picky about certain things! I need to locate the plugin I use on my other blog for printing posts.  Typing all this just gave me an idea!

Sometime this week, I’ll link the following to the recipes.

Brunswick Stew

White Chicken Chili

Organizing The Pantry

I didn’t get a before picture but am pretty please with the after shot.

My kitchen issues always boil down to storage and accessibility.  I have so many random ingredients to keep track of.  As I mentioned yesterday, I can’t stand things falling on me.  In our old house, we had a drawer under the oven (not a warming drawer – a regular cabinet drawer).  All my spices fit in that drawer.  Since they were on their side, it was so easy to get what I needed because I could see all the labels.

After selling the last house, we moved into an apartment for 6 months while we searched for our current home.  I was so packed in that kitchen.  I have a lot of kitchen gadgets and use a lot of spices and ingredients in my cooking so we were jam packed in there.  I really embraced storage containers there – both glass and plastic.

Tupperware Modular Mates

You will rarely find me singing praise to plastic so I really surprised myself when I decided to load up on Tupperware Modular Mates last year.  I actually joined Tupperware as a consultant so I could buy these at the sample and discounted price.  These suckers are pricey!

I use four Modular Mates to store my spices.  When I cook, I just plop them down on the counter and get what I need.  I use two for “spicy” spices, one for sweet spices, and one for those tiny jars that Simply Organic sells.

We were using several to store open packages of crackers, chips, pretzels, and cereal however we are cutting most of those out of our diet.  I now have several containers that I am not using.  They will be moving to the laundry room shortly to store some of my homemade cleaning products.

Canning Jars with Plastic Lids

I love canning jars.  I’ve never canned anything but use these for storage in the pantry and the freezer.  I love the plastic lids.  Actually, I love any glass container with a plastic lid.  They are the only jars I save from store bought purchases like dressings. The metal lids are a pain!  When you wash them, you have to dry them immediately or they will rust.  Apparently that is a challenge for me  and metal rusting in the kitchen annoys me!  The metal seals have BPA in them which is something we try to avoid.  The plastic lids are now BPA free (though they are still plastic and full of chemicals).  Honestly, the food rarely touches the lid.

I freeze soups, stews, and sauces in the jars.  In the pantry, I use them to store dry goods I purchase in bulk like flax seed, quinoa, wild rice, chocolate chips, etc.  I fill our half gallon jars with water when we know we will need more than our filter can supply at one time.  I also use them to store drinks like lemonade that I make prior to a party.

Break Beckers

I love, love, love Bread Beckers.  If you are not familiar with this store, it is a huge blessing for our family.  They sell grains, beans, rice, and sweeteners in bulk.  I buy my wheat in 6 gallon buckets (I bought my Nutrimill Grain Mill there too).  I purchase sweeteners like Sucanat and Honey Granules and other grains in 5 pound buckets.  I purchase some items in quart size baggies.  Break Beckers runs co-ops up and down the East Coast.  I feel so fortunate to live so close to this store (it’s in Woodstock).  Lauren is actually running in Woodstock in the morning so we are heading over there after she finishes her run.  I only visit Bread Beckers twice a year since everything is sold in bulk.  Tomorrow, I am purchasing a few empty 6 gallon buckets with gamma lids for storing items like washing soda and baking soda.  We use both for cleaning and to help balance the pool (cheaper than store bought pool chemicals in some cases).

When we finish with the buckets the grains and sweeteners come in, we re-purpose them around the house.

Other Projects

I spent a little time today taking some before pictures around the house and taking stock of what I need to do in each area.  I put the last two bookshelves together in my office.  I will be hanging some childhood pictures in there this weekend (like my ‘I See The Moon’ picture my mom cross-stitched for me when I was a little girl).  I will share more on Monday!

A couple notes: I’ve used several affiliate links in this post. You can read my disclosure statement here.  You are more than welcome to share this post on Pinterest.  I would love for you to follow my boards here.

Organizing My Home – The Overview

I really like being organized. My house is not always organized and it’s not always clean but when it is, I feel like I really thrive.  I’m working this week and next to clean out and organize our house from top to bottom, inside and out. I’ll be posting my progress room by room.  I may or may not have “before” pictures for each project (sometimes I forget) but I will do my best to remember.

I have a few issues with “stuff” and this one is a biggie.  I can’t stand things falling on me – like when I need a particular spice jar and three others fall out of the cabinet with it.  Throughout my home, I organize to make sure things won’t fall on me!  Spices and cans that don’t stack well, odd sized bags of beans/rice/chocolate chips, and bags of chips/crackers/cookies/cereal all drive me crazy when they are just piled or stacked on the shelves.  Art supplies, medicine, toiletries, HomeSchool materials, etc. drive me crazy too if not organized properly.  I am not sure where this annoyance comes from as I don’t have any specific memories of things falling on me as a child.  If anything, I was the one falling off counters and tables.

I can’t stand papers that have to be sorted/shredded/filed!

We are minimalists in some areas.  Brain, Caleb, and I have pretty small wardrobes.  Our daughter’s are a different story however we purchase very few clothing items for them.  They both receive a lot of clothing from others either as gifts or hand-me-downs.  In other areas, we are the opposite (like with children’s books and HomeSchool supplies).  One main goal for our home is to have an appropriate place for everything.  This means that all my craft, HomeSchool, and business stuff needs to be stored in my office.  My half of our bedroom closet is pretty empty.  My office is packed.  Even though there is room in the bedroom closet, I am not filling it with “office”stuff.

Here are the areas I plan to tackle this week and next.

• pantry
• kitchen cabinets and drawers
• refrigerator and freezer
• dining room shelving
• coat closet
• Ava Grey’s playroom
• my office/HomeSchool room
• the master closet and bathroom cabinets
• hall linen closet
• basement closets
• laundry room including laundry, swim suits and towels, and DIY cleaning ingredients
• pool supplies
• gardening supplies and tools
• the garage including our trash/recycling area, sports equipment, and tools
• most if our paper are filed but I have one box that needs some work
• create a preK-college box for each child and file the stuff I already have – (I have the boxes. I just need hanging file folders and to put them together.)
• yard waste/compost
• and lastly, dealing with the clean laundry

I hope you will join me as I blog my way through our closets, drawers, and rooms striving to make our house as clean and clutter free as possible in a way that is easy to maintain!  I am going to try to accomplish a couple each day and post my progress each night.

My mom is organizing this month and today, I was blessed with a HUGE bag of goodies from her closets.  Since I will be using some of these goodies as gifts, I won’t post a full picture but do want to share this adorable bag.  As soon as I saw this I knew it would soon become Ava Grey’s new Bible bag.  This bag is the perfect size to hold her Bible, 2 Bible Stories books we received for Christmas, and her Charlotte Mason style memory verse binder.  I also use a few coloring pages with her so I might try to slide a folder in there too.

Bible is part of our HomeSchool curriculum so having a way to contain all her material is important.  We school at home, in the car, and in the future will school some at church between activities (the plan is for her to start HomeSchool PreK next fall on Fridays).  I want her to feel the Bible and Bible study materials are special so that’s why I want them in a special bag early on instead of crammed in my backpack with everything else.

I will share our resources we use for our HomeSchool curriculum and our Bible Study curriculum soon.

I’ve known about Farmers Market Baskets for a long time.  Actually, I know about a ton of resources around Atlanta that I’ve never used for various reasons – mostly being afraid that I would not be happy with the contents of a box/basket. I am such a picky eater am always afraid that I’ll end up wasting half the food.

A friend of mine recently mention that she was going to join the Farmers Market Baskets Coop in Kennesaw, GA.  She mentioned that they had drop-off points for their produce boxes all around so I clicked on the link to revisit the site.  They do have a drop-off site near me (but not as close as a few other co-op/CSA resources).  I’m on a mission to try one or two a month this spring.

When I saw that you could try out a basket without paying the $10 co-op fee, that you could pick up a basket at their Kennesaw location on Tuesdays or Thursdays (Thursday being the key for me last week), and that I had actually looked at something BEFORE the weekly deadline, I gave it a shot.

I bought the large organic basket for $30, an extra bag of organic apples for $5, and then a few extra organic peppers for $0.33 each, bananas for $0.25 each.  My total was under $39.

I’m making a new chard recipe and cooked carrots tonight.  I already got all the peppers sliced and diced, flash frozen, and bagged up.  The yellow bananas and strawberries are long gone and the rest of the fruit will be served this week and next.

I was very impressed with the staff there and was so thankful that even as busy as they were when I stopped by, they took the time to show me around, understand their system, and get the food I ordered.  They even explained how the process works should I choose to pick-up in my area.

After getting this box, I definitely know that our family doesn’t need a large box each week during busy season when Brian eats 2-3 nights at work.  I’ve already gifted away a couple items.  The only thing I regret is not looking closely at their small box for comparison sake.

As I mentioned, I have several other co-ops to look into but I was very pleased with this one.  I am working to get food planted in our backyard but know that even if I can start successfully gardening in our backyard, I will still have produce needs throughout the year.  I want a firm buying plan in place by January 1, 2013!  As I add resources to our plan, I will post them here.

Ava Grey helping Mommy make Homemade Peanut Butter

I’ve decided to create a blog to share some of the details of our life and have a place to post my recipes.   I am encouraging those who know me personally and those that don’t to visit this page.  I feel like I have a real life, and I have an online life, and the two don’t mesh right for me.  My hopes is that this site will help me feel complete !

I have a facebook page for this blog and would love to have you join.  Here are a few topics that interest our family:

• HomeSchooling
• All the R’s (especially not buying unnecessary things to begin with whether new or used)
• Eating Food that is Local AND Organic
• Cooking From Scratch
• Cloth Diapering
• Extended Breastfeeding (though I’m done, I breastfed my last child until she was 2.5)
• CoSleeping
• Organic Gardening
• Composting
• Natural, homemade cleaners
• Christianity
• Music (the kind rarely heard on mainstream radio)
• Politics (the kind rarely seen on mainstream TV)
• Blogging

I’ve been blogging since May 2009 over at Suburban Tree Hugger (which is also the name of my LLC so you will see it on here some as needed).  I ran an online cloth diaper store from May 2009-October 2011.  I still have an online store but don’t have anything listed at the moment as I am in transition for that area of my business.

I loved running the store but I had to look at the whole picture.  When you run a business, you expect that business to grow and mine did.  It got to the point where I was working too much and could not do the things I needed to go to help the business continue to grow and run the day to day needs from my home.  I had my inventory in a storage facility and between the time it took to visit that location, the post office, and do my online activities, it was just too much for me to do alone.

I looked into opening a retail space but honestly, I have to do all this alone.  My husband’s job responsibilities come first and he is unable to consistently help.  Opening a retail space would have required having my children with me on-site and that’s just not what our older children need right now.

This “season” of my life is a bit crazy.  As far as work goes, I just do what I can each day and honestly, have no expectations for myself.  I have some great ideas out there, and of course have bought the website and have the facebook/twitter/gmail for each , but feel the content of my life is just not best shared on those sites.  I have more ideas than time and hopefully one day all of them will pay off and help pay for these sweet kids to go to college since our beloved HOPE scholarship may not be around by then !

So welcome.  I have to get a few more behind the scenes items in place and then I will start posting recipes, backyard pictures, and cloth diaper/natural living things for sale.