Pecan Pumpkin Pie bites

These yummy little treats, are low carb and completely all natural ingredients, I enjoy having these in my bag with me at work as a nice snack.
When I made this recipe I tripled the recipe because as you can see it only yields 6 servings.

Pecan Pumpkin Pie Bites

yields 6 two-bite servings

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup chopped medjool dates, about 6 pitted
• 1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp raw pecans pieces
• 1/2 cup raw pecans, roughly chopped
• 1 Tbsp pumpkin puree
• 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Directions:

1. Place chopped dates into the bowl of a food processor, and process until the dates form a ball of sticky paste. Remove from the processor bowl.
2. Place 1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp pecan pieces into the food processor bowl, and process until finely ground. There may be a few larger pieces, which is okay.
3. Add date paste back into the processor bowl, along with the pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice. Process mixture until it forms a large ball. Remove from food processor.
4. Form 6 small balls out of the mixture by rolling them between your palms. Set aside.
5. Place the 1/2 cup roughly chopped pecans onto a cutting board or plate and roll the balls around in the nuts until fully coated.
6. Once again, roll the balls between your palms so that the nuts adhere and create a “crust”.
7. Store in the refrigerator.

Gluten free, low carb waffles

Gluten free, Low carb waffles

I know what you are thinking, gluten free and low carb, doesn't sound very yummy. I am here to tell you that this recipe is my favorite above any kind of waffle. Knowing that they are healthy for me is just a bonus. 

This recipe will require Almond flour, you can buy it from most any grocery store anymore, but if you have priced this it is fairly expensive. But with a little prep work I can tell you how to make your own almond flour for this recipe a lot cheaper.

I personally go to Sam's club and buy almonds in bulk, but you can buy almonds from just about anywhere. you want dry roasted, non-salted almonds.

In small batches you can place your almonds in a food processor and it will finely chop up your almonds to a course flour consistency. You can also use a coffee grinder to do this process.

I usually will grind up the whole bag of almonds at once and freeze what I dont use for next time.

When I make waffles, I MAKE waffles. They freeze wonderful so I usually make 4-8 batches at a time, depending on how much time I have. I love having things made up in the freezer so I can have a quick healthy meal even if I am short on time.

Per batch:

1 block of cream cheese, do not use the low fat for this

1 cup almond flour ( add an additional 1/2c if you choose to not add the flax)

1/2 cup ground flax; optional (this adds those important omega's, and adds a nice flavor)

1TBSP of vanilla

5 large eggs

Optional: you can add 1 TBS of sugar or sweetener 

place the cream cheese in a large microwaveable bowl. Microwave for 1 minute, stir.  Then microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring in between until the cream cheese stirs up smooth and creamy.

Then add all the remaining ingredients, combine throughly with a mixer.

following the directions of your waffle maker, cook your waffles.

Note: you can use this recipe for pancakes as well, just add a little extra almond flour so the batter is slightly thicker.

These waffles freeze very well. I will place 2 waffles in those cheap sandwich bag with the fold down top. I will then place them into a gallon ziplock bag to protect them from freezer burn. I can fit 8-10 small bags in the gallon bag.

Then you can just pull out what you need and heat them in the microwave or a toaster.

"Spanish rice" my mom's recipe.

My mom didnt cook a lot as my brother and I was growing up, but one of her go to meals when she did was a dish she called "Spanish Rice". It is a very simple, fairly cheap dish that still taste wonderful as leftovers.

This recipe is one that you can adjust for your needs, so it doesnt have a exact recipe per say. Just some guide rules, so here they go:

Per 1lb of hambuger use 1 cup of minute rice, 1 onion, 3 stalks of celery.

you will also need a can of tomato juice, salt, pepper, and your favorite type of seasoning like a season all. My personal go to seasoning comes from Save-A-lot, its called soul seasoning. you will see me refer to it a lot in my cooking. I highly recommend if you live in an area that has Save-a-Lot stores that you buy some!!

For this meal, I am using 3 lbs of lean hamburger, 3 diced onions, and 9 celery stalks all diced.

(I have a very large Pampered Chef skillet that I use for this)

while I start cooking the hamburger mixture I will start my water boiling in a seperate pan for the minute rice. follow directions on the box.

once both the hambuger and the rice is cooked, I mix the rice into the hamburger mixture. I then add the tomato juice (for this big pan I used the whole large can of tomato juice, if you make less you will not need the whole can) I also add my salt, pepper, and soul seasoning to taste.

simmer for a little bit, to heat throughly, and let the rice absorb some of the tomato juice.

Then enjoy. This is one of the dishes that bread and butter goes very well with. Since we are gluten free sometimes we will use Udi's gluten free sandwich bread with this meal.

Note: if you are not making this big of a batch and have leftover tomato juice, here is a tip to save the juice for a later date. Freeze the juice in a ice cube tray. I do this often, I will freeze the tomato juice then place the cubes into a ziplock bag. This tip works well for all kinds of sauces and juices. Just makesure to label your ziplock bags well...

Homemade applesauce

So the other day while I was shopping at a semi-local grocery store I found 10lb bags of red delicious apples for $5.19. I bought 2 bags, we ate on them for about a week, then they started to get soft and grainy.

I peeled and cored all the apples and placed them in my huge 12 quart stockpot.

I put about a cup of water in the pan, 1cup of sugar, and about 2TBSP of Cinnamon (We like cinnamon in our applesauce, but you can leave that out if you prefer) I then placed the stove on a low heat and let it simmer for several hours.

The photo above is after about a hour. Make sure to stir every so often!

Now after about 2 1/2 hours it looks like this photo above.

I used my hand mixer to puree the apples even more, you can use a hand masher as well, or if you like your applesauce a little chunky you can skip this step.

After the applesauce cools it can be put it into storage containers, or if you want to can your applesauce you would want to do that while it is still hot.

I choose to use those small little containers that comes in a pack when you buy a multi box of sizes. This will make the perfect serving for a nice treat in school lunches.

Money saving, healthy tip#1

I love Walmarts ad match policy!!!! I got carrots very cheap last week so I bought up a bunch, more than we could just eat.

I broke out the food processor, then grated the carrots after peeling them. Then I bagged them in those cheap sandwich bags, I get them from Walmart, I placed 1 cup per bag.

I will freeze these to use at a later date.

Some examples: mix a bag in with your meatloaf, soups, hamburger patties, cole slaw, potato salad, the list can go on and on.

Peaches

We are fortunate to live very close to an orchard. In August they had a abundance of some of the best peaches I have ever had. So once again I went into my squirrel storing mode. I bought 140lbs for myself, 60lbs for my gma, 60lbs for my great aunt, and 20lbs for another aunt. Then I got to work. Most of them I just peeled, sliced and froze in quart bags. My family enjoyed several of them fresh, and we also made about 20lbs worth of freezer jam. Some of the freezer jam was made sugar free for my diabetic grandpa. I also made several peach crisps that couple weeks we had all those peaches.

Gluten free peach crisp

8 cups of sliced peaches (I sometimes add more if I am feeding a large group)

1 1/2c all purpose gluten free baking mixture. (I use Bob's Red Mill)

1 1/2 c gluten free oats

2 TBSP Cinnamon, 

2 TBSP ground ginger

1 cup sugar

1 1/2stick of softened butter

Warm oven at 350.

Cut in the softened butter the oats and flour. Then add 1TBSP cinnamon,1TBSP ginger, and 1/2 sugar. The mixture should be crumbly. If you desire more or less of any of these ingredients feel free to change them up!!

In another bowl mix your sliced peaches with the remaining cinnamon, ginger, and sugar. Then place your peaches in a 9x13 baking dish. Sprinkle evenly your mixture of flour, oats and butter over the top of the peaches.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour

We enjoy the cinnamon and ginger in our crisp, you can reduce these amounts if you would like a little less in your cobbler.

This recipe can be made sugar free by simply replacing the sugar with Splenda. I do this frequently for my grandpa.

You can reduce this recipe in half for a 8x8 pan

Gluten free 5 ingredient peanut butter cookies

I had the wonderful opportunity to host a Caza Trail & Grove Square house party last night.

For a dessert to enjoy with the selection of coffee or hot cocoa, I made these peanut butter cookies for the first time. They turned out wonderful.

Gluten free peanut butter cookies:

1 cup peanut butter, creamy or crunchy

1/2 cup sugar

1 large egg

3 semi sweet chocolate baking squares

Crushed dry roast peanuts

Mix the peanut butter, sugar, egg in a bowl. After mixing well, place into the fridge for at least 30 min.

After removing from the fridge, roll into balls of dough. Place on a non greased cookie sheet. Using a fork flatten the cookie dough in a cris-cross pattern. Bake in a pre-warmed oven at 350 degrees. Bake for 18-20 min.

After cooled, melt the chocolate baking squares in a small glass bowl in the microwave. Melt them at only 15 seconds at a time, stirring each time until the chocolate is smooth. Then dip each cookie in the chocolate and then in the crushed peanuts.

As you can see above I started dipping 2 sides of the cookie, but that was messy. So I then took a spoon and placed the chocolate on the top of the cookie. That was much faster and less messy.

Above is a couple photos from my house party, this is my 8th party. You can go to www.houseparty.com to sign up to host your own house party.

Game night

Last night was full of volleyball games, so the awesome husband grilled steak and chicken for supper with steamed green beans. I was hoping to get a photo of that wonderful meal but my pager went off, so I enjoyed my meal at room temp. 

For those that is now wondering about my pager, I am on a volunteer department called the First Responders. We live in an area that is 10-25 minutes away from an ambulance response. That time depends on which station our ambulance is coming from. Since we are so far away, we get paged out at the time of the 911 call and we respond and provide life saving measures till the ambulance can arrive. I am a registered EMT. 

Anyways I by the time I got home most of the food was gone, so I didn't get a photo for you, but I did get some of my daughters volleyball team, so Im sharing one of them with you.

Crockpot veggie stew

Feeling a little lazy being a Monday, so I grabbed a nice sized chuck roast out of the freezer. At first I wasn't to sure what I was going to make out of it, I just stuck it in the crockpot on the low setting with 1 1/2c of water and my secret to an awesome roast, Chex mix flavoring packet. Thank you to a very good friend of mine that told me I need to try that to season my roast, I will never make one without it ever again.

I took off to work. By the time I got home the cool front had moved through and the rain had started. So I decided that a good stew fit the weather. I pulled the roast out of the crockpot and placed on a platter to cool. Mean while I placed one of my quart bags of the mixture I made this summer with the stewed tomatoes, onions, green peppers, and okra. I just cut the plastic bag away, and placed the frozen mixture in the broth from the roast, turn the crockpot on high. I came back about a half hr later, flipped the half thawed mixture over in the crockpot and started to shred my roast. After that was done i threw it back in the crockpot. 

When ever I open a large can of tomato juice if I have leftovers I freeze them in a ice cube tray for later use. well today i used about 8 of those tomato cubes. I tossed them in the crockpot, I used a small can of tomato sauce as well.

Then I added 4 cans of mixed veggies that I get from Walmart. I buy the ones that does not include potatoes, just to cut down the carb level some. I also added a can of rotel. Sometimes I will use the frozen mixed vegetables, its just which ever I have on hand at the time.

Then I sat back down on the couch and enjoyed some TV. Yes, today I'm having a hard time getting motivated to do much, even though I know I have company coming this Friday and badly need to clean the house up some.

After a good hour later the crockpot had heated everything up good, and we enjoyed supper.

This provided us with plenty of leftovers also for school lunches for my daughter and I.

The photo above was took after we all ate supper, so as you can see there is plenty of leftovers.

My squirrel storing mode

During summer I took any fresh veggies I could find to store them up for winter.

My grandpa, and some friends gave me lots of tomatoes, I also grew some but not many. I was also given okra, zucchini, onions, green peppers.

My most favorite thing to put up for the winter is a mixture of tomatoes, onions, green peppers and okra. I peal and dice the tomatoes, dice the onions and peppers, slice up the okra and stew it all in a huge pot for a while, then I cool it down and freeze it in full quart bags.

I love this mixture so much, there is several things i do with this. I use this in veggie soups and stews. I also make a wonderful chicken & cabbage soup that includes a bag of this mixture. I will add cooked, crumbled Blue & Gold sausage and some gluten free macaroni for a meal.

I have added a small amount, not the whole quart bag, into my meatloaf. Sometimes we will just eat it alone as a side veggie. I'm sure I will add more meals later using this as well...

I also grated up zucchini and froze in bags, I will add that to just about any meal using hamburger, it makes a great filler to help the hamburger go farther. Also sneaks in the extra veggies in my teenage daughters diets.

My youngest daughter

My youngest has suffered from migraines for the last several years. We have tried everything, increasing her fluid intake, using natural supplements like fever few. Took her to the doctor, she was thinking due to her age, that it could be hormone related. She was then put on some meds like a bedtime muscle relaxer and phenergan to control the nausea during the migraines.

The summer after my discovery of being gluten intolerant, after lots of researching about gluten intolerance, we decided to put her on a gluten free diet as well. It wasn't that much of a difference for us anyways, since by now I had eliminated anything with gluten in my home already. Her only exposure to gluten was her school meals. During 2013 summer just eating my cooking, her migraines went away!!  In the first part of July she was babysitting a friends children for a week, while he went to work. over there she ate all kinds of items that had gluten, like pizza's pastas, breads. by the second and third day she was back having migraines again. At that point she choose to never eat those items again.

She's just like me, we both miss those old foods we used to eat. Every once in a while she will get in the mood that it isn't fair, she wants to eat like everyone else, but then I remind her of how she felt during that week of babysitting. She still misses those foods, but always decides to not eat them. I'm very proud of her, cause I know how hard it is to pass up those foods.

about me

I had "tummy issues" for several years, but I didn't think much of it, it had became part of my life. Then after they started getting worse I asked a doctor to look into a few things. The first thing they choose to look at was a colonoscopy. My first colonoscopy showed I had 3 pre-cancerous polyps, which they removed and told me to come back in a year for another test. Well due to things going on in life I actually didn't get back for that test for 16 months. I went in had my second colonoscopy and when i woke up I was told that I had a mass that was blocking 50% of my colon. Well then came the stress of surgery. They removed 8 inches of my large colon. The biopsy results said it was not cancer, but the dr said if I would have not discovered it, that it more than likely would have turned into cancer.

For a while after my surgery I felt great, no tummy issues, but they slowly started coming back, so I again requested for them to get to the bottom of it, which called for another colonoscopy that came up negative, thank God!! At that time I was told I had IBS, and they put me on some medicine to try to help, which didn't work. Meanwhile at home my husband who was overweight decided to do some research and figure out the best way for him to lose some of the lbs he had put on. He tried calorie counting, and that helped some, then he tried a low carb lifestyle, eventually he talked me into following the diet with him. Thats when my life changed.

With no carbs in my diet I had eliminated wheat, therefor gluten. Within just a couple weeks all my "tummy issues" was gone. Praise The Lord I was pooping normal, that was something I hadn't done in years. While talking about this all with my husband, he got to thinking, something that I had eliminated was causing my problems.  Which after some self trials it quickly became obvious that it was gluten that was the issue. That was the summer of 2012. I have been gluten free since then.