Cooking

Back in March my mom and my aunt Jen came out to visit; it was one of those visits where they just kind of hung out with me as I went about my regular days and routines with my kids - so they got a chance to see our "real life".  I am always happy to receive constructive criticism and I love a good self analysis, so I asked my Aunt Jen to tell me how she thought I was doing.  Now that her kids are all in their early 20's can she offer perspective on mistakes I am making or things I am ignoring.  Of course she first praised me at what a wonderful job I was doing - but said she was concerned I was doing too much and could get burned out soon.  Most of her concern was the food that I make.  I make almost all of our food and snacks from scratch.  I thought a lot about her advice.  Was it worth it?  Was I doing too much?  Was I spending too much time and energy into something that wasn't worth it?

With out even going into the health benefits we have seen in our family since switching to "whole foods" I decided it was something I was going to keep.  Turns out it's my hobby.  Truly.  I love it.  It fills my cup. While some women like to go to the gym, or for a run, or scrap book, or craft; I love spending 3 or 4 hours on a Wednesday afternoon making my kids snacks for the next few weeks.  It is not something I feel like I have to do.  Sometimes we will run out and it will take me 2 or 3 weeks to find the time to do it again - and in the mean time no one starves and they just eat a lot of apples and carrots! 

One day I was talking to my sister Katie and I told her I had to go becasue I was making our monthly snacks.  She told me to text her a picture of what I made.  So just for record keeping purposes I thought I would put them in the blog.  This is what I typically make every 2 to 3 weeks.

Egg Muffins.  Beat up some eggs, add some cream, and then either diced ham, sausage, bacon, and/or cheese.  I am slowly trying to add yummy things like onions, garlic, peppers, or tomatoes - but so far my kids are rejecting those add ins :(   Ammon likes to take these on his way out the door to early morning seminary.

Whole wheat spelt flour pumpkin muffins.  (I use those rubber muffin cups - they changed my life!)

Whole Wheat banana muffins

My muffins change every time I make my snacks - sometimes they are carrot, applesauce, oatmeal, blueberry, cranberry, etc.  These two happen to be my favorite.  The muffins are great becasue we keep them in the freezer and just put them in my kids lunches or snack cups frozen - they are perfectly thawed in about an hour.

Granola bars.  I have tried for 5 years to find a great recipie.  This is the winner.  It is not as healthy as i would like (brown sugar, butter, honey, and rice crispies are some not so preferable ingredients) - but so far they turn out the BEST than any other recipie I have made.  So these are more of a treat than a snack.

These are my energy balls that I hadn't rolled out yet.

I also made - but didn't picture: hard boiled eggs, breakfast baked oatmeal muffins, and yogurt

And clean up afterwards!

One night I decided to get all fancy and make bread bowls with chicken and wild rice soup.  It was fantastic.

One hobby I don't have is that of photography - nothing looks as good in these pictures as they really are.