The spice of life

Every Monday we eat either black bean taco salad or taco meat with refried beans, not much of a variety but it's a family favourite. That means I always had to keep taco seasoning on hand. Not anymore! Here's a filler free taco seasoning recipe that you can make in a big batch and store in an air tight container 

Taco Seasoning 
1 tbs chili powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp red pepper - use half if you don't like spicy
1/4 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Mix well and add 2 tbs and 2/3c of water to meat

Being from the north, I ate a tong of chili in my lifetime. It's the perfect comfort food during a blizzard and it lasts forever in the fridge. I got sick of buying that packaged as well so I came up with my own concoction. It's pretty good if I do say so myself!  

Chili seasoning

 1 tsp basil

1 tbs onion powder

4 tsp chili powder

2 tsp cumin

1 tbs red pepper flakes

1 tbs garlic powder

2 tsp sugar

2 tbs flour

mix well and add to chili!

you can make a bunch ahead and store. Use 1/3 c per pot 

BTW this song was going on over and over in my head while I was writing this. 

Apples, this months fun accessory

So let's have some fun with apples. Why? Well, they are cheep and most kids eat them like they are going out of style. Mostly they are cheep, and cheep and nutritious is a win in my book!

Imagine it's almost time to go and you have this gaping hole in your bento box and are frantically searching your cabinets for something to use. Along comes this cute checkered apple. Saved my life a few times.

See how the apple fits perfectly? It's like divine bento intervention!
Let's make this sucker.

*side note, I am left handed and extremely uncoordinated. Like, I'm usually not allowed sharp things so please forgive my crazy slanted cuts. 

You need

Cutting board
Apple - I only had teeny tiny ones
Pairing knife

 Cut that apple from the core.
 I feed the core to my dog, but you can do whatever with it. OR you can save it for a apple bunny. Yeah, I went there. Stay tuned for that awesomeness

Then you want to score the apple in a checkerboard patters. Don't get all chop crazy and cut it, SCORE, like 1/8 of an inch deep. This is another trust me moment. You can make them as close or far apart as you want.
*the farther apart the less work. SCORE!

You can see that right? I hope so, it was insanely difficult to take a picture of. 

Try to make the cuts evenly spaced. I am straight line challenged, doubt my kids care so I roll with it. 

Now the tedious part, it gets easier every time, peel alternate pieces of peel off with the knife. BE CAREFUL. trust me. There is a reason I have a supply of thousands of band-aids right next it me. 

Don't worry about being perfect, you can clean it up later. Let's just get this done and over with. Oh wait, that'a my mantra. 

So it's all checkerboarded. Clean up the cuts and I like to cut the bottom/tops off to make it look neater 

By this time the dog has gone nuts with tail wagging and begging

Plop them in some cold water with a few drops of lemon juice to prevent browning. RINSE after and DONE! 

That wasn't too painful was it? 

Wanna do a bunny? Yeah, I'm not so hot at them bc I lack basic skills, but the kids like these even more. Here we go!

Take the left over sides and cut them from the core, or use the other half of the already cut apple.
If you use a half of an apple cut it in half vertically, like below

Then you can slice a bit off the bottom to make it stable and less risky to your fingers.
To make the ears, SCORE a V half way up the apple.

 I couldn't get a great picture of the V, but hopefully you get the idea.

 Then you are going to start at the wide part of the V and peel with your knife until the V ends. Does that make sense? I hope so. Try to slice as thin as possible or the ears won't flop up like they should. You can always clean up the ears later. I totally do.

You should be left with something that looks like the picture below. The V is gone and the points are free from the apple. Got it? Good.

 

Toss that baby in some ICE WATER with lemon for 5 minutes or so until the ears start to fold up.
If they don't fold up, you have too much apple flesh on the skin so carefully trust me peel some off until they pop up.

BAM apple rabbit! I had a lovely side picture by my kids deleted it. Sorry. They apparently love technology and that trash button is mighty tempting.

There you have it, two awesome things to do with apples that will liven any lunch box!

Plan ahead and save your sanity

I might not work, but I wear many hats in the T household.
- I am the chef
- The laundry mat
- The warden
- The nurse
- The calender
- The taxi
- The Drill Sergeant
- And many more that I can't think up cute names for

With all those hats, I (and my hair) get a little frazzled by about 4 o'clock. What comes after 4 o'clock? Dinner time. When the husband and I were both in the Army and kidless, we could buy as many groceries that we wanted and I could cook whatever I wanted for dinner or just order out. But now I have kids that for some reason expect me to cook for them, like 3 or more times a day! They are soo needy.

What's a girl with tons of hats and fabalous hair to do? Make schedules of course. I have one for my dinners, and one for the chores that I *should* be doing along with everyday picking up. I loath cleaning with every fiber of my being.

Let's talk menu planning. What works for me is I pick a meat and stick it with it every single week. You might think it's gets boring, but do you know how much you can do with chicken? We can go a good 2+ months without repeating a single chicken meal, unless it's a favourite. 

So why is planning like this worth it? Well, I sit down at the end of each month and plan the next months, an entire months worth of meals. And then on the 1st of that month I shop for all the meat and frozen/canned veggies/fruits and sides that I plan on using that month. And I am done! No guess work, no thinking required. I look at the calender, pick the matching recipe card and become a zombie in the kitchen. And I don't have to drag the kids to the store for weekly shopping trips, if we run out of milk or cheese I simply go by myself in the evening and pretend that I am having a vacation. 

Meal planning like that might cost more money up front, but think of what you will save when you are not buying all those extras on your weekly shopping trips. Tons. I think I shaved over $100 on my monthly grocery bill doing this. $100 people! That's like 5 pedicures. 

But, but, but. What are we supposed to do about lunches and snacks for the kids? Well, I bet you already have boxes of snacks in your pantry right now. So just stock up at the beginning of the month and that's all you get. It might take a while before you stop blowing through 50 cereal bars in a week, but you will get there. You can better monitor your kids' eating habits this way. 

Speaking of which, you know what  I do instead of buying a crap ton of prepackaged snacks? Well, I'm gonna tell you. I make a stupid amount of snacks and breakfast foods (usually on Sundays) and freeze them. That way when my kids are hungry, I can pop a homemade muffin/granola bar/waffle/etc in the microwave and BAM 30 second healthy snack. 

And now for my least favourite thing on the planet, chores. I hate hate hate cleaning, but I also hate having a single toy out of place in my house. It's a loose-loose situation. Grumble. 

Since I kept putting off laundry to the point where I had to wear the husband's unders (don't tell him!!) I decided that I need a set schedule to get all the crap done that comes with having a home and kids. 

You know what? It's doesn't seem do daunting as it did before. I know what days I have to do the kid's bathroom and I suck it up, promise myself a candybar as a reward and get to scrubbing the toilet of a potty training boy and I don't have to think about it for a whole week. Or I don't have to feel guilty about putting it off. 

These things might not work for you, but I encourage you to try and find a system that works for your lifestyle and see how much stress is lifted, you might not even know you were stressed in the first place! 

How I made the charts

I found some thin corkboards at a big box store and used some heavy scrapbook paper that I had laying around and after playing with the sizes of the paper I use one as a template and went cutting crazy. 

Write your menu/chores in with a marker and you are good to go. 

A knockoff bento

Some people feel like their kids get left out when you pack lunches instead of buying them the prepacked ones at the store like their friends. 

I am here to tell you that you are so very wrong. 

Just 7 minutes of your time (or less if you don't cut shapes) and you will have a lunch that PTA moms fawn over. 

May I present you with my knockoff bento? 

How amazing does that look? Pretty fantabulous right? Yeah, I thought so. 

All you need is some cheese, lunch meat, crackers, and little extras.

I used

- 2 slices each of white and yellow sliced cheese cut into stars 

- 4 slices of salami also cut (and an extra to prop it up) 

- 1 slice of ham 

- 6 crackers

- 6 mandarin oranges 

- 1 blueberry 

- 3 cucumber slices 

- 1 chocolate chip muffin bar for a treat 

I would so rather feed Big A this than something that was made who knows where and with who knows what.

Apparently he agrees since he tried to swipe the box when I was taking pictures.