Lessons from My First Snow-In

I live in Connecticut and Old Man Winter came in strong Saturday. He sure came in dropping a whopping eighteen inches of snow on the ground complete with strong winds and road closures. Luckily, I did not lose power during the storm. But, I did find myself limiting plans I had for Saturday, even at home, as I could not go anywhere. But, I did learn a few things.

1. Get on a shovel schedule. Yes, I live in a condo and have a snow plowing in my lease. However, I also have a deck and front door that I have to clear off if there is more than a foot. So, naturally, I had to get on a schedule to clean off the snow before it got too heavy.
2. Use cardboard or towels. This is for the floor after shoveling. I called my mom in the midst of the storm and told her that I had tracked in snow from my porch. My mom suggested putting down cardboard in order to avoid having snow being tracked in from my boots. When I went out the second time, I found it worked like a charm.
3. Limit appliance use. Usually, on Saturday, I do my laundry. However, there was a high risk for a power outage. So, I put off doing my laundry until today, Sunday. Even though, I didn’t want to do so; I definitely didn’t want soaking wet clothes.
4. Keep the phone charged. I kept my phone charged all the way in case I lost power. As you can probably guess I was expecting to lose power at some point yesterday. Luckily, I didn’t lose it. While I am grateful, I am happy that my phone was fully charged as it is great to use for calls and as a flashlight.

In short, a blizzard came in and left almost two feet of snow on the ground. There was much relaxing in between the shoveling and cooking I did yesterday. While, I did enjoy having a day to myself, I did find it great to just relax in my pajamas for a full day.

Also, thank you to all of those who plowed and are actively plowing and treating the roads to make them safe.

Meal Prep Lessons

Hi all, I do plan on sharing more recipes soon. But, for now I do plan on sharing some lessons I learned from meal prepping.

1. If you are only have a little bit left, why not use it? This came in useful when I was cooking a stew last week. I only had a little bit left of one ingredients, so I just added it in.
2. Don’t be afraid to substitute! Like many I have been finding it hard to locate certain items in grocery stores. I have found that going to google and looking up a good substitute has come in useful.
3. Take advantage of spices for leftovers. A couple of nights ago I had leftover rice from Chinese I had ordered. To spice things up a bit I added in some oregano, red pepper, and onion powder complete with cheese for lunch.
4. Check your cabinets! This is one lesson that I learned growing up. After reading a recipe look through your cabinets to make sure you have what you need. Then, create a list for when you go to the grocery store and focus on that.
5. Think outside the box when prepping. For example, the cream of carrot soup I made did not call for celery, potatoes, and onions. I decided to add those in. I had celery that had to be used and thought potatoes and onions would be nice. I found that the soup still came out delicious with. Consider adding to the recipe when you cook.

So, those are tips I have from meal prepping. Enjoy! I hope you are all staying warm this winter.

Almond Milk

In the past two recipes that I shared I mentioned I was using almond milk instead. The first time I had almond milk I was not fond of it. I found almond milk to be a watered down version of regular milk. However, as time went on I found more and more people who were using almond milk as opposed to regular milk. I did some research and decided to share a few facts on almond milk:

• If you buy unsweetened almond milk, then it is low in sugar. Yes, as you know too much sugar can be bad for you. Almond milk can be a healthy option for not haivn
• Almond milk is low in calories and carbs. Many of the people whom I know who have switched to almond milk have done so for this reason.
• It is high in calcium. “Milk builds strong bones” is a phrase that I frequently heard through out my childhood. One of those reasons I was told, and found was true as an adult, is due to calcium. So, here’s to calcium in almond milk.
• If found that almond milk is easier to cook with. This is a fact that is my own personal one. I don’t know if you know this but, you are not supposed to use milk as a base in a crockpot due to it being dairy. But, almond milk is not dairy and, to me, is a great substitute for cooking with regular milk.

So, here’s to almond milk. Yes, I may have regular milk around at times. But, I found that almond milk is a great alternative to regular milk. Hope you all had a great week.

Crock Pot Potato and Bacon Soup

Unfortunately, I am having some camera problems, so I have not been able to upload photos of meals that I have been taking with my phone. But, this recipe is another recipe that was inspired by the America Girl Cook Book series. This time the recipe came from Kirsten’s cook book. Here it is:

6 cups almond milk

5 strips of bacon

12 potatoes

1 large onion

1 T Pepper

Instructions: Cut up the bacon, potatoes, and onions and put them in the crock pot. Pour in the six cups of almond milk. Set crock pot to high for one hour then set to low for four hours. Let this cool and enjoy or freeze and save for later.

Cream of Carrot Soup

Hi all, here I am giving out a second recipe, another one, I made my own from the American Girl Cook Book series. This one comes from Samantha’s book. In this recipe I added a few vegetables.

Ingredients:

1 lb. baby carrots

4 stalks of celery

1 medium onion

1 medium red potato

Two cups almond milk

2 lb. or 32 oz. carton of chicken broth

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. salt

1 T Flour

1 T Butter

Directions:

Cut up the baby carrots and boil with two cups of the chicken broth. While the carrots are boiling cut up the onion, celery and potato. Once the carrots are boiling, let them simmer for fifteen minutes. If the carrots start to boil while you are cutting the other vegetables, stop and do the carrots. After the carrots are done simmering, put a strainer in a bowl and strain the chicken broth. Save the broth for later. Put the carrots in a separate bowl from the vegetables and mash. Take the butter and melt it with the celery and onion over medium heat. After the butter is melted pour in the almond milk and all of the chicken broth, including the strained one from earlier. After stirring this, stir in the carrots for about five minutes. After this add in the salt, pepper, and paprika. Keep on medium heat for up to 20 minutes stirring constantly. Cool, server, and enjoy after turning off the burner.

Please note that I am not affiliated with American Girl, but I am a fan of their products.

The Official End of Christmas

January 6th, yesterday, marked the end of Christmas. On this day it is said that the Three Kings made it to the manger where Jesus was born to present him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. I hope you all had a blessed and peaceful holiday season.

Veggie Garden Soup

This is one of those recipes that I adapted from one of my American Girl Cook Books. This one comes crom Molly’s Cook Book. The original title is Victory Garden Soup, but I feel that Veggie Garden Soup is a better name.

Ingredients:

1 medium potato

1 medium onion

2 ribs of celery

1 lb. baby carrots

1/2 tablespoon salt

1/4 tablespoon pepper

1 cup frozen turnip

1 cup frozen corn

1 cup water

1 64 oz. bottle of tomato juice

Instructions: Chop up the carrot, potato, onion, and celery. Place them in a large soup pot. Turn the heat on medium. Add the tomato juice and water. After heating on medium for 5 minutes add the corn, turnip, pepper, and salt. Keep heated over medium heat for 30 minutes stirring constantly. After this turn the burner off and let the soup cool. Serve and enjoy

Please note: I am not affiliated with American Girl. But, I am a huge fan of them.

Staying Warm in the Cold

Old Man Winter made his mark this week! Snow is on the way and the temperatures are dropping like crazy. Yup, trying to stay warm in this weather on a budget not as much of a challenge as I thought. The main challenge is making sure the thermostat is set correctly; this is something I learned rather quickly shortly after I had moved in. Here are a few things I found that help when keeping warm in the cold:

1. Have lots of blankets ready. Yes, this does sound obvious, but having as many blankets to stay warm under is a true blessing.
2. Sleep with warm socks on. I will admit, when I wake up in the morning after doing this I find that my socks are, most of the time, no where to be found. But, after a little bit of searching or spotting them after they fall out of the covers while making the bed, they are easy to find.
3. Have a space heater handy. A space heater is something that I never thought that I would need. I have found that having one handy at the time the temperature dips lower than usual having one right there is a simple warm fix.

So, these are the ways that I stay warm in these cold conditions. Old Man Winter is here and for the next few months he is not going anywhere. Hope you all stay warm this winter.

Learning to Make Recipes Your Own

Growing up I loved the American Girl book series. In fact, I had the Molly doll growing up. This lead to a love of history for me. I did have her cook book growing up and today I still have it. However, I did not have the rest of the American Girl cook books growing up. While I did have the regular series books, I did not have the cook books even though I asked. I was told the typical, “When you are grown up you can buy your own”.

Unfortunately, by the time I was “older” the books were out of print. Luckily, thanks to Amazon, I was able to buy the cook books for a really decent price. Well, since moving out I have been learning to meal prep and get into a schedule. There are two soup recipes that I have made from different cook book, Molly and Samantha’s, and I adapted them into my own version.

Before this venture, I would always follow the perfectly. Instead, I found that adding and making changes to recipes is not such a bad thing. You are able to explore in the kitchen and keep food from going bad. I will post more on the recipes that I modified at a later date.

Glop

Glop is a recipe that my dad made up years ago. Basically, it is a bunch of canned veggies and ground meat from the fridge. A couple of weeks ago I made “glop”. This glop came out fantastic and I do hope to make it again someday.

1 lb. ground turkey

1 15 oz. can of black beans

1 15 oz. can of corn

1 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes

1 4 oz. can of sliced mushrooms

Instructions: Ground the turkey up over medium heat in a pan on the stove. Once the turkey is ground stir in the black beans, corn, diced tomatoes, and mushrooms. Do not drain the canned veggies. Keep over medium-low heat for up to twenty minute stirring constantly. Turn off the burner. Serve, eat, and enjoy!

Unfortunately, I did not get a photo of this “glop”. Sadly, this “glop” does not look appetizing. But, it did taste great and gave me enough for dinner for a few days.