Airbourne Fruit and Veggie Shake

 

Last December my little family and I all took turns with a nasty stomach bug.  Some of us got it once, some of us got it twice, and my youngest, unfortunately, had it three different times (one of those times happened to be Christmas day)!  It was a rough month.  

So this year, I'm doing my best to keep my family as healthy as possible this holiday season.  

Three to four nights each week, for the past couple of weeks, I have been serving an airborne fruit and veggie shake with our dinner to pump up our immune systems. Here's how I make it:

In a blender add...

2 Cups cold water

2 Cups fresh spinach leaves

1-2 Airbourne tablets

Blend for 20-30 seconds.

Then add...

1 Cup frozen blueberries

4 Cups frozen strawberries

2 Tbs. orange juice concentrate

1 Tbs. sugar

Blend and serve.

This recipe serves my whole family (2 adults + 3 children).

It's delicious!!!

Of course, if you want to be extra healthy, you can eliminate the orange juice concentrate and the sugar and add something like honey instead.

Also, just fyi,  I did notice on the back of the Airbourne packaging that Airbourne is not always recommended for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.   

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Wishing you and yours a healthy + happy holiday season this year!

My New Favorite Cooking From Scratch Recipes

I am an avid "pinner" like probably many of you out there are.  

I love, love, love Pinterest and all of the ideas I get from there.  

Lately I've been trying to learn to cook more things from scratch.  

I've found some great ideas on Pinterest 

So today I thought I'd share with you some of my most favorite "cooking from scratch" 

recipes that I've pinned and made lately.

Recipe #1:  Crockpot Applesauce.

(Picture and Recipe from mommymakesitbetter.blogspot.com)

Holy, moly this stuff is good!!!!  It tasted like apple pie filling.

Bonus:  it makes your whole house smell like fall and it's a great way to quickly use up all those apples that are in season right now.

Recipe #2:  Homemade Tortillas.

(Picture and Recipe from heart-hands-home.blogspot.com)

This tortilla mix is fabulous!  I love it because once the mix is made, it's so easy to use!

Whenever I need tortillas for a recipe or just for a quick quesadilla for lunch, all I have to do is add water to some of the mix and bake them in a frying pan on the stove.  Fresh hot tortillas are the best!  Even if just eaten all by themselves.

Recipe #3:  Homemade Maple Syrup

(Picture and Recipe from barefootinthekitchen.blogspot.com)

We've been trying to eat less cereal in the mornings, so eating homemade pancakes has become a more common breakfast food for us.  We love to add fruit and syrup on top of our pancakes and this syrup smells and tastes delish!  My three kiddos are big fans and are always very good at letting me know when we've run out.   ;)

Recipe #4:  Barley Soup

(Picture and Recipe from shape.com)

This recipe is actually for a mushroom and barley soup, but I don't care for mushrooms so I left those out.  I'd never made anything with barley before making this soup, but I loved it!  I put everything in the crock pot on low for 4-5 hours and it was so easy to make!  The whole family loved it!

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Some other recipes on my list to try are:

Homemade hot chocolate mix

Homemade Baked Chicken & Spinach Taquitos

Homemade Wheat Thins

and...

Homemade Zucchini Bites.

Also, last but not least, these turkey wraps (that are not completely from scratch) are delish too.  I think the laughing cow flavored cream cheese in these is what makes these wraps so wonderful.

I've been putting them in my husband's lunch for work and the first day that I made them for him I got a text that said, "These are really good!  I give them a 10 out of 10!"  

I texted him back one word. 

"Pinterest."

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(If you're interested in finding out how to make any of these yummy foods, just click on the link right under each picture.  For the recipes I included in this post without any pictures, click on the actual name of the recipe and the link will pop up for you.)

Freezing Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Last year we bought this really huge deep freezer off of craigslist for practically nothing.  I had been wanting one for a long time, so this was like a wonderful gift from God.  Seriously. Anyway, since then, I've been trying to fill it up as much as possible with homemade frozen meals, veggies from our garden, or good sale items from the grocery store like cheese or bread or meat.  It's been really fun to see my frozen foods stockpile grow.  

Well another food item I've been wanting to prepare and freeze for awhile is cookie dough.  I can think of so many reasons for freezing it.  Like... a quick and warm after school snack, when I'm in a hurry, dessert after dinner, when I don't have time to make anything else, a yummy midnight snack {wink}, or a nice easy treat to enjoy if friends or family stop by unexpectedly.  So as you can see, lots of reasons to have ready made frozen cookie dough.  It's really easy too.  Now you could just make a batch of your favorite cookie dough, put it in a tupperware tub of some sort and stick it in the freezer.  And although I have used this method before it's a little harder because you have to wait for the whole thing to soften a bit before you scoop any of it out to make cookies... or to snack on it.  {just kidding, who does that???}

Here's an easier more convenient way to store cookie dough:

Make up your favorite dough. {I chose dandees perfect chocolate chip cookie dough recipe, my favorite.}  Scoop the dough out onto a cookie sheet using an ice cream scoop.  When the cookie sheet is full, stick it in the freezer for two hours.  Then take the cookie sheet out and transfer all the ready made cookie dough balls into a large freezer ziplock bag.  That's it.  It's so simple, and yet so convenient now to just pop a dozen or even two balls of cookie dough in the oven at any time.  {...and it's a lot easier to snack on too, one ball at a time, hee hee.}