Category:

Fall Soup Printable and Thrive-alized Tastefully Simple Beer Bread

10/17/2013

Today I am home with two "just sick enough to stay home" kids. For lunch, I wanted to give them a yummy soup and I wanted CARBS.

This reminds me... I haven't told you yet that we STOPPED GROCERY SHOPPING about 5 weeks ago. Sure, we've bought a small handful of things (one box of triscuits, one gallon of whole milk, some chocolates, a pork loin), but truly, we are living out of our freezer and pantry and LIVING LIKE KINGS.

Today for lunch, I toyed with the idea of mixing up a quick soup, but well... the Thrive Express line appealed to my delicate sense of {lazy}. Head here for some deliciously awesome soups made with Thrive ingredients (fully ripened, GMO free, cheaper than your grocery store, no preservatives, delivered to your door...need I say more?).

Here's a fun cooking video featuring October's Soup Recipes with Chef Todd:

Wondering how you can substitute Thrive ingredients into your favorite recipes?

Here's an awesome printable reference guide! (click on it to view just the PDF version for easy printing)_

Still waiting for that Beer Bread Recipe? Wait no longer!

THRIVE-ALIZED Easy Beer Bread & Muffins Recipe
Ingredients:
12 ounces beer (not light) or ginger ale
3 cups Thrive white flour
4.5 tsp Thrive baking powder
1.5 tsp Thrive salt
1/3 cup Thrive s ugar
3 Tbs butter, melted

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350* degree. Spray a 9x5" loaf pan OR muffin tins with baker's cooking spray. Combine first 5 ingredients, mix thoroughly. Dough will be sticky. Pour into prepared pan, brush with melted butter.

Loaf pan: Bake 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes.

Muffins: Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes

ENJOY :)

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Back to School Special :: Quick & Healthy Meal Plan

8/26/2013

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It's that time of year... dun dun DUN! This time of year brings so many feelings: excitement for new things, sadness for losing free time, wonder over the enormous changes my kids will grow into, and STRESS over HOW WILL I MANAGE TO CLEAN THE HOUSE, DO LAUNDRY, FEED MY FAMILY AND WORK!

Do you hear me on that? Can I get a "HECK YEAH?"

Fortunately, I have some secret weapons... and (spoiler alert), it's all freeze dried!

Quick and easy breakfast:
Scrambled egg mix with freeze dried sausage crumbles, freeze dried spinach.

Midmorning snack:
Strawberry yogurt bites

Lunch:
Chicken Salad on crackers & dried fruit (I'm craving fuji apples and peach slices)

TO MAKE (this makes A LOT... I often halve or quarter it):
2.5 cup freeze dried chopped chicken
1/2 cup freeze dried chopped onion
3/4 cup freeze dried celery
2 cup water

Add water to chicken, onion & celery. Stir well and chill for 10 minutes. Mix 3/4 c mayo, 1 Tbsp dijon mustard, 3/4 tsp salt & 1/4 tsp pepper until well mixed. Combine with chicken mixture, do not drain. Chill in fridge for 1.5 hours till thickened.

Afternoon Snack:
GORP (trail mix) with added freeze dried blueberries & mangoes with Thrive Classic Lemonade

Dinner:
Southwest Chicken and Rice burritos & Thrive Fudge Brownies

TO MAKE: Make the Thrive Express Southwest Style Chicken and Rice (simply add water and simmer for 15 minutes). Scoop into tortillas and top with shredded cheddar cheese and salsa.

Now put up your feet and RELAX (perhaps with an extra brownie and glass of pinot noir)!

Bon Appetit,

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World's best cornbread

4/5/2013

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Cornbread tastes like DOG. That's right, I said it. I meant it. My entire life, I've been disappointed by corn bread. It's dry and well, tastes like dog.

However, as a THRIVE Life Independent Consultant, I kept reading rave reviews of the THRIVE cornbread. So, I gave it a shot... and made it every week since!

LGM's World's Best Cornbread

Ingredients:
2 Tbs THRIVE powder milk, not reconstituted
1 cup of water
1 Tbs vinegar
1/2 cup THRIVE butter powder
2 Tbs THRIVE egg powder
1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons water
2/3 cup THRIVE white sugar
1/2 teaspoon THRIVE baking soda
1 cup THRIVE cornmeal
1 cup THRIVE white flour
1/2 teaspoon THRIVE salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 F (preheat extra early to make sure oven is to temp. I ruined a few batches before I learned to double check the oven temperature). Grease an 8x8 in square pan, muffin cups, mini muffin cups or our family favorite, corn on the cob cast iron molds (affiliate link & photo below).
In a small bowl, whisk 2 T of powder milk into 1 cup of water. Add vinegar, mix and let rest for 5 minutes.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk the butter powder & egg powder into 1/4 c plus 2 t of water.
Add milk mixture to egg/butter mixture. Mix together. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until only a few lumps remain.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes (18 for mini muffins) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Best served warm with a reconstituted THRIVE butter powder!

Dump about 1/2 cup of THRIVE butter powder into a bowl, add teaspoons of water and stir until it is a nice consistency.
The butter powder does not contain salt, so if you prefer, add a dash of salt.
OR, add some cinnamon & honey or herbs... because of the creamy consistency, you can easily stir in your favorite additives.

A note on your cornmeal:

I am frugal. I am skeptical. So, when it comes to cooking basics (flour, salt, baking powder), I haven't used my THRIVE Life foods, I've simply used what I already have on hand.

Until last week, that is. When curiosity compelled me to open up my THRIVE cornmeal.

Check-out the difference between my big box store cornmeal and the THRIVE cornmeal:

Hmm, the late night (poor lighting) picture hardly does it justice. Suffice it to say, I immediately threw away (actually fed to our chickens) my regular cornmeal and switched to THRIVE cornmeal. The color & texture difference was INCREDIBLE!

I feel that I need to send a personal apology to every taste tester who tried my cornbread prior to this discovery. I will never ever use non-THRIVE cornmeal again!

What's your favorite butter additive?
Bon Appetit,

buy cornmeal

Here's a peek at my assistant baker.

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Goodnight Moon Birthday Party

4/1/2013

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This was my all-time favorite birthday party theme! Goodnight Moon is Heidi's favorite book and inspired this book themed birthday party.

It was SO EASY to take all the elements of the book and throw an awesome 2nd birthday party for my Heidi-loo-who. She absolutely LOVED it, and so did I!

Head over to my family blog for more pics of the birthday girl and guests.
Read on for the full details in the decor, food & activities :)

Argh! At the last minute I forgot to add the clothes drying rack and mittens. imagine:
"And a pair of mittens".

Present, but not pictured:
And a comb and a brush

Party Details:

TABLE/ BED

I used two striped tablecloths (that I already had) to make my table into the bed.
I laid the blue pillow against the "headboard" window and tucked in Heidi's first gift, the Goodnight Moon bunny, which is stuffed with the blanket that I folded at the end of the bed. (affiliate link to purchase bunny/blanket is -->)
For the curtains, I intended to simply hang yellow and green crepe paper, but due to Easter weekend, ALL of the yellow crepe paper was sold out in FOUR stores. So I gave up and went with Plan B, which I think was better anyway! I split a yellow plastic table cloth in half, taped it to the top window frame and taped strips of green crepe paper to the table cloth. I tied it back with a little crepe paper and my husband declared "I like those, let's leave them up for awhile". Classy, no. Bright & cheery, you betcha!
The red balloon was a bit of a mistake. My local store was out of plain red balloons and filled the foil stars without asking me. Thank goodness the star shaped went with the theme and I was able to roll with it :)
For the stars, I used various star die-cuts. Check out a scrapbook store or simply cut your own. My dear Father-in-Law stuck them all on the window and hung them from the ceiling for me. That'll teach him to show up early ;)
The "Quiet old lady" was simply a stuffed bunny on a kids rocking chair, holding some knitting that I never got around to finishing.
My FAVORITE PAGE in the book is the "Goodnight nobody", so I simply took the picture out of one of my frames and moved it closer to the tablescape.
My talented husband used a large green foam board that we had on hand and using a grid technique, copied an enlargement of the cow jumping over the moon illustration. He did a great (and speedy) job! My one regret, is not taking the time to make a fanciful yellow border for the picture out of yellow cardstock.

FOOD & DISPLAY

"Three little bears sitting on chairs" were teddy grahams! I also had out some Annie's cheddar bunnies trail mix for some pre-party snacking.
In honor of the bunny, I served chicken salad in croissant roll carrots (tutorial is in the works. Please sign-up for emails to be notified.)
I also made personal pan pizzas and used pepperoni and red peppers to make clock faces. Though not photogenic, they were tasty!
The bowl full of mush was a Lemon Trifle, adapted from a Pampered Chef recipe. Email me for the recipe. I topped it with blue crystals and a lemon slice for a moon. Next time I would use food coloring in the top layer of cool whip to make it a darker sky. However it was DELICIOUS and since the filling is lemon pudding/ THRIVE sour cream/ cool whip, I didn't need to bother with ice cream.
I used two knitting needles and scraps of paper from the books used for the large banners to make a tiny pendant birthday banner.
I made the childrens' book banners out of damaged books. I LOVE them and plan on rehanging them in our play room. Tutorial for that is also in the works :)

Activities:

I try to follow the rule, only invite as many friends as their age. So, since Heidi turned 2, she had her sister and our friend Sloane over. It was perfect! We also had 2 sets of grandparents, a great grandma, an Uncle, an Uncle's girlfriend/mom of Sloane, and our dear pseudo-family member/ Sunday School teacher. It was crowded, but not crazy and the festivities were over in about an hour... which is really all the Birthday girl (and her mama) can handle.
I brought up our art table/ picnic table and I set-out some open invitation activites for the kids, which was a nice grounding space for them (and you know, distracted them for about 10 seconds). It included:
Goodnight Moon coloring pages & crayons
Punching Balloons and matching candy bracelets
"Sand" sifter. I cut out pictures from the book (found here) and taped them to the bottom of trays and covered them with cornmeal. The girls had fun uncovering the shapes... and making a mess!

That's a wrap! What is your all-time favorite party theme?

Please share any Goodnight Moon pics in the links or email them to me :)

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Pioneer Woman's Cauliflower Soup, THRIVE style

2/2/2013

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P Dub (PW) is my go to gal for recipes. When I have a hankering for a certain food, I check her site first. WITHOUT FAIL, that recipe will result in the most delicious ___ we've ever eaten. I've never watched her on Food Network, but whether you watch her on TV, read or blog, or use her cookbook, I'm certain you will be equally satisfied!

So, when I accidentally ordered TWO pantry cans of cauliflower, I turned right to PW. She didn't let me down! I adapted most of the ingredients to use THRIVE, and it was yet another quick & easy dinner. Feel free to compare & contrast with Pioneer Woman's Cauliflower Soup recipe. Mine was DELICIOUS (my husband really loved it), even though I made some {lazy} changes :)

For this recipe, I'm providing two verisions of the ingredients. So you see how easy it is to MIX AND MATCH fresh with THRIVE! You don't need to own every THRIVE product to start cooking with it! For my soup, I used fresh onion (boo... my pre-chopped THRIVE onions are on back order... I had to chop myself!), and 1/2 fresh cauliflower, 1/2 THRIVE. I used THRIVE carrots & celery, real butter, etc. I totally mixed and matched :) As I type this, Heidi and I are at the table eating it for the 3rd time... she's using a big girl spoon and attempting to get every last morsel!

Buy Cauliflower

LGM's THRIVING PW Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients
1 stick of butter, divided or 1/2 cup THRIVE butter powder + 1/4 cup or less water
1/2 onion finely diced or 1/2 cup THRIVE freeze dried onions
1 whole carrot finely diced or 1/2 cup THRIVE carrot dices
1 stalk celery finely diced or 1/2 cup THRIVE freeze dried celery
1-2 whole heads of cauliflower, roughly chopped or 3-5 cups THRIVE fd cauliflower
2 Tbs fresh or dried parsley
2 qts low sodium chicken broth or stock or 8 tsp THRIVE Chicken Bouillon + 8 cups water
6 Tbs all purpose flour or THRIVE white flour
2 cups whole milk or 6 Tbs THRIVE powdered milk + 2 cups water
1 cup half-and-half or 6 Tbs THRIVE powdered milk + 1 cup water
2-4 tsp salt or 2-4 tsp THRIVE iodized salt
1 heaping cup of sour cream @ room temperature or 1 cup THRIVE sour cream powder + (less )1 cup water
freshly ground pepper to taste

Directions

In a large soup pot, melt 4 Tbs of butter. Stir in onions until start to brown. Stir in chicken broth, carrots, celery, cauliflower & parsley. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer.

In a medium sauce pan, melt remaining 4 Tbs of butter. Whisk the flour and milk together in a bowl. Slowly add this mixture to the butter, whisking constantly.

Remove from heat and stir in half-and-half. Add mixture to simmering soup. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, taste and add salt & pepper as needed.

Prepare sour cream. Serve soup in bowls and top with a generous dollop of sour cream.

BON APPETIT!

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Deceptively Delicious THRIVE Macaroni & Cheese

12/27/2012

2 Comments

I received the THRIVE CHEESE BLEND last week and was excited to dig in to some homemade mac & cheese! I experiment with a few different recipes this summer and found that it is the perfect lunch food for my girls! I fill small small containers, pop them in the freezer and pack them in their lunch boxes. A nice change from their normal pb&j!

My favorite recipe thus far was Jessica Seinfeld's Macaroni and Cheese with pureed beans from the Deceptively Delicious cookbook. It was full of flavor, creamy, and I felt good about feeding my girls a protein-packed lunch!

The Cheese Blend came with its own recipe which I tried but found to be a bit too soupy for my taste. So, I headed to the web and found that Thrive With Hemsath had performed her own macaroni and cheese quest using the THRIVE cheese blend. I LOVE it when someone else does the hard work :)

However, I wasn't willing to give up the nutritional perks of the Deceptively Delicious recipe. So, I threw on my apron and combined the two recipes and created MACARONI & CHEESE NIRVANA! if I do say so myself....

Buy thrive cheese blend at my shelf reliance store

LGM's Deceptively Delicious
Mac & Cheese Recipe
*in case you don't believe me, Hazel, my 3.5 year old, declared it YUMM-O and Heidi, my 1.5 year old shrieked until I gave her seconds (wish I was exaggerating).

Ingredients:
1.5 cups dry elbow noodles
1 cup THRIVE Instant Milk, reconstituted (can use 1 cup of any milk)
1/2 cup canned white beans, rinsed & drained (can use navy beans or chickpeas)
1/2 cup THRIVE CHEESE BLEND
1/2 T oil
1 T butter
1 1/2 T flour
1/2 t salt
1/8 t garlic powder
1/8 t paprika
1/8 t pepper

Directions:
1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the macaroni, and cook according to the package directions until it's al dente (about 9.5 min for me). Drain in a colander.

2. Using a food processor, blender, or immersion blender (my favorite), puree the beans and milk together until smooth. Heat this blend on the stove or microwave until hot, but not boiling. Add the THRIVE Cheese Blend and whisk till smooth. Let sit for 5 minutes.

3. Heat the oil and butter in a saucepan. When the butter melts, add the flour, whisking constantly, cook for about 2 minutes until nicely browned. Slowly add milk/cheese/bean mixture, whisking to combine. Heat over medium until desired thickness (a few minutes!). Remove from heat and add spices.

4. Pour cheese sauce over noodles and stir till combined.

Bon Appetit,

2 Comments

THRIVE Milk :: Does A Body (and pantry and Earth) Good!

11/21/2012

3 Comments

I have a distinct memory of the metallic, chalky taste of powdered milk on my cereal during my first backpacking trip. Each morning, I mastered the art of getting the moistened cereal off the spoon, but leaving the milk in the bowl!

So I was BLOWN AWAY by this INSTANT MILK! Shelf Reliance also sells a THRIVE Powdered Milk... these are 2 very different products!

INSTANT MILK is for drinking. My husband, kids and party guests have all agreed that it tastes just like fresh. It also has the same nutritional value of fresh milk. Not only is it convenient, just imagine how many plastic jugs you will save by no longer buying store bought milk! In fact, you might need to start lifting weights now that you're no longer lugging gallons of milk around!

POWDERED MILK is better for baking and cooking. Any recipe that calls for milk can be replaced with powdered milk! On each can, it tells you the measurements to make the milk... so you add the right amount of powder to your recipe and then add the right amount of water.

The THRIVE INSTANT MILK is one of the BEST Black Friday Deals!

A #10 can of Instant Milk (53 servings) retails for $21.69.

SALE PRICE: $15.19!!! Join me in stocking your pantry with delicious, nutritious milk :)

Buy thrive instant milk

THRIVE INSTANT MILK CONVERSIONS
1.5 T powder + 1/4 c water = 1/4 c milk
2 T powder + 1/3 c water = 1/3 c milk
3 T powder + 1/2 c water = 1/2 c milk
4 T powder + 2/3 c water = 2/3 c milk
4.5 T powder + 3/4 c water = 3/4 c milk
6 T powder + 1 c water = 1 c milk

*milk consistency may be altered to suit individual preference.

Buy thrive powdered milk

THRIVE POWDERED MILK CONVERSIONS
3/4 T powder + 1/4 c water = 1/4 c milk
1 T powder + 1/3 c water = 1/3 c milk
1.5 T powder + 1/2 c water = 1/2 c milk
2 T powder + 2/3 c water = 2/3 c milk
2 1/4 T powder + 3/4 c water = 3/4 c milk
3 T powder + 1 c water = 1 c milk

Click below for recipes which use your THRIVE milks to make everything your pantry needs!

3 Comments

Fall Soup Printable and Thrive-alized Tastefully Simple Beer Bread

Back to School Special :: Quick & Healthy Meal Plan

World's best cornbread

A note on your cornmeal:

Goodnight Moon Birthday Party

Argh! At the last minute I forgot to add the clothes drying rack and mittens. imagine:
"And a pair of mittens".

Present, but not pictured:
And a comb and a brush

Party Details:

That's a wrap! What is your all-time favorite party theme?

Please share any Goodnight Moon pics in the links or email them to me :)

Pioneer Woman's Cauliflower Soup, THRIVE style

Deceptively Delicious THRIVE Macaroni & Cheese

THRIVE Milk :: Does A Body (and pantry and Earth) Good!

Categories

Archives

Fall Soup Printable and Thrive-alized Tastefully Simple Beer Bread

Back to School Special :: Quick & Healthy Meal Plan

World's best cornbread

A note on your cornmeal:

Goodnight Moon Birthday Party

Argh! At the last minute I forgot to add the clothes drying rack and mittens. imagine: "And a pair of mittens". Present, but not pictured: And a comb and a brush

Party Details:

That's a wrap! What is your all-time favorite party theme? Please share any Goodnight Moon pics in the links or email them to me :)

Pioneer Woman's Cauliflower Soup, THRIVE style

Deceptively Delicious THRIVE Macaroni & Cheese

THRIVE Milk :: Does A Body (and pantry and Earth) Good!

Categories

Archives

Argh! At the last minute I forgot to add the clothes drying rack and mittens. imagine:
"And a pair of mittens".

Present, but not pictured:
And a comb and a brush

That's a wrap! What is your all-time favorite party theme?

Please share any Goodnight Moon pics in the links or email them to me :)