Apple Berry Salad

I had the best berries from Costco the other day. The best I've had in a long time. So I thought this salad would be a perfect way to eat them. It's an easy salad, but one of my favorites!

Ingredients:

Romaine lettuce

Broccoli

Raspberries

Blackberries

Carrots (I especially love those organic ones that are all different colors)

Green onion

Feta Cheese

Chicken breast (I used a Costco rotisserie chicken for this)

Apple

Briana's Poppyseed Dressing (amazing!!!)

Chopped Pecans (raw, roasted or candied- all would be tasty!!) - optional

Craisins - optional

While I was prepping the salad, my 3 year old said she wanted one. So I made her a salad and took off to the front porch to take pictures. She was right on my heels and wanted to take pictures of her salad as well. 

I think we may have a budding food blogger on our hands!

As I was helping my new apprentice, the baby found my salad and had a great time throwing lettuce all over himself and the porch. 

 Those curious baby hands! I'm sure I will miss them and their mischief some day.

Command center for kids

We were in desperate need of a command center for our kids. In my ideal world, this would take place in the kitchen, but there isn't a wall that works in that space, so the laundry hallway  was the next place it made the most sense. Each child has their own laundry basket, a frame with their name (with a picture of them to help my kids who can't read yet), family mail board, inspirational quote frame, and clip board that holds allowance and chore charts.

When I was putting this together, I didn't want to spend very much money. This could be a lot fancier if you have a bigger budget. Let's start at the top and work our way down.

Inspirational Quote Frames:

These are just simple frames I bought at the dollar store. I took the backing and glass out, hot glued clothes pins on and spray pained them silver. I think the paint was leftover from the kids' pinewood derby cars. Then I found some quotes I'd pinned, typed them up in different fonts, and printed them off. Easy peasy.

Family Mail System:

I love the idea of us writing kind notes to each other, especially notes of appreciation or "love letters." Sadly, we haven't used it for notes as often as I'd like, but they do all have a few old notes clipped on there. (Hopefully this post will inspire me to use this family note system more often!) We also use this board to hold the Family Awards the kids get each week.
This is also a frame from the dollar store, but I kept the glass and backing. I used the clothes pin and hot glue like the open frame, took it all apart, spray painted it, printed the little mail system lettering onto notebook paper, put the frame back together, and it's all set.

Name Board:

Each child also has their own name board. The pictures are in great need of updating (photo cred goes to Rebekah Lund Photography), but I don't have the heart to update them because I love reminiscing over how they looked when they were little. Once again dollar store frame, spray painted.

Chore chart:

This time instead of a frame, I use clip boards. This holds their chore chart, allowance is often clipped on there, or any notes or daily reminders. (More about the actual charts soon!)

Laundry baskets:

Last are the kids' individual laundry baskets. I like these tall skinny ones from Walmart.

So there you have it!! How do you have  your command centers set up??

Candy Bar Apple Dip

This is great appetizer to bring to a party. I like to bring it over for Thanksgiving or Christmas Day gatherings. This year it’s on our New Year’s Eve menu. I like this dip best on sliced apples. Somehow serving it with a fruit makes it feel a little bit healthy. It’s also delicious with pretzels or graham crackers. But stick with the apples if you’re looking for a gluten free treat.

I first had a dip like this in California at a book club. We were a bunch of moms that would get together once a month, and hopefully at least one or two of us would read the book. Although we all enjoyed reading, the reason to get together was really a chance for us to get away for an evening from our exhausting responsibilities. We made wonderful friendships. Of the ten or so of us that used to attend, I think only one or two still live in that little city where we used to live. I miss all those ladies. They will always have a special place in my heart. So every time I make this dip, I think about my sweet friend who would bring it for us to drown our sorrows in, and celebrate the little details of our lives together. I have since lost her recipe, so this is my version of it:

16 oz Cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup Butter, softened
1/2 cup Brown sugar
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1 cup candy: Chocolate covered Heath bits, Snickers or Receeses peanut butter cups
Mini chocolate chips or mini M&M’s. Oreos would be tasty, too.
(Just make sure you don't add oreos if you're making this gluten free!)

I like to use a food processor, but a mixer would be fine too. Whip together cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add sugar and vanilla until nice and smooth. Add your choice of candy (or an assortment). Mix until combined
.

For best results, stick in the fridge for the flavors to rest and blend for several hours or overnight.

Eat with sliced apples. I like Granny Smith’s the best so the tart balances out the sweet. My family is very happy eating it with fuji, pink lady or honeycrisp apples as well.

Even my kids who are missing half their teeth find a way to eat this apple dip.

I love the flavor of the peanut butter cups, but the heath bits give the perfect crunch. These two combined with the mini chocolate chips is my favorite combination.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Homemade chicken noodle soup is one of my comfort foods when I get sick. I love whipping this up on a cold wintery day. It's super fast and easy.

Ingredients:

1 cup Grilled chicken (or canned chicken in a pinch)
1 cup chopped carrots* and celery
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
1 1/2 cups frozen corn
1 can of great northern beans
1 can of light kidney beans
1 TBSP ground sage
1/2 TBSP dehydrated onions
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 TBSP corn starch
1/4 cup cold water
10 cups chicken broth (you could also use bouillon)
1/2 a bag of whole wheat egg noodles (regular are fine too, I just like to add in the whole wheat noodles where they are the least detected)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Put chopped carrots and celery into a pot along with chicken broth. Boil for about 10-15 minutes until veggies are starting to get soft.

2. Add beans, sage, onions, garlic and chicken. Bring back to a boil.

3. Add noodles, check label for al dente cooking time (usually about 7 minutes). Mix cornstarch with 1/4 cup cold water. Add to pot. Stir a few times to incorporate.

4. Take off heat. Add frozen veggies. This helps cool down the soup. My family likes their soup as cool as possible. I usually add some ice to their bowls when I dish it up. I like my soup steaming hot, so I generally leave the ice out of my bowl.

5. Eat up and enjoy!!

The beans and the whole wheat egg noodles bring just a bit more protein and nutrition to your typical version of chicken noodle soup.

*Also, if you want to make the soup even faster, use a bag of "mixed frozen vegetables" in place of the chopped carrots, corn and peas.

Greek Steak Salad with Olive Garden Dressing

My body is officially on sweets overload and is ready for some real food to fuel it. I had some left over prime rib in the fridge (I roasted my first one ever for Christmas Eve!! It was a bit underdone, but once I get it down, I'll post the recipe). I thought this would be a great way to use it up.
Grilled chicken would be a great substitute for the beef. It's really simple to toss together. Here are the ingredients:

Romaine lettuce
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Garbanzo Beans (Chick peas)
Feta Cheese
Olive Garden Salad Dressing (or any favorite vinegarette)
Pepperoncinis
Leftover Prime Rib
Whole Wheat Pita

I think next time I'd even add some red or green onions and olives.

Caroling, Cocoa and Cookies

Growing up as a singer and a musician, I always had great dreams of my family caroling together at Christmastime. Our voices would blend in perfect harmony as we graced the neighbors with our angelic serenades. But reality is much different. Yes, there is some musical talent in our family, but there are also several members of our family that cannot carry a tune to save their lives, nor have any desire to. So this means in our 18 years of marriage, caroling hasn’t been a part of our Christmas traditions. I’d given up hope that we’d ever be like the Von Trapp family, and embraced our other interests during the season instead. Then the other day I was listening to a podcast, from The Mom Hour about Holiday Entertaining, and decided to steal their idea about Christmas caroling. Instead of relying solely on our family singing together, we invited several other families to join us. It was very casual. I grabbed some cookies I’d made, and threw them on to plates with some Christmas cards for our neighbors along with some for our fellow carolers.  We met our friends in the driveway and paraded house to house down the street. We sang about one song per house, to keep it short. The kids were as hyped up as they are on Halloween, running wildly down the street with excitement. But instead of being on the receiving end, it felt good to have them on the giving end for a change. It was perfect having all the additional voices, you hardly noticed the few that were out of tune because they were drowned out in the large group. Afterwards we headed back to my house for some hot cocoa. The whole activity only lasted about an hour, which was perfect for the kids' attention span. With all the other activities in December, it was great to keep it short and sweet. I’m excited we finally worked in this new family tradition, and found a way to also check off an activity on our service advent calendar to #LightTheWorld with kindness this Christmas season.