Whole Food Sloppy Joes

Last night I had a pound of ground venison thawed and hadn't a clue what to do with it.  DH's suggestion of making sloppy joes was a good one.  I haven't had sloppy joes (that weren't vegan) for... well, to many years to count at this point.  I then needed to look up recipes.  Since it's been so long (we're talking like 15-16 years now) all I could remember of ingredients were ketchup and ground meat.  I wanted to try for a whole food recipe, something that I could use some of my homemade tomato sauce (since we have 60 quarts in the basement).  So I started searching.  On Pinterest I found two recipes I could work with.  I liked Lisa's Dinnertime Dish for all the herbs and spices she put in, and  My Humble Kitchen because it is whole food based (and really it was the main recipe I took from).  I decided to combine the two and this is what I came up with:

Whole Food Sloppy Joes

Serves 4 - 6 hungry people

Ingredients: 

    •    1 lb ground meat

    •    1 onion, diced
    •    1 green bell pepper, diced
    •    4 cloves of garlic, minced
    •    6-8 oz tomato paste (or a pint of tomato sauce that's simmered to half it's original volume)
    •    1 cup water (or broth)
    •    1 TBSP chili powder
    •    1 tsp paprika
    •    1 tsp cumin
    •    1 tsp oregano
    •    1-3 tsp apple cider vinegar
    •    3 tbsps honey
    •    Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. In a large cast iron pan heat some oil and then brown the ground meat. (About 5-7 minutes)
2. Add onions, bell pepper & garlic and cook until the veggies are tender.  (Another 5ish minutes)
3. Stir in remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer for 10-15 minutes.
4. Serve over your choice of bread.  (We used this flax bread recipe since we haven't been eating much gluten in the last couple of months.  Note: I never actually add sweetener to the bread recipe as it turns out nicely without it.)

It was nice to have something different.  My daughter thought it was to sweet, but she told me that she believed nothing besides desert should be sweetened.  She's definitely her father's daughter.  And my 4 year old wouldn't eat it because he could see the onions and bell peppers. *sigh* That one would live of of beans and rice if I let him.  All in all though, it was quite the hit.  The whole batch disappeared, no left overs to be seen.  Plates were licked clean and everyone really was happy (even the 4 year old who after being forced to try 4 bites got his bowl of brown rice, *shrugs*).

Hope this helps someone else out there.  Enjoy!

A new year, a new adventure

It's been a few months since I last posted.
Very long and busy months with lots of family (LOTS of family!) and more socializing than my little introverted self finds enjoyable.  But that's just how the holidays are and I do my best to except them and enjoy them for that.

2014's Thanksgiving and Christmas I had people from my family visiting us here in the tundra.  My brother and his wife and my adorable niece were here for Thanksgiving.  It was a very cold week and they got a good taste of what living in a Minnesota winter is like.  I didn't really want them to have to deal with car troubles in -10 weather, but at the same time I thought it was kinda of good.  They have been talking about possible moving out here, which I would love, but I would hate for them to get here and not know what -10 feels like.  It was a great week with lots of talking, the kids played so hard all four of them had a nervous breakdown at one point or another during the week and we were all happy, but exhausted by the end of it.  I am so glad they came and finally got to see where we live.

After their visit we had a few whirlwind weeks of working the Christmas shop.  I myself don't actually work in the shop but DH and our daughter do on the weekends.  It's several rather topsy-turvy weeks where you celebrate Mondays as a day of rest and dread the weekend because that's when you work the hardest.  It's always a little strange.  But this year was a good one for the shop.  Lots of visitors.  At one point we ran out of trees in the greenhouse and another we ran out of all our food and drinks.  Every Saturday was nice and the Sundays weren't so much.  but all in all it was a good year for Christmas.

A week and a half ago my Mom arrived by train from Oregon.  She came to spend Christmas with us.  It was great to have her here.  Spend time talking over a cup of coffee (tea took quite a break with the seasonal chaos), wrapping presents, watching the kids excitement, playing games, cooking and even cleaning.  It was nice to have her around.  We celebrated Christmas at least 3 times.  It was rather exhausting.  The kids got sick the weekend after Christmas with a flu, which fortunately passed quickly but resulted in me being greatly deprived of sleep that whole weekend.  DH had an interview on Monday for a graphic designing job (which he got!) and we are super excited for him.

Mom left yesterday for Costa Rica.  I spent the morning shopping by myself (probably the best Christmas gift ever) and then we spent the remainder of the day playing games, visiting DH's folks, watching movies, and eating yummy foods.  Amazingly my 4 year old stayed up until 11 and the other two made it all the way to midnight.  This was the first year we let them stay up and they had a good time.

2014 was a full year.  Intense in the extreme.  A great learning year and a year which really showed me what is important to me.  Family, friends, keeping myself busy, knowing when to say "no," health, love, fun, and believing in myself.  I say it was "a hell of a year," which it was.  But it gave me perspective, which I am always eternally grateful.  My Dad use to say, "What does not kill us makes us stranger."  I know it's not his saying, (came from Conan or something) but I feel it's been helpful this year.  I have a positive outlook for 2015.  I'm sure it will have it's moments, but I'm ready for it and looking forward to all the adventures that will come our way.

How many Monday's are there in a week?

It's a trick questions.
It feels like we've been in Monday since last Friday...  That sounds weird but it's the feeling I've gotten.  So how does Monday happen more than once a week?

To start with the kids have been sleeping badly.  This actually started back at the beginning of the month (I'm blaming Mercury in retrograde for this one), and we've been trying everything we can to figure out ways of making everyone comfortable.  The boys have their matrices in our room currently, since they were waking so much in the night we figured it would be better to have them close, but not in bed kicking us close.  They still aren't sleeping well, but at least we don't have to run up and down the stairs in the night and my daughter is getting better sleep without all the activity at 2am in her room.
My husband spent all day Saturday in the cities helping family move.  That night we realized that the laying hens we had planned to keep until next year would need to be processed.  They weren't laying enough for us to be able to keep feeding them over the winter.  So processing birds (several of which had become pets of a kind) was on the next weeks agenda.
All day Sunday was spent rearranging the house to fit all our newly acquired furniture (from the moving family).  That night we realized that our very old dog (who has been sick for a while now) had finally stopped eating and drinking she was lethargic, it was her time to go.
Monday we put Midnight down, and it broke all of our hearts.  She was such a sweet old dog.  We'd had her for six years (she was probably around eight when we adopted her) and she is much missed by us all.  We buried her on the hill overlooking the lake, next to her lifelong friend Mama (who died about three years ago).  That day also happened to be apple picking day.  Lordy, I haven't a clue how many we picked, but I know we have a ton.  Anyone out there need some saucing apples?  We made all the sauce we needed for a long time with the Summer apples.  My mother-in-law is working on finding people interested.
Tuesday my cycle decided to start (don't get me wrong, I'm glad for it, but I'd really thought it was going to wait a day longer) and this was the day we had decided to process the chickens.  Not going to let a little pain and suffering stand in my way when everything is already set up and ready to go.  So we said goodbye to the birds, some of which I'd become quite attached to.  It was freezing and sad to see them go.  But they were all processed before lunch and are now in the fridge waiting for me to figure out how to use my new-to-me pressure caner.  After lunch we went to visit some old friends of my husband's family who we were buying the pressure caner from and who are now our suppliers for eggs.  It was great to look around their little farm and get to chat for a while and I'm grateful for the connection with them.  It's always nice to have friends to talk sustainable living with.
Today I'm trying to figure out my caner (it seems the gasket may be worn out), and then have chicken to can.  I also have the bookmobile this afternoon (yeah Harry Potter at last!) and somewhere in there I suppose I'll have to feed my family.  It's not to hard of a day, but we still need to go out and learning new skills and processing always takes some thinking power.  The farm is strangely quiet now and my 6 year old son is out of chores for this week at least while I tried to find something else for him to do as we don't have anymore outdoor chores at the moment.

It's been a long and challenging couple of days.  I'm hoping with the end of October we'll have an end to some of the challenges and drama that seem to have taken over this month.  I'm not holding my breath, but I'll put some positive thoughts that way.