Taming Kitchen Chaos

One thing I enjoy is organizing.  Organizing shelves, closets, calendars, cleaning, menus, etc.  I enjoy pulling chaos into "manageable chaos".  Over the years of homeschooling and living a mom life committed to minimizing chaos, I have found different tools and tricks that have helped me.  Over the next few blogs, I wanted to share a few with you. 

We will start with the kitchen!!  Everyone eats.  So why not organize it a little and minimize some of the stress and chaos that can come with that dreaded question, "MOM! What's for dinner?"

Menus.  Menus have been life saving for us.  It really began when I noticed myself getting angry EVERYDAY around 4:30-4:45.  Inevitably the kiddos would come to find me and ask the age-old question "What's for dinner".  I wasn't angry because the asked, I was angry because I didn't know.  We would have a taste for one thing and have other stuff in the pantry.  More times than not it involved getting dear hubby to run by the store on his way home.  Usually, because we wanted tacos and had no shells, or spaghetti and had no noodles.  So I set out to organize our meals and shopping.  Hoping to cut down on the extra trip to the store and the frustration of having to come up with a dinner plan each night.  Or and don't get me started on how often I was trying to thaw meat at 5 o'clock. 

So here are some of the menu ideas that we have used over the years.  One thing you will notice is that all of my menus give space for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.  I looked and looked to find menu templates like this but never could. Because we do life in our house in a way that includes all 3 meals.  Many families do not.  That is why so many meal plans or menu templates do not have a place for 3 meal planning.  SO....I made my own. 

Some of them also have "To-Do" space.  I put that there because what our "To-Do" for the day often changed what type of meal I would plan.  If DD had soccer on Tuesdays I would put that down because that meant I was planning a quicker meal. 

Menu 1- Weeklong
Menu 2- Monthly (I found that I liked planning monthly sometimes.  All you have to do is come up with 10-12 meals and then repeat them.  Don't try to come up with 30 dinners, 30 lunches, 30 breakfast,  that would be crazy)
Menu 3- This is my most recently used one.  I like it because I have found that since my kids are older they like to choose a little more.


I have an autoimmune disease that is highly triggered by stress. (I'll dive into my disease and what has helped in another blog)  But because of my stress trigger, I have found that when I am stressed I quickly try to identify the source and fix it.  Not always possible but when it is, I want to do what I can to make it better.   This has caused our family to slow down drastically in many areas of our life.  So back to the kitchen..... The menus I was using were great.  Except that sometimes I just had brain fog or not enough coffee and just could not come up with meals.  That is where Family Favorites came in.  I would keep an ongoing list of the "Wow, this is great Mom" meals.  I love to try new recipes so this helped to not lose a "new recipe" and make sure I cooked it again.  Another thing that helped me was to keep old menus.  I would make sure they were dated with at least the month and put them in some wort of order in a notebook.  This helped when I really got lazy because I could jsut pull out an old menu and shop according to that. 

Family Favorites

Another thing that has been a huge help is Emeals .  I have enjoyed their service for a few years now.  I appreciate that you can plan according to your way of eating (Paleo, Gluten Free, Vegetarian) You can also drop your meal choices into a shopping cart and shop at some grocery stores.  For us, that means dropping my meals into my Walmart online grocery cart and then choosing a pickup time.  I even have to go into Walmart.  (Talk about reducing my stress)  I wish I could tell you that Emeals pays me to say good things about them, but nope....I really believe it (without being paid;-)

Shopping lists have also changed over the years for us.  I mainly use my Walmart shopping cart on my phone to make my grocery list now.  But before the days of online shopping, I used this shopping list.

Hopefully, this gives you a little help and encouragement.  I recently read from Pricilla Shirer- "We can't always control the kind of ground we are forced to march across."  This is true but we can choose how we approach it, organize it, and respond to it.  She also talked about, "Shalom, the familiar Hebrew word for peace, does not refer to the absence of chaos, but rather to an overall, deeply entrenched sense of harmony, health, and wholeness in the midst of chaos."

No menu, online shopping, or organizing can bring you peace like Jesus.  True shalom can only come from the ultimate peace giver.

LL

Cauliflower Alfredo Sauce

Picking up vegetables this week was fun!  Not only did I get a little more organized for our pick up, but we also got some beautiful food. This orange beauty is called Cheddar Cauliflower. Now I was the silly one that actually asked, "Does it have a cheese flavor?" FYI...It doesn't :-) 

I was very excited to get this piece of our CSA home to cook.

#1 Because it's beautiful

#2 Because I found a recipe a couple of months ago that uses cooked cauliflower and turns it into Alfredo sauce.

Cauliflower Alfredo Sauce 

Ingredients

• 1 cauliflower head
• 1/2 cup hot cooking water
• 1/2 chicken broth
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• salt and pepper, to taste
• garlic salt (optional)

Instructions

1. Clean the cauliflower head from green leaves, and chop it into reasonably large but manageable pieces. Place it in the big sauce pan with water, bring to boil and boil for 30-40 minutes until cauliflower is really soft. Remove from heat and drain cauliflower from water. You should have about 3 and 1/2 cups of cooked and sliced cauliflower pieces. Do reserve some cooking water.
2. Reserve 1/2 cup of cooking water.
3. In a food processor or blender, combine drained cooked cauliflower and 1/2 cup of chicken broth.  Pour cooking water into blender until it is the thickness you like. Add 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and process really well, until a very creamy sauce forms:
4. Transfer sauce into a large sauce pan and keep it warm on the stove top. I add chicken or broccoli at this point. Season with salt and pepper, and garlic salt (optional), to taste.
5. Pour over noodles.

Happy Healthy Eating

Lindsay

Kids Can Cook

This week's "farm goodies" from our local CSA were a little different than last weeks.  I think that is one of my favorite things about doing a CSA is how the foods change from week to week.  I won't lie... some weeks really stretch me with my menu and my tastes.  It is easy when we get lettuce, carrots, berries, peppers, etc. But Bok Choy and Swiss Chard were not something that I grew up eating.  

By the time I got home I was short 2 tomatoes and a pint of strawberries.  My kids love fruit and vegetables!!! They had dug into my bag and started snacking.  I am glad my drive is only 15 mintues, or I might get home with nothing.  When we arrived home my 11 year old daughter was helping me get stuff out of the car and she asked if she could cook dinner. " WHAT?!?!" I thought.  "I don't even know what to do with Bok Choy and Swiss Chard, much less teach you how to do something with it!"  But I took a breath and suggested she hop on Pinterest and see what she could come up with.  After all, that is what I was about to do.  So after about 30 minutes this is what she came up with....

Bok Choy and Swiss Chard stir-fry

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1 ½ tablespoons sesame seeds
14 to 16 ounces extra firm tofu, drained and cut into ½ inch cubes and fried in sesame oil (If desired, chicken can be substituted; or use neither tofu, nor chicken.)
1 bunch Swiss chard, stems sliced into ½ inch pieces – leaves removed
1 bunch bok choy, stems sliced into ½ inch pieces – leaves removed
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 cups sliced mushrooms (optional)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
Leaves of Swiss chard and bok choy – cut into 1-inch pieces
2 cups chopped red peppers
3 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
1 leek, thinly sliced and browned (optional)
½ shallot, thinly sliced and browned (optional)
Brown rice  (optional)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (optional

Directions:

Brown the leek and shallot slices in 1 tablespoon of oil. Put the cooked rice or wheat berries in the skillet to heat – stir periodically.

Prepare all the vegetables. Cut the bok choy and Swiss chard leaves off the stems. Cut the wide end of the bok choy stems in half; slice all the stems in ½ inch slices.

Heat 3 tablespoons oil in a large wok, with ginger and sesame seeds – sauté 30 seconds to infuse flavor. Add tofu and sauté for 2 - 3 minutes. Add the Swiss chard and bok choy stems, onion, mushrooms and garlic. Sauté until the stems are soft. Add the leaves and red peppers, sauté for 2 or 3 minutes; add the soy sauce. Serve over, or with, brown rice.

_________________

The really cool thing about this recipe that she found was that we had all of the ingredients!  She cooked it all by herself and served it proudly.  

My lesson in this was #1 Don't be afraid of foods that you've never cooked before.

#2 Don't be afraid to let kids help. Most of the time they can do far more than we give them credit for.  

We watch these crazy cooking shows as a family and I am always amazed at what they can do and I can't.  I clearly see my limitations.  Be it skill, ingredient availability, tools, etc.  But kids don't see things like that. In fact it is up to us to teach those limitations. Not by saying "no" all the time, but by saying "yes".  

I am not always a "yes" mom.  In fact I say "no" many times, simply because I don't want to clean up the "yes" all over the floor. My 11 year old daughter proved me wrong this week.  She showed my that she was far more capable than I thought, if only I'd just get out of the way.  

Happy, Healthy, Eating

Lindsay

Farm Foods

I think this must be one of my favorite days of the year...

The first day of CSA!

What is CSA you ask?  It is Community Supported Agriculture.  Basically we support a local farm and they bring us yummy foods.

So many yummies!!

I get the cool opportunity to write blogs for the farm that we support.  I love it because it gives me an outlet for all of my excitement over what it going on in our kitchen.  Last year we bagan making drastic changes in how we were eating.  I went totally grain free and sugar free and the house follows that loosely. 

It has made an incredible difference in my health.  I have lost a few pounds, but more than anything, I feel great.  All of my ache and pains that come occasionally with my Crohn's disease have almost totally vanished.  

The CSA has given us a great way to persue this healthy lifestyle!  So my blog will lean that direction now.  I figured if I was blogging for them then I might as well do it for my own blog.

How 'bout a Salad?

Gone are the days of iceburg lettuce and ranch dressing.  Try something new!  We received some beautiful Kale and spinach today and together they would make a great salad. 

Top those leafy greens with some strawberries, almonds, blackberries,  and a protein like chicken or fish.  

You salad can really go south if you aren't careful with your dressing. So why not make your own...

In a small bowl, whisk together apple cider vinegar, mustard, honey, salt and pepper until combined. Slowly stream in olive oil while whisking until emulsified. Easy!!

*To slice kale, first fold each leaf in half, then cut away and toss the stems. You can slice the stems into slivers and use them, too. Next, working in batches of several leaves, roll up the leaves like a cigar to consolidate them for easy chopping. 

Did you Know....

A grilled market salad at Chick-Fil-A without dressing has only 200 calories. But when you add the Avocado-lime-ranch dressing it adds 310 calories. That's 510 calories.  A chicken sandwich has 410 calories. 

A Chili's Quasadilla Explosion Salad has 850 calories withOUT dressing and 1439 calories with. 

Happy Healthy Eating

Lindsay

Pray about Giving

Dear Friends and Family,

As some of you may know Peyton and I have the opportunity to travel to Mexico this summer for a mission trip..  She and I will serve on a team of eleven people.  This trip is unique because it is specifically designed with families in mind. We will serve in a women’s shelter, 2 different orphanages and hand out food.  Most of the places we will serve is based out of a one area of focus “The Dump”  now affectionately referred to as La Colonia. This site used to serve the area as a city dump. Though it is now closed many people have made la Colonia their home.  Much of the mission trip will be spent serving the people of this area. 

It is a huge honor to be able to travel with our youngest daughter Peyton.  As a parent one of our greatest prayers is to not just hear our children profess to be Christians but to see them live it out.  Last summer Steven, Baily, and Shelby all set out on mission trips of their own.  While Peyton, Barron, and I sat at home a prayed from a distance.  It is so amazing to watch God use these events to begin cultivating desires in our youngest two. 

So yes you guess it…. this is a support letter. We pray that as you receive this letter that you will begin to pray about what God would have you to do. Peyton and I have to raise $1000 together.  This will cover travel, meals, accommodations, and any leftover goes to support any projects that we will do while we are in Mexico.  We pray that you will be faithful in your prayers for us and you will be obedient to His ask. We trust that God will call out the right people for prayer and financial support.  It is our heart that through your prayers and financial gifts; that you to will be blessed.  We know that God doesn’t ask us to all do and give the same and that is why we are so incredibly thankful for the wide spectrum of people that He has placed in our lives. 

There are 3 ways to give.

~A check to Fellowship Church (Lindsay and Peyton Latham in the Memo)

This check will be tax deductible.

~A check to Lindsay Latham

(This will go towards the cost of the trip but any overage will go for specific travel needs of Peyton and me.  Like Passport, travel food, etc. This one is not tax deductible)

~ Through a site called Go Fund me (You can pay by credit card on the site. But it is not tax deductible)

    http://www.gofundme.com/i4sqt8

All Checks are mailed to me and I turn them in.

Our address is:

3812 Boyd Walters Lane

Knoxville, Tn 37931

                                                                                                                     In His Grace,

                                                                                                                    Lindsay Latham

Hi, this is Peyton and I am going to Mexico and this is the map of where we’re going.

 

The 2 places that we will be going to are Tijuana and the other is Rosarito. I am really excited because this is my first mission trip. I feel like God is pulling me closer and closer to Him to be able to spread the Gospel.

Knock, Knock.

Who’s there?

Needle.

Needle who?

Needle little money for Mexico!!!

                                                                                                Love You All,

Peyton