Roasted Bell Pepper soup

All you need:

4-5 Peppers

Garlic

1-2 Carrots

Olive oil (or other)

2 cups soup stock (or more to taste, 

depending how many you need to feed, add more!)

Chicken if desired

Wash the peppers, and slice out seeds and white parts. Pull the garlic bulb apart or just slice the top off 

to just remove the tips. Lightly cover with oil of your choice, and pepper.

Bake at 400 until they are soft, if they look a little burnt on the skins, they are perfect

Remove from oven and let cool completely. 

Start to warm up your soup stock, with carrot diced into it, and bring to a boil.

Cook until carrots are soft enough that you can blend them. 

Once peppers are cooled, remove skins, and squish out some of the garlic

into the soup stock, let simmer together for a few minutes. 

Add any extra herbs you would like in, cayenne, pepper, salt, parsley, rosemary etc and simmer 

for a few more minutes.

Use hand blender (or regular blender) and blend until creamy.
Add diced chicken.

You can roast onions and also blend it in the soup for more flavor, we had a lot 

of onion in the soup stock though so that wasn't needed. 

It's filling and good for you! 

Bell Peppers are full of vitamin C as well as Parsley! 

You can make a yummy bread or biscuit to go with this soup too. 

Wonderful on a Winter's day! 

Garbage Soup Stock

Instead of throwing all of the vegetable ends into the garden or compost, I've started to make "garbage veggie soup stock" with them instead. I have a bag in the freezer that we use to fill when we have ends from veggies that all go into a pot when we are running low on stock. It's a lot cheaper! 

Carrot, broccoli, onions tips, green onion ends, garlic pieces, asparagus ends

pepper pieces, etc etc, all of them! Make sure they are clean so you aren't getting

soil in your soup. 

You can add your chicken bones, or beef bones to make either of those stocks. 

With a large pot, add the ends, bones and spices you like. 

Fill with water, bring to boil and then turn onto a low simmer.

I usually make this after a roasted chicken dinner, and then leave on

super low over night, then strain it all in the morning. 

Once cooled a bit pour your stock into containers that can be frozen, we use mason jars now, 

leaving an inch or two from the top, putting the lid on lightly. 

Store in freezer and use as needed. 

Put in fridge night before you need it to thaw out, or rinse jar under water

so it thaws until you can pour it out. 

We've used it in rice, soups, sauces! 

Add some kick by adding a bit of cayenne. 

Fridge pickles

I haven't canned for a while, but am going to re learn again this summer. Until then, I'll keep making fridge pickles! They are easy, and last about a week around here, between the kids and the hubs.. oh, and myself. Pickle addicts!

All you need is:

Cucumbers
Dill
Pickling spice if you like it
Vinegar
Water
Garlic (if desired)
Jalepenos (if desired)

I slice pickles, fill the jar (added jalepenos to this jar) dill, fill half the jar with vinegar, top off with water! That's it! In 2 days they will be ready to start eating. It's a lot cheaper than having to purchase jars at the store all the time. When the cucumbers get low, just add more. That simple!

You can use white vinegar, balsamic, apple cider, wine, rice or malt. There are so many kinds that you could try! I did a mixture of white, balsamic and malt in this jar. It's not so bitter to us. The jalepenos give it a little kick too, if you like spicy stuff.

Fridge pickles will last about 3 weeks. I have done fridge jalepenos in their own jar before, and they were fine after a couple of months!

Have you made these before? What did you use for ingredients?

Homemade Easy Hash Browns

Save money! Make your own hash browns. They are super easy, and WAY better for you than store bought pre-packaged potatoes. They take a little bit of time, but well worth it. You don't have to worry about any oils that you wouldn't normally eat, or anything else that may be added. 

All you need:

Potatoes (Organic if possible)

an oven

a grater

Depending how many you can store in your freezer, or how often you eat potatoes will determine how any you will need. If you eat them often like we do, then making a lot more at a time may be better for your family. We purchased a large bag of potatoes as there were no small ones, so instead of letting them grow eyes I baked about 3/4 of a 10lb bag at 350 for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Make sure to stab them a couple of times, or cut off any yucky parts so they don't explode in your oven! 

Let the potatoes cool once they are easily stabbed by a fork. At this point you can either peel them, or leave those on. I grated with them on, so there are some peels left, the extra that didn't peel well went into a pile and we will use that for either soup or bake them later until they are super crispy. 

Then you can start to grate, 

and grate, 

and grate,

 and grate!

Watch your fingers. The grate is sharp (haha by experience ;)

We tried some for lunch, pan fried in organic butter, just enough to brown, then flip. If you flip too much they could become mushy. 

Add any spices you like! 

Add green onions, onion, peppers, broccoli, ham, pepperoni, or anything else you fancy! 

The extra have gone into the freezer on layers of parchment paper and will be put into containers for later use. To cook from frozen will be the same, they will just take a little bit more time. Or you can bake in your oven until golden brown with a light coating of olive oil

YUM! 

Peanut Butter Granola Bars

2 eggs
1 cup organic peanut butter (Can make your own, add peanuts to food processor and blend until it is the consistency you like, chunky or creamy!)
4 tablespoons local honey
2 tablespoons organic Agave (or other sweetener)
4 cups granola - (2 cups organic oats, 3/4 cup raw almond chopped, or other nuts of choice, 1/4 cup organic  flax, 3/4 cup dried organic cranberries or raisins, 1/4 cup sunflower seeds, this is our usual recipe for granola, you can add whatever you like, add sesame seeds, walnuts, wheat germ, bran, the possibilities are endless! I do not add sweetener to the granola for this recipe as there is some in the mix, the kids don't need too much either :)

Heat peanut butter, honey, Agave, and eggs on medium heat until bubbling, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add granola. Stir until coated and line in a lightly greased pan and press to firm bars. Depending on what thickness you want the bars will depend on your pan you want to use. I use a 6x10 (I think!) size pan. Store bars in fridge or in freezer for lunch later on.

The kids love these bars!

Chocolate Whipped Shortbread

1 Cup all purpose flour
1/2 Cup Confectioners sugar (I used organic cane sugar ground in a blender to get it fine)
1/3 Cup Unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 Cup unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350 F
Mix Flour and cocoa together, set aside
In stand mixer, whip butter and sugar about 1 minute, then start adding the dry mixture, scraping off the sides of the bowl.
Whip and whip and whip and whip, for about 10 minutes until it looks creamy, light and fluffy.
Once it's whipped spoon about 1 tablespoon of cookie dough onto a cookie sheet, using a butter knife to get it off the spoon (It's pretty sticky!) spaced about 2 inches apart.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on your oven temperature.
Let sit for a minute and move to cool on a wire rack.

Makes 12 cookies, for more double recipe.

Good luck trying to only eat one!

Organic Ketchup HFCS free

Tomato Ketchup

makes 4.5 pints. Use organic ingredients to avoid GMOs and pesticides

Ingredients:

Step 1

·         7.5 lbs. ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped (Heirloom are very good in this recipe!)

·         2 1/2 cup onion, diced

·         5 large garlic cloves, crushed

·         5 t black peppercorns

·         5 t mustard seeds

·         5 allspice berries

·         5 whole cloves

·         5 t celery seeds

·         two 1/2″ cinnamon sticks

·         1 tbsp. paprika

·         1 t cayenne pepper

·         3 fresh Bay leaves

Step 2

·         1 cup of Organic cane sugar

·         1 cup of apple cider vinegar

·         juice of two large lemons

·         1 tbsp sea salt

Simmer all ingredients in Step 1 in a large stock pot for about 90 minutes, until 1/3 of the juice has been evaporated, stirring often. Take off heat to cool. Once cooled enough remove bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, and peppercorns, allspice and cloves. For easy removal make a small bag with cheesecloth tied up with the spices, and peppercorns inside. Once removed, put mixture into a blender or food processor and blend on high for 1 minute. Strain the blended mixture through a sieve into a sauce pan, getting as much liquid out as possible out of the pulp.

Turn the saucepan onto medium heat, and add the Step 2 ingredients, simmering for at least half an hour, depending on what consistency of ketchup you like. Once cooked, you can store in sterilized jars in the fridge for 3 weeks, or process in a canning bath for 10 minutes for long time storage.

For spicier ketchup, leave peppercorns, cloves and allspice in and blend with mixture. For extra spicy ketchup add extra peppercorns, or spicy chipotle, jalapeño peppers to the cooking process.