Bone broth cheesy ham and potato soup

I have run into a road block for what to make with my organic pork bone broth. It's nutrient dense and a super immune booster for cold and flu season, but what in the heck do you make with it?! My same old split pea soup (although absolutely delicious) is getting old.

Here is my recipe for bone broth soup even my kiddos loved.

you'll need:
2 cups potatoes
1/2 cup sliced carrots
1/4 cup diced onion
2 cups water

4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
1 cup milk
1 cup bone broth
Salt and pepper to taste
1 (8 ounce) package shredded cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cup cubed precooked ham
1 cup frozen peas

throw your potatoes, carrots, onion, amd water in a pot. Boil for 15 minutes.

While that's cooking, melt your butter in a bigger pot. Once melted, add flour amd whisk until it's mixed and looks thick. Add your broth and milk and whisk until mixed. Add in your cheese. Whisk until it's all melted together. Add your ham and peas.
Dump in your potato, carrot, onion mix WITH OUT draining, right from the other pan, into your big one.
Stir it all until warm and you've got a super awesome soup you're going to love!

YUMMY squash lasagna. It's kid friendly, I promise!

As I post recipes you'll notice that I often say things like "a handful" or "about ____ amount". I find that recipes tend to always bend to your own family a little better when you don't feel like you have to stick to a strict recipe, rather a guideline.

Here is an amazing fall recipe my family, and KIDS, love. We always use organic ingredients for this one. Sometimes I will use a gmo or non-organic squash, as it's all I have available. I see this as better than if I bought a jar of sauce for lasagna. Despite it not being "the best" I can feed my family, It's still a strong second.

What you'll need:
a medium sized summer squash (the orange-ish ones that look a little falic)
half a medium sized onion (give or take. If your family LOVES onion, by all means, use the whole thing. If you don't like them, don't use them)
About 4 cloves garlic (fresh is always best, and we use 5 or 6 in our house, as we LOVE LOVE LOVE garlic around here)
a couple tablespoons olive oil (if you want to get super healthy you can use coconut oil)
one box lasagna noodles (we love organic ones)
a giant bag of cheese (2 packages of 2 cup bags will suffice. I just REALLY like cheese.)

Preheat your oven to 350*

Take your squash and manhandle that thing. It's a beast to cut up, but worth the effort. Skin it first. Then cut in half. Dig out those seeds and cut the flesh into bite sized pieces.

Dice up your onions and garlic and throw those into a pan with your oil and squash. Fry it all up until that squash is mushy. You want it good and smooshy to be sure your sauce tastes right. Trust me, if it's not, it won't be that good.

Put your cooked goodness into a food processor. (a blender will work just fine, if it's all you have.) If it's too thick add some water to it. We have to do a couple rounds and dump them into a big bowl, as my food processor isn't big enough. Just blend until it looks like a sauce. lol. If you like it chunkier, blend less time. We like it good and smooth here, so we frappe that shit.

Pour a layer of sauce into the bottom of your pan. then do noodles, a layer of cheese and another layer of sauce. Continue until you are out of ingredients. SMOTHER IN CHEESE! bake for about half hour, or until noodles are soft.

Almost good for you enchiladas

These are SO good. I gave a batch to a friend who was without power for a couple days. They requested and here it is for everyone else too. It's super easy and hard to mess up. I buy organic as often as possible, as I know it's got less garbage and preservatives in it. Sometimes that isn't always easy, so I'm sure it's still good for you without organic. (hey, at least it's not fast food, right)

What you need:
1 can of chicken (or 2 breasts cooked and shredded)
shredded cheese, 3 cups
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 can tomatoes with green chillis, drained
whole wheat/flax tortillas (you can use flour or corn, but I chose to get some grains in our diet this way)
1 can black olives, drained
2 small cans or one large can emchilada sauce (red or green is AWESOME. green is a little spicier)
1 cake pan, or deep dish for baking


Preheat oven to 350* (that star is supposed to be the degree symbol, but I am totally unaware of how in the hell to do that, so you get a star. deal with it.)

Mix chicken, 2 cups shredded cheese (this will make them super cheese, like we like them around here), half a medium chopped onion, tomatoes, and olives. This is your filling.

Pour about half to 3/4 of a can of sauce into the bottom of your cake pan.

Roll your filling into your tortillas and place close together into your pan until all your ingredients are gone. You may have enough for an extra small pan. Save this. It makes for GREAT leftovers.

Once you have a full pan, pour sauce over it until totally covered. I mean, swimming in the sauce. They will absorb the sauce, so don't skimp here. They need that juicy goodness.

Cover with cheese. Don't skimp here either, that cheese is total goodness.

bake at 350* for about half hour, or until it's all hot, melty and smells like Mexican heaven.

You're welcome!

No bake Lactation granola bars

These are so good, and requested frequently. Here is the info you've all been looking for in one simple link.

What you'll need:
1 cut peanut butter (sunbutter or almond butter may be substituted for allergy or preference)
1/3 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup raw honey (raw has more health benefits than traditional and less complex sugars

2 cups rolled oats
4-6 tbsp. brewers yeast (use a low bitters or bitters removed for a less bitter flavor, but I've never noticed a huge difference)
1/2 cup ground flax

These ingredient amounts can be altered to your liking
Nuts and seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, chia, hemp, almonds, pecans, peanuts, etc)
Dried fruit (raisins, cherries, apples, etc)


melt together peanut butter, coconut oil, and honey until smooth.
remove from heat.
mix in other ingredients.
 pour into a deep pan.
 freeze for an hour.
 remove.
cut into bite size pieces
store in fridge to avoid melting

eat as often as you like, unless you start seeing over production. Then slow down! They are addicting. ENJOY!

anxiety spreads like the plague

I teach the kids I work with all about anxiety and how it affects others as well as ourselves. It makes us sick physically and mentally and is often hard to recognize right away. In the "heat of the moment" so to speak.

I find myself struggling with practicing what I preach the last couple days. I have spent 2 months with sleepless nights, over active and over tired baby with reflux, teething and learning to walk, crawl, pull herself up, talking etc. etc. This sounds like a horrific 2 months and perhaps that I am going to enjoy going back to work to get a break. Desite all the noise, crying and night waking. I have enjoyed being a stay at home mom. I know where my kid is all the time and what she's doing. I see when she does something new because I am there all the time. I think it has become a double edged sword I wasn't expecting. I have today and tomorrow left with my little peanut and then it's back to work for me.

I find my anxiety level amping up this week. Sadi obviously feels it and I see my husband reflect it so often. (He's very good at mirroring my anxiety and frustration without even being aware of it.) I find myself in a position where I need to calm down for the rest of the family to calm down, but in the midst of it all there are days where I want to throw myself on the floor and start throwing a tantrum about how I don't want to be the strong one anymore. I don't want to keep things together anymore. I don't want to be responsible for my own actions anymore.These are the days I wish my husband could read my mind and just come in and rub my back or take the kid for just a few minutes for me to catch my breath.

Me wishing that of my husband only justifies what I tell the kids at work every day. We can't control what others do and feel. Only what WE do. It's the only thing we can control 100% of the time. I forget this and expect a miracle of my husband or an always perfect baby. I assume they are going to bend when I am having a hard day. In some aspects they do and I love them for it, but to expect it is a childish way of seeing the world and as I write this I realize that I have to continue to relearn all my lessons. That adjusting what I do will cause them to adjust how they are reacting to me.

To quote Anthony Robbins: "If you do what you've always done, you will get what you've always gotten"

If you continue to yell at your dog for peeing on the floor and it never seems to learn... you'll continue to get pee on your floor when you yell at your dog. I believe the same thing goes for being a parent. If you always do what you've always done and you aren't getting the response you want. Try something new. If you're anxious and you always react with frustration to your spouse and your kid(s) you'll always get resentment and hurt feelings in return. It won't change if you continue to react the same way. Try something new today. Relax, grab your loved ones and kiss them or hug them. Change it up. You'll like the positive responses you get when you put positivity out there for others.

I believe the same goes for getting babies to sleep. If we respond with negativity, neglect and frustration we will always get a negative response. Perhaps the baby will stop resonding for a while, but in the long run we will eventually see negative reactions to those negative choices we made. If we chose to resond quickly and with love and understanding to our children they will, in turn, grow up as quick, loving and understanding children and adults. It is only logical. So, love your baby extra every day. They don't see the world as we do and we need to put our own issues aside to help them grow in their own way.

That's all for today. I'm going to try to take a nap and sleep off some of this nasty anxiety. <3 Take care of those babies.

Returning to work

There is a huge debate between two groups of moms I see regularly. The stay at home moms (SAHM) and the work out of home (I'm not sure if there's a short term for this one). They seem to go back and forth about which is better for the kids and socialization and so on and so on. I guess it depends on which side of the coin you happen to land. The stay at home moms say they love it and it's the best for the child. The moms that work either say they wish they could stay home, but can't afford it. Others state that their kids are watching them be productive parts of society. It becomes a heated battle on many sites around the interwebs.

I guess for me it's a bit different. I get to be a stay at home mom in the summers and work during the school year. This will be great once Sader-tot is at school, but a whole different ball game when she has to spend her days with someone other than me. We picked a great family to spend their time with Sadi, but, as everyone knows, mommy is best. I initially assumed my summer would be monotonous and dull. The days dragging on like I have a kid chained to my ankle and I can't escape, eager to return to work.
As the summer comes to a close I realize that I was totally wrong. I have less than a week left to return to work and I dread every second of it. I have enjoyed my time with Sadi so much and to drop that time to a few waking hours a day, I think I might find myself hovering over her bed at night just to catch a few more peeks at my sweet girl.

My job is rewarding at times and absolute chaos at others. Working with kids gives me such a wide perspective on how kids are so resilient and withstand so much. I see how kids make it through more than most adults have seen in their lifetime. This also has left me jaded. A little more scared and holding Sadi a little tighter as I leave her with others. I've seen some of the things that could happen. Some of the things that do happen. Most of which are preventable, but as mothers our minds go strait to "what if that was my kid", right!? Seeing the outcome makes it so much more real. Like I can't say, "I don't know anyone that's happened to" or "That doesn't happen that often."

I know that things will go great and once I get into the swing of things I will enjoy the things about my job I once did. Teaching kids to be polite members of society (as much as humanly possible for the population I work with) can be fun and rewarding and keeping my eyes on that aspect as well as the skills I am learning about parenting as well as teaching my own child.

I hope my empathy and kindness for others rubs off on my daughter and she has the same work ethic her father and I have, b ecause despite not working for the last 2 months, I have worked my ass off at home! Taking care of a baby and a husband is tough work.

Perhaps we can have another one soon and I won't have to work anymore....

No sleep till.....

We have been a house full of zombies. You know when people tell you that raising kids is always in steps. Once you get the first one memorized the next step goes and F's it all up for you. We have been working on a step for about 2 months now and I'm still trying to figure out what the hell is going on!

A week before I was done with work (end of May) Sadi stopped sleeping through the night. We have multiple options to choose from as to why this would happen. She was given antibiotics for an ear infection (let her try to fight it for 10 days before giving it), her teeth started tearing through her gums, the doc told us we could give her yogurt so we started giving cheeses and yogurt as well as more solid foods.

All of these things could contribute. So, we took out the antibiotics. They were finished 2 months ago. No issues there. We continued to think it was her teeth and it would slow down. No such luck. I hear that kids go through these phases, but this kid looks like she is rithing in pain when I go in to get her in the middle of the night. She also does it when sleeping with me, so we know it's not from missing her mama.

I have a week and half left to go before I have to go back to work. Hopefully there is some miraculous cure to our sleep woes and things will get better. I hope. You should hope too, because I am not a very "with it" or nice creature when I'm tired.

I was one of those girls who could sleep (and still can) for 15 hours strait. I'd get up to pee or have a little snack, but right back to bed. I LOVE sleep. That should show how much I love my little Sader-tot. I gave up one of my favorite things in the world for her, to have her, to show a little person how amazing this world can be.

Now...if I can just show her how amazing a whole nights sleep can be. ugh!