wordless wednesday

 

a visit from michael's parents

Michael's parents drove his sister's moving truck to Florida.  So right after his sister and family left our house, Michael's parents rolled into town and stayed with us for a couple of days as well.

Thanks for stopping by on your cross country journey.

 

milling mondays: farfar's frikadeller (danish meatballs)

 

Frikadeller is a very common food in Denmark. Usually people eat frikadeller for dinner with potatoes and brown gravy. It is a very traditional meal. Frikadeller is like a meatball. I have a recipe that I usually use, but wanted to feature my farfar's recipe in lieu of his recent passing. After my farmor passed away, my farfar had to learn to cook. I was very proud of him for the array of things he was able to cook and bake. Very impressive for a man who hadn't really cooked much the first 82 years of his life. One of the first things he learned to make was frikadeller. When we were back in Denmark for the funeral I found his recipe laying on his kitchen counter and decided to bring it with me.

 

 

Farfar's Frikadeller (aka Danish Meatballs)

Ingredients

1 lb ground pork

4 Tbsp whole wheat flour (hard wheat berries)

1 egg

1/2 -1 onion, finely chopped

2 dl milk

salt and pepper to taste

 

 

 

Directions

If you mill your own flour, mill the hard wheat berries. I of course use my WonderMill.

Add together the flour, meat and egg.

 

Once they are incorporated, add the finely chopped onion (I used a red onion, but you can use a yellow onion) and salt and pepper.

 

Add in the milk a little at a time, combining all the ingredients together.

 

Let the mixture rest for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 390F

Traditionally frikadeller are fried on a pan, but in order to be more healthy I opted to baking them.

If you are baking them, spoon the meat onto a parchment paper lined (or greased) baking sheet.

 

Bake them for 30-45 min until the internal temperature is 170F.  You can turn them half way through if you so desire.

 

We don't eat a lot of potatoes and gravy so instead I served them up with some green steamed veggies.

 

Enjoy!

diy thursday: refreshing summer drink

I drink a lot of water, but sometimes I just crave something else. Most flavored drinks contain unnatural ingredients and have tons of sugar (or artificial sweeteners that are not healthy either) which quite frankly I am not interested in. Many people put lime or lemon in their water to spruce it up. While I do enjoy that, unfortunately citrus isn't friendly on my bladder these days. When we took a trip to San Diego a couple of months ago, our host made this refreshing drink. The water was spruced up with cucumbers, mint and ginger. What a wonderful combination. And all of them are bladder friendly and anti inflammatory (in case you are wondering) AND all natural and healthy. You can actually pronounce all of the ingredients.  Yumm.

In order to make this refreshing summer drink, all you need to do is cut up cucumber, fresh mint leaves and ginger (making sure to peel the ginger first).

 

Then just add it all to your water.

 

Enjoy this when you are tired of drinking plain water or don't want to drink store bought drinks with artificial sweeteners and ingredients no one knows how to pronounce.

print-email-text recipe

brotherly love

 

When we were at the pool with Michael's sister and family, I glanced over and saw two of our nephews sitting next to each other. I loved seeing how these two brothers just sat at the edge of the pool chatting. I am not sure what they were chatting about ... maybe which of their cars would win the next race? but I know that this picture will be repeated many times as they grow older and continue their friendship. What cuties.

milling mondays: vegan oatmeal peanut butter cookies

These cookies are a nice light and healthy treat combining great flavors of banana, oats, and peanut butter. When my in laws were coming for a visit I wanted to make cookies, but my mother-in-law doesn't eat granular sugar or dairy (which you will find in most cookies) and I had eliminated egg at the time, so this is the recipe I ended up using. These tasty cookies turned out to be vegan as well.

Vegan Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

 

recipe modified from doctoroz.com

 

 

Ingredients

 

2 ripe bananas, mashed

 

1/3 cup peanut butter

 

2 Tbsp vanilla almond milk

 

1 tsp vanilla extract

 

2 tbsp. agave nectar

 

1 Tbsp ground flax seed plus 3 Tbsp water

 

2 1/2 cups rolled oats

 

1/4 cup whole wheat flour (wheat berries)

 

Pinch of ground cinnamon

 

 

Directions

 

Preheat oven to 350F.

 

Mix together the ground flaxseed with the water. Let it sit to form an egg like consistency. To get the best nutritional value, grind the flaxseed right before you use it (do not use your WonderMill to grind the flaxseed).

 

 

 

If you mill your own flour, grind the wheat berries. I used my WonderMill.



 

Wisk together the mashed bananas, peanut butter, milk, vanilla, agave, adding the flax seed mixture last.

Add the remaining ingredients and stir until combined.

 

 

Drop the dough onto a baking stone or greased cookie sheet. I love my baking stone because you don't have to grease it and it is really hard to burn the cookies. I have used my Pampered Chef pizza/baking stone for the past 12 years and love it (thanks Jen:)).

Bake the cookies for 13-16 minutes until slightly golden brown.

Let them cool on a rack.  And they are ready to eat.

 

 

Enjoy!

happy 2nd birthday jonathan

 

happy birthday sweet jonathan.
we hope you will have a special day. we are so happy we got to play with you a couple of weeks ago.
love you, uncle buck and auntie signe

auntie signe needs a nap

 

I think Jonathan realized that Auntie Signe was not used to the excitement of three nephews 5 and under living with her .. so he thought he would help her by getting a blanket and pillow for her to take a nap. Thank you Jonathan:)

a visit from michael's sister and family

Michael's sister and family are moving to Florida. So on their drive from Washington to Florida they swung by to visit us. It was fun to show them our life here. We had lots of fun exploring all the fun playgrounds in Chandler and racing cars (not sure why I don't have any pictures of the cars:( )

Thanks for stopping by.
 

 

 

 

 

 

diy thursday: natural fruit and veggie cleaner

 

 

As I mentioned in my berry wash post, I use a natural fruit and vegetable cleaner spray that I love. I have used the recipe for years now so I am not sure where I got it from. This spray is all natural, easy, budget friendly and super quick to make. It gets your fruit and veggies with hard skin clean and ready to eat. It helps get rid of the residue (dirt, pesticides etc. I have mentioned we try to buy mostly organic and especially the dirty dozen - check out the list) stuck on the skin of the fruit or veggies.

 

 



 

Ingredients

 

1 cup distilled water

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 Tbs lemon juice or 1/2 a lemon

1 cup distilled white vinegar

 

 

Directions

 

Blend all the ingredients together in a bowl. Add the vinegar last since combining baking soda and vinegar will cause a reaction and the mixture will bubble up. This is also why you don't want to mix the ingredients directly into the spray bottle.

 

 

Once the ingredients have reacted, pour the mixture into a spray bottle using a funnel. Keep the spray bottle nozzle closed when you are not using it since the pressure from the reaction can cause the spray bottle to leak fluid if it isn't closed.

 

When ready to clean your fruits and/or vegetables, first wash them with water and then spray them with the cleaner. Let them sit for about 5- 10 minutes. Rinse them with water and dry them. Now they are clean and ready to be eaten.

 

 

 

 

 

This mixture works great because of the combination of ingredients. Vinegar kills any mold and other bacteria that might be on the surface on the fruits/veggies. When acids like vinegar and lemon are added to baking soda, the reaction helps lift soil. Lemon also is great at killing bacteria. So together they all make a great team.