Granola

So, I made granola this weekend, and kinda played around with ingredients from two different recipes.  Combining the two, this is what I used and I love it!  Using the apple sauce makes me feel a little bit healthier, and it seems to be a softer flavor without being so plain tasting.

5c Oats
1 c Wheat germ
1 1/2 c chopped nuts
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 c brown sugar
1 c apple sauce
2 Tbsp oil
1/4 c honey

Add all ingredients in to crock pot and mix well.  cover and Cook on low for 4hrs.  Place a toothpick under the lid to let it vent.
Tips:
*I like to add white chips and dried cranberries while cooking to add more sweets
*If you like it chewy don't cook it as long, if you want it crunchy cook longer
*I spray my crock pot to just to make sure it doesn't stick to edges. 
*I sometimes add extra honey to give it more clumps

My Random Weekend...

This week work has been really slow, so I've been trying to find things to keep me busy.  My sewing machine is broken...so by the time the weekend came I was bored with reading, practicing the piano, scrap-booking...ect.  So, this is was my fun and exciting weekend...

Blueberries!

First, Friday I borrowed a dehydrator from my sister.  Then, I dehydrated strawberries and blue berries.  Sat. morning the strawberries were finished nice and crisp, and the blueberries were finished in the afternoon.  I am excited to take them on our backpacking hike this week!  Yum!

Kinda bummed that it didn't make much... 

oh well, more time to make more!

Cleaning up.  Laina, Annie, Brisa

Then Saturday, I invited my nieces over to play.  We had fun playing with finger paint, play dough, blocks, puzzles, and eating Popsicle (which is a must for an AZ summer). 

washing

Finally, as if my nieces didn't wear me out enough :) I was bored Sat. afternoon.  I remember my mom making fruit roll-ups (fruit leather) when I was young and LOVED it!  So, dragging my husband along, we went over to his dads and picked tons of yummy extra ripe peaches.  I went home, chopped, ninja-ed, blended, and cooked my fruit leather.  I used my recipe from this website..only I cooked it between 170-200 degrees. So, after cooking about 5hrs sat. night, and 3 hours Sunday morning, it turned out!  One of them cooked a little too long, so we broke that up to go with the dehydrated fruit.  The 2nd one turned out great!  I turned it into 4 nice chunky fruit roll-ups for a perfect snack!  I am so going to make more!

blending

Tips:  Spray the pan with cooking spray before laying down the plastic wrap.  Then, pour the mixture of stuff on top.  

I was able to wash, cut, blend, and have these 2 pans in the oven within a half hour.  So this is really quick an easy to get ready, then all you have to do is wait.....

in the oven

all done!

While I am kinda on the topic of making dehydrated stuff... and you might not know how much I LOVE food storage and I have been working on it... I have also been making lots of granola with my crock-pot and vacuum sealing it into quart size jars for one of my breakfast items for food storage.  I found my recipe from here.  When making it from here, it ends up kinda dry and plain.  So, I liked to add about 1/4c brown sugar to make it more sweet; I also add dried cranberries and extra honey so I can get more clumps out of it.  Oh!  And while comparing this recipe with others, one added chocolate chips, so I did that one time,  GREAT!!!  Chocolate chips is defiantly a must when I make my granola now.  I mean, how doesn't have a sweat tooth?

Two Years Down...Eternity To Go!

Monday we celebrated our 2 year anniversary!   It feels so long, but went by so fast!  After going out to eat, we went to Wal-Mart and bought some airplanes.  We had fun trying to figure out how to fly them and do tricks.  I have to admit, Will’s was the best.  He almost landed his plane on top of a light pole, and also got a couple inches away from hitting a bird.  I had the best scoring nose dives into the ground at top speed.  We topped off the night with an amazing dessert from Nielson’s frozen custard.  Yum!

Our 2^nd year high lights…

*We became home owners now endlessly working on home improvements
*We have a squirrel, named Mr. Squirrel, in our backyard… along with some very colorful birds…
*We have 90% completed of our 4month supply
*We have taken classes to become repelling/rock climbing certified, have been collecting our own equipment, and made it out on the rocks a couple of times
*We still LOVE each other!!!  I am the luckiest person to have the BEST husband there is!

Freezer Crockpot Meals

Last week Camilla and I decided we were going to make 10 crockpot freezer meals to put in our freezer.   She saw a couple different people do in on Pinterest.  She is always bad at making dinner because she gets home late from school, and I am bad at making dinner when I get home from work different hours.  I decided to make some with her because most of the meals had veggies in it ( I HATE veggies with a passion and have no clue how to cook with them to make them taste yummy), and meat in it (my sister isn’t a big fan of eating meat herself), so we decided to give it a try!

This past week we found 10 different recipes we were interested in try, typed up a shopping list, compared what she had and I had so we didn’t have to buy a ton of seasonings and some other ingredients.  So, last night while both of our husbands were at father-and-sons we made our meals!

Around 5:30-6 we went to Superstition Ranch Market (the BEST place to buy cheap fruits and veggies for cheap, you just have to be picky), where we bought the veggies we needed.  $10 dollars each for each of us.  Next we went to the grocery store and bought the rest of the items, and chicken (We both already had some chicken and beef out defrosting for about 4 meals).  We spent $40-50 each.  Then, we unloaded everything and got to work!

Groceries bought and ready to start.

Our recipes posted for easy to read use

Camilla chopping seasonings from her garden, and we used them too!

Here are my 13 gallon size bags with our 10meals in them ready to take home.

 We finished chopping and making the meals around 10:30, cleaned up, and I left for home around 11.  Now all we have to do is defrost them the night before in the fridge, and add it to the cock pot so we can have dinner ready when we come home in the evening.  I hope they tasted good!

Road Trip

This past weekend Will and I drove to Albuquerque, NM for a continuing education course I was interested in taking.  We left Wed. and it was so nice to spend time together on the drive, and read.  I finished 2 books on this trip!  I was at class from 8-5 most of the days, so we were able to do hiking or the "tourist" things.  One night we did drive to the temple and walk around a bit, we managed to eat ice cream everyday, and most of all, I enjoyed having a break and doing whatever I pleased.  We don't have a TV at our house so I am usually keeping myself busy other ways, but it was nice to sit and watch TV For a bit and read a book during commercials.  I have to say... not something I can do for more then a couple of days because it would be boring, but I enjoyed it while it lasted.

So, down to the juicy stuff... The class I took was called Visceral Manipulation.  If you don't know what "visceral" is... it's pretty much your guts.  I know it sounds weird, but I learned how to mobilize and balance the stomach, liver, gallbladder, small and large intestines.  It was GREAT!  Defiantly difficult to learn, and I still need LOADS of practice to really become good at it.  If any of you are interested in letting me mush around in your tummies and get things moving again, I would love to learn.  Just some interesting facts I learned...

*in most car accidents tendon that holds the liver can get stuck, and cause pain years to come
*you Liver relates to R shoulder pain, and has some connection to your eyes
*if your small intestines or part of your large intestines are tight it can cause sciatic pain, or tight hip and back pain
*these organs have their own personality to help with the body.  For example... the Gallbladder likes to take on the "every day stresses" of life.  (did you leave your keys in the car?  Late to work? )

I think the most important thing I learned, is why it is so important our inner organs need to move.  If you think about it... how many times do we breathe a day?  All day right?  So, every time we breathe, all the other organs move up and down, or side to side.  If one of those organs has a small restriction in it, and we are breathing X number times a day, that can lead to pain somewhere in the chain.  If we smashed our finger in the door, we don't use that for a bit until it feels better.  Well, our organs can get hurt from infections, accidents, falling, ect. and they need to be able to move freely too.  All in all, I am very excited to put my new knowledge to work, and figure some stuff out.

Boredom...

At the $1 at Walmart they had these packets of beads on sale for $1.  The weather was so nice, I decided to sit outside under the tree and make some bracelets and necklaces...

Another night this week I was bored, so I decided to make flowers and glue them to some headbands I had that I never wear.  I took old shirts, cut them up, twisted and glued them and put them on the head band.  Ta-da!

Rock Climbing

Will and I went out to Bulldog Canyon to try rock climbing again, and it was a SUCCESS!!!  We were able to set up our anchors and climb!  Unfortunately the rock at the bottom was really bad and would break in or hands or under our feet, and as we got up higher it was really slick.  I didn't make it up high at all, but Will made it about 2/3rds of the way.  Since taking this repelling/climbing course from BSA, we have gone  2 other times to try to set up anchors, but never had any success.  Although we didn't make it to the top of the climb, we were able to start feeling comfortable with our skills of finding and putting up anchors, and try some climbing.  We are hoping to go back there and camp so that we can spend more time driving around to find better rocks to climb.

My favorite part of the trip: Will anchored me into the truck tail gait while I was belaying him...which was a VERY good thing.  I wish we had a video of it.   His first try he made it 2/3rds of the way up, and as he leaned back on the rope for me to belay him down, I started flying in the air.  Thankfully I was anchored into the truck, so I wasn't more then a foot in the air. My feet were NOT touching the ground the whole time as I was letting him down.  It was VERY difficult to give me a smooth landing, and we both ended up practically sitting in the dirt.  It was pretty funny.  Needless to say... I need to practice my "flying" belaying technique, and we will ALWAYS have me anchored in to something.

if you look really hard you can see part of the rope hanging just about and to the right of the truck.