Yea! I made my own homemade organic vegetable soup for the first time ever!






Here is Piney cheering for me

The vegetables are grown locally as you can see the Korean labels, so I know they are fresh.

and it turned out awesome! The thing I am missing is a big cast iron pot which I am looking into. I also made oatmeal bars from scratch.

If you missed the recipes in my comment section here they are again:

From Elle: "I've done vegetable soup, but it was with a beef broth base. Just buy a bunch of organic veg (potatoes, green beans, carrots, celery or whatever) throw them in a pot, cover with stock, add some kosher salt and a little pepper bring to a boil and let simmer until veg is mostly done. I throw in some organic mini letter pasta to make instant alphabet soup. Easy."

From Erin:
Chewy Fruit & Oatmeal Bars

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
One 8-ounce container vanilla or plain low-fat yogurt
2 egg whites, lightly beaten
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil (I substituted the oil with applesauce and it worked great)
2 Tbsp. skim milk
2 tsp. vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt (optional)
3 cups Quaker® Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1 cup diced dried mixed fruit, raisins, or dried cranberries


Preparation Steps
Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, combine sugars, yogurt, egg whites, oil, milk, and vanilla; mix well. In medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; mix well. Add to yogurt mixture; mix well. Stir in oats and fruit.
Spread dough onto bottom of ungreased 13x9-inch baking pan.
Bake 28 to 32 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely on wire rack. Cut into bars. Store tightly covered.


After this delicious dinner on Saturday night

M and I went out for ice cream and picked up the video called Dan In Real Life

then we went home and took part in Earth Hour (see last post)

The kids and I got out our emergency crank flashlights and turned off all the power in our home. Then we played hide-and-go-seek and squash (some call it sardines)

(O.K. the truth is that our home was not completely power-free as M didn't want to take part in our silly Earth Hour thing and so he watched TV, but I understood)

We had a blast without him anyway- Piney kept wanting to be the hider and she would keep hiding in the same place and then jump out before we found her.

Afterwards we watched the video (fun movie- recommended!) while I worked on my knitting. I am making progress on my hat. I am not sure if I will give it to Pineapple or if I will donate it, but I am excited to see how it turns out!

I am having a lot of fun with this simple living idea- Making whole foods, spending time with family and learning how to knit- I may never have to buy another hat again. I have also been collecting the inner plastic bags from cereal boxes to use instead of plastic bags. They are great for storing my oatmeal bars. They are better because they are thicker than the regular plastic bags and keep food fresher longer.

I will never need to buy plastic bags again!

Labels: healthy cheap good family meals