Enjoy Today

I have been so stressed lately worrying about finances, what's coming up with girl scouts, the 4H cook off we have coming up and finishing up first semester with the kids for school.  I'm constantly thinking about what is coming and I realized recently that I have forgotten to think about today.

It's good to be prepared for tomorrow and have a plan, but not to the extent that you forget to enjoy today.  It was when my kids and I settled down to watch and episode of Doctor Who that I realized how long it had been since we did that.  I realized that a majority of the time, I tell my kids I'm too busy to sit down and watch something with them. 

I realized I don't want to keep doing that.  I don't want my kids to grow up thinking I'm too busy for them.  My oldest turned 13 recently and I realize more than ever that they won't always be here.  I can't get this time back. 

I'm going to make an effort to play more board games with them, read more books together, and watch more movies with them.  I want to involve them more in the little things.  Instead of making meals for them, I want to make meals with them.  Any time I can spend doing something with them is a moment I get the chance to enjoy who they are right now. 

There will always be things to plan, financial issues to organize and people who need my time.  From this point on, I vow to remember none of it is as important as enjoying the little moments of today that I'll never get back.

Granola

I would love for my kids to prefer a high protein breakfast that includes eggs, meat and whole grain toast.  Unfortunately, like most kids, they prefer cereal.  When living on a budget cereal can be a cheap, easy option.  We easily fell into having boxes of off brand high sugar cereals on hand.

When looking at the ingredient list on these cereals I was amazed at the sheer number of ingredients.  Some of them I needed to google just figure out what they were.  Of course some are worse than others.  The ones that have all ingredients I could find in my own kitchen are, of course, the most expensive.

For that reason I decided to start researching homemade breakfast cereals.  I found some really involved things like a bran flake recipe, but really did not want something that was going to take all afternoon to make.  I wanted quick, simple and cheap. 

That's where granola comes in.  After reading recipe after recipe for various homemade granola, I came up with this basic formula for making a simple base that can be made in roughly an hour.  This makes enough to fill a quart jar.

3 cups oats
1 cup shredded or flaked coconut
1/6 cup oil (whatever you have will work, but olive oil leaves a stronger flavor than some other oils)
1/4 cup liquid sweetener (such as honey, agave nectar or maple syrup)

To this you can expand your flavor options a bit with spices.  We like to add a little cinnamon sometimes. About a teaspoon per batch.

To make the granola, mix the oats and coconut together well.  I like to use my hands for this so that I can be sure things are mixed pretty evenly. 

Then heat your oil and sweetener together.  I do this in the microwave for about 1 minute.

Next, add any other flavors you want to your oil mixture such as cinnamon, vanilla, salt, etc. 

Stir this into the oat/coconut mixture with a spoon until it's well coated. 

Put it in a single layer on a cookie sheet or two.  Bake at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for about 40-50 minutes stirring every 10 minutes.  You want it to be nicely browned, but not burnt. 

With honey, it won't crisp up until it cools, so it's OK if it's soft.  And remember that different sugars will give you a lighter or darker color. 

Once it is cooled put it in an air tight container.  I prefer my old blue Ball jars that I can't use for canning.  I love them and it gives them a practical purpose so I get to keep them. 

You could also add in nuts and dried fruits.  Or other grains.  Just use your imagination. 

Extra add ins have not been in our budget lately, but when they are I plan to try dried cranberries and pecans.

One note I've read is that if you are using nuts, you can mix them in with the oats and coconut before baking if you wish.  Just make sure you are not using toasted nuts because you don't want to be cooking them twice.

I think I will keep add ins separated so that we can customize our breakfast according to individual tastes and mood.

OH, and did I mention that my six year old son will not eat store bought cereal for breakfast now?  All he wants is "the grain cereal".

Give it a try!  Let me know what you think and what flavor combinations you try.  I love that I can customize this to fit our budget and individual tastes.

Apple Soda

This fall I had about a bushel of Macintosh apples to use.  I made apple sauce and attempted to make apple jelly.  I say attempted because the jelly never set.  I've never had that happen with my apple jelly before.  I think perhaps the apples were too ripe to have enough pectin.  But the jars sealed well so I knew I had plenty of time to try again.

This past weekend I rebatched the jelly using some pectin I had tucked in the back of the cabinet.  And guess what?  It still didn't set!  I was really shocked because I did everything right, both times.  And, as I said above, I've never had apple jelly not set before.  I even gave someone my instructions for making apple jelly and hers set up wonderfully. 

Then I took a good hard look at my pectin label.  The sell by date was 2011.  I think it's quite possible I should have read that before I used it.  After some research I quit worrying that it wasn't safe to consume and decided not to try again with this batch.

So I spent a day being depressed and wondering why the apples hated me this year.  Once I was done with that, I started thinking about all the things I could do with my new wonderful apple syrup.  I had thoughts of apple cinnamon pancakes and french toast.  Apple syrup on vanilla ice cream with crushed vanilla wafer cookies sounded good too.

Then I came up with this:

Apple soda.  I simply took 2 tablespoons of the apple syrup and filled the glass with club soda (about 8oz).  Complete deliciousness in a glass. 

Now I am wondering if I can make syrups on purpose with other fruits.  The possibilities are endless.  I'm most looking forward to trying it with the black raspberries that grow wild here. 

Yep, every now and then a mistake can turn out to be a grand adventure in creativity.  This also moves a Soda Stream higher up on my list of wants.

Expect Setbacks

If there is one thing I've learned it's that no matter how good and how sound I think my plan is, there will be setbacks.  Something I didn't foresee or just plain forgot about will sneak up on me and put a damper on my well laid out plans. 

I will admit when these things happen it has the potential to throw me into fits of stress and freaking out.  I usually think it's a bigger issue than it really is at first.  But I am learning to handle these things a bit more calmly. 

You can't predict everything that is going to be thrown your way.  That is why we are working on building an emergency fund.  Basically our goal is to have $500-$1000 put aside to cover emergencies.  For example, a car that breaks down, the furnace quits working, the animals bust through a fence, or any number of other things that we can't necessarily predict.

Right now we have nothing put aside for this, we have spent the last couple months just making it from one paycheck to the next.  However, if my budgeting plans continue to work, I will be able to put a teeny bit into savings for an emergency with our next pay check.  We are talking in the neighborhood of $10, but I'm OK with that.  I'm willing to celebrate victories no matter how small they are.

We are working toward security for our family here.  I can't imagine anything that would make me feel less stress than knowing that if a car breaks or the furnace quits, that there is the money there to fix it and it won't have to come out of my grocery budget!