Easy Fall Recipes

After a conversation with a friend earlier this week I was inspired to take some more time to post some recipes up on my blog. Fall is quickly approaching and it's my favorite time of the year for using my crock pot. The Crock Pot is a wonderful piece of hardware that has been saving mommies lots of time for decades. So today I would like to feature a few recipes that are favorites in our house at this time of the year.



Navy Bean Soup



Into the crockpot on low for 8-10 hours place the following ingredients:



3-4 Smoked Ham Hocks (You can add other pieces of smoked pork if you want to add more meat since the ham hocks don't give much meat)
2 Cups of Dry Navy beans
5 Stalks of Celery sliced into small pieces
1 Medium Onion chopped
1 Tablespoon Dried Ground Sage (Use McCormick)
2 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper

Add 6 cups of water and cover with the lid.
Stir well and leave on low for 8 - 10 hours. Remove ham hocks to cool then pick all the meat from the bones and chop up to tiny pieces. There won't be much meat. I usually serve with a salad and Bob's Red Mill Corn Bread (Buy at Holiday Market). Both my boys love this soup and because of the beans it is very filling and tasty. I never tell Jackson that I use pigs feet because I am sure he would not touch it if I did so keep this in mind when introducing the soup in your house.

Corn Beef and Cabbage



1 Flat Cut or Point Cut corn beef brisket with seasoning packet(Check the label to make sure it's GFCFSF)
4-5 Medium potatoes cut into large cubes or just in half if they are small potatoes
3 Carrots cut into large pieces
1 Small head of purple cabbage (or Green)

Add the brisket and seasoning packet to the crock pot, add cut potatoes and carrots and fill the crock pot with water leaving some room at the top to allow for the cabbage to be put in to cook during the last hour. Cook for 8-10 hours on low. The meat should be fall apart done. An hour before you will sit down to eat pull out the potatoes and carrots and place on a plate in the microwave. Add the cabbage after slicing it into quarters. After one hour remove the cabbage and don't be alarmed by the purple-ish water. Remove the brisket and let it rest on a cutting board(be careful because it might fall apart while you move it and splash hot broth on you). Place carrots and potatoes back in the pot to warm up. Wait 5-10 minutes before slicing the corn beef and serving.

**For the left overs I dice the potatoes and saute with a diced bell pepper, diced medium yellow onion, salt and pepper. Then I pulse the corn beef in the food processor and add it to the saute pan stirring till heated through. This makes a bunch of corn beef hash and is pretty yummy.

The day has finally come

Hello everyone,

I have been having issues with my computer and as a result have been neglecting my blog. With the start of school things were pretty crazy for us but now they have settled down into a routine and all is going well with that new transition for Jackson.

Anyway, I have big news for everyone. A few weeks ago I posted about asking Holiday market to start carrying Galaxy Rice Vegan Cheese. Well it took a few weeks to get it in but they actually did it! The Holiday Market in Cottonwood is now carrying two flavors of the ONLY gluten, casein, and soy free cheese on the market. This means that I can now start working on a GFCFSF pizza for little man. He's going to be so happy to eat pizza again! I will post the recipe when I try it for all to experiment with. Last night we made cheesy omelets for dinner and Jackson loved it, he even ate the cheese right off the cutting board. This is also a perfect thing to cut into cute shapes for his bento boxes.

I want to take a moment here to thank Holiday Market, and Keri. She is the natural foods manager and a total sweetheart. She was the lady who ordered the cheese for me. She even sat with me on the phone while we both went through the website to make sure she ordered the right cheese. She also started carrying the GFCFSF Earth Balance spread for us which is the only butter substitute that I can find. She told me about the customer request program for Holiday market and it seems they will go to the ends of the earth so to speak to get the customer requested products in. I think this is a wonderful program, especially for those of us who need special allergy free products. So call Keri at Holiday market. She rotates between the Cottonwood and Redding stores. Ask her to ship some of that cheese to your store too so you can try it too. You won't be disappointed.

Here is a link to the Galaxy website so you can read more about the cheese:

http://www.galaxyfoods.com/Products/RiceCheese/RiceVegan/riceveganSlices.html