Make-ahead Monday #13

So, this week was a very successful week in my kitchen, except for a muffin failure I'll have to tell you more about later in another post.

I was able to do the crock pot make ahead meals I planned, and in just about 2 hours I had prepped and cleaned up 6 dinners! We haven't tried any of them yet, but they look like they're going to be yummy!

They look kind of not-delicious in their frozen state, but I'm excited about them. I'm easily entertained...

I also made some delicious Korean beef from a recipe in my Nourishing Traditions cookbook, and it turned out so good and so easy that I made up an extra batch for the freezer. Izzy loved it so much, she asked for more for breakfast this morning! I'll share that recipe in another post, too.

I've been behind on making stock lately, and I had a lot of bones in the freezer waiting on me, so I had my crockpot going all week making stock. I made two pots of chicken broth and one pot of beef broth. 

Shelf o' broth is always exciting for a traditional foodie.

This week, I want to do a big pot of red beans and freeze the leftovers, as well as some no bake energy bites. I'll double that recipe for the freezer. I also hope to brown up a bunch of ground beef, as we've just used up the last of what I had cooked ahead last time.

I've got the week off from work this week, so hopefully I'll be able to get a lot done around the house! (I can't say that, I'll jinx myself!)

What's cooking in your kitchen?

The link-up 

Please share some posts from your blog of favorite meals and dishes that can be prepared ahead of time! I'm stocking my freezer for the arrival of our new baby, and could use all the ideas I can get!

 Posting etiquette: If you do link-up, please leave a comment in the comments sections and link back to this page from your original blog post. If you do not have a blog post to share, please share your favorite recipes or links in the comments section!

Don't forget to sign up for email updates, like Raising Isabella on Facebook, or sign up for my RSS feed so you can receive my updates and be reminded to come post each week! 


This post was shared at Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday,

Make-ahead Monday #12

This week, I'm finally back on track with cooking. I only ended up cooking once last week. I guess I was still in recovery from our vacation!

This morning, I made a big pan or breakfast cake, and the leftovers went into the freezer for another time. I haven't made it in a month or two, and I'd forgotten how much I like it!

For lunch, I made a pizza, and I divided dough to make two crusts. I froze the extra crust and I'm going to put directions in with it so the hubby can make a quick dinner one day soon.

I also bought all of the ingredients to do these crock pot freezer meals. I'm going to double each recipe, and we'll eat a few this week and save the rest for later. They look really easy and tasty, and I will hopefully get them put together today. I've got a little one with a cold and now I'm coming down with it, but I really need to have a productive week. Korban will be here before we know it, and I'm still far from ready! Well... his room and his things aren't ready. As far as I'm concerned, pregnancy lasts about 10 weeks too long! Really,we're hoping that he stays put for a little extra time because Dennis has finals the week of Korban's due date, and I really want him to have a little more free time when he comes, and I really don't want Korban arriving while his Daddy's off taking a test!

The link-up 

Please share some posts from your blog of favorite meals and dishes that can be prepared ahead of time! I'm stocking my freezer for the arrival of our new baby, and could use all the ideas I can get!

 Posting etiquette: If you do link-up, please leave a comment in the comments sections and link back to this page from your original blog post. If you do not have a blog post to share, please share your favorite recipes or links in the comments section!

Don't forget to sign up for email updates, like Raising Isabella on Facebook, or sign up for my RSS feed so you can receive my updates and be reminded to come post each week! 

Make-ahead Monday #10

Welcome back to another week and another week of recipes! I'm getting some last minute trips in before I'm too far along in my pregnancy, so I won't be cooking much this week. I plan on slowing down and getting some serious cooking done in the next few weeks, though!

What's cooking in your kitchen this week?

The link-up 

Please share some posts from your blog of favorite meals and dishes that can be prepared ahead of time! I'm stocking my freezer for the arrival of our new baby, and could use all the ideas I can get!

 Posting etiquette: If you do link-up, please leave a comment in the comments sections and link back to this page from your original blog post. If you do not have a blog post to share, please share your favorite recipes or links in the comments section!

Don't forget to sign up for email updates, like Raising Isabella on Facebook, or sign up for my RSS feed so you can receive my updates and be reminded to come post each week! 


This post was shared at Monday Mania,

, Fat Tuesday

Make-ahead Monday #9

Welcome back to another week and another week of recipes! This week, I'm sharing my no-bake energy bites and my soaked sourdough sandwich bread recipe! 


What's cooking in your kitchen this week?


The link-up 

Please share some posts from your blog of favorite meals and dishes that can be prepared ahead of time! I'm stocking my freezer for the arrival of our new baby, and could use all the ideas I can get!

 Posting etiquette: If you do link-up, please leave a comment in the comments sections and link back to this page from your original blog post. If you do not have a blog post to share, please share your favorite recipes or links in the comments section!


Don't forget to sign up for email updates, like Raising Isabella on Facebook, or sign up for my RSS feed so you can receive my updates and be reminded to come post each week! 

Make-ahead Monday #8

Welcome to another week and another week of recipes! I did just like I said I would last week, and did as little cooking as possible. I think I cooked maybe twice, and the rest of the week we reaped the benefits of all my freezer cooking. Can you believe we didn't have to resort to cooking out at all? I'm feeling rested up and ready to get cooking again!

Here's my recipe for this week:

Soaked Whole Wheat Sourdough Crackers

This is a great make-ahead snack that uses up leftover sourdough starter. Just mix up the dough, freeze in ziplock bags, then you can pull out the dough and have some tasty crackers in about 15 minutes!

Here's what you need:
1 cup of sourdough starter
1 cup of whole wheat flour
1/2 cup of olive oil (any oil would work really, I've used coconut oil before)

Here's what you do:
Mix your three ingredients well. You may need to add more flour. You want a stiff dough that doesn't stick to your hands. It will be pretty oily.

Divide dough in half and freeze dough in sandwich sized ziploc bags, like so:

When you are ready to make crackers, pull your dough out of the freezer to thaw. The dough will soak, helping break down the phytates, as it thaws. You can wait as long as you want to bake your crackers. The longer you wait, the more "sourdough-y" they will taste. I've been pulling them out after lunch and baking them for a betime snack for Izzy and I.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Flatten the dough onto a baking sheet, think about the thickness of a Wheat Thin cracker. You can roll it out, but I have better luck just "smooshing" it flat with my hands. Sprinkle with coarse salt, and slice into squares with a pizza cutter. You can skip that last step and just break them up after they bake if you like. I like the look it lends.

It should look something like this. One batch makes two of these -

Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. It will probably take a few tries before you figure out what time works best to get a crispy, yet not burned cracker. Fortunately, they taste good anywhere between raw and blackened, so your "test batches" won't go to waste.

Yummy! I think that I'd like to experiment with different herbs and spices to get different flavors. What do you think would be good on top of these crackers?

*Note: these crackers are really, really good the day they are made, but they start to go chewy by the next day, so I don't make a ton at once. Any tips on getting them to stay crunchy?


What recipes do you have to share this week?

The link-up 

Please share some posts from your blog of favorite meals and dishes that can be prepared ahead of time! I'm stocking my freezer for the arrival of our new baby, and could use all the ideas I can get!

 Posting etiquette: If you do link-up, please leave a comment in the comments sections and link back to this page from your original blog post. If you do not have a blog post to share, please share your favorite recipes or links in the comments section!

Don't forget to sign up for email updates, like Raising Isabella on Facebook, or sign up for my RSS feed so you can receive my updates and be reminded to come post each week! 

Make-ahead Monday #7

Hi, readers, and welcome to another week and another week of recipes!

This week, I probably won't do any freezer cooking, but I'll be enjoying the fruits of my labor. I'm mostly taking the week off from cooking, and we'll be eating easy meals and meals from the freezer this week. These past couple of weeks have been really busy, add that to the fact that I'm now in my 3rd trimester, and you get one pooped out Momma! I plan to catch up on some much needed rest (and blogging) this week, and hopefully be back to my usual cookin' self by next week.

Last week, I did manage to get a few things into the freezer. My local grocery store had a shelf of overripe bananas marked way down, so I bought them all and put them in the freezer. We go through a lot of frozen bananas making smoothies and muffins and other such things at our house.

2 gallons o' bananas! 

I also started a loaf of bread, but like I said, it was a busy week, and I got interrupted and didn't have a chance to put it in the oven. I have found a really good soaked whole grain bread recipe to go with our whole grain challenge. I'll be sharing it next week.

It was off to a nice start, don't you think? I can't complain about being interrupted, my hubby took my on a surprise date. Way more fun than watching bread rise. Even for a nerd like me who likes watching bread rise! :)

I made the soaked whole grain biscuits on page 484 of my Nourishing Traditions cookbook. They were good, but definitely had a "whole grain" heaviness to them. I'm trying this new trick with baking lately, it's called "following the recipe." Novel idea, don't you think? I'm terrible at following recipes. I'm always trying to improvise and make it healthier/cheaper/easier. Often it works out, sometimes it doesn't. Anyways, I'm telling you all this to say that the biscuits needed about 1/2 cup more buttermilk (or kefir) than the recipe called for. Next time I'll know.

Still pretty tasty, though not very pretty looking....


If you're interested in purchasing yourself a copy of Nourishing Traditions, may I ask that you order by clicking above? Raising Isabella gets a commission on sales through this blog! Thanks!

Sometime today, I plan to post and link up my recipe for breakfast cake and breakfast milkshake. Both are deceptively healthy and decadent tasting. At the same time. I had hoped to share both of these recipes last week, but just didn't quite get around to it. They are delicious, though!

What recipes do you have to share this week?

The link-up 

Please share some posts from your blog of favorite meals and dishes that can be prepared ahead of time! I'm stocking my freezer for the arrival of our new baby, and could use all the ideas I can get!

 Posting etiquette: If you do link-up, please leave a comment in the comments sections and link back to this page from your original blog post. If you do not have a blog post to share, please share your favorite recipes or links in the comments section!

Don't forget to sign up for email updates, like Raising Isabella on Facebook, or sign up for my RSS feed so you can receive my updates and be reminded to come post each week!

Make ahead Monday #6

Hi, readers, and welcome to another week and another week of recipes! I did a lot of make-ahead breakfast cooking, which I find is a really easy way to prepare for a busy morning or a quick healthy snack on another day.   It doesn't take much extra time at all to whip up a double batch of muffins and freeze half. This week, I made these coconut flour muffins, loaded with protein and fiber! 


I also made another batch of muffins using the recipe on page 483 of my nourishing traditions cookbook. This time, I did use whole wheat pastry flour, and it did make a lighter muffin, for those of you who were wondering. 


This morning, I made about a billion pancakes from the recipe on page 478 of Nourishing traditions. They were delicious! I never can get my pancakes quite as light and fluffy as I want them, though. Any tips on that one would be appreciated!


Do you have a cops of Nourishing Traditions yet? It has been a great help for me in this month's whole grain challenge! 


Click here to order yourself a copy of my new favorite cookbook,  "Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats!"

All that baking, and no pictures to show for it...I need to get into the habit of taking pictures so you guys will believe me! Also, I will be sharing a lot more recipes over the next few weeks.


What recipes do you have to share this week?

 The link-up 

Please share some posts from your blog of favorite meals and dishes that can be prepared ahead of time! I'm stocking my freezer for the arrival of our new baby, and could use all the ideas I can get!

Posting etiquette: If you do link-up, please leave a comment in the comments sections and link back to this page from your original blog post. If you do not have a blog post to share, please share your favorite recipes or links in the comments section! Don't forget to sign up for email updates, like Raising Isabella on Facebook, or sign up for my RSS feed so you can receive my updates and be reminded to come post each week!

Make-ahead Monday #5

Hi, readers, and welcome to another week and another week of recipes! I have to confess that I didn't do a lot of extra cooking this week, and other than a big batch of chicken broth and some sourdough cracker dough, nothing went into my freezer. I do plan to feature at least one recipe posted by a reader each week, though.

I did try some new recipes from my Nourishing Traditions cookbook, though.

Here's what I made, and what I thought:

Basic dressing and herb dressing p129 - these were great, and super easy to make, it took less than 5 minutes, cleanup and all! I just may start making all of our salad dressing around here!

Basic muffins p483 - These were good, and I liked that they were all whole grain and the flour was soaked. I replaced the butter with pumpkin, just because I wanted to give them some extra flavor. Maybe that's why they stuck to the muffin papers so much. Not sure, I'll probably make them again this week, and double the recipe for freezing. I'll also use whole wheat pastry flour this time, to make them lighter and less bread-y

Yeasted buttermilk bread p493 - This was amazing, and I shouldn't be surprised, considering the fact that one loaf of bread contains a whole stick of butter! This reminded me of the kind of bread you would have at grandma's house, topped with more butter. I still love my sourdough sandwich bread for my go-to bread recipe, but this is my new other favorite, for sure! This recipe is also uses soaked, whole grains.

If you'd like to order yourself a copy of Nourishing Traditions, may I ask that you click through this link to do so? Raising Isabella gets a commission if you order through my blog!


Do you see a soaked, whole grain theme going on? I've been testing recipes for next month's challenge! Tune in on Wednesday to find out what it is! Click here to read more about January's challenge.

What recipes do you have to share this week?

 The link-up 

Please share some posts from your blog of favorite meals and dishes that can be prepared ahead of time! I'm stocking my freezer for the arrival of our new baby, and could use all the ideas I can get!

Posting etiquette: If you do link-up, please leave a comment in the comments sections and link back to this page from your original blog post. If you do not have a blog post to share, please share your favorite recipes or links in the comments section! Don't forget to sign up for email updates, like Raising Isabella on Facebook, or sign up for my RSS feed so you can receive my updates and be reminded to come post each week!

Make-ahead Monday #4

Hi, readers, and welcome to another week and another week of recipes! I'm already reaping the benefits of a well stocked freezer, and I find that I'm spending less of my time rushing to have meals ready on a busy evening (or morning) because I have prepared ahead of time. I'm also cooking extra with leftovers in mind more often. This is definitely a great habit for me! We haven't eaten out for dinner in a couple of weeks!

I've decided to start cooking a few recipes from our link-up each week, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Today, I'm working on Three bean chili from Pain Free Pregnancy and pumpkin pie baked oatmeal from The Willing Cook.

I doubled the chili to take some to a friend who just had a baby. Also, I added meat, because we like meat. :) It was delicious!

I doubled the baked oatmeal to share, too. I combined this recipe with the one I usually use for baked oatmeal because we're not dairy and egg free at our house.
*I have to make a confession here, the baked oatmeal did not make it to the freezer. In fact, a large amount was eaten straight from the pan by a certain pregnant blogger who shall remain nameless. I did save enough to share, though. :)

Yummy!

What recipes do you have to share this week?

The link-up

Please share some posts from your blog of favorite meals and dishes that can be prepared ahead of time!  I'm stocking my freezer for the arrival of our new baby, and could use all the ideas I can get!

Posting etiquette: If you do link-up, please leave a comment in the comments sections and link back to this page from your original blog post.

If you do not have a blog post to share, please share your favorite recipes or links in the comments section!


This post was shared at Traditional Tuesdays, Fight Back Fridays and Simple Lives Thursdays.

Make-ahead Monday #3

Welcome to a new week, everyone! Thanks for sharing your recipes last week. I tried out one of them over the weekend, and it's definitely on its way to becoming a family favorite!

My family came to visit over the weekend, so I did make-ahead monday a little differently. I made extra large batches of things, and simply froze the leftovers, which ended up being enough for one or two meals for Hubby, Izzy and me. I didn't really plan it that way, but you know how it is when you have company, you never want to run out and you end up making too much.

Works great for freezer cooking!

Here's what's new in my freezer this week:

1 whole batch of baked oatmeal (recipe is coming soon!)
A few smoothies (frozen in ice cube trays)
a big container of beef veggie stew

I also made a great, super easy roast, but didn't have enough left over to freeze. Maybe next week I'll do it again. We have tons of beef in our deep freezer, as we recently bought a whole half of a cow from one of our local farmers. We are excited to have such great quality meat, that doesn't contain any added hormones or antibiotics, and we saved a lot of money. I also feel good knowing where this cow came from and that it was treated ethically. I know we have an odd sense of humor, but we call the cow as "Collin", in reference to an episode of the show "Portlandia". Don't know if you've heard of it.

Anyways, I had great time visiting my family, and I've got some fun posts coming up from our activities over the week. Can't wait to share! I learned to make cheese!

The link-up


Please share some posts from your blog of favorite meals and dishes that can be prepared ahead of time!  I'm stocking my freezer for the arrival of our new baby, and could use all the ideas I can get!

Posting etiquette: If you do link-up, please leave a comment in the comments sections and link back to this page from your original blog post.

If you do not have a blog post to share, please share your favorite recipes or links in the comments section!

Have a great week and happy MLK day!

Make ahead Monday # 2

Welcome back to Make Ahead Mondays! I've added a link feature, so if you've got a recipe on your blog that can be made ahead of time for a quick meal later, please share!

Just enter the link and name of your post in the linky widget below. Then, please insert a link back to this page to help your readers find this info. If you don't mind, also leave a comment below.

If you don't have a blog, please just share in the comments section!



Last week, I made pizza crusts, and this week I did something really simple that has already come in handy a couple of times.

I browned 4 pounds of brown beef in my big dutch oven. After it cooled, I froze it in one pound portions to pull out later. We made hamburger pizzas with the ground beef last night, and the rest of the meat went into spaghetti for lunch today. I've still got three pounds left, and there are tons of options for quick, easy dinners with pre-cooked ground beef. Our remaining three pounds will probably be made into tacos, sloppy joes, and some hamburger stew. If I wanted to be really prepared, I could have gone ahead and made 4 batches of any one of those meals and frozen that. Then I'd really have some instant food ready to go.

I like the flexibility of not having seasoned the ground beef yet, though.

What about you? What are you going to make ahead this week?

This post was shared on Traditional Tuesdays and Simple Lives Thursday.