Sneaky Zucchini Chicken Nuggets (Vegetarians, Please see P.S.)

I love the name of these and love even more how well they worked for my kids! My children could count on one hand how many times they've eaten chicken nuggets in their lives, so they were pretty excited to find out what Mommy was making. My 7-year-old said they didn't taste like the chicken nuggets she's eaten, but I explained about the health difference between these and the fast food version and she still liked them. My 4-year-old was a bit turned off by their appearance and didn't think she wanted any. But eventually she came around (about the time we pulled out the ketchup to go with them), and then she couldn't stop eating them! That really did my heart good, to see how by once again being sneaky I was able to get her and her older sister to eat "yucky squash." The baby, of course, loved them without question. He just loves food, period. :)


You can find the original recipe here (along with a great picture) and I didn't make any alterations to the ingredients. Since I have home-canned chicken, I used that and it made things very fast and easy with my immersion blender attachments.


P.S. I have visions of making this recipe into an all-veggie version that my kids would eat. If any of you figure out the perfect combo, let me know!

Sneaky Zucchini Chicken Nuggets

1 1/2 c. zucchini, grated
1 lb. cooked, shredded chicken (the original recipe uses ground chicken)
1 egg
1 tsp. onion salt
2 c. crushed corn flakes or bread crumbs (or cracker crumbs--whatever you have on hand)

In large bowl, mix together zucchini, chicken, egg, and onion salt until well combined. 

Lightly grease cookie sheet.

Form 1-2 tablespoons of the chicken mixture into small balls and coat in bread crumbs, then press flat (until about 1/2 inch thick). Transfer to a prepared cookie sheet. 

Once nuggets have been formed and breaded, spray light layer of nonstick cooking spray over nuggets (I omitted this part since I don't have any spray and they still worked fine). 

 Cook at 400 degrees for 13-15 minutes, or just until nuggets have cooked thoroughly. Serve with homemade ranch dressing and garden-fresh tomatoes (or if you have small children, ketchup might just do the trick).

The Food Nanny

A food days ago I went to a presentation given by the Food Nanny, Liz Edmunds. I knew enough about her to feel privileged that she came to my small town to give (at least one) free presentation, and left feeling inspired. I also felt validated about the way I prioritize meals for my family and cook from scratch. While she is more lax on healthful foods than I am (most people are), she left me with things to think about.

Liz quoted lots of statistics that floored me. For example, right now in the U.S. the average American goes out to eat 5 times a week. Seriously?! Wow. I don't know how people afford that, not to mention the fact that, as Liz stated, when people eat out they typically eat 30-50% more calories than they would at home.

But that's not the worst of it.

As Liz explained, the deterioration of the family and its link to the deterioration of society can be traced, in part, back to the disintegration of family dinnertime. When families eat dinner together at least 3 times a week, their kids are less likely to get into trouble with drugs, promiscuity, etc, and learn important things like morals, manners, and how to have conversations. That's amazing! But it makes sense. And as Liz put it, even if you didn't know how to cook (or didn't like to), wouldn't this alone be enough reason to do it?!

I have always made dinner an important part of the day and after almost nine years feel validated about this in a way I never have before, after listening to Liz. Sometimes people ask me how I have time to cook from scratch all the time, but it's really a matter of priorities. I always plan for about an hour and a half for dinner preparations. I don't love cooking, but this is a priority I have always made in my daily schedule. Often it takes less time, sometimes more. Liz talked about that, too: It's okay for dinner to take more than 10 or 20 minutes to prepare. That made me realize that maybe people need to hear that more! Good, healthful food often takes longer than 30 minutes to make, but that's not a bad thing. Just plan for it and make the necessary adjustments; your family will thank you.

Another topic I felt validated on was budgeting and its relationship to home cooking. I've said it often and Liz says it too: "When you cook on a consistent basis, you're saving your family. You're saving your budget!"  She also said, "If there's one place you can save money, it's on food by cooking from scratch." Once you've accumulated the basic ingredients that the majority of recipes call for, shopping only entails catching up on what you've run out of here and there. (I said that here on my very first post!) As she pointed out, this means breakfast (at least) costs next to nothing. That's certainly been true for us for years!

Another thing Liz talked about that I hadn't really thought of before was the fact that if you're grazing all day (I've never been an advocate of grazing), you won't be that hungry at mealtimes and, "You have to be hungry to cook." Your family will be hungry, so you'd better be too, to cook what they need.

My favorite quotes from Liz that night:

"Diets don't work long-term. The only thing that works is lifestyle." Amen!

"We work outside the home to make a living. We work inside the home to make a life." I love this!

Raw Food Matters

I wanted to share this video with you because it really made me think. I knew we didn't eat enough raw food, but wasn't sure what to do about it. The information in this short video has made me reevaluate and try to seriously figure out how to improve.

Quick Chicken Enchiladas (Without Canned Soup)

The other night I wanted to make something with the whole wheat tortillas we had and decided on chicken enchiladas. But I needed a fast recipe because my time was limited. And since I don't cook with canned soups anymore, I needed a recipe that didn't use any. I was willing to make up my own, if need be, but I thought I'd check online and see if anyone had already done the legwork for me. I'm glad I looked because there was a delicious recipe here, on Food.com. There's a beautiful picture there with the original recipe. I made a couple of changes to speed up the process and also added vegetables.

Quick Chicken Enchiladas

1 lb. chicken breast, or 1 pint home-canned chicken breast, diced or shredded
1 medium onion, chopped

Vegetable(s) of choice, diced and cooked (I cooked and pureed a zucchini, tricking my daughter into eating it, since she didn't know it was there :))

10 whole wheat flour tortillas, warmed until pliable
1 1/2 c. grated cheese of your choice, divided
1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. whole wheat flour
1 (15 ounce) can chicken broth (or homemade stock)
1 c. sour cream

Cook onion and vegetables in small amount of oil, until done.

Melt butter in medium pan, stir in flour to make sauce. Stir and cook until bubbly, then slowly pour in chicken broth and bring to boiling, stirring frequently.

Remove sauce from heat. Stir in sour cream, diced or shredded chicken, chopped and cooked onion, and 3/4 c. of the shredded cheese. Salt and pepper (or other spices) to taste.

Fill tortillas with chicken sauce mixture, fold, roll, and place in baking dish. Leave 1/2 c. to 1 c. sauce at end to pour over prepared tortillas. Sprinkle remaining cheese over all.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, or until cheese is melted and sauce near edges is bubbly.

Budget Saver Tip #32: Build up an Emergency Fund

Last month we had something happen that made us very grateful for two things: That we had built up a savings account for emergencies, and that we don't have a monthly car payment, even though we've only had our "new" van for a year.

Ideally, we would have a savings account and an emergency fund. And ideally, our savings account would be bigger (now we have to build it back up all over again), but we were so glad to have some liquid funds when our van died and needed a new transmission. (We got a good vehicle but didn't know when we bought it that the year our van was manufactured was a bad one for those particular transmissions.)

For a family living on teacher's wages, the news that your vehicle needs costly repairs is a sobering one. But how much worse it would have been if we hadn't had that money in savings and were still paying off our van!

The only way we have found that works to regularly add money to that savings or emergency fund is by transferring 10% of our income each month to that account, as soon as we're paid. Actually, my husband does that, for which I am grateful because it's hard for me to see that money go, but I don't miss it when it's not there to use. Since we also give a 10% tithe to our church each month, that's 20% of our income that we "give away". But we've made it work and feel like both ten-percents provide us insurance that continually bless us.

Even though we're almost $4,000 poorer this month, our van is back in working order and we didn't have to go into debt (and pay all that interest over the long term) to get it there.

So, in the long run, "paying yourself first"--that regular percentage every month--really pays off and helps you save money.

Time

"If you don't take time for your health today, you will have to make time for illness tomorrow."

Joseph Piscatella

Improving Traditions

We had an enjoyable Easter Sunday yesterday and our simple, yet joyful celebration got me thinking again about how important traditions are. They help bring families together, make great memories, and provide something for us to look forward to that our children know they can rely on.

I've talked before about improving food traditions to make them more healthful without taking away any of the spirit of celebration. In my family growing up, one of our Easter traditions was candy not being included in our Easter baskets. Even as a child, I felt it was so much more exciting to open up a plastic egg and find earrings or a colorful eraser, than candy that would be gone quickly. I loved all the nick-knacks, the fun little things Mom would fill our baskets with, and I decided I wanted to do the same for my own future children.

Yesterday I discovered--again--that it's even funner to be on this side of the giving! And I think my children would agree that they feel sorry for those other kids who only get candy in their baskets. :)

Essential Oils Disclaimer

I have posted a few times about how wonderful and effective essential oils can be. The more I use them (now daily), the more I realize how I depend on and appreciate them.

But--

A couple of things that have happened lately have made me realize I need to say this: Essential oils do not cure or effectively treat everything. And, at least the company who makes the oils I use, doesn't claim that they do. In all the classes I have been to, the presenter always says something to the effect of: "Oils are very empowering because they help you treat yourself and your family and improve your health, without paying to see doctors for every little thing. However, use discretion; the medical community is there to help us when oils can't."

I firmly believe that. Because, I believe:

1. God created plants and herbs for our benefit, both nutritionally and medicinally.
2. God inspired people to understand more about the human body, disease, and how the body responds to chemical compounds, and to create modern medicines that help us recover from illnesses.
3. Both need to be used in wisdom and order. Moderation in all things.

One occurrence that brought this on was that, a while back, someone found out about my last summer's fight with pneumonia and, knowing that I use essential oils, asked, "Didn't oregano work?" (For those who don't know, oregano is a powerful, natural antibiotic and anti-viral herb, and is particularly potent for respiratory ailments.) I didn't have oregano yet at that time, so I couldn't use it for pneumonia. But when asked the question, I didn't have to think twice to know that it wouldn't have worked for me for that particular ailment. After all I went through, I know now that I waited too long to go into the doctor, and too long to go to the hospital after that. Pneumonia is one of those illnesses not to fool around with! If I had seen the doctor earlier on, so much would have gone better and been easier. Maybe there are people out there who get a mild case of it and recover quickly. But I've found that in one way, having had pneumonia is like having had a miscarriage: you have no idea how many people have been through that harrowing experience until you talk to others about it. And everyone who has told me their pneumonia story, has completely empathized with me: "Now I can understand how someone could die from it." "I kept thinking I would feel better in the morning, but I never did." "It was all I could do to work up the energy to go to the bathroom." "I wanted to die." "It took me a year to fully recover." As powerful as oregano is, for someone with an illness as bad as pneumonia, it isn't equipped to combat this kind of nastiness--especially when it turns into something even worse (Legionnaire's Disease), like mine did. (Unfortunately, nasty illnesses require nasty antibiotics, which often carry nasty side effects, and I experienced that too. But, it was better to be alive and experience them than the alternative!)

Again, the medical community is there to help us when oils can't. And another side to the coin is that oils are there to help us while we're waiting for drugs to kick in, since oils often start working more quickly--but might not work as long or as effectively, depending on the drug and the oil.

I always lean toward natural treatment, and I really don't like antibiotics, but there are times and places for both. Case in point: my sister is a nurse who works in a large and very good hospital. Just the other day she reported to me that sometimes they have people come in for treatment who have been using all kind of essential oils hoping for a reversal of symptoms who, as a result, wait so long for doctors' care that things only become worse and are harder to deal with. Don't be like that! Know your limits, know what works for you, and listen to what your body and your gut feelings tell you.

Our Wyandotte

Here's our newest little chick, and what a difference in size between her and the other two, who are only about a week older! She is adorable; I love her markings. And she will only get more beautiful as a mature hen. (See pictures here of mature Silver-Laced Wyandottes.)

I called the store every day for three days of the week they said new Wyandottes would come in, and on the third day at 3:00 pm they said they had 16 left. (I'm curious how many they started out with.) An hour later I arrived there and saw only six or seven were left. Whew, I was glad I got there when I did!

Chickens are very social creatures, so I felt bad for this little chick as she made her solo trip home, chirping shrilly all the way.

I was a little concerned about how well the veteran chicks would accept the new one, so I did a little research beforehand. The consensus seemed to be that, with such a small difference between ages, the transition might be okay, but to keep an eye on things.

So I removed the older two to a box, spruced up the brooder and changed the water, then put the baby in by herself for a couple minutes. When I placed the other two in with the baby, they stared at her with such intensity that it worried me. I wondered what they were thinking. Then curiosity got the better of them and they began investigating. The baby fluffed herself up and tucked her head down, staying as still as could be, awaiting the moment of judgment. It was a tense few moments. But as I checked on them periodically through the rest of the day, it seemed they were growing more comfortable together. And the Wyandotte became less timid as she saw the other two weren't going to eat her.



Happily, before long, the older chicks allowed the baby to cuddle up with them, as seen in the picture below, and now they seem to have transitioned completely. The baby no longer chirps so shrilly either, so I'm thinking she must feel better with her new friends. What a relief!

It has been interesting to note the differences in behavior between a new baby and older chicks, similar to human babies. Our Wyandotte sleeps a lot more and chirps louder than her more awake and energetic older friends. She is also wobbly where they are very sure-footed and have even started trying to fly a bit. Just like children, chicks grow up too fast!