Healthy Biscuits & Gravy

Biscuits & Gravy is one of my families FAVORITE meals!!! We were eating it so much, I decided it needed vegetables!!! =) Here is what you will need to make this yummy and healthy dish!

• One pound of sausage (here is where you can go healthier or not, don't forget to read the ingredient label on the package. We don't want sodium nitrate, MSG, artificial coloring or chemical preservatives. Also, would be good to get hormone free meat but that is not always cost effective.)
• biscuits (pack or homemade)
• about a cup to 1 1/2 cups of milk (or almond milk for dairy free)
• about a cup of whole wheat flour (or almond flour for gluten free)
• about 1-2 cups of ground up veggies (Use whatever you have in your kitchen) 

Preheat your oven to whatever temp your biscuit package says or follow the directions in making your own biscuits. It's always a healthier option to make your own biscuits because you know EXACTLY whats going in them. I found a great biscuit recipe for my gravy that I added below.

The next step is to grind up your veggies. This time around I used a carrot, two celery stalks, a few pieces of broccoli, a few mushrooms, and a piece of zucchini. Zucchini, celery, and eggplant are good because they are light in color so your family wont be able to SEE them when ground up with the sausage! Make sure you grind your veggies up REALLY FINE!!! 

 Here is my veggies ground up! No large chunks!

At a regular grocery store, Turkey breakfast sausage is probably your healthiest option. Start browning your sausage meat.
*update* I found additive free (Never Any) pork sausage at Aldi that is AMAZING

As your sausage is cooking, get your biscuits on a cookie sheet and throw them in the oven! The quick option we used this time around is Trader Joes Buttermilk Biscuits. They have a lot less added stuff. Whole foods has their brand also. The only thing I don't like is they used enriched flour but it's WAY better than Pillsbury!!!!
Also, if you are going dairy free, these biscuits wouldn't be good because they use real buttermilk.

Then add your ground up veggies to your cooking sausage. I wait for it to brown a little bit but not fully cook.

 Here is what your veggies and sausage will look like when almost fully cooked! Just make sure you have no raw meat!

Then I grab about two large handfuls of whole wheat flour and sprinkle it over top of the meat mixture. You can use other types of flour if you have them. Check my post in October 2011 about White Vs. Whole Grain for best options.

This next step I used my almond milk (Dairy free) but you can you your regular milk!

I am so sorry that I don't have exact measurements for this, I just pour the milk over the meat mixture till it covered. I would just guess its about a cup or a little over. It needs to simmer for 5-10 min so it will thicken. Stir constantly! If you like thick gravy add more flour, if you like it on the runny side, add more milk! My husband and I ALWAYS do this different because I like to make it thicker than he does.

Here it is after ALL the milk is poured in! Remember stir and let simmer for 5-10 min and then your done!!!

YUMMY!

Here is my family chowin' down!!! I know it's funny but we do sit and eat dinner a lot at this kids table! =) 

*UPDATE*

December 2017: I now eat dairy free and gluten free! I found the best Paleo biscuit recipe to go with my gravy. Just click on the picture below to take you to the recipe!

Thanksgiving Count Calendar!

Ok, I've decided to change things up a little bit and do something other than a paper chain. Here it is! We are doing a Thanksgiving Count Calendar! I always hated the question on Thanksgiving, in front of all your family, "What are you Thankful for?" I mean, I'm thankful for a lot, I just don't know what to say when put on the spot! Also, I want to get my kids thinking about being thankful more than one day of the year so I decided to make this cute calendar! Everyday we will be thinking of just one thing we were thankful for and place it in the days number. Here is what you will need:

• Small white envelops (as many days till Thanksgiving)
• Ribbon
• Hot glue gun
• scissors
• markers/crayons/colored pencils
• a couple sheets of colored construction paper
• Tacks to hang up the calendar on the wall (you can choose to do it a different way)

I bought some note cards in the dollar section at Michael's. Buy as many packs as you need envelopes, one per day of the countdown. I pulled out only the envelopes and licked them shut.

Then cut one side off so now the envelop is a pouch!

This next step was so much fun! We basically had a family craft night decorating each number pouch! I drew numbers 1-24 on the front with the opening facing up and then we decorated around them. Another reason I came up with this is the number practice for my son. I am trying to find ways to get him to recognize and memorize what each number looks like and it's also good practice for younger siblings!

Then I got a bunch of different ribbon and cut them in two inch strips, folded them in half, and then hot glued them in a little loop.

Then I hot glued the loop to the front flap of my pouch, directly in the center. 

Here are all of our pouches with loops on top in numerical order. Now I chose to do a Thanksgiving count but you can also make this a countdown till Thanksgiving. I just chose it to do it this way because we were starting on the first of November. Since today is November first and you probably cant start this today, maybe you will choose to do a countdown to Thanksgiving from whenever you can get your calendar made! =)

We then strung a longer piece of ribbon through each loop and I hot glued each pouch in place on the ribbon.

I then tacked each side of the ribbon to the wall. 

Each person in our family chose a color to be what they write what they are thankful for on so we don't have to always write names. I cut long strips that would be long enough to stick out of the top of the pouch. 24 strips for each day on the count calendar.

Here is what Brenden, Keaten, and I wrote on our strips for today. Brenden is blue, Keaten is red, and I'm yellow! Jason didn't write his yet because he is at work.

This is what it looks like once your thankful strips are in. Then On Thanksgiving, you don't have to come up with anything you are thankful for! Just pull your strips out of your Count Calendar and read what people said!

Here is the fun twist to the calendar that I came up with when I was talking with a friend yesterday. What do you do with ALL of your Halloween candy that you have in your house? How do you get them not go crazy with eating all that candy? I had my kids pick out 24 of their favorite pieces of candy. I labeled a B on Brenden's candy so they don't fight over which piece of candy was supposed to be theirs.

Then they got to put a piece of candy in each pouch! Great way to spread out all that candy. Then after Mom and Dad pull out all their favorites, throw away the rest! =) This prevents your child sneaking their Halloween bucket into their room and chowing down on a handful of candy before you find them in their bed with wrappers everywhere and chocolate all over their face. Yep this happened to me TODAY, with my three year old, right before we were going to put our candy in the pouches. 

Another idea you could do with this is in the days count you could add a special activity for that day that you are going to do with you kids. Some examples could be, Bake some cookies and share them with your neighbor, make up a song of things you are thankful for, or sit in a circle with everyone in the family and give each other back rubs at the same time! Get creative! They can be as simple or as complex as you would like!

I reposted our calendar again for 2012! I made it into a COUNTDOWN calendar.

Click HERE to see the post!

Homemade Tron costume

If you know my son Brenden then you know that he is in costumes more than regular clothing! His costumes mean a lot to him! We happened to be searching Netflix last week and saw that they added the newest Tron movie. My son fell in love with the costumes and their weapons. If you have a Netflix account and haven't seen the movie, you can watch it now on instant streaming! Furthermore, He begged me to get him a Tron costume so he could be that for Halloween. I looked online and they were sold out most places and when I found ONE place that had the costume in stock, without identity disk, it was around 50 dollars! NOT happening! =) I remembered that my mom gave him a SWAT team costume that was big so I was saving it till this coming christmas.... It was PERFECT because once you take off the "bulletproof vest" it was an all black suit! So here is what I did to make his homemade Tron costume!

I spent 4 dollars at Michaels on glow in the dark puffy paints, blue and natural colors. Then painted out the design on the all black suit by looking at a picture of the real costume online.

 For his Identity Disk, we had a small frisbee so my husband cut out the center with a jigsaw and spray painted it black!

 I had some black Velcro so I hot glued the soft side to the back of the costume and the ruff side to the frisbee (identity disk).

 Here you can kind of see all the Velcro I put on the back. I tried to put a lot in hopes that he could take the disk on and off all by himself. 

This is what the Identity Disk looks like on the back of the costume. He can successfully take it off and put it back on all by himself!

 Here is my boy in his new costume playing in the dark garage! =)

 A glow in the dark shot!

   

Tron boy climbing the walls!

I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween tomorrow! Stay safe and get lots of treats! =)

Cooking: Fun & Healthy Personal Pizza

I feel that one of my jobs in life is to take a food that most people would call "unhealthy" and make a healthy version!!! Here is one of the ways we make pizza at our house. What you will need:

• Whole wheat tortillas (one per pizza)
• a jar of pasta sauce
• shredded cheese
• 1/2 cup of ground veggies (carrots, spinach, broccoli, zucchini or any other vegetable you have on hand to put in your sauce)
• Toppings for pizza that your family likes!

The first thing I do is get my sauce ready! Get out your food processor, magic bullet, or coffee bean grinder because we need about 1/2 cup of ground up veggies! For mine I used spinach and carrots. Dark greens are soooo good for us but kids normally don't eat them so I choose spinach a lot to grind up and add to my recipes. Also, spinach doesn't add any bad taste! For this you can use anything you have on hand but a tip is to try and use the stuff your children don't eat when cooked normally. 

 Here is the lid of my food processor to show you how diced up my veggies got!

 Add the veggies to you pasta sauce. I used Whole Foods brand 365 sauce. Their organic sauce is a great price actually comparable to "normal" grocery store sauce. If you are going to a regular grocery store to get your sauce PLEASE read the ingredient label!!! Most sauce now a days add sugar or high fructose corn syrup to it, even organic sauces! We don't need this extra sugar.....save it for the dessert right? You will find some without sugar but it's like a scavenger hunt, make it fun! =) Or another idea is to just use a jar of tomato sauce!

 Spread the sauce on the tortillas. If your child will look at the sauce and say.... what is that green stuff in there? Then you might also want to sprinkle the cheese on before you invite them to add the toppings.

 It's topping time, here is what we used! Two different types of cheeses, mushrooms (my kids LOVE them), and Natural hotdogs cut up for our pepperoni!

 They had so much fun with this and here are the pizzas ready to go in the oven. 350 degrees for about 10 min. Until your cheese is melted.

 Finished product! It will be a little harder to eat because your crust isn't thick so cut into small slices for your kids so they can hold on to them.

Craft/game: Indoor Tennis!

As the weather is starting to get colder, we need to have physical activities inside for our children. 

Indoor tennis is so much fun for  "children" of all ages. I put quotes around children because even I like to get in on this game! Here is what you will need:

• A wooden ruler for each person (I got mine for 50 cents at target)
• acrylic paint and brushes
• paper plates, if a special holiday is coming up use that theme.
• knife or sharp  pair of scissors
• clear packing tape

First thing I did was give each child their ruler to paint the way they like it. 

 Here is a close up shot of my daughters ruler. Then I let them fully dry.

 This next step will most likely will be done by an adult. I used a knife to cut two lines in the middle of a paper plate. About and inch apart and as long as your ruler.

 Then you weave your ruler through your lines and tape it in place. I taped the back and the front sides.

 Here is our finished product. These are the paper plate paddles for the game. We also taped the ruler a little, where you would be holding it but you don't have to do this. Since it's Halloween time, we used halloween paper plates. Get thanksgiving plates and play with your family after dinner to burn off some extra calories or get christmas plates and pull them out when the kids have nothing to do on that long break from school!

Now all you have to do is blow up some balloons and use those as your balls. If you have little ones, I would blow up a balloon for each child and let them try on their own to keep it off the ground. With school age children you can have them play a game and hit it back and fourth to each other over a line on the ground or a piece of furniture. The video below is me and my son playing a short game!