Memorial Day Staycation

This year Memorial Day Weekend was quite the surprise of unexpected family time. About a week before Memorial Day weekend my extended family (my parents and little sister and her family) asked if they could come for a visit. Of course we were beyond thrilled at the idea of having them down and told them to come anytime. Considering we live several states away, it isn't often that we get to visit, any offer for a family gathering is well received on our end, that's for sure. We were doubly happy about the spontaneous visit since we were suppose to travel up to see them in early May, sadly the trip was cancelled on account of the 'shutdown'.

My mom and sister as well as her children came down on Thursday, while my dad and sister's husband drove down on Saturday on account of work obligations. My sister and her family along with my mom stayed in their camper that they had stored down here for the winter. Of course there were a couple children who slept over at our house and then a few of my children who took turns sleeping in the camper. Once my dad and brother-in-law arrived my parents stayed at a local hotel. But, for the most part it was 20+ folks coming in and out of our modest home for four days ~ which I absolutely LOVED!! The more the merrier is always my thoughts. I love the chaos and the noise, absolutely some of the best memories.

My sister has five children, all of which were born within a few months of five of my children which makes for some fun times. It's like a built-in best friend situation. Her two year old and my two year old as well as our eleven year olds were inseparable! The two year olds managed to get themselves into quite a bit of mischief ~ note to self: when two little toddlers go quiet, stop what you're doing and go find them immediately, lol! Just in case you were ever curious what happens when an entire bottle of glitter is dumped onto the floor, I can give you a firsthand experience explanation!!

With over 20 people eating at our home I knew I'd have to get creative with the meals. I wanted easy, quick meals that tasted good. Obviously, with so many people it was hard to please them all the entire time, but I think for the most part, the menu was well received.

Memorial Day Staycation Menu

Thursday dinner:

Taco crockpot casserole with garlic cheese drop biscuits

Friday Breakfast:

Homemade Pancakes

Friday Lunch:

Frozen Pizza

Friday Dinner:

Mexican Street Corn

Spanish Rice

Taco Pizza

Cinnamon Sugar Crisps

Saturday Breakfast:

Blueberry breakfast cake

Scrambled Eggs

Bacon

Saturday Lunch:

Grilled meat

Homemade potato salad

Watermelon

Baked beans

Mango salsa

Chips & dip

Punch

Strawberry syrup & homemade poundcake

ice cream pies

Saturday Dinner:

Leftovers

Sunday Breakfast:

Homemade doughnuts & yogurt

Sunday Lunch:

Leftovers

Ice cream/popsicles

Sunday Dinner:

Sub sandwiches

Chips

Fresh fruit

Brownies made by the two oldest girls and my husband 

On Saturday we had a massive BBQ with so much food we could have all eaten off of it for days!! Nothing like summer and BBQ's. We don't typically grill often because it costs so much for meat these days. But, with the surprise blessing of all our family being down it was a special treat to be able to prepare a classic summer party meal which included grilled meat.

Since it isn't often we are all together we took tons of group family photos. It's hard to believe that our original family of four grew into this family of 21. Love just keeps growing I guess you could say.

On Saturday, after our food digested, we played a family game of kickball. Perks of having such a large family is we definitely have enough people to play fun team games such as kickball. Well some of us played while others, whom shall remain nameless, were just there as 'place markers', lol. ( I can't help it, I'm just not athletically inclined.) The competition was fierce, but the game ended in a tie. 

On Sunday morning we had a huge family baking event where we made homemade doughnuts. This my friends is always a win. Who doesn't love doughnuts? And the experience of getting to make your very own doughnut is just the best. The kids had a blast, but so did the adults.

Grandma was super sweet to make all the littles matching patriotic shirts. The boys were looking sharp in their U.S.A. truck shirts.

While the little girlies were precious in their red, white, and blue unicorn shirts.

Sunday afternoon we had a massive family water ballon war. Y'all it was HILARIOUS! Everyone was soaked by the time the last balloon was thrown. 

The only outings we went on was two visits to our local park which has an amazing walking trail and lake. Even though we didn't go anywhere fancy like the beach or the mountains we had an absolutely amazing time. Sometimes the best memories are made right at home with the ones you love. I've learned over the years it isn't how big your house is that makes your home welcoming; it's the people.

These days we are in deep discussions as we work to better align our lives as a family with what God has for us. Simplicity is often the author of true happiness. We don't need to go on elaborate costly excursions to make memories and have a good time. It truly is a blessing to find joy in exactly where God has you. Is it a bad thing to go on out-of-town adventures ~ not hardly. But, sometimes those types of events are simply not an option. Being at home doesn't have to be boring or miserable. With a little forethought and creativity staying at home can be one of the best memory making events you and your children ever experience. 

With Love & hope,

Jennifer 

Buying in Bulk

Buying in bulk has been a major blessing to our family over the years. Our first experience with buying in bulk began with just white flour and sugar from Sam's (which at that time was over an hour away). I had zero clue how to cook or bake when I was a young, newly married woman at the ripe old age of 19. It took me a year to come to the realization that I actually wanted to cook and bake, and that I could really enjoy it. It took a couple more years and a couple of babies before I jumped into cooking and baking from scratch, but once I started doing that, I quickly learned it was in our best interest to buy dry goods in bulk. 

As our family grew and we evolved into a more healthier lifestyle of eating, it became more and more practical for us to seek out a bulk co-op company to purchase our dry goods from. Since we live in small-town rural Alabama, finding a co-op company was not that easy. Thankfully, through many hours of searching, as well as networking with other like-minded families, we did finally find a co-op company. That was about eleven years ago. Because of the cost, only once a month delivery options, and the inconvenience of driving an hour to reach the co-op drop-off location; we opt to purchase a one year supply of all our necessary dry good food items.

For our large family (currently 11 living at home) that means we store around 45, 5 gallon buckets (some are 6 gallon buckets) within our home. We do not have a large house. We actually live in a doublewide mobile home. Our house is not a Pinterest house. We make our house work for us. For now our buckets are dispersed in three different closets, stacked three buckets high. We keep smaller containers of everything in our kitchen pantry for daily use. We typically fill our smaller containers once a week depending on the food item, while some may only need to be filled monthly. 

We label the buckets with masking tape and a Sharpie. We do this because often the buckets have to be switched out when we purchase a surplus of one item or another, from year to year. It's super easy to just rip off the tape and put on a new piece, instead of scribbling on the buckets. 

I really don't have an exact science as to how I figure out how much of each item we need to purchase each year. It's kind of just a given that all our buckets need to be filled and I take stock of our inventory before placing our yearly bulk order. Some years we eat more of one certain food item than another and we order accordingly. 

Through trial and error I've learned how many pounds of food fill the buckets. Different food items require different amount of buckets. For instance a 50 pound bag of quick oats fills about two and a half 5 gallon buckets. But a 55 pound bag of seas salt barely fills one 5 gallon bucket. And to be honest I'm still learning! Even with this being our eleventh year for bulk ordering, we ended up being short four buckets, so we will have to order some more. This year we purchased more bulk beans than we have in the past, and I overlooked two full buckets of oats (meaning we didn't really need any ~ sigh, good thing they won't go bad!).

The following list is the bulk dried goods we've ordered over the years. As I've mentioned before, what we order exactly each year depends on what we consume, which fluctuates from year to year. 

Prairie Gold Hard White Wheat Berries

Quick Oats

Old Fashion Oats

Steel Cut Oats

Popcorn

Cornmeal

Brown Rice

Wheat Germ

Flax Seed/ Flax Meal

Spices

Carob Powder

Carob Chips

Raisins

Cranberries

Lentils

Sunflower Seeds

Quinoa

Kidney Beans

Chick Peas

Black Beans

Pintos

Sea Salt

Barley

Yeast

Nutritional Yeast

Baking Powder

We also purchase a year's supply of honey, usually as 'seconds' which means there's some form of condensation in the honey. To us this doesn't matter and allows us to buy the honey at a discounted price. Along with the honey, we buy a year's supply of maple syrup. We buy the maple syrup by the gallons, and four of them usually meets our family's needs for the year. 

The company we use for our dried goods bulk order is from Country Life Natural Foods. We usually place our order around March after we get our income tax returns. This year it took us until the end of April for us to get our order in due to most of our needed items being out of stock. Since we order so much food, we don't usually join in on a group co-op order, our own personal order meets the necessary money quota required for a truck order. 

We order our maple syrup from Branon Maple. 

The honey comes from a local farmer we know. 

We've purchased buckets from several different places over the years, one being Emergency Essentials, but they no longer sell buckets. We have purchased them from Lowe's before too and another online container store; but I honestly cannot remember the name of that company, it was so many years ago and the buckets are not labeled with the company's name. Pretty much any bucket will work as long as it is food grade.

Ordering in bulk has so many benefits, but mostly it helps save our family money and allows us more flexibility to remain committed to eating healthy. Finding some of these items in our local stores is nearly impossible. Without the bulk food suppliers our family would not be able to enjoy such diversity in our healthy eating endeavors. While we do eat plain, simple food, on repeat for the most part, it is a blessing to be able to mix our meals up to some degree. 

There really isn't anything complicated about ordering in bulk. It's just one of those things you have to jump into and learn as you go along. Each family is going to have their own different needs, but I'm confined nearly every family can be blessed by ordering in bulk.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Biscuit Muffins

Okay y'all this has become one of my most favorite quick-bread recipes I have ever come up with! I have seriously been trying to tweak this recipe for several years now, and I think I've finally got it right. Yeah!!

Now, y'all know those days when you're making a meal, whether it's breakfast or dinner, and you want to make biscuits but you're short on time ~ this is the recipe for YOU! These biscuit muffins are super quick and easy to make, yet they have the same taste and texture of traditional biscuits. Seriously, you can slice them and slather them with butter or jelly and they are absolutely delicious. As much as I love traditional biscuits, in this busy season of life, these are now my go-to recipe for biscuits.

Biscuit Muffins

Ingredients
1 egg
1 cup of milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients. Scoop into greased muffin pan. Bale 15-20 minutes at 400*. Makes 1 dozen muffins.

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure you could make these even healthier using whole wheat flour and olive oil. Baking regular biscuits can make quite the mess, but these create little to no mess. They are so easy to whip up, even the children can make them.

With a large family and a super busy schedule, easy and affordable recipes are my go-to. I don't have time to spend hours making meals or cleaning up after them. Yes, I try to feed my family decent meals, but I'm intentional to make them as quick, affordable, and as easy as possible. Recipes like these help make that possible. I hope y'all enjoy this biscuit muffin recipe as much as we do.

With Love & Hope
Jennifer

Doodads: A Family Foodie Tradition

I'm sure every family has their favorite holiday food, but in our family the holidays are ALL ABOUT THE FOOD ~ and eating it with family! One of our must have food items includes homemade Doodads. Now, I'm sure folks have other names for this delectable salty snack such as homemade 'Chex mix' or the like, but we've just always called them Doodads.

I found this recipe shortly after we were married, when I was trying to build up my arsenal of recipes. I've tweaked it over the years and made it my own with the flavors I know my family likes. But, this year I have been given some suggestions on spices to add to the mix. We'll have to see about all that, because now I'm intrigued to find out if they'd actually taste good with the these new flavoring ideas! 

Doodads is the official food that kicks off our Thanksgiving food fest! We typically cook all week leading up to Thanksgiving, and it's nice to have something to munch on while we're cooking up a storm. I can remember when we first started out making this recipe and how long one batch would last, and now we have to quadruple the recipe to make sure it last until Thanksgiving (but to be honest it barely does last, I usually have to hide a gallon ziplock bag just to make sure!). 

Since I am only two weeks shy of my due date, I have been given strict orders to scale down our Thanksgiving feast ~ sigh.  Not a perk of being pregnant during the holidays, but I do appreciate the concern and love my family has for me! One of my love languages is baking and cooking yummy food, especially for my family. I know how much my family loves some of the special dishes I only prepare at Thanksgiving, so this has been extra hard on this ol' girl. But, I can assure you one of the foods that was not cut out of the menu, was Doodads. 

Doodads

Ingredients 

1/4 cup melted butter

2 tbsp seasoning salt

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

3 cups nuts (we prefer pecan halves and peanuts)

4 cups pretzels

8 cups oat cereal

8 cups corn cereal

8 cups rice cereal

Directions

Combine butter, salt, and sauce. Mix remaining ingredients in a large bowl then pour butter mixture on top. Toss gently with spoon until evenly coated. Spread mixture on to two large baking pans. Bake 45 minutes @ 250*, rotating pans and stirring mixture every fifteen minutes. Let cool, then store in an air tight container or ziplock bags.

Y'all it has only been two days since we made our traditional super sized batch of Doodads and I have literally eaten so much of it, I don't think I will be eating any more!! I'm not exactly one given to indulging in sweets, but when it comes to salty snacks I have zero restraint ~ ugh!!! I'm blaming it on the baby this year though, lol. 

I'm truly blessed in the fact that since I've spent years teaching my little ones to cook and bake, now that many of them are older, they are perfectly willing and capable to lend a hand in the kitchen. I have truly been grateful for their help this year when I've been slow, awkward, and pretty much unable to keep up. 

Not only did I have the privilege of my kiddos helping with the making of our Doodads and our other Thanksgiving food, but my husband helped too. On our Doodad making day he surprised us with a half of day of work, and actually came in and immediately took over, finishing up the mix while I took in some much needed rest. 

With how much we make it took a little over three hours to get this tasty Doodad mix wrapped up. We are blessed to have a double oven and were able to do four pans of mix at a time, but we did a total of eight pans this year. With how quickly we're going through it, I think next year I'm going to have to make the recipe x5, 😅 So is the life of a large family mama!

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Blueberry Muffins

I really kind of feel out of place sharing my recipes on my blog since there are so many amazing foodie blogs out there, but folks do ask what I feed my people, so I'm going to share. 

I know the last recipe I posted was for muffins, but it was a savory muffin recipe and this one is for a sweet muffin recipe. Plus, we eat an assortment of muffins at our house every week. Like I've said before, I think muffins are awesome! Perfect for serving littles, minimal mess, and they make it easy to maintain portion control. 

We currently have an unusual situation in that I typically make at least two weeks of freezer meals for when I have a baby; and I have yet to do so (and the baby is due in less than three weeks!). 

I do this in an effort to lighten everyone in the family's load in regards to cooking while I'm in recovery. With a large family, meals aren't just something you 'whip up' easily. You have to plan a tad bit more since you need a whole lot more ingredients to feed a large family. I try to keep a well stocked pantry, but that's easier said than done when you're limited on space. My husband and children are certainly capable of handling preparing meals, I just prefer they didn't have to carry that burden if I can help it.

Well back to our 'unusual' situation we find ourselves in....our freezers are FULL from our summer harvest!! Now, I am NOT complaining, but there is literally no room to put any freezer meals for when the baby is born. So, lately I have been trying my best to free up some space in our freezers in a last ditch effort to make some freezer meals for my family. Which means we've been eating a lot of breakfasts made with blueberries. 

We were blessed with quite the abundance of blueberries this summer and they are overflowing in our freezers. Just this week we had blueberry muffins, blueberry breakfast cake, and blueberry baked oatmeal. It's a good thing we like blueberries, lol. 

So that's the story of why I'm sharing a recipe for blueberry muffins in the midst of the holiday baking season.

Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk
1.5 cups blueberries

Directions
Combine all the ingredients in the order given. Evenly divide into greased muffins tin. Bake 15-20 minutes @ 400*. Makes 12 muffins.

These muffins freeze really well and are a staple in our breakfast menu routine. They're really easy to make and usually my children bake them with minimal help from me. Of course, we typically double or triple the recipe and have never had any problems with the muffins not turning out perfect every single time. 

If you desire to make mini muffins, drop the baking time down to 10-12 minutes. We always make at least two dozen mini muffins for snacks later in the week. Mini muffins are the best snack for hangry little ones who wake up from naps extra cranky and just can't make it until dinner time, lol. 

I'm not sure if I'll be able to clear out enough freezer space in time to make any freezer meals for when our baby is born, but we're definitely enjoying the process of trying. I doubt anyone will ever complain about homemade blueberry muffins regardless of the time of year. Even if I am anxious to get back to all the yummy seasonal food ~ pumpkin everything 😬.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Pizza Muffins

In my last post I shared how I feed our large crew on vacations. I also shared our vacay menu for our recent vacation to the Smoky Mountains, and one of the recipes on our menu was Pizza Muffins. So, I thought I'd share my recipe, since it isn't a common recipe, but it is a family favorite. 

They are super easy to make, taste great, and freeze & reheat well; what more is there not to love about a recipe? And you could easily make them as healthy as you wanted simply by the choice of ingredients you use.

Pizza Muffins

Ingredients

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup pizza sauce

1/4 cup oil

1 cup ground sausage

1 cup shredded mozzarella

2 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

Directions

Combine all ingredients, mix well. Scoop into a greased muffin tin. Bake 15-20 minutes @ 400*.

I wasn't specific about the oil or flour because I've made it with olive oil and whole wheat flour as well as all-purpose flour and vegetable oil, and both ways have turned out perfect. It's all about what your preferences are or more likely, for me, what ingredients I have on hand, lol.

It's no secret I love muffins. Seriously I think everything is better when it's made in a muffin tin. Well except maybe the cleanup on occasion can be a downside. Sheesh, have I had some messy muffin tin mishaps 🙈. All that aside, muffin meals are my jam, lol. Muffin recipes are typically easy to make and good for freezing. But, my most favorite part about making muffins is that they are perfect for portion control and feeding little ones! I have more muffin recipes than I care to admit, but there's no shame in my game, because hey I'm feeding my people good food on a budget. 😜

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Easy Southern Freezer Biscuits

It's been a few weeks since I posted a recipe, so I thought it was time I shared one. The internet is overflowing with amazing recipes (and plenty of not so good ones, too). The problem with so many of them are the fact that most of them aren't suited for large families ~ especially those on a strict budget. There's nothing more that annoys me than clicking on a recipe quoted being for a large family on a budget and the lady posting has three children. Now, I'm not saying three children isn't a lot to handle, and perhaps a family of five is a large family to many, BUT I'm looking for cheap recipes to feed a family of eleven (and I realize that isn't the norm these days).

My ultimate goal is to feed my family of eleven for less than $5 A DAY. I know that sounds like a crazy low number, but it's true. Do I always achieve it, not hardly, but it's good to have goals. I would not say that we eat fancy foods or to the standards of the FDA and their idea of a 'balanced daily diet'. I try to keep the balance in the realms of a weekly picture ~ feeding my family more whole foods consisting of meals rich in fruit, vegetables, and protein.

A sample daily menu for my family could be: 

Breakfast: Homemade Whole Wheat Pancakes and organic maple syrup with a green smoothie

Lunch: Homemade Whole wheat cheese pizza with a salad and ranch dressing

Snack: Homemade oatmeal cookies

Dinner: Hamburger Sloppy Joe's on homemade buns and roasted potatoes

This particle daily menu would have our daily food budget hovering around $5 because most of the food prepared we grow or purchase in bulk. Feeding a large family on a strict budget takes long-term planning, cooking from scratch, and a lot of creativity. I almost treat it like a competition to see how low I can go to feed out large crew, while still making the food look appealing and taste good.

One my family's favorite breakfast recipes is homemade southern biscuits. They're a perfect recipe for those who are on a strict budget, like to cook in bulk, and want a no fail biscuit recipe. I have been making it for years and can't even remember where I found the recipe. I can assure you it was long before the internet, lol. 

Easy Southern Freezer Biscuits 

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cups shortening
• 1 cup buttermilk

Directions 

Combine dry ingredients, add shortening, mix, add milk stirring until soft dough forms. Turn dough onto floured surface and kneed ten times. Roll out 1/2 inch thick and cut with biscuit cutter. To bake immediately place in 450* preheated oven for 10-15 minutes. 

If freezing; place raw biscuits on a cookie sheet and into the freezer, once frozen remove from freezer and place in a freezer bag, return to freezer. To bake frozen biscuits bake in 400* preheated oven for 18-20 minutes. 

Note** If you do not have buttermilk (which I never do) put 1 tbsp lemon juice in a one cup measuring cup and add milk to fill to 1 cup mark. Stir and let sit at least one minute. Use this to replace buttermilk.

I have doubled, tripled, and quadrupled this recipe dozens of times and they always turn out wonderful. Of course, I suppose, like all recipes, everyone has their preferences as to how they like their biscuits. But, for us, this is our go-to biscuit recipe. I even have some children who won't eat any other biscuits or will make comments saying they'd rather eat my homemade ones. Which is why when I'm making a batch, I like to make enough to freeze to eat on a later day. Yes, I am always planning for the next meal and how to make life easier. 

Feeding a large family on a strict budget can be done. I can assure you most folks don't have copious amounts of money to spend on food, even if they have many mouths to feed. Life is about balance. Are these the healthiest version of homemade biscuits, not exactly. But, I would say they're better than the store-bought versions, simply because there's no preservatives or fillers in them. And most importantly they are affordable and easy to make. That makes them a perfect recipe for this ol' country mama to many!

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Easy Summer Harvest Salad

When the summer garden gets to the point that you're swimming in all that wonderful delicious produce; finding ways to use it all up all can start to get complicated! I'm constantly trying to come up with new, and most importantly, simple ways to use the produce the Good Lord gives us. One of my favorite simple summer harvest meals is to make a Summer Harvest Garden Salad.

A typical 'garden salad' is made with lettuce, but to me this is a summer garden salad. In the summer there are no greens available, so that means I improvise with other veggies. The majority of the ingredients in this yummy salad is made with fresh ingredients picked from our garden. While the rest are easily found at your local grocer. It's a super affordable salad chockfull of wholesome ingredients that taste good and are good for you.

Summer Harvest Garden Salad

Ingredients 

(All of the ingredient amounts can be adjusedt to preference or what is available and how much you want to serve)

1. Diced cucumbers
2. Finely chopped tomatoes (I'm not a fan of chunks of tomatoes, lol)
3. Chopped bell pepper
4. Chopped onion
5. Chopped hot peppers (optional, but everything we eat has a little kick 😆)
6. Canned tuna, drained
7. Favorite salad dressing

Directions 

Combine all ingredients except dressing and chill in fridge. Top with dressing when ready to eat. I like to top mine with homemade Italian dressing.

Yes, it's a super simple recipe, but I know I personally enjoy searching out new recipes to make our meals come together more efficiently. So while it may not be fancy and complicated it is yummy and an awesome way to use up some of that produce you've worked so hard to grow and harvest. But, should you not be overflowing with a summer garden harvest, making this with store-bought ingredients works just as well!

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer