baking

What Is Saving My Life Right Now 2020

February 3, 2020 by mamakay Leave a Comment

Every year I enjoy linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy to reflect on what is saving my life right now when we are smack in the middle of winter. Although this year has been a little different. We have hardly had any snow so far this winter (although it looks like winter this week). I’ve been in a pretty good place so far this year but maybe that’s because of the things I have been practicing.

Reading! I have really upped my game the last couple of years and read a lot more. It inspires me, encourages me, and entertains me to read a variety of different books. And this year I have made it a goal to read one book a week and to mostly read books I already own. I am keeping a book list of the books I am reading this year. Here is the link if you’d like to check it out: http://mamakay.com/WordPress/2020-book-list/
Exercising in the Morning with my husband. I can’t believe I’m going to say this but truly, I feel more energetic when we do a 30 minute exercise video in the morning. We got a subscription the the Daily Burn channel on Amazon and it has been a great fit for us.
Joining Online Coaching Groups. I joined this group by Crystal Paine and it has given me so much focus and energy to pour into my online work. If you work online I highly recommend doing this! (Registration for this group ends tomorrow, Feb 4th, so hurry if you want to join.)
My morning time. I have had to be flexible with my time but the more consistent I am with doing it, the better my days are. I plan my day, read my Bible, copy a passage and write a prayer in my Write the Word journal and read from a spiritual book. (Right now I am reading Beholding and Becoming by Ruth Chou Simons.)
Baking bread is saving my life right now! I always used to bake bread but had let the busyness of life get in the way. This year I want to reclaim my love of baking. My favorite things to bake are bread and cookies. They are a way I can use my hands to do physical work and my family feels loved (and less hungry) when I make these things for them.

What is saving your life right now? I would love to hear!

Breakfast Cookies!

January 26, 2016 by mamakay Leave a Comment

Do you need a breakfast recipe that is quick, portable and adaptable to what you have in the pantry? Then this recipe is perfect for you! It doesn’t even require any special equipment. Any of my kids over the age of 8 can even make it!

I like to mix it up with a variety of add-ins. The version in the picture has one quarter cup each of chocolate chips, coconut, slivered almonds and dried cherries. You can use whatever you like!

Breakfast Cookies

Makes 36 cookies

3 Cups Oatmeal

2 Cups whole grain flour

1 Cup Brown Sugar

4 eggs

1 cup butter, melted

1 cup mix-ins (chocolate chips, raisins, dried cherries, coconut, nuts – I add a variety)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Form in 1 inch balls.

Bake for 12 minutes.

Cool on the pan for 1 minute. Then enjoy!

MamaKay

Chicken Pot Pie: Mission Accomplished!

January 17, 2016 by mamakay Leave a Comment

Years ago when we set out upon this journey of raising our children we set down some things that we wanted them to be able to do by the time they were adults. Our oldest turned 17 a couple months ago. It has really brought to our attention that our time with her is waning. Have we accomplished the things we set out to do? Yes, and No. There is still so much more that we want to be able to teach and share with her. And yet…chicken pot pie….

What does chicken pot pie have to do with anything? Well last week 1potato declared that she wanted to make chicken pot pie for dinner. Of course, I agreed! She looked up the recipe and went to the store and bought a couple of the ingredients we were missing (with money she earned from her job). She got a whole chicken from our freezer that we raised and she helped to butcher and cooked it in the Instant Pot Pressure Cooker with just a bit of advisement from me. While she waited for the chicken to cook she made the pie crust from scratch then placed it in the refrigerator to chill. Then she diced up the vegetables from our Bountiful Baskets and sautéed them in the Dutch oven. She used homemade chicken stock from our pantry to make the sauce for the pot pie. She deboned the chicken (and saved the bones for us to make another batch of chicken stock) and added it to the pot. Finally, she assembled the pie and baked it.

It was delicious! The crust was so flakey and golden brown. The filling was creamy, cooked just right and seasoned perfectly. There wasn’t one bit left in the pan after dinner was done! Even the small children who had previously declared that they didn’t like chicken pot pie gobbled up every bite!

Afterwards, I realized that in making this one dish she demonstrated her ability to be a grown up! She can read and follow directions, she has money that she earned from her job, she shopped for her ingredients and demonstrated her ability in the kitchen. She used a pressure cooker and food processor safely. She had the knife skills she needed to prepare the vegetables. She sautéed, made a sauce and baked! She served a beautiful and nutritious meal for a family of ten!

There are so many more lessons to be learned but her foundation is solid! And now my list for skills before they leave home includes make a chicken pot pie.

MamaKay

Not Perfect But Still Nourishing

November 4, 2015 by mamakay Leave a Comment

I love baking and usually turn out wonderful baked goods but let’s face it, I have 8 kids and sometimes I get distracted and mess up! Just yesterday I was making blueberry muffins. I’ve made them so many times that I didn’t take the time to get out my ingredients and go over the recipe. And you know what? I forgot to add the sugar! Thankfully I have made them frequently enough that as I was mixing in the blueberries I realized that something was not right. The mixture was just too dry. So I tasted the batter and that’s when I realized I missed the sugar. So I just went ahead and mixed the sugar in (which is much more difficult to do after the other ingredients have been assembled). The muffins turned out blue and lumpy but they were still edible.

Sometimes we just have to work with what we’ve got even if we know the end result will not be as good as we want it to be. We can’t give up! Not with muffins and not with the rest of our lives. Sometimes I get so frustrated that my spiritual life is not what I want it to be, that I am interrupted and don’t make it through my Bible reading or my prayers for my official “quiet time.” But then I have to work to fit it in during the rest of the day and maybe that is a good thing. I am forced to keep looking for time and ways to incorporate it into the rest of my day and that often means including the kids in my attempts. Yes it is lumpy and bumpy but in the end it still nourishes my soul just as the muffins nourished our bodies.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up — Galatians 6:9