Friday, May 2, 2014

Essentia Water




Essentia takes hydration to an all new level. When its hot out there we burn up essential electrolytes. If your family is anything like mine you stay busy and that means that you have to replenish Essentia  has been created to help you get the most out of the water that you drink. Dehydration can lead to stiff joints, sore muscles, poor concentration and performance. Just like a car a body must be properly hydrated to run. Essentia has the proper formula to keep the electrolytes in the body at their proper heights.

The product claim is that it has a “proprietary electrolyte formula and higher pH of 9.5″ which can help facilitate “maintaining normal blood pressure, restful sleep, concentration and focus, proper cardiac rhythm, muscle strength, endocrine balance, intestinal function and more” and even balance your body’s pH levels, all while tasting great!

Essentia taste delicious like clean water but it offers so much more. It offers the bodies cells peace allowing the body to maintain normal blood pressure, restful sleep, concentration and focus, proper cardiac rhythm, muscle strength, endocrine balance, intestinal function and more.

Many bottled waters offer purity but do not come with additional benefits. Electrolytes are added to Essentia purified water and then is ionized, creating a distinctive alkaline 9.5 pH water.

Our Review:
Husband and son have sworn off most drinks and have picked up the fact of drinking water. They simply loved Essentia. They believed the taste was delicious but like most water believed it tasted better chilled.

My mother is that lady that always has packets of drink mix with her. She also tried Essentia water and loved that it was convenient, easy and tasty way to enjoy her mixed drink (I believe lemonade mix poured into the essential water.)

Great to take with you on the go as well as to give you that extra boost after a walk, run or work out. Another great idea keep some essentia water with you when out doing yard work.

Want to try to find out more? Check out the hydration perfected essentia website





Mexican Corn Bread



2 - jalapeno peppers
1/2 cups - sweet milk
3 - eggs
1 cups - onion
1 cups - cheddar cheese
1 dashes - garlic salt
 1/2 cups - vegetable oil
1 cups - cream-style corn
1 1/2 cups - self-rising cornmeal

Blend peppers in blender with milk (or substitute 4 oz. can of green chiles for jalapenos and stir in with milk). Combine all ingredients and pour into greased 8x10-inch baking dish. Bake for 40-50 minutes at 400 degrees or until golden brown. - See more at: http://dishdish.us/recipe/mexican-corn-bread/#sthash.wXaeNY0o.dpuf

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Cheesy Chicken Taco Casserole

 
This tasty little recipe offers a bit of spice in a dish that is healthier for you than many others. Since we are now living on a low carb diet plan to help control our diabetes dishes like this have made us mighty happy.



1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
1 (24 oz.) jar pasta sauce
9 (5-inch) corn tortillas
1 cup chopped cilantro
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack (8 oz.)
1 small tomato, sliced

Preheat oven to 400°F. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Place in a small skillet and add cold water to cover. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, turning once or twice, until opaque and firm, about 10 minutes. Remove, let cool and cut into small pieces or shred. You should have about 3 cups cut-up chicken.
Spread one-third of sauce over bottom of a 7-by-11-inch baking dish. Arrange 3 tortillas, slightly overlapping, on top. Sprinkle one-third of chicken and cilantro over tortillas. Top with a third of cheese. Make two more layers of sauce, tortillas, chicken, cilantro and cheese. Arrange tomato on final layer of cheese. Cover with foil and bake until bubbly, about 20 minutes. Remove foil and cook until top is lightly browned, 10 minutes more

recipe source here

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Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Spicy Mexican with Lime and Cilantro

Spicy Mexican Slaw with Lime and Cilantro
(Makes about 4 servings, recipe can be easily doubled. Recipe adapted slightly from Fine Cooking Annual 2008.)

4 cups thinly sliced green cabbage
2 cups thinly sliced red cabbage
(You can use all green or all red cabbage.)
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped cilantro (or more)
4 T mayo
3 T fresh lime juice (more or less to taste)
hot sauce to taste (I used about 1/2 tsp. green Tabasco sauce)
salt to taste (I used Vege-Sal)

Thinly slice cabbage, using a mandoline or food processor if desired. Slice green onions, and wash, dry and chop cilantro. (I use a Mini salad spinner to wash herbs and spin them dry.) Combine cabbage, green onions and cilantro in large salad bowl.

In small bowl, whisk together, mayo, lime juice, and hot sauce. (You may want to start with less than the full amount of lime juice and hot sauce and keep adding until you have the desired blend of sour/hot flavor.)

Use a wooden spoon to mix dressing into cabbage mixture. Season to taste with salt and serve immediately, or chill for a few hours.

This salad will keep well overnight in the refrigerator, but the lime juice will cause the red cabbage to bleed color and turn the salad slightly pink. If you're making extra you might want to use all green cabbage, although I didn't mind the pink color at all when I ate the leftovers!


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Monday, April 28, 2014



This awesome song hit #1 on this date in history in 1979 do you remember it

Memories of BlueberryPie

I was lucky in life to have some wonderful individuals teach me life lessons. Life was not always easy in our little rural community and most of my grandparent worked on farms taking care of animals, crops and the land. All of the adults I knew worked hard in one way or another. One of my grandmothers prepared a Sunday diner where each of her children would attend with their families. The dinner would be packed with delicious goodies and lots of time dessert would be one made by her hands and the berries that she would pick on her hike. In honor of her I share a recipe, not her recipe but  tasty as well.






Pie Dough 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp table salt
3 tbsp sugar
11 tablespoons unsalted butter
7 tablespoons vegetable shortening, chilled
1/2 cup of ice water
Pie Filling
3 pints fresh blueberries (6 cups), rinsed and stems removed
1 cup sugar
1/2 lemon, juiced and zested
1/4 tsp ground allspice
pinch ground nutmeg
7 tsp corn starch
2 tbsp unsalted butter
The algorithm:
Make sure butter has been in the refrigerator, rather than the freezer. Take it out and, with a sharp, thin knife (not a butter knife), cut the butter into small cubes, approximately 1/4 inch per side. The smaller the cubes, the easier it will be to integrate the butter with the flour later. Then put the cubed butter in the freezer. Cut the shortening into cubes, too, but the size doesn't matter. Put cubed shortening into the freezer as well.
Combine the flour, salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add chilled butter and toss to coat with flour. Cut the butter into the flour, preferably with a pastry blender (or in a food processor). Add chilled shortening and continue to cut it in until no pieces of butter or shortening are bigger than peas. Add ice water to the mixture. Fold the mixture together with your hands, and/or a rubber spatula, until the dough comes together and starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. The less water you have to use to get it to this point, the better.
Divide dough into two balls, but leave one of the balls slightly larger than the other (because the bottom crust has to be larger than the top crust, due to the curvature of the pie dish). Press each ball flat into a disk several inches wide. Dust with flour, and wrap each disk in plastic wrap. Refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes, letting it rest.
At this point, making the filling. Toss fruit with sugar, lemon juice and zest, spices, and corn starch. Let that stuff stand for 15 minutes or so.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees before you start rolling out the dough. Roll out the larger ball of dough until its diameter is about four inches larger than your pie pan (should be about 13"), flouring your surface and rolling pin occasionally as you go. When it's rolled out, place dough into pie pan by doing the following: Sprinkle flour onto the top of the circle of dough, and then fold half of the circle onto the other half, creating a semi-circle. Then sprinle dough on top of the semi-circle and fold again, creating a quarter-circle. Then pick up the dough and put it into the pie pan, point in the center, and unfold it to cover. Gently press the dough so that it sits along the sides of the pie pan. Leave any overhanging dough, because it'll be used to seal the crust later.
Now pour the filling, juices and all, into the pie pan, and refrigerate while you roll out the top crust. Roll the smaller disk the same way as the first, but only roll it out to about ten inches in diameter. Just like with the bottom crust, use the folding method to place the top crust onto the pie. Lay it over the fruit and unfold. Now trim the top and bottom dough edges to somewhere around half an inch past the lip of the pan. Tuck that rim of dough underneath itself, so that its folded edge is flush with the lip of the pan. Press the rim of folded dough with the tines of a fork in order to seal it. Then cut four or five slits on the top crust to allow steam to escape. If the pie dough is very soft, put it in the freezer for a few minutes before baking.
Put the pie on a baking sheet, or on top of a large piece of aluminum foil (that'll keep your oven clean when the filling inevitably bubbles out of the pie and falls). Bake at 400 degrees until the top crust is looking golden, about 20 to 25 minutes. Then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees and keep baking until the filling gets all bubbly and the crust is golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes longer.
Afterward, transfer the pie to a wire rack, or somewhere else it can sit and cool. You have to let it cool to almost room temperature so that the corn starch can work its magic and thicken the filling. You'll probably have to let it cool for about two hours before that will have happened

recipe source here

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Cherry Cheesecake Dip

In our neck of the woods we often come together to sit by the bonfire and enjoy each others company. When we do this we are in need of lots of delicious snacks and drinks. This easy to make recipe goes wonderfully on a night like this. Serve graham crackers and vanilla wafers


 Recipe:
1 box No Bake Cheesecake mix or Cheesecake pudding mix
1 container cool whip
heavy cream
1 can cherry pie filling

Mix the cheesecake mix and whip cream together then stir in heavy cream to desired consistency.  Put in dish, add cherry topping and chill for at least 1 hour. Add grahams or wafers and serve.

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Sunday, April 27, 2014

Yeah for Tomatoes and a Yummy Recipe


The age old debate of whether the tomato is a fruit or veggie has never been acceptable to me and so the debate rolls on. Scientifically it has been ruled a fruit  The tomato itself could be considered a berry with the seeds inside. However, on May 10, 1893 the U.S. supreme court ruled the tomato a vegetable. Because it was considered a vegetable import tariffs would be charged. (resource here)
 
 
Tomato
picture source here
 
 Slow Roasted Tomatoes

 
1 pint cherry tomatoes
Thyme
Sea salt
Black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
4-5 cloves of garlic (optional)
 
Cut the tomatoes in half end-to-end, and place cut side up on a pan. Optional: Slice 4-5 cloves of garlic, and sprinkle over the tomatoes. Strip several sprigs of fresh thyme, and sprinkle the leaves over the tomatoes. Season with sea salt and fresh ground black pepper and drizzle extra-virgin olive oil liberally over all of the tomatoes. Place in the oven at 200°F for 6-8 hours; the tomatoes will collapse, but not completely dry out. (since they’ll be in there a while, preheating is not necessary) Cool and serve with crackers and soft cheese or package to preserve.
 
In all of its forms (tomato sauce and juice, e.g., as well as raw), the tomato is the second most widely consumed vegetable in the U.S., after the potato.
 
serving suggestions
  • Mound onto a wedge of crusty bread, top with mozzarella and broil to melted sandwich perfection.
  • Toss them with crumbled feta and serve over fresh greens for a light lunch.
  • Add to pizzas toppings; feel free to skip the tomato sauce and drizzle pizza with olive oil instead.
  • Toss with hot pasta and chopped fresh herbs for a simple, yet elegant meal.

  • Keep in fridge in jar and cover with olive oil. Keep covered with lid and store up to 2 weeks

    Freeze by packing tomatoes into a freezable container, pour oil from pan over the top. Cover with more olive oil if needed, label and freeze up to 6 months. .

    recipe source here

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    Morse Code Day

    Today is a day that celebrates Samuel Morse the inventor of the Morse code. The code has been found to be a wonderful assistance in individuals in trouble and looking for help. The important but fun little code is also a great way to have a fun today on write an old friend a letter day. Use a code to write a letter, be sure to include the code with the letter so your friend will understand the letter.


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