Dan's brother Dylan and sister-in-law Rebekah have generously given us some of their goodies from the stash of food they get from Natures/Wild Oats/Whole Foods. The food is generally fine, but perhaps a bit ripe or just past the expiration date.So what does one do with all those bananas?
I have been making banana bread like there is no tomorrow!!! We have been making lots of smoothies (we all love that!)...and just last week I made these oat, date bran muffins and added bananas to them. They are sweetened with molasses instead of sugar which gives them a dark color. I have been eating these muffins for breakfast every morning and they're very tasty!
I was getting tired of banana bread, so I made a banana cake with homemade cream cheese frosting!This weekend we got another "shipment" of food:
This time there was lots of milk. I froze some of it, but with three kids there's no doubt we will use this up. There was even chocolate soy milk!!! We also got cottage cheese, soup and apple sauce.
Thanks to Dylan and Rebekah, we have a freezer full of whole grain, very healthy bread and are never in short supply of bagels. Just after Christmas, we got pastries and pie! (I've been good and let the kids and Dan take care of those items!)We've also been able to help some of our friends out. One family in particular is struggling financially. When we found this out, we loaded them up too! God has really blessed us with all this food for free and it has dramatically cut down our grocery bill.
Produce: more bananas, apples, potatos and avacados. I bet this week we will be having smoothies, mashed potatoes, guacamole and applesauce.
This past Sunday, I needed to use up some apples, so I made homemade applesauce with the sieve/strainer thingy I remember my mom using. After cooking the apples for 30 minutes or so, I just run them through until all that's left in the strainer are the seeds and skin. Looky a quart of applesauce with no added sugar or preservatives...another great benefit to all this food it that it's all organic! A couple weeks ago I made applesauce and added pears... it turned out amazing!
