Trash to Treasure

This is literally trash to treasure transformation today, because i repurposed a trash bin!  I removed the bottom flap and filler. Drilled a hole through the bin into the base. Added my light kit and a LED bulb and presto chango; I've got my over the kitchen light. I love it. When it's on it shines a neat pattern on the ceiling. Till next time keep it green, clean, and classy
Shalimar and Z

Cold Summer Pasta Salad with a Healthy Twist

Nutritionally packed delicious meatless meal. A pasta salad loaded with veggies, perfect for boosting your summer activities. Not only is the recipe easy, it's made ahead and chilled. So no running around, or if you are like me just staring in the fridge, pondering the nightly battle "what's for dinner". 

Using some basic kitchen staples, this can be whipped up in half hour or less. To get started you will need-

-pasta

-3 veg combo

-natural yogurt

-seasoning 

Get your water boiling for the pasta. I used a pasta that was made with carrots and squash so that my veggie serving count was stepped up.  We are also a family with a strong love of the spices. I added to my water some salt, pepper, and crushed red peppers. This is a cold summer pasta salad so refrigerate the pasta after cooking it.

I worded the ingredients as "3 veg combo" because any three vegetables that you love would work. I used for this cilantro(a favorite in our home), bell pepper, and onion. This recipe is so versatile you could switch it up and use corn, cucumber, and red onion, just one other way but it's really limitless. 

To save tons of time I used a food processor to do my chopping. Once, your veggies are cut up it's really a matter of just mixing everything together. In a large bowl combo the pasta, all the veggies, and dollop in natural yogurt. Remember that you can always add more but you can't really remove any. Adding salt, pepper, and lime juice to taste. 

I sprinkled on some Tony Chachere's. Tonys is used as an all spice in our home, as in it goes on all our recipes. 

I have the most lovely free range chickens so I boiled up a few farm eggs and served them up on the side for added protein. We are so active with building our homestead, gardening, and the animals that the added protein is appreciated. We are striving to break our life long training as carnivores and it's challenging. Both my Mr. and myself were raised in "meat and potato" homes. I'm not saying we are going full fledge vegetarian but we are at least making the steps necessary for the switch:)  

Hope you enjoyed the recipe. If you give it a try this weekend, email and share how it went:) 

Sharing a few pics from this week-

Here's our "old man" we have nick named him Mr Grandpa because he is getting old enough now that he needs some assistance. 

This is me with one of our ameraucana chickens.

This is also an ameraucana chicken. Isn't it awesome how the other one has the red coloring and this one is white. We don't have any other white ameraucanas so this one has been dubbed snow. We originally called "her" Snow White, but now we have some apprehension that she may be a he...crazy farm life y'all:) 

This beast was extra creepy in person, it photographs almost beautifully. Any idea what it is? Alright y'all have good times this weekend, but remember to keep it classy. 

Potato Salad Recipe using Leftovers and slashing calories

Happy Friday the 13th. With Father's Day this weekend I'm sure your house is as busy as mine so I have an easy leftover recipe. We don't eat meat that often in our home so when we do, we grill it:) of course when grilling it's like some kind of rule that you must cook enough for a small army, which leads me to leftover grilled chicken dinner. 

My trick to leftovers is to make sure we aren't having a full on repeat dinner. So let's say you had grilled chicken with roasted corn on the cob and a salad, the following night serve up the chicken with potato salad and another fresh green salad...we have a salad pretty much every night with every meal, expect nights when we do breakfast for dinner because that would be weird, haha... Or would it??? Hmm, sure do love salad. 

Salsa Potato Salad

Red onions

Secret salsa 

Guacamole with a twist

Being Queen of throwing things together I took potato salad to a new level of easy. I chose to use red potatoes because the skin is thin enough that I don't bother peeling it. They are also smaller potatoes so I just quartered them, then off for a boiling bath. I seasoned the water because I like it spicy... Think crawfish boil style were your potatoes take on that beautiful seasoned red hue and before you even bite into it your mouth is drooling, yum to a boil. 

Drain off the potatoes and grab the salsa and guacamole from yesterday's post. Using a 70/30 ratio in favor of the guacamole, stir and refrigerate. Traditional recipes call for many ingredients that are not healthy for you, such as mayo. So, not only are you saving time but you are saving your body too. Let it chill out for about an hour and you're done.  

Thanks for reading and stay classy 

April fools cookie brownies

Ingredients-

2 eggs, farm fresh organic from my chicas 

2 cups cold black bean, I started with organic dry so I had to soak them overnight, then boil them for a couple hours, and then once they were rinsed and cooled I stored them in the fridge.

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup applesauce

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 dark chocolate chunks, melted

3 tbsp coconut oil, melted

3 tbsp raspberry preserve 

1 1/2 tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp sea salt

Extra-

Chocolate chunk per cookie

Sprinkles for batter and topping :) 

350 degrees 9-12 minutes 3 dozen...all estimates because my oven seems to be a bit off

Happy April Fools

I thought of zero dinner options when I saw black beans in my frig; my first thought was desert:) black beans in cookies sounds like a prank but they are delicious and nutritious. I'm way to easily distracted too be welding a camera while trying to cook, the multi tasking is maxed out by the fact that I am cleaning the dished, by hand, while I'm going...oh how I love to dream of the machine known as the dishwasher...sigh...back to cookies, see the distraction haha. 

Preheat the oven to 350 

add the eggs to a bowl 

thicken them with a mixer for a couple minutes 

Mix in the beans with mixer on, you want them creamy in the end

Pour in apple sauce

Fold in peanut butter

Add oil and chocolate together in a microwave safe bowl and melt, usually around 30 seconds 

Add melted mix

Fold in cocoa powder

I used a fruit preserve but I think that would be optional as I didn't use much or taste it really

Last the baking powder and salt

Photo fun time

I used a spoon and my finger to dollop these babies out and topped each one with a chocolate chunk, using dark chocolate because it's actually got health benefits instead of milk chocolate which is just calories and sugar

And here they are done

With sprinkles! Only because it's April fools, we limit processed junk haha but one or two or three:) cookies don't hurt if you don't do it every day

I'm really not good with a camera:( but here they are looking only 1/15th of how deliciously scrumptious they are. 

My super awesome face mug with mouth for cookies! Love it

Quick swap - health tip

Try to incorporate organic coconut oil into your diet. Ingestion is the best way to get maximum health benefits, although applying topically is nice because you get healthy hydrated skin but with the smell too :) 

Good places to start adding: 

as a substitute in baking cake

Start with a little in your coffee, working up to a tablespoon

And a morning oil pulling process for the more adventurous