Recipe #4 Sweet Potato Quesadillas

4 sweet potatoes

1 medium yellow onion

1 clove garlic

1/4 cup salsa (or more if you like)

1/4 cup sour cream or plain Greek yogurt( can be omitted and replaces with one mashed avocado for a vegan version)

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 package tortillas

(if the mixture is too lumpy or just not to your liking then add more salsa or sour cream..depends on the size of you potatoes... measuring is not my thing so these are rough estimates )

*thinly slice onions, chop garlic and saute until translucent(set aside)

*cube sweet potatoes and boil until tender, drain and mash

*add onions, sour cream (or avocado) salsa and spice to the mashed potatoes and stir

*put scoop of mixture in tortilla, fold in half and heat in frying pan until golden.

you can add cheese but i am not missing it when i eat these so i figure why add the calories if they taste fine without...i would add it to the mix and let it melt in before putting it in the tort.

nommy nommy ENJOY!

#3 chard pesto lasagna with zucchini and peppers

Chard pesto lasagna with zucchini and peppers :

i made this lasagna for my husband who can not have tomato based foods. i love all things pasta and missed making lasagna. i figured why not give pesto a whirl. turned out pretty good! i did add some marinara to each layer on half but honestly i enjoyed it better without. the pesto was pretty tasty and i have a decent amount left over for another pasta dish later this week.

1 zucchini

1 large carrot

3 or 4 sweet peppers or 1 large red bell pepper

1 package whole wheat lasagna noodles

1 small container of ricotta cheese

2 cups mozzarella cheese

1 egg

a few leaves of chopped chard

olive oil

(pesto recipe)

1 large bunch of chard

a few sprigs of basil

1 cup almonds or walnuts

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup Gorgonzola

3 cloves garlic

olive oil and lemon juice

*start by combining all pesto ingredients in a food processor or blender. alternate streaming in olive oil and little dashes of lemon juice until desired constancy(creamy paste) more olive oil than lemon juice ( i taste as i go to make sure i have not gone overboard) set aside

* slice zucchini length wise into thin strips a quarter of an inch thick and peppers into strips. brush with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. put in oven on 400 until just tender.

*cook pasta according to package direction, drain and set aside

*mix ricotta and egg in a bowl, add salt and pepper to taste

*shred carrot

*to build lasagna spread some pesto on bottom of a 9x13 pan. lay down first layer of noodles.

-spread more pesto on noodles and some of cheese mixture, half the shredded carrot then sprinkle some of the motz. cheese on top.

-next instead of noodles, layer the zucchini then spread more pesto, cheese mix, 1/2 chopped chard ,the peppers and the rest of the shredded carrots.

-one more layer of noodles, more pesto, remaining cheese mix, remaining chard and shredded motz.

bake at 350 for 30-45 min or bubbly and golden brown on top.

recipe #2 (what to do with all that leftover matzo)

ok, so i don't get matzo in my produce delivery but I thought i would add this recipe in case you got some extra from passover....and this recipe DOES NOT taste like cardboard. just sayin

Recipe #2

praline, chocolate and marshmallow matzo

oven 350

5 pieces matzo

bag chocolate chips

bag mini marshmallow

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup plus an extra teaspoon butter

dash of salt

*melt butter and brown sugar in sauce pan with a dash or two of salt

*line baking sheet with matzo and smear the melted sugar mixture on top, bake for 5 minutes

*remove and evenly sprinkle top with chocolate chips

* put desired amount of marshmallows on top of chocolate chips, place back in oven for 5-10 minutes or until chocolate is melted

*place on rack to cool and break into pieces like brittle..

IT'S SOOOO YUMMY you will not care that you are still eating matzo even after passover has already ended!

#`1 carrot and parsnip soup

Delivery List

Carrots

Chard

Sweet Potatoes

Corn

Asparagus

Parsnips

PackhamPears

Fuji Apples

Zucchini

mango

Recipe #1

Carrot and Parsnip soup

4 or so cups carrots and parsnips

1 sweet potato

1 whole yellow onion

3 cloves garlic chopped

1 box veggie stock

half cup almond milk

teaspoon dried rosemary

dash of dried thyme

salt and pepper to taste

dash of red wine vinegar

*chop onion and garlic and saute with some butter and olive oil in a heavy pot or dutch oven until translucent

*next add stock. chopped carrots , parsnips, sweet potato, rosemary and thyme to pot and bring to boil. cook veggies until tender.

*In small batches add veggies and stock to a food processor or blender and blend until smooth.(careful blending...I normally add as little stock as I can when blending to avoid splatter and getting burned)

*Add all the blended contents back to pot and add almond milk. Bring soup to a simmer for 20 minutes or so. If the soup is too thick add more veggie stock until desired thickness. salt and pepper to taste .

It can be a little sweet so I added a dash of red wine vinegar to my pot to cut the sweet a little.

Hope you like it..We did!

Plan B

So I started this blog in an attempt to save money by not eating out for a whole year...needless to say I BIG FAT FAILED. well, actually we had our third child and I soon realized there was no way I could cook three meals a day on the new sleep deprivation I am finally growing a custom to...blah blah..but I say that while we did manage to stop eating out, we did save a LOAD of money and I often find myself toying with the idea once again... mind you on a much smaller, less inane scale.

So here I am again, but this time I got something new up my sleeve...About 4 or 5 months ago we signed up for a bi-weekly produce delivery. The deal is that I get an email on Friday of the goods that I am gonna get and they are deliver right to my door on Tuesday morning....now is the part where i pause for a moment and sing praises to PALMETTO ORGANICS. If you live in Jax and eat organic produce and don't use these guys then you are nuts. plain and simple...ok, so here I am with all these veggies, some of which I have never seen nor heard of in my life and I gotta cook em or we have just wasted hard earned money and that is not something I am in to..money wasting. So I have some friends that use this service and even blog about what they cook so I figured I could do the same. I will post my bi-weekly list of produce and then the recipes I make to use the stuff up...can't promise it will all be amazing and wonderful and your new favorite thing to eat, but I am sure gonna try!

save money but break a washing machine?

so, like any day at the ott house there is mountain of laundry to tend to...so like any day at the ott house, i wake up and toss in a load. now the only difference with this day and the others is that i had 2 extra kids...making my normal routine a little, we will just say more interesting.so bright and early i realize my desk top is not working ( this of course happens the day after i sell my laptop, of course) gerrrr....an hour or so later i hear a shouting from the bathroom..." the toilet looks funny" what??? " the water is all gone, it looks funny" ok, so now the already sketchy, 25 year old, 3 different shakes of pink toilet, that all 4 children will be using all day is broken. no problem. we can survive a broken toilet...i just hope no one needs to go at the same time. (i would so send them out to the back yard to find a tree to pee on if they were all boys..(does that make me super red neck..i hope not) ok, so we survive the broken toilet for the whole day...yay!! but then netflix breaks....well the Internet goes down and we have the streaming disc for the wii....and no cable of course because after all we are trying to save money where ever we can, right?....so now they are mad because all they want to do is hear david bowie sing the "power of the babe" in the labyrinth..(who blame em though) but of course it won't work now either....yay!! so i promise a sprinkler and pop ice...only to have the sky fall out moments later...complete with thunder and lightening...and it last allllllll dayyyyyy longgggg.

by the time the extra kids dad comes to pick them up, i am ready to lose my crap. it has just been "one of those days". dave has a meeting this particular night until about 9:30 so it's just me and the girls, left to ride it out. it then occurs to me that i forgotten the laundry from the morning.....so i go out to the garage basket in hand and as i approach the washing machine i notice that the rug i keep in front of it is soaking wet. not good! so i take the load out and put another in to see where this water could be coming from. seems it was leaking from under the machine...CRAP. and dave is not home...so of course i call him, freaking out, because "we have two kids and he changes clothes 3 times a day and i have about 2 shirts that will stretch over my ever growing stomach....I HAVE TO BE ABLE TO CLEAN OUR CLOTHES!!" oh and there is that whole, we don't have any freaking money to fix any more crap that breaks, thing.... so when he finally gets home to look at it, i am at the kitchen table crying...because i am pregnant and stressed and thats what i do....and all that i can think of that will make it all better is sushi, or a nasty steak and shake burger or donuts....of course i can have none of these...instead i had eaten chicken that i had managed to burn for dinner with a jar of spaghetti sauce poured on top...YUM, dont' be jealous now! anywho, so i am crying and i call my mom because that always seems to make it a little better.....so i explain the busted machine (which by the way is only like a year and a half old) and she says, "did you look to see if something is clogging it up where the soap goes"(because she is the smartest person alive, really she is) and dave says "that's a good idea".....flash forward 20 minutes later and tada..... THE FREAKING HOMEMADE, MONEY SAVING DETERGENT WAS THE PROBLEM......the bar of soap that you grate and add seems to not have been dissolving....so much for saving us butt tons on laundry detergent...i almost cost us a butt ton on repairs...good one kat! (i will now give audra credit for wanting to make the liquid kind, but i protested sighting that the powder would be easier...the liquid is mixed in a 5 gallon bucket and lets just say i have a tendency to spill things, break things, cut and burn myself while cooking and so on..you don't get a nick name like hazard by doing nothing)
so maybe the liquid would not cause the problems that the powdered caused....not sure if dave would even let me try it at this point.
i am just beyond annoyed that in my latest great effort to save the family money, it failed....no eating out, no cable, cutting corner everywhere we can and i am still discouraged.....when will all of these efforts pay off? cause for now, i am not seeing a difference....and i am getting tired........ .... did i mention we go to messianic synagogue...we read a bible portion for each day, we get a little piece of paper that tells us what to read for that day...so a portion of the old and new testament...when i got in bed last night to read, i saw that we are staring job....i laugh out loud at this now because it is too perfect...not just me...but any one keeping up with their portion would be reading job now. can you think of a better biblical example of trials and tribulation...and not just me, but everyone it seems is having a pretty rough time right now too...but are we having a "job" of a time...i pray we don't end up there...i pray that through all of these test, that the Lord does not allow it to go as far as it did with job( i am always thankful for my situation when i read this book of the bible!)....we are all gonna have trials, we will all suffer and struggle....i just pray i can always stay thankful for the blessings i still see everyday...even when the toilet, t.v, computer and washing machine break in one day...when i burn the chicken and have 4 kids screaming at me at one time...when i sit around waiting on magic sushi to find it's way to my door step..and it never does.. i still want to be able to tell the lord thank you for just getting me through another day. and i would also like to apologize to him for all the complaining i do about my washer being in the hot garage...cause had it been in house yesterday, i would had one big freakin mess to clean up....but as it stands, all that water ended up on 100 degree concrete, drying up on its own in a matter of hours..THANK THE LORD FOR THAT!!

the conviction..it grows

so like i have said earlier, i know there is more to this whole thing than just not eating out. i know God has some bigger plan in action for us. and it seems with each passing day, my conviction to do better and save more grows......and then i argue with God, i'm all " really, God you want me to do more than not eat out and sell all of our junk.....there is nothing else i can do sir" and then He of course reveals to me yet another thing i "could" do if i would just do it. i

also am becoming more aware of how i can not spend an entire year just whining about how i don't get to eat out and how much it pisses me off. so, i have decided to share the other "things" God is showing me i can do and maybe they can help other people who are in the same boat as us.

so my good friend saundra started making her laundry detergent forever ago. and although i knew i was cheaper and not that hard, i was still too lazy to give a whirl. it was just way easier to drop a bottle of 7th generation in my cart and be on my way. (and for those of you who buy 7th generation anything, you know it's not cheap) so i mention this to my very frugal friend audra..... and well, before i knew what had happened audra had the recipe and had called all over jacksonville looking for and buying what we need to get started. so, last night audra and i got busy making homemade laundry soap, fabric softener and dish soap. it seriously was so easy and pretty fun. now lets do some math:

7th generation detergent= around $11 for 32 loads (if you are lucky)

home made=around $8 for 80+ loads

so 11x3=$33 vs. $8

$8 wins!!

so here is a recipe for the powder detergent. i did laundry today and was pretty pleased with the results:

2 cups borax

2 cups washing soda

and i bar of soap, grated.

mix and store in whatever container you want ( we used glass canning jars)

use 2 table spoons a load

for the fabric softener you just mix one cup baking soda and one cup water. after dissolved add 6 cups white vinegar slowly...after fizz dies down add 6 cups more water and then 10 to 15 drops of any essential oil you please...and tada!!!

by the way all of the things you need to make these items can be bought at publix in the laundry isle.