Power Pancakes

Pancake recipe number three is a great way to start your day. If you're trying to eat clean or at least a little healthier this is a yummy way to do it. We all know that oatmeal is good for you and egg whites are a great way to add protein, so let's put them together!

You Will Need:
2 1/2 cups oats
6 egg whites
1 c milk
1 Tbs flax seed
1 Tbs coconut oil
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Heat a griddle or skillet and spray with cooking spray or melt some coconut oil (what I use). Put all ingredients in a blender and turn it on. Mix it up good. Pour batter onto heated griddle by the 1/4 cup. Cook until pancakes start to bubble and then flip. Cook an additional 1-2 minutes. These pancakes are really thick and hearty, but cook through easily. Serve with applesauce, peanut butter, banana, agave, honey, whatever floats your boat.

Whole Wheat Banana Pancake

Ok this pancake was so good! I think this one will become a regular in our house. It's super easy, doesn't use a ton of utensils or bowls, and is healthy!

You Will Need:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 Tbs brown sugar
1 Tbs melted coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 ripe banana

Directions:
Dump everything in the blender and turn it on. Run until smooth. My blender is old and pretty burnt out so I had to stop and scrape the sides every once in a while. After the batter is blended let it sit for 5 minutes. In the mean time heat a skillet with cooking spray or if your like me more coconut oil (I highly recommend the coconut oil). Pour about 1/4 cup batter onto greased skillet and cook until the pancake bubbles around edges, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook an additional 1-2 minutes. Serve with more sliced bananas, natural peanut butter and agave (what I ate it with) or traditional syrup. Yumm-O! You can find the original recipe here.

Sugar Hand Scrub

Are you ready for a super easy and cheap Mother's Day gift? Make it for yourself (please do!) and the other mama's in your life. I don't know about you but my hands get so dry and scaly. I am constantly washing my hands and no amount of moisturizing hand soap or hand lotion keeps my knuckles from cracking (ouch!). I love this sugar scrub though, because it sloughs off dead skin cells while leaving your hands nice and silky.

You Will Need:
Sugar
Dawn Dish Soap WITH Olay
A container

It's important that you get the Dawn with Olay. The most common is the pink version which smells like pomegranates. I did see a few others though, a white, and a blue or purple I believe. The dish soap costs right around 3 bucks. I did also see a Great Value version, but I stuck with the original. For my container I used a half pint mason jar, which cost about 50 cents each. And if you have a bunch of empties laying around then all the better!

Directions:

Fill your jar/container 3/4 of the way with sugar. Add the dish soap to the bottom of the rim. Mix together. Keep adding sugar and mixing until you've reached your desired consistency. You don't want it to be super runny, you only need enough soap to wash with. The main ingredient is the sugar. Some people like a lot of sugar so it's really just up to you. It should resemble a thick paste. Feel free to test it out to make sure you've reached the right consistency.

To use:
Just scoop out a small amount and scrub into hands and rinse with warm water. It feels so good (and smells good too!)

Wasn't that a cheap and easy gift? Less than $5 and 5 minutes to make. Now just make a cute label to slap on the jar and add a bow and your good to go.

Blueberry Strawberry Pancakes

If you asked me what my favorite food was you might see a puzzled look cross my face. I can never answer that question. How do you pick just one?! Pancakes, however, would be at the very top of the list.

There is just something about a pancake that makes everything in the world right. Eating a good pancake is like coming home after a long trip. When I was younger and lived with my childhood friend we would have "midnight pancakes". Every once in a while we would bust out the skillet and bisquick and gorge ourselves on pancakes oozing with syrup in the middle of the night.

Now that I am older and have my own kitchen I love trying new pancake recipes, with new ingredients.

So this month because I'm pregnant and because I love pancakes, every Friday I will be sharing a new pancake recipe with you.

I made these for breakfast this morning and they were so good I ate them before I remembered to take a picture. So just use your imagination ;)

You Will Need:
1 cup flour (white, wheat, or whole wheat pastry flour all work)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup plain greek yogurt
2 eggs
2 Tbs honey
1 tsp vanilla
3 Tbs milk (almond, soy, whole, skim, whatever)
1 cup blueberries
1 cup strawberries

Directions:
First put 1 cup THRIVE blueberries in a bowl with 1 cup water. In a 2nd bowl put 1 cup strawberries and 3/4 cup water.
In a large bowl mix together flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
In another bowl mix yogurt, eggs, honey, vanilla, and milk.
Mix the wet and dry ingredients together in the large bowl. The batter will be pretty thick, you can add another tablespoon or 2 of milk if you'd like.
Drain blueberries and strawberries and fold into batter.
Pour into a heated skillet and cook until golden. Since these pancakes are thick make sure the inside is cooked through (while somehow managing to not burn the outside)
Serve with maple syrup, agave, or even peanut butter. Yum!

Blueberry Muffin "Cake"

I've been wanting to make blueberry muffins for a while and this week I finally did! Sad to say in the past I usually just used a box to make blueberry muffins. I have been looking for an easy, yummy, and THRIVE friendly recipe for a while and I'm happy to say I found one!

The reason I call it a muffin cake, is because that's how I got Jaxon to eat it :) And it's a thicker consistency.

You will need:

1 cup THRIVE blueberries
2 cups THRIVE flour
1 cup THRIVE quick oats
2/3 cups THRIVE sugar
1 tsp THRIVE baking soda
1 tsp THRIVE baking powder
1/2 tsp THRIVE salt
2 THRIVE eggs
1 1/2 cups greek yogurt
2 Tbs THRIVE honey (prepared)
1/4 c butter melted

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin or spray with cooking spray.
2. Next place 1 cup THRIVE blueberries in a small bowl and add 1 cup of water. Let them soak while you mix the other ingredients.
3. In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients. If you are using THRIVE egg powder, go ahead and add 2 Tbs to the dry ingredients.
4. In a second bowl mix together yogurt, honey, and melted butter. If you're not using THRIVE eggs add 2 eggs here.
5. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry.
6. Drain the blueberries and add to the batter.
7. Spoon batter into muffin tins and bake for about 20 minutes.
Makes 12 - 24 muffins (mine made 18).

Jaxon ate 2 "cakes" for breakfast, they must be good!

You can find the original recipe here.

Noodles and Veggies

My toddler is a picky eater. When he was on baby food he ate like a champ and I often joked that he didn't discriminate when it came to food. Fast forward a year and some months later and I have a hard time getting him to eat a lot of things. One thing that he loves is spaghetti like noodles. He'll gobble up spaghetti, chow mein, and ramen. Now I'm not necessarily proud that little man eats ramen, but hey I'm human!

I had made myself some ramen one day when I was craving some comfort food, and he wanted some. I started to think about how I could make the ramen better. And I remembered one of my professors in college. He started talking one day about all of the different ways you could amp up your ramen, and the one I remembered most was adding frozen peas. So I pulled out some THRIVE and a package of ramen and in just a few minutes I had a happy customer.

You Will Need:
1 package of ramen (any flavor)
2 Tbs THRIVE peas
2 Tbs THRIVE corn
1 Tbs THRIVE carrots

Directions:
Boil 2 cups of water. Add your ramen noodles and then just toss in the veggies. Boil for 3 minutes. Periodically mix up veggies and noodles (you might want to break up the noodles before you boil them if your making it for a little one). I like to drain some of the liquid before adding my seasoning, but that's just me. If you are concerned about the sodium content (holy cow!) you can skip the packet and flavor it anyway you like, salt and pepper, a dash of low sodium soy sauce, I'm sure there are lots of options! Serve to your eagerly awaiting toddler and watch them ask for more!

Crockpot Oatmeal

One of the things I have learned is that oatmeal is really good for you. Growing up I ate the instant kind loaded with sugar. Now if I buy instant I look for the kinds that contain flax seed and are low on the sugar. I mainly reserve the packets for busy mornings. Generally I make my own oatmeal and don't add any sugar. I've been wanting to try steel cut oats for a while now, but wasn't sure about the best way to go about it. Then I decided to try it in the crockpot. It was so easy and made enough for my family and then some.

Steel cut oats are less processed than rolled or quick oats, basically they are the oat groat cut up into smaller bits. They have a lower glycemic index which means they stick to your ribs longer and has a slow and steady impact on blood glucose levels. They also have a denser consistency. The main draw back with steel cut oats are that they take longer to make, but if you do the crockpot method it basically doesn't take any time at all.

Unfortunately Thrive Life doesn't offer steel cut oats yet, but they do have oat groat~. However, we'll be using other Thrive Life food products to make our oatmeal extra yummy. Plus I'll be doing a few more posts using quick oats and oat groat so be on the look out for those (both of which Thrive Life carries).

You Will Need:
2 c steel cut oats
8-9 c water
1/2 c blueberries
1/2 c pears
1/4 c flax seed
cinnamon to taste
nuts (optional)
brown sugar (optional)
agave (optional)

Directions:
Dump your oats, blueberries, pears, flax seed, cinnamon, and water into the crock and mix it up. Add water. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or over night. I mixed all the dry ingredients together while I was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. Then I added the water and turned it on about 10:00 before I went to bed. You may need to adjust the water or the time because it can burn and stick to the sides.
Stir it up a bit and serve with nuts and maybe a splash of milk and some brown sugar or agave for a little sweetness.
Makes about 6 servings. Store left overs in an air tight container in the fridge and reheat in the microwave for about 90 seconds.

I liked this method a lot and it would be easy to try different fruit combinations. The blueberries and pears soaked up a lot of the water, so they were really soft. I couldn't even see the pears when it was finished.

Windowsill Herb Garden

I've always wanted a window above my kitchen sink. Mainly for two reasons, so I can look out into the yard and see my child(ren) play, and so I can have an herb garden. We just bought our first house a few months ago and guess what? I have a window above my sink that looks out onto our back patio. I often send Jaxon out to play while I do the dishes and I can keep an eye on him the whole time!

Now that the sun is coming out on a regular basis and the days are warming up I knew it was time to fulfill part 2 of my kitchen window dream.

I had seen pictures floating around Pinterest showing various types of containers for herb gardens. I decided to use my empty pantry cans. First remove the label from the can and give it a good rinse. Then decorate it! You can do several different methods. I stuck with spray paint. I used a can of Krylon I already had on hand. It took about 2 minutes to spray both cans, 1 minute for the first coat, and another minute for the second. You could also use a hot glue gun and some twine/jute and wrap it around the can, leave it plain, or even try scrap book paper (since it's going above my sink and I'll be watering the plant I decided against paper). Fill your can partially with some potting soil and add your herb! I bought some peppermint from our local Ace for $2.50. I also bought some basil in the dollar section at Target. When I bought it last week there weren't many left, but when I went yesterday they had tons! Cilantro was the only other option at my Target, but maybe you'll be lucky and have more options. The basil comes in a little green house kit that you grow it in (from a seed). Once the plant is about 3 inches tall you transfer it to another container.

You could also use your pantry cans for lots of other storage options: a container to put your pens/pencils in, a toothbrush holder, to hold your makeup brushes (this is what I decided to do until I empty another pantry can), use it to hold combs/brushes, you can even use it to hold eating utensils for a party or barbecue! There are SO many options and you can really customize them anyway you want! I can't wait to make more!

This is what you start with a pantry can!

 Here it is in my window (bad lighting!) next to my basil "greenhouse"

Now you can see it better, I just love this blue/teal color, it's soo dreamy!

Next to my bathroom sink holding my makeup brushes and eyeliners.

Creamy Corn and Green Chile

I don't know about you, but it seems like I always have a hard time thinking of an easy side dish to add to dinner. For probably the first 3 years we were married a side dish at our dinner table consisted of a canned vegetable and a canned fruit. I still resort to the canned version of a side dish when in a pinch. But then I had a light bulb moment when using my THRIVE Life corn for another dish.

My mother in law makes this delicious corn dish. I always have seconds. I decided to try it with my food storage products. Note this was my first time EVER making it, so while I haven't necessarily perfected it, I don't see any harm in sharing it with you anyway.

You Will Need:
2 c rehydrated corn
1/2 c rehydrated green chile (feel free to use more, but I felt like this was a good ratio)
2 Tbs butter
8 oz cream cheese (I think I might add a bit more next time, because I'm a cream cheese glutton)

Directions:
Melt the butter in  sauce pan with the cream cheese.
Stir in the corn and green chile.

That's it! Easy peasy and it tastes delicious!

I apologize. Last week when I posted this recipe I accidentally said 4 oz of cream cheese instead of 8. My apologies!

Strawberry Banana Bread

I was looking for low sugar recipes and I came across this bread recipe. I have made it several times and it is delicious! I went to make it once and I was so bummed to discover that the strawberries I had just purchased from my local grocery store were not very "fresh" looking. Then I remembered my THRIVE strawberries! I was able to make a beloved recipe with the addition of one or two food storage items and it still tasted delicious.

It's really easy to make and literally takes 10 minutes to throw together, and an hour to bake.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups plus 3 Tbs whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 brown sugar or 1/4 agave nectar (what I usually use)
3 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1 6 oz Strawberry Banana Chobani (my grocery store only had strawberry this time and it worked just fine)
1 cup rehydrated strawberries

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 and grease a loaf pan.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
In a separate bowl mash the bananas really well.
Add the sugar and eggs to banana and mix well.
Whisk in the yogurt, and try to get out as many lumps as you can.
Add your wet ingredients to your dry and mix until just combined.
Fold in your strawberries.
Distribute batter evenly into loaf pan and bake for 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let cool on a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes.

I love this recipe and I hope you do too! I usually spread peanut butter on it...mmm yummy!

Thrifty Thursdays: Laundry Series - Homemade Laundry Detergent

This is my laundry detergent. I love it. I made it at the end of last Summer and this is what I still have left.

It was super easy to make and super easy to use!

You can find the original "recipe" here.

You can find all of the ingredients at your local grocery store. I went to my Walmart this week and price checked all of the items used. I'm hoping not to have to make another batch until this Summer. 1 year's worth of laundry detergent for less than $20? Yes please!

Ingredients:
1 box of Borax - $3.38
1 box washing soda (Arm and Hammer) - $3.24
2 containers oxygen bleach or 1 large one (I used Oxiclean) - $7.52 (for the 3# tub)
3 bars Fels Naptha - $0.97/each
2 cups baking soda - I forgot to price this one but we'll just ball park $0.50
Optional- Purex Crystlas or Downy Unstoppables. I didn't use them this time but plan on doing so next time.

Total cost: $17.55 not including the optional ingredient.

You'll also need a large container to store it in. I bought a large glass jar for $10 at Walmart.

Grate the Fels Naptha. You can use a food processor or a cheese grater. I used a cheese grater. Then put a trash bag in a 10 gallon bucket or trash can. Basically you just pour all of your ingredients in the bag and mix thoroughly. I suggest layering and mixing as you go. It's hard to mix everything up all at once. Store in your designated container.

To Use:
Just add 1-2 Tbs to your laundry load. If you have an HE washer this works great because it doesn't make a lot of suds. If you have a front loader place the detergent directly into the drum.

I bought this scoop for cheap at Walmart also. I use the larger scoop to kind of break up the detergent and the smaller scoop to measure it out. It works perfect and fits nicely in the jar.

Cinnamon Bread

I have major issues. I tend to be really spacey, and a procrastinator. Not a good combination. Add in pregnancy brain and it's a disaster. I found myself washing my hair with body wash Sunday. Body wash! I totally dropped the ball last week on posting. Luckily Tiffany is amazing and filled in for me. Then when I went to make my recipe for today's post I was missing the most important ingredient...the Strawberries! My THRIVE shipment should be here any day and there is a can of Strawberries in it just for me and I am so excited! So be on the look out for my next post about Strawberries.

I found this recipe where I find all my recipes these days, Pinterest. I made it for the first time last week for my Father-in-law's birthday. It was so good and easy that I made it again! And once again I have to apologize for the pictures. I don't know what's going on but they uploaded terribly!

You can find the original recipe here.

This bread is easy and delicious and definitely NOT diabetic friendly. It makes two loaves and you will have a hard time not cutting into that second loaf right away.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs (I used fresh the first time, and THRIVE the second and it turned out delicious!)
2 cups buttermilk
4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2/3 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 and grease or spray 2 loaf pans.
Cream together the butter, sugar, and eggs.
Mix in buttermilk, flour, and baking soda.
Spread 1/4 of the batter into each loaf pan.
Mix the 2/3 cups sugar and cinnamon together.
Sprinkle 1/3(ish) of cinnamon sugar over batter.
Spread the remaining half of batter in 1/4's again.
Sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar over batter.
Use a knife to swirl the batter around.
The batter is really thick so it's kind of hard to do and it doesn't look very pretty. Just kind of spread it out when you're done swirling. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. It smells like snickerdoodles, heavenly!

Mini Corn Dogs

Today I am posting my very first recipe so please bare with me! AND I could not find my camera anywhere, so I had to use my cell phone. I am completely embarrassed.

My childhood best friend made these for my brother's family when their third baby girl was born. I stayed with them that week to help out with older girls and so I got to enjoy all of the delicious meals that people brought to them. I must admit I couldn't stop eating these and immediately asked her for the recipe. I make these at least once a month and keep them in the fridge. I just pop them in the microwave to heat em up. My husband and son both approve.

You can find the original recipe here.

I should mention first that you will need a mini muffin tin. I hate when you read through a recipe that you are chomping at the bit to make only to discover that you don't have the proper cooking utensils. I had to go out and buy the mini muffin tin for this recipe but it was worth it. Now let's get to it.

Gather together sugar, butter (not pictured), apple sauce, buttermilk, eggs, flour, cornmeal, salt, baking soda, and hotdogs.

 Whisk together the sugar, butter, eggs, and buttermilk.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, cornmeal, salt, and baking soda.

 Add the wet ingredients to the dry.

 Spoon 1 Tbs of batter into muffin cups and put a hotdog piece in each. Bake for 12-18 minutes

Feed to your hungry toddler with some ketchup and enjoy.

Print 3x5 Recipe Card

Print 4x6 Recipe Card

Print Full Page Recipe Card

Ingredients:
1/2 c. melted butter (or 1/4 c. melted butter and 1/4 c. applesauce)
1/2 c. sugar (you can make this with Stevia or Splenda but my husband swears he can tell the difference)
2 eggs
1 c. buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk don't worry, just add 1 Tbs white vinegar to 1 c. milk, stir and let sit a couple minutes)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 c. cornmeal
1 c. flour
1/2 tsp salt
8-10 hotdogs cut into 1" pieces (the original recipe uses Hebrew's National, but any of the "skinnier" kind work. The chubby ones just take up too much room)

First preheat the oven to 375 and spray your mini muffin tin.
Mix together the butter, sugar in a small bowl. Whisk in the eggs followed by the buttermilk.
In another bowl mix together your dry ingredients.
Whisk your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients mixing well.
Spoon about 1 Tbs of batter into the muffin cups.
Place a hotdog piece into each cup.
Bake for 8-12 minutes. Cool in muffin tin for minutes.
To reheat just pop in the microwave for 20-30 seconds.

Enjoy and don't forget the ketchup!

PS. Don't forget to check out our Giveaway that's starting in less than a week.

Hey!

Hey everybody!! My name is Brianna and this is my very first post for Shelf Reliance Mom. I am super excited to be joining Tiffany! I just thought for my first post that I would do a little write up about me and some odd but hopefully fun facts about me.

This is my little family. It's from 2 Christmases ago...as in 2011. We're a little behind. Pretty sad that this is the most recent family photo...

A lot has changed since this photo was taken. Jaxon had his first and second birthday. Jacob has a new job. We bought our first house (scary and exciting!). 6 months after this picture was taken I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. We're also expecting our second baby!

Part of the reason I'm excited to be joining Tiffany is because I am always looking for ways to be more self reliant, feed my family good food, and control my diabetes. I hope that I'll be able to share what I learn with you and that in turn we can help each other! So to conclude my first post I wanted to share 10 facts about myself with you.

1. I love making lists.
2. I use exclamation marks A LOT.
3. I don't have a favorite color. How can you pick just one?
4. I am addicted to Hulu and Netflix.
5. Once I get into a book I have to finish it and will spend every spare minute reading.
6. I sleep a lot. I'm talking at least 8 hours a night and usually a nap during the day, but hey I'm pregnant!
7. I practically live at Target.
8. I love having a clean and organized house, but it rarely is.
9. I pretty much live in my pajamas and only get dressed when I absolutely have to leave the house.
10. Diet Dr. Pepper is heaven sent.

Welcoming in my good friend Brianna

Meet Brianna

My beautiful friend, Brianna.

I apologize that I have not been up to snuff on my posts but with the help of my friend, Brianna, we should be rocking and rolling with a much smoother journey here on out. I am so excited for you to meet her and see the things she will be bringing to the table.  Is anyone interested in Diabetes friendly meals once a month... I thought so! She will be doing some introductory posts to help you get to know her more soon so stay tuned.

Life Changes
While some of the news is happy and some of it is sad, all of the "challenges" being thrown our way these past few months will make us stronger.  I won't bore you with all of the details, but here are the two most important life changes we are currently experiencing:

Courtesy of http://www.freeclipartnow.com

We found out that we will be having another baby in June of this year- Woohoo!  This little booger has kept me pretty sick this pregnancy but we are getting excited for the ultrasound in only 1 week!

Photos of our cuties taken by the very talented
Melissa Dean at Sweet Spot Photography

Some sad news is that my sister has hit a bumpy patch in the road and she and her kids have moved in with us.  We are happy to have them with us and are learning new ways every day how to get life's necessities for as cheap as possible. We unexpectedly potty trained little Laylah lou the first week she arrived and she is down to only wearing diapers at night (which she occasionally keeps dry- win!)

Me (on left) and my sweet sister

Recipes Coming
I am cooking from my food storage more than ever and if I can find my camera's battery charger, I will start getting some pictures and recipes up in no time.  Although she already looked fantastic before moving here, the lack of eating out and increase of eating back to the basics food storage allowed my sister to lose 7 lbs in 2 weeks.  I tell her its unfair that I'm pregnant and required to gain weight while I watch her get all skinny!  Anywho... cooking with more grains, veggies and fruit, less meat and processed food really works. Who knew?!

By the way, my hubby tells me not to tell people this because it makes it sound like I'm a horrible cook, so if your thoughts of hoping to score good recipes are now crushed because you might lose weight in the act of eating them, sorry!

For links to some of my new favorite websites or oldies but goodies I've discovered as I've commenced back upon my old couponing ways and more homemade based food calendar, stay tuned for more upcoming posts.

Thanks for stopping by!


Question of the Day:
What are your favorite comfort food recipes that you'd love to see turned into THRIVE-ing meals?