It's Gardening Time!

I just found this great site for square foot gardening. She even has a e-mail newsletter where she'll e-mail us what to do and when. Yeah!!!! (If you live near me you are the color RED.) I can't wait to fix up my garden and start again! I can taste those fresh zuccini and tomatoes already!

Banana Chocolate Bran Muffins

I was looking for the "famous" WW bran muffin recipe - found this: gotta try it!

Banana Chocolate Chip Bran Muffins
1 WW pt per muffin
Servings 12

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp vinegar
1 1/2 cup Kellogg's Original All-Bran
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup SPLENDA
1 medium banana
3 egg whites
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:Combine milk, water and vinegar. Mix in all bran. Let sit for 20 minutes. Mix together all dry ingredients in separate bowl. Add 1 mashed banana, 3 egg whites and applesauce to bran mixture. Add dry ingredients to bran mixture and mix with spoon. Fold in chocolate chips. Spritz muffin tins with Pam Bake at 375º for 18 - 20 minutes.


Here's the real one:

(thanks Kellie!)

Chocolate Bran Muffins

1 Muffin = 1 pt. (18 muffins)

No-Pudge Brownie Mix
1 ½ tsp. vanilla
2/3 cup applesauce
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
3 cups All Bran Cereal
1 ½ cup water
Handful of chocolate chips

Bake at 350 for 18 min.

** works well if you mix the water and cereal together first and then add to the rest of the ingredients .

Yummy way to get your daily fiber (I turned 40 this year you know!?!)

Mind Travels

Have you ever noticed how our mind travels from subject to subject?
Maybe it's just me - but today my mind really went places.
Worked in the yard today. Found a little guy just like this:
Looked scary. Googled it. Learned he (or she) is a GRUB or baby june bug

Started thinking how happy I am that our babies don't look like that!?!
Decided to look at some pics of my babies - they grow up way too fast.

Remembered about a key chain - mini scrapbook I made.

Found it - decided to blog about......... my crazy brain.

MY BABIES:

Snow Trip w/ the Rodriguez boyz

AJ is on top of the world!

Snow-Angel Aaron

Amazing Andy!

Austin always finds something clever to do everywhere we go!

How many Rodriguez boyz can you fit in one VAN??

Senior Pics

We are proud of you AJ!

Way to Go Andy!

Andy earned the "Fairness Award" at his elementary school! We are proud of him! This is what his teacher said about him:

"Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you." exclaimed H. Jackson Brown Jr. I feel like my class as a whole view Andy Rodriguez in this way. Students on campus know that when they are around Andy, they are treated with integrity! Not only does Andy's willingness to be a fair and honest person make him enjoyable to be around, but it also is the foundation of a leader in our society. Andy Rodriguez exhibits several great character traits, but he glows most with fairness and integrity.

We Love You Andy!

Beans, Beans...

I've been working on my three-month food storage lately. For those of you who don't know - that's 90 dinners. I am trying to find space to store enough ingredients to make 15 meals SIX times.

One of my favorite recipes calls for three different types of canned beans. In order to make the soup six times, it takes EIGHTEEN cans of beans - that's a lot of shelf space.

So I decided to try to be smart and find out how to switch out the canned beans for dry beans.

Here's what I discovered:

• 1 can of beans is about 1/2 cup of un-cooked dried beans
• 18 cans of beans equals about 9 cups of dried beans.
• Dried beans can be used for up to 30 years if stored properly. http://providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,7798-1-4224-1,00.html
• There are about 12-13 cups of dry beans in a #10 can.
• Just because you STORE the dry beans - doesn't mean you can't USE canned beans. :0)

I thought I'd share that in case anyone else is trying to store tons of food in not-so-tons of space.

Here's some great charts on exchanging dry beans:
http://whatscookingamerica.net/driedbeantip.htm