Cooking Frenzy!!!!

To say that I have done a little cooking is putting things VERY mildly! Last week, I did the whole month shopping trip and the last few days I have been cooking and freezing it all. So far I have put the following into the freezer: 2 batches Tortilla Lime Chicken, Chicken Almondine, Chicken Enchilada Lasagna, Mexican Stuffed Shells, Tomato Soup, Taco Soup, 2 batches Spaghetti Sauce, 1 batch Lasagna Sauce, Sloppy Joes, Stuffed Turkey Burgers and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ON TOP of cooking 3 meals a day that went directly into our bellies! I am just a bit pooped! I still have more to go, though. Kroger had a big sale on apples so I bought 15 lbs of them to make applesauce. I haven't gotten up the energy to actually peel and chop them yet :) I also still have all the baking to do: Hamburger buns, tortillas, cinnamon bread, dinner rolls, etc. I serioulsy don't know how the pioneer women did all of this. They had to start over each and every day from scratch. My hat is off to them....

I have been doing quite a bit of research on the Internet about whole foods and making everything from scratch so that you know what is in it and I am just amazed at the CRAP that gets into our food and no one seems to think it is a problem. I was munching on a handful of peanut butter chips and chocolate chips (hey, I needed it for energy!) and just happened to look at the ingredient list. BIG mistake! Not much real food there and way more chemicals than there needs to be. I know that commercial food is loaded with preservatives to keep them fresh on the store shelves but, what bothers me is that those chemicals are added to keep the food from breaking down so what is it doing inside your digestive tract? It has to break down to pass through but where are all those chemicals going???? There are so many people posting all kinds of recipes to make your own stuff. I have tried a couple of them and have been pleasantly surprised. There are quite a few items that I will no longer buy from the store but will be making them at home. It does take a lot of time initially but I figure if I take 3-4 days a month and do all the cooking and baking, then I will have homemade, yummy, HEALTHY stuff for the entire month! I can handle that! I will post some of these wonderful recipes soon!

On the farm front, we just finished planting 6 fields of oats. 4 of the fields are for food plots for hunting but the other 2 are going to be harvested and sold. Hubby is chomping at the bit to do more farming. He loves it! Wonder if he'll love it as much when it is our only source of income??? Actually, he will probably always do what he does now, just not to the degree he does now. He will probably turn over day to day operations to the boys in the office in the next 5 years and then he can farm full time. Well, as long as farming doesn't interfere with hunting! Hey, I'm not complaining-all that hunting fills up my freezer and lowers my grocery  bill!

Well, my friends, the time has come to sign off for now. My soup needs to go in the freezer and there's chocolate chip cookies to bake!