This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support. What is a seafood lover to do with today's prices in the grocery store? Purchasing salmon for my salmon addiction has always been a splurge, but now I am finding myself saving up in order to pay the huge price and still be able to purchase the basics. Fortunately, and surprisingly, I can usually find a pretty good sale on shrimp. Some weeks, the sale will be on large shrimp, others, on medium. Salad shrimp or small shrimp are usually pretty affordable compared to other seafood in the supermarket. Since I adore shrimp, I find myself purchasing it more often to put into our menu rotation. Benefits of Eating Shrimp The great thing about eating shrimp is that it is very good for you! It contains vitamin B12 and other things like niacin and zinc. It is high in anti-oxidants that fight inflammation, wrinkles and sun damage. Shrimp is also good for thyroid function. Of course, you shouldn't overdo it with shrimp, they are fairly high in cholesterol and sodium, and of course, some people are allergic to shellfish, which is very sad for them. All of that being said, shrimp is great to have on hand because it cooks up quickly and that makes it easy to create a delicious dish in no time at all! I was browsing through our posts and realized that we have a bunch of wonderful shrimp recipes that will add so much variety to your lunch, dinner and even snacking menu! Here are our best shrimp recipes. Click on the photo to go to the recipe. Having shrimp in a home cooked meal always makes it seem special to me. When I can do it in a budget friendly way, that is even better! Do you have any shrimp recipes that you love? I would love to hear about them in the comments!
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This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are my own. Thank you for your support! Did you know that in the USA, Earth Day has been observed since 1970? Whether you approve of the day or not and all that goes along with it, one thing we can all agree on is that the earth is a wonderful place and we should try to take care of it as we enjoy it. I decided that in honor of the day, I would share some of our past posts with you that encourage mindful use of the beauty around us as well as ways to teach our children to learn from the world around them and respect it, all while having a wonderful time! * The photo above is of Yosemite National Park, one of my favorite National Parks. You can read more about our Favorite National Parks in this post! Visiting one would be a great way to celebrate the Earth! Actually, Earth Day weekend is one of the free weekends to visit the National Parks of America. You can find a list of all of the free days in that post. *One of the great places to find great geologic sites to enjoy is Utah. We wrote an entire post about it here. *Gardening is a great way to celebrate Earth Day! I have really been getting into my garden this year. Even living in the city, it is possible to have a successful garden. I wrote about that here. If you want ideas about what to put in your garden, we shared our favorite things to harvest here. This year, I am going to add beets to that list! They are so easy to grow! Look at this recent post! *It is so important to teach kids about the outdoors and to encourage them to get off of their electronic devices and to get outside! Here is a list of books that we compiled to do just that! *I like to find ways to keep learning happening, even when we are out enjoying nature! You can get some ideas from this post. *If you can't go anywhere, you can always just go camping in your backyard! Kids love that and there is nature to see everywhere. Look at these eggs in a nest built right above my son's front door! They have been able to watch the entire process of the nest build because the nest is situated in front of one of their security cameras. That is how they got this awesome picture of the eggs. *We've also included some crafts for projects to use around the house that are small "green" ways that we can all use to care for the earth, as well as save money.
I realize that since today is actually Earth Day, you may need to do some of these things on a different day. But that's okay, because we should love Earth all year round! This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. Thanks for your support! Back in January, I put in my 2022 garden here in Phoenix. I have a grow box, a few things in the ground out of the grow box, and some containers. It seemed like I waited forever for the seeds to germinate, but they finally did. The beets I planted were the first things to come up. Did I say beets? I told you in this post about how I don't really love to eat beets, but I found ways to include them in my diet because they are so good for you! The great thing about beets is that you can eat the entire plant! Even before you can harvest the beet root, you can cut off some of the leaves to include in your salads or other dishes where you would use healthy greens. I even used some beet leaves as the lettuce in BLTs already this year! (Check the aforementioned post for some recipes!) Well, today, I was out watering the garden and checking it over when I saw the first shoulders of some beets pushing above the soil! I was so excited! I also noticed that there were 2 of them that were kind of close together crowding each other out. I made the decision to harvest them. They are a beautiful variety of golden/orange beet and I was over the moon about bringing them in and using them in our dinner salad today! I certainly wasn't going to let any of these beauties go to waste. I decided to make a salad with the beet greens, baby spinach from my garden, green onions that I grow on my window sill, the beets, cut into shoestrings and marinated, and a chopped tomato, the only thing that wasn't from my garden. (But, my tomatoes are flowering as I speak!) Preparing the Beet Root: To prepare the beets, I simply removed the greens about 1/2 an inch above the root and boiled the beet roots until they were fairly soft, in salted water. The time to do this will vary depending on the size of your beets. After the beets come out of the water, the outer skin will slip right off. Next, I sliced them into shoestring slices and marinated them in Italian dressing, spiked with a little red wine vinegar. Preparing the Greens: Just wash the beet tops as you would spinach. I removed the stems and tore the tops into bite size pieces and put them in my salad bowl. Next, I went out and harvested as much baby spinach as I thought I would need to mix with the beet tops and washed them and added them to the bowl. I decided that the green onions would be a nice addition, so I snipped a few stems from those and washed them. Then, I chopped them up into the salad. When the greens were all in the bowl, I gave them a toss. See how great they look! I am a proud grower of this salad! Now to add color, I diced up a tomato. I tossed it into the salad and then finally I added the beets. I didn't pour the marinade over the salad. That may have been good, but I decided to allow my family to choose their own dressing instead. I'm really glad I marinated the beets though, they tasted so good, not pickled, but sweet and flavorful and not like dirt! This salad was the perfect accompaniment to our broiled salmon at dinner tonight. I was in heaven! My linger covid tastebuds barely bothered me at all! How are your gardens doing this year? I am having so much fun with mine! If you don't live in Phoenix, you may just be thinking about putting yours in. I hope you will give beets a try! Other posts like this that you may enjoy:
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support
This is my second post admitting a mistake this week. I'm on a roll, so I might as well get it over with.
A couple of months ago,I made yogurt using my crock pot. I had intended to try making it in my Instant Pot, but my Instant Pot doesn't have a yogurt button. I searched the web a bit and found people saying that the Instant Pot Lux doesn't have a yogurt button and so you cannot make yogurt in it.
Flash forward to March and I want to make yogurt again. I just happened to be making dinner in my Instant Pot one evening and I was flipping through the little recipe book that comes with the Instant Pot. Guess what is in there? That's right, a recipe for yogurt! I was dumbfounded! Of course, me, being me, I had to try it but do things a little differently.
Actually, the only thing the Instant Pot was used for in this recipe was to keep the yogurt mixture warm for the 9-10 hours that it has to sit. You simply put 4 cups of water in the pot, close the lid and heat it up with the Keep Warm setting. Let it heat for about 15 minutes. When you are ready to pour in the yogurt, you pour out the water, then add the yogurt. Close the lid and then come back 9 or 10 hours later to find yogurt. I don't understand what the big deal is about having a yogurt button! This is pretty much just how I did it with my crock pot, except I wrapped it in a towel to keep the heat in. When all is said and done, I think I prefer using my crock pot because,
So, I was wrong, you can make yogurt in your Instant Pot Lux. But, don't rely on the recipe in the little cookbook. Go to my recipe for using the crock pot here and adapt it to your Instant Pot. If you don't want to make a large batch, the Instant Pot might be the way to go. Either way, make your yogurt making life easier by getting yourself a yogurt strainer! You will love it, and the yogurt!
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Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
May 2024
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