Easy Homemade Elderberry Syrup

I first learned about making homemade Elderberry syrup years ago from Donielle at Natural Fertility and Wellness. It is much cheaper than buying it and super easy. I usually buy our dried berries from Amazon or Mountain Rose Herbs. Elderberries contain high levels of A, B, and C and stimulate the immune system. Here is the simple way I make a batch for our family.

Ingredients:
•1 cup dried black elderberries
•4 cups of water
•1-1 1/2 cup raw honey (sometimes I make the liquid w/o the honey and just add it to our kombucha, juice or smoothies)

3-8 drops Young Living Essential Oils (not all essential oils are food grade)
I prefer 3 drop Thieves, 1 nutmeg, 1 clove, 1 ginger, 1 cinnamon bark and 1 frankincense for this recipe.

1.Pour water into medium saucepan and add elderberries.
2.Bring to a boil and then cover and reduce to a simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour until the liquid has reduced by almost half. At that point, remove from heat and let cool enough to be handled. Pour through a strainer into a glass jar or bowl.
3.Discard the elderberries(aka throw out for the birds and our chickens)and let the liquid cool to lukewarm then stir in honey and essential oils.
4.When honey is mixed pour into glass jar and refrigerate.
5.Give ½ tsp to 1 tsp for kids and ½ Tbsp to 1 Tbsp for adults. If the germies start to get you down, take the normal dose every 2-3 hours instead of once a day until symptoms disappear.

Homemade Ice Creamy

This is the absolute best and easiest homemade ice cream ever! We have been using this recipe for about 10 years and I always get asked how to make it so here you go.

Ingredients:
3 c sugar
2 Tbs lemon juice
6 c heavy whipping cream
3 c milk
1 Tbs vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients; mix well. Pour into canister. Ta dah! 🙂

Favorite Potato Salad Recipe

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and love it. It has a little extra twist of flavor and I think it’s delicious!

2 pounds clean, scrubbed new red potatoes

6 eggs

1 pound bacon

1 onion, finely chopped

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

2 cups mayonnaise

salt and pepper to taste

1.Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender but still firm, about 15 minutes. Drain and set in the refrigerator to cool.
2.Place eggs in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring water to a boil and immediately remove from heat. Cover and let eggs stand in hot water for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from hot water, cool, peel and chop.
3.Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside.
4.Chop the cooled potatoes, leaving skin on. Add to a large bowl, along with the eggs, bacon, onion and celery. Add mayonnaise, salt and pepper to taste. Chill for an hour before serving.

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Easy and Delicious Fruit Salad

I absolutely love this fruit salad. It’s super easy and delicious! Throw it together for a quick healthy snack or to take to a party.

All you will need is:
Bananas
Strawberries
Kiwi
1 can pineapple wedges w/ fruit juice (juice keeps bananas from browning)

And there you have it. Super easy and eye catching too. Enjoy! 🙂

Breakfast Casserole

I absolutely love this breakfast casserole since you can put it together the night before and pop it in the oven in the morning. Since we have chickens now I like to have several recipes that use lots of eggs at hand for when we have an over abundance of eggs. This one is perfect for breakfast or brunch meetings and especially Christmas morning 🙂

1 16 ounce package breakfast sausage
12 eggs
1 10.75oz can of cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup
1 1/4 c milk
1 32oz package of Ore Ida potatoes with onion and peppers
salt pepper and/or seasoning of your choice
1 1/2 c shredded cheddar
*I prefer to use a little more egg and less potato to make it lower carb and lower in nightshade plants(tomatoes, white potatoes, eggplant, peppers) which my body isn’t a huge fan of.

Place sausage in a skillet over medium-high heat, and cook until evenly brown. Drain, and set aside.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9×13 inch baking dish.
In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, condensed cream of mushroom soup, and milk. Stir in the sausage and mushrooms, and pour into the prepared baking dish. Mix in the frozen potato rounds.
Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese, and bake an additional 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

Minestrone Soup – My Italian Comfort

When people ask what my favorite comfort food is, chicken noodle soup is not on the radar. I don’t know if I had too many cans of Campbell’s growing up or too many home cooked and Italian meals to know the difference but I thought I would share the recipe with you. Minestrone soup for me is the perfect combination of my Italian roots and my mommas home cooking. Lots of Italian flavors with lots of yummy organic veggies and broth. So here it is 🙂 Enjoy!

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup minced white onion (about 1 small onion)
1/2 cup chopped zucchini
4 teaspoons minced garlic (about 4 cloves)
4 cups vegetable broth (if you don’t mind the chicken or beef flavor this Bone broth is awesome for your immune system. You could do 1/2 veggie, 1/2 bone broth)
2 (15 ounce) cans red kidney beans, drained
2 (15 ounce) cans great northern beans, drained
1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes (I like to sub White Linen pasta sauce from Costco for the tomatoes)
1/2 cup carrot (julienned or shredded)
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 cups hot water
3 drops Young Living Oregano essential oil
2 drops Young Living Black Pepper essential oil
2 drops Young Living Basil essential oil
1 drop Young Living Thyme essential oil
4 cups fresh Baby Spinach
1/2 c small shell pasta
I also add 1 cup of pasta sauce to give it a little extra kick of Italian goodness 🙂

Heat three tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a large soup pot.
Saute onion, garlic, and zucchini in the oil for 5 minutes or until onions begin to turn translucent.
Add vegetable broth to pot, plus drained tomatoes, beans, carrot, herbs (if not using essential oils) salt and hot water.
Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat, add essential oils and allow to simmer for 20 minutes.
Add spinach leaves and pasta and cook for an additional 20 minutes or until desired consistency.
Makes about eight 1 1/2 cup servings

Our Debt Free Story

For those of you who don’t know our story I wanted to share a post that was featured on Money Saving Mom.

We began our debt free journey in the summer of 2006, almost a year after we had been married. Hard to believe its been 8yrs since we made a decision that will forever change the way we live our lives and our family tree. Since this article was written we’ve had several major life changes including selling our home and moving into a 900sq ft bungalow rental house down the street, starting our own company, purchasing equipment for our new business, buying a fixer up house with some land on the opposite side of town(more about that here) buying a van, taking several trips including another trip to Hawaii and having another baby.  All the while we’ve strived to live on cash and avoid credit cards and loans. I will say we did end up deciding to purchase our home with a loan but hope to pay it off early and got a good deal on it since it needed some major work done.

I’ll let this past post explain how we got started on our debt free journey and explain more about the other changes in some upcoming posts. http://moneysavingmom.com/2012/08/being-debt-free-is-so-worth-it.html

Starting Fresh

Well I’ve had quite the last few weeks trying to get my blog up and running again due to a big oops on my part. I lost almost everything on the blog which is quite a depressing thought but hopefully this will be a new start to something better. I should’ve known to have a backup downloaded on my computer instead of relying on the hosting sites backup….live and learn.

The last time I wrote we were in the midst of starting our own company and were living in a 900 sq ft bungalow rental house. Whoa, has our life completely changed since then!  So hang with me 🙂 I’ll try to get you up to date as soon as I can between homeschooling, business paperwork, meals and diaper changes!

BooBoo Turns 3

Can’t believe my firstborn is 3. It seems we’ve made it to the no more diapers, I wanna do it myself, I’m a big boy year…and yet he still wants me to play trains with him 24/7, calls me his best friend and wants me to lay down and read stories at bedtime. I love the no diapers and still all the hugs. I’m not ready for him to grow up so fast.

Weird Ways to Save Money

I have to admit, some of the things we’ve done or do that has saved us money would definetly go down in the “weird” file for many americans. For example, we don’t have cable or a flat screen tv. We use cloth diapers, natural health remedies and cleaning methods. We’ve bought pallets of food and gluten free items at an auction(we’re talking 50lb bags of cereal, oats ect) and filled our living room with cardboard boxes full of seat covers to sell on ebay. We bought a popup trailer on craigslist so we didn’t have to rent one and then sold it when we got back in town for more money than we bought it for. The funniest thing my husband has probably done was pick up chunks of ice off the walmart parking lot to put it in our cooler(for items we didn’t have to worry about where the ice came from of course)but we still got a good laugh out of it…

I told you they’d be weird 😉


Have ever done something “weird” to save money?