Recipe Swap: Crock Pot Pork Roast

Here is one of my long time favorite recipes, it is very simple. All you really need is the roast, salt, pepper, and water, but I have added the other ingredients over the years to make it extra delicious!

Crock-pot Pork Roast

By Bananasbread.blogspot.com

Ingredients:

One pork roast -that will fit in your crock pot.

Applecider vinegar

Salt and pepper or Seasoning mix

Olive Oil

Apple sauce

Baby Carrots

Red Potatoes -cut in halves or quarters

(1)Put one inch of water in the bottom of the crock-pot then add the pork roast, any kind will do.

(2)Drizzle some apple-cider vinegar, about 3-4 tbsp, over the roast.

(3)Coat the top of the roast with salt and pepper or the seasoning mix of your choice.

(4)Drizzle olive oil over the top of the roast and any spots where the roast touches the sides of the pot.

(5)Coat the top of the roast with apple sauce.

(6)Cover and cook 4-6hr on high or 6-10hr on low. The longer it cooks the more tender it will be.

(7)Push Carrots and potatoes in to the cooking juices one to two hours before cooking is done. (If the juices are bubbling it should only take one hour to cook carrots and potatoes.)

(8)When roast is done serve with carrots and potatoes on the side. Enjoy!

I have also added this recipe to Simply Modern Mom's Over-Used Recipe Swap. Go over and check it out!

Lent 2010

I have given up sweets for Lent this year, and just like last year that means anything that does not provide some nutritional benefit along with it's sugar content. Granola bars: in, candy bars: out, muffins: in, cupcakes: out; you get the idea.
The season of Lent was perfectly planned out, as far as I'm concerned. It follows all the holidays where I completely over indulged, pigged out, and picked up a lot of bad habits. Now I have the perfect opportunity, and motivation, to kick some of them and get back to more balance. Did you give up anything this year?

This beautiful picture is from The Land Of Nod.

Kids 2/2010

"Star Student"

"Sweetheart"

"Cutie love"

"JP loves puzzles!"

"Coloring"

Winter Herbs

The kids and I have started a little indoor garden. We planted some different herbs, which I am hoping will be easy to grow and quite tasty once they come in. I love to do projects with the kids that have a twofold effect- providing them with a fun/educational experience, and giving back to the family or others in a meaningful way. Not that every craft project needs to be for charity or anything, we have plenty of random art lying around the house, but I think there is a lot of pride in seeing something that you have created being useful or helpful to others. It's so expensive to buy fresh herbs, so this should be a wonderful addition to our meals. Now if I can just keep them alive -the herbs that is, I'm not too worried about the kids.

I chose some herbs I thought we would use regularly. We decided on Catnip, Cilantro, Chamomile, Oregano, Parsley, and Sweet Basil.

Valentines Day Craft #2

Immy had a wonderful little party in her class last Friday, and her darling crayon valentines where a big hit! Then on Monday we had another V-day party with our MOMS Club, so we decided to make some Silly Sucker valentines.

They give the kids big lips or a mustache when they put the pop in their mouth, and I thought they turned out really cute. We got the idea from The Crafty Crow and Blonde Designs Blog.

The kids had a lot of fun with these, plus they were cheap and easy to make (pretty much the deciding factors when I pick a craft). We bought two foam sheets and 36 dumb dumb pops. Then we printed the tags and glued them instead of using label paper so that was free. It cost us $4 total with tax for 36 valentines.

I let JP give out the mustache ones and Immy gave out the lips. This made everyone happy, and it worked out nicely because every child at the party got one of each.

Prego Update

How many weeks am I? Honestly I don't even know. I can't do emotionally charged math right now, particularly the kind that makes me freak out and realize that I am only X number of weeks away from being big as a barn, but I'm pretty sure I'll be four months along in the middle of Feb.

I started noticing little movements last weekend, and I say movements because they were on both sides of my belly, obviously this child is busy. He should fit right in. It seems a bit early to be feeling the baby already, so maybe it's going to be a big baby?, or maybe I'm just more in tune to what's going on (think happy thoughts!). I'm not sure, but I love to feel the kicks; the first contact with our new little person. I'm also feeling really great. VERY tired on some days and I go to bed around 9:30 when I can (poor DH does not get much time), but I'm not sick and feeling pretty comfortable, so that makes it easier to enjoy the little kicks and signs of life.

Now before all you moms who have to deal with being sick for nine straight months start hating me, I will add that I am still totally off of dairy. Just like during my last pregnancy I have developed a strong sensitivity to milk protein (educated guess), and It makes me very sick even if I have just a little. This is kind of irritating since EVERYTHING has cheese or butter or some kind of dairy in it, especially here in the South, but I just try to cook at home a lot and make foods I can eat. In a way, I am really lucky because at least I know what makes me sick, and I can stay away from those foods. If I didn't know it was dairy, I would be sick all nine months too. It kind of makes me wonder how many of the sick-for-nine-months ladies actually have a food sensitivity and don't know it. Two of the foods that have really made my time without dairy bearable are Veggie Cheese and non-dairy ice creams. I swear, the Purely Decedent stuff is so good I had to double check the carton like three times just to make sure I was actually allowed to eat it!

The baby bump is starting to show, so now I look pregnant and not just fat. Well, to me anyway; I still talk to people who with look at me and say "I didn't know you were pregnant!", so maybe it's not obvious to everyone. I'm pretty happy though, with all my babies the second trimester was the best, so I'm really trying to enjoy this time between morning sickness and can't-see-my-toes, baby bump and all. It's kind of nice to get dressed and not have to worry that your mommy tummy is showing. ;)

Here is a picture of the Baby bump, I look a little disheveled, but these are literally the only pictures I have of me since getting pregnant so they will have to do. :) Dh took these the other day while we were picking out some new outfits for his trip. I was taking pictures of each of his new outfits so that he could look through them later for ideas. I got to be fashion adviser, so I didn't mind. It was kind of neat idea too, I will have to do that for myself some time for those mornings when I can't figure out what to wear.

Speaking of DH, here he is looking sharp in his new threads, tags and all. I really love how the blue bring out the color in his eyes.

Yes ladies, he's handsome, and he make pretty babies too. I know, I'm lucky.

Valentines Day Craft

We made some crayon hearts for Immy to take to school and to give out as valentines this year, and they turned out so cute! We got the idea from our MOMS Club, but I think the idea originally came from a Family Fun magazine.
We actually got them started a little bit early this year so there is still time for me to share the idea with you before Valentines Day. Here are the steps:

You will need:

Heart shaped mold that is oven safe
Scrap Paper
Double sided foam mounting tape (we used looped masking tape)
Scissors
Colored card stock or construction paper
markers
Crayons with paper removed, broken into small pieces (For a 1 1/2in. heart you will need approximately three full crayons worth of pieces.)

Step 1. Heat oven to 250 degrees.

Step 2. Fill each mold with crayons and bake until melted, about 10-15 min. We used a silicone candy mold, and placed our mold over foil in case of drips. Our hearts are about 1 1/2 inches across. Warning, we were told that after using the mold for crayons it can not be used for food, so you may not want to use your best muffin tin!

Step 3. Once they're cool remove them from the molds, and smooth any rough edges by rubbing them on the scrap paper.

Step 4. Use a small piece of foam tape to stick each heart to a three inch circle cut from card stock then add your message.

Suggested messages: You color my world, Valentine; Valentine, you make my heart melt; Have a heart, Valentine; or Have a happy Valentines Day for "crayon" out loud.

All very cute! I even thought that doing round ones with blue and green, to look like the world, would be cute for the "You color my world" one.

This was a lot of fun, really easy, and for us, free; because we had all the supplies on hand and borrowed the mold. We even made extra so they may be making an appearance as B-day gifts too! I'm thinking little bags of eight, with a coloring book or two? Or maybe I will just give them all back to the kids to enjoy.

A New Table

I have a lovely new table!

Our old table, with four chairs with broken seats, was passed on to us from a cousin. It was bigger than our table before it, which I wanted, but there were not enough seats for all of us (not to mention the occasional problem of kids falling through them). We discussed fixing the chairs, but luckily found this lovely set on Craigslist for the right price, so now we can all sit at the same time! (I know, I get excited over the silliest things.)

Thanks Mama Cloth Diaper Give-away!

I am really hoping to get some more cloth diapers soon, so when I saw this diaper give-away over at Thanks Mama I was really excited! If you are doing the cloth diaper thing too check it out! Free is always a good thing!