Cider time!

We went over to my parents house this weekend because my mom had called earlier in the week to tell me the apples were ready early (they are usually not ready until mid October) and were we free on the weekend to go over for Cider pressing? 

We were and we did and it was so much fun!

Cider pressing is one of my favorite activities in my favorite season!

We picked apples off the Liberty apple tree, washed them, ground them and pressed out the juice. Everyone gets into it and does a little bit of everything. The kids were really into it this year and it was so fun to watch them enjoy themselves.

This morning, I asked them what their favorite parts of Cider pressing were and here are their answers:

Liam's favorite part: "that's hard because I love drinking it and making it and everything about it!"

David's favorite part: "picking the apples and drinking the cider!"

Heidi's favorite part: "putting the apples in [the grinder]!"

30-ish weeks and nachos

My newest preggo picture:

Yep, the classy in the bathroom mirror picture. Ha ha. Anyway, thirty weeks. Third trimester and all it entails: feeling huge and uncomfortable on a fairly constant basis. Trouble sleeping at night, heartburn and crankiness.....probably from the trouble sleeping (seriously, how un-cool is it that we mamas have to start not sleeping even before we have a newborn?). Of course, there are also the fun parts....this early in the third trimester, Baby's quite active. Kicks and hiccups and what feels like TaeKwonDo inside me. It's fun. The kids have felt Baby move, Jonny has too (although he gets freaked out by it which makes me laugh. Silly man.).
At my last Midwife appointment, a fun thing happened. We were listening to Baby's heartbeat with the dopplar and Baby was having hiccups at the same time and the dopplar picked it up! It was so cute!

I only have 8-10 weeks left, and quite honestly, I am very ready to be done. I have had a lot of stomach issues with this one....starting out with the worst morning sickness I have ever had, and continued with this weird carb sensitivity. 

I have discovered that wheat, sugar, quinoa and more often than not, oats, make for a Jennifer who is very uncomfortable. But potatoes, corn and rice seem to be okay as long as I don't overdo it. Thankfully, most of my cravings include things that aren't carbs. Like cheese. I have eaten so much cheese lately.

Anyway, so, tonight we had nachos and boy were they good! I may have over-eaten just a little....

While tonight's nachos weren't the "super nachos" I usually make (they were missing the sharp cheddar and several toppings but were quite good anyway), I am going to tell you the recipe, because "Super Nachos" are amazing.

Super Nachos (I'm not going to give any quantities, that way you can use more or less of each item as your preferences go)

Corn Chips

Ground Beef 

Sharp Cheddar (grated)

Salsa Con Queso

Pre-brown the ground beef. On a baking sheet (one with sides), layer all ingredients. Put under broiler for 5-10 minutes (keep a good eye on them as they can burn ultra fast and burnt nachos are not super)

Once done, plate up each persons and let them choose what toppings they want. These can include but are not limited to:

Sour Cream

Salsa

Olives

Guacamole

Green Onions

Jalapenos

Regular Onion

Make sure you have napkins out and dig in! SO good!

Meatballs

I made some pretty fantastic meatballs and spaghetti tonight and thought I would share my recipe.

First of all, for some reason, my belly is not liking carbs. Especially the processed type like bread and noodles. It’s not an every single time thing, but enough that I am trying to avoid gluteny things and even other carbs in large quantities (quinoa is as bad as the processed stuff). This carb-loving girl is hoping it’s just an unfortunate side effect of this pregnancy. Only a couple more months until I know. November cannot come fast enough for so many reasons.

Anyway, I have that going for me and I also knew I had no breadcrumbs, so I scoured Pinterest for a good meatball recipe using oatmeal (carbs:yes, but I have been able to do them in small quantities and I have been pretty good this week about keeping my carbs on the low side. ). I found this recipe that sounded pretty good: turkey and oat meatballs. I figured I would just sub my yummy, grass-fed ground beef for the turkey and see what happens. What happened was pure deliciousness.

I didn’t want to spend too much time touching raw meat (I have issue with that, although beef is way better than chicken…I HATE touching raw chicken. Just the thought…..*shivers*), and I wanted the oats ground up a little, so I put everything in the food processor. Well, I started with just the oats to make sure they got ground up like I wanted. Then, I just added the beef, spices and eggs and gave it a whirl for a couple minutes until everything was incorporated. Then, I spooned it out like cookie dough, rolled them up and browned them in a big pan. Once the outsides were nice and brown, I popped them in the oven at 300 and used the pan to brown up the onions and then make the rest of the sauce. Once the sauce was nice and mixed together, I put the meatballs in and let it all simmer quietly while the water for the noodles heated and we waited for my hubby to get home from work.

Meatballs (in case your lazy and don’t want to follow the link above….also, I doubled the recipe so these amounts are what I did):

2 pounds ground meat (I used beef, you can do beef, pork, turkey for a mixture of your choice)

1 cup oats

2 eggs

4 cloves garlic (minced before adding to processor…I didn’t do this, but will when I make this again)

2 TBSP dried Basil

2 TBSP dried Oregano

2 tsp Salt

Put the oats in a food processor and whirl until the oats are ground to your preference. Add the rest of ingredients and whirl until well blended. Spoon out and roll into desired ball size and brown in 2-4 TBSP oil of your choice (I used bacon grease….yum). Put in a oven safe dish and continue cooking in the oven at 300 degrees. Using the same pan, cook the sauce:...

Sauce:

1 medium onion, diced

1 canned petite diced tomatoes

1 can tomato paste

1 jar spaghetti sauce (I used Pregresso’s garlic and herb blend)

Salt, Pepper, Italian seasoning to taste (I would have added more garlic but used all I had in the meatballs)

Brown onion in the remaining oil in meatball pan. Once soft, add tomatoes. Cook for a few minutes and then add the tomato paste, sauce and spices. Cook until meatballs are cooked through and then add the meatballs to the sauce. Let simmer lightly while you cook up noodles. Enjoy.