By the skin...

 Venturing into new territory...making my own spices and seasonings. Last year I tried it with basil and was pleasantly surprised with the results. Ok, we can do this. 

One thing that's always bothered me is how much food gets tossed in the garbage, like onion skins. Over and over, we hear that valuable nutrients are contained in the skin of many vegetables and yet, with onions, we toss those skins into the garbage. Curious, I did some research and found a way to make my own onion powder using these skins. Check out The Green Goddess page for details.

First, since store bought produce is generally sprayed with pesticides, be sure to use only organically grown onions, or onions from your own garden. 

Next time your cutting onions, get a container and toss the outer skins that you normally throw away into the container; don't close it or cover it. 

In about two weeks, it's time to get those skins dried out enough to be ground up. I used our dehydrator, but you can also use your oven as noted on The Green Goddess website. Before going into the dehydrator, I checked the skins for any dirt, stickers, or mold and removed those from the batch. I also cut up a red onion and diced it, then placed half of it into a freezer bag and froze it. This is a time saver step when I need diced onions for sauce or to sauté with meat in the future. I also had a couple of green onions that were on the verge of going bad, so I added those to the dehydrator.

Ready to start my first batch of onion powder.

Into the dehydrator.

I have a coffee grinder designated for spices only.

Ground up.

Using a fine mesh screen to separate the powder from the flakes.

We have onion powder!

Reusing empty spice jars for my home-made spices. :)

The bits that didn't get fine ground go into another container.

I now have onion powder and onion flakes on hand for meal prep and cooking. The powder will come in handy next time I'm making my own chicken stock or vegetable stock. :)

Last fall I planted four varieties of garlic, and I'm about two weeks away from harvesting that garlic. I'm giddy with excitement, and I already ordered four new varieties to plant this fall! Once this years crop is harvested and cured, I'll try making my own garlic powder too. 

Health Highlight: Diabetes prevention

Small steps, big difference. 

November is national diabetes month.

One in three U.S. adults is prediabetic! Could that one be you? Learn ways to prevent diabetes and take a short 1-minute risk assessment.

How did we ever...

Every now and then, an invention comes along and if we are one of the adventurous type that take the plunge to acquire said invention we may find ourselves struck by the revelation "How did we ever get along without _____."

For the past two years I've heard people talking about their new insta-pot; recipes filled my social media feeds every day of all the yummy food prepared in a fraction of the time. When our oldest daughter Amy purchased a Ninja Foodi Pressure Cooker, Sam and I contemplated purchasing one, but never acted on it. We felt it didn't fit our needs--it just wasn't what we wanted.

Then came along the Ninja Foodi Smart Grill. And this past August we took the plunge. Would this be yet another high-priced gadget that we use a few times, and then lose interest when the newness wears off? Nope. Not this time. Holy moley game changer! We were gob-smacked. To say the Smart Grill is amazing is an understatement. After the first two uses we found ourselves asking How did we ever get along without one? 

Our Ninja Foodi Smart Grill

Forget to take something out of the freezer for dinner. No problem. It cooks frozen food, thoroughly, in a matter of minutes.

Want to grill a steak but it's cold, windy and rainy outside? No problem. The Smart Grill can take care of that without any smoke inside your house.

It even tells you when to turn the food over. O-M-G! It air frys, it grills, it roasts, it bakes, it dehydrates. It handles dinner in a snap when you've had a long, exhausting day at work and you just don't feel like cooking for 45 minutes to an hour. We haven't tried the baking or dehydrating feature yet, but I'm sure we will.

Fried chicken, our first meal with the new Foodi Smart Grill.

Fried chicken breast for a summer salad with apples, pecans and parmesean cheese.

Steak on the smart grill.

We've cooked salmon cakes, fish 'n chips, steak, port loin, chicken, hash browns, roasts. We even made jojo's (an Idaho thing...potatoes cut into spears and then fried in oil) in the air fryer without having to worry about the oil, and they turned out better than anything cooked in oil. 

More air fried chicken.

Salmon cakes.

Pork loin.

Frozen hash brown patties, fried to a crisp in under 20 minutes.

If there is one draw back to the Ninja Foodi Smart Grill, it is this: you do need to keep the screen in the lid clean. In our home, we accomplish this by removing the screen (it just snaps out for removal) and placing it in the dishwasher every time we run a load of dishes.

I truly can't sing the praises of this machine enough. We use it practically every night. Having the ability to fry food to a crisp without the use of oil or grease is a blessing for our health. Being able to cook dinner if we forgot to thaw something in advance makes meals a breeze, especially when you find a recipe during the day that you have everything on hand for, but one item is still in the freezer. 

Every time I walk into the kitchen and see my smart grill on the counter, I smile and ask myself that question again...how did we ever get along without you?

Well-being notes to self: The Big 4 Focus -- Tasty Tuesday

Along the lines of gratitude, I feel so very grateful for having instant access to a multitude of resources for information on health and well being. Anytime a health focused event comes up at work, I never hesitate to sign up. No matter how busy the day may be, the outcome of participating leads to gaining relevant fact-based information I know I can put to use on a daily basis.

We recently had an event called the Big 4 Focus, with an article addressing the timely topic of eating habits, weight loss and mindset. Very good information!

Diet Math