Clean Eating #88: Homemade Chocolate Pudding with Protein

Chocolate Pudding with a Protein "boost"

This is O.M.G. good.

Not even joking a little bit.

The other day I was at Reasors and they had their half gallons of milk on sale ten for $10.00.  With the "no hormones used" milk being nearly $4.00 a gallon, this was a great deal.  I put ten jugs in my basket (because of course I was only going to get milk, who need a cart for milk??)  I thought "I'm a buff chick, I can carry some measly milk jugs to the front of the store."

Do you know how much 1/2 gallon of milk weighs?  I do.

*nervous tic*

Now multiply that by ten.  Yeah, my buff self carried almost 50 pounds through the entire store.  With one hand.

Do you need a moment to collect yourself from your AWE of my buffness?  Don't.  I was crying by the time I reached the front.  Well, not out loud, but still.  One of those journeys where you start out strong and half way there you're thinking, "Maybe it wouldn't be too hard to just run up and grab a cart... nah... I'm almost half way there by now."

And a few minutes later you're weeping loudly (on the inside, of course) and whining at yourself for being so stupid as to not get a cart.

"WHEN DO YOU EVER GO INTO A STORE AND ONLY GET ONE THING, BYN???  HMMMMMM???  WHEN!!"

So anyway, that was all just to say I made pudding again.  Chocolate to celebrate the fact that three women and two boys appear to be suffering from PMS in this house.  "Hey MOM!  Do we have any CHOCOLATE?" seems to be the rallying cry lately (from me included, but I don't have anyone else to ask).  And mind you, that is NEVER said in a simply curious way... always in a near panicked I-MUST-HAVE-CHOCOLATE-NOW-OR-My-WORLD-Will-SIMPLY-COLLAPSE! kind of way.

Without further ado (in case you're dealing with your own family PMSing at the same time:

Ingredients:

• 6 Cups of skim/2 % Milk (2% was on sale, I usually use skim, but I'm not arguing with $2.00 a gallon milk!)
• 6 Scoops of Chocolate Protein Powder
• 3 TBSP of Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• 1/4 cup of Xylitol
• 6Tbsp of Arrowroot powder

Yummy goodness!

Directions:

1. Blend dry ingredients and 1/2 of the milk in the blender until smooth
2. Add to the remaining milk and heat in a heavy pan on the stove until warm, stirring with a whisk every few minutes.
3. When the mixture starts to get HOT, add some of the hot mixture to your egg yolks.
4. Keep adding hot to the egg yolks until the eggs have been warmed up to the approximate temperature of the pudding mixture.
5. Bring to a full boil (at which point it will be pretty thick) and then pour into small glass dishes 

See all of my neat matching dessert dishes?  Well, no one complains around here about dishes not matching.  I'm not sure the kids even notice the dishes except when they're washing them.  Or when they're looking for the biggest one...

I tell you, I wasn't even interested in chocolate pudding today, but I sacrificed so that I could share the results with you.  It was wonderful.  Tasted just like the pudding my grandma used to make!  LOVE warm chocolate pudding, and got my protein fix too!

End of the Month Round Up & Questions??

Here I am again, at the end of another month.  And guess what? 

I spent over $400.00 LESS on groceries this month!

Yep.  I spent less than $800.00 on groceries for 7 people.  I feel really good about that!

And that even includes a wholesale shop through http://www.clnf.org/ buy where I bought 50#s of whole wheat flour and a pound of yeast that I haven't even touched yet!  Plus, I still have tons of groats and popcorn that is untouched ready to use over the next few months.  And my freezer isn't bare either, I still have a lot of chicken breasts, tilapia fillets and veggies.  Along with a gallon of frozen marinara.  I think I'm getting the hang of this!

So... the question is, what are YOUR requests?  I've had several people ask for vegetarian ideas, so I will be making a lot of those this month.

I am still working on the mac & cheese request!  I made some the other day, but it was NOT good.  My least picky child ate it anyway, but honestly, it was a bust.  All grainy and... ick!

I will be making a grocery list and meal plan again tonight or tomorrow and going to a big grocery shop on Wednesday. 

One thing I need to focus on is lunch-type things for packing.  We have a couple of days where we really need to be able to pack foods that don't need reheating, and my hubby needs things that he can take to work.  I need to make some more varieties of protein bars as well.  What kind of things do you pack for lunches... beside sandwiches?  We like to do park days when both my hubby and I have the day off, but we always end up at a loss as to what to pack to take along. 

What do you want to see this month?  What were your favorite recipes last month?  Did you try out a recipe that really worked for your family?  Any questions or suggestions?  Let me know!

I always get to the end of the month and realize that I never did make some of the things I'd planned.  Chicken Pot Pie, for one.  I have to make that soon, before it gets too warm! 

The One with Cabin Fever, A scared Sheep & a Denim Jumper

Thanks to the bizarre stretch of snow and blizzards in the Tulsa area, life was at a standstill for almost a week for us.  My husband watched a snow plow slide backwards into a ditch in front of him... weird.

Our first day out of the house was on Sunday, when we went out just because we could.  Because if momma's starting to get more twitchy than Kari "It's like Carrie, but with a K instead of a C an AH instead of an AY and one R instead of two and an I instead of an IE." then its time to get out of the house, even if for no other reason.

GIFSoup

The above gif also may explain why most of my kids are elsewhere today.  Just sayin'

Goodwill shopping... always a good time.

Look!  Its a denim jumper!!  I AM a homeschooling mom after all!!  *Just kidding, I mean I AM a homeschool mom, but you wouldn't believe how many years I was asked, "I thought you all had to wear denim jumpers" like it was a cult with a dress code!

See how it hangs, just so?  How flattering it is?  My son was so happy, he had to give me a hug.  And my husband was grinning from ear to ear.  Okay, so he may have been laughing at me.  I'm not sure.  The camera was in his face.  Sprite was scared.  "Oh mom!  Stop that!"

On to BigLots!  

The Eclectic store (where we found the much bigger pizza stone for $10.00  Now I can bake more than one loaf of bread at a time!)  I tell you, you'll find anything interesting and entertaining after a week stuck in the house with four kids getting crankier every day!

My hubby and sons want to redecorate the living room now...

We finally got to see Sprite for a few hours after she got snowed in with the family that she nannied for last summer.  This is my oldest daughter, who graduated last year.  Technically she still lives at home, but we don't see her too terribly often.

Guess what this is... I betcha can't guess!

You're RIGHT, BigLots!  That IS UNBELIEVABLE!!

I'm telling you, we were just GIDDY to be out.  It didn't take much to make us crack up.  You might need to save this post for when you've been snowed in for a week.  Or you're drunk or something.  This may not be funny to normal people.

Okay, so you can't see the sheep's scared face, but trust me, this guy was TERRIFIED that I was actually going to sit on him.

Sasquatch found what he thought was a good deal... "Mom, Can I have some Bacon Shells and Cheese, Please?"  Ummm... yeah... that's gonna happen.

I could not for the life of me get a photo with the boys NOT chewing!  Honestly, I took about 5 photos and they are chewing in EVERY one, even though I stood there in Subway saying, "STOP EATING FOR A MINUTE"!  

And there is my little girl, eating a cookie instead of a sandwich.  Healthy choices, FTW!

And finally, to the grocery store.  Look at all that bread!  I'm so glad we make our own bread, bagels, etc and don't buy bread off the shelves anymore anyway, but wow!

The only eggs that were left were the little 6 packs of eggs and the really expensive organic eggs.  I got the last 2 1/2 dozen box that no one took because the box was all mashed up... even though the eggs were fine.  My husband apparently couldn't resist taking the photo with me in it.

So there you have it.  We went home and got pretty much snowed in for another four days.  But lets not talk about that now, shall we?  What did you do for fun last time you got out of the house?

Clean Eating Shopping!

Clean Eating Shopping

Doesn't this look gorgeous??

You should know that if you shop is rural OK, you may get comments from your cashier like, "Wow.  You got a lot of weird food.  Are you from America?" and "How weird.  You don't have hardly anything in boxes!"

Money Saving Tip:  Apparently right after a bad storm, when everything has come to a stand still for days is the best time to buy fresh produce!  Its been sitting in the store with so few shoppers that they store needs to get rid of it NOW.  Not  only that, but MOST of the veggies will either last all month anyway, or you can prep and freeze them for the month anyway.  We're going back tomorrow to go ahead and buy everything for the month!

Time Saving Tip: Okay, first off, when you select, then cut and paste the grocery list from THIS POST to your hubby who is 'stranded' at the store.. make sure you don't forget the last ROW of things on the list!

He came home saying, "Wow!  The produce was super cheap and I found several things on sale... I got everything but just a few things, and it was only $202.00!!!"

Until we realized that he didn't get the last row of my shopping list.  Mainly some frozen foods, quinoa and brown rice.  There was also the stuff that WalMart didn't have:  tofu, cranberries, sesame seeds, feta, uncured lean ham, natural beef stock, industrial sized diced tomatoes and sauce and a block of Parmesan. 

Still, it was a good trip, he easily got more than a week's worth of groceries with what he DID get, and the other stuff isn't going to add up to ANOTHER $200.00, so I think we still did good.

On Sale for $1.08 a bag.

Mushrooms for our Beef Stroganoff!

The Raisin Bran was on sale, a big box for $3.00, and isn't totally "Clean", but the kids love it, and they managed to take out everything that I DON'T want except sugar, so they can eat it with their eggs or some sort of protein, and I'm good with that.  I will stick with my shredded wheat or Kashi cereals that I eat occasionally as a treat.

My husband said they didn't have cartons of chicken broth, so he got the organic stuff in cans because it was on sale.  I try not to buy canned goods unless they're labeled BPA free, but my hubby doesn't quite have the same passion for non-canned food as I do.   The ground turkey was $2.98 a package and there is 1/25 lbs in them.  Kind of expensive.

Yes, I want free range organic meat.  Its not in the cards right now.  Like everything else in my life, I just can't take on everything at once.  I'm working that direction, though!  I don't want to become the person who says, "I can't afford to do 110%, so I'm just not going to do it at all"

He got Greek Yogurt (hiding behind the Neufchâtel cheese) because it was only 30% more than the plain yogurt.  We're going to drain the regular yogurt and see how much actual thick yogurt we end up with to see if the cost difference is actually negligible.

Parsnips, Sweet Potatoes (for spicy oven fries) & Garlic

Now I have all the veggies and fruits arranged in baskets around the kitchen and its just SO pretty!  I love love love having food in the house!!  Have a WONDERFUL day!