Day 31: Honey Garlic Pork Chops

Well we are finally here: day 31 of our 31 days of Motherhood! I sure have had fun getting these posts out to you, I hope you have enjoyed them too! Sharing delicious recipes with you and taking you into my home and sharing some our tips on how to keep a home and family organized. I hope you continue to follow me on my journey! I have great things in store for those who continue to follow me, this is a very new journey into blogging and running a new business from home but I have had so much fun doing it! I am always open to comments on how you liked something or something you would love to see in the future.

Today I have an amazing recipe for you! We had this for dinner last night and my family LOVED it! It was really quick and easy to make and they were so tender. All you need is your favorite cut of pork chops, I used some medium thickness, boneless ones. You will also need honey, soy sauce and garlic. That’s it!

Step 1: Spray baking dish with non stick cooking spray and place your pork chops in it.

Step 2: Make the sauce.

1/4 cup honey

3 Tablespoons soy sauce

6 cloves of garlic, minced

Place all of these items in a small bowl and mix together.

Step 3: Coat pork chops with sauce. I did not use all of the sauce, only about half. You can add it all if you want, the choice is yours.

Step 4: Place pork chops in oven set at 350* for 30-40 minutes.

Step 5: Serve with your favorite sides and ENJOY!!!!

These were so delicious and very tender, I don’t think I have ever had a pork chop that was so tender and juicy!

I hope you love them as much as we did. I would love to here your thoughts on this recipe, share them in the comment box below!

Also find me on Facebook @ From Nature to Nurture!

Bonnie

Day 30: Organizing Recipes

Earlier in the month I talked a little bit about menu planning and organizing your shopping list. Today I want to expand that a little but keep it simple by just talking about organizing your recipes. I have so many recipes floating all over and in different cookbooks and now with all my Pinterest recipes things tend to get really unorganized. So I have a pretty simple way to keep them all in one place and neat!

What you will need for this project is:

*A Large 3 Ring Binder

*Clear Plastic Sleeves

*Page Separator's

*White Paper

*Printer

All of these items you can find at your local office supply store or even Walmart carries them.

I keep all my recipes in clear plastic sleeves because it keeps them clean while I am cooking and prevents them from ripping.

1) Go through all your recipes and type up your favorites or even ones you have wanted to try.

This does take some time to do but I promise it is so worth it!

2) Go through your Pinterest recipes and copy and paste them to your word document to save you from having to type them all up.

This went a lot faster than the recipes I had on hand.

Tip 1: Save a copy of each recipe, either some where on your computer or in a folder on your desktop. This way you can easily share them with others!

Tip 2: Put a picture of each recipe on the bottom of each recipe. This makes it a lot easier to look through your recipes. Think about looking through a cookbook with no pictures verses one with a picture for each recipe. It is much easier and looks so nice! You can copy the images from the recipe page on the internet, use a personal picture of your own, or even look for Google images.

Taking the time to type and print out all these recipes will save you so much time in the future. You will already have them on hand in a convenient place, always ready to use. No more hunting for recipes or wondering what to have for dinner. This makes planning your meals so much easier too, all your recipes are in one book. You page through and find a recipe!

 Please share with me what you think of my recipe organization tips! What do you do to keep all your recipes in order?

Follow me on Facebook @ From Nature to Nurture for more great home and family tips, as well as amazing recipes!

Bonnie

Day 28: Chicken & Biscuit Casserole

Hi! I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend, we sure are. We have been so busy, getting lots of yard work done and spending lots of time with each other. The kids had off Thursday and Friday this past week and my husband took off work, so we have been having lots of fun together. I missed day 27, I am sorry for that, we had a really tough night with the baby, I think he is teething. So I wanted to share with another recipe! This one I found on Pinterest and it had the ingredient list but no instructions on how to put it together. So I modified it and it turned out really great. It is now one of my favorites and the kids really liked it too which is always a bonus!

So here is the ingredient list:

2 cups or so of cubed chicken, cooked

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can of peas

1/2 cup of sour cream

3 Tablespoons milk

2 Tablespoons of melted butter

1 cup cheddar cheese

1 can of Pillsbury biscuits

1) Dice chicken and cook it thoroughly. I seasoned it with some of my favorite chicken seasoning, this is optional but added some flavor.

2) In a small bowl combine cooked chicken, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, milk, and peas. Mix gently.

 

3)Spray a casserole dish.  Put all ingredients in a casserole dish and top with cheddar cheese.

4) Open can of biscuits and put them on top of cheese.

5) Brush biscuits with melted butter.

6) Bake @ 375* for 30-35 minutes until biscuits are thoroughly and light brown and soup mixture is heated through.

Cover biscuits if getting too brown and soup mixture still needs to cook.

This has been one of my favorites so far! I love casseroles to begin with and this one turned out so good! I sure hope you like it as much as we did,
I would love to hear how your family enjoyed it, please come back and share with me!

Also find me on Facebook @ From Nature to Nurture!

Bonnie

Day 26: Trick or Treat Plate

Well our 31 days is winding down, I sure have enjoyed doing these posts everyday and I appreciate all the comments and followers. If you haven’t already please sign up for emails of these posts so you never miss a fun project or recipe! Today I have a really cute craft I found while browsing yesterday. It is a cute Halloween decoration but if you put a little thought into it you could make them for every holiday! We will just start with a Halloween one for now though!

You only need a couple materials and they are all really cheap if you don’t have them in your home already.

You need Sharpie markers in black and orange.

Black acrylic paint.

1 large, white plate.

I found my plate at the Dollar Tree so it only cost me $1! What a deal!

First what I did is took a pencil and drew out the letters on the plate that I wanted and then I took the Sharpie markers and colored them in.

You could do it with a stencil but doing it with a pencil first made it pretty easy and I was able to easily erase it if I made a mistake.

Next step was to take my 17 month old cute little feet and paint them with the black acrylic paint and put his cute little foot prints in the middle of the plate. To make this a little less messy I made a bucket of soapy water and had it ready to wash him off immediately and also I did one foot at a time.

Then I baked it in the oven at 170* (that was as low as my oven went, you could do it as low as 150* if yours goes that low) for 30 minutes, let it cool and now I have an adorable Halloween decoration!

Share with me what you think!! Please follow me on Facebook

@ From Nature to Nurture also for more fun home ideas and amazing recipes!

Bonnie

Day 25: Crockpot Ranch Pork Chops

After a few days of cleaning and organization I thought it was time for a recipe! Here is a really easy but tasty crockpot recipe. I try to keep the ingredients for this one on hand because it it quick and easy to throw together. You only need three ingredients: Pork Chops, a packet of ranch, and cream of chicken soup.

Layer these three things in the crockpot in the above order and cook on low for 6 hours or high for 4 hours. I tend to cook most things on high in my crockpot just because I seldom get things going early enough.

Serve with you favorite side and a veggie and you have a wonderful yet easy meal that tastes like it took all day to make but really took only minutes!

I hope you enjoy this one!

Find me also on Facebook @ From Nature to Nurture!

Bonnie

Day 24: Car Seat Makeover

Today one of my big projects was to clean out our van. I say this was a project because it was the biggest mess I have ever seen! It seems we have had so much rainy weather lately that I just haven’t been able to do it. So I ended up hauling a grocery bag full of garbage and a grocery bag full of other peoples belongings out of the van. I vacuumed it and wiped it down and then realized that the kids car seats were disgusting. The two older ones are now in the high back booster seats so I don’t really ever take a good look at them, they buckle themselves in and get themselves out. So I decided to take them inside and completely pull them apart and clean them!

This is what they looked like! I know, GROSS! The one on the far right even had stickers stuck all over it.

So I pulled them apart and sprayed them down with my Basic H degreaser. Yes they were that bad I went straight for the degreaser!

As you can see on the pictures above it wasn’t just the pads that needed work, they need a good cleaning on the inside too and I  wanted to get the stickers off. I remember as a kid my dad would always get out lighter fluid if we needed to get something sticky off. Now I have Basic H, which is not only natural and non toxic it is completely safe for my family. My five year old uses it everyday to dust with and I don’t have to worry about him using a chemical cleaner.

So (above) I pulled all the stickers of, wiped everything down, and sprayed the sticker spots and let them soak a little, then wiped those down too. Below is the arm rest that had the layers of stickers on it. I had to spray it down a couple times, let it soak and wiped it off, but it really came off pretty easy with no sticky residue left behind.

Then I sprayed the pads down with Basic H degreaser and threw them into the wash with only a tablespoon of detergent, and then hung then to dry.

Here they are looking like brand new! Notice the brown seat that had stickers on the arm rest and up on the head? All stickers are gone and no sticky residue. I did it all using only two products! These two products were not only safe to me the one using them to clean the seats but to my toddler who was in the house when I was doing and to my children who have to sit in these seats! If you are at all interested in these products you can find them here:

Basic H2

Fresh Laundry Concentrate

They are both safe and all natural products and the are very economical! They are highly concentrated so a little goes a long way! A 16 ounce bottle of the degreaser only costs about 13 cents to make and I only use a tablespoon of the laundry soap to wash a large load of laundry in my front load washer! Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have, I am happy to help. I hope you have enjoyed my get out and clean post!

Follow me on Facebook @ From Nature to Nurture for more great cleaning tips, organization, and great recipes!

Bonnie

Day 23: Organizing For the Kids

As a mother the hardest job I have is keeping it all together, the cooking, cleaning, and organizing! Today I wanted to get my daughters closet organized so she can keep up with cleaning and organizing it herself. If her things are organized she can keep it clean, for the most part.

I think organizing is a learned art, one I have slowly been working on in my entire home. I think the most important thing for kids is for everything to have a place and for them to know where that place is. I realize that until they are about 6 or 7 they can’t read if you label things for them but they will learn to know where things go if they are always supposed to go there.

Before I get to far here is a picture of my daughters closet, it isn’t too bad but it needs a little work.

It also has a set of shelves to the left and little dressers to the right, so there is lots of space to put things. We do have a playroom but that is mostly for shared toys and games. I keep the things that are theirs in there rooms. I may change this at some point but it seems to work okay for now.

I organize her clothes by what they are: dresses, sweaters, sweatshirts, etc.…….

that way we can both find things for her to wear easily and they are easier to put away too.

I have labeled all her toy bins for her with a label maker, if you don’t have one of these you seriously need to get one! I got mine for less than $20 at Wal-Mart, it is a mom must have! This way everything has a place and there are not little pieces all over the place. It is also easier for them to only take one thing out at a time and put it away before taking out something new.

I also use small dressers or chests with drawers for other things like doll accessories. The little dresser on the left has all her doll clothes and accessories in them . One drawer for pacifiers, bottles bibs, toys, and so on. One drawer for clothes, and one drawer for carriers and blankets.

The top shelf I use for things like extra blankets, pillows, and suit cases. Things that she doesn’t use on a daily basis.

Here is what it looks like when I am done, and it only took about five minutes for me to create a more organized space so my daughter can keep up with cleaning her room.

Every once in a while she just needs a little help getting things back in shape. Please share with me how you keep things organized in your children's closets!

Also follow me on Facebook @ From Nature to Nurture!

Bonnie

Day 22: Crockpot Applesauce

A couple weeks ago at school my daughters class was talking about Johnny Appleseed, and their class made homemade applesauce

at the end of the week. What’s even better is it is made in the crockpot, my favorite way to cook!

So yesterday afternoon my children and I peeled apples, threw them into the crockpot, and had warm apple sauce with dinner!

Here is what you will need:

6-8 apples, brand of you choosing, we love Gala apples!

1/2 cup water

1/2 – 3/4 cup sugar, depending on how sweet you want it

(next time I think I will try it with an all natural sweetener)

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Direction:

Wash apples. I know this sounds silly but it is something I am starting to do with all my fruits and veggies. I use an all natural, non toxic all purpose cleaner. Believe it or not this same product can wash windows and be used as a degreaser. There are hundreds of uses for it and it is very economical.

You can find it here if you are interested.

Peel and remove core from apples, cut into chunks, and place into crockpot.

My little helpers!

Add water, sugar, and cinnamon to apples.

Cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours.

Serve warm.

Have you ever made homemade applesauce?

Share with us your recipes and tips below in the comment window, I would love to hear from you!

Please follow me on Facebook @ From Nature to Nurture!

Bonnie