Friday Donut Day!!

Okay friends, I am trying something new. I have decided that every Friday will be Friday Donut Day.

What is Friday Donut Day, you ask?? Is it about eating Donuts? ABSOLUTELY!!! :) I LOVE donuts, they just make me happy. Don't they make you happy? Just thinking about a warm, fluffy, gooey, sugary donut relaxes my body! (yes I know... I have a serious problem!! But I just can't help myself)

Anyways... back to my post.. I have decided that every Friday I will pick a family, or an organization to dedicate a donut to! Donuts just brighten your day! They put smiles on peoples faces! For a few seconds you can step out of the chaos of the world and smile and enjoy something. I usually end up eating a donut once a week anyways, so why not try and eat one for a good cause, other than just because they are awesome!

So, here's the scoop.... I will find a family that is going thought hard times, or an organization that is maybe doing some type of fundraiser, and I will give them a shout out on my blog every Friday. I will post about any type of go fund me account, or ways to donate to their cause.

My first family I am dedicating a donut to is the Rinn family.

This first family means a lot to me. We lived by them for about 8 years & I love this family. Brett and Heather are amazing people, and are the wonderful parents to 4 amazing kids. I have really gotten to know Heather through church and we have become close friends. This family is so nice & they really will do anything for anyone. They spend most of their time out and about in their neighborhood doing things for others and constantly serving everyone!!

Brett has recently been diagnosed with Liver Cancer and he needs a liver transplant. He will be receiving chemo & radiation treatments until he receives a new liver. This has been a major blow to them, but they are handling it so well. Brett is always smiling and always can find a reason to laugh and be positive.

They have a go fund me account if you would like to donate. Here is the link. If you are able at all to donate, even just a little I know it would be much deserved and appreciated!

Healthier General Tso's Chicken

This weeks recipe is a healthier version of General Tso's Chicken. Here is the link for the recipe.  This one was another one that I really didn't have to fight anyone to eat. My youngest just announced that he wasn't hungry at all, so he wasn't eating. He's the picky one & so I'm not sure how this recipe will go over with picky eaters because he wasn't interested in eating at all. But my girls both loved it & ate it without complaint. The hubbie and I really liked it too. This one will definitely be put in the book of recipes to have more often. I cooked up a pan of brown rice to go with it. I cook my brown rice in the pressure cooker & it cooks it a lot faster. Here is the post about how I pressure cook my brown rice.

I love Chinese food, so I was really excited when I found this recipe. I love finding healthy versions of my favorite foods.  I will say that with this recipe had a few things in it that I have never used or cooked with, like Rice wine vinegar, Hoisin sauce, and fresh ginger. Maybe I'm just not that experienced of a cook, but I was a little hesitant to make this recipe because of those few things I had never used. But I am happy to announce that I was able to find everything for the recipe at the store really fast and with no problems.

I have never cooked with fresh ginger, ever. So I was a little unsure what to do with it.  I just googled it when I got home and it was pretty easy to figure out! :) I peeled it with my regular vegetable peeler, chopped it up and I was good to go. The recipe didn't specify a certain amount of ginger to use, so I just cut off a chunk, called it good, and hoped for the best.

This is the stuff I used. It was kinda fun cooking with fresh ginger, I think I'll use it a lot more in the future.

Anyways, I was reading through the recipe and it says that it's only 25 minutes with prep and cook time! Yeah... not really!! :) I was soooo hoping that would be true! This took me about an hour to make. I picked a day that I didn't have anything going on after the kids got home from school, just in case it took way longer than it was supposed to.  I'm glad I had a low key night to do this on. It just seemed like it was a lot more work than I was expecting it to be.  Maybe the more I make it, the faster I will get at throwing it together. But right now, this one is not one that can just be thrown together.

This also took longer to cook than the recipe said. It took almost double the amount of time to cook & we ended up having to put the oven on broil to get it to brown & crisp up a little.

Even though this recipe was a little high maintenance, I still really liked it. I will definitely make it again. Just on a night when I don't have a bunch of other things going on. :)

Pressure cook Brown Rice

How to cook brown rice in your pressure cooker. I love my pressure cooker! It cooks things so fast & perfectly! I love it almost as much as I love my crockpot! :) It's pretty easy & fast to cook rice this way.

Here is a picture of the pressure cooker I have & use. It's a Presto 8-quart stainless steel pressure cooker.

So this is what I do for my brown rice. I do 2 cups of regular brown rice (the non-minute rice) and 6 cups of water. Then I set it on the stove and get it up to boiling, so that the weight at the top is rocking. Then I cook it for 18 minutes on medium heat. Take it off the heat, and let it cool down & let all the pressure out. Make sure all the pressure is let out before you take the lid off. This pressure cooker & most of the newer ones have a mechanism in the handle that won't let you open it if there is still pressure inside. But just be careful. Then you have amazing soft, sticky, brown rice.

Crockpot Mexican Chicken

This weeks recipe is Crockpot Mexican Chicken.  Easiest recipe in the world. Perfect for crazy busy days when you don't really even have time to get stuff in the crockpot first thing in the morning.

I have been doing chicken like this for a while, really without a recipe. But for people who need a recipe, I found this link on Pinterest for you. This recipe was perfect for the crazy busy week I had. I literally threw the chicken in the crockpot straight out of the freezer, dumped a jar of salsa & 1/4 cup of taco seasoning. Turned the crockpot on for 6 hours, and I was good to go!  Once it's done,  just shred it up and top it on top of whatever you want. In this particular picture I have a corn tortilla, lettuce, chicken, greek yogurt and avocado.

This recipe is very versatile, and can go on top of several different things, and can be used for dinner or lunch. I will make this for dinner, but it can be used as leftovers for another dinner, or several different lunch ideas for the next few days.

 Also, I make my own taco seasoning, so here is that recipe for anyone who is interested. For this recipe, I change it a little. I actually do 3 batches of this recipe at one time and then put it into a huge jar. I only do about 1/2 tsp of salt per batch, and on one of the batches I only do about 1/2 the chili powder. I have found that if I do all the chili powder for each batch, then it's a little too spicy for my kids. I also only do about 1 1/2 tsp. of the red pepper flakes per batch. But go ahead and mess around with it a little bit and see what works for your family.

My kids love this recipe. It's so versatile that you can usually find something to put it on that everyone will eat. Some had it on corn tortillas, whole wheat tortillas, corn chips, taco shells, lettuce (for a mexican type salad), ect. So this is another recipe that I usually don't have to fight anyone to eat.

My "paint strip" block.

So... I have posted several times, and I realized that I haven't posted anything about sewing? How can this be the "Sew Fit" blog with out any sewing going on? Part of the problem has been that there hasn't been time for sewing. You know how you have phases in your life, where sometimes you just have time to be crafty & creative, and sew amazing things, and then there are times when you can't even get the normal, every day things done let alone anything extra. So life right now is just one of those phases where I am bearly keeping my head above water with trying to get the bare minimum done. So not a lot of sewing is going on right now.

But I have joined a quilt guild, thanks to my mom. YAY!! :) So once a month we go to quilt guild and learn awesome things, and I get inspired and excited about making quilts. This past month the President of our quilt guild brought in a bunch of paint strip samples and had us all pick one out of a bag. Then we were challenged to go home and find fabrics that matched the different colors on our strip, and make a block out of it to bring in and show to everyone.

This was the strip I picked....

It worked out well for me because my Husband loves blues, and the more blue something is, the more he likes it. So I knew he would be happy with whatever I made.

Here are my fabric choices. I love being able to take cuts of fabric like this and make them into something awesome!! And of course I had to pick something with polkadots!! I am absolutely addicted to polkadots.... I have no desire to seek therapy for this addiction!!

I hopped on the internet and started browsing through websites, looking for a free quilt block pattern to make with my colors. My mom told me about this site called quilterscache.com. It has tons of free quilt block patterns. So after browsing around for a while, I came across this pattern. It's called The Card Trick.   It looked so fun, and it was actually really easy to figure out. This is how my block turned out.

(this is me showing my block at my quilt guild meeting)

I was so excited to see it all come together. The great thing is, is that I didn't have to un-pick ANYTHING while making this block. (virtual knuckles!)  I think this is one of the only times I've been able to sit down to a pattern for the first time, and not totally screw it up!! This either means that I am getting better at quilting, or this pattern is crazy easy. Either way, it was a huge quilting confidence boost!!

Oh, and the best part of all is that my husband LOVED this block, and he actually asked me to go and buy more fabric so I can make more of these, and make it into a quilt. What?!?! I know right... total quilters paradise when your husband is actually requesting that you spend $ on fabric!! "Um... yes, ablsoutely, I would love to go and buy more fabric, and ignore all the house work to make you a new quilt!" :)

Maybe one day, in a year or two, I will get this quilt finished and I can post about the actual finished product! :)

Honey Salmon

This weeks clean recipe is Honey Salmon. I actually didn't have Salmon, but I had Halibut, so I just used that and it tasted amazing! Here is the link for that recipe.

(yes this is a paper plate we are eating off of... this is what happens when I don't have time to do my dishes for a few days! No judging!!! )

It literally takes 10 minutes to make. The whole meal took less than 15 minutes to throw together. While the Halibut was baking, I threw a bag of Edamame into the microwave for a few minutes, and chopped up some Strawberries. This was a big hit with everyone, except my extremely picky 5 year old!

This was the sad / mad face he had after eating the 2 tiny bites I made him eat. Don't you just feel so bad for him? He was downing a whole glass of water to help him swallow. I'm not even sure he chewed any of it. But, he ate what he was supposed to without his tantrum lasting more than a few minutes, and to his surprise, he didn't die. So, I call that a success with this kid! :)

I will definitely be making this one more often. My husband & my parents go fishing in Alaska usually once a year, so we always have an abundance of fish and I am always looking for good recipes.

Quinoa stuffed Bell Peppers

This weeks clean recipe is Quinoa stuffed Bell Peppers. Here is the link to this recipe. 

They were pretty easy, and really good. What was nice about this recipe is that I was able to get all of the filling made and mixed together earlier in the day, so that when I got home from the 10 & 11 year old girls activity for church that I was in charge of, I just threw the stuffing into the peppers, topped it with some cheese, and stuck them in the oven. So even though it wasn't a crock pot recipe, it was still pretty fast to throw together.

My husband and I loved them. My kids loved the fact that the peppers acted like bowls, but none of them ate the actual peppers. They at the stuffing just fine & liked it, but they didn't touch their peppers. I didn't mind too much, because there is a lot of healthy stuff in the stuffing, do I didn't fight them to eat their peppers. And, here is another fast recipe that my kids didn't fight me to eat, YAY!!

We also had a few left over, so I was able to have them for lunches during the week!! Bonus!! I do not like trying to figure out what is for lunch, and I do not like having to dirty up a bunch of dishes to make something for lunch.  So this was a perfect recipe for the beginning of the week. :)