Posted by admin on Feb 2, 2009 in
family To start off with, sorry for being such a horrible blogger! I do great at my scrapbooking site tootlebugz.com, but horrible here. I have a lot of great things and ideas to post, but seem to only have limited time, and this blog is one of the things that suffers!
Back in November my father and husband were both diagnosed with diabetes. This was a wake up call for me because I am very overweight, have PCOS and am already dealing with insulin resistance. Our family was eating the “American” way.. out of boxes and from fast food restaurants most of the time. Obviously, it was time to fix the problems – and at this point we had no choice. So, we decided that no more “junk” or empty calories were coming into our house. Only the occasional bag of chips or cookies – and homemade if possible where we control the preservatives and chemicals. We decided to buy a lot more fresh fruits and veggies. Seeds and nuts became our new snack favorites. We dusted off the bread machine and started pulling out all the recipe books. I started visiting blogs to get new recipe ideas.
I promised some of my friends I would post some of our new found favorites. This recipe has 2 parts – but is so VERY yummy! It’s from the Prevention Diabetes Diet Cookbook. It’s one I would highly recommend if you have someone who is diabetic in your family. Even if you don’t, it’s full of healthy recipes that limit the carbs and sugars – something we all can use!
You start off by making the basic tomato sauce. You could buy a spaghetti sauce at the store – but they are usually so full of sodium. This one is worth the extra step. You will have left over sauce you can use to make mini pizzas for lunches also. You can refrigerate the sauce in an airtight container for a week.
Basic Tomato Sauce
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
3 garlic cloves minced
1 can, 28 oz. diced tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon salt
ground black pepper
Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes (with juice) and salt and cook for another 10 mins. Season with pepper to taste. Remove from the heat. Puree the sauce in a blender in batches until smooth.
Italian Potato Dumpling Casserole
3/4 cup part-part skim ricotta cheese
1/4 cup fresh basil, thinly sliced
1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated reduced fat mozzarella cheese, divided
2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg lightly beaten
3 cups basic tomato sauce (see above)
1 package (16 ounces) potato gnocchi
2 cups spinach leaves, thinly sliced
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly coat a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish with vegetable spray and set aside. In a small bowl, combine the ricotta, basil, 1/4 cup of the mozzarella, Parmesan, and egg. Stir until blended and set aside. Spread a thin layer of the tomato sauce in the reserved casserole dish. Layer half the gnocchi and spinach. Using 1/2 the ricotta mixture, place small dollops on top of the spinach. Cover with another thin layer of sauce and repeat the layers again. End with a sauce layer. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of mozzarella on top. Bake for 40 mins. or until the top is bubbly and the cheese is lightly browned. Makes 6 servings.
We have also made this adding chicken strips (uncooked) in the very bottom of the pan. 1lb will cover the entire pan if you cut them in half. (makes them thinner where they cook easier also!)
Tags: homemaking, recipe
Posted by admin on Jan 4, 2009 in
family Starting tomorrow, I plan to begin my blogging here again. I hope to post daily (weekdays) We will see how that goes! I didn’t post in December because frankly, we did very little school! We continued math and phonics and finished up what we could in the other subjects. We STILL have to finish up the Civil War. That’s good news to those of you who are starting it at the last of the school year! I have some great stuff to share. We also have to finish up germs/ bacteria / fungus and MOVE ON! We did do a little on History. Mikah served us an “Addy” dinner - But that’s about the extent of it. All and all, I think we did a handful of days in December!
Anyhow, come back tomorrow 
(Oh, I planned to finish relinking everything as well…. just haven’t been able to get to it. To see one of the things thats kept me busy visit www.tootlebugz.com, my digi scrapbooking blog.)
Posted by admin on Oct 4, 2008 in
family It seems that if you were a Hart in the 1700’s then Thomas Hart was the name to have! At least in the Hart families in Augusta Co. VA and Pennsylvania. Every family seems to have had at least one Thomas. This makes finding the parentage of my lines James Hart rather difficult. Peter Hart who was born about 1740 is our last known and documented direct line relative. Some believe James Hart who traveled with him as he moved from VA, to NC, to GA and then back to NC and VA was his brother. I believe the research most likely points to this James being his father. More research points to the father of James being a Thomas Hart… the question is WHICH ? Thomas Hart! I believe after much research that he is probably the son of the preacher Thomas Hart from the Buck Co. PA Hart family. This Thomas was the son of John Hart and Susannah Rush. Thomas had nephews who later are living in Augusta Co. VA and Charleston SC.
Read more…
Tags: Genealogy
Posted by admin on Sep 8, 2008 in
family 
This post has no purpose other than to prove that, on this day, the toy room is clean! It won’t be in a few days… Hurricane Mikah is on the horizon as I type and heading this way. Soon the toys will start their suicidal surrender and magically jump onto the floor. (It has to happen that way since no one will ever claim they are responsible for the mess!) Read more…
Tags: family
Posted by admin on Sep 7, 2008 in
FORE,
Genealogy,
family Genealogy has been a hobby of mine for a few years. I’d like to be able to document the family lines for my children and future generations. Of course, like most researchers I hit “brink walls” in my research. My current wall is Richard FORE. (b. abt 1750 in SC, NC or VA & d. 1817 in Marion Co. SC) I have looked and looked but can’t seem to locate his parents. So, this week I have been following other family lines of those known to have married into the family or had a close relationship with a FORE family. Another small detail that makes the search difficult is that the FORE name is spelled in many different ways in the records. FORES/FORD/FOREE/FAURE/FAURI/FORE and probably others… So, it’s important to document everything and find additional sources to verify questionable name changes or issues. Then there is also the issue of county formation at that time in history. A person could live in the same place all their life and live in more than one state and in several counties! This makes the research a huge puzzle that continues to stump me, and that can get frustrating at times. I think my next step is to convince a FORE male relative to do the DNA testing. It will perhaps identify where to search next…. (Ummm… any of my male uncles or cousin reading this? LOL)
Read more…
Tags: Genealogy
Posted by admin on Aug 23, 2008 in
family We just got back from Alabama last night. The reason for the visit was my grandfather’s funeral. He lived a long, full life and left a huge family behind – 6 children, 10 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren and was Mikah’s last living great-grandparent. (Tyler still has 2 great-grandmothers who are alive) He also was the last grandparent of mine alive. He served in the US Air Force during WW2, The Korean War and the beginnings of the Vietnam War. (He retired in 1963. And actually, the Air Force was created during the time he served. He was in the Army initially) Tonight, I am posting candid pictures of the family after the funeral. They were taken with my iPhone -so, they are not the best pictures. (We forgot to get batteries for our camera… oops…) Read more…
Tags: family
Posted by admin on Aug 23, 2008 in
family 
We recently visited my parents for a week. During that time I got a few more pictures of Ally. She sure has grown! She laughs all the time – unless she is asleep or screaming (both of which are other favorite pastimes. I do believe eating is her #1 choice, however!) She LOVES Mikah & Mikah loves playing with her. She tolerates me for now (and that’s a good thing since there are few people she even tolerates! LOL)
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Tags: family
Posted by admin on Jul 10, 2008 in
family 
My sister’s family spent the 4th of July weekend with us. On Friday night we drove a few miles up the road to see the fireworks. It’s the first time in several years we have gone because Mikah was very sensitive to the noise when she was younger. (I am sure several family members remember her screaming the entire show a few years ago!)
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Tags: family
Posted by admin on Jun 21, 2008 in
family 
I finally got around to uploading the pictures I took of Ally, Kara and Sean the last of May! Ally wasn’t in a pleasant mood the majority of the weekend…. Therefore, I had about 10 mins. total to get a good picture. Even then it took me, Nana and Kara … LOL I managed to get a few cute ones though!
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Tags: family
Posted by admin on May 8, 2008 in
family 
I thought I’d post some more pictures of Ally tonight. Mikah loved holding her and is turning out to be more maternal than I expected. Tyler held Ally for pictures, but really was far more interested in getting back to the computer. I just can’t get over how tiny Ally looks in the pictures…. Read more…
Tags: family
