Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce

It only seems fitting to bring in the new year with my very first crockpot/freezer recipe. My family started making our own spaghetti sauce about a year ago to save money and cut out unwanted ingredients in our foods. My husband and daughter have developed a recipe that my family loves. Until yesterday the recipe was never recorded on paper only done by memory by one of them. So my sixteen year old daughter decided she would record it and get the measurements so I could bring it to you! I have always froze the leftover sauce for another time. We always made it on our stove top until yesterday when we used both of our new crockpots.                                                                       Now I can't take the credit for the idea of using the crockpot to cook the sauce. I got that idea from my friend Laura at Momables . Laura has awesome recipes and lots of homemade recipes and tips for meal planning. She even offers a subscription for meals at a great price!
So here it is my family's recipes for Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce.

This recipe is for 5 quarts of sauce. We used a 5 quart crockpot to make the sauce.

Ingredients:
1- 105 ounce can of tomato sauce
3 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. onion salt
4 tsp. basil
4 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. onion powder
1 1/2 teaspoon on fresh ground pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
3 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 to 1 tsp. of red pepper flakes if you like it spicy( may omit)

Instructions:
Turn crockpot on low and add whole can of sauce. Add all the rest of the ingredients and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Let cool. Put in gallon freezer bags. Lay flat and freeze. When you are ready to use the sauce defrost in fridge the night before.
It's that simple. Each pot of sauce should yield two bags of sauce. We have a large family so that is what we use. You can divide it anyway you want. Their really is no rule for how many bags you use.

We used two 5qt pots and ended up with four gallon bags and a quart bag of pizza sauce.

 

Here is the finished product. My daughter browned a pound of ground beef, made noodles, and added it to the sauce. This plate was for my youngest girl. She had mozzarella Italian bread, homemade spaghetti and a side salad. Yum! It was delish!

 

I hope you all bring in your New Years with positive thoughts and goals. Happy New Years!

New Years Resolutions

I have never really been one of those people who makes resolutions. This year I decided that I would make some lifestyle resolutions and share them with you. I am going to take some steps to make life easier on the home front. So next year you will be seeing lots of new ideas on the blog. I am so excited to take my blog to the next level.
Here are a few of my ideas for the blog. I of course will continue to do bento lunches! Freezer cooking, crockpot meals, homemade earth friendly cleaners, recycling and so much more. I can't wait to share it with all of you! Take care and have a great rest of the year and I will be back with you soon. 

Christmas Party

Hey there! Tonight we are all going to my daddy's house for Christmas! Woo hoo! Let the celebrations begin! So today I cooked all kind of yummy goodies for tonight. I made sausage balls, little Smokey's wrapped in crescents and mini quiche. My grandma was a big fan of cooking and I think I may have that trait myself.

These are my mini quiche. Being the bento creator I am I couldn't let these leave the house without cute Christmas food picks!

 

And here are my Smokey's wrapped in crescents.

 

My kiddos are out of school for the next two weeks so I won't be making many lunches. I do however have something up my sleeve. I am working on a couple things and resolutions for myself and family. I can't wait to bring that all to you.

Merry Christmas and I will see you all later this week!

Jolly Holiday Blog Hop

Hey there! It's A Jolly Holiday Blog Hop! Today you will get to see some of my friends from Bento Bloggers & Friends spread some holiday cheer as you hop through our holiday lunches! And this is my first blog hop! I am so excited to get to participate in the hop. So without further ado here are my Jolly Holiday lunches!

 

Here is my tribute to one of my favorite Christmas movies. National Lampoons Christmas Vacation! This lunch is for the oldest. She will totally get this lunch. She has Chocolate hazelnut spread sandwiches. Apple slices, sugar snap peas and sweet pepper rings. She also has holiday pretzels and three Wally Moose homemade chocolate grahams.

 

 

This lunch is for the littlest girl. She has a turkey Gingerbread Girl sandwich. Turkey and Colby Jack cheese roll-ups. Apple slices, grapes, cucumbers and sweet pepper rings. She also has holiday pretzels and homemade chocolate chip cookies.

 

 

This lunch was for the fifth grader. She has a Santa turkey sandwich. She also has apple slices, grapes and cucumbers. Homemade chocolate chip cookies and holiday pretzels.

 

These lunches were super fun to make and I know the kiddos are going to so happy. Now hop on over to my friend Eileen's page Robot Squirrel And The Monkeys and check out lunch! All you have to do is click on the cutie pie panda and it will take you strait through the hop!

 

 

 

Christmas Lunch #2

Happy Friday! My children informed me today that there are only 12 days left until it is Christmas. They are so excited for Santa to come to our house. I will be doing Christmas themed lunches for them until next Friday. They get out for Christmas break next Friday. I really have mixed emotions about this. lol I know they need a break from school and I for sure need to sleep past 6:30 AM. In todays lunch I did a little bit of a Winter theme and a little bit of Christmas. Here is todays lunch!

This lunch is for the oldest girl. She has peanut butter Christmas Tree sandwiches. Christmas cookies and pretzels. Cucumbers, sweet pepper rings and grapes. Santa is peeking from behind the trees!

This lunch is for the youngest girl. She has peanut butter snowman sandwiches. Christmas cookies and pretzels. Cucumbers, carrots, sweet pepper rings and grapes.

This lunch is for the fifth grader. She had Santa peanut butter sandwiches. Christmas cookies and pretzels. Cucumbers, grapes and carrots.

 

This lunch is for the boy. He has peanut butter snowflake crackers. Christmas cookies and pretzels. He also has a clementine and grapes.

 

I just love Christmas and these lunches have been so fun to make. Have a great weekend!

New Bento Supplies!

Hey there! I am super excited today! I got my shipment in from All Things For Sale. The kiddos were so excited to see all of our great new bento stuff. So of course I had to do a lunch with it. This will be our last lunch that isn't a Christmas lunch until after the holidays! Here is what I got in the shipment.

Look at all of it! This place is one of the most awesome suppliers of bento supplies. And affordable!

This was lunch for the boy. He has mini pepperonis, A clementine, and grapes. He also has pretzels and homemade star grahams. I used two Star Wars rings and lite sabers for decoration in his lunch.

This is lunch for the fifth grader. She had a hard boiled egg molded in the shape of a bear. She also had ham sandwiches pressed into stars, a bear and a heart. Cheese its, pretzel balls, grapes, carrots and cucumbers. I also added some adorable bear food picks. She loved this lunch!

This is lunch for the littlest girl. She has a hard boiled egg shaped as a bunny. She also has mini shaped sandwiches with hazel nut spread. Sweet pepper rings, cucumbers and grapes. She also has pretzels. I used cute little bunny food picks and strawberry shaped silicone cups.

 

I had so much fun using all of our new bento supplies!

Star Sandwiches!

Good morning all! We have had some sickness here at our house. All four kiddos were home yesterday. So no lunch. Today two were supposed to go back to school and only one ended up going. I had packed two lunches for today. But only sent one with the boy. I am going to share them both with you today. Believe me that second lunch will not go to waste in this house. So here is todays lunch!

The youngest girl has star turkey sandwiches in all different sizes. Cherry tomatoes, sweet pepper rings, and grapes. She also has a pretzel mix.

 

This is lunch for the boy. He has pepperoni skewers. Pretzels and Ritz crackers. He also has grapes and a banana(not shown).

 

These two lunches were very simple to make. I used handmade food picks.(I made them) And of course different size star cookie cutters.

Christmas Lunch #1

Hey there! Thanks for stopping by today. A couple of weeks ago my friend sent all kinds of cookie cutters and presses to me in the mail. I got another small package from her today and I am so excited. It had all kinds of cute cookie cutters in it! For todays lunch I used some of the Christmas presses she sent. The sandwiches turned out so cute! So here is todays lunch!

In this lunch the youngest girl had two sandwiches shaped like a gingerbread boy and gingerbread girl. She had Christmas cookies and Holiday Wheat Thins. She also had apple sticks, carrots, cucumbers and sweet pepper rings. She also had a gingerbread man made out of smoked gouda cheese.

 

This lunch is for the oldest girl. She had a ham sandwich shaped as a Santa face. She also had Christmas cookies and Holiday Wheat Thins. Apple sticks, sugar snap peas and sweet pepper rings
.

 

This lunch is for the boy. He has peanut butter snowflake crackers. Holiday Wheat thins and Christmas cookies. Apple sticks and grapes.

 

We used our Easy Lunchboxes for todays lunch. I also used cookie presses and cookie cutters to make this lunch. This is our first Christmas lunch of the season. Stay tuned for lunches like this one!

 

 

 

 

 

Captain America Sandwich!

Hello there! Today is a very exciting day at our house. We get to use are new Easy Lunchboxes! They arrived yesterday and everyone was so excited to see the box! I must say I an excited too! Thank you Kelly! You are awesome! I have been wanting them ever since I first saw them. They are super cute. I will be doing a review on them soon. Stay tuned for the results! So without further ado I present todays lunch in our brand new Easy Lunchboxes!

This lunch is for the boy! He has a Captain America pepperoni sandwich. Apple fries and a clementine orange. He also has star shapes pretzels and a Greek yogurt tube(not shown).

 

All of the girls had basically the same lunch today. They had heart shaped sandwiches. Two had turkey and one had chocolate hazelnut spread. Apple fries, carrots, sugar snap peas and sweet pepper rings. They also had Annie's snack mix and Annie's bunny grahams.

 

In todays lunch I used our Easy Lunchboxes. Heart shapes silicone cups and regular silicone cups. I also used my set of biscuit cutters from The Pampered Chef and a heart shaped cutter. Swing by these sights and check out all of their awesome products. Have a great day and come back to see me.

Cute Sandwich Day!

Hello there! Today I made all kinds of cute sandwiches for the girls. Who knew bread could be so cute! I have many, many different types of cookie cutters and presses. I guess you could say I am a collector. I am just now getting around to using some of them and am adding new ones all the time. I adore cookie cutters. They are an excellent way to cut sandwiches into cute shapes and absolutely necessary in my opinion. Take a look at the cute sandwiches in todays lunch!

This lunch is for the oldest girl. She had a flower shaped chocolate hazelnut spread sandwich. P.B.&J. trail mix and homemade grahams. Also she has sugar snap peas, sweet pepper strips and apple slices.

This lunch is for my cuddle bug and youngest girl. She is using our pink and purple Lunch Blox boxes today. She has a cute sheep and two mini cow chocolate hazelnut spread sandwiches. P.B.&J. trail mix and Annie's Bunny mix. She also has sugar snap peas, carrots, apple slices and celery used to make the grass in the pasture!

This lunch is for my ten year old. She is using our Goodbyn Bento box today. She has turkey star shaped sandwiches. P.B.&J. trail mix with two star shaped homemade grahams and star shaped pretzels. Also celery, carrots, apple slices and peanut butter for dipping.

And last but not least the boy is using our blue and orange Lunch Blox set today. He has apple slices and grapes. Pretzel shapes with peanut butter. Homemade grahams and P.B.&J. trail mix.

I love making all the cute sandwiches. I know the really like to get them too. My youngest girl loves all the animals in her lunch box. She is such an animal lover. The two older girls love them too. In todays lunch I used many different shaped cookie cutters. The mini cutters came from local stores. The sheep cutter came from Sur La Table. They have great cookie cutters and much more. Great prices too. Click on the name and it links you to the online store. The Lunch Blox can be found at Target or Rubbermaid. Have a great day!


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Super easy lunch!

Hello there! It's Monday yall!  I made super simple lunches today for the kiddos. This mama has been a little under the weather. I wanted to show you that you can still pack a super simple lunch even if you are not feeling great or are pressed for time. As an opener to the Christmas season I made a really cute Winter theme today. All of the kids have very similar lunches. I tweaked each one a bit to fit each kids likes. Here is todays lunch.

 This lunch is for the youngest girl. She has snowflake shaped Ritz with peanut butter. Holiday pretzels and homemade graham crackers. Carrots, sugar snap peas, sweet pepper slices, apples and grapes. She also has two snowflake shaped pieces of smoked gouda.

This lunch is for the second oldest girl. She has snowflake shaped Ritz crackers with peanut butter. Holiday pretzels and homemade graham crackers. Carrots, sugar snap peas, sliced bell peppers, grapes and apples.

 

This is lunch for the boy. He has snowflake shaped Ritz with peanut butter. Holiday pretzels and homemade graham crackers. A clementine orange, apples and grapes.

 

This was such an easy lunch. My kids like peanut butter crackers so from time to time I will pack them for lunch or for a snack. I used mini Christmas cookie cutters to make the graham crackers. I will post a recipe soon. I am tweaking it to get it just right so all the kids will love them. I hope you all have a very good Monday!

Happy Thanksgiving

I will be taking a short break to spend the holiday with my family. No one says Have a Happy Thanksgiving better than Charlie Brown. So from my family to yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Rainbow Turkey

Morning! Boy is it cold and rainy here in Virginia! Days like this are surely meant for napping. It would be nice to catch some zzzzzzzzzz's before the kiddos go on Thanksgiving break. lol Today I  mad a super cute turkey sandwich. Turkey bread with no turkey filling. We will save the turkey for Thursday. My friend who I love and adore has been looking for Bento supplies for me in the great state of Indiana. She has access to lots of thrift stores and indoor flea markets. So she is on a thrifty Bento hunt! That's how I roll. I get as much second hand as possible. Cookie cutters and molds are a favorite find. I am a firm believer in reduce, reuse and recycle. So she sent me a care package last week with her finds. In it was this neat turkey press. It also had some vintage presses and lots of Christmas finds. Jell-O molds were in there too. Woo hoo! Score! I will attempting egg molds in those babies. So I must give a shout to Ms. Pam Morris. You are the best! Here's todays lunch.

In the girls lunch. Turkey pressed sammies with either Nutella or P.B. Homemade chocolate grahams shaped like acorns and leaves. Homemade cheese crackers, apple slices, sweet peppers, sugar snap peas and carrots. This lunch is for the littlest girl. The oldest had the same but only took sugar snap peas. The middle had the same but we swapped out the grahams for P.B. & J. trail mix.

For my picky boy I packed. Homemade pretzel bites & hot dogs. Homemade chocolate grahams, P.B.&J. trail mix, yogurt and apple slices.

 

Pretzel Bites For One!

Hey there everyone! I sure hope that you all had a wonderful weekend! Mine was busy! This time of year always is, Isn't it? The kids are all in a play at church for Christmas so our weekend started off with that. Yesterday my daughter, niece and I cooked a good part of the day. We made all kinds of yummy goodies. We decided to try our hand at homemade pretzel bites! Can you say YUMMY? They were awesome. The first tray from the oven was gone in 2 minutes flat! We made three batches and used 5 lbs. of flour. They were really worth the time and effort. I had seen on a friends blog a few months ago where she had made them for her family. A special thanks to Christine from My Epicurean Adventures for the idea. We also made homemade cheese crackers and chocolate graham crackers.
Moving on from the cooking and back to lunch. I got new lunch boxes! They are so darn neat. They are the Lunch Blox Kids boxes from Rubbermaid. They are quite nifty. I bought one for the boy and one for the girls to share. We are trying them out today. I wasn't going to pack lunch today then my 10 year old wanted to take lunch at the last minute. I threw this lunch together in about 5 minutes.

She had homemade pretzel bites. Don't they look yummy? Sugar snap peas, apples, homemade cheese crackers shaped like leaves, and cheese sauce for dipping.

These are  the two lunches boxes I bought. They are cute. They lock into the ice pack. Perfect! They also fit into a rectangular shaped lunch box. I love the colors too. So bright!

 

That's lunch for today. Have a wonderful Monday!

Fun Sandwiches

Good morning all! Before we head into todays lunch I want to talk a little bit about why I became a Bento lunch packer and decided to chronicle all of my kids lunches. I have four very different kids here at our house. Some are picky eaters, some are very picky eaters(my son) and some are willing to try new things. In July of this year I started doing some research on Pinterest about kids lunches in preparation for the new school year . I have always packed lunch for my kids but they just were not always so pretty like the ones I do now. I wanted to find a way to pack enough choices and variety without overloading the kids. I wanted to find a way to get them to try new things. That is when I found all the lovely well balanced lunches and discovered the world of Bento. I started reading all the blogs I could find and pinned enormous quantities of lunch ideas. I made list. I showed the kids pictures and got their input on what I wanted to do. The response was great. They loved the idea of making themed lunches. So a Bento lunch maker was born. And let me tell you something. My girls have tried so many new raw veggies and liked them. Even requested them. I am one happy mama and it just goes to show you offering new foods to your kids does work! You can see how our lunches are evolving by pictures of my earlier post to pictures of our lunches now. I owe it all to my wonderful Bento friends! I have some of their blogs listed at the sides of my post. Check them out. Now I would love to share with you our fun sandwich day!

This is a lunch for my fifth grader. She had a heart shaped ham sandwich. Homemade cheese cracker stars. Cucumber hearts, carrot sticks, celery and a Clementine orange. I used a heart shaped silicone cup to go with the sandwich and added some cute cupcake food picks that I made myself. Nothing says I love you like a lunch filled with hearts.

 This is a lunch for my third grader. She is a bit on the adventurous side and loves animals! She had a rino ham sandwich. Sugar snap peas with a cute little cheese crocodile. Sweet pepper rings, grapes, and cucumbers with elephants and giraffes cut into them. She also had jungle iced animal cookies. I used a mini set of Noah's Ark cookie cutters to do the cucumbers. A rino cookie cutter & crocodile cookie cutter to make the sandwich and cheese cut outs. Those came in a nesting set of three and included a huge elephant as well. She was so happy about the sandwich and the cheese!

My other third grader took a dinosaur pepperoni sandwich. He had two clementine oranges. Pretzels, wheat thins and jungle cookies. I used a dinosaur sandwich cutter for this one. This lunch only took 5 minutes to prepare. You can't beat that for time management! A special thanks goes to my friend Grace over at Eats Amazing for reminding me I had this sandwich cutter. She has a lovely post up about Dinovember. You should head over and check it out.

 

So glad you stopped by today and would love for you to leave a comment. Have a great Thursday!

Pumpkin Bread

Good morning all! I trust you are all having an excellent day. I have to say that today I am not on my A game. My hubby bought me a lovely little Nikon camera last year. I love my little camera. Now that being said I am not the best at keeping up with parts to things. I always say I am going to put this here so I don't lose it and end up losing it anyway. lol So I lost my charger cord! I am having to use my moms camera which is not as precise as mine. It doesn't take as good of quality pictures as mine. So everyone bear with me. I will find it but until then I am using moms.
In todays lunch I was able to capture the lunch for all three girls. Here is todays lunch!

The girls had pumpkin bread, homemade cheese crackers, apples & grapes, carrots, sugar snap peas, cucumbers, and sweet peppers. I made the pumpkin bread ahead of time and popped it in the freezer. That way I have it when they want it. I will have to replenish my stock soon because these kiddos love pumpkin bread.
The boy took pumpkin bread, pretzels, apples & grapes and a cup of peanut butter to dip the pretzels and fruit in.
Soon I will be doing my Christmas cookies and plan to share them and the recipes with you. I must sign off for now. The house is filled with Christmas music and I must clean and start decorating. I adore Christmas. It is my favorite time of year. Food, Family and making memories is my motto!

Two Duckies In a Pond

Hello there. Todays lunch was incredibly cute. At least I think so. lol The youngest girl had two little duckies  in here box today. The veggies set the scene for me in this one. Take a gander at todays lunch.

 She had two ham sandwiches shaped like little ducks. A ham skewer on one of my handmade turtle food picks. A veggie shore covered with carrots, sweet bell pepper slices, sugar snap peas and flower shaped cucumbers. She also had grapes, homemade graham crackers and homemade cheese crackers shaped like little goldfish.

 The second oldest girl took the Goodbyn today. She had ham skewers. Homemade cheese crackers, homemade graham crackers, grapes, peppers, cucumber flowers, sugar snap peas and carrots.

The boy took leftover spaghetti. Grapes and an orange. He also had homemade graham crackers.

The oldest took the same as the little girls with the exception of her having hazel nut spread sammies instead of ham.

Pocket Sammies and More

Hello there all! I trust you all had a great weekend. It didn't last long enough for me. Mondays are the days I just want to crawl back under the covers. Oh well can't do that. Too much to do. Today was another Meatless Monday. I try to give the kiddos a meat free lunch on Mondays. We are not vegetarian or vegans here but I think it is a nice change to have a meat free meal. I do it for lunch because my hubby would never stand for dinner this way. He is a meat and potatoes kind of guy. So here is our meat free lunch!

 The girls all had little pocket sammies. One had peanut butter the other two had hazelnut spread. To make the sammie I spread a piece of bread with the nut butter, folded it over then used a big cookie cutter to press the sammie together and cut. The two younger girls had sweet peppers, sugar snap peas, celery, carrots and grapes. The oldest girl had sweet peppers and sugar snap peas. She also had grapes. They also had homemade cheese crackers and homemade pumpkin bread doughnut holes. I used pumpkin bread mix to make the doughnut holes and baked them in my cake pop pan.

The boy took peanut butter pretzel sandwiches, two small clementine oranges, grapes, homemade graham crackers, and pumpkin doughnut holes.

Thanks for stopping by and check out the rest of the post for more lunches.  The recipe for the homemade cheese crackers can be found at my friend Christine's sight www.myepicureanadventures.com. 

A simple lunch!

Good morning all! Sorry I didn't have a post yesterday. I took the pictures yesterday morning only to realize I had no memory card in the camera! Duh..........Oh well. I am back at it today. Tuesday I made some yummy pumpkin doughnuts, doughnut holes and bread. The house smelled absolutely lovely. I used pumpkin bread mix to make all these yummy goodies. You can use your own recipe or the box mix. It doesn't really matter. You get the same results either way. I put all the goodies in baggies and froze them. This way we have goodies for awhile. Without further ado here is todays lunch.

 This lunch is for my oldest girl. She has a ham sandwich on a fresh roll. Cubed pumpkin bread, sugar snap peas, apples and grapes.

 This is lunch for the little ladies. Ham sandwiches on fresh rolls. Cubed pumpkin bread, carrots, sugar snap peas, apple slices and grapes.

This is lunch for the boy. Leftover pizza, cubed pumpkin bread, apple slices and grapes. The boy doesn't like veggies. I usually offer them anyway(even though they always come back home). I keep thinking that one day he will love his veggies.
This was a super simple lunch. No frills today. I love all of my new handmade food picks but sometimes keeping it simple is enough. Especially when you have the beautiful colors of all the fresh veggies and fruit. Have a super Thursday and tune back in tomorrow for Fun Food Friday!

Some Bunny Loves You!

Hello all! It's cold here in Va. It is supposed to snow at some point today and I really hope it does. We love the snow at my house. It totally calls for hot chocolate and anything that calls for hot chocolate is welcome at our house. Yesterday I got some really cute Bento items for a steal and wanted to use them in todays lunch. I decided on making the girlies a bunny lunch. This is what all three girls had today.

They had two bunny shaped ham sandwiches. Bunny grahams & bunny snack mix. Cucumbers, carrots, grapes and pear slices.

The boy had leftover chicken sticks, mixed nuts, cheese its, grapes, an orange and pear slices.

I used a bunny shaped cookie cutter and heart silicone cups. This was so simple and so cute. I know the girls will be thrilled with lunch!
Now head on over to Following In My Shoes and check out all the other awesome bento lunches.

Vegatarian Meals For The Girls!

Hello there! Today is Meatless Monday. The girls took a vegetarian meal today and I must say it looks delicious. The oldest had been requesting an apple sammie and this was the perfect opportunity to make her one. So here are todays meat free lunches.

 

The two younger girls had Apple slices, grapes, carrot sticks, wheat thin crackers, pretzels and peanut butter for dipping. My kids really like foods that can be dipped. This meal was perfect for a Meatless Monday and dip it theme. They are getting their proteins from the all natural peanut butter and have three veggie/fruit options.

Next we have the oldest. Like I said before she had been requesting an apple sammie and was very excited when she found out that was in her lunch for today! She has the apple sammie with peanut butter, carrot sticks, grapes, apple cinnamon rice cakes and pretzels.

To make an apple sammie you just cut the apples across into thick slices then make a hole in the middle. I used a mini acorn cookie cutter for this one. Staying with the fall theme I added some of my handmade food picks.

The boy did not take a vegetarian meal but it was still a yummy lunch! Have a great Monday!