New Year Celebration

Each year, being the 'foodies' that we are, we make something fun for our family time together on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. We stay home and celebrate as a family. On New Year's Eve we play games with the littles (and bigs) and then we watch a movie with the bigs later in the evening. We used to stay up late, but the addition of numerous children and the aging of Mama and Papa have changed that a bit ;-)

Our New Year Day menu is called our "Junk Food Day", which is funny, because part of it has always been veggies and dip and fruit and fruit dip. This year we have tried to make our already pretty healthy "Junk Food Day" and make it a nourishing, healthier, healthy Junk Food Day! Are you still tracking with me??

Our Menu, past & present:

Past: Hillshire Farms Lil' smokies, half in HFCS laden BBQ sauce and the other half in horrible for you crescent rolls.

Present: The healthiest hot dogs from Costco, nitrite/nitrate free, all-beef, cut and put into a homemade BBQ sauce and a soaked recipe for whole-wheat crescent rolls.

Past: Veggies and chemical laden and hydrogenated fat filled Dill Dip

Present: Veggies and Homemade Yogurt Ranch dip, made from yogurt that we made from our raw organic milk. No chemicals!!!

Past: Fruit and Fruit Dip that was made with chemical filled Cool Whip and sugar.

Present: Fruit and Fruit Dip made with our own homemade yogurt ( I LOVE this way of making yogurt!!) that has been strained into a cream cheese and sweetened with raw honey. Tastes like cream cheese frosting, only very good for you!!

Past: Horrible for you Summer Sausage made out of only God knows what! Seriously, that bad, and filled with chemicals like nitrates, MSG, ect. Served on Wheat Thins that have HFCS and toxic fats.

Present: Summer Sausage made from grass-fed, organic organ meats from U. S. Wellness Meats. I highly recommend them. We buy our organic ground turkey from them also. Served on either gluten-free crackers from Costco or homemade Grain-free Almond and Rosemary crackers for us grain-free folks.

We will be attempting to make our own potato chips and sweet potato chips fried in organic beef tallow. I will let you know how that goes ;-) Also, I will be attempting a cheese ball, which is a favorite of Brian's that is going to be made out of our own 'cream cheese'. I wish I had remembered to pick up some raw cheese when we got our milk this week, but I can't remember everything, right?!

Boy, have we come a long way in the past couple of years! I praise God for leading and His wisdom on the best way for me to nourish and feed MY family. I do believe, as He is all wise, He knows exactly what will work best for each of our families.

One more thing; you all know my heart, right? Please don't take this as condemnation or something to overwhelm you. Just let it inspire you to read the labels, eat as close to how God made food as possible, seek HIM for how best to feed your family, research and ONLY take on what the Lord would have you take on, not some woman in blogworld, okay?

BTW, if this sounds like a lot of work, it is, but I do have a houseful of helpers! And, once you start incorporating these changes, it becomes so much easier, really!