Crockpot veggie stew

Feeling a little lazy being a Monday, so I grabbed a nice sized chuck roast out of the freezer. At first I wasn't to sure what I was going to make out of it, I just stuck it in the crockpot on the low setting with 1 1/2c of water and my secret to an awesome roast, Chex mix flavoring packet. Thank you to a very good friend of mine that told me I need to try that to season my roast, I will never make one without it ever again. 

I took off to work. By the time I got home the cool front had moved through and the rain had started. So I decided that a good stew fit the weather. I pulled the roast out of the crockpot and placed on a platter to cool. Mean while I placed one of my quart bags of the mixture I made this summer with the stewed tomatoes, onions, green peppers, and okra. I just cut the plastic bag away, and placed the frozen mixture in the broth from the roast, turn the crockpot on high. I came back about a half hr later, flipped the half thawed mixture over in the crockpot and started to shred my roast. After that was done i threw it back in the crockpot. 

When ever I open a large can of tomato juice if I have leftovers I freeze them in a ice cube tray for later use. well today i used about 8 of those tomato cubes. I tossed them in the crockpot, I used a small can of tomato sauce as well.

Then I added 4 cans of mixed veggies that I get from Walmart. I buy the ones that does not include potatoes, just to cut down the carb level some. I also added a can of rotel. Sometimes I will use the frozen mixed vegetables, its just which ever I have on hand at the time.

Then I sat back down on the couch and enjoyed some TV. Yes, today I'm having a hard time getting motivated to do much, even though I know I have company coming this Friday and badly need to clean the house up some.

After a good hour later the crockpot had heated everything up good, and we enjoyed supper.

This provided us with plenty of leftovers also for school lunches for my daughter and I.

The photo above was took after we all ate supper, so as you can see there is plenty of leftovers.

Peaches

We are very lucky to live only a few miles from a orchard. Late in August the peaches ripened and was the best tasting I have ever had. I actually bought a total of 260lbs of peaches, not all of them was for me though... I took 60 lbs to my great aunt.

I also cleaned and froze 60 lbs for my grandmother, and 20lbs for a aunt. So that left me with 120lbs for myself. I used 20lbs that I made into freezer jam, 1 batch I made sugar free for my grandpa.

The rest I pealed, sliced and froze in quart ziplock bags. 

I do this every year, We love peach cobbler, a peach dessert I make using left over Jasmine rice, and just eating plain ol' peaches. I also make a sugar free peach pie every holiday for my sweet grandpa.

FYI to do this type of food prepping takes ALOT of freezer space, we have 2 very large deep freezers and two refrigerators. They are always full...

We also buy half a beef every year around the county fair time. We pray every year that it will supply us with enough beef for the year. We save so much money to buy our meat this way, and we also know they was not treated horrible while they was alive, nor was they given all those antibiotics and steroids.

My squirrel storing mode

During summer I took any fresh veggies I could find to store them up for winter.

My grandpa, and some friends gave me lots of tomatoes, I also grew some but not many. I was also given okra, zucchini, onions, green peppers.

My most favorite thing to put up for the winter is a mixture of tomatoes, onions, green peppers and okra. I peal and dice the tomatoes, dice the onions and peppers, slice up the okra and stew it all in a huge pot for a while, then I cool it down and freeze it in full quart bags.

I love this mixture so much, there is several things i do with this. I use this in veggie soups and stews. I also make a wonderful chicken & cabbage soup that includes a bag of this mixture. I will add cooked, crumbled Blue & Gold sausage and some gluten free macaroni for a meal.

I have added a small amount, not the whole quart bag, into my meatloaf. Sometimes we will just eat it alone as a side veggie. I'm sure I will add more meals later using this as well...

I also grated up zucchini and froze in bags, I will add that to just about any meal using hamburger, it makes a great filler to help the hamburger go farther. Also sneaks in the extra veggies in my teenage daughters diets.

My daughter

My youngest has suffered from migraines for the last several years. We have tried everything, increasing her fluid intake, using natural supplements like fever few. Took her to the doctor, she was thinking due to her age, that it could be hormone related. She was then put on some meds like a bedtime muscle relaxer and phenergan to control the nausea during the migraines. 

The summer after my discovery of being gluten intolerant, after lots of researching about gluten intolerance, we decided to put her on a gluten free diet as well. It wasn't that much of a difference for us anyways, since by now I had eliminated anything with gluten in my home already. Her only exposure to gluten was her school meals. During 2013 summer just eating my cooking, her migraines went away!!  In the first part of July she was babysitting a friends children for a week, while he went to work. over there she ate all kinds of items that had gluten, like pizza's pastas, breads. by the second and third day she was back having migraines again. At that point she choose to never eat those items again.

She's just like me, we both miss those old foods we used to eat. Every once in a while she will get in the mood that it isn't fair, she wants to eat like everyone else, but then I remind her of how she felt during that week of babysitting. She still misses those foods, but always decides to not eat them. I'm very proud of her, cause I know how hard it is to pass up those foods.

My story

I had "tummy issues" for several years, but I didn't think much of it, it had became part of my life. Then after they started getting worse I asked a doctor to look into a few things. The first thing they choose to look at was a colonoscopy. My first colonoscopy showed I had 3 pre-cancerous polyps, which they removed and told me to come back in a year for another test. Well due to things going on in life I actually didn't get back for that test for 16 months. I went in had my second colonoscopy and when i woke up I was told that I had a mass that was blocking 50% of my colon. Well then came the stress of surgery. They removed 8 inches of my large colon. The biopsy results said it was not cancer, but the dr said if I would have not discovered it, that it more than likely would have turned into cancer.

For a while after my surgery I felt great, no tummy issues, but they slowly started coming back, so I again requested for them to get to the bottom of it, which called for another colonoscopy that came up negative, thank God!! At that time I was told I had IBS, and they put me on some medicine to try to help, which didn't work. Meanwhile at home my husband who was overweight decided to do some research and figure out the best way for him to lose some of the lbs he had put on. He tried calorie counting, and that helped some, then he tried a low carb lifestyle, eventually he talked me into following the diet with him. Thats when my life changed.

With no carbs in my diet I had eliminated wheat, therefor gluten. Within just a couple weeks all my "tummy issues" was gone. Praise The Lord I was pooping normal, that was something I hadn't done in years. While talking about this all with my husband, he got to thinking, something that I had eliminated was causing my problems.  Which after some self trials it quickly became obvious that it was gluten that was the issue. That was the summer of 2012. I have been gluten free since then.