ALL homemade

We just finished off a week of eating everything homemade. No packaged food for the Hagens. It's something I've always wanted to do, but it always seemed too extreme. A whole week! But Pax has been having some tummy issues, and Caleb thought it would be fun to try. So we all went grocery shopping together at the beginning of the week and loaded up on fruits and veggies, oatmeal, flour, etc. We skipped the cereal, packaged cookies, chips, crackers, and even all dairy.

Over the week we made breakfast bars, muffins, bread, crackers, and lots of breakfasts and dinners. I knew it I would spend a lot of time in the kitchen this week. And I did. But we all really enjoyed it. The kids never complained about not having packaged food. If they wanted a dessert I said, o.k., let's make one. I asked them today what they thought of the week of homemade food. They both agreed it was good. Charis' only complaint was the cakes weren't very good. (Turns out whole wheat cake isn't so tasty.)



I really like making breakfast for them instead of eating cereal in the morning. And I found a really good bread machine recipe. So I think we'll keep those things up. Admittedly, most snacks are better to just buy. The crackers we made weren't very good and didn't make very much. And the breakfast bars were just okay. Cliff bars, packaged crackers and chips are probably best store-bought. Sadly I couldn't eat much of what we made this week. This wasn't too bad except for the fresh baked bread. How do you resist that smell? I didn't completely resist.

Charis also did an art project with all homemade "paint brushes". She used cotton balls on straws, twigs, and a leaf to paint with. It was a fun experiment and the picture turned out cute.