There’s An 80 Year Old Lady Trapped Inside My Body

I’m quite certain there is an 80 year old woman trapped inside my body. I’ve known this since an early age when my love of butter pecan ice cream, dates and prunes were not a popular favorite amongst other 9 year olds.

I’ve never considered myself “hip” or “cool” and have never gone out of my way to achieve this status.

I have never bought into the newest fads, trends or technology. I wait years to make sure all the glitches are worked out or that the “newest thing” stands the test of time.

I would probably still be using a 35 mm camera had my husband not insisted 5 years ago that I would save a lot of money using a digital camera due to my habit of taking 1000 pictures a month and the amount of money I was spending on developing costs.

I have no fancy gadgets in my kitchen. I still grate everything by hand and if I need chopped nuts …out comes a hammer.

I did a blog post one day for a recipe for carrot cake. My father was flabbergasted that I made mention in my story that I still grate carrots by hand. He insisted my mother buy me a food processor for my next birthday.

I few weeks ago I celebrated my birthday and my mom came with a wrapped present containing my first ever modern gadget….the food processor.

My mind instantly went to a recipe I had seen on 100 Days of Real Food that I thought looked really good, easy, contained dates but…..required a food processor. I had dismissed the recipe because it required a date paste and there was no way I could make this without this modern gadget!

The recipe was for Larabars.

Now if you’ve ever heard of a Larabar I think it means you’re “hip” and “cool.” I think you can only buy these at “cool” places that I never go to. They are wholesome snacks that generate a lot of buzz amongst the healthy crowd. They are expensive. I would NEVER buy these.

Equipped with my new food processor and a recipe containing my beloved dates I could make these and possibly even call myself a little “cool.”

I had the kids help me execute this recipe last weekend. The kids and I were excited to press the buttons and watch our ingredients twirl around in our new toy. It was magical watching it all spin into the gooey paste.

The outcome was a big disappointment to me though. They tasted nothing like dates. The peanut butter in the recipe took charge. My two older children will not eat them because they don’t like the consistency. My youngest son likes them so he has been the receptacle for all of them. He is “cool.”

Here is the recipe I used and more can be found on 100 Days of Real Food’s website:

Ingredients for our Larabars and my new food processor

Date/Peanut Butter Larabar

1 C. dates

½ C. peanut butter

½ C. peanuts (optional: I threw these in to really see what my new food processor could do!)

2 Tbsp. of flax seed (optional)

2 Tbsp. water or more if necessary

Directions:

• Put ingredients in food processor and combine until mixture is of paste quality and no longer crumbly
• Scoop out mixture onto cutting board and work it with hands to get it all formed into one clump
• Grab small handful and pat into a square in your palms
• Wrap each square into plastic wrap
• Can be left at room temperature or stored in refrigerator

Our Larabars

I personally will be using the remainder of my dates to go make a date pie to satisfy the 80 year old woman trapped inside my body!

I Accept Your Challenge

It’s a long standing joke in my family that I’m not the best cook. It’s a joke that has been rightfully earned after a long series of mishaps. There was the time I showed up at a family gathering with a strawberry pie that was really just soup in a pie shell. I had misread the recipe. I still brought it to the party in hopes by some sort of miracle the pie would set up. A normal person would have just kept it at home and said they forgot it. There was also the time in my life when I thought baking powder and baking soda was interchangeable. It is not. This has produced many rock hard bakery goods that are not edible for human consumption. Even the birds will not touch them. I know because I’ve tried. Even with figuring out my logical mistakes, many things still do not turn out. This is due to my inability to stay on task and read a recipe the whole way through or skip the parts that I just don’t feel are that important.

Needless to say, my family got wise and began requesting jars of pickles or sliced cheese for me to bring to the family gatherings.

I am trying to be better though and miraculously, I’ve been having some success. I make homemade tortillas on a regular basis and a couple of weeks ago I made homemade cinnamon rolls. I told my mom and she couldn’t believe it. I’ve NEVER had any luck with yeast or dough so this was a major accomplishment.

Instead of just patting me on the back, my mom gave me a challenge. Apparently, telling my mom that I made ONE batch of cinnamon rolls that people were able to eat has now launched me on par with a master chef in her eyes.

She handed me a recipe. My jaw dropped when I read the title. It was for Elephant Tracks. I LOVED these as a kid. I requested my mom to make these all of the time. She made them occasionally. She said they were a really big pain in the butt to make. In fact, they must have been such a big thorn in her side that I don’t think I’ve had one since I was 10 years old.

I read the recipe and realized this was beyond my…. one batch of cinnamon roll capabilities… but a challenge is a challenge. I accepted.

I took the recipe home and set to work. The first mistake I made was inviting my kids to help me. My kids generally help me in the kitchen (mainly because I do need help) but this is not a recipe to have kids help with. You need every bit of brain power you have to maneuver your way through this recipe. You cannot be expected to remember whose turn it is to dump the flour in or break up the argument of which kid is better at cracking eggs.

After getting the dough made and shooing the kids out, I collected my thoughts and let the dough rest.

I returned to the kitchen to complete the final task of rolling out the dough and then rolling it up into a spiral…very similar to making cinnamon buns. However, this dough was too gooey and instead of doctoring it with more flour and letting it rest again, I plunged forward and just kind of smooshed it all together. I felt defeated at this point and was shaking my fist at my mom in my head.

I put my Elephant Tracks in the oven and expected I had just started heating up my next joke.

15 minutes later, the timer dinged and alerted me that the culinary gods were shining down on me. I don’t remember my mom’s Elephant Tracks looking like this, but they tasted every bit as good. Somehow, in the oven, my smooshed up dough turned into a crispy, soft, buttery sweet piece of pure delight!

Apparently, there’s just no way to mess up anything containing this much butter and sugar. Go ahead, I challenge you!

Elephant Tracks

Elephant Tracks

Ingredients

• ½ C. scalded milk
• 2 Tbsp. shortening
• ¼ C. sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 pkg. dry yeast dissolved in ¼ C. lukewarm water
• 2 beaten egg yolks or 1 whole egg
• 2 ½ C. flour
• 1 ¾ C. sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• ¼ C.  melted butter

Directions

• Combine scalded milk, shortening, sugar and salt. Cool to lukewarm.
• Dissolve yeast in the water. Add to first mixture.
• Stir in eggs
• Add flour all at once
• The dough should be very stiff and should be worked until smooth
• Turn dough out on floured board and let rest for 10 minutes
• Mix together the 1 ¾ C. sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon
• Roll dough into rectangle
• Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar mixture.
• Roll up and seal edges
• Cut slices 1 inch thick
• Working with one slice at a time, place both sides of slice into cinnamon/sugar mixture.
• Place on greased baking sheet and flatten with hand.
• Let rise for 30 minutes.
• Bake at 325 degrees for 15-18 minutes

Packing the Lunches With Carrot Cake

A common task this time of year for many mothers is packing lunches for their school age children.

For me, this is one of those jobs that take constant creativity.

I’m not a fan of hot lunch for my kids due to that fact my kids aren’t HUGE eaters and the cost isn’t justifiable due to the amount they eat. Also, even though our school lunch system serves a variety of fruit and vegetables there are still plenty of non-healthy food items being served. When my kid’s small appetites are given the choice they will go for the non-healthy foods first and leave no room for the vegetables.

Therefore I pack my kid’s lunch every day and let them take hot lunch once a month on the day of their choice as a treat!

I really love my son…he LOVES peanut butter! My daughter HATES it! She has caused me to continuously scratch my head to come up with different meals for her that travel and keep well.

I will share some of the things I put in my kid’s lunches that they eat, love and travel well plus a recipe for a healthy treat!

• Cheese Quesadillas (We have a quesadilla maker. The kids love these even at room temperature.)
• Leftovers of chili, spaghetti and soup (I put these in their thermos and the kids say they are still warm by lunch time)
• Oatmeal (I make this in the morning just using quick oats and microwaving for 1 minute. I then add a little brown sugar and craisins. This is a favorite!)
• Crackers with cream cheese
• Peanut butter  and Nutella (for my daughter) sandwiches. To switch this up a bit I put it on tortillas, buns and English muffins.
• Plain yogurt mixed with the strawberry jam I made this spring (I only used apple juice for sweetener in making this jam)
• Homemade granola…click here for my recipe
• Fresh fruits and vegetables whenever on hand but I also keep frozen fruit and vegetables that are easily defrosted.
• This last one might come as a surprise but…. my kid’s LOVE PRUNES so these are usually their dessert!

Last week, my mom brought me a recipe for a HEALTHY CARROT CAKE. The funny thing about this recipe is that it is on a recipe card in MY HANDWRITING! I’m guessing I was about 15 years old and went on a crusade to organize my mom’s recipes. She kept magazine cut-outs and slips of paper with recipes stuck in cookbooks so I went through and wrote them all on cards for her. Today, I still love organizing recipes and on the first day the kids went back to school this year I gathered all of my magazine cut-outs and slips of paper and wrote them all up in my recipe binder!

The great thing about this particular carrot cake is that it is so moist that it is actually like a bar so does not crumble and make a big mess plus it is so good that it does NOT need frosting! My kids will be getting this in their lunch this week as a special treat! Actually, I should say, I hope to put this in their lunch this week as my husband keeps getting little helpings! This is a true testament to this cake because I usually screw up homemade cakes and we end up serving them to the birds (who refuse to eat them as well!)

Healthy Carrot Cake

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Ingredients:

• ¾ C. sugar
• 1 C. grated carrot (I think we actually used closer to 2 cups because the kids got a little carried away…I think it might be better with the 2 cups!)
• 1 C. raisins
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 tsp. cardamom (optional)
• 1 ½ C. water
• 3 Tbsp. butter

In small saucepan, combine the above to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Pour into mixing bowl and cool to lukewarm.

Next ingredients:

• 2 C. flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 C. nuts (optional)
• 2 Tbsp flax seed (optional)

Add the above ingredients to lukewarm mixture. Mix well.

Add mixture to 13×9 greased pan.

Bake for 25 minutes.

The kids busy peeling the carrots for their carrot cake

Bency busy grating the carrots!

Iris taking her turn at grating (I don’t own a food processor….we do everything the old-fashioned way…the kids love it!!!)

Carrot cake fresh out of the oven!

We Are Selling Our Cereal to the Supermarket

I realize I’m not the first person in the world to make their own cereal and hopefully after I show you this fun project we did I won’t be the last!

First, we made our cereal. I researched several recipes and kind of came up with my own that would work best for us:

Homemade Granola Cereal:

• 4 C. old-fashioned oats
• 2 C. coconut
• ¾ C. vegetable oil
• ½ C. honey
• 1/3 C. brown sugar
• ½ tsp. vanilla
• Nuts, dried fruit or any other extras you desire

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees
• Toss oats, nuts and coconut together in large bowl. (I didn’t have any nuts on hand so I didn’t add nuts to ours)
• Whisk together oil, honey, brown sugar and in vanilla in another bowl.
• Pour the liquids over the oat mixture and stir with a spatula until all the oats are covered.
• Pour into a 13x8x1 sheet pan.
• Bake for 30 min.
• Remove from oven and allow to cool. Stir occasionally so mixture doesn’t stick to pan.
• Add dried fruit (we used dried cranberries)
• Store in airtight container or Ziploc bag

All the kids getting ready to help…Cesar soon got kicked out because he wasn’t be very “helpful”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make sure to use old-fashioned oats

Bency adding the coconut

 

 

 

 

 

Iris whisking the liquids

Iris adding the liquid to the dry ingredients

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iris stirring everything together

Our homemade granola cereal baking in the oven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the cereal was cooking and cooling I gave each of my older kids the assignment to make a cereal label for the cereal they just made.

Iris named her cereal “Crunch, Crunch, Munch, Munch, Lick, Lick.” She drew a picture of our family. My husband and I are eating candy bars, the older kids are eating lollipops and the baby is eating a popsicle. I really think this girl might have a future in marketing. How brilliant to disguise a healthy cereal in a box covered in delectable treats!!

Iris’s cereal box “Munch, Munch, Crunch, Crunch, Lick, Lick”

My son Bency, named his cereal “The Life of Goodnis.” I like this! It sounds expensive (despite the misspelling)! It conjures up thoughts of enjoying a bowl of cereal, eating on a patio overlooking an ocean view!

Bency’s cereal box “The Life of Goodnis”

I put their homemade cereal in a Ziploc bag, put it in an old, empty cereal box and attached their new labels!

My kids really liked this project and they LOVED the cereal! Iris thinks we should present it to the “grocery store guy” and see if he wants to buy it from us!

I’ll let my future marketing executive handle the details!

Worm in the Dirt Cookies

My mother-in-law came this week for her yearly visit. Every time she comes I screw something up in the kitchen (my favorite was when I served raw rice. I forgot to turn on the stove but did remember to turn on the timer). This time was no exception. The other night I made dinner rolls for supper. They were not from scratch….merely Rhodes frozen dough balls that you put on a pan, cover in Saran Wrap, let rise for a few hours and then bake. I forgot to take the Saran Wrap off when I baked them so when I pulled them out of the oven they were all covered in a shiny, thick glaze of melted plastic. My mother-in-law was nice enough to help me pick off all the plastic and we served them alongside my homemade fried chicken… laughing! They actually weren’t too bad…just a few crunchy spots!

Needless to say, I require really easy to prepare foods. Nothing fancy for this girl!

The recipe I’m going to share with you today is so simple that my 7 year old daughter can now make them by herself. It’s an old recipe with one easy, cute twist. My mom always used to make these when I was little and they were one of my favorites. At Christmas time she would don them with a maraschino cherry.

Iris recently graduated to stove cooking and can make these cookies all by herself! Here she is making her own cookies for her 1st grade class birthday treat!

When I was trying to come up with a treat for my daughter to take for her Kindergarten class on her birthday I instantly thought of these cookies because they are easy to make, travel well and are yummy. The only problem is that they kind of look like a mound of dirt.

No problem!!! I simply put a gummy worm on top of the cookies and called them “Worm in the Dirt Cookies!” My daughter loved them and has requested them for everything since then!!

Iris selling Lemon Zucchini cupcakes and Worm in the Dirt Cookies at her yard bake sale last year! The neighbor kids kept coming back for more and more cookies! The cupcakes were bought out by our elderly neighbor ladies!

Worm in the Dirt Cookies

Ingredients

• 3 C. quick-cooking rolled oats
• 2/3 C. peanut butter
• 2 C. sugar
• ½ C. (1 stick) butter
• ½ C. milk
• 1/3 C. cocoa
• 2 tsp. vanilla

Directions

• Combine sugar, butter, milk and cocoa in medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a rolling boil.
• Remove from heat. Add oats, peanut butter and vanilla; stir quickly, mixing well.
• Immediately drop mixture by heaping teaspoons onto wax paper or tin foil.
• Add gummy worm to the top
• Let cool

Worm in the Dirt Cookies

Red Currant Fruit Pizza

I realize from my last stories you probably think we are at McDonald’s all the time so I felt obliged to set the record straight. I cook!! I cook a LOT!! As a family of five and being on a tight budget I prepare a good majority of our food from scratch. I do this for economic reasons, nutritious reasons and because a tiny part of me actually (cough, cough) likes to cook! I will never be a food blogger because I don’t measure, I don’t write things down…I throw things together and hope for the best. If they’re hungry enough they’ll eat it!

At a recent visit to my mom’s house the kids were looking for something to do (2 acres of open land to run and play and they can’t find anything to do…eyeroll anyone???). Nana gave them each a bucket and told them to go pick currants. With the kids busy, my mom and I discussed this mysterious fruit. She had made currant jam 4 years ago. It wasn’t the best alone on toast. I guess it can be good on lamb but neither of us cook lamb. What can you do with currants??? We had to find out quick because the kids came back with an ice cream pail nearly full of currants…..this is a time consuming job (great for kids)!!!!

Cesar, our almost two year old, picking currants

I looked on the internet and couldn’t find many ideas. There was a recipe for currant syrup which my mom made and is very good. I put it over the kid’s plain yogurt for sweetener and over waffles. When I looked up the health benefits on this berry I was astounded at how nutritious it was and put myself on a mission to do even more with it! Here is what I “threw” together!

Red Currant Fruit Pizza

Ingredients for crust:

1/2 C. butter, softened

3/4 C. white sugar

1 egg

1 1/4 C. all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

Ingredients for cream cheese layer:

1 (8 ounce) pkg. cream cheese

1/2 C. white sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Ingredients for currant sauce:

1 1/2 C. currants

1/4 C. water

2 Tbsp. corn starch

1/4 C. white sugar (you can increase or decrease this to your liking)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and 3/4 C. sugar until smooth. Mix in egg. Combine flour, baking soda and salt; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Press dough into an ungreased pizza pan or 13×9 pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Cool.
4. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese with 1/2 C. sugar and vanilla until light. Spread on cooled crust.
5. In saucepan add currants and 1/4 C. water and 1/4 sugar. Bring to boil then simmer for 10 minutes. Once the currants have cooked down add cornstarch bring heat up to medium and stir until you have a thick sauce. Let cool and spread over cream cheese layer. Add fresh fruit on top of filling if desired and chill.

Notes: If you are not a fan of seeds you will need to cook your currants down and then put through strainer. I don’t mind seeds so I left them in.

P.S. I’m sorry I don’t have a picture of how beautiful it was! I rarely take pictures of our food but trust me it was gorgeous and delicious! A must take on your next get together!