jump up and down

craft day: making pretzels

I seem to be way behind on posting about our craft days - we are having a lot of fun with them and are so glad our friends are coming to join us this summer.  I think it may become a summer tradition for us. 

So, this week we made pretzels.  I first saw this on the Crafty Crow, but the original idea is from Pepper Paints.  We made ours with only white flour and they turned out great - tasted just like a pretzel from your favorite mall pretzel shop, or better in my opinion.  Just make sure to make your dough an hour ahead of time so that you don't have to call your friends and tell them it's OK if they're late!

Peter and Tanner really got into the rolling.

Ned was more inclined to just squish the dough and then hand it to me. (Sorry this is out of focus, but it was the only shot I had that portrayed the true joy of squishing dough).

Here they are ready for the oven, covered in butter and then sprinkled with parmesan cheese or cinnamon and sugar.

and YUM!

This was a great activity for young kids, with a delicious end result!

recipe box swap: mushroom and black bean quesadillas

It's Recipe Box Swap time again over at i have to say...  Isn't Randi great for hosting these every so often?  There are always so many great recipes to try.  I bought a lot of mushrooms last Saturday and early this week I couldn't remember why I had bought so many or find my list of meals that I had planned so I could figure it out.  So, last night I decided to wing it and came up with what turned out to be some pretty yummy quesadillas.

Mushroom and Black Bean Quesadillas

1-2 tbsp cooking oil
6 -8 large mushrooms, sliced
1/2 onion, chopped
1 15 oz can black beans, drained
1 4 oz can chopped green chiles
1 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste
8 oz shredded cheese in your favorite flavor
8 medium flour tortillas
butter

Heat oil in a skillet or heavy pan on medium high heat.  Add mushrooms and onions and saute until golden.

 

Add beans, chiles, cumin, and salt and pepper and heat until warmed through.

 

Heat a small pat of butter in a griddle or large frying pan on medium heat.  Lay one flour tortilla on the griddle.  Layer 1/4 of the bean mixture on top of the tortilla.  Top with 2 oz of cheese and another tortilla.  Cook until golden and then flip and cook until golden on the other side.  Repeat until you have four yummy quesadillas!

I also made a batch of my guacamole and lucky for me, I'm the only one in the house who will eat it! 

Simple Guacamole

Put the following ingredients in a bowl and smoosh to your desired consistency:

2 avocados
1 tomato, seeded and chopped
2-3 green onions, chopped (red onion is also very yummy)
juice of 1 lime (this makes it pretty lime-y, you can use less if you prefer not to taste the lime as much)
salt and pepper to taste

Enjoy!!

this and that

Peter hasn't had pre-school this week, so we've been a little more laid back.  On Saturday I picked up a loaf of Texas Toast out of the day old basket at the grocery and yesterday it got turned into French toast with a twist.  And the twist?  Almond Extract!  I've already confessed my love for almond extract.  Just add a little bit to your egg mixture and voila - French toast with a twist and super yummy (and mine would have been more yummy had it not cooled down while I was taking pictures of it!).

Some other yummy recipes we have tried lately are Alton Brown's Chocolate Chip Cookies and Couscous Salad, both via Mary Beth.  And she just shared this Cherry Lime Jam - we'll have to try that it because Ryan loves anything cherry!

I've been playing a little more with my camera - I love the color of the sky in this one.  Now I just need to figure out how to get those branches to show a little better.  Mostly I am happy that the buds are finally popping their heads out!   Can anyone recommend a photography blog?  So far all I've found are ones that show fabulous pictures or that talk about how to use Photoshop.  I'd love to find one that talked about using a camera and how to make a great photo in the first place.

My baby turns two tomorrow (well, it's actually today now) - I'd better get to bed so I'm ready for all that celebrating!

nutty

I'm back today with one of our favorite recipes that I'm sharing as part of Randi's Recipe Box Swap.  Take a click over to the swap to check out lots of great recipes. 

We love making our own peanut butter.  I'm sort of a peanut butter snob and will only eat the natural kind.  And ever since I realized that most peanut butters on the shelves of your local grocery have hydrogenated fat in them, I have definitely stuck with the au natural.  I don't claim to be a health nut in
any sense of the word, but I do like to stay away from hydrogenated fat.  And I'm fairly aware of fiber intake - the bread in the picture below has 5 grams per slice!  It's a local bread here that sells for under $2 a loaf.  I was in heaven when I found it.  And it must be working - we just had a blood workup for life insurance and my cholesterol hasn't changed in 5 years.  Anyway, when we moved a year and a half ago from a crunchy granola college town in California to a fairly conservative town in Idaho, the options for natural peanut butter were a lot more limited.  So, we decided we would start making our own.  And here's how we do it...

HOMEMADE PEANUT BUTTER

Use  3 or 4 cups of roasted, unsalted peanuts (we buy ours in the bulk food section).  Put the peanuts in a food processor (unfortunately, this is the one essential gadget to making your own nut butter.  I don't think anything else would have the power to make the nuts into butter).  I usually fill ours with peanuts until it is level with the top of the blade attachment.   Add a couple of pinches of salt.  Turn the food processor on and process until the peanuts are ground into little bits.   Next, while the processor is still going, open up the chute on the top processor and start streaming a little bit of cooking oil (we use canola) into the mix.  Stream the oil in slowly until you reach the desired consistency of your peanut butter.  I've never measured, but I would guess I use just a tablespoon or two of oil total.  Put it in a container with a lid and store it in the refrigerator.

You can make your peanut butter as crunchy or creamy as you like it.  The more you grind it before you start putting the oil in, the creamier it will be.  Ours usually ends up being somewhere between crunchy and creamy, although the batch I made today is pretty creamy.  And you can make all sorts of nut butters this way - we have also used raw almonds to make almond butter.  And if I had a source for unsalted pistachios, I'm sure Ryan would want pistachio butter too.

ENJOY!!! 

a little love

Happy Valentine's Day!  We had quite the storm yesterday, so we stayed in and made cookies.  One of my favorite childhood memories is making and decorating sugar cookies for the holidays (usually only for Christmas, but occasionally for other holidays).  So, this is something that I try to do with my boys for holidays.  My kids are still more into the eating of the cookies than the decorating, but Peter did insist on putting on his own sprinkles "I do it!" is what he said.  We are hearing this a lot right now.  This morning he unloaded the bottom of the dishwasher with his "I do it!" attitude - this could be a very good thing! I should really be taking advantage of this more.

Have you ever tried adding almond extract to your sugar cookie dough  and frosting instead of vanilla?  It's delicious!  I wish I could share a cookie with all of you, but since I can't, you'll just have to imagine yourself biting into a delicious, almond flavored sugar cookie with just the right amount of crisp and moist and the perfect layer of yummy frosting!  or, you could just make some of your own... 

Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 butter
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon almond extract
3 1/4 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream sugar and butter.  Add eggs, milk, and vanilla.  Sift dry ingredients together and beat into creamed mixture, combining thoroughly.  With hand, shape dough into a ball; wrap and refrigerate 2 to 3 hours or until easy to handle. 

Grease cookie sheets lightly.  On lightly floured board, roll on-half or one-third of the dough at a time, keeping the rest refrigerated.  For crisp cookies, roll dough paper-tin.  For softer cookies, roll 1/8-inch to 1/4-inch thick.  Cut into shapes desired with floured cookie cutter.  Reroll trimmings and cut. 

Place cookies one-half inch apart on cookie sheets.  Bake at 400 degrees F. about 8 minutes or until a very light brown.  Remove cookies to racks to cool.  Frost cookies with your favorite frosting and sprinkles.

                               ENJOY!  XOXO!!!