Cooking

Tyler loves to cook.  His specialty is breakfast.  He really enjoys making yellow pancakes (our name for a family favorite oven baked pancake), waffles and breakfast sandwiches with eggs.  He made chocolate chip waffles this morning.  I thought I'd let Bristol have some.  What a mess!  She had to go straight to the tub when she was finished!  Tyler is such a good boy and a huge help!  I'm so grateful for him and his sweet little spirit!  The other day we were running late in the morning and I was trying to finish getting lunches packed.  The phone rang and it was a mom of a friend of Tyler's.  The kids really needed to get out the door, but I didn't have their lunches ready.  I couldn't get off the phone!  Tyler came in and noticed I was needing help and without even being asked he finished chopping the strawberries and getting everything in the lunch boxes.  I feel so blessed to have such a sweet boy!

Friday Night Tradition

For a long time (when Tj is home!) we have had a Friday night tradition of pizza night.  We make our own pizzas and I thought we had perfected it and that it couldn't get any better!  But, we have changed the way we do it since we moved to VA.  For some reason I really didn't want to heat up the oven - and the house!  We had dinner at a friend's house before we left FL, and they had made pizza on the grill.  But, they put their pizza on a pan and put it on the grill.  I didn't want to mess with that.  So, we just stuck ours right on the grill.  It only took the first time to figure it out - it was a little messy, and I realized I needed to cut a whole pizza in half and only do half the dough at once.  So, my recipe makes 2 pizza doughs, I roll the dough into 4 balls and make 4 pizzas instead of the two.  It's great because it doesn't heat up the house, and it's even quicker.  I think it takes maybe 5 minutes to do a pizza.  It is so yummy! 

Here is our old post here on pizza night.

This is a deceiving picture, because I'm the one who actually grills the pizza!  I think Tj was just helping put the pepperoni on his.

 My very favorite margaretta pizza with fresh tomatoes, fresh basil and fresh mozzarella.  SO good!

Maple Scotchies

We call my dad the cookie monster because he loves cookies.  I remember as a little girl whenever my mom was gone and my dad was in charge - we made cookies.  And we ate a lot of cookie dough.  I remember him telling us girls stories of when he was a teenager he would make cookie dough, put it in a plastic bag and keep it in his sock drawer to snack on throughout the next few days!  We have quite a few tried and true family cookie recipes from my dad.  This is one of them that we always made during the holidays.  I love these cookies.  They are so yummy!  They taste best after they have completely cooled.

Maple Scotchies:
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 slightly beaten egg
2 TBS milk
1/2 tsp maple flavoring
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 TBS cocoa powder

Combine flour and sugar.  Cut in butter till mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Reserve 1/4 cup and put aside in small bowl with 2 TBS cocoa powder.  Add soda and salt to remaining flour-sugar mixture; mix well.  Blend in egg, milk and maple flavoring.  Mix to form dough.  Stir in pecans.  Shape dough into balls using rounded teaspoon of dough for each.  Roll in cocoa powder mixture.  Place 3 inches apart on greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375° for 10-12 minutes.  Do not over bake!  Let cook on cookie sheet for a minute or two and remove to wire racks to finish cooling.

Chocolate Molten Cake Oh MY!

The below picture isn't mine, but I just made these babies and holy smokes - they are SO GOOD! They are fast, easy and satisfied my chocolate craving. The recipe makes 4, so thankfully I was able to call my sweet neighbor out of bed to eat one (seriously, she came to the door in her bathrobe), so I didn't eat 2 and have them sticking out of my thighs tomorrow morning. I hope ya'll can make this and enjoy it like we did tonight! Oh, and we served it with vanilla ice cream.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/07/molten-chocolate-lava-cake/

Winter, blankets and soup

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I HATE being hot, hot weather, and humidity. I LOVE being cold - the colder the better. I wish I could live in Antarctica. My poor Floridian kiddos however, aren't doing so well in our "freakish" cold weather - as one news station puts it. It is FREEZING, literally. I don't think we have gotten over 40 degrees in almost 2 weeks now. It's kinda crazy! So my kids are living in their blankets and warm pj's and drinking lots of hot cocoa. Anything we have to read for school, we snuggle up in my bed under the covers. I wish it could last forever. Oh, and Brena said this morning "I wish there were no trees so it would snow all day." Do you ever wonder how their little brains think, and why they say the things they do? I sure do.

Because of our cold weather, I am wanting to eat lots of soup. I was reading a friend's blog the other day and she had posted they were eating this broccoli cheese soup in bread bowls from this site. I had to try it, it looked SO good. Let me tell you, holy cow - it's not just good - it's awesome!

The kids thought so too:

I do not have picky eaters - they will eat whatever is put in front of them. But I got a hug from Brena with a "thank you for making this Mommy." Now that means it's really good!

Wheat Bread

So I just finished chatting with my good friend Kendra and she told me she had just taken bread out of the oven - well I had too! So I decided to post my bread and recipe. Let me just first off start by saying I have decided to do something very drastic for us. And, if you haven't figured it out already, I sometimes go a little nutty about new ideas I have. Drum roll please....we (I) have decided to put us on a grocery budget. TJ thinks he is going to die, he can be so dramatic sometimes! We have never lived on a grocery budget. I just buy what we like to eat and never think about cost. Let me just reassure you that we are doing fine, no money problems etc. etc. But I have been inspired by Moneysavingmom.com to live on a $50 a week budget. Yes you read right - $50 a week. We did it already last week. We will see how long we can keep it up. So I'm sure you can imagine that $50 doesn't go very far in food. I decided that making bread could save me probably about $10 a month, and I love homemade bread. Plus, there is no preservatives in it. And I have a ton of wheat. And I have an awesome wheat grinder. So I won't even have to buy any flour for a few years... Ok, this recipe came from The Bread of Life Bake Shop in Pensacola and it's perfect for sandwiches. I have another recipe for wheat bread that I LOVE, but it's more of a eating bread (does that make any sense???) rather than a sandwich bread. I'll post that one later.

Whole Wheat Bread - Sponge Method

7-8 cups fresh white wheat flour

1 TBS dough enhancer

2 TBS instant yeast

2 tsps salt

2 1/2 cups warm water

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup honey

1. Combine the warm water, yeast, and two cups of fresh whole wheat flour in a large mixing bowl. Allow to sponge for 15 minutes. Add the honey, oil, dough enhancer, salt, and 4-5 cups additional flour until the dough is stiff and cleans the side of the bowl. Let mix on speed 2 in your mixer for about 7 minutes or until dough is very smooth and elastic with small bubbles or blisters beneath the surface of the dough.

2. With oil on hands, remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place on oiled surface. Divide dough into two balls. With rolling pin, roll 1 ball out two times the length and one times the width of your bread pan. Starting at one end, roll the dough, sealing each roll with fingers. Place in pans which have been well greased. Allow to rise in a slightly warmed oven (84 to 88 degrees) or other warm place until doubled in size (about 30-40 minutes).

3. Bake loaves 30-35 minutes in a 315 degree oven. When loaves are done immediately remove from pans and let cool on a wire rack. Placing bread on its side may help to reduce the risk of falling - I never have had my bread fall.

That's it!

Granola Recipe

I have another recipe I wanted to share. I usually eat this for my cereal every morning. It is very good and I like that it uses wheat flour in it. If you like granola, you will love this! Here it is.

4 c quick oats
1 c white wheat flour
1 c coconut
1/2 c sliced almonds
1/2 c honey
3 Tbs brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbs oil


Mix first 4 ingredients together in a big bowl. In small saucepan combine last 4 ingredients. Bring to a boil stirring constantly. Pour over dry ingredients and mix until very well blended. Spread onto a large greased cookie sheet and bake at 300 for 25-30 minutes or until it is the crunchy consistency you like. I usually bake mine for 30 minutes and I stir it at every 10 minutes. I let it cool and then put it in a big Tupperware container. Then I eat it as my morning cereal with milk on it. Yummy!! Enjoy :o) You can also add other dried fruits and nuts if you want, just experiment with it. I also will give it to the kids as a dry snack, they love it too.

Cookies

I love to bake, I especially love making sugar cookies and it is that time of year to roll that dough! I had to make a dessert for tonight for R.S. so I decided to do some Halloween Sugar Cookies. I thought they were so cute, I just had to show them off. Wish I could give some to all of you :) Thanks to all of you for keeping us updated on your status with the SD fires. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of you.

Food Storage Recipe

Some of you might know I am obsessed with food storage. I don't really know why, maybe it is the fact I really like to eat and the thought of ever going without good food scares me really bad, so I would like to make sure I always have good food to eat :) I thought I would share a pretty good recipe with you. I hesitate to call it a "food storage" recipe because in reality food storage should just be what you regularly eat every week multiplied by 52. But this is something you can say "food storage" for because everything in it is canned or stores well. This is chicken and rice casserole.
Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked rice
1 (10 oz.) can cream of chicken soup
1 (10 oz.) can of cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 cups water
1 pkg. dry onion soup mix
1 or 2 cans of chicken breast depends on how much chicken you like. I use 2 cans (I really like the canned chicken from Costco)

Instructions:
Mix rice, both soups & water together & place rice mix in a large greased baking pan. Place chicken on top & sprinkle with dry onion soup mix. Cover with foil and prick holes in top with fork. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or 250-300 for 2 hours.

Bon Appetit!!!