Sugar Free Blueberry Smoothie

I made a smoothie for dessert tonight.  It was so hot, and we needed/ wanted something refreshing after dinner.  I need to go to Millers so badly that I have NO sweetener in the house (This is not the first time this has happened!).  Alright, almost no sweetener.

I kid you not, I have 1 cup of maple syrup, 1/4 cup or less of rapadura, and maybe 2 cups of honey.  Needless to say, I am doing my best to stretch that until I can go shopping, which looks like at this point, this weekend or next week.  Not very soon, in any case.  :-)

That being said, I made a smoothie.

Blueberry smoothie
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt
1 1/2 cups blueberries (i used frozen ones from last summer)
2 TBS ground flax (just for added benefit)
1 TBS vanilla

Put in blender.  Blend til smooth.  It was delicious.

To prove my children loved it, here is a video of Baby John having his. :-)

Boiling Diapers and Missing You!

Dear Bloggy-blogosphere,

I have been missing you!  But alas, I have had NO TIME to post.  Unless you count the 20 minutes I was asleep on the couch this afternoon.  I don't, because I regard that time as necessary for me to function for the rest of the day.  :-)

ANYway, here are some things I have been up to tonight:

Boiling my cloth diapers!  They have really been smelling strongly of ammonia, so Chris finally did a google search about how to strip diapers of their ammonia smell.  We are boiling ours for 30 minutes.  If you do this, and have PUL in the water, you have to let the water cool before you take the PUL out because it will deform if you take it out when it's hot.

Other things he found to do to reduce the ammonia build-up in the future is add vinegar to the cold rinse cycle before washing them.  Although, this is also said to be bad, because lots of vinegar in your washing machine can wear the plastic parts inside more quickly.  I'll let you wrestle about whether or not to do that on your own.  :-)

Also here are the leftovers from dinner:

Leftover rice with leftover chicken cut up in it, homemade tortillas, grilled peppers and onions, and carrots on the side.

A quick batch of chocolate pudding for dessert.

And finally, there are TWO full bags of apples in my kitchen waiting to be made into applesauce. The guy downstairs has an orchard at his house, and he just leaves them next to our door.  That pretty much rocks.  :-)

Have a great night!  Thanks for reading my update!  :-)

Zucchini Ice Cream

Zucchini is always so abundant in the summertime!  I struggle with making it fun to eat.  And to use it in creative ways.  Recently, I have wanted to make everything into ice cream.  I think it is because I have a great, wonderful, delicious vanilla ice cream recipe that I can use as a base and safely add almost anything I want. (I'll let Chris come up with something un-appetizing to add to ice cream.  He's always good at that. :-)

Here is my zucchini all grated up and my homemade vanilla in an old frank's bottle.  and some vanilla spilled on the counter.  :-)

My vision was zucchini bread as ice cream.  I love zucchini bread and I love ice cream.  and I love eating them together.  So, this must be a perfect match!

I came up with my recipe by poking around a bit on the internet. (Actually, I googled "zucchini ice cream" and clicked on the first link that came up.) I looked at the recipe, took away what I needed to know, and came up with my very own version.

Zucchini Ice Cream
1 egg yolk
2 cups cream
1 cup milk
1 TBS arrowroot, tapioca starch or cornstarch
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup (or so) zucchini
2 TBS alcohol (I used brandy, and I quite like the pairing with the cinnamon and raisins.)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup raisins

Mix all ingredients except zucchini and raisins. add in zucchini and raisins.  pour into ice cream freezer.  stand impatiently by until it is finished. (or go read something, or do the dishes, nurse the baby, etc.)

One note about the alcohol-- you don't have to use it; it is to help the ice cream stay soft in the freezer.  You know how store-bought ice cream stays all soft and homemade gets hard as a rock?  Well, they put anti-freeze in ice cream to help it stay soft!  Alcohol does the same thing. And I personally would choose it any day over anti-freeze.  :-)

Things I would do differently: grate zucchini finer, use smaller raisins.  or maybe currants.

Enjoy!

Birthday Cake

My little Ellie turned two.  She's such a sweetheart and such a blessing.  I just love her to pieces. :-) 

Being that she is the girliest girl I know, she is obsessed with ballerinas and princesses.  Now, mind you, we don't really have those things in our house.  We don't watch the Disney princess movies.  We don't have barbies, or any dolls other than her baby dolls.  We went to the nutcracker in December, and that's about all the exposure she's had to ballerinas.  Okay, Chris may have looked up videos of ballerinas on youtube with her at some point.  But, seriously.

Of course she wanted a ballerina cake for her birthday. 

I planned to make a whole step by step with pictures of making the cake, but the batteries died on the camera, and then I forgot about it, and then I took a quick picture of the finished cake with my phone to send to my mom, and THEN, Chris didn't even take one picture with the nice camera of the cake.  There IS some video. Alas, I am sorry for the quality of the picture, but here is Ellie's ballerina/princess cake.

She still talks about it-- how I threw the ballerina away when we finished eating the cake (it was one of those two dollar dolls, and I had to pull the legs and the bottom half of her torso off to fit her on the cake.  It's not like she could have played with it.)  And she still asks when we are going to have more cake.  "I want to have more ballerina cake SOON" she says. (Much in the same way she stalks me for kombucha... )

I used all butter butter cream, and it iced the cake really nicely, but then when I went to decorate it, the icing got hopelessly runny.  It doesn't have near the detail that I was planning, but I could only do so much with icing that was sagging off the cake!  Luckily, this picture is so terrible, you can hardly tell!  :-)  

Happy Birthday, Ellie! 

Chicken Tacos and Rice Pudding

Okay, I did some number crunching tonight after dinner because I was wondering if dessert would actually end up being more expensive than dinner!  Here's what I found: 

Chicken Tacos
1 Chicken Breast (from a whole chicken roasted yesterday)-- 3.00
1 cup chopped Spinach-- 0.85
1/2 cup stonyfield yogurt-- 0.40
24 tortillas

• 4 cups sprouted whole wheat flour-- 1.00
• 2 TBS organic palm shortening-- 0.20
• 1 tsp Real salt-- 0.02
• 2 tsp baking powder-- 0.20

1 Pepper-- 1.25
1 onion-- 0.75
1 cup uncooked rice (I actually cooked 2 cups, and used the rest for dessert...)-- 1.00
Total: 8.67

Rice Pudding
3 cups cooked rice-- 1.00
3 cups raw milk-- 1.32
2/3 cup organic raisins-- .56
1/3 cup maple syrup-- 1.50
Vanilla-- gift
1/2 tsp cinnamon-- 0.12
2 eggs-- .60
Total: 5.10

So, it turns out dinner was more expensive than dessert!  Also, there is enough rice pudding leftover for tomorrow night, so that's about $2.55 per dessert.

The chicken was roasted yesterday and then we used the leftover chicken for dinner tonight.  Also, I will make 4 quarts of broth out of the bones.  The chicken cost 12.00 for an organic whole chicken. I figured 3.00 for dinner last night, 3.00 for dinner tonight and then 1.50 per quart of broth I will make.  Not bad for one chicken.

Also, I was excited to find out how cheap it is to make tortillas!  $1.42!!! We only ate about half of the tortillas tonight and I will use the rest for lunches during the week.  They are cheaper than the bread I make because of the oil and honey in the bread. 

Okay, this has been another episode what things cost at Janet's house.  Thanks for playing! (Or, at least.... reading... )   :-P

A Catastrophic Success

Check out this video about how I made dessert on Sunday and it was almost a horrible disaster.  :-)

Pumpkin Scones

I made these pumpkin scones yesterday, and I think they are delicious!  I didn't even put the glazes on them and I cut the sugar almost in half. (just 1/4 cup!) Also, I used unsweetened coconut milk instead of half and half and 2/3 coconut oil and 1/3 butter.

Ellie calls them pumpkin pie. 

When we got back from the Nutcracker last night, we ate them for dessert-- one that would hold us over since we had eaten dinner so early. I drizzled a bit of warm honey on them and we all ate them right up. 

So, if you are in need of a pumpkin scone recipe, I would recommend checking this one out!

Applesauce Pie

A few weeks ago, I had no idea what was for lunch, and it was already lunch time!  I was in the mood for something different, and I thought of apple pie.  But, to make a whole apple pie and then bake it would not work for eating at lunch.  I tried a recipe I just thought up while we were making it, using things from the fridge, cabinets and fruit basket.  It turned out too sweet.  But we enjoyed it nonetheless.  I would definitely make this again, but it would have to be about half as sweet for me. 

First assemble three crazy helpers

First, we started with the crust.  This is where most of the over-sweetness was.  I will have to think of something other than dates to hold this crust together.  Or maybe see if less dates would work.  We used 1 cup of nuts, about 3/4 cup of dates, about a tablespoon of coconut oil and 1/2 cup of oats for the crust.  Just whiz it up in the food processor. 

Make sure to cover your ears while the food processor is on!

Next for the filling, we cut up three apples (I would do four or five next time!) and chopped them in the food processor also.  Then I added 2 TBS chia seeds, 1/2 cup of water and about 1 cup applesauce to a bowl and let it sit for a bit.  When you put chia seeds in water they kind of make a gel, which is what I was going for.  This is where the other extra sweetness came in-- we had sweetened applesauce that someone had given us leftover from Thanksgiving.  I put the apples into the pie crust and then the applesauce mix, but next time I would stir them all together before dumping it in the crust. 

The chia seed mixture

Finally, we let it chill in the refrigerator until it was time to eat.

As I said before, this was good, but it was too sweet.  I would try this again with less dates in the crust (and more nuts to replace them) and unsweetened applesauce. 

I am really interested in using chia seeds as a thickener, especially to make pudding like foods.  I hope to have more experimenting on this soon!

Crust:
1/2 cup dates
1- 1 1/2 cups nuts
3/4 cups oats
1 TBS coconut oil

blend together in the food processor.  press into pie pan.

Filling:
4-5 apples chopped in food processor
1+ tsp cinnamon
1 cup applesauce
2 TBS chia seeds
1/2 cup water

mix all ingredients in a bowl. dump into pie crust.  let the pie set up and/or chill before you eat it.  mmmm. 

ps.  now that I'm looking at this last picture it could really use some crumbly oat topping!

A Sandwich!

Now, I have to start off this post by telling you, I had nothing to do with the invention of this sandwich.  I can take no credit.  It was all Chris.

Some of you may remember Chris' last sandwich experiment.

I would venture to say this one is ten times better!  :-)

One night, the kids were getting to bed late, and we had eaten dinner early, so I made them a snack (mostly so the three year old wouldn't wake at 5:30 screaming he was hungry.  This has happened before, and it's not pretty.).  I made almond butter and banana sandwiches on potato rolls we had leftover from something.  While I was making them, I was thinking,  "Man, it HAS been awhile since we have eaten, and I am hungry too!"  So, I decided to make myself and Chris sandwiches too.

I mentioned this to Chris who leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Only if it has Reese's  Peanut Butter Cups on it!" The man is a genius.  And they were delicious!

Donuts. MMM.

Luckily, before my wheat was completely gone, Chris and I decided to make donuts.  Although we had to half the recipe because we didn't have enough flour...

I'd say it was all worth it!  These donuts from Heavenlyhomemakers.com were super delicious. Not too sweet, but with the confectioners sugar on top you couldn't even tell.  Ben even said (while we were eating them), "Mom, these donuts are REALLY sugary!" (Ha! I've got him fooled.... )

:-P

Also, we fried them in lard.  (Yep, you read that right!)  They were really nice-- not greasy or oily as they have been when we have fried things in oil.  I do have to say, I have not tried frying donuts in palm shortening.  I wonder if that would have the same effect... hmm, I'll have to experiment!  After I go to Miller's, of course!

"Ice Cream"

K, so tonight I stumbled upon this blog with all these vegan recipes.  I was looking for a recipe for corn cake.  I don't know. I've never heard of corn cake before, but today, it sounded good to me and I wanted to see if it even existed.  Well, it does, and I am going to try it soon!

Anyway, on the top of the page was this amazing looking sorbet.  So I clicked on it and it looked so delicious.  I decided I wanted to try the blueberry banana recipe after dinner.  During dinner I presented this idea to Chris who made a face, and when I asked what was wrong with that idea, he said, "Well, first of all, there's the banana and the blueberry."  Ok, so the banana blueberry wasn't going to fly.  But I still wanted ice cream. 

After dinner, we were in the kitchen, and all the kids were asking when we were having ice cream (and I think Ellie was yelling something like, "NOW" in her sassiest voice), so I just started throwing things into the blender. 

Beet Blueberry Strawberry Sorbet
One small (fresh from the garden!) raw beet, shredded finely
Half cup of blueberries
One cup strawberries
About 1/3 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup coconut milk
Splash of lemon juice
Splash of rum or something (optional, keeps it softer after you put it in the freezer)

Put all ingredients in the blender.  Blend until desired consistency.  Taste for sweetness. Adjust if necessary. Eat right away, or put in ice cream freezer.  Then eat. 

It went over well.  There was none to put in the freezer.  There are lots of newly stained clothes in my house, though!  Enjoy!

Brownie experiment

Okay, so I wanted brownies for dessert today. Not brownies made out of dates, nuts and chocolate, but ones made with flour, sugar and chocolate.  I looked around for a recipe that suited me, and this is what happened.


Go here to see the original recipe.

Here is how my batch turned out.  I halved the recipe, so as to not have brownies hanging around my house all week. :-)

3/8 c. cocoa powder (1/4 c. + 2 TBS)
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 c. boiling water
2 TBS + 2 tsp coconut oil (you could use melted butter or vegetable oil)
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c. sucanat (sugar, honey, maple syrup, etc)
2 TBS + 2 tsp coconut oil
2/3 c. rice flour (or wheat)
1/8 tsp salt

Mix cocoa powder and soda together.  Add boiling water and oil. Add egg, vanilla, sucanat, oil.  Mix in flour and salt until just combined.  Spread into greased 8x8.  Bake at 350* for 20 minutes.

I used rice flour in this recipe.  It was kind of an accident. I waited until after dinner to make these brownies, because I ran out of time during dinner preparations.  I was going to use the 'flour I had leftover from something I had made this weekend' that was still in my mill... but then I opened the mill to retrieve said flour, and alas, there was none!  I did NOT feel like grinding flour and taking all that extra time (seriously?!  what does it take, thirty seconds??!), but I DID have some left over rice flour from something-or-other sitting on my counter... and it was just enough!  So, I used it.

The result was crumbly, chocolatey, coconutty, brownies.  (You couldn't even tell I used HALF the amount of sugar called for in the original recipe!) The rice flour was definitely the cause of the crumbles.  Next time, if I have this rice-flour-only dilemma again, I might lessen the amount of flour by a bit (1/2 cup maybe?) and use half butter and half oil to try and increase richness.  But, I would not consider these to be fudgy by any stretch of the imagination.

They DID fill my brownie craving, and that's what counts at this point, right?

Fruit Bars!

We made the most DELICIOUS BROWNIES (ahem,... I mean totally nutritious, healthy, filling fruit and nut bars) for an afternoon snack and dessert today!

These bars were inspired by my lovely friend, Monica (who also has a food blog-- check it out!). 

As I was making the recipe she sent me, I kept thinking, these are SO similar to the brownies I posted on this site! Well, I just had to modify them a bit-- to be more like brownies!  

They were 'scarfed' down readily by three hungry vultures and two adults. (And then the adults had two more after said vulture/children were in bed!)

Basically, it's a larabar, without the hefty price tag. The following recipe is based on the recipe Monica sent me. Here it is:

Chocolate Cherry Delight!
1 TBS coconut oil (or some other, light oil)
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup almonds
8 large dates (12- 16 smaller ones)
about 1/2 a bag of dried cherries (maybe 3oz?)
1/8 cup cocoa powder

Blend first three ingredients in food processor.  Add each additional ingredient one at a time, and blend until it's a fine, moist meal-like consistency. Press into 8x8 and chill until firm.  Or, scoop right out of the food processor with a spoon, and eat with a spoon. (Like we did this afternoon.) Taste will not be affected!  :-)

This made a thin bar.  I would probably 1 1/2 or double this recipe to make a nice, thick bar.

I'm sorry, I have no pictures of this bar!  Please accept my apology and enjoy this picture of a cutie pie instead!

Getting Green with Food

My attempt at green food for St. Patty's Day. What did you do to celebrate?

Green Mashed Potatoes
Six potatoes, diced and cooked
1/4 cup butter
1/4-1/2 cup milk(whatever kind you have on hand.  I used unsweetened coconut milk)
A big handful of spinach, blanched and pureed

Add all ingredients, and mash with a masher.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

We love mashed potatoes at our house, and I add spinach to everything.  So this was a perfect fit for our house.  I paired it with leftover grilled steak and homemade sauerkraut (Post about that coming up soon!)

Shamrock Shake, the healthy way!
Leftover spinach puree from recipe above (or about 1/4 cup)
A couple of scoops of your favorite vanilla ice cream
A splash of mint extract (careful-- a little goes a long way!)

Blend ingredients. Feed some to small children.  Save most of it for the adults!