Our cooking adventures

I've had several friends and family who've made subtle comments about how I haven't been keeping up with the blog. I find that when I haven't posted in a while, it just gets harder and harder to create a post, because there is soooo much I have to share and I get overwhelmed and decide to wait longer. Makes sense right?

I don't think I've posted since we were in Oregon and while there my lovely sister-in-law kept talking about Dave Ramsey. I've always leaned toward Suze Orman's financial advice, but I was curious about what Mr. Ramsey had to say. I waited for weeks for his book to be returned to our library, but when it was around 3 weeks late, I decided to fall back to old faithful, Suze Orman and read "The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom." This resulted in revamping our budget, other financial areas of our life, and our eating habits.

My toddler and I have been baking and cooking many more recipes from scratch, which I've had people asking me about so I've decided to share a few of my favorites with you here. She does love to help with all the cooking, including whisking, beating, cracking, dumping, pouring, and even on occasion stirring with her toes. If you see an item of interest, just click on the link

1. Mayonnaise : don't forget to pasteurize your eggs before creating to avoid salmonella. Pasteurizing eggs is also great when cooking or baking any recipe that involves an uncooked egg. When making Mayo, please don't add too much salt, it is also a bit of a different color than store bought mayo.

2. Pita Pockets : time consuming, but turned out great!

3. Pumpkin Bread : My new favorite pumpkin bread recipe! Recipe calls for 1c honey, but I use 1/2 c honey and 1/2 c apple juice and recipe turns out great. Honey is a bit expensive for our family to use that much in one recipe.

4. Tortillas : Amazing! My whole family loved these and they were so good straight off the griddle. This website is written by a Mom whose family is debt free and has many great reads.

5. Wheat Bread : The best homemade bread recipe that I've ever used. I make the dough in my bread machine and bake the bread in the oven. If you scroll down the page, she'll tell you how to do it. We use this bread for about half the bread we consume monthly and it is fabulous. The recipe calls for 2T brown sugar, and we've made it with 2T, 1T and no brown sugar and all three tasted great.

6. Yogurt : My toddler loves this yogurt! The recipe calls for 1/2c plain yogurt, but we prefer to use 1/2c vanilla yogurt for a bit of added flavor. Yogurt CANNOT be frozen and thawed. We also use 1 or 2% milk and add 1 packet unflavored gelatin. This results in a nice thick yogurt that is easier for Abby to eat. When using the gelatin, refrigerate for the gelatin to solidify. I also love this website for her other crockpot recipes. She will list a regular recipe, but also a gluten free version, as her family does not consume gluten.

I've been using 1/2 wheat and 1/2 unbleached flour in all recipes that call for flour and our family has been perfectly happy with the taste. I usually always leave out all sugars and replace with honey, apple juice, or apple sauce. Agave nectar is also supposed to be a great alternative, but it's more expensive in our stores.

Let me know if you try any and how they turn out and I'll continue to post recipes that I find to be wonderful.

Toothpaste Race

Well the Toothpaste Race has finally come to an end. I'm sad to announce that Mat was the winner by 26 uses. He's such a faithful toof brusher! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was supposed to use Mat's toothpaste 20 times to make up for the amount that he used mine while on vacation. I finished my tube and was only able to use his seven times before it ran out, and I mean it was dry as a bone, I made sure. In the time it took Mat to use up his tube, I was only able to use 2 and 22/23's tubes. I know, it's sad, but at least Piglet is a boy to make up for it :)

I had asked if anyone had any good homemade granola recipes at the end of a post a few days ago. Nobody, not even my mom left me a comment with a recipe, and Mom, I know you have a good one, because I've tasted it. I found one online at that I'm going to give a whirl at. Here it is, if anyone else wants to try it too. I'll be sure and let you know how it tastes.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted I'll use Smart Balance
  
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt We'll leave out the salt for Mat's heart
  
• 3 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1 cup flaked coconut
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 2/3 cup raisins

Directions

1. In a bowl, stir butter, honey, cinnamon and salt until well blended. Combine the oats, coconut and walnuts in a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan. Add butter mixture and stir to coat evenly. Bake at 275 degrees F for 50-60 minutes or until golden brown, stirring every 15 minutes. Add raisins. Cool, stirring occasionally. Store in an airtight container.

I will also be leaving out the coconut (mat doesn't like it), raisins, and walnuts. I wanted to try a pretty plain recipe to start out with and this one caught my attention because it doesn't use sugar, but honey instead, yum! I might try adding in a little vanilla too.

If anyone as another recipe, or tries this one out, let me know!

Remember how I told you I was going coupon crazy? Well, here's a coupon for $1 off any Quaker oatmeal and it doesn't expire until 4/30/10. We'll be able to get at least two uses out of this. It does require you to already have installed or to install the coupon printer. Just follow the prompts and save it to your computer.

Abby and I are off to make some granola, Good Evening!