My only complaint with the book is that a lot of the recipes call for eggs and milk or butter but their master recipe (my first freeform loaf picture above) is a basic recipe with just flour, yeast, salt, and gluten.  Hopefully my loaves will get better and not so dense, or I’m sure Iris will complain about the hard bread for her sandwiches.

Well, I have a lot more to write about but alas, Finnegan only took a 20 minute nap (no surprises there) and the twins are not playing well together in their quiet time.  Most days I feel like I live my life in 10 minute chunks, because that is all the time I ever get to concentrate on one task.  This too shall pass, I keep reminding myself.

The photos were taken a few days ago when we made our latest batch.  The girls get a big kick out of being in the kitchen and helping out.  They are very good stirers!  Mr. Finnegan gets to sit in his perch in the island sink so he can get in on the action, too.  He’s a big help, too.  I think Iris was outside playing while this cooking session was happening.

Ingredients:

2 cups quick cooking oats

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup canola oil

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup non dairy milk (I use rice or soy)

1 tbs ground flaxseed

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1 generous cup non dairy semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup chopped pecans

I also add 1/2-3/4 cup currants even though they are not in the recipe.

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix dry ingredients.  Mix wet ingredients.  Mix wet & dry ingredients.  Stir in coconut, chocolate chips, nuts and currants.  Bake on parchment paper covered cookie sheets for 15 minutes.  Cool on rack.  Enjoy!

Here is a closeup of the cake.  It was delicious!

Ms. Kira with a sugar rush.

I guess B enjoyed the cake as well.

Ms. Iris enjoying her cake, I think anyway.

And Tavie just being her cute self.

Iris has finished her gingerbread house!  It looks fantastic, in my proud mother’s opinion.  I was in charge of the frosting and Iris was in charge of pretty much everything else.  I wanted to make some green colored rice crispy trees and shrubs, but we decided to just go with what we had.

It took me a few batches of royal icing to get the hang of it and to figure out the right consistency….but as I said earlier it’s been a good learning experience for both of us and next year’s house will be even better.  The most important thing is that Iris had fun decorating and being creative.  Here are a few more pictures.

This is the back of the house.  I think the dove chocolates in the middle look like skylights, what do you think?

A close up of the front door.

And for a Tavie and Kira update, we are officially speaking in sentences now.  A few days ago Tavie went up the stairs and Kira lost track of her.  She turned to me and said, “Where’d Tavie go?”  I said, “What did you say?” and she said again, quite clearly, “Where’d Tavie go?”

Here is Phase 1 of our project.  Oh, I should add, I went to Kinkos and enlarged the house plans I downloaded because I wanted it just a tad bigger.  Here is the finished dough.  Guess who poured the flour?

Cutting out the windows of the house.

After rolling out the dough and cutting out the pieces, Iris filled the windows w/ pulverized butter rum candies for the windows.  After filling the windows we baked for another 5 minutes, the candy melts, and bam, we have windows!

More window filling.

Here are all the baked pieces ready for assembly.  B cut out a base w/ 3 layers of heavy cardboard which I covered w/ aluminum foil.

We did the bottom layer and held it up with coffee cups.

Here is the view from the back.  After this dries we will add the roof.

I’ve always resisted a bread baking machine but Blayne convinced me to try an old machine he had down in the basement. Now that I have figured it out I’m OK with it. I don’t like to do the final rise or bake in the machine because I don’t like the shape of the loaves or that funny hole you get in the middle. I’ve found a really great whole wheat recipe from one of his bread machine cook books. I’d rather use a “respectable” recipe from one of my other baking books, but it actually turned out really great.

My first oops has to do with a sprouted bread I was going to make. I dusted off my sprout jar and soaked 1/2 cup wheat berries. I thought I had to sprout them for 3 or 4 days. I was all proud of myself for rinsing them twice a day and producing some beautiful sprouts. This morning I looked at the recipe so I could make the bread today but at the bottom of the recipe it says to only let the sprouts of the wheat berry get as long as the berry. Well, my sprouts got much longer than that. So now what to do with my sprouts? I guess I’ll just mix some of them in my smoothie and feed the rest to the bunnies outside.

Yogurt making has been fun, too. My first batch of cow milk yogurt was a bit runny. Second batch was superb. I used a powdered starter instead of yogurt for the culture. I also added a bit of powdered milk to the batch to make it thicker and creamier. Next, I have to research how many times I can use this yogurt as a base culture before I have to use a new powder started. Hmmm. I also want to experiment with adding flavors/fruit into the yogurt. I’m fine with mixing fruit, etc. into the yogurt after it is done. But B seems to think I need to figure out how to add it to the yogurt from the beginning. He has requested a coffee flavored yogurt.

Soy yogurt proves a bit more difficult. Here is my first attempt: Yuck!

As you can see it curdled and even ran over the sides of the lids. I used Bryanna Clark Grogan’s recipe from her website. I think a few things went wrong here. I couldn’t find agar powder at the coop so I used agar flakes. I attempted to grind them in my spice grinder, but it just wouldn’t break up. And I couldn’t find my mortar and pestal. Also, her recipe didn’t call for any type of sugar for using unsweetened soy milk but I found that on another website so I added a tablespoon of agave nectar. I shouldn’t have done that. I’ll have to try to find some agar powder then I’ll try another batch. It had a nice sour flavor at least.

It is a process and an experiment but I don’t mind the mistakes – as long as I figure out how to make a fantastic finished product.

I am quite sure our grocery bill is going down but I’ll save that for another post.

Everyone enjoyed it. The twins especially love anything with noodles as they are great fun to fling around. But they did get some in their bellies. We’ve got leftovers to polish off which is always a bonus as well.

Now for the bikes. Of course all of our children will be trained to ride bikes or bike-like toys from the time they can toddle. Iris loves riding bike and does so almost every day when weather permits. We frequently go for bike rides together with the babies in their bike trailer in tow. I’m sure B has big plans for all of the kids to become great road bicyclists. But for now we got the twins some cute little “bikes” to begin their journey into biking greatness.

And now for one last little blib. I think we have a baker in the making. Kira helping me with waffles this past weekend.

Along the same lines I’ve decided to do a major re-haul of our food budget and shopping habits. Our grocery bill is getting bigger and bigger. I started a list of things I can do to change our ginormous food bill.

1. Cut way down on packaged snacks. I do buy healthy snacks for the kids, but we are blowing through them at amazing rates right now. I’m going to stop buying Fig Newmans, animal crackers, crackers, Veggie Booty, all that stuff. It’s going to stop. I’m going to make pudding. I’m going to make healthy bars. We can eat dried fruit. I’m going to start making more snacks and I’m going to start getting the kids to eat more fruit, nuts, veggies, etc. for snacks.
2. Along with the homemade yogurt theme I’m going to start making bread again. I used to make all my own bread and have fallen out of that habit. Breads & buns can be made by me.
3. Bulk buying. B just got a membership at Costco. I’m going to use it.
4. Farmers market. I’m going to get in the habit of farmer’s market shopping again.
5. B is going to eat lunch at home instead of eating lunch out every other day.
6. We usually go out to eat at least once a week. No more. We are going to cut it way, way down. Once a month is fine with me. Or special occasions.
7. Leftovers. We waste too many leftovers. Gotta stop.
8. Meal planning. On good weeks I have menus planned ahead of time. This cuts back on mental energy and also keeps me from running quick to the store to buy easy, more expensive food items.
9. I buy a lot of canned beans, canned soup, canned spaghetti sauce, etc. I want to start making these from scratch as well.

So there ya go. There is my initial list of things to do to cut down on our grocery bill. I am committed to buying organic, fresh, as sustainable as possible food. This I will not, cannot change for saving money. It is more expensive to buy organic produce, but I believe our health cannot be sacrificed in this area. I believe we can cut way back on other expenses to ease our food bill. With three children and probably at least one more coming this has to change.

I’m off to make some yogurt!!

I got the recipe from Raw Foods For Busy People by Jordan Maerin. The recipe follows:

Creamy Pineapple Sauce:

• 1/4 cup cashew or macadamia butter (I used raw cashew)
• 1/4 cup pineapple juice (I used orange juice)
• 1 Tb. lemon juice
• 1/2 Tb. olive oil (I omitted this)
• 2 tsp. dried dill
• (I added some fresh pineapple as well, although not in recipe)

Pineapple Waldorf Salad:

• 1 chopped apple
• 1/2 cup pineapple chunks (I added more)
• 3 stalks celery, sliced
• 3-4 scallions
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1/4 cup parsley, shopped (I added a bit more)
• (I served on butterhead lettuce)

Blayne killed the crock pot last week so I dug out the pressure cooker to cook the chickpeas. I didn’t soak the chickpeas first but the cook time was incredibly fast, nonetheless. I think I’ll be using the pressure cooker more often now. I forgot how easy and speedy they are.

I have to say this recipe is fabulous! The hijiki gives it a mildly fishy flavor, but not overpowering. It also adds tons of nutrients. I don’t consider a tuna salad sandwich anything worth eating without a huge dose of mustard so I did tweak the recipe a bit with some added mustard. I loved this recipe and will definitely be making it again.