Sugar Saga

So the brown sugar kept going hard. I know the trick - an apple slice in the bag and your sugar is nice and soft again. Well, it just wouldn't last. And wouldn't you know, it turned out there was a hole in the bag. Now what to do with a partial bag of solid, and I mean rock solid, brown sugar? You make Butterscotch Brownies (aka Blondies)!  I figured since you use melted butter to melt the brown sugar, it would work... and it did. We ate the whole pan in less than 24 hours. 

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Butterscotch Brownies (Blondies)

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Recipe By: How to Cook Everything

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

salt

1 cup flour

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.

Melt butter.  Beat in sugar until smooth. Add egg, vanilla, salt and flour.

Add chocolate chips or nuts (1 cup) if desired.

Pour into 8x8 baking pan.

Bake 20-25 minutes until barely set in middle.

Cool on wire rack before cutting.

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Waste Not

So we have been making some serious effort to waste less food. Here are some of the things we are currently doing.

1. Only buy what is written on the grocery list, no extras.
2. Eat what is in the fridge before it expires/goes bad.
3. Don't forget about the leftovers in the back of the fridge.
4. Only make enough food for dinner and one leftover meal.
5. Put less food on Jacob's plate. He can ask for seconds if he likes.
6. Compost.

Some other things I decided to do on my own were:

1. Save all bread ends or stale scraps in the freezer and make my own bread crumbs.
2. Make all my own baby fruit and vegetable purees.
3. Eat salad.
4. Be creative.

Now, I have taken this last one a step farther this week:

1. I finished off a box of mini wheats and there was a huge amount of shredded wheat bits left in the bag. I didn't want to save it for breakfast because it would instantly turn to mush when I put milk on it. So I whipped up a batch of blueberry muffins and substituted some of the flour with all the cereal crumbs. The were really delicious (I think my brother ate 4 in one afternoon). Daniel and Jacob both enjoyed them too.

2. I made jam this week with frozen raspberries we picked last summer. (I should confess that Jeff picked them, I sat around and watched the kids) After I thawed them, there was a lot of juice that I didn't want to put in the jam for fear of making it too runny. I carefully saved it, but I didn't want to drink it, because that might be way too sweet. So I whipped up a batch of chocolate chocolate chip muffins and substituted the raspberry juice for most of the milk. I figured the flavour would definitely turn out because chocolate and raspberry were made for each other, but I wondered about whether the muffins would actually have a good texture and be edible. Anyways, they turned out amazing and almost had the look of red velvet cake.

Kitchen Challenge - JANUARY

Ready to eat!

Hmmmm... these are different.

Yum!

Tortillas! Well, I would say that these were actually really successful. (See my 2011 Kitchen Challenge page for the recipe) I skipped step 3 (refrigerate), mostly because I forgot that that was one of the steps when I was planning what time to start dinner tonight. The first one turned out crispy so I did make a couple of adjustments. The directions, to me at least, make it sound like you should wait to flip it until brown spots start to appear on the top. DON'T DO THAT! Flip it as soon as it starts to puff up. After the first one, the rest were really nice and easily rolled into fajitas. They really only take 2 minutes each.

Secret Seasoning Salt

I love seasoning salt. We used to buy it and I would put in on fries and they would be so delicious. But that stuff is terrible for you so we haven't bought it in two years. We make hash-browns every so often and have experimented with different spices but they were never quite right. I figured that there must be a recipe out there for seasoning salt so that I could make up just a little bit. Well... I found a recipe for Lo-Salt Seasoning Salt online. I didn't have everything for it, (and wasn't about to go shopping just to test it out) and tweaked it a bit to make it "my own". I made up a small fraction of the recipe, just enough for a frying pan of hash-browns (or little fries as Jacob calls them) and it was so good that I made up a big batch of it and now I have a jar-full in my cupboard. I don't know how much salt is in the stuff you buy but there are 11 tablespoons of spices total in the jar and only 1 is salt. That's 1/11th for those of you who enjoy my kitchen math. I can't wait for BBQ season so I can use this on my tinfoil potatoes.

Here it is before I shook it up.
Can you guess the ingredients?

Bread and Honey

I have been making a lot of bread lately. Yesterday I made two loaves of egg bread (for a certain special occasion coming up) and today I made two loaves of my standard "white wheat bread" (sorta white, sorta whole wheat) and two loaves of chocolate zucchini bread. This last bread should be interesting because it is an experiment with honey... I found an article here about how to substitute honey for sugar. I have tried it in oatmeal cookies and they were amazing. So far I find my regular bread doesn't rise as nicely when I take out all the sugar so I only sub half of it. But today I took all the sugar (2 cups for 2 loaves) out of the recipe and used 1 1/3 cup honey instead. Honey, zucchini, and chocolate sound like a good combination... I just have to wait another 32 minutes to find out.
On a similar subject, Jacob has started calling Daniel "Honey Honey." So cute.

Ready, Set, Go!

I just wanted to say that I posted my first recipe for my 2011 Kitchen Challenge... this is where I am going to challenge myself to learn 12 recipes that maybe I never would have tried. I would love to have you along for all or part of the ride, so join me! This month, break out that frying pan and make some tortillas! The recipe is found under the Challenge link at the top of the page. We have fajitas on our menu this week, so I will let you know how it goes!

Tasty Playdough

Jacob and I usually play with playdough every morning while Daniel is napping. I usually get annoyed because Jacob likes to eat the playdough, though it is supposedly non-toxic, and since he hasn't gotten sick yet maybe I shouldn't worry so much about it.

Jacob with a huge ball of playdough in his mouth.

Usually Jacob asks me to make things for him with the playdough. He asks for balls a lot, and even asks for different sizes- baby, big, little, bigger...

Jacob squishing the playdough balls I made.

He also likes it when I make us matching bracelets or when I make his favourite letters of the alphabet (B, W, O, P) I have also been known to make a snowman and a puppy. But yesterday he asked for Rex and "Hammy Pig" from Toy Story.

Rex and Hamm

I was fairly impressed with my results. Rex could have used some teeth and Hamm looks like he's been dieting, but I only had so much playdough to work with since Jacob wouldn't let me have any of the balls I had already made him.  Jacob did get upset when he tried to move them and Hamm's tail and Rex's head fell off. I squished them when he wasn't looking and made a wish that he would got back to balls and bracelets....

Today he asked for Buzz Lightyear. Instead I brought out the cookie cutters and made him a camel.

Is it Soup Yet?

Jeff and I were once doing a crossword puzzle together and the clue was "Is is ____ yet?" We had no idea what the answer could be but it turned out the answer was soup. Trust me. We even cheated and looked on the answer page at the back of the book. Does anyone out there know what this means or where it is from? Anyways, we now ask each other this whenever there is soup simmering on the stove.

"Is it soup yet?"
"Not quite! It is still just a can of condensed yuck mixed with a can of water."
"Is it soup yet?"
"Almost, it just needs to come to a boil."
"Is it soup yet?"
"Ugh. Yes."

I hate soup. Or I should say I mostly hate soup. Whenever we have soup in our house it comes from a can. I look at those little cubes of veggies and meat and question the validity of their claim to be "real food." I pick around the unknown chunks in my bowl and wish it was a bowl of Ichiban noodles... at least all they claim to be is flavoured noodles.
We usually have one night a week that is a simple dinner - usually soup or sandwiches - and this year we have instituted Meatless Mondays and thus I see more soup on my horizon. We have started experimenting by adding rice and corn to a can of tomato soup or peas, carrots, and lima beans to a package of Lipton's chicken noodle soup. These are both substantial improvements, but I want more from a soup. I have had several DELICIOUS homemade soups (made by other people) and I know that I should be able to succeed at soup. Back in September I attempted corn chowder and it was mediocre at best. Twice in December I made veggie noodle soup with my frozen turkey stock from thanksgiving and it was good, but not great. So last night (it was our first monday of the year) I made Minestrone. Here's the recipe from the internet. I had to make some serious edits because I didn't have everything I needed and I made it in the slow cooker and it was delicious. Jacob even ate two bowls! (He loves kidney beans) I used beef bouillon powder to make the broth because that was what was in my cupboard. We even had just enough left over for lunch today.
Here's my recipe:

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Easy Minestrone
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Ingredients:

1 small onion, diced

2 carrots, diced

1/2 yellow pepper, diced

1 large tomato, diced

1/4 cup dried kidney beans (prepare in advance)

4 cups broth

1/2 tsp parsley flakes

1/2 tsp thyme

1 bay leaf

1/2 cup pasta

Directions:

Saute onions and carrots in olive oil.

When done, add pepper and tomatoes. (And optional zucchini)

Put broth (veggie or beef) in slowcooker. Add spices. Add cooked veggies. Add beans.

Simmer 4 hours.

Add pasta when almost ready to eat.

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You Say Goodbye, and I Say Hello

Goodbye 2010... the year I really discovered how much I like experimenting in my Blue Kitchen. The year I decided to make more of my own food and buy less pre-made food. The year I discovered the joy of baking and eating home-made bread. The year I realized how much I love a clean kitchen floor. The year I made jam for the first time. The year I quit composting and then started again. The year I welcomed one more person to feed into my family!

Hello 2011... the year I will hopefully get all of you to try a few new recipes with me through my 12 month cooking challenge. The year I hope to become more of a Locavore. The year I plan to succeed at making hamburger buns. The year we are going to try growing some of our own food!

I ended this year with a very successful new bread recipe. I made caramelized onion bread! It made a huge loaf (much bigger than I was expecting), and the whole entire thing got eaten for lunch. I served it with homemade soup made with homemade turkey stock. I wish I had taken a picture for you before it all got eaten, because it was beautiful.

I still have a lot of goodies in my house left-over from Christmas, so I am putting a moratorium  on baking for awhile. I ate WAY too much over the last couple of weeks. But it was all delicious. Though as I write this, I realize that I made a cheesecake today. I meant to weeks and weeks ago so I had bought all the ingredients for it. The cream cheese sitting in the fridge has been taunting me, and the raspberries were just begging to be used up. The huge bag of unopened graham crumbs was wanting to be turned into Reese's Pieces, and I have eaten a lot of chocolate lately. So here's the recipe:

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mOm's No-Bake Cheesecake

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Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups graham crumbs

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup icing sugar

1 pkg cream cheese, softened

1 pkg whipped topping, plus milk and vanilla according to package directions

Directions:

Mix first three ingredients in bowl and spread evenly in large baking dish.

Make whipped topping.

Mix remaining ingredients with whipped topping until smooth. 

Pour on top of crust.

Top with any fruit you like.

Notes:

I like a little cinnamon in the crust. 

Mom would sometimes use oreo cookie crumbs instead of graham crumbs and chocolate milk instead of white for a tasty chocolate cheesecake.

I mix everything in the blender because it takes forever to get it smooth with a spoon. 

I sometimes throw the fruit in the blender too, for a fruity cheesecake.

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AND... January's recipe should be up shortly! It won't be anything too complicated or fancy this month, so I hope you try it out.