The Ones I Actually Made!

So I didn't actually kill, clean, and prepare my own turkey this Thanksgiving.  In fact, the picture of the live turkey was taken the day after Thanksgiving.  However, I did make quite a few turkeys on Thanksgiving day!  This kind:

 Isn't that cute?  I got everyone in on the fun of making these cookies - whether they wanted to participate or not! :)

Ethan with his first completed turkey!

Aaron with a turkey.

Elise had more patience to keep working on these than any other child.

Ian was very proud of his turkey!

I even got my mom to make one...

"Do you think we escaped the Thanksgiving slaughter?"

Aaron quickly got goofy with his creations...

I had to force Stephanie to participate.  I even had to resort to using her daughter to guilt her into it! But I think she made a mighty fine turkey, don't you?

Before and After

Thanksgiving was a while ago, but since I haven't really blogged since then, you get to relive the joy of Thanksgiving with me!  Here is a before and after of our Thanksgiving turkey:

Before:

After:

I have always *loved* doing things from scratch in the kitchen! *






*The first picture may or may not actually be the same turkey as the second picture. I may or may not have actually prepared the turkey that was eaten by our family on Thanksgiving day.

Pumpkin Seeds

I know that when most people carve a pumpkin, they want to get rid of the messy, seed-filled pulp found inside as quickly as possible.  They are really missing out on a tasty snack, though!  I have always roasted my pumpkin seeds by tossing them in olive oil and salt, but I have found a much, much better recipe! This time I used butter and added cinnamon - and the result was the Best. Pumpkin. Seeds. Ever.  You really must go out and buy a pumpkin, carve it up, and roast the seeds now. You won't be sorry.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
1 1/2 c. cleaned pumpkin seeds
2 TB butter, melted
pinch salt
dash cinnamon

Toss the seeds in the remaining ingredients and spread them on a baking sheet.  Place in a 300 degree oven for 45-60 minutes, until golden brown. YUM. These are especially tasty right out of the oven!

Women's Work

I bet some of you just cringed when you saw the title of this post! Truth be told, I grew up in a home where the division of labor fit right in with "traditional roles." Because of this, I learned to cook, clean, and babysit, and my brother learned to fix things, mow the lawn, and set up a business.  I don't ever remember my brother cooking something in the kitchen, and to this day I have never started a lawn mower.  The cooking and cleaning were never referred to as "women's work" in my house - in fact, my father is just as good a cook as my mother! Regardless, the words weren't needed to express the general idea.  I don't disagree with that idea completely, either.  I have grown to love domestic duties, and am happy to leave the fixing and outdoor work to my husband.  He equally loves the outdoor "man's work" and is happy to leave the cooking and cleaning to me.  Even so, I really want my boys to be comfortable in a kitchen and taking care of domestic duties.  It is my belief that early marriage is beneficial, and hope my children will seek God for a quality spouse sooner than later in their adult lives.  But the reality is that people are waiting longer and longer in our culture to marry, and my children will no doubt be influenced by our culture.  I want them to be able to take care of themselves if they should find themselves living on their own.  Even if they do marry young, I would love for their wives to be surprised by a meal cooked by their husbands that isn't a chore to choke down.  To that end, we have started cooking lessons.  My boys love watching me in the kitchen and are quite excited to be learning a few skills.

Today we made banana bread! Aaron, my pickiest eater by far, wasn't super thrilled with the end result, but he was nearly giddy to be able to make it!  I am still holding out hope that he will outgrow his picky eating...

The bread is made with whole wheat flour and sweetened with honey, so our baking lesson also included health lessons about fiber, whole grains, processed vs. unprocessed food, and God made vs. man made sweeteners.  I am so proud of my boys for all they are learning!

Banana Bread
1. Place butter in large mixing bowl.  With a wire whist blend in remaining liquid ingredients one at a time:

1/4 c soft butter
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
3 medium bananas, very ripe
3/4 c buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla

2. Place flour and nuts in medium mixing bowl.  Thoroughly blend in remaining ingredients with a mixing spoon:

3 c whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 c chopped walnuts, optional (we used them)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 TB baking powder
1 tsp salt

3. Blend dry ingredients into liquid ingredients until just mixed.

4. Scrape batter into greased loaf pan and set pan in center of a 325 degree oven.

5. Bake for 70 minutes, and cool in pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a clean surface to cool.

Ripe Lemons

 Aren't they pretty?!

 What should I make? It has to be something good.

Cream Cheese Muffins

Several years ago, I started truly researching types of food and how our body reacts to different foods.  I began to look at GMO foods and issues, read a lot about eating local, in season foods, studied traditional foods (along the lines of Nourishing Traditions), and watched Food, Inc., Supersize Me, and other documentaries about the SAD (Standard American Diet).  I decided that our current way of eating was going to have to change.  I started eliminating processed foods from our diet, adding coconut oil, and trying some grass-fed meat options. 

Then, of course, the bomb dropped - food allergies. I had just begun a gradual overhaul of our entire way of eating when I learned that Jerry and my boys were allergic to all of God's green earth, and began a new research project - how to cook without any recognizable ingredients.  It has taken two years, but I now have a decent repertoire of recipes that the whole family can enjoy, and my boys' are healing - they are truly totally different after two years of treatment! 

Since all of that happened right after I had a baby, and I was only focused on learning how to cook non-allergenic foods for a long time, my weight got a bit out of control.  So once I re-learned how to feed my family, I began to try to lose some weight and figure out how to incorporate the changes I had started to make three years ago into our new-normal allergy-friendly eating plan.  It has taken some major creativity, plus some trial and error, but I finally have a plan that works! We now eat only foods our grandmothers would recognize (Which is really saying something since one of Jerry's grandmothers was born in 1899!), with a few exceptions, of course!  I don't worry about fat in our diet, but use non-hydrogenated fats, such as coconut oil, butter, and olive oil. We have learned to eat quinoa, millet, and add whole grains of all sorts to our diet.  We have eliminated about 80% of the chemicals we used to consume, and rarely consume corn syrup anymore. I have learned to be satisfied with a meal that consists only of meat, fruit, and vegetable much of the time, and no longer eat very many starches.  The result? I have lost a ton of weight and finally like the way I look, my kids are healthier and don't feel like they're missing too much, and we all enjoy the occasional treat and have discovered which of our "coveted foods" from before really don't appeal anymore.

A recent picture to document the end of my weight loss journey.

I've ended up using many low-carb recipes in my efforts to avoid wheat (for my allergic family) and other starches (for me).  I thought I'd occasionally share some of these recipes here, knowing full well that most of the world doesn't eat the way I do.  But if something I put out here looks good to someone, I'm happy to share.  I know my Green Smoothie wasn't a big hit, but these are much more normal looking, and really tasty! (I promise.) I enjoy a couple of these for breakfast or one for a quick snack.  They are best fully refrigerated.  It is like a mini-cheesecake, really!

Cream Cheese Muffins (Sernicki)
Muffins:

• 24 oz cream cheese, softened
• sweetener: 1 cup splenda or sugar, or 1/2 c. honey (honey changes the consistency some)
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 5 eggs

Topping:

• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 c. splenda or sugar, or 1/4 cup honey
• 1 tsp vanilla
• optional: 1 TB cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. 

Blend together cream cheese and sweetener.  Add vanilla extract.  Add eggs, beating in one at a time.  Pour into 24 paper cupcake liners (you MUST use liners with this recipe) in cupcake pan, filling liners about 2/3 full of batter.  Bake for 40 minutes.  Let cool for 5 minutes.

While muffins are cooling, beat all topping ingredients together. Spoon a bit of the topping onto each muffin, where an indention has formed from the cooling.  Return to oven for 5 minutes, then remove and cool. 

Even with another layer of muffins on top of these, this container empties quickly at my house since all 5 of use enjoy these!

Rock Candy

When we were at the National Scouting Museum a couple weeks ago, Ethan bought a kitchen science kit.  One of the projects was making rock candy, and of course - that was the first one he wanted to do! So we boiled the water and sugar, added coloring and flavoring, and dropped the string with a paperclip attached to the end into the solution.  And we have waited, and waited, and waited.  It has been almost a week now, and although the solution is crystalizing, the sugar crystals are not just clinging to the string and clip, but rather forming a crust of crystals across the top of the solution and sticking to the sides of the glass.  Is this normal?

This picture was taken after 3 days of letting the solution sit out to form sugar crystals...

If you have ever made rock candy this way before, I'd love to hear your insight.  I'm going to have quite a time getting these glasses clean...

Mean Green

Do you ever eat a green smoothie?  I used to be scared of the thought, until I tried this recipe! If you are looking for a quick, filling meal replacement, you should give this one a try!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup cottage cheese
• 3 oz baby spinach leaves
• 5 oz (about 7-10) frozen strawberries
• 1 heaping TB cocoa powder
• 20 drops stevia, or 2 pkts sweetener of choice
• 1 cup water

Blend the ingredients until smooth and enjoy! Because of the strong flavors of strawberries and cocoa powder, you cannot taste the spinach.  However, if you use a different fruit or mature spinach leaves, you can.

Frozen Banana Treats

Over the last year I got in a kitchen funk.  The two years of figuring out how to cook for my food allergic family took its toll on my creativity and I started to detest menu planning and recipe searches, something I used to *love* to do.  I also got in horrible habits once we started to be able to add back some of our allergens and we haven't been eating well.  I finally got fed up with feeding my family too many allergens (and reaping the consequences), eating the same food all the time, and not having options for my kids when they asked for a snack.  Also, Andrew has started to show some signs of food allergies (boo!!) and that was the final straw that caused me to become fed up with my lack of planning and creativity!

Enter Frozen Banana Treats - a great snack or dessert during these hot summer days!  Here's what I used to make these tasty bites:

• 2 bananas
• 1/4 c. chocolate chips
• 2 squares unsweetened bakers chocolate
• 1/2 c. almond butter
• 2 TB coconut oil
• unsweetened shredded coconut

You could easily alter these ingredients to suit your needs, using peanut butter, all chocolate chips and no squares or oil - it is very forgiving! I altered my ingredients from the original recipe, which I found on this blog The Spunky Coconut, by the way! It isn't one of her recipes, but it was in a link up there, and I cannot remember which blog it was originally from...

Anyway, melt all the ingredients together except for the shredded coconut, until it is just smooth, then allow it to cool.

While this mixture is getting cool enough to touch, slice the bananas into bite size pieces.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Dip each banana piece into the chocolate and set it on the baking sheet.  Once all the pieces are dipped, use remaining chocolate mixture to spoon over the top of each piece to make a thicker coating.  If desired, sprinkle coconut shreds on top.  Put the entire pan in the freezer for an hour or so until they are solid, then transfer to an airtight container.

These were a hit with my family! Next time I make them, I will leave out the chocolate chips (allergens) and use all baking chocolate sweetened with honey or coconut sugar.  With that change these will be quite healthy, and tasty to boot!

Mini Post Monday

• I cannot begin to speak of anything before mentioning the news from this last week that is the most exciting to me - I am going to Florida!!  Most would be excited to go to Florida primarily to see Micky & Co., but I am going for something much, much better - to see Joanna & Co.!
• I love my husband!  When I asked Jerry to help me one day by dividing up a huge 50 pound bag of rice into gallon bags for the freezer, he took the time to look up a different translation for "white rice" to write on each bag.  So when I pulled out a new bag of rice from the freezer, I saw this (below) on the bag.  It brought a nice smile to my face while doing something as mundane as fixing dinner!

• The Olympics have inspired a surge of athleticism in my boys.  Aaron decided to make skis out of pieces of a cereal box and yarn and ski poles from Tinker Toys!  He and Ethan have been participating in cross country events, ski jumping, and speed skating all through the house!

• Ethan's get-up is a bit more difficult to place to an Olympic event...He was speed skating with this on, I believe!

• And of course, I cannot put a picture of Aaron and Ethan without including an image of Andrew!  Isn't he still just so adorable?  I need to look at how adorable he is more often to make up for the hours of screaming and crying he is doing lately due to cutting 5 teeth at once and getting a strange rash and fever.

• I am making this Baked Fudge tonight for dessert.  I am really looking forward to trying it.  Since it is our day to rotate milk, eggs, and gluten, the only substitution I have to make is using spelt flour instead of wheat.  From my experience with spelt, I'm sure it will make an equal substitution.  I'll have to let you know how it turned out.  It seems that it would be hard for it to come out poorly given the list of ingredients!
• Jerry is getting so close to completing the bathroom!  He finished tiling the shower this weekend.  It looks incredible!  I think it looks completely professional.  He still has to add the shower fixtures, a mirror, and seal the grout, but then the bathroom will be complete!  I do need to find some decorative touches for it still, too.  I am so pleased with how it has come together. 

Marie's Beans

When Marie posted her Green Bean recipe on her blog, I was so excited to try it.  It looked fantastic, and I never would have thought to add some rice flour to the beans in place of the bread crumbs the recipe originally called for.  I had planned to make them the very day she posted them because we have to rotate butter and rice (fortunately for me on the same day!) and it just happened to be the right day.  However, when it came time to make dinner, I went to my computer to look up the recipe on Marie's blog and to my horror, found that I had no internet service!  I was so perplexed, because our phone goes through the internet, and it still worked fine, but I could not get my computer to connect to our wireless connection.  Well, the next morning I finally figured out the problem - I had accidentally switched off the wireless function on my laptop.  DUH! Oh, well.  Then by the time it was butter/rice rotation again, we were doing our three-day shot diet (bleh), but I finally got to try it last week. (And I'm just now posting because that's life.)

I forgot to take a picture of these while they were all pretty on the plate, so I had to settle for a picture of the leftovers in the pan before I gobbled these ones up, too!

Anyway, the beans were fabulous!  Just the right touch of garlic, still slightly firm, buttery, and yummy!  Even Jerry, my green bean hater, said they were okay.  Let me tell you, that is a ringing endorsement from him!  I happened to be out of rice flour right at the time I made them, so I substituted Teff flour instead.  Teff is an African grain seed that has a really nice nutty flavor.  It was good!  Thank you, Marie for the recipe!  It is a keeper in this house!  Next I am going to try it with some frozen beans.  I get some really good frozen organic green beans at Costco.  They are the only frozen green beans I'll eat.  Normally, I think the frozen ones are nasty (I'd rather eat canned), but these ones are nice.

Redefining Pie Crust

Every year I make Jerry apple pie for his birthday - it is our family tradition.  Jerry loves apple pie more than any other desert there is, and I didn't want to have to let this tradition fall by the wayside because of allergies.  Jerry cannot have wheat at all, and he has to rotate soy (shortening), both of which seem to be essential for a good pie crust.  But then I found this blog post.  I thought the addition of cinnamon to the pie crust sounded good for an apple pie, and although I have not been very successful with rice flour products turning out well, I decided that for Jerry, I'd give it a try.  I'm really glad I did, because it made an excellent apple pie that the whole family enjoyed! 

(sifting together all the dry ingredients - doesn't the cinnamon look yummy?)

(cutting in the butter - how can you go wrong with butter?)

One big difference from traditional pie crust is that you have to let it refrigerate overnight before you use it.  It is also a bit thicker than a traditional crust, but other than that, I think most people wouldn't think anything of it if I served it up to them!

(ready to refrigerate overnight)

I know that most people reading this blog don't need to make allergen friendly foods, but I wanted to post this anyway for a couple reasons:

• You should try adding cinnamon to the crust of your pie sometime - it's really yummy!
• I am proud of the way my allergy-friendly cooking has improved to the point that I make things that actually taste good!
• You never know when you'll need to make something for a person with allergies or other health problems, and now you'll have a source! :)

Mmmmm....hot apple pie!  Who has the ice cream?

Dreams Can Come True...

...it can happen to you...

Guess what greeted me at the door when the doorbell rang recently? Do you see the label on the box?

Do you see the shiny red metal? 

Are you drooling yet?  I am.  Unashamedly.  It isn't pretty on me, but I'm okay with that.  Check out my brand-new, Vita-Mix Super 5200 in all its glory!

This baby rocks!  It has both wet and dry canisters, so I can basically make everything short of pure gold come out of this puppy!  I have made all sorts of flours in the dry canister and it works great!  I have also used the wet canister to chop veggies for soup and blend almond butter. I plan to never chop veggies for soup again.  I am not kidding when I tell you that I put a quartered onion in this thing and 4 seconds later had diced onion.  The carrot and celery took about 3 seconds.  I accidentally let it run for close to 5 and so my pieces were super tiny!  I cannot wait to really give it a work out.  Do you know what the coolest thing about it is?  To clean it, you just fill it with water and a drop of soap and let it run for 30 seconds.  It runs so fast that it heats the water and cleans the entire inside like a dishwasher!  Then you just let it dry and it is good to go again!

I paid $20 extra to get it in red, which is crazy!  I think that when you are paying as much as you have to for one of these, they should throw in red, a 20 lb. turkey, and stock options for free, but hey?  Who am I to complain?  Now it matches the rest of my kitchen appliances!

Our Thanksgiving

I love having fresh flowers in my house, and I thought Thanksgiving was a good reason to get some!  Aren't they lovely? 

We had a nice Thanksgiving this year, even if we couldn't make many of our favorite Thanksgiving foods.  In a way, it was such a blessing.  Instead of spending all day in a hot kitchen, I played with my children.  Instead of being stuffed to the point of needing to unbutton my pants after dinner (Oh, don't act like you have never been there!), I ate a wonderful and satisfying meal with my family and friends and spent the rest of the evening playing a game, drinking coffee, and laughing a lot!

This year I brined my turkey.  We are high class here, brining the turkey in a good ol' Thermos cooler.

I decided to keep the brine simple since it was my first one.  I just used water, salt, onion, garlic, green peppercorns, and thyme.  I was really happy with the way it turned out, and I think I'll be doing a brined bird again.

With the turkey, I served mashed potatoes, gravy, roasted carrots, and roasted asparagus.  A friend who ate with us brought cranberry sauce and pumpkin custard.  It was such a wonderful meal.  It was rich and comforting without being heavy.  I've posted before about roasting my asparagus, but I've never roasted carrots before.  I used the recipe that was on the Pioneer Woman blog last week, and these carrots were super.  You should definitely make them!

For all the culinary delights of the meal, the best one was also the most simple.  To top the pumpkin custard, I planned to make some whipped cream.  At the last minute, I decided to sweeten the cream with pure maple syrup instead of plain sugar.  The maple cream was amazing.  We all enjoyed it on the custard, but where it really shined was in coffee!  Somehow, these two simple and pure ingredients, when whipped together and added to coffee, turn the coffee rich, decadent, and amazingly creamy. 

Finally, I thought I'd share a picture of my table.  I am not the most creative when it comes to decorating a table, but I thought it ended up looking nice.

Two Dishes

One word:  Tasty.  Or maybe two: yummy, tasty.  Okay, three words: surprisingly yummy, tasty.  Wait let me adjust that a bit: shockingly yummy, tasty.  Oh, four words: shockingly tasty and yummy.  There, I think that does it.  We will have this again.  I'll probably slice the sprouts into three instead of just half so Del will like them better, but these are darned good.

I don't know if I have lived in the dark ages or what but all these years I've just bought cans of the canned cranberry sauce.  I always buy the jellied stuff for the girls and the...other kind for Del.  So anyway, well last year, I forget why, but I was inspired to make my own.  Last year I made Spiced Cranberry Sauce with Red Zinfandel.  It was a hit.  Very good but rich...maybe a little too rich.  This year, Del and I discovered a port wine and have really grown fond of it, to the point where we're not even buying any other wine.  So when I found this recipe for Tangerine and Port Cranberry Sauce I thought this was the stuff for us.  And I was right.  It wasn't too overpowering or rich.  The flavor of the port is delicious.  Even my mom liked it quite a bit and she can't stand any kind of wine.  She had two helpings to go with her Thanksgiving dinner.  I highly recommend it.  It's the best cranberry sauce that has ever entered this house!

Thanksgiving Experiments

Every time I open my refrigerator I stop and thank God for the bounty that exists there.  And I'm not exaggerating.  It is brimming with items for our Thanksgiving and even other yummy stuff like kimchi and see the Dr. Pepper laying down over there?  YUMMY.  We're usually pretty darn traditional for Thanksgiving: turkey, stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes and a vegetable platter.  This year we're doing something a little different.  Can you see it?

See it down there on top of the thing of carrots?

Why, I do believe I spy BRUSSELS SPROUTS!!!!!

I'll let you know how it goes.