Tag Archives: make-your-own

Tortilla Success

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I have a son who L.O.V.E.S. tortillas. He could eat them morning, noon and night and never tire of their soft, roll-y goodness.

Except they are full of so much badness! Or the store-bought ones are, anyway.

So I have been trying out tortilla recipes and I am ready to announce a winner. This is from a site I have linked before, OAMC (once a month cooking). My life on the farm is not predictable enough for actual once-a-month cooking to work, but I DO try to utilize power cooking ideas (double and triple recipes to freeze, doing meal planning and prep work on the weekend for the five day school week, that sort of thing).

Cut 10 Tsp of butter into 6 cups of flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour). I use my mixer and paddle attachment to do this. Dissolve 2 tsp kosher salt into 2 cups of HOT water (I think you could get away with less salt). Mix water into flour slowly and let it form a soft dough. Roll out on flour-sprinkled wax paper (you’ll need to be generous with the flour) and cook on an ungreased skillet until each side bubbles.

My kids think these are absolutely terrific. I made quesadillas last night with the tortillas, and stuffed one with tuna, spinach and red onions. The kids did NOT think that was fabulous but that was okay by me because that meant I needed to eat all of it.

Let me know if you try this out, or what you like best to do with tortillas at your house!

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Copy Cat Cookie; a successful FAIL

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My children really like a certain store-bought cookie that I won’t (usually) buy because it has ingredients I don’t like to have in my house. These would include the following things: More than five total ingredients, ingredients I cannot pronounce, ingredients I don’t keep in my own pantry for baking, vague ingredients like “natural flavors” or “spices” which are often a loophole way of labeling MSG.

The cookies are still better for you than most packaged crackers and chips, so they can be a good snack alternative depending on the direction your food choices take. We have used them before as snacks to share at a class when I forgot it was our turn. They are tasty and have some nutritional value, as well as a better ingredient list than most all other packaged cookies. Here is the link to the nutritional information, if you are interested.

I found a bulk bin of dried, organic blueberries at my grocery store last week, and decided to make a go of creating similar cookies at home. Here is a record of the first attempt.

I tweaked a cookie recipe I found (here is the original) and came up with this:

Cream 3 Tbsp butter and 1/2 cup packed brown sugar. Mix in one large egg and 1 tsp vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine 1 and 1/2 whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup oat flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp cinnamon. Stir in about 1/4 to 1/3 cup dried blueberries (sorry – I didn’t even measure these – I just tossed some in so I’m guessing here).

Spoon flour mixture into wet mixture, beating slowly until just combined.

I used a triggered cookie scoop (like this one) to place melon-ball sized pieces of dough on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Bake at 350F (I have a convection oven so I set mine to 325F) for 8-10 minutes. When they look cracked, but not liquid inside the cracks, they are done. Cool on a rack.

The results? Well, my food critics tell me that (a) this makes a pretty cookie, (b) these taste absolutely nothing like the cookie I was aiming for a resemblance with and (c) these are delicious and would be great in place of said store-bought cookie anyway.

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You know how I love a great deal…

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So I couldn’t pass up this offer. And it is so incredible, I felt the need to share.

I started reading Renee’s blog over at FIMBY after discovering some of her writing on Simple Homeschool. Her ebook is one of 35 being offered as a package deal during this special promotion. All the books are designed to help you simplify your life.

S. O. L. D.

Let me know if you also purchase the books, and if so, which ones you particularly enjoy or find a great help to your family life.

The sale only runs through Friday morning, sorry for the late notice!

Grill Your Own UN-Unleavened (see comments) Bread

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I found a recipe online when I googled “cook bread on the grill,” which I then dissassembled in order to remove all the terrible igredients and replace them with healthier alternatives. Here is the recipe and some pictures because (a) I have an iphone now and it’s just so stinking easy to take and post pictures and (b) this should be a much more interesting post with pictures.

First, dissolve One Tablespoon of yeast into 1 cup warm water and 1/4 to 1/3 cup honey.

We were still working on school when I started - see my lesson plans?

Let this stand for around ten minutes until it’s frothy, as you can see here:

MMMMM - active yeast smells so delicious.

Stir in 3 Tablespoons liquid of your choice (I used almond milk), one beaten egg, 4 1/2 cups whole grain flour of your liking (I used some white whole wheat flour and a handful of cornmeal just because I love the texture it adds). Knead on floured surface for 6-8 minutes or until smooth (or if you prefer machine kneaded dough, knead with dough hook until smooth).

Note to self: shut mixer off next time. This is not really a good 'action' shot.

Let the dough rise in a warm place until it is doubled in volume (I placed mine in a warm oven, it took around 30 min).

Punch down the dough and knead in any spices or flavoring you would like (one suggestion was garlic, which sounded lovely, but I left mine plain this time). Pinch off handfuls of dough roughly the size of a golf ball. I set mine on an oiled cookie sheet. I then sprayed more olive oil on them after I’d finished balling all of the dough.

Thank you, Little Cowgirl, for your excellent photography here.

Put them back in the warm oven to rise (this will be much quicker, 10-15 min in a warm oven or 30 min at room temp) and turn on your grill.

Here they are, puffed up and ready for cooking!

Flatten the golf balls and place them on the grill. These only need a minute or two and they are ready to turn (I waited too long the first time around).

I love this picture because there are chickens in it.

I left them on the top grate to keep warm while the second round cooked and the meat finished (we had uncooked garden veggies with this meal).

I was experimenting with a pork recipe as well...top right.

You can brush these with butter or oil while they cook, and you could add seasonings to that if you would like. Again, I left mine pretty plain because of the customers visiting my eatery this day.

The reviews were all positive.

What does your family like to cook on the grill? Is it nice enough where you are yet to be enjoying outdoor cooking?

Let’s kick off the week

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on the right foot!

Here are some recent ideas for deliciousness:

My genius sister-in-law told me she likes to use quinoa or couscous to make a cold salad – she cooks the grains in broth, cools them and then adds whatever a person might like in a pasta salad. I know! Genius!

Also, I’ve been using baked sweet potatoes in anything I think my daughter might eat. I steam carrots, cauliflower or other gently-colored veggies and puree them with the sweet potato. Little Cowgirl has never eaten so many vegetables disguised as sloppy joe and meatloaf. I’ve always hidden veggies in her food, but the sweet potato is so packed with nutrients and so SWEET it makes us both happy. (oh, and don’t tell her. She is very partial to a completely beige diet, and anything that crunches and isn’t from a chip bag might make her vomit.) I am on a mission to use this new idea for replacing anything calling for brown sugar – my original sloppy joe recipe (from my sweet mother-in-law) calls for it but the sweet potato was an easy swap.

Remember last year’s Lenten Miracle Soup? (Thank you for reminding me about it, Darlene.) This year I had another soup success – but more for ease than flavor. On Thursday I made chicken in a crock pot for lunch. I sliced potatoes, onions and carrots into the bottom of the crock, cranked a few turns of “zesty seasoning mix” into it and covered everything with a whole chicken and water. After we ate I boned the chicken and saved the small scraps. Then I chunked the veggies into smaller pieces and put then in the fridge with the little chicken scraps and the broth. On Friday, I took the dish out, skimmed the solidified fat off the top, heated it up and stirred in a bit of potato starch to thicken it up. We ate the soup with biscuits and shredded cheddar.

What’s been happening in your kitchens?

New Year, Old Habits

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Every year when the holiday visitors have packed up and gone, I can’t wait to get back to business. For me, that means lots of things, but I seem to focus on the fact that my family has been eating nothing but salted meats and white flour (shudder), and that we seem to receive enough gifts over Christmas to fill our entire (already full) house.

So I tend to ring in the new year trying to climb back on the same two bandwagons: healthy eating and keeping my house. These two things enable me to feel good physically and emotionally, and to devote my time to the things that truly matter (my husband, my kids, our school and farm).

I’m thinking a lot about food. Something I’m trying to do is incorporate more interesting meatless dishes and a bigger variety of grains and legumes. I made baked beans from scratch earlier this week. With them we ate homemade pita bread and apples. Well, I’m the only one who at the beans. Each child took one bite and politely filled up on pita.

The beans were a miserable failure, but my daughter was very impressed by my apple-flower.

For lunch today, I made ‘johnny cakes.’ These were a hit. Here is my recipe:

1 cup polenta or corn grits (you can use cornmeal too)
*I used a few tablespoons of flax seed meal in place of a bit of the grits
1 tsp salt
1 tsp honey
1 TBSP butter
3/4 cup boiling water (about half of mine was out-of-date kefir)

Soak all these together for a few minutes, then drop by heaping teaspoon full into warm olive oil (notice that I said warm, not hot). Cook for a few minutes, then flip. Make them as crispy as you like. I have some who prefer super-crispy and some who like it super-soft, so I do a few of each (I vote crispy). We had cheese and fruit salad with the cakes.

There were two left, but before I could take the picture, I ate another one.

Something I would really like to work hard on this year is vegetables. I’ve been running my food processor and adding vegetables to more dishes than my daughter could ever imagine (don’t tell her, she will have nightmares), but I would love some ideas. How do you like to eat and prepare your vegetables?

As you can see, I’m doing some foreshadowing with this post as well, so expect a housekeeping post soon. Oooooooo, I’m being all literary and stuff.

Copy Cat

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Here is a great recipe I got from Jamie Oliver via a magazine, I only subscribe to two magazines and the rest I get for free for Lord-only-knows what reason. Point here being that it was not one of the two magazines I actually DESIRE to receive, so I’m not naming the uninvited rag, though I feel guilty saying that because I found this recipe!

 

I am re-obsessing about getting veggies into everything I can, all the time.  After serving this sauce by itself on noodles (lukewarm reviews) I used it to spice up some grilled burgers (our own grass-fattened beef) – kids said best burgers ever.  Then I made a lasagna.  My Farmer said it was so fancy and delicious he thought I purchased it instead of making it myself (I know, let’s choose to take that as a compliment).   In fairness to him, that may just be the way I received the wording he chose to express that he enjoyed it – but he was surprised it came from our own kitchen!  The children each had THREE helpings of the lasagna.  SCORE.  If you want to duplicate it, throw whatever veggies you have in your food processor (heavy on the red bell pepper) and finely chop.  Saute veggies in 1 lb of meat.  Mix one cup crumbled feta with three eggs.  Layer the meat mixture and eggs with lasagna noodles and the sauce recipe I’m about to type.  Put a little bit of cheese on top.  Ignore this writer’s complete distraction from the original topic (the SAUCE recipe!), run-on sentences, and general vomit-typing (when thoughts are coming into your head so fast you vomit them onto the keyboard as fast as you can regardless of their ability to make sense together or be followed as rational thought at all).

 

 

Perfect Tomato Sauce

Peel 2 small onions, trim 1 small leek (thoroughly washed of sand) and 2 stalkscelery, halve and deseed 2red bell peppers, then roughly chop everything. Use the coarse side of a box grater to grate 2 zucchinis and 2 carrots.

Heat a large saucepan (big enough to hold all the ingredients) over medium heat. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, followed by all your chopped and grated veggies. Add a large pinch of dried oregano and 2 bay leaves, then cook slowly, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes with the lid on, or until the vegetables are soft but not starting to brown.

Meanwhile, peel 1 small butternut squash, then carefully cut it in half, scoop out and discard the seeds, and coarsely grate the flesh. Add it to the pan of vegetables. Add 4 (14.5 oz) cans plum tomatoes with juice, 2 cups water, a pinch of sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the squash is soft. Take the pan off the heat, spoon out the bay leaves, and let the sauce cool slightly before blitzing with a stick blender until smooth (or use a blender or food processor in batches, but make sure the lid is secure). Makes 13 cups.

 

 

Here is mine, simmering while I grated the squash.  I remember now that I did not have a bay leaf, FYI.  I let the sauce simmer while I finished the painting project I mentioned last week.  And yes, that’s the breakfast smoothie I’ve currently become addicted to.  Let me know if your family likes this sauce!

All the crafty ladies…

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And men – I have one friend who is a crafty gentleman -

 

I read about this idea for crocheting or knitting hats for people still struggling in Japan over at Aurie’s blog.  Aurie writes with me and some other awesome mammas at Growing Your Homeschool.

 

I’ve never crocheted a hat before – but this is a great reason to give it a go.  Here is a site filled with knit, crochet, or sewing patterns for hats, if you’d like to participate as well.

 

On a side note  - just like my overuse of the word ‘awesome’ – I have a problem with exclamation points.  I just love them.  And I really do talk that way in real life.  However, in a blog I don’t think it’s advisable to have every! sentence! end! with! an! exclamation!  Aren’t you glad I went back for another proofread and realized that I had used THREE exclamation points in five sentences.  Is there exlamatory

Sweet gift idea

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Farmer Boy’s Alphabet Phonics tutor has been such a blessing to our family.  I am so thankful for her.  We wanted to give her something – just because.

 

You know about the cookie recipe from last week?  We baked some of those up.  When it came time to package a few of them, I couldn’t decide what to do…I wanted it to look nice.  But without plastic wrap or throw-away stuff.

 

Then, inspiration struck.  My mother makes incredible plum jelly for us each year.  I am always saving the jars to give her for the next batch.  Except for this one:

 

Re-used gift ribbon & there you go.  Pretty AND practical.  Heart it.

A great cookie recipe

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I’ve been inspired to renew my commitment to healthier eating after reading my friend’s blog bread with honey.  I wanted to make a treat of some sort yesterday when I opened a new jar of our favorite peanut butter, and I found this:

 

Peanut Butter Cookies made with no sugar or animal fat.

 

The reviews are in and it’s thumbs up around the table here.  I cooked the first sheet a bit too long, so the texture was chalky.  The second set has a moister, more pleasing cookie-like softness without the dryness.  I’m also considering using applesauce in place of some of the maple syrup and oil next time (great suggestion from my mother-in-law).  Oh – and I used creamy peanut butter instead of chunky and that seemed to work out just fine.  Also I baked these at 325 in my convection oven instead of 350 – but I reduce the temperature on almost every recipe I bake so go with whatever your  oven usually does for you.

 

Keep in mind that you need to use REAL maple syrup.   If you’ve been buying imitation syrup (on the label it will say something like “with the taste of real maple syrup” and on the back it will list high-fructose corn syrup as the #1 ingredient) you are in for sticker shock.  As with most things that are not bad for you, it costs more because it is not made of a by-product or sustained by chemical preservatives and therefore requires a completely different (and usually more labor-intensive) method to bring it to your table.  This, in turn, means it costs more for you, the consumer, in monetary terms.

 

I like to think of it this way:  It is usually true that you get what you pay for.  I have found this to cross over to most aspects of life.  Whether you are paying in time, elbow grease, sweat, practice or dollars, the more you put in the better the results tend to be.  This often makes something you want to buy worth waiting and saving for in order to invest in something that will last.  The same is true with food – the more expensive foods will reap the greatest benefit and do the most for you.  Also, they usually taste much better once you get used to eating actual food instead of nutritionally-fortified boxed items.

 

You can buy pasta that is incredibly inexpensive, and it will keep you from starving.  However, your body will suffer from the poor nutrition, lack of fiber, and energy expended digesting something with so little return.  You can also buy really healthy pasta (our favorite is this kind) but it is going to cost a lot more because it has *real food* as the ingredients.  I could probably make extremely healthy pasta and it would be moan-worthy, but only after a lot of practice and time.  So I’m going with the box version for now and that is close enough.

 

Fruits and vegetables are another great example.  It is unarguable that a diet high in vegetables and fruits is the healthiest, and the more you consume raw, the better.  It’s like breastfeeding – indisputable fact that it is what a body needs and performs best with.  You can buy canned fruits and vegetables, and yes they are still nutritious though many of them have added salt or preservatives you probably want to avoid.  Frozen is a bit more expensive, but frozen vegetables retain more of their nutrients than canned vegetables do.  But the best for you?  Of course fresh vegetables are healthiest, and eating them raw is the best way to get every good thing you can from them.  So as you would guess, fresh vegetables not only cost the most, but if you are cooking them require a different level of involvement to prepare.  But it’s worth it.

 

I have also found that, since I began working to change how we were eating (around nine years ago) I have come around to the understanding that it may *seem* like a lot more work to make peanut butter cookies from scratch with all-natural ingredients – but actually it is not. It’s just a different way of doing things, and the more practice I have had with making meals from “whole” foods, the easier and simpler it has become.  Not to beat a dead horse, but once again it is like breastfeeding.  Our culture has a strange idea that bottle-feeding an infant is easier than breastfeeding.  In actual fact, nothing could be further from the truth – artificially feeding a baby is SO much more work, between purchasing and mixing the formula, washing and sterilizing all the equipment, not to mention the cost of all that formula and equipment!  I was fortunate that I saw other mothers breastfeeding, so I had an idea of how it would work for me.  Sit down (or sling up) and the only effort required on my part was lowering the flap on my nursing tank.  It required an investment of practice and frustration instead of dollars, but the payoff was astronomical.  (BTW kudos to all those mothers who pumped and bottle-fed.  It is all the work of formula-feeding, but with the medical benefits of breastfeeding.)

 

Feeding my family with simple recipes made from a variety of foods in as close to their natural state as possible – that’s my mantra and I’m sticking to it.  I hope your family enjoys these cookies as much as mine have!