More Fall Baking

It's safe to say my boys are happy and full these days!  Ra devoured two of these bad boys in one sitting!  We love apple dumplings, especially in the fall.  You can take me out of Pennsylvania, but you can't take the Dutch Girl outta me!  

Baking Up A Storm!

It's no secret that I love baking yummy treats for my family.  Ra had been asking for my delicious pumpkin whoopie pies so I decided it was time to satisfy his sweet tooth!  The day before I made 2 crumb top apple pies that he tried to devour before Andy could even get a piece!  I made these to distract him from the pies!

These didn't even last a week in our house!  We also gave some to our friends who love them as much as Ra does!  

Ra started asking about the lemon flavored ones this past weekend.  Won't he be surprised to open the fridge to find this surprise after football practice tonight?!?

He is just like his daddy when it comes to homemade yummy treats.  The way to his heart is definitely through his stomach!  Both my boys were happy last week with lots of choices!

Homesickness Cure

A good friend of mine passed away this fall.  He was my mentor when I taught at CV.  Perry was a great man, teacher, principal, husband, father and friend.  He was only one year older than me and died of a massive heart attack overnight.  It really hit me after my friend Chris called to give me the news.  I really wanted to go home for the funeral but the timing of it was hard too work out with our schedules, school, practices, etc.  

I was feeling a bit homesick for my friends and all things Lancaster so I baked up some shoo fly pies. My kids aren't big fans, but Andy and I enjoyed them!  Nothing like a taste of home to cure what ails you!

Copy Cat Recipe

I found this awesome treat this week at Native Sun. It's a chocolate mint tart from a company called Hail Merry. The ingredient list was one that actually sounded good for GF and Vegan. It contains organic maple syrup, dark cocoa, almond flour, organic extra virgin coconut oil, sea salt and organic peppermint oil. I figured, I can recreate that!

I started by first making the crust. 

For one tart I used:

1/4 c almond flour

Pinch Real Salt (harvest from Utah & our favorite salt!)

1 T dark cocoa

1 T organic extra virgin coconut oil - heated to a liquid

1 tsp organic pure maple syrup

I mixed all the ingredients with a whisk in a bowl then pressed it into a 4" tart/round pan and put it in the fridge to set. 

Next I made the filling. 

I used:

3 T organic extra virgin coconut oil - warmed to a liquid

1 T canned coconut milk

2 T organic pure maple syrup

1/3 c dark cocoa 

2 drops of Young Living's peppermint essential oil

I combined all the ingredients with a whisk in a bowl. Then I poured it into the solidified crust and returned it to the fridge to set. 

I can't wait for Ra to get home and try them!!!  The filling tasted delish when I licked the bowl so I'm hoping this will be a cheaper alternative to the Hail Merry. NOTE: These tarts need to be kept in the fridge because of the coconut oil. 

I've Been Cooking Up A Storm

Apple Dumplings

Apple Butter

 Flax Granola Bars

Apple Crisp and fresh Pesto with basil from the garden.  I froze the pesto in ice cube trays and stored it in a ziplock bag in the freezer for future use.  

Roasted Pumpkin seeds

 Freshly squeezed lemonade

One Pot Taco Casserole

We like fall foods here - and yes, lemonade is for the fall because it's from the lemons harvested from our tree in the backyard!

Fall Cooking

Every fall, there are certain foods that bring back memories.  One of those is applesauce.  I made some organic applesauce from my favorite Jonagold apples.  Finding good, organic apples in Florida isn't an easy task because they don't grow anywhere locally.  Everyone in the family is enjoying the freshly made sauce!  I also made some yummy GF apple pies - one for each boy.  That's the way to both of their hearts!  ;)

All that homemade beef vegetable soup I made over the summer is great to thaw out on a cool fall evening.  We don't get many of them so I took advantage of the one less muggy evening we had last week!

Andy requested some good old fashioned Pa Dutch beef bbq the other night.  We grew up eating beef bbq, not pork like our kids.  Some people call these sloppy joes.  This was a favorite of our family's for camping because mom would pull it out of the freezer and take along.

It's That Time of Year...

When I miss the northeast...Heck, I even miss Utah during the fall!  I miss crisp mornings with a nip in the air, cool evenings for a fire in the pit and marshmallows being roasted.  In honor of all things fall - pumpkin and apple everything - I just received my order of Pumpkin Spice Crio Bru.  I love Crio Bru.  The company who created it is located in Utah near where we use to live.  I remember when they launched.  I was hooked immediately!  I use to be able to pick it up at my local grocery store.  Now I have to get it shipped across the country.  I also fell in love with the Mojito iced Crio this summer.  It's perfect for our hot, muggy mornings here in Florida!

I think I might go brew a cup right now...Later!

The Things You Can Make in a Crockpot!

Who knew you could cook ham loaf in a crockpot?  It was delicious and filled the house with smells of my childhood...Sadly, no one makes ham loaf better than Andy's mom and I haven't had hers in years!  She must have a secret trick that no one else in my family has mastered.

I think this sums it up for me...

You can take the girl outta Pennsylvania, but you can't take the Pennsylvania outta the girl!

Time To Make The Jelly!

Earth Fare just opened near our old house and they had a huge sale on organic strawberries - and not the massive jumbo sized Driscoll ones.  These looked like the kind you grow in your backyard!  I bought them all up so I could make jelly!  I haven't made strawberry jelly in years!  Our house smelled so delicious and about half of the jars are gone in just a few weeks!  The kids (and Andy) love it!

I ran back to get more "strawburries" as my Nanny would say to make some strawberry shortcake!  I decided to try a different recipe and pulled out one of my old Manor Church Cookbooks.  Aren't old church cookbooks the best?  I converted the recipe to GF/CF so Ra could eat it.  It was as big of a hit as the jelly!

Summertime Means Popsicles

I am known for making different type of popsicle concoctions for my kids every summer.  This one is a Chunko favorite.  We mixed up some root beer float pops out of vanilla coconut ice cream and draft root beer.  My kids go nutz for them!

New Favorite Treat

I have been making the kids some homemade frozen treats.  All I did was slice up fruit and put that and some flavored coconut water into a popsicle mold and put them in the freezer...

Bite Sized Apple Crisp

I wanted to make some baked oatmeal with apples in muffin pans so that we could pull them out of the freezer for quick snacks or breakfast.  I found a muffin recipe - probably could have just used my baked oatmeal recipe and altered the time, but this one is rather yummy!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. old fashioned oats (gf for us)
1 1/4 c. whole wheat flour, sifted (gf flour substitute for us)
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce (organic cinnamon for us)
3 T canola oil (sunflower oil for us)
1 egg white
1 T 100% pure maple syrup
1 apple, peeled and diced

Topping:
1/4 c old fashioned oats (gf for us)
1 T brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 T melted butter

Preheat over to 400.  Mix dry ingredients in large bowl.  Mix wet ingredients in small bowl.  Mix both together.  Fill muffin tins with mixture.  I used paper liners and a mini muffin pan.  Mix topping and spoon on top of muffins.  I could have used a second batch of the topping - not enough for all my mini muffins.  Bake regular sized muffins for 16-18 minutes.  I baked my 2 trays of minis for about 10 minutes - or until a toothpick comes out clean.  

I make my apple crisp with oatmeal & flour so this reminded Riley of dessert rather than breakfast and he thought it was an extra special treat!

**UPDATE**  I made these again tonight because 1/2 of my batch from yesterday was already gone!  I made regular sized muffins and they are even yummier (is that a word?) than the bite sized!  We are trying to move away from cereals/processed breakfasts but it's a lot more work for me and we don't have the freezer space so I can make a bunch of things at once and pull them out when we need them for lunches or breakfasts...Soon though!

My new Cocktail

Ever since we came home from Christmas with my family, everyone except Ra has been struggling with fighting off a cold.  I have had a clogged ear for days now.  K keeps getting congested and Andy's exhausted and wants to sleep all the time.  

I searched online for a remedy that would help me and Kendall with our congestion.  I came across this one and thankfully had all the supplies.  I must warn you - it's NASTY, but it WORKED!  My ear was completely clogged and less than 10 minutes after I took it, it cleared right up!  IT worked better than Sudafed or DayQuil so I suffer through it.  

Here's the recipe:
1/4 c. lemon juice
1/4 c. apple cider vinegar
2-3 T organic honey
1/4-1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4-1/2 tsp. ground ginger

Mix lemon juice and AC vinegar in pot till gently simmering.  Add honey, pepper and ginger.  Store in jar and keep in cool, dark place.  Adults take 1-2 T a day.  It's better warm so I heat it first.  I must warn you - it makes me shiver when I take it, but it has worked so far...better than anything else I've tried.  No, I haven't tortured Kendall with this nasty cocktail.  She'd hate me for it and spit it everywhere!

I found the recipe on the blog listed on the picture, but when I went to link it to this post to give credit, the blog didn't work.

Chow Time!

A few months back I got this wild idea to find an old entertainment center for free on the side of the road or from KSL.com and convert it into a play kitchen.  I found lots of fun ideas online and "pinned" them to my pintrest board so that I could figure out what and how I wanted to do this project.

On January 2, I found a perfectly shaped and perfectly priced (FREE) solid oak entertainment center in Sandy.  Thankfully Andy was home to help me go pick it up.  This thing was HEAVY and I know Kevin is grateful he wasn't home to help Andy get this thing home!

I was so excited to get started on it that I forgot to take the "before" pictures!  DUH!   We got it off the back of our truck and I started deconstructing and sanding it before we took it inside to the basement.

After I had it stripped and in my workspace, I had the hardest time deciding what colors to paint it.  This decision was WORSE than any of the last three kitchens we built!  Who would have thought that would end up being stressful for me!  I originally thought I'd paint it white, but then I remembered how much I liked the Pottery Barn red kitchen set and how neat that might look in the playroom...Then I was afraid that with the yellow walls of our playroom, it might look too much like McDonalds!

I finally decided to paint the frame red and the back wall tan and make the appliances look like stainless steel, hoping I could pull off a good look.

This pic was taken with my phone so it's poor quality, but you can get a feel for how things started.  There was a sliding door on the bottom that I took off and a CD tray in the upper left section.  I also took off the door from the upper left section and reused it for a fridge.

If I would have known I wasn't going to paint it white, I might have used a tinted primer instead of white primer.  I had to use 2-3 coats of primer and then 4 coats of red paint to cover the primer!  That'll teach me not to change my mind, huh?

Ta Dahhhhh!

It still needs a few accessories, but for the most part, it's complete.  I made the curtain and the place mats tonight.

I LOVE how the colors came together!  After all that stress, it was worthwhile!

The picture frame is our kitchen window overlooking the wildflowers at Albion Basin in Alta.  The sink is a dog bowl from Wally World and the faucet cost me a whopping $3 from Habitat Re-Use It.

The burners are wooden disks from Michaels and the knobs for the stove I found unfinished at Home Depot.  Andy used Liquid Nails to secure them for us.  The great pots and pans came from Ikea for $10 and look great in our kitchen.

This was the part that required Andy's help (and the picture below).  He constructed the microwave from scratch and attached it.  It was his idea to add the plexiglass windows to both the microwave and the oven door.  I mod podged the keypad onto the microwave.  Riley was impressed by the fact that I included the buttons with words on them!

The oven door has a magnetic latch so it doesn't fall down and it already had a shelf in this section so we didn't need to add one to it.

This is the fridge door that I attempted and failed at making it magnetic.  I found magnetic primer spray paint at Wally World and had no luck with the paint cans (after 3 attempts I flew the surrender flag).  

The kids LOVE their new play kitchen.  I have eaten so many meals in the playroom it's amazing I haven't gained 10 extra pounds!  Kendall can't get enough of playing house now.  She tells me how her baby made a mess at the table, how baby didn't like her dinner, etc.  Both kids enjoy pretend play and it's great that they can use the kitchen together.  I know Andy's just glad this project is done and he's hoping I don't take on any more like this anytime soon!  It was a rather easy project, but because he's not home much (if at all these days) and I needed him to help with a few parts, it took us a few extra weeks than I anticipated when we started.  I'm still hoping to find an old phone to hang from the side wall and maybe a chalk board and a towel rack for her dish towel...