Tuesday Hike

Posing on the YO BABY.

This baby loves dough!

"I'm going to bleed everywhere!!!"

Nix, across the river from his friends.

milk jug tomatoes

I don't get very many, and I didn't build a trellis for them, and the kids keep stepping on the thing. However I eat about one little tomato a week and it keeps me happy. The kids won't eat them, but they love to pick them and watch them grow.

Lego cake

Very fun! Not as hard as it looks. Here is how I did it:

I baked store bought cake mix. Half a box per 8x4" loaf pans. Cooled them completely, cut the top of the cakes off to make them flat. Wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer to firm the cakes. I made marshmallow fondant from this website. The knobs on top are large marshmallows cut in half. I colored the fondant, rolled it and placed it on top and helped it form around the bumps and edges. I educated myself online about how fondant works cuz this was my first time making it and working with it. It was a good experience and I was happy with how they turned out. Thank you Emily and internet! I think I will use fondant with all the cakes I make.

Well...

Brett and I can never get Tino to look at the camera. Here is a picture Nix took of him. Cute little turd. He bashed his teeth in last Saturday, and a friend of ours snapped them back into place. Apparently the best way to break your front teeth is toward the back of your mouth, the nerves are less likely to sever. And if you do bash your teeth in you want to put them back into place within the hour or they will have to be re-dislocated in order to be put back into place. I'm a nervous reck about his teeth now. Well, according to this picture he really doesn't need top teeth. Yesterday we went to the bank, he and Nix were running around and he fell and hit his head on the wall, making a dent in the wall. He was complaining about his teeth hurting afterwards and I had to tell him, he hit his forehead. His teeth were fine. My kids foreheads are made of concrete!

Having a baby is a lot of work, especially if you aren't getting enough sleep. But all the service and gifts make it fun, and in the end I only remember the good stuff anyways.

Here is Corbs taking a nap... all. day. long.

This is our latest family picture. We are at the gas station. On the top is Nix, Tino and the scribbled out person is part of the gas station, then below is Daddy wearing clothes, Corbs, the gas station again and Mommy. I love Nix's art work.

We made bread today. The first time I made bread with three kids. Corbs is asleep to the hum of the wheat grinder, the Bosch and the sink water running while I washed the dishes. This works! Popsicles make it all the more fun, it keeps them from eating all the dough too.

Happy summer days

The hose entertains Nix for a long time, but doesn't satisfy his need to be under the water. Tino is happy to be able to play with these cars without interruption. Lately he has been filling his diaper then saying to me, "Poopoo potty?" in his cute little voice.

Cinnamon rolls for the world cup... not a very happy ending for the USA today... so it turns out, the cinnamon rolls were more or less to ease the pain of our loss today. You can find this amazing recipe here.

Tino would rather be out of the pool, or relaxing in the hot tub.

Nix would rather be under the water, he would actually think it very convenient to be able to breathe the water.

Messy cake

My friend put together a Father's Day Bar-B-Q tonight at her pool. I was responsible to bring dessert. I stewed about what to make for over a month. I found a recipe for S'mores cupcakes. So I made the cupcakes and put them together into a cake so I could write "Who's your Daddy" on it. It is one messy dessert, so I would only recommend it if you were at a pool party or outdoor party, otherwise you will have a sticky mess all over your house, if you have a 2 year old. We are celebrating Father's Day tomorrow too, but this was really fun to do in advance to let Brett know that we love him even a little more.

The homemade marshmallow was making me laugh, there was so much marshmallow creme and I just kept loading it on and there was still more left in the mixer bowl. This is what's inside. Bottom gram cracker crust, gram cracker cupcake, I cut a hole in the middle and filled with chocolate creme, then topped with homemade marshmallow.

So yummy...

Loves to bake

Nix will pull out a cookbook and tell me what he wants to make. Today was one of those days, so we baked a chocolate cake for no reason at all except that Nix wanted to make it. Turns out he really likes to be involved in the whole process, especially the licking and eating. He is my little kitchen helper. The other one was asleep .

In my searching Part II

I am still trying to figure it out. Last night our Relief Society Meeting included a presentation on Sprouting. A couple of women shared a lot about what they have learned, so I will share what I learned with you.

First off, I tried sprouting wheat a month or so ago. I soaked the wheat for 12 hours, then rinsed it and left it in my little colander to drain, then every 10-12 hours rinsed and let drain, for a few days on my counter. All I was left with was soft, wet wheat grains... nothing. Embarrassing. So I have been waiting for this sprouting presentation since then to see what I did wrong. They recommended I put the wet wheat in a dark place. The seeds need to think they are underground, which is DARK. Well that's good to know, maybe. Then, when the seeds sprout to the size you want, put them in the light and they will become rich in chlorophyll and turn green, then they will be ready to eat. Also, maybe my wheat isn't right for sprouting. I will use it for eating whole and grinding for bread. There are a lot of different seeds that you can order at www.handypantry.com.

"One of the most common sprouts is that of the mung bean (Vigna radiata); another common sprout is the Chickpeas & alfalfa sprout and the barley sprout.

Other seeds that can be sprouted include adzuki bean, almond, amaranth, annatto seed, anise seed, arugula, basil, brown rice, navy bean, pinto bean, lima bean, broccoli, buckwheat,cabbage, canola seed, caragana, cauliflower, celery, chia seed, chickpeas, chives, cilantro (coriander, dhania), clover, cress, dill, fennel, fenugreek, flax seed, garlic, hemp seed, kale,kamut, kat, leek, green lentils, lupins, pearl millet, mizuna, mustard, oats, onion, black-eyed peas, green peas, pigeon peas, snow peas, peanut, psyllium, pumpkin, quinoa, radish, rye,sesame, soybean, spelt, sunflower, tatsoi, triticale, watercress, and wheat berries." Wikipedia

This was their demonstration. First you need a glass quart jar, and a plastic sieve lid. Put a spoonful of seeds in the jar and let them soak, for alfalfa size seeds they need at least 15 minutes to soak, mung size beans probably need 5 hours to soak, then drain it and put the jar upside down at an angle in a bowl so the water can drain out. If the seeds sit in their water, they will become moldy. Put them in a cupboard for the night, then in the morning, pour water in the jar and swish the seeds around aggressively then drink the water, because the water is full of really healthy stuff now. Put the jar back in the bowl to drain and put back in your cupboard. Then before you go to bed, repeat the water swishing and draining. Again in the morning, again at night... etc. When your sprouts are the size you want, put them in the sunlight so they turn green, then eat them. You can refrigerate them for up to a week. You eat the whole thing, seed and sprout.

After soaking, I've been told to eat one seed, try it and if it's the crunchy or softness you desire, then it's ready for sprouting. Kidney bean, Potato seed and Tomato seed sprouts are TOXIC.

Alfalfa sprouts are rich in phytochemicals, protect against cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis and fibrocystic breast disease. They stimulate natural killer cell activity, which strengthens the immune system. I've also been told they are beneficial in reducing symptoms of PMS and menopause, including hot flashes. Well that's worth it right there women! They contain high concentrations of antioxidants and are abundant sources of vitamins A, B, C, E, and K, the minerals calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. Also carotene, chlorophyll, amino acids and trace elements. They contain 35% protein. Alfalfa sprouts produce over 10 times the seeds weight in sprouts, one pound of alfalfa seed produces 10-14 pounds of sprouts.

If that isn't enough, here are 10 reasons to eat sprouts:

1. Only pennies per serving

2. Simple and Easy- once I actually do it, I will post my proud pictures and exclaim "It IS Easy!" I know you don't need to use Handy Pantry to sprout, but it may be a good start (since the seeds are grown especially for sprouting). A friend of mine sprouts wheat and regular lintels from the store.

3. Fresh and ready in just 3-7 days. This "garden in your kitchen" grows very fast in any kind of weather. No digging, planting, weeding, pests or chemicals involved.

4. Toxin-free food

5. Complete foods= super duper HEALTHY

6. Tasty and Delicious- enjoy them in salads, on sandwiches, stir fried, steamed, or baked in bread.

7. Highly Nutritious, sounds a little bit like #5 I know, not my list. But this is important, right?

8. Low in Calories and Fat- I'm a calorie and fat lover, but I can't eat fatty stuff all the time or my heart will stop working.

9. Helps Detox your body! Now this is my favorite one. I don't have to spend a fortune on all those crazy drinks to be healthy?

10. Helps Build your Immune System

Pistachios

This boy LOVES pistachios! Sometimes I don't crack them fast enough and he pops the whole shelled nut in his mouth. He definitely doesn't like everything, a little finicky, but he loves beans and pistachios.

In my searching

I found a wonderful website for SPROUTING. I have wanted to do it for some time, but wasn't sure how to begin. So I looked up some stuff and found this website. You can buy stuff, but it is free to search and learn information, so no purchase necessary. I hope if you have sprouted or are going to begin, that you will let me know how it is going and what you have learned. And I will do the same. www.sproutpeople.com

Banana Bread for Breakfast

I made banana bread Saturday morning. This morning, Tino walked into my room, carrying half a loaf of banana bread. He and Nix were in the fridge. Nix was drinking from a camel pack his daddy put lemonade in, and stored in the fridge to keep cold. Tino grabbed the banana bread, pulled the plastic off of it, then proceeded to eat it while walking around the house with it in his tiny hands. He must have been hungry. I saw him, and started to laugh. I let him take a few bites out of it, then I took it, sliced a few pieces and heated them up. So we had banana bread for breakfast, and everyone was happy! Nix continued to drink from the pack in the fridge all day. Every time he opened the fridge, he was followed by his excited brother, whom he shared with.

It's TRUE!

I've been keeping track.  And the lasts couple weeks that I've been keeping track, I've noticed I have eaten a Cookie a Day!  At least.  I can't go a day without eating a cookie?  I guess if there is ever a day that I need to watch what I eat, I can eliminate cookies, then I will probably be just fine.  Oh, I love Cookies!!

I made Gnocchi

And Tino walked around with a bowl of it yumming it up for an hour.

How to make Gnocchi

The Grill

Bar-B-Q season has started for us.  We make regular trips to the store these days for fresh meat and vegetables.  Brett is perfecting his skills, and the food he grills tends to taste so much better than the food I'm preparing on the stove.  We don't do the food above on a regular basis or I think my heart would stop.  But on Monday when our Disneyland plans ended abruptly we decided not to let it ruin our day, and had a Bar-B-Q at our house instead.  We love it when family and friends visit us!  Bar-B-Q at our house any day!

Christmas Eve

This year we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with the Jared Bergener family at our house... there aren't many years that we have a chance to have Christmas at OUR house. Nix fell asleep at about 7pm and Rossi went to bed a little after that. Since my boys were asleep Par and Rae helped me make cookies for Santa, they helped pour in the ingredients and licked everything they possibly could. It was fun having helpers. btw the paper in nix's mouth was put there after he fell asleep. And Ro did help in the kitchen while we got dinner ready. We had a traditional Ham for dinner, and I used the rest of my rainy day bread loaf by making croutons for a yummy caesar salad, and homemade caesar vinaigrette. 2 garlic cloves, 1/4 tsp tabasco, 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce, 2 Tbsp dijon mustard, mash into a paste with a fork, then add juice of 1 1/2 lemons, 1/2 cup olive oil, whisk or plunge in salad dressing mixer pourer until it thickens.

Waffles and Syrup

Brett called me on his way home from work tonight asking me what was for dinner.  When I make soup there is enough to sustain us for 3 or 4 days, so it makes for easy dinners for a few nights... but it really isn't Brett's idea of a yummy dinner if it is the same thing over and over again.  So when I told him that we were having soup for dinner he nicely mentioned that warm waffles and warm syrup sounded really good to him.  So I packaged up a thing of soup for him to bring to work for lunch tomorrow (if he doesn't bring it I will just put it in the freezer for a quick lunch for me in a couple weeks).  I usually go to recipezarr.com to check out recipes before I make something, I get an idea of what people do, then I make my own version of whatever I'm going to make... so with that said, you can do what you want with my version of yummy waffles.  Enjoy!

Heat up that waffle iron of yours.

Pull out 2 bowls, use one for the egg whites, and one for the egg yolks.  Put your 3 year old on the counter by the electric mixer and egg whites and tell him to hold that mixer as tight as he can and mix those whites until white peeks form or until you tell him to stop.  3 eggs total.   Then with the egg yolks, add 1/4 cup sugar, 1/8 cup oil and whisk together, add 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup wheat germ, 1/2 cup wheat bran (I'm out of whole wheat flour so this had to do), 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt and mix that a little, then add 1 1/2 cup milk.  Mix well, then fold this mixer in with the egg whites, just until blended.  Don't whisk, you want to FOLD them together.  I don't know why except it makes a fluffy batter, and it makes really yummy waffles.

SYRUP- you could buy the cheap stuff at the store, or spend a lot and buy the expensive stuff, I mean the real maple syrup, but I make my own so I don't have to worry about High Fructose Corn Syrup or Corn Syrup, or other crazy things... I buy Mapleine  and make my own (Sophi started this in our family)  I don't make it on the stove.  Let me tell you it is soooo easy how I do it.  I boil water in my kettle on the stove, then I get a big jar and put 2 cups of sugar in it, when the water is boiling I put 1 cup of boiling water in the jar with the sugar, then I add 1/2 tsp of mapleine and stir it all together.  It makes a lot, but after we use the syrup I put the lid on and put it in my cupboard, when we need syrup again we heat it up in the microwave.  This is the best syrup in the world, except for the expensive stuff.  *Caution, if you put boiling water in a jar, the jar might break on you, if you are afraid of this happening, prep the jar by placing it in the sink and putting real hot water in it.  It is safe to put the jar in the sink just in case it breaks.*  (Please let me know if I made any errors)

Bread Making Made Simple

I went to a lecture group with a few women from my church tonight and I was so enlightened that with the permission of Rebecca, I am sharing some things I learned.  

The Tricks:  Buy bread flour at Costco.  A 25 lb bag is currently $6.99.  Bread flour is a necessity cuz it is higher in gluten, all purpose flour is not the same thing.   Buy Redstar yeast at Costco, 2 lbs for $3.59.  This is important.  The same amount of yeast at a regular grocery store would cost you $106.56, three .25 ounce packets of yeast sell for $2.50.  The Bosch Universal mixer will save you so much time.  It is capable of mixing 15 lbs.  Rebecca makes 6 loaves of bread at a time.  Here is her bread cost comparison:  If you buy 4 loaves of bread per week at $3.00 per loaf, you will spend $625 per year on bread.  If you make 4 loaves of bread per week at 25 cents per loaf, you will pay $52 per year on bread.  At that rate you could pay for your Bosch in the first 8 months.  Energy costs to run your mixer and oven are fairly minimal and not included in the analysis.

Here is Rebecca's Basic Bread Recipe:  6 cups warm water, 2 Tbsp yeast, 2/3 cup sugar, 1 Tbsp Salt, 5 cups Whole Wheat Flour, Approximately 9 cups bread flour.  Mix everything as you go, add flour until dough is still sticky but firm.  Oil hands to remove from mixer and form into loaves.  Loaves weigh about 1.5 lbs each when wet.  Oil pans.  Bread only rises ONCE in the pans.  Bake at 325 for 37 minutes.  Let bread cool for 5 minutes in pans and it will contract and pop right out.  Finish cooling on a rack.  Bag with bread bags and freeze.  

Thaw on counter for a couple hours.  You can change the proportion of wheat flour to bread flour to taste.  Add 9 grain mix, flax meal, or rolled oats.  Make artisan bread, rolls or pizza with the dough.

Granola

5 cups oats (not instant), 3 Tbsp sesame seeds, 1 1/2 cups almonds coarsely chopped, 2 Tbsp cinnamon, 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1/3 cup oil (i used olive oil, canola or sesame oil would work too I think), 1/2 cup honey, 1/3 cup sweetened coconut flakes.  Mix together dry ingredients, then mix in the wet ingredients.  Spread on rimmed cookie sheet.  Bake at 325 degrees until it begins to brown (about 25 minutes), then stir it with a flat spatula, bake until it is light brown and fragrant (about 20 minutes longer).  Stir at least once more, and watch it carefully during the final minutes because it can burn quickly.  When you take it out it should be a nice lighter brown color.  It will be soft at first, but as it cools it will harden.  (You can add wheat germ or substitute flax seeds or sunflower seeds for sesame seeds, or substitute walnuts or pine nuts for almonds, or substitute raisins or crasins (only add after baking) for coconut flakes.  And you can just use maple syrup or you can just use honey, i used both).  Have fun with it.

This is my first attempt at making granola successfully.  We mix it in with our yogurt, we eat it dry and we eat it with milk.  It is an easy breakfast or snack.  If you can't eat it in a month, just freeze it and it will be good for 6 months.  

Pile O' Pancake

In case you were wondering.  This is what happens to a pancake when you let your child play with it instead of eating it.  If you were wondering what to do with this pile o' pancake, instead of throwing it away?  You could dry it out and use it for bread crumbs (when making meat loaf or breaded chicken?) or you could make a bread pudding out of it, or you could put it in a bowl with milk and sugar and force your child to eat it.  Can you guess what I did?  Honestly I can't remember, but I probably threw it away after I tried to make him to eat it.  Oh wait, I remember, he was pretending it be a dog... hence the bowl of water next to the pile of "dog food". ahhahahaha!  I still can't remember if he ate it though.

Yogurt

This is a staple in our home.  We buy a giant tub of full fat, plain yogurt.  Then we eat it for breakfast or a snack almost every day.  I mix in honey and vanilla extract or jam or whatever to sweeten it...  then we put granola, fruit, or flax seeds in it.  Nixon likes granola and bananas, Brett likes papaya and I like granola and berries.  I like buying the plain stuff cuz I can't trust the commercial sweeteners and you can use it in place of sour cream too.  I mix red chili sauce in it and put in on quesadillas, or potatoes, Sophi used it in her twice baked potato recipe instead of sour cream, and said it tasted the same. I sometimes mix it in with broth type soup.  Yogurt is so good for you too!  I know you can make it at home, and maybe someday I will.  But right now... I am happy with the giant tub, and am grateful they still sell it that way.