Bridal Shower || Food!

We had one :P

And it was nice. 

Here's where a lot of the ideas came from :)

We had some great food and decorations and games and guests! :) I had a lot of preparation pictures - but on the day of the shower I didn't take any pictures. Too busy :)

I'll share the recipes in today's post

Sun Tea

This is the newest favorite tea in our house ( we go through phases ) 

It makes wonderful sun tea!

With it being in the 80s and sunny, it's been perfect weather for making sun tea!

What's Baking? || April

This month I actually have some pictures of my own, but they're not very pretty. I'm sure you'll be able to sympathize with recipes not turning out exactly as pictured. I mean really, does it matter how good it looks if it tastes good? :)

What's Baking? || March

by Bethany

One of the things I missed most at school was having a kitchen to bake in. There were a few opportunities to borrow a kitchen for an evening, but it's nothing like being home and baking something on a whim.

This past month I've been doing a lot of baking, so I thought it would be fun to share some of the delicious new recipes we've discovered.

Doctor Who Party || Food, Favors, and the Event

Thursday and Friday were busy with house cleaning and food prep for the big day on Saturday. Most things were easy to put together ahead of time, leaving only the finishing touches to complete Saturday morning.

Baby Bunny Birthday

It's Baby Bunny's one week birthday!

*cue the fireworks and confetti*

Ummm... yeah, that's a hollyhock. 

We have affectionately nicknamed him (we refer to Baby as a him, but we don't know for sure) Khan (from Star Trek), because each time we peek in on him, he freaks out, jumping all over and squeaking.

We imagine him saying: 

Can't you see the resemblance? Maybe it's just the teeth. :)

He does not like to be disturbed. He quite enjoys his peace and quiet with no brothers and sisters to bother him.

We even made a pie for this occasion, though, Khan can't enjoy it with us. :)

It's raspberry, picked fresh today from a friend's patch.

 Yesterday, after processing some cherries that had been chilling in the fridge, Becca decided we should make pie.

I found a recipe here, at The Candid Appetite , for a cherry pie with an almond crust.

Now, cherry and almond is one of my most favorite flavor combos in the world, so it was a quick decision to choose this recipe.

Let's just say it was so delicious, we had to make another one today, and Khan's birthday made a nice excuse. :)

The only thing was, we didn't have anymore cherries, so we decided to try it with raspberries.

It's rather rustic, but with a scoop of homemade vanilla or chocolate chip ice cream = Delicious!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our valentine to you, our dear readers: Cheesecake!

Well, you have to buy the ingredients and make it for yourself, but we are giving you our most favorite recipe for it.

The basic recipe is from a well loved cookbook of ours "Just a Matter of Thyme".

We've added a few things to make it extra tasty.

Turtle Cheesecake

Ingredients:

3 (8 oz) pkgs. of cream cheese, softened

1 can sweetened condensed milk

3 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

20 chocolate sandwich cookies (we use Oreos)

Blend cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, eggs and vanilla until smooth.

Set aside.

To make crust, crush cookies in a food processor or blender until fine.

 Press into the bottom of a 8 in. springform pan. 

Pour cheesecake batter over the crust. 

Bake in a 300 degree oven for 1 hour or until set.

( we couldn't help it!) 

Cool completely.

Toppings:

Mini chocolate chips (a debated amount. you can use your discretion) 

carmel sauce (recipe here)

chopped pecans

Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top of the cheesecake, then pour the warm carmel over it.

Finish with the pecans.

Chill at least one hour before serving.

Enjoy!

Fried Rice

   by: Bethany

Fried rice has to be one of my favorite meals, and it is such a great dish to make with leftover rice. Here's a recipe I've made for my family on quite a few occasions. It's really versatile depending on what veggies or meat you have on hand. 

  Ingredients:

4 tablespoons oil  (toasted sesame oil gives a really nice nutty flavor, but whatever cooking oil works)

4 eggs, beaten

1 cup chopped onion (I used red onion this time, because we happened to have it. White or green onion would be good also)

2 cups cooked pork, chicken, beef, or seafood

4 cups veggies (a frozen mix works great for this, otherwise, any leftover veggies you need to use up)

4-6 cups cold, cooked rice

6 tablespoons soy sauce

6 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon ground ginger

salt and pepper

In a large pot, heat two tablespoons of oil and add onion. 

 As onion begins to soften, add in eggs.

 Break up the eggs as they brown.

Then stir in veggies, 

rice, 

meat, and remaining oil.

 Cook until rice begins to crisp, about 5 minutes.

  Combine soy sauce, water, and ginger in a small bowl, then pour over the rice. 

Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the rice has absorbed all the liquid, 3 to 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve.

 

Enjoy!

Homemade Garlic Powder

By Becca

Real appetizing picture, huh?
Last week Mom and I harvested our garlic and I sat on our back porch the rest of the afternoon turning that (picture above) into this (picture below)

I certainly wasn't excepting those dirt-encrused, gray papered bulbs with crazy hairlike roots to be hiding the smooth rose-colored cloves.

Is it just me, or do they remind anyone else of flower petals?

Alright, I'm getting distracted, 'focus Becca, focus!', I'll try to get back on track…
Oh yes! I was about to share with you my recipe for garlic powder.  It's very simple, all you need is-

Garlic, a dehydrator, a blender and a container for the finished product, we used a empty spice bottle.

First, mince the garlic. I chopped my garlic roughly and it took the big pieces a lot longer to dry. I should've minced.  Spread evenly on the dehydrator racks and dry until everything is completely void of moisture, gummy garlic will not make garlic powder, it will make garlic clumps.

The skins turned more purple after drying

 Once dried, place in blender and grind it to a powder.

Be careful when you take the lid off the blender, your face will be bombarded with clouds of garlic smoke and it is very strong!

 When the smoke had cleared, pour the powder in to your container and use it wherever you want some garlicky goodness!

Note: I left the skins on the garlic because I wondered if it would act as a anti-cakeing agent, or was it because I too tired to peel it off?  : )

Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

By: Bethany

  Why does it seem like every time I post a recipe, it is one for cookies? We do eat other things at our house :)

  This is a recipe I devised myself, borrowing slightly from a few other recipes, and if I make them just like my recipe says, they turn out soft, chewy, and wonderful.  But if I make a substitution, (which I happen to do about 50% of the time. Yes, silly me) they don't turn out the same, and my family gets disappointed.  That actually happened right before our vacation.  I made a double batch, monkeyed with the recipe a bit, plus over baked one of the batches.  Though we did eat some of them, the rest were fed to greedy seagulls who hovered near our hotel balcony for a chance to grab one. They didn't care that the cookies were hard and stale  :)

Makes about 5 dozen cookies.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar 

(Oh yes, these cookies are not healthy at all :) )

1 cup brown sugar 

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 3/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups chocolate chips

 Preheat your oven to 350 degrees (do it now, before you forget!). Cream together butter and both kinds of sugar until smooth, then add eggs and vanilla. Combine well, then add flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Mix until all combined, then put in the chocolate chips (Mmmmm).  Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for ten minutes. If your oven is preheated all the way, ten minutes is all it should take, any longer and they get too brown and lose their chewiness.

 This is the tricky part. Make sure your timer is set! When you pull them out, they should still be puffy in the center, and only slightly golden on the edges.

                Enjoy!

Snickerdoodles

by: Bethany

  Bad, bad me… With my family suffering from colds, what do I decide to make today?

Cookies!

Not that they won't appreciate them, it's just that sugar won't exactly help their immune systems  :)

 But there's a reason I'm making them; actually three. 

   First, we (Mom, Becca, and I) are going on a mini road trip tomorrow to meet a friend, and cookies are good snacks for in the car.

  Second, we are babysitting 5 little friends this afternoon, and they would also enjoy them.

  Third, there's a bag of cinnamon chips in the pantry just begging to be made into something delicious.

  So you see, I just have to make cookies  :)

  We have found that snickerdoodles become even more awesome when you add cinnamon chips. By the way, why are they called snickerdoodles? Hold on a second and I'll go look it up…..

   

  Ok, I'm back. Here's what wikipedia says:  The Joy of Cooking claims that snickerdoodles are probably German in origin, and that the name is a corruption of the German word Schneckennudeln ("snail noodles"), a kind of pastry. It is also possible that the name is simply a nonsense word with no particular meaning, originating from a New England tradition of whimsical cookie names.

Hmmm… snail noodles? I think someone probably made it up on a whim. Alright, back to the recipe. Because everyone is sick, I'll make these the healthiest cookies ever, or at least I'll try :)

Ingredients:

1 cup coconut oil

 (either expeller pressed, which doesn't taste like anything, or virgin, which has a strong coconut flavor. I made a batch of both, and they are equally yummy)

1 1/2 cups natural sugar (I used light brown muscovado)

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 3/4 cups wheat flour

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups cinnamon chips

3 Tbsp, natural sugar and 3 tsp. cinnamon mixed in a large shallow bowl or plate.

Cream together oil and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla, and blend well. Then add flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon chips. Mix well, then shape dough into 1" balls and roll in cinnamon and sugar mixture. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.      

(Becca [the photographer]: Yum! yum! yum!)

Enjoy your Snail Noodles!