Angel Cookies

Here are the cookies I made for my niece’s first birthday party. They are sweet and yummy…and pink! Perfect for a little girl’s party, aren’t they? They are almost like a sugar cookie but a little richer because of the brown sugar added. They don’t need to be frosted but it adds a festive touch for a special occasion. I made these with a purple butter cream last year for my sister in laws bridal shower. They are always a hit!

Angel Cookies

Ingredients:

½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup shortening
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda

Cream sugars, butter, and shortening. Stir in egg and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients and stir into creamed mixture. Roll into 1 inch balls and roll the balls in white sugar. Flatten each ball with the bottom of a glass. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

If you are frosting the cookies and don’t want them to be too sweet, don’t roll the dough balls in sugar before baking.

Butter Cream Frosting

Ingredients:

½ cup butter, softened
4 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 ½ tsp. vanilla
5 to 6 Tbsp milk

Cream butter until fluffy then beat in sugar and vanilla. Add enough milk to make it the consistency you like. Add food coloring, a little at a time, if you wish to color the frosting. Spread a thin layer on cookies.

Berry Muffins

Don’t you love hot muffins fresh out of the oven? So do I! They are so warm and inviting, invoking feelings of comfort and happiness. Ok, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but really, they are very nice to eat.

My husband had friend coming from out of town this morning to visit just for the day. He was to arrive in the morning and honestly, I didn’t have anything planned. I didn’t know what we were going to be doing or where we were going. All of a sudden I remembered my recent post, Housewife Hospitality, and thought “What am I doing?! How can I not have at least something small to offer him?” Yeesh. What kind of hospitality is that? So it was about half an hour before he was due to arrive when I decided to whip up a batch of muffins. I didn’t want to make banana muffins again and I conveniently had just frozen some blueberries so decided to make some berry muffins. Here is the recipe.

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1-1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries or raspberries
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup sour cream
½ cup oil
1 tsp vanilla

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Gently toss berries in dry ingredients to coat. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, sour cream, oil and vanilla. Add dry ingredients to wet and stir just until moist.
Fill greased muffin cups about 2/3 full and bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until a toothpick in the middle comes out clean.

These were so easy and were hot out of the oven just in time for his arrival.
Now, I have to say, when I make muffins for us to snack on or to send with my husband to work, I always make healthy substitutions. When I am making treats for guests or special occasions, I will often make the recipe as is, even if it does not seem as healthy. It’s a treat, right? If I were to make the above recipe healthier, I would replace one cup of white flour with one of whole wheat flour, replace the oil with unsweetened applesauce, and use plain, whole milk yogurt in place of sour cream. Actually, I did use yogurt this morning because I didn’t have sour cream.

Since this was a treat, I even added a streusel topping to the muffins. To do this I combined 3 tablespoons flour, 3 tablespoons oatmeal, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon, and then cut in 2 tablespoons cold butter until crumbly. I sprinkled these on the muffins before baking and it was just perfectly delicious.

So there you have it! You can easily be hospitable on the fly, and for me, baking is always fun. As I mentioned above, I used blueberries that I had recently frozen. If you are interested in freezing your own berries, check out an article I wrote for the website The Untrained Housewife called How to Freeze Berries.

Bread Machine Recipes

There is nothing like the aroma of fresh bread wafting through the house to stir up feelings of home and comfort. I love fresh bread. I used to work in a bread bakery and every morning enjoyed some hot and fresh out of the oven. It was amazing. I’m all about a hand rolled and kneaded loaf of bread but I see nothing wrong with dumping ingredients in a bread machine and walking away, only to return four hours later to a steaming hot loaf of delicious, wholesome bread. Oh delight! I often use our bread maker to add something special to our dinner meal. Even better, I will use the timer function so we get the pleasure of waking in the morning to the smell of bread baking. Can’t beat that!
Here are the two main recipes I use. The seven grain bread is the one I use most often but occasionally I will treat us to a loaf of white.

Seven Grain Bread

Follow your manufacturer’s instructions as to which order to place the ingredients in the pan. The order I put here is the order I do it in mine.

1 2/3 cup lukewarm water
3 Tbsp skim milk powder
2 Tbsp applesauce
2 Tbsp honey
2 tsp salt
2 ½ cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
¾ cup 7 grain mix
1 ½ tsp yeast

I actually put a little extra whole wheat flour in the mix. I use 2 cups of white and 1 ½ cups whole wheat. I tried to put more than that but found the loaf was too dense and didn’t raise well at all.

White Bread

Again, follow your manufacturer's directions.

1 ½ cups lukewarm water
2 Tbsp skim milk powder
1 ½ tsp salt
1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp applesauce
3 ¾ cup white flour
1 tsp yeast

Herb Bread

Remember the spaghetti dinner I was making for guests last weekend? I decided to make an herb bread to go with it. It was delicious! It still simply involved putting ingredients in the bread machine and forgetting about it. If you are interested, click here to get to the recipe.

Housewife Hospitality

I’ve only had the pleasure of being a housewife/stay at home mom for nine months now. One thing I love about it is that I’m available. I am conveniently at home and able to accomplish so many things that I couldn’t do when I was working full time.
Previously, when we had company coming from out of town, I did the best I could to get the house ready and make nice food. Working eight hours a day outside the home definitely hindered that, however.

This weekend we have friends coming to visit and I am so excited! While our home is ever so humble, (they have to sleep on a mattress in the baby’s room while baby bunks in with us), I have had fun washing bedding, making their bed, cleaning bathrooms and getting things ready. I thought I would share with you the plans I have for food this weekend (since that seems to be what this blog is all about, now isn’t it?)

I need to prepare two breakfasts, maybe a lunch or two, snacks, treats and only one dinner since we have the pleasure of going out for one of our meals.
I decided we will have a classic bacon, eggs, hash browns and toast one morning and the second morning fresh banana muffins and strawberry orange Julius drinks.
I am going to make spaghetti, Caesar salad, and fresh bread for dinner. For lunches we have fresh buns and bread and deli meat, fruit, vegetables, cheese and crackers. To snack on I’m going to make a big bowl of my homemade salsa (you remember that one, right?!) with tortilla chips. For treats, last night I whipped up a batch of Mars Bar Squares to keep in the fridge and for dessert after dinner tonight I am making a pecan caramel ice cream dessert.

How good does that sound? I am having so much fun planning and preparing everything. It is so nice to be home all day able to do this kind of thing. I’ve been carrying the baby around in my backpack carrier as I get things done. Poor thing is teething and cranky but I still can’t complain, I’m so happy to be home with her!

I want to share some of the recipes I’m making with you. To start, I’ll share one of my favorite treats: Mars Bar Squares. I’m sorry; they are not at all healthy for you! They are very yummy and I’m sure over the years my mom has been asked for this recipe 100 times! Enjoy!

Mars Bar Squares

Ingredients

½ cup butter
4 Mars Bar Squares, chopped
3 cups Rice Krispies cereal
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
¼ cup butter

Melt ½ cup butter and Mars bars in the microwave. Stir in Rice Krispies and pat into a 9x9 inch baking pan. Melt chocolate chips and ¼ cup butter. Spread over Rice Krispies base. Refrigerate until set. Cut into squares.

How easy was that?

I’ll also share my recipe for banana muffins.

Combine in bowl:

1 ½ cups flour
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

Beat together:

1 egg
1 ½ cups mashed banana
½ cup melted butter

Add wet to dry ingredients and stir until moistened. Add ¾ cup chopped nuts if you desire. Fill muffin tins (greased or lined) ¾ full. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes until the tops spring back when lightly touched.

These are so delicious. To make them healthier, I replace half the white flour with whole wheat flour. You can replace the butter with unsweetened applesauce also.

I am serving these with some orange Julius type drinks. I don’t have measurements but here is the basic idea. I put a can of frozen orange juice concentrate in the blender with some ice cubes, milk, vanilla, chopped strawberries, and powdered sugar. They are cool and creamy and really yummy at breakfast. They are also good without strawberries for a plain orange flavor or even better with sweet raspberries.

Soon, I am going to post two of the recipes for fresh bread that I make in my bread maker.

Have a great weekend!

Cilantro Chicken

Here is a yummy recipe my mother in law told me about recently. I have a bunch of cilantro at the moment so it was perfect to use some of that up. It was super easy and so delicious, even the baby loved it! I am going to rein myself in this time and try to write this as a more formal recipe. As per my usual method, I pretty much threw this together but these measurements might help a bit.

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts (I use boneless, skinless but any kind you like could work)
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 small yellow pepper, diced
½ cup frozen corn
½ cup frozen peas
1/3 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
2 cups rice (I used a mix of brown and white)
2 ½ cups chicken broth
1 ½ tablespoons chicken bouillon
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper, to taste

Sautee onions and garlic in 1 Tbsp olive oil. Add chicken breasts to pan and brown. Season with salt and pepper. Pour a small amount of the chicken broth into the pan to get all the flavor bits off the bottom. Pour everything into a large casserole dish. Add all vegetables, cilantro, rice, remaining chicken broth, bouillon and butter. Season with more salt and pepper if you like. Bake at 400 for about and hour or until chicken is cooked and rice is tender.

Wow, look at that… I took what was in my head and turned it into a recipe!
This was seriously yummy. But I have to be honest and tell you, I forgot to put the corn and peas in. I meant to and I think the dish would have been even better with them. I think the forgetfulness had something to do with the fact that my 9 month old just learned to crawl yesterday and was opening kitchen drawers and throwing dish towels all over the floor while I was cooking. What’s a mom to do?
Let me know what you think of this recipe (and don’t forget all of the veggies!)

Baby Bottom Beeswax Balm

Say that one 5 times fast!

This is a recipe my sister in law gave me for a natural diaper balm that is fine to use with cloth diapers. My niece has very sensitive skin and has gone through some pretty severe diaper rash. Apparently, this balm is great for her delicate skin.

1.5 ounces beeswax, grated (approximately ¾ cup)
1 cup olive oil

Herbs (optional)
3 Tablespoons or 2 teabags of chamomile
3 Tablespoons comfry
8 drops calendula oil
Or any other herbs that promote healing and smell nice

Directions:

Heat the olive oil, add the herbs (if using) and steep for a few minutes. If using loose herbs, strain loose bits out with a cheesecloth. Add grated beeswax and stir until melted. Pour into the containers you will use at the change table or in the diaper bag. Store any extra in a glass jar which can be kept in the fridge. When you are ready to refill, warm the balm in the microwave until melted and carefully pour into containers.

To use, scrape with the back of your thumb nail until you have about a thumb nail worth fluffed up. Use liberally to keep that bottom baby soft!

Pork Burrito's and Fresh Salsa

Speaking of burritos…
I thought I would share our family’s burrito recipe. It is extremely easy to put together as long as you have a little time in the afternoon to let it simmer. You can make this with pork, chicken, or beef. We usually use pork chops or a small pork roast but I have done it with some tough cuts of beef also.
Place your meat of choice in a pot and pour in enough salsa (the store bought variety) to cover all the meat. Add a small amount of water to bring the liquid to about an inch over the meat. Cover the pot; bring to a boil, then simmer on low for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally, until the meat is falling apart when you press a spoon into it. Towards the end of the cooking time, I add a handful or two of brown rice, and usually add some more water. Once the rice is done, I shred the meat with two forks and it’s finished! The flavor is so good and what can be easier than that?

I like to serve it on whole wheat tortillas (white for my husband!) with sautéed peppers and onions, corn, shredded cheese, lettuce, sour cream, and fresh salsa. What…you don’t make your own salsa? Well, let me encourage you to try! It’s amazingly easy, healthy, and yummy!

Fresh Salsa

4 medium sized tomatoes
½ a medium sized onion
1 Tbsp fresh, chopped cilantro
2 Tbsp lime juice
Salt, to taste

Chop the tomatoes into 1 inch pieces and finely chop the onion. Combine in a bowl with the cilantro, lime juice, and salt. Refrigerate for an hour or longer before serving to let the flavor develop.

Sometimes, if I find it isn’t quite flavorful enough, I will add a spoonful or two of store bought salsa to give it a kick. I may add more cilantro, lime juice, or salt if necessary. You could also add finely chopped fresh jalapeno’s if you want a bit of spice. You can totally make it your own.

How easy was that? It is so refreshing. It tastes just like the salsa we ate at every meal at a resort in Mexico. I recommend eating it with tortilla chips while sitting outside on a summer day. Doesn’t that sound fantastic?

Addictive Sweet Potato Burritos

I recently came across a recipe when browsing the blog Keeper of the Home (http://www.keeperofthehome.org/). It was something very different and I was so intrigued that I absolutely had to try it. I had never heard of sweet potato burritos before but let me tell you, they are completely, utterly, delectably delicious! Since I knew my sweet potato hating husband would never eat them, I decided to make them tonight when he would be away.
You can follow the link to the actual recipe, but I will tell you how I made them for myself. As usual, I used the recipe as a guide, and then did my own thing with it. You can find the recipe here: http://safewaycanada.allrecipes.com/Recipe/recipe.aspx?shop=1&nprid=13954&scale=12&metric=False

I didn’t have kidney beans, but happened to have a can of good old fashioned pork and beans in the pantry. I didn’t want the sweet sauce, so I rinsed about three quarters of the can. After sautéing onion and garlic in some olive oil, I added the beans to the pan and mashed them up as best I could with a wooden spoon. I added the water and let it simmer. I added soy sauce, cumin, chili powder and dry mustard powder (we don’t use prepared mustard). I omitted the cayenne but added some fresh, chopped cilantro. Truthfully, I didn’t measure anything. If you don’t feel comfortable with that, follow the recipe above!

Then, as the recipe says, I put some mashed sweet potato and the bean mixture onto whole wheat tortilla shells and sprinkled with grated cheddar cheese. I wrapped them burrito style and baked at 350 for 12 minutes. The amount of filling I made amounted to four burritos. Since I will be the only one eating them, I saved one for tomorrow and froze the other two. I simply wrapped them tightly in plastic wrap and sealed them in a freezer bag. Next time I am alone for dinner (by alone I mean with a baby who mashes up her food with her hands then rubs it in her hair) I can pop one of those in the oven and will have a delicious dinner!

I know, I know, this recipe sounds a bit strange. I thought so too which is why I just had to try it. I can’t even believe how scrumptious it was. If you like sweet potatoes and beans, you must give it a try! Let me know what you think!

Slow Cooker Pork Chops

Well, as I mentioned before, I found a recipe for pork chops done in the slow cooker and gave them a try for dinner last night. They were pretty good! Here is the exact recipe which you can find the link to here : http://www.recipezaar.com/5-Ingredient-Chops-in-a-Crock-Pot-141847

6 whole pork chops (boneless or whatever you like)
1 whole onion, chopped
3 tablespoons ketchup
10 3/4 ounces 98% fat-free cream of chicken soup
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

Mix soup together with the chopped onions, ketchup and Worcestershire sauce.
Pour 1/2 of the mixture in the bottom of the crock pot.
Place chops in the crock pot.
Cover with the remaining sauce mixture.
Cook on low 4-5 hours or until done.
Makes a lot of sauce which I served on a side of steamed rice

In my humble opinion, a recipe is just a guide to spark some culinary creativity. What I made was pretty much the same as above with a tweak here and there. I used half fat cream of chicken soup because that is what I had. I used boneless pork chops, extra Worcestershire sauce, fresh ground pepper, and garlic powder. It did make a lot of sauce, which was mild but flavorful. I knew that I had a very busy day ahead of me yesterday so I prepared this early and let it cook for 8 hours. The meat was so tender it fell apart on our forks and the flavor really permeated it. I served it with mashed potatoes, peas, and corn. It was a nice dinner and it tasted like something I spent hours on when really I barely did anything. My Crockpot did all the work…brilliant!

Supercook

I thought I’d do a quick post tonight to recommend a fantastic recipe website to you. It’s called Super Cook and it is a recipe search engine. It is my lifesaver whenever I have an ingredient but have no idea what to do with it. Just enter your ingredient in the search engine and recipes will start popping up. It will ask you if you have other ingredients and as you click on them to add to your list, more recipes suited to your list will pop up. It is amazing! I have been using it a lot lately. Just now, I couldn’t think of what to do with some pork chops I have so I typed “pork chops” into the search, added some more ingredients and I now have a Crockpot recipe to try tomorrow! I’ll let you know how it goes.

I don’t know about you, but I go through phases of losing creativity in the kitchen. When I am totally uninspired, this website fans that creative spark and brings it back to a flame. Even if I don’t use a recipe, I end up at least getting ideas of things I can make up on my own. Give it a try, I’m sure you’ll love it! You’ll find it at www.supercook.com

Easy Chicken and Rice

Recently, my husband has started working more evenings than days, which leaves me and the baby on our own for dinner more often. I am trying not to fall into the sandwich trap even though it is so much easier to just eat a salad and sandwich for dinner. That is ok sometimes, but not day after day. A few nights ago I decided to throw something quick and healthy together with food I already had in my cupboards. It was a simple rice and chicken dish and the bonus was I could feed it to my little munchkin too!

I started some brown rice to cook in the rice cooker. I have a serious problem with burning rice. I have tried and failed to solve this problem so I have become completely dependent on my rice cooker. Anyway, before I take this rabbit trail too far…
While the rice was cooking, I took two chicken breasts out of the freezer and placed them in a pot of boiling water. I added chopped onion, carrot and celery and seasoned with some coarse salt. I also added barley which went really nicely with everything else. When everything was almost done, I added corn, peas, and green beans from my freezer. Once those were cooked, I drained the water, added the rice and shredded the chicken with two forks. That’s it! How easy does that sound?

I put some aside and whizzed it through the food processor with a bit of water for the baby. Once that was done, I added some butter, salt and pepper to mine and we had ourselves a lovely dinner. It was so simple and totally delicious.

There is something to be said for a very simple dinner. These days, I’m leaning more toward simplicity when it comes to cooking. It can be fun to fuss over a dish and make something really nice but lately I’ve been finding that the meals that seem the most plain have been tasting the best. Less time cooking and cleaning up equals more time playing with my baby and her daddy. Can’t argue with that!

Great Grandma's Oahu Chicken

As promised, here is the first of my Great Grandma’s recipes! I think it is so neat to try out meals that my family made three generations ago. I told my mom I was making this and she could remember her grandma making it. How cool is that? Someday my daughter will remember eating this dish that her Great-Great Grandmother made!

Tonight I tried her recipe for Oahu Chicken. It was delicious! My husband has already asked me to make it again and I am so looking forward to the leftovers tomorrow night for dinner. Here is the recipe, with a few minor adjustments made. The original recipe calls for ¼ cup of butter to brown the chicken in but I lightened it up and used about 1 ½ tablespoons. I dredged the chicken in whole wheat flour. I also added green peppers to the recipe because it just seemed as though they would fit…and I was right! It was a great flavor.

Oahu Chicken

3 large chicken breasts, cut into chunks
1-2 Tbsp butter
1 8 oz can pineapple chunks
1 small green pepper, diced
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
1 8 ounce can tomato sauce
¾ cup chicken broth

Dredge chicken in flour. Melt butter in a large skillet and slowly brown the chicken.
Drain pineapple, reserving ½ cup of the juice. Mix pineapple juice with brown sugar, ginger, and a pinch of salt; add to chicken.
Add tomato sauce, chicken broth, and peppers to skillet. Stir well. Cover and simmer 20 minutes. Remove lid and continue simmering an additional 20 minutes.

I served this over brown rice with steamed carrots on the side. It was such a delicious dinner. Great Grandma would be proud!

Bugaloo Kids Shoe Giveaway!

I have very recently discovered a fantastic blog called Keeper of the Home. Her values and ideas really mirror a lot of my own and it has been wonderful to read through her site and glean from her wisdom.

There is a giveaway on her blog right now for Bugaloo Kids baby shoes so all you moms out there, check it out! They are a high quality leather shoe similar to Robeez but sell for only $15 a pair (compared to up to $35 for Robeez, depending on where you buy them).

Another great thing is Bugaloo Kids will donate 5% of every sale to International Justice Mission. A group of the youth at our church is currently raising money to free 151 slaves through that ministry, so I will definitely promote that one! It’s a great cause and I recommend looking further into it on their website: www.ijm.org
If you are interested in what exactly our youth are doing to free slaves, visit their site at www.freedom151.com. It’s pretty awesome!

Please check out Keeper of the Home if you are interested in these great shoes! The blog address is: www.keeperofthehome.org

Cooking with Cream of Mushroom Soup

Skillet Dinner

I really like to make a nice dinner for my family, but sometimes I just need to throw something together-and fast. I’m all about cooking without a recipe and I thought I would share what I whipped up for dinner the other night. It was extremely simple, used ingredients I always have in the kitchen, and tasted great. It was very simple and not at all fancy but thankfully, we don’t mind that!

I peeled and diced some potatoes and boiled them. In the meantime, I browned ground beef in a large skillet. When the potatoes were about three quarters done, I added them to the ground beef, threw in some frozen corn and peas, seasoned it all with pepper and onion soup mix, and poured a can of cream of mushroom soup over top. I let it simmer for about 20 minutes and it was done. I added a few drops of beef broth now and then when the sauce seemed a bit thick. Super easy and it was pretty good for a recipe I made up as I went! Served with fresh whole wheat bread and butter and a glass of milk and it was a decent dinner!

Cooking with Cream of Mushroom Soup

If you know me, you know I hate mushrooms. The taste and texture makes me gag something awful so I avoid them. I never used to cook with mushroom soup but my husband likes it so I adapted. It’s actually not that bad and I’ve made some delicious meals with it. I stock up on store-brand cans when they are on sale and I buy the low fat variety. It is so easy to put a roast and some onions in the crock pot, season as you like, and pour a can of mushroom soup and some beef broth over top. It cooks all day and makes really nice gravy. I thought I’d share a couple more meals I make with the soup that are very easy and pretty economical too!

Stroganoff

When I have sour cream that needs to get used up, I often make stroganoff for dinner. I brown some ground beef with onions, pour in a can of mushroom soup and some beef broth to make a sauce. I season with beef bouillon and during the last five minutes add sour cream to taste. Add a little dill, pour over egg noodles and you have a cheap and easy shortcut stroganoff. It is GOOD! I serve it with peas and a salad.

Pork Chop Magic

I’ll never forget the day my husband asked me to make pork chop magic for dinner. I thought it was so funny and cute! That is what they called this dinner growing up in his house.
Thinly slice potatoes and place in a greased 9x13 pan. Top with pork chops and season with salt and pepper. In a separate bowl, mix cream of mushroom soup with some beef broth (I really use that combination a lot, don’t I?). Pour over the potatoes and chops and bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes or until done (this will vary depending on the size of the chops and whether or not they are boneless). Pork chop magic!

Cooking without Recipes

You’ll find a lot of my recipes don’t include measurements or step by step instructions. I can’t help it, that’s just how I cook. Often, if I learn a new meal, I will follow the recipe and once I’m used to it I adapt it to my own ways and the recipe starts to fade into the background. I wonder if I’ll be one of those grandmothers who keeps all my recipes in my head?! I used to need to follow recipes exactly but I feel so liberated the way I cook now. If you haven’t tried it, I encourage you to let loose and experiment in the kitchen!

Coming Soon…

My grandma has been emailing me some of my Great-Grandmothers recipes. I decided I will start trying them out and posting the results here. From what I remember as a little girl, she was one good cook! Hopefully we’ll have some good ones coming your way very soon!

Makeshift Guacamole

This week, I found a bag of five avocado’s for a pretty decent price at the grocery store. I love avocado but rarely eat them because where we live, they are generally a dollar each. I was elated to have a bunch of them in my fruit bowl this week! I decided I better make the most of them and enjoy every last bite before I return to the emptiness that went before them.

I can easily just scoop avocado right out of the shell with a spoon and eat it, and that’s pretty much what I did with the first three. Today, I decided to be a bit more creative. At lunch, I cut one in half, fed half of one half to the baby (no, she did not like it), put the other half of that on my sandwich, then made a makeshift guacamole.

I LOVE guacamole! I could eat it by the bowlful. My husband hates it and won’t touch it (aah maybe the baby takes after her daddy here?) So, when I make it, it’s all mine! I didn’t have much in my fridge so I mashed up the remaining avocado half, mixed in some salsa, a squirt of lemon juice, and a sprinkling of salt. It was amazing! It took about 10 seconds to make and the same amount of time to eat. I ate it with tortilla chips but it would be good on a wrap, burritos, or on crackers.

I only have one avocado left. I am a treat hoarder but that just won’t do in this case. I must eat it and soon before it turns brown. I need to enjoy it more than any other avocado I’ve ever had…I think a big bowl of guacamole is called for tomorrow!

Making Homemade Baby Food

It really is easier than you think to make your own baby food. I was terrified even at the prospect of feeding solids to my little girl. Breastfeeding is so easy! When they are hungry, you nurse them, when they are fussy, you nurse them…easy as pie! Nothing to think about.

When my daughter was five months old, I realized I needed to start thinking about the next phase in her culinary life. Solids. The next big adventure! I planned to start with rice cereal at six months of age and go from there. While I was overwhelmed at the thought of having to plan three meals a day and figure out how to give her a wide variety of healthy foods, the thought of what to feed her was even worse. Do I buy the jars or make it myself?

It took one trip to the baby food aisle at our local, low-cost grocery store to answer my question. I was making it myself! Why on earth would I buy a jar of strained bananas for seventy five cents when I could mash up half a banana for only pennies. So began the journey. Now, I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a stickler by any means! If it makes sense to me to cheat then by golly cheat I will. But after whipping up a few delicious (and some gag-worthy) meals for my baby, I realized that doing it yourself really isn’t so bad after all.

Easy to use Utensils

Thankfully, because of some generous wedding gifts, I had everything I needed right in my kitchen cupboard. So far, I’ve found all I really need is a blender, a hand mixer (or stick mixer), a large mixing bowl, a spatula, and some ice cube trays. How easy is that? Generally, the stick mixer works the best and makes for the easiest cleanup. I put my cooked product in a large bowl, blend it up by hand and I’m done. But some foods, like meats, need a little more work and for those I use the blender.

Getting Started with Vegetables

I started with sweet potatoes and it was extremely easy. I washed them, poked holes in them, wrapped them in foil and baked at 400 degrees for just over an hour, until they were tender all the way through. I cut an X in the skin which then easily peeled away. Cut into chunks, whiz the hand blender through until soft and voila! Baby food! That is the basic formula for all the vegetables I’ve done. You can choose to boil, steam, or bake. Make sure they are washed and peeled if necessary and cook until quite soft. I’ve done carrots, peas, and green beans also so far with no problems. Peas and green beans are a little trickier because they have a “skin”. My baby gags on them so I just thin them with a little water or breast milk before serving them and she does fine.

Getting Started with Fruits

Fruits are just as easy as vegetables. So far, I’ve done apples, pears, and apricots. Bananas can be mashed up right before a feeding. Alternately, if you want to teach your little one some feeding skills (and work on that pincer grasp) just cut the banana into very small pieces and let your baby have fun learning to eat.
Apples and pears I simply peeled, cut into chunks and steamed with a small amount of water. I blended them up with the stick mixer, adding some of the cooking water and they were done. They are so delicious I have a hard time not eating them myself. Apricots were a little trickier. I cut them in half, took out the pits, baked them face down in a small amount of water until soft, then pulled off the peels. The problem is they are a bit sour. And a bit stringy. This was the first food my baby threw back up. But if they are mixed with baby cereal, they go down much smoother.

Cheating with Baby Food Jars

At this point, using the jarred food just makes more sense in some areas. Our apricots are sour because they aren’t in season. Peaches are not in season yet either. I don’t see what is so wrong with using jars so my baby can have some more variety in her diet. And to be honest, I feel overwhelmed at the thought of boiling and pureeing prunes at this point. It sounds like messy business. So I bought a couple jars to keep in the pantry. Is that really so bad?

Making Meat into Baby Food

Here is one area where I actually planned to use jarred baby food and ended up making my own. The thought of pureeing meat sounded quite awful as far as I was concerned. My trip to the baby food aisle had me changing my mind pretty quickly. The jars of just plain chicken or beef, without added vegetables or pasta, were $1.50 for a small jar! And the ingredient list included spices, but didn’t name which spices. Maybe I’m a little picky but I’d like to know exactly what I am feeding my baby. I didn’t want to buy the casserole type meats because I hadn’t yet introduced pasta and white potatoes into her diet.
I ended up buying some extra lean ground beef and chicken breasts. I poached the chicken to keep it from getting dry, cut it into pieces, and pureed in the blender with some water. The outcome was not pretty. It was like a runny chicken pudding. But my daughter ate it up no problem! Once you freeze them in ice cube trays, they thaw out to a much firmer texture. I used the same method with the beef, only fried it in the pan instead of poaching.

Storing and Serving Baby Food

As I’ve mentioned above, I simply pour my purees into ice cube trays, freeze for a few hours, then store the cubes in labeled freezer bags. They should be good in there for about a month. I try not to make batches that are too large to minimize the length of time they stay in the freezer. When meal time rolls around, I take out the cubes I want and heat them in a small frying pan over medium-low heat. They thaw very quickly and if they seem too hot, I pour some cold water in to thin and cool them off. I don’t use much liquid when making my purees as I prefer to thin them if necessary at her meal time.
If you are more organized than I am, you can take the cubes you need out of the freezer and store them in the fridge for a few hours and they should be thawed and ready to eat within a few hours.

Give Baby Food Cooking a Try

After reading the above, I hope you’ll give this adventure a try. It is not as daunting as I thought it would be and it is actually very fun to watch my little girl gobble up something that I myself made for her. It’s a good preparation for the days where she will be eating whatever her mom and dad are having for dinner. And you can’t beat the money savings!

Planting Flowers

One thing I've never done but always wanted to do was plant flowers. Seems like a typical housewife thing to me! Our deck needs a serious painting (we'll be getting to that later!) so I thought some flower pots might spruce up our front door quite nicely. I was, of course, completely clueless about doing this so my mother in law stepped in to help!

We bought some plants that would be easy to care for in our hot and sunny climate. It was actually very simple. Fill the pots with soil, soak the soil with water and begin! You just dig a small hole to fit the base of the plant and pack the dirt around them. I planted petunias, geraniums, daisies, and pansies and some pretty pot fillers (the names of which have slipped my rookie gardener mind!)

This was a very inexpensive project, which always makes me happy. The previous owners of our home had left flower pots in our shed. My sister in law just happened to have some extra soil and the plants cost me under $12 in total. I have three pots welcoming people on our front porch. I could have bought pots that were already filled with flowers for about $20 a pop. I don't think so! The little bit of work this took was worth it.

I think they turned out quite nicely and I'm very proud of myself! After about two days I called my mother in law with the extremely disappointing news that my flowers were dying. I supposed I just wasn't cut out to grow flowers. How sad. She quickly informed me that I had to perform a procedure called "deadheading" which basically means to pluck the little dead flower off of the plant. Sure enough, new ones started blooming the next day. I think I can handle this after all!

Bright and colorful flowers brighten up a home, even a home with a drab deck. That is my rookie homemakers tip today!

Tea and Cookies

I love tea! I can barely make it through a day without having a cup of tea. When people come to visit, I love to make a pot of tea, served in my pretty china cups, and sit and chat. To me, tea equals hospitality! Well, maybe that’s a stretch, but I certainly think it’s hospitable to offer someone tea when they come for a visit. And what goes great with tea? Cookies! I am the cookie queen. If I ever need to bring something to a party or pot luck, it’s going to be cookies. They are my signature dish!

Since having a baby, I just don’t have the time like I once did to bake cookies. My latest trick is to bake a big batch, and pop them in the freezer. Then, when someone comes by for tea, I don’t have to rush around trying to find a treat for us to nibble on. If you freeze cooled cookies in freezer bags on the day you make them, they will taste great even a month or two later.

Here are a couple of my favorite recipes for cookies that (to me) go well with tea. Both of these will thaw within minutes out of the freezer and taste as fresh as the day you made them.

Soft and Chewy Ginger Cookies

2 ¼ cups flour
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground cloves
¼ tsp. salt
¾ cup butter, room temperature
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
¼ cup molasses
¼ cup sugar

Directions:

Combine flour, ginger, soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside. Cream butter until soft. Beat in sugar until fluffy. Beat in molasses and egg. Stir in half the flour mixture, then stir in the second half. Roll into 1 inch balls then coat the balls in sugar. Press down with a fork. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 350 for about 8 minutes. Do not over bake! They should be slightly underbaked in order to remain soft.

Brown Sugar Shortbread

1 cup butter, room temperature
½ cup brown sugar, packed
2 ¼ cups flour
Dash of salt

Cream butter and sugar. Stir in flour and salt. Knead on a floured surface for three minutes. Form into two logs and refrigerate until firm. Cut into 1 inch slices. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 300 for 25 minutes.

That is our family’s original recipe. If you want to do it even easier follow along here…!
Throw all the ingredients in the food processor. Pulse until the mixture forms a soft dough…voila! Form into logs…and you know the rest. It is much easier this way and they turn out just as delicious without fussing with kneading.

And for all you health nuts out there (I suppose I’m an occasional health nut myself) here is a healthy recipe for some bars that taste great with tea. I found it years ago in a Light and Tasty magazine.

Berry Oat Squares

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 jar (10 ounces) 100% raspberry spreadable fruit (or whatever fruit you like…I don’t use the whole jar)

Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, soda, and salt; stir in butter. Reserve ¾ cup for the topping. Press remaining oat mixture into a greased, square baking pan. Spread with fruit spread. Sprinkle the remaining oat mixture over top. Bake 25-30 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.

Delicious! Have a cup of tea and enjoy!

Housewife Padawan

All I ever wanted was to be a wife and mother. That was my great aspiration as I entered my adult years. I dreamed of my house being the place where all the kids wanted to play because I was the mom who made the best cookies. All the kids would want to stay for dinner in my tidy, cozy, warm little home.

These dreams were all well and good but I had one major problem. I didn’t actually know how to do anything required of a good homemaker. I couldn’t make a bed to save my life. Forget sewing, I didn’t know how. My cooking skills were pretty shabby and rolling out a pie crust was out of the question.

Let’s face it; in this world of working mothers, not all of us are getting the training of generations past. I know my mom had the same dreams I did when she was young but life gets in the way. She didn’t plan to end up a single mother working long hours week after week, year after year until suddenly her kids were grown and out on their own. I have a wonderful mom; she is my great friend and I love her dearly. She is a great cook and housekeeper and she did teach me a lot. I know she would have taught me more had circumstances been different.

Before I met my husband, a desire sprung up within me to become an expert housewife. I needed to know what to do so that I would be ready the day after our wedding. What silliness! I did teach myself to bake and thanks to my love for it, I found it very easy. My mom is a fantastic cleaner but the actual desire to keep things clean and tidy did not come naturally to me. Baking was much more fun! By the time I met my husband, I was an excellent baker, a decent cook, and a lousy housekeeper. I’m still a lousy housekeeper!

We spent a summer living with my husband’s parents and that is where the padawan training began. At the time, we were going through each of the Star Wars movies. I won’t even pretend to be a Star Wars expert but I do know that a padawan is like an apprentice being trained by a Jedi master.
I naturally started following my mother in law around the house, watching her every move. I actually carried a little notebook with me and would sneak to my room to write down a tidbit of information from what I saw her doing. My husband began to call me “Mom’s little padawan” and it stuck!

My mother in law is a classic housewife. She is one hard working lady! She stayed home to raise all four of her kids. She cooks delicious meals, bakes amazing treats, and is extremely hospitable. She can sew, make crafts, press flowers and knows how to make a Christmas angel out of a necktie. At any given time, she can tell you which store in town has the cheapest produce and meat. If I think I got a great deal on laundry detergent, she’ll have already found it somewhere else for a dollar less. She just knows.
So it only made sense for me to follow her around. She didn’t know I was taking notes and still refer to those notes to this day. She just took me under her wing and showed me what she knew.

Three years later, I still have so much to learn. I’m definitely still a padawan! I picked up some great tips from my mother in law. I learned how to cook great food that’s lower in fat. I learned some new recipes for amazing cookies. I learned how to sew a pillowcase (that was my sister in law, the first padawan of mom). Despite all that she can do, the vital thing I noticed was this: my mother in law will leave the dirty dishes in the sink if her family wants to watch a movie or play games. She always puts the people before the housework. That is the most important lesson I have learned; the basic art of being a great homemaker. Love God, love your husband, and love your kids. This is what really counts. All the cooking, cleaning, and nurturing is done because of the deep love I have for my family. They are always going to think I make the best cookies because they know the loving care that goes into those cookies. And the fact that they are the best cookies ever kind of helps too…don’t you think?!

Welcome!

Welcome to the Rookie Homemakers Playbook! I'm just a simple wife and mother clumsily learning to make a warm, loving home for my family. I've always dreamed of having a cozy, neat and tidy home where people love to visit because the atmosphere is great and the food is delicious. I'm not there yet (far from it, actually) but I thought I'd share what I'm doing as I make my way through. Feel free to look around and I hope you find something that helps you along the way.
My favorite things to talk about are cooking and baking so you'll find a lot of that here. But I hope to make it a well rounded place to visit!