I Baked!

Obviously, I have not had a ton of time for baking lately, however, this past weekend I came across a recipe that I really wanted to try. Eleanor and I went through a phase where she would let me eat breakfast and have a cup of coffee while she would play on the floor. Most days, especially in this past week or so that she hasn't been feeling well, I only have time to grab something quick which isn't always the most nutritious. Also, Hub likes to eat something on the way into the office with his coffee so when I came across this blueberry muffin recipe and saw how simple it was, I knew it had to be made.

I got up Sunday morning to make them and decided I needed to just do a double batch so it would last a couple weeks and I could put half in the freezer. As I was mixing everything, I started to panic that I was using all these ingredients and they weren't going to turn out. The only reason I thought this is because of the few un-mainstream baking ingredients I was using--whole wheat flour, coconut oil {in place of the butter}, applesauce and agave nectar. Not that I don't have faith in my baking but since I don't use these types of substitutes that often--which I want to change--I just didn't know how they were going to work out.

But I continued mixing away.

They turned out!


They are really yummy. Not too sweet and even Ben likes them who sometimes rolls his eyes when I try to make healthy items or use "weird" ingredients.

So I followed that recipe but tweaked a couple things so here is my doubled recipe:

2 cups of apple sauce 

1 cup plus 2 tbsp of agave nectar

2 teaspoon of vanilla

2 egg

2 tablespoons of coconut oil

3 cups of whole wheat flour

1 cup of unbleached flour

2 tsp of baking soda

1 teaspoon of salt

2 handfuls of whole oats

honey (optional)

3 cups frozen blueberries {from Costco, they are SO good}

Preheat oven to 325. Mix dry ingredients, sift and set aside. Mix wet ingredients in a big bowl then add dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Fold in blueberries. Drop into lined muffin tin, sprinkle oats on top and drizzle with honey if you like. {I forgot to sprinkle and drizzle} Bake 24-26 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Enjoy!


**Just an unrelated sidenote: I feel like I have been a little absent here and not that I post all the time or regularly anyway but I was commenting pretty frequently on most blogs I read daily and I haven't been. I have been reading blogs mostly in Google Reader while nursing so I can't comment much. I apologize and do comment when I can! Still loving my daily reads! And I hope once little Miss feels better and we get back to a little bit of normal around here, I can even post a little more!**

A New Spin on Peach Cobbler

Like everyone else, I peruse Pinterest. I wouldn't say I look at it all the time but of course I have lots of pins that I haven't "made" but always want to. So this weekend I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try a recipe.

I saw it a couple months back and thought it was so cute.

Source: sugarderby.com via Allyce on Pinterest

I looked at the recipe a couple days before to see if I needed to get anything at the store since I was headed there. The day of Mother's Day I looked at Pinterest again to see what to do and the website with the recipe was gone! I Googled other canned peach cobbler recipes and found this one. The cobbler was easy to make so we took the pan of cobbler, the cones and ice cream to my parents' for the Mother's Day dinner.

After dinner, Ben scooped everything into the cones and served it up.

Our overall review was that, although it was fun to have it in the cone, it wasn't really beneficial to the cobbler. The cobbler was under the ice cream and obviously we ate the ice cream fairly quickly so as not to melt, but that didn't give it any chance to melt over the cobbler which is usually the best part of a cobbler--melted ice cream on top! Also, I am usually only one for using fresh fruit in cobblers and probably would not go the canned peach route again. Just not much flavor. 

A fun experiment but not over the top excited about it. Buy, hey, it was fun to actually try one of my pins!

Recent Grub

I have definitely been neglecting the topic of food around here. Don't worry, we are eating, I guess I just haven't thought a lot of it to be post-worthy.

But here are a few things I wanted to share.

Apparently, steel cut oats are good for lactating mamas so of course, I wanted to try them out. Also, I like to try to eat a hearty breakfast if I can because sometimes lunch comes a little late for me. The only issue I have with this breakfast is that when I am home alone, it is a little time consuming with boiling and stirring so the babe has to be on her best behavior. I cook 'em up, slice up some fresh fruit, throw in some dried fruit, a little brown sugar, cinnamon and almond milk and yum, yum!

Next up, we have some cookies. Again, another recipe that caters a bit toward the lactating mama, but they are a little healthier, Ben eats them and they are good. They aren't too sweet which makes them a good snack. I saw them posted on Whitney's blog and the recipe is from here. I don't pump my milk very often so I don't have a great gauge as to whether they work or not, but I figure, hey, they are healthy-ish and it can't hurt right?

Moving right along, we started to get a bit unhealthy. While Ben was off last week, we tried a couple of new things. I have always wanted to bake bread from scratch but am always scared. I know. Scared of what? Don't  you just try something and if it works is does and if not oh well? Well, yes. But I pretty much like to succeed in the kitchen. Not fail. I'm the first born, what can I say?

We sometimes enjoy watching the Sandwich King on Sunday mornings. we have tried a couple of his recipes and liked them. So for some reason we think we should try Pretzel Buns with Grilled Dogs and Spicy Cheese Sauce. Yeah. Okay, so we make the buns which turned out delicious. the only complaint we had was that we used wax paper on the baking sheet and the buns stuck like a mother. Other than that, complete success. We were pretty proud of ourselves considering we used yeast, had to let them rise, boil them and bake them. 

The next steps were easy: make a cheese sauce and grill the dogs. We didn't love the cheese sauce as we followed the recipe and used Velveeta. Not awesome. The next day when we ate left overs, we just used regular hotdog toppings: ketchup, mustard and relish and like them a lot better. I think the fakey Velveeta was a little much. A lot much.

Last but not least, we went for homemade pizza. 

We have a confession. Most Friday nights we get a Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza. I don't know why this started but it's typical. We actually hadn't done it in awhile, maybe because we are on a tighter budget, we have been having leftovers or whatever. Anyway, last Friday we decided we wanted to make our own pizza including the crust. Since we had succeeded with the pretzel buns, we deemed ourselves seasoned bakers and figured we couldn't go wrong.

We got the crust recipe out of my trusty Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and went to town. We didn't want to go to the store so we used all ingredients we had on hand: made sauce from scratch, ground pork, tomatoes, cheese and jalapenos. It was delish. I don't know if Ben and I will keep it up now, but I definitely think it will be fun to have a weekly family pizza making night with kids.

Nothing too exciting, I suppose, but it always feels good to try new recipes, discover healthy recipes we like and eat yummy food at home!

WILW: Spring!

I am linking up with this lady today to declare that I am loving all things spring! Spring is such a fun time of year with winter slowly coming to an end, little peeks of bright sun here and there, a fresh new season and fun, bright colors.

First of all, I am loving that we got some seeds started inside and are already seeing sprouts.

I love these fun jars-turned-vases. I am definitely trying to do some in some springy colors.

Source: thecsiproject.com via Allyce on Pinterest

Love this fun top with a cute cardigan over.

Source: when-im-older.tumblr.com via Allyce on Pinterest

Definitely a good spring nail polish color.

Source: nailstah.com via Allyce on Pinterest

Layers work well here for spring.

Source: wendyslookbook.com via Allyce on Pinterest

I think I have posted this before but I still love it: cute ol' rain boots.

Source: tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com via Allyce on Pinterest

Yum, asparagus.

Source: simplyrecipes.com via Allyce on Pinterest

I am also loving:

::having more motivation to work out.

::borrowing library books on my Kindle.

::feeling more like myself.

Go link up, it's fun!

Sometimes We do Feel Normal

Ben and I have always liked to cook. And eat. We have always enjoyed a weekend or evening in with some good ingredients and spending time in the kitchen together. We joke around, we laugh, sometimes listen to music and have a glass or wine or beer.

The past two and a half months have proven a little difficult for this activity. With a newborn/infant it is hard to get the timing right, for us to get into the kitchen together. We have kind of developed a strategy of tag-teaming our meals so that one of us is in the kitchen and one may be in the living room entertaining the babe.

We are totally okay with this, obviously, and luckily our kitchen overlooks our living room so we are still hanging out together.

This past Sunday we were home all day and started the morning snuggling in bed, getting some morning chores done and watching a movie. Ben had taken out a fresh pork ham roast and we were trying to decide what to do with it. When I see a roast, I automatically think, stick it in the dutch oven or slow cooker, throw in some veggies and, yay, dinner is done! However, that gets a little boring. And we were both home so we figured we should try to be a little more creative.

Ben searched on the computer and suddenly looked up with a smile and said, "I found it!"

So he prepared the pork how the recipe said and it needed to sit in the fridge for about an hour. We went on about the day and finally I suggested we start preparing. Ben was holding E at the time so I started things but then he brought her in and set her in her Rock and Play chair and they joined in the fun. I opened a bottle of wine, Ben put on music and before we knew it, we were back in our comfort zone and enjoying an evening of cooking, family and fun. E was great for longer than I had expected and she was laughing and talking up a storm with us.

Please don't judge our Sunday lounge attire. ;)

After a bit, she started to get a little tired so I picked her up and danced around a little and she fell asleep. She being the perfect baby she is slept right through us eating so we enjoyed a quiet dinner at the same time and she then woke up right when we were finished. It all timed out perfectly and was a great end to our weekend.

Love when our lil' baby cooperates!

By the way, our dinner was a delicious feast of sweet and sour pork. From scratch. I, in bad blogger form, did not take a picture of our plate before we scarfed it down but you should try this recipe. Super easy and made with all ingredients we had in the house. Love those type of meals!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Time to spice up the mid-week lull with some things that I am loving this week!

I am loving ...

New Shows:

Source

Source

A couple recipes to try:

Source: zenfamilyhabits.net via Allyce on Pinterest

Source: skinnytaste.com via Allyce on Pinterest

Some crafts for the house:

Source: bluecricketdesign.net via Allyce on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Allyce on Pinterest

Source: goodhousekeeping.com via Allyce on Pinterest

{linking to:}

The Current State of my Cooking

Not only have my blog posts taken a turn in topic due to my big life change but mostly I have just been pretty embarrassed at how my cooking "talents" have taken a turn for the worse so I haven't been too motivated to post any of my kitchen adventures. I guess by posting mistakes I am being real though so maybe I just need to get on it. I am not bragging and saying I am some gourmet chef, wife who whips up something amazing every single night. However, I enjoy cooking, I enjoy trying new things and I do have my stand by recipes as well. My husband generally likes what I cook and appreciates a home-cooked meal.

The first week Ben went back to work after a week home with us and a week's worth of eating other people's cooking whom had been gracious enough to bring us meals, I decided to put a roast in the crock pot. I put some vegetables, some broth, salt, pepper, etc. I thought, Ben will be so impressed on one of my first days home, I am able to get a meal done. Not that I try to impress my husband and this thought was half sarcasm but whatever. I got the roast in a little bit late for the time I thought we might eat so I put it on high for a while and was going to turn it down. Well, a while turned into basically the whole time. I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't really. Ben arrived home, we chatted, dished up dinner, he commented on how good it smelled and then started eating. Something was on TV so he was watching that and I took a bite of my roast. I looked over at him and said, "This is terrible! It is so dry. How are you eating this?" He replied with, "Yeah, not  your best." And then proceeded to eat.

I was so embarrassed that I had screwed up a crock pot roast. How does that happen? Crock pot=easy dinner, does it not? Apparently not for me in this case.

A couple of weeks later, I put a chicken in our dutch oven and it turned out okay. The last chicken I had made in the oven had turned out so good.

Next up, this past weekend, on Friday night I was half paying attention to one of our favorite shows, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and saw a dish I wanted to try: pasta carbonara. I told Ben this when he walked in the door and he asked if I had recorded the show. I replied that it looked really easy, I knew the ingredients and I didn't need to have the show to be able to make it.

The next night, I set out to "throw" this dish together. I figured I would make the sauce ahead of time so that we could just heat up the pasta and eat whenever we were ready because nowadays around our house there is a certain little lady who dictates when we eat our dinner. Well, this was a big mistake. I assembled the ingredients just as I remembered in the order I remembered them putting them in the pan: bacon, garlic, white wine, lemon, cream, cheese and egg white. I mixed it all together, tasted it and it tasted good. I left it on the stove on low and went about watching a movie with Ben. Our Idiot Brother was a pretty good movie. It was kind of quirky which made it easy to watch.

Anyway, back to dinner. I went into the kitchen and peeked at my sauce. It had curdled/lumped up/turned into a scrambled mess and my shoulders just slumped. I deemed this inedible and Ben tried to re-create it. What a nice husband. He knew how much I wanted this dinner so he tackled it. The problem is that the sauce is meant to be eaten right away. Not left to simmer on the stove. Lesson learned. Ben wasn't too impressed with his dinner but I thought it was good. It is definitely on the rich side but I guess that's what I was in the mood for.

Moral of the story: I don't know what is wrong with my cooking. I need to get my groove back or I may lose my job. I think my mom hat has risen about my chef hat and they maybe need to gain a little more equality.

Any simple recipes out there I could try to gain some confidence in the kitchen back? Any kitchen/recipe blunders you would like to share?

Christmas Season

Obviously I have been doing a whole lot of this lately:

so there has been little time to "get into the Christmas spirit." Of course I decorated our house before the baby came so we are surrounded by Christmas decorations at home but I haven't been out in the hustle bustle of shopping, looking at lights or attending any holiday gatherings. We went over to my parents' on Friday night for dinner because Ben's parents were in town and when we pulled out onto our street I was reminded that it was Christmas time because I saw lights on our neighbors' houses. I hadn't been out at dark since November 30th.

I thought I would peruse and see what I may have been engaging in had I had more time on my hands over the past 18 days of December.

Every year I mean to make a Christmas card display before they start pouring in:

Source: centsationalgirl.com via Rachel on Pinterest

I may have tried out some new cookie recipes or cookie decorating ideas:

Source: glorioustreats.blogspot.com via Joy on Pinterest

Source: bhg.com via Paige on Pinterest

I could have played around with some new decoration ideas for our annual sweater party that we did not have this year:

Source: frostmeblog.blogspot.com via Bailey on Pinterest

Source: annesage.com via Lynn on Pinterest

We would have toured the lights:

Source: picasaweb.google.com via Gwyn on Pinterest

I do love the Christmas season but I have been perfectly happy at home doing what I have been doing. There will be many more Christmas seasons to come but only one season of my first child's first few weeks of life. 

What festivities have you participated in this season? Any cookie recipes that jumped out as favorites this year? What was your favorite party you attended? What is your family's favorite holiday tradition?

I Think You Should Try These

Since having my time off work, I have been cooking and baking more and loving it! I have also been trying to put some things in the freezer for when we are too busy with the lil' punkin to want to cook dinner. I have put away some spaghetti sauce, a chicken and sausage casserole and some soup. I made a double batch of these cookies last week in hopes to put some away put apparently they were too delicious and have been disappearing rather quickly.

The recipe for these Ranger Cookies came out of my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. Yes, I use it a lot.

Ranger Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats

1 cup coconut

1 cup raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries or mixed dried fruit bits

{I used dried cranberries and a few white chocolate chips I had on hand as well}

1. Preheat oven to 375. Beat butter with electric mixer for 30 seconds. Add sugars, baking powder and baking soda beating until combined, scraping sides of bowl.

2. Beat in the egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much flour as possible with mixer and stir in any remaining. Stir in oats, coconut, dried fruit.

3. Drop by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the edges are light brown. Cool on cookie sheet 1 minute and then transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

{I ended up baking mine for about 12-13 minutes. I don't know if my spoonfuls were just too big or my oven is weird or what--so just a heads up.}

Also, last week, I realized we hadn't had pork in awhile so I took some pork chops out of the freezer from our "farm raised" pigs and put them in the frying pan, roasted some butternut squash in the oven and added it to some quinoa. 

I cooked the quinoa in the rice cooker with 1C of quinoa to 2C of water. That took about 20 minutes.

While the quinoa was cooking, I sauteed quite a bit of garlic and green onions in a little butter.

Once the squash was done, I let it cool a bit and cut it up into chunks.

I added the quinoa to the garlic and onion, added the squash, some salt, pepper and a touch of cumin and stirred it all together.

I love quinoa but I always forget about it. I think it has great nutritional value, is a grain with protein {which is very important for me right now} and is a nice change from plain rice. We then topped it with some green peppers and yellow onions that had been in the pan with the pork chops. Ben really liked the meal and it was definitely good when you could get most of the ingredients into one bite!

I know these are kind of random recipes to stick together but they were easy, delicious and I actually remembered to take pictures of them!

What have you been cookin' and bakin' lately? Any great quinoa recipes to share?

Baking Binge

I am very happy to report that I have gotten back into enjoying cooking. For a couple of months there, I just really didn't want to do it. I did. But wasn't really loving it like usual. I would get hungry but just really wanted someone else to prepare the food for me.

I am also happy to report that with the cooking has come baking. Maybe it's me getting into the nesting phase. We shall see.

First off, last week, I started with Chocolate-Buttermilk Brownies. I got this recipe out of my trusty standby:

I'll spare you the step-by-step directions because you can simply visit their website to see for yourself but here is what my pan looked like. I added pecans to the frosting which was delicious and I love nuts in my brownies. They also were a little more like a cake and in the cookbook it says that another name for the brownies has been known as a Texas sheet cake. Whatever you want to call it, we called it yummy.

Next up, I had never made anything with yeast. Or that needed to rise. I don't know why. For some reason, bread just sounds intimidating to me. I feel like if one little thing went wrong, I would get discouraged and give up. I know, right? Great attitude. 

Anyway, I was flipping through my Pioneer Woman cookbook and decided I would give her cinnamon rolls a try. The recipe says that it will make 40-50 rolls. Well, Ben and I don't really need that many cinnamon rolls and I didn't want to use all those ingredients if they weren't going to turn out. I mean, 9 cups of flour is a lot! So I decided to cut the recipe into a quarter. I know, it's kind of weird but I thought half even still sounded like a lot. 

I even wrote in the cookbook what the measurements would be so I wouldn't get mixed up. However, for some reason when I got to the flour I only cut it in half. So I heated the milk, oil and sugar like the recipe says. 

Then I added the yeast.

Then I added too much flour. And the mixture was really dry. However, I still didn't catch my mistake. So, I mixed it the best I could. And set it out to let it rise. I let it "rise" for about two hours. I came home and it looked exactly the same.

I was discouraged. My mom stopped by and looked at it. We couldn't figure it out. All of a sudden the light bulb went on and I remembered how much flour I put in. I started over. First two steps down, mixed in the flour, let it rise and the rest was history.

Oh yeah, I added pecans to these, too. We like pecans.

Frosting mixture.

Well, hello lovelies.

On goes the goodness.

These were so good. I am so happy they turned out because I would have been discouraged if they didn't. Now that I have made them and know what to do, I would up the batch next time. They also really aren't that time consuming. Just simple, sugary, buttery, cinnamon-y goodness. And the maple frosting is to die for. We enjoyed them all weekend. Go to the PW website and make these and I promise you will please anyone  you want with these babies.