Seriously, did that just happen?

If you walked into my house right now you might think I was canning some tomato sauce because it smells great in here. The truth is much messier. While getting out a box of mac and cheese to make for lunch my blood pressure must have dropped and my eye sight blacked out when I had my hand raised above my head reaching for the box. While I was waiting the 5 seconds for my vision to come back, I managed to drop a glass of spagetti sauce on the floor and it shattered.

Am I the only one that sees a big mess and immediately thinks to grab my camera? Such a waste of organic tomato sauce that the dog can't even help me clean up because of the glass!

Luckily the whole jar didn't shatter but enough of it did to be a pain in the dupa. This must have been magic traveling glass because it ended up in three different rooms.

Some how the jar also managed to shatter on the way down because it cut my leg on the glass before I even started to clean this disaster up.

At least my house smells like I was cooking all morning.

Our Potato Project

Have you seen the video going around that shows a little girl talking about how she couldn't get a conventionally grown potato to grow and even the organic one was kinda puny? It isn't until she picks one up at a certified organic market that they get a lush potato plant.

This seems like a simple project for my 3.5 year old and we started it today. I haven't been to a farmers market recently but I did manage to pick up an organic sweet potato and a conventional one at our local grocery store.

I am not going to tell you which one is the organic potato, but I won't stop you from guessing. They sat in my car for an embarrassing long time so hopefully that didn't ruin them.

Here is the original video. Clearly she has been coached but regardless of the message's delivery I am excited to see if we get the same results.



If you want some additional reading check out: 
Residue Levels of Chlorpropham in Individual Tubers and Composite Samples of Postharvest-Treated Potatoes

 Pesticide Information Project of Cooperative Extension Offices of Cornell University

EPA's info on Chlorpropham

I am going to try and post a picture once a week to track our potato growing progress. Has anyone else tried to recreate the video?

Cake Mix Doctor - Strawberry Refrigerator Cake

For my birthday my Mother-In-Law gave me the book The Cake Mix Doctor Returns, by Anne Byrn. When I opened the book I knew immediately that this was the first recipe I was going to make - The Strawberry Refrigerator Cake.                                                 

It is basically a yellow cake with cream cheese and vanilla added to the mix and then sour cream and whip cream icing. I made my own whipped cream since it is better and I can pronounce all the ingredients and for the Fourth of July I added blueberries.   

In writing this post I found out Anne Byrn has a whole web site with recipes including the one I just made! Click here to be whisked away to cakey goodness. 

Byrn has seven other books, including a gluten free cook book, dinner cook book and a pot luck cook book. I can see these making their way to my bookshelf soon.

Grandpa's Smoked Sausage

Over the weekend we made homemade elk sausage from a recipe my husband got from his Grandfather. Homemade smoked sausage is better than anything you can find in the store. We load it up with enough garlic to make our house stink for a couple days and we loooove it.

We are lucky enough to also have his old Stimpson meat grinder that has the sausage attachment. This thing weighs a ton but gets the job done.

We made about 45 pounds of sausage! Apparently, my husband and I don't believe in cooking small batches of things we love. A batch of homemade raviolis has been known to number in the 400s.

 

Here is the most important part - the smoker. We use hickory chips and smoke them for about 30 minutes. They aren't cooked through but have that delicious smokey taste. All of our windows were open yesterday so now everything in our house also smells like smoke... delicious smoke.

Here are the finished smoked sausages. Mark Zuckerberg would be proud. We got 31 meals (5-6 sausage) this go around. You know what we will be eating at least once a week.

The Recipe:
75% Pork
25% Elk
Casings (local butcher shop can get you how much you need)
For every 15 lbs of meat:
1 tablespoon black pepper
3 tablespoons salt
3 cloves of garlic (or 5-6 if you really like garlic)
2/3 cup warm water
Hickory chips

Cake Wreck

I made this super yummy white cake today and had visions of what the photograph would look like. Nicely frosted with chocolate frosting and fresh raspberries, placed outside on our patio set. That isn't what it looks like at all. It looks like my golden retriever tried her hand at cake decorating. I am pretty sure my three year old could have done a better job than this.

Don't be fooled by the picture, the cake tastes amazing. I failed to grease the pan enough or let them sit too long before getting them out of the pan. I tried some surgery with frosting but frosting couldn't save this disaster.

If you can get past the photo and take my word that it really does taste good then check out the recipe after the picture. It is my take on a white cake recipe from AllRecipe.com.

Ingredients:

2 cup white sugar 1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup shortening 4 eggs 4 teaspoons vanilla extract Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour two 9 inch cake pans. Cream together sugar, butter and shortening. Beat in one egg at a time. Add vanilla, baking powder and flour Add milk. Bake for about 30 to 40 minutes

3 cups all-purpose flour 3.5 teaspoons baking powder 1 1/2 cup milk

I Heart Coconuts

I really do love all things coconut. Coconut oil, coconut milk, Banana boat... but I may have to draw the line at baking with coconut flour.

I bought some in bulk at Sprouts earlier this week and have been desperately trying to love it. I tried this recipe for coconut flour blueberry muffins and while they were good, they didn't meet my muffin requirements. 

This morning I tried coconut flour pancakes and while the kids gobbled them up I thought they texture was all wrong. So sad especially when the web site mentioned them tasting like donuts. sigh.

So please send me coconut flour recipe that you have tried and love!

How To Make Molasses Popcorn Balls

I got an hankering (yes, a hankering) for my Grandma's molasses popcorn balls last week. Seeing as she lives 1400 miles away I knew I would have to take things into my own hands. Using a recipe I found online that had all the same ingredients as her recipe Little Man and I wiped up a double batch in no time flat. Why make one batch when you can make two?

Grandma's Molasses Popcorn Balls

2 quarts popped popcorn (About 1/2 cup unpopped)

1/2 cup molasses

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup water

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 tablespoon butter or margarine

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

 

Pop the popcorn.

Dump popcorn on a table or counter.

 Fluff the popcorn to make the hard unpopped kernels fall to the bottom. This is a great step for kids to help.

This is how much we had after popping one cup of popcorn.

Add the rest of the ingredients, minus the baking soda to large sauce pan. Do not stir - not sure why, but it said not to. 

Bring mixture to 235 degrees or soft-ball stage. Soft-ball is when you place a small amount in a cold cup of water and you can roll it into a smooshy ball in between your fingers.

 Add the baking soda and watch your mixture double or triple in size and turn a lighter color.

Pour over popcorn and stir.

Wet your hands with cold water and form into ball. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Place in plastic bags to store. I am not sure how long they keep because I ate them all in a couple days.

My husband isn't a big fan or molasses, Little Man didn't like to be sticky and Baby Girl like them but I was afraid of her choking so she only had tiny pieces. Sooooo maybe I didn't need to make a double batch... Who am I kidding, I love them and feel no guilt that I ate them ALL (diabolical laugh), minus the three I mailed to my Grandma.

Cocktails and Crafts - Mozzarella and Moxibustion

Last Friday we made mozzarella! It was so easy I am not sure why anyone would buy it in a store after they learn the process. Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite books. She offers a free 30-minute recipe here.

There are many different recipes out there for mozzarella and you can also make ricotta out of the leftover whey but we stuck to this simple recipe to keep the time manageable for a group.

Since most of the group is pregnant I was the only one drinking. I kept it simple with some good ole fashion Colorado Coors - conveniently already located in my fridge.

Okay - on to the mozzarella...

Heat up the milk to 55 degrees which takes about 30 seconds.

Add citric acid and watch it curdle. Science is awesome.

Add the rennet and once the curds have separated from the whey you strain out the curds.

Knead the curds to remove access water.

Pop it in the microwave for about a minute and start to stretch it. Holy crap - that looks like mozzarella!

 I forget (then and now while typing) that you add the salt before kneading the cheese. I also read that you can store it in a salt brine. We added some the whey back to a container for storage.

Not really related to cocktails and crafts - but we also had a moxibustion session to try and turn a breech baby.  You light the cones and then hold them to the outside of the pinky toe until it is warm and red. We did have a licensed acupuncturist administering the moxibustion.

The baby didn't turn at my house (damn). It does smell like an illegal substance (unless medically necessary) so I am sure anyone walking by my front door would rightly assume that this is the party house on the block - just not for the reason they are thinking.

Now go make some mozzarella. You can get all the supplies at Whole Foods, probably Wegmans, Trader Joes or Amazon.com.

Baking With Kids

Today I am watching my friend's two girls. When faced with cold weather and four kids, ages five, three, three and one, what better activity is there than cooking! Wow - two cookie posts in a row. Really not all that surprising since I can't say no to a cookie to save my life (or waistline).

There was a lot of counting and turn-taking to mix all the ingredients for our oatmeal-dark chocolate M&Ms - walnut bars.

 

I love Little Man's face in this picture. It looks like he is doing an impression of Popeye.

Baby  Girl couldn't be left out!

She added all the crumbs on the counter and then tried to stir - so freakin' cute!

My Little Man is Three

We celebrated by son's birthday yesterday and I was feeling some twinges of guilt because of the lack of effort dedicated to this big day. Here is what I was able to pull together.

The Chasing Fireflies catalog has great number shirts but not having $30 to spend on a t-shirt I opted to make my own out of a $3.50 shirt, freezer paper and some fabric paint. I really like this method and I love how it turned out!

To make your own cut your design out of some freezer paper. Place the waxy side on the fabric and use your iron on a medium setting to attach, then go crazy with the fabric paint. I put a towel in between the two layers of the shirt in case I went too crazy with the paint.  Let the paint dry and then set the paint with the iron.

For M's gift I wanted to make him a tent that he saw at my friend's house. I am going to try and post a tutorial on this once I recover for the holidays. I used nylon and in hindsight I think it would have been better with canvas. It is a bit bigger than originally intended, but M loves it and three kids can easily fit inside.

 

Testing out the new tent.

 Grandpa got M his own flashlight - a BIG BIG hit.

 We took him ice skating and he did so well and I didn't do so bad myself!

I wanted to make M a train cake and had big plans to carve a train but after realizing that it took a sheet cake to create and we weren't going to have a big party I scaled down the design. I made marshmallow fondant and it was great! I was a little rushed cutting out the train but it is identifiable.

I then had my husband cut a three inch piece of one inch PVC pipe and cap it off. I added some water and dry ice to make the train smoke. I was pretty impressed with myself!

Here is a close up of the smoking. Next time I will make sure to add enough dry ice to make it more dramatic but I was too chicken this time.

Having a December birthday is tough, especially so close to Christmas. We have already started to debate having a summer half birthday. Any people out there with December birthdays that care to weight in?

The Sugar Cookie Massacre of 2010

There was a Christmas massacre at my house, I am not going to lie - it isn't pretty. At least that is what I think my sugar cookies look like this year. I tried to pipe icing with white and then flood the inside with red but apparently I made it too runny and a bloodbath ensued.  Rather than try and fix it I just went with it and hoped the sprinkles would help make them look more festive. Little Man and I had a pretty good time making this mess.

Not sure if she would want the credit or not but I got the frosting recipe from i am baker, and it is tasty and I am sure in more capable hands (i.e. someone that can follow directions) it would have worked great.

• 1 cup Confectioners Sugar (powder Sugar)
• 1 Tablespoon Milk
• 1 drop Lemon Juice (fresh Or Processed)-this is optional
• 1 Tablespoon Light Corn Syrup

The first victim. Clearly someone tried to cover up the crime.

 Double homicide or murder/suicide?

Not even the tree was safe. I do love the gloss!

 A herd of dinosaurs were near by but didn't hear a thing.

The damage. There was icing EVERYWHERE in my kitchen - counters, floors, cabinets, the dog...

More dinosaurs. We normally use these for Playdoh but thought what would scream Christmas more than a festively decorated Stegosaurus and Pteranodon.

The cookies taste amazing. Here is the recipe I used.

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
2 medium eggs
10 tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pinch nutmeg
1 pinch baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1. Cream together sugar and butter.
2. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well.
3. Then add sour cream and vanilla and mix well.
4. Sift the dry ingredients together and add to wet ingredients a little at a time.
5. Chill in refrigerator till firm or even overnight.
6. Preheat oven to 400°.
7. Roll the dough 1/4-1/2-inch thickness and cut out into desired shape.
8. Bake for 5-7 minutes or until lightly pale golden--not brown.
9. Allow to cool completely on wire rack before frosting.