Homemade Wheat Sandwich Bread

I have been on a quest lately to come up with a really good sandwich bread recipe that not only meets the requirement of being healthy but also edible by kid standards.  Store bought bread is convenient without a doubt, it also has a lot of junk in it.  Most supermarket brands have high fructose corn syrup in them.  Did you know that when you make bread the amount of sweetener needed is very small, just enough to feed the yeast.  My recipe has 2 tbs of honey for the entire loaf.  So the bread companies are putting high fructose corn syrup in because they are too cheap to spring for the tiny amount of more expensive, better quality sweetener.   Not to mention preservatives, that don't really seem to work that well considering my bread lately has been moldy  after a couple of days.

Homemade bread may seem very daunting, but it really is easy, especially if you have a bread machine.  You can do this in a kitchen aid mixer fitted with a dough hook or by hand if you don't have a bread machine.  With the machine it takes only a few minutes of my actual time.  This recipe was adapted from The Bread Bible but I did change a few things.

2 2/3 c. all purpose unbleached flour
1c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. buckwheat flour
1/2 c. flax seed
2 c. warm water
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs honey

In the pan of your bread machine or your bowl if not using the machine combine the flours and flax, make a well in the center and add the honey, yeast and salt followed by the water.  Set the machine to the dough cycle and leave it alone.  If mixing by hand or machine mix ingredients until a smooth ball of dough forms and let rise for 40 minutes.  After the dough is done, remove from machine or bowl and punch down on a floured surface, the dough will be slightly sticky. Place in a well greased loaf pan and cover loosely with oiled plastic wrap.

Let rise for 50 minutes.  Meanwhile heat oven to 375 and place racks on the lowest two positions, place a cookie sheet on each rack.  When the dough has risen, very carefully remove the plastic wrap and gently but quickly score the top with a sharp knife.

 Very gently place loaf pan on top of the top cookie sheet in oven, pour 1/2 c. ice cubes onto the lower pan and gently close the oven.  Let bake for 50 minutes.  Remove from oven and remove loaf fro pan to cool.  Let cool two hours before cutting.  Keep bread tightly wrapped and it will keep for 3 days.

This Weekend in Pictures

We had the best weekend.  Friday afternoon was spent at the park playing and taking a walk around the lake.  Saturday we cleaned out the flower beds, hit the Home Depot for some pretty new flowers and planted all of the pots and beds.  Tim surprised me with tickets to see Junip this coming Saturday as my Mother's Day present.  It was really sweet, and it happens to be on the same day that we had our first date eleven years earlier and at the same place.  Sunday I got up and cleaned and then my mom and dad and sister and her family came over for lunch and then we went for frozen yogurt, but the frozen yogurt machine was broken so that was a bummer, but the kids had ice cream so they were happy.  After that we walked across the street to a flower market and my mom and dad let the kids each pick out some flowers to buy for my sister and I.  Later we came home and the kids played for a while and then we went over to the church next door and the kids practiced riding their bikes.  It was the first day for Iris without training wheels and while she was a little scared at first she was doing pretty good by the time we left.  Harper was riding his balance bike and the kid is a little demon on it.  He figured out how to ride with his feet up and was cruising all through the parking lot. He was even going down hill and through puddles.  It was a great weekend spent with my family and just hanging out with the kids.

I drank too many of these, they are so good but they don't sell them in our city so Tim buys them when he's away on business.

Iris having fun on the swings in the park

H hanging out in the tunnel

I love this little face 

Daddy and Iris

Love

Harper made me this at school on Friday.  So sweet.

My little garden helper

My big garden helper :)

bugs.

Homemade pizza on Saturday, yum.

Strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Sunday bike riding.

Iris, getting the hang of it.

How was your weekend?

-Kim

A Moment

I took a few minutes this weekend to walk around the yard with Iris and take a few pictures of this ever growing, sweet girl.  Almost seven.  I really can't believe it.  We picked a pretty white Iris while we were out there.  I only have a small patch of these but I think I might plant some more colors this year.  The yard is in full bloom and even with the weeds attempting to take over it is lovely.  I hope we get some relief from the rain that we have been having so I can spend some more time on these walks with my loves.

-Kim

Wonderful Wednesday

So we all know Wednesday isn't really wonderful, but hopefully I can make it a little better by sharing one of my favorite finds every week. There will be projects, cool items, recipes, blogs and you name it from all over the web. Hopefully these will help inspire you as much as they help me. The first installment is something that was one of my very first sewing projects and since I have some friends who are new to sewing, as I'm sure many of you are I thought I would share this project. It is a very simple pair of kid's pants that can be made with no pattern and can be embellished many ways or even turned into shorts, pajamas or capris. I have made dozens of these over the years using this tutorial and hope everyone else will too. It is found on a lovely blog called Handy Home Projects and is super easy to follow. Enjoy and happy Wednesday.

Kim

Art for the Kid's Rooms.

My kiddos are getting their bedrooms made over as their birthday presents this year. Every year we try to give them something other than a bunch of toys since they get this from everybody else. We usually do something big like last year we made them a playground and bought a new swing set to go in it. This year I knew right away that they would want new rooms. Well Sweets at least, Bug is still too little to tell us what he wants. When we moved into our house a year and a half ago we didn't do anything to their rooms, just moved the furniture in. They are both painted a boring pale tan color and the walls are bare. In our old house their rooms were so cute, we had really worked hard on both of them. So it seems like it is finally time, Sweets is about to turn five and start kindergarten and Bug will be two and moving to a big boy bed this year. So Sweets picked her idea out all on her own of course. We were at Lowes one day looking at paint samples (my kids love to do this for some reason) and she found a little booklet of ideas. In it were some of the loudest paint colors I have ever seen (and I painted my last living room orange). However there was one that was painted aqua and lime that she immediately fell in love with. This I can do, so it was decided. As for Bug I know I want to paint the walls orange and accessorize with brown, sky blue and lime green and of course his room will revolve around trucks since he's totally obsessed. So the big thing about doing their rooms is that I am determined to do it on a small budget and have it look great. I am going to post here exactly what I spend so that everyone can see that it's possible. For my first project I chose art. I saw in the Sunday paper a few weeks ago that Big Lots had canvases on sale for three dollars a piece so I went and bought three for Sweets room (11x14) and one for Bug(12x12), I also bought a much larger one for Bug's room(18x24) The 4 smaller ones were three dollars a piece and the larger one was seven. For Sweets I went with a woodland animal theme and drew up some different images till I was happy. I ended up with a skunk, a deer and a pair of owls. For Bug I used Alexander Henry's Traffic Jam fabric as inspiration for the large painting and a photograph of a Ford Econoline that I found through a Google search. I used acrylics that I already had so that part was free. My technique is one that even someone with no skills could probably do with success. Basically I draw my image onto the canvas with pencil and then trace it with a sharpie, when you paint over it you can still see the sharpie lines so you have something to follow, then it is pretty much just like coloring in a coloring book but with paint. After I have painted my image and it dries for a few days I go back and go around all the lines again with black sharpie to make it pop. For the big green one with the cars I just retraced the images in three shades of sharpie. The biggest thing to remember is to let the paint dry in between each section and before tracing and outlining with the sharpie. If you aren't artistically inclined you could very easily trace an image to start with.

Triple Lemon Cake

It's my dad's birthday today and of course that gives me a reason to bake. Dad's not a huge chocolate fan, his tastes lean more towards lemon or coconut. Well we have had coconut cake lots over the years as this is my mom's specialty, so this year I went for lemon. I had an idea of what I wanted, a light, moist cake with a nice crumb and subtle lemon flavor, filled with lemon curd, and topped with lemon cream cheese frosting. Don't ask me why, but this is just what I had in my head. So I searched and searched for the right recipe, and ended using a cake recipe from Country Living, a lemon curd recipe from Martha and my own lemon cream cheese frosting recipe. I love the texture and flavor that the cake recipe has, it's just what I had in mind, a nice big impressive cake. The lemon curd is a beautiful recipe, it comes out so pretty and I think I may try to make some to jar and gift with scones. The only thing I would change is to maybe add a little more lemon zest and sugar, I really like a sweet, lemony curd. The frosting is pretty standard and I will of course give you the recipe. I'm just really amazed that I managed to get this cake done, Sweets was out of school today and for some reason the kiddos have decided to fight non-stop since waking. It's midday and I'm already exhausted, so glad that my husband is leaving work early today so we can go to dinner with my parents. I'm ready for the weekend!

Last but not least, I just want to give everyone a little tip involving bread machines, make sure you put it far back on the counter when using it, mine took a flying leap off of the counter yesterday while I was making dough. It managed to take all of my knifes off of the counter with it, and my chef's knife shattered, so I'm off today to purchase a new one. In light of my beloved bread machine almost coming to a disastrous end I've decided that she needs a name. I'm thinking Stella, but if you have any better suggestions let me know.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting:

2- 8oz. boxes of cream cheese, softened
6 c. confectioners sugar
3 tbs. butter, softened
2 tsp. lemon extract or more to taste

Cream the cream cheese with the butter until soft and creamy. Add the lemon extract. Add the confectioners sugar 1 c. at a time. Add any food coloring if you want to tint the icing. I used sky blue for part of mine and left the rest uncolored for decorating.
-Kim

There's a Wocket in My Smocket!

Well the title is an homage to Dr. Seuss who's birthday was celebrated this week and the fact that Sweets read ten pages of "Fox in Socks" all by herself. You should have seen the looks on her dad and I's faces when she brought that book in our bedroom and started reading from it. In case you can't tell I'm busting at the seams with pride. So in honor of this and the fact that I really need to get started on summer sewing projects I set out to make my first smocket. I found this pattern a while back at themayfly and thought it was adorable and best of all totally easy. I managed to whip two of these out yesterday during Bug's nap. I made one for Sweets which I had to enlarge the pattern quite a bit on since she is wearing a size 5 and the pattern is about a 24 months or 2t. The other I stuck with the pattern measurements since it is going to my 2 year old niece, who is just barely a size 2t. I made both out of some great red and white polka dot fabric that I bought on clearance last year at Hancocks and still have about 3 yards of left. They are reversible so the other side is a solid black quilting cotton with some cute ladybug buttons that were in my stash. I really, really love this design, it is just so cute on. I'm sure I will be making many more for summer and I love that they can be worn into fall with a long sleeve shirt underneath as Sweets wore hers today. She has requested that I make her a pig/butterfly fabric, reversible smocket next time, so I guess I will have to make a trip to the fabric store since surprisingly I have none of either. I also took a few minutes and whipped up a new case for my sunglasses. I had made one before without a zipper, but it only held one pair and I usually have two and it also didn't really keep junk from getting on my glasses. Hopefully this new zippered version, that can hold two pairs will keep the various gunk that finds it's way into my purse off of the lens. If you are wondering what type of gunk could seriously be in my purse, well last week I reached in and found a half-eaten slimy apple courtesy of one of the kids, hopefully!













-Kim

Beignets or Powdered Donuts

Sweets loves powdered donuts, I mean loves. It's not a love we often indulge in, as a matter of fact she usually only gets them at her grandparents house. I have a feeling though that if she were given the choice she would choose those little powdery confections over just about anything else. She also always thinks that mom can make and do anything, she is quite the little fan club. So today she asked me on the way home why didn't I ever make powdered donuts. I explained that mom didn't know how, and she counteracted with the fact that she was sure I could learn. So never one to let the kiddo down I did some extensive Google investigating on the subject of powdered donuts and came across Beignets, which are a New Orleans favorite and tradition. They looked good and more my speed, so I thought I would give it a try, and Sweets is just happy to be able to help make her very own powdered donuts. I found the recipe and a lovely explanation of the history of Beignets at cakespy. I made the dough as usual in my bread machine (man I love that thing) and one recommendation I have if you try this method is to grease the inside of the lid, the dough rises up so far that it mad the lid pop open and some of the dough got stuck to the inside of the lid. The only change I made was to substitute 1/4 c. buttermilk and 1/4 c. cream for the 1/2 c. of evaporated milk that the recipe called for and the only reason I did that was because I had no evaporated milk.

On a totally unrelated note, Bug has suddenly turned mean. I guess we are hitting the terrible twos with a vengeance. He's still a few months away from that big number 2, but as we all know it's not so much age as attitude. Sweets never really went through the terrible twos, she pretty much skipped the tantrum thing altogether, I guess we were lucky. Although she is a major drama queen these days and is prone to pouting and whining for hours on end, at least she isn't punching, scratching, kicking and throwing things all while screaming at an ear piercing decimal right into my ear. I'm really hoping that this is just a little phase that he is going through because his vocabulary is still limited. I figure once he starts to get the ability to speak more clearly and in more complete sentences maybe he won't be so angry. I've pretty much tried all of the tricks that I have learned with him, holding his hands when he hits and so forth but he's not buying into it. I now know how other moms feel when their kids throw major tantrums in the aisles of the department store, in the last two weeks he has been face down on the floor of Kohls numerous times, but on a happy note he also spent about 5 minutes dancing in the same aisle to the music playing over the loud speaker and thoroughly entertaining some elderly ladies when he was finished. Oh if only I could get inside that little mind and figure out what he was thinking for a few minutes, I'm sure both of us would be a lot happier.
-Kim

Breakfast baked goods

Seeing as how Valentine's Day fell on a Saturday this year I felt obligated to make my family an old-fashioned breakfast to celebrate. This year I stuck with the old stand-by's of bacon, eggs, and fruit but worked my butt off throwing in some homemade baked goods. I went with these cinnamon rolls http://whatscookingamerica.net/Bread/CinnamonRolls.htm and these blueberry scones http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/blueberry-scones?autonomy_kw=scones&rsc=header_10 I followed the directions for refrigerating the cinnamon rolls over night and they were actually really easy. I have found that since I have my bread maker making yeast dough is much less intimidating. The only change I made was to use heavy cream for the icing instead of milk. They were the perfect cinnamon roll and I'm sure if we ever feel the urge to kill ourselves with calories again I will make this recipe. The scones were the perfect scone in my opinion, not too dense, slightly crunchy on the outside, perfectly crumbly, light and moist on the inside, and just a touch of sweetness from the berries. I used frozen organic blueberries for this recipe even though it called for fresh and it turned out fine, and just for note you can buy frozen organic blueberries for cheaper than a pint of fresh non-organic. These scones really worked up fast and as it says in the recipe the minimum amount of handling helps keep them light and not hard. So with a little prep work you can have fresh cinnamon rolls or scones for breakfast this weekend and trust me they are so much better than what you can buy in the store. You don't have to take my word for it, just check out bug enjoying his scone.

-Kim

Appliqued Pillows

Let me just start off by saying that I love all of the kids in my life dearly, my niece and nephew and little cousin's mean so much to me. I love being called Aunt Kim or Aunt Im depending on who you're talking to and I love that they are so close in age to my own kids. I know that they are forming a bond that will last forever. So whenever holidays come around I find myself sewing for not two but four or more kids every time ( last Easter I made close to 10 little bunnies). I just feel like handemade gifts mean so much and I want to share them with my loved wee ones. So even though it may mean some late nights I am up to the task because its worth it when I see a little one running around with a toy I made, or wearing something I stitched. So this year I wanted to make personalized pillows since my kids and my niece are having their rooms redone. I did some major stash busting on this project and only bought two half yards of fabric from the remnant bin. Basically I wrote out the names on my wonder under, remembering to make the letters backwards so that they will be right side when reversed, then I ironed them to a variety of coordinating fabrics to match each room theme. I then figured out how big to cut out my pillow by laying the letters out on top of my fabric and leaving a few inches on each side (I just eyeballed it). Once I had my two rectangles cut out I layed my letters out again and after peeling the paper off of them, ironed them down. Next I carefully zigzagged around every letter with the smallest zig zag stitch on my machine. When that was all done (and believe me it takes a lot of patience) I placed the pillow pieces right sides together and stitched almost all the way around, leaving a small opening at the bottom for stuffing. Then I flipped it right sides out and stuffed. Last I tucked in my raw edges and stitched up. For the one that says "Kayleigh" I also added bows and a button. I still have one more to make for my nephew so hopefully I will get to that tonight. I think this may be the present that I make for all of Sweets' friend's birthdays this year, it was really easy and would probably be quick if you weren't mass producing them. :)

yummy candy for v-day, thrift store finds, and some pillows.

I've been keeping my v-day crafts in my back pocket so as not to spoil any surprises but I've been wanting to share something valentine-ish with you so I made something special just for you. Strawberry Cheesecake Truffles, they are way easy to do, take just 3 ingredients and are sure to make someone happy this Valentine's Day.

1 small tub of strawberry cream cheese
1 c. graham cracker crumbs
white or regular chocolate for dipping (or candy melts)

In the bowl of your mixer whip the cream cheese until fluffy, add the graham cracker crumbs and stir until blended. Use a small ice cream scoop to form them into balls, or just a teaspoon and your hands. Pop them in the freezer for an hour and then dip in your melted chocolate. Keep refrigerated.

I think that you could come up with a lot of different variations on this, some of the ones I have thought of are using vanilla wafers instead of the graham crackers, or how about regular cream cheese and chocolate chip cookies?

Today I managed to drag the kids out for a bit to check out some of my favorite thrift stores, I'm in search of a waffle maker, the old really heavy kind, not the plastic versions that are everywhere. I have had some pretty good finds recently and have actually discovered a new interest in Pfalztgraff china. I have seen this stuff before but it was always floral and never caught my interest. Recently however I came across a set of 8 white mugs that I love, they are perfect for coffee or tea and remind me of my favorite coffee shop. Today I added to my budding collection with a pistachio chop plate, which is just fancy talk for a really big plate perfect for a cake or cupcakes. I now have to keep my eyes open for some more of this fabulous stuff, it's really heavy stoneware that goes into the dishwasher beautifully. I love getting stuff from a thrift store, I feel like I am rescuing it and I love to imagine the person that it previously belonged to (who in my mind is always a little white haired lady with a cardigan on).

I'm also posting some pillows that I made two weeks ago and am just now feeling inspired to write about. We have this very nice brick fireplace that is unfortunately non-functioning, but has a nice wide ledge that is perfect for sitting on, just slightly uncomfortable. So I thought making some pillows to sit across it would hopefully make it more comfortable and less bare looking. I found these awesome decorator weight fabrics one day at Wal-mart for like 3 bucks a yard, so I got 1.5 yards of each and this is what I came up with. The bird and oak leaves pillows are done with appilique and feature my original designs. They are all stuffed with fiberfill and very cushy. They measure about 20 inches on each side.










And just because, a picture of tonight's dinner, beef stew.


-Kim

What to do with leftover meatloaf

So as I had mentioned in my last post I made meatloaf the other night, now for anyone who has ever made meatloaf you know that you are always left with enough meatloaf to feed a whole other family after yours has eaten. So yesterday I was faced with making lunch and there was a tupperware dish full of cold meatloaf starring me in the face. So I decided not to let the leftovers get the best of me and set forth to make it even better than it started. So this tasty meatloaf sandwich was born:

Leftover meatloaf sandwich (makes 2)

4 slices bread
2 slices leftover meatloaf
1 wedge laughing cow garlic cheese
2 tbs. butter or margarine divided
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

In a large pan heat 1 tbs, butter until melted. In the mean time heat the other tbs. of butter for about 10 seconds or until softened in the microwave. Combine the softened butter with the garlic powder, spread on one side of each slice of bread. Heat up the meatloaf slices in the microwave. Take two slices of bread and spread half of the garlic cheese on each slice, lay butter side down in heated pan. Sprinkle each slice with 1/4 of the mozzarella cheese and then top with the meatloaf slice, more mozzarella cheese and the other slice of bread butter side up. Cook until the bottom is toasted and then carefully flip and continue cooking until toasted, remove from pan, slice in half and serve immediately. The husband tried to steal my sandwich when he was done with his so I guess it gets the thumbs up.

On another note I've been surprised by how much cooking I've been doing lately, I think it must be weather related, sort of a hibernation survival thing. I always cook dinner, but its usually just throwing together something quickly. I haven't been spending nearly enough time on my sewing projects, I think it has just been too cold in our house for me to want to sit up at night and work. I usually just get under the electric blanket and watch t.v. I guess these days the warmth of the kitchen is much more appealing. I did start working on some valentines sewing projects for the wee ones in my life last night, it just so happened to coincide with the weather being an unseasonable 60+ degrees! I also began planning out Sweets Easter dress which I plan on making. Bug has a really cute Strasburg outfit that my cousin bought for him to wear, so this year I only have to make one outfit. I really want to tackle a more advanced sewing pattern for Sweets dress, just waiting for the pattern to go on sale at the fabric store. I have a lot of projects in the works for the husbands valentines gift but can't go into detail yet as I don't want to spoil it. Speaking of valentines, Sweets asked if we could go to the Chinese buffet for valentines day, when I asked her why she wanted to do that, she explained that her class had been working on Chinese New Year crafts and that every time she heard the word "chinese"all she could think about was, and I quote "those delicious noodles and rice". It's such a simple request that I think we will have to oblige and take the family out for chinese food Saturday. It's funny how your idea of valentines day changes when you have kids it becomes much more about love and less about romantic mushy stuff.

-Kim

Triple Chocolate Brownies and Some Play Clay

Yesterday was spent mostly in the kitchen working on various projects. We had a "Meemaw Day" which means that my mother-in-law was spending the day with us. On these days I usually try to make a big family style dinner and she usually does a crafty project with Sweets and helps keep Bug occupied while I'm cooking. Yesterday's dinner consisted of meatloaf, not my recipe but it was really good and you can find the recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-Meatloaf/Detail.aspx I will note that I did sautee the onions with some garlic before adding them to the meat, and I also added a tbs. of worchestershire sauce to both the meat and topping mixures, and I used italian seasoned breadcrumbs. We also had southern style greenbeans, which are totally simple but I always find that people are saying they wish they knew how to make them so here are the basics; I use canned or fresh green beans, whichever I happen to have, if using canned I usually average about 1 can per 2 people, also get the cut kind, not the "french style". I then put them in a pot with a thinly sliced yellow or white onion, half a package of country ham pieces(usually found near the meat department at the grocery), garlic powder, and a generous amount of sea salt and course ground black pepper to taste. In the summer I tend to add baby red potatoes too, but since we had mashed potatoes with dinner last night I just stuck with the green beans. The most important part of making the beans is to cook them to death, I mean hours, the longer the better and no less than about 3 hours.

No family dinner would be complete without a good dessert, so I set about coming up with a new brownie yesterday. This brownie has the taste and texture of cheesecake without having any creamcheese in the recipe, it does however have sour cream so maybe that contributes to the cheescake like quality. It is definitley for the chocolate lover as the flavor is pretty intense, coming from the three chocolate sources, cocoa, semi-sweet chocolate chips, and chocolate syrup, you could even use chocolate chunks if you really, really love chocolate. I have decided that it is the perfect brownie to share with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or cold glass of milk(if you like milk, which I don't). With Valentine's Day coming up next week, I think these would be the perfect treat to make for your loved ones. Also even though these are very chocolate heavy both of the kids loved them, Sweets even had two.

Triple Chocolate Brownies:
1/2 c. butter
1 1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. light brown sugar, lightly packed
3 eggs
1/2 c. sour cream
2 tsp. vanilla
1 c. cocoa
1 c. all purpose flour
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 c. chocolate syrup

Heat the oven to 350.

In a large bowl cream together the butter, and both sugars until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time until combined. Add in the sour cream and vanilla, stir until combined. Add the cocoa and flour, stir until just combined. Add in the chocolate syrup and chocolate chips, stir until well blended.
Pour into a lightly greased 9x13 pan ( I like using butter flavored cooking spray when baking). Bake for 30 minutes. Makes 12-15 brownies depending on how large you slice them. When serving you can serve them warm over vanilla ice cream and drizzled with store bought caramel sauce.

The crafty part of yesterday also took place in my kitchen. Sweets is having her Valentine's celebration at school on Friday and being that it is a Montessori school the valentines are requested to be homemade and have no characters on them. While some would cringe at the thought of having to construct 17 homemade valentines with their 4 year old, I start thinking about it in January, trying to come up with the perfect idea. This year we decided to make play clay and put them in some little tins that we received boxes of for free from my husbands aunt. They are about 3 or 4 inches across and have a blank paper label that Sweets decorated with markers and stickers. The play clay recipe is something that I think has been around for ever and is by no means my original recipe. It is a great craft for kids and the clay lasts for a few weeks unrefrigerated. We let Sweets put all the ingredients in the pot and stir it up before we put it on the heat, and then carefully supervised her while she stirred it. Bug even got in on the action stirring the second batch before we cooked it. It was a lot of fun and I have to thank Meemaw since she did most of the messy part while I helped Bug with his stirring. Here is the recipe if you would like to try it with your little ones or make up a batch for playgroup which is exactly what I think I will do for our next playgroup.

Play Clay:

1 c. all purpose flour
1 c. water
1/2 c. salt
1 tsp. vegetable oil
1/2 tsp. cream of tarter
paste food color

We let Sweets add all of the ingredients to a big pot and then stir up until combined off of the stove (I found that a whisk worked best for this part of the recipe). We added paste food coloring until the proper valentines hues of red and pink were acheived. Then we placed it over medium heat and very carefully supervised her while she stirred with some help from Meemaw ( I recommend a wooden spoon or sturdy rubber spatula for this part). You need to stir constantly until the mixture holds together so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. When it comes together transfer to a plate and let cool until you can handle it. We didn't find it necessary to add flour to the cooled mixture as it was just right, but if yours is a little sticky just add a little flour and let your kid knead it until you get the right consistency. Store in an airtight container. We made two batches and it was enough for 17 small balls for her class and two good size balls left over for Sweets to enjoy.

-Kim

Muffins and More

I had seen a recipe a while back for banana-coconut muffins and remembered thinking that it sounded interesting. Fast forward to yesterday afternoon when I was trying to come up with something to make for today's playgroup, my mind drifts to banana-coconut muffins. So of course I set off to make my own version based on this idea. I did make one change. I decided that banana-coconut-chocolate chip muffins would be much better, who doesn't like chocolate? So a little of this and a little of that later, I bring you delicious mini goodness. I found that the coconut in this recipe gives a really nice almost crunchy texture while staying moist and yummy at the same time. So here you go:

Banana- coconut- chocolate chip mini muffins

1/2 c. butter
3/4 c. white sugar
1/2 c. light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 c. milk
2 ripe bananas mashed
1 c. sweetened flaked coconut
1/2 c. mini chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 350.

Cream the butter, sugars and salt until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. In a bowl mix together flours and baking powder. Add the flour to the butter mixture alternating with the milk. Add the bananas until incorporated. Add the coconut and chocolate chips, stir to blend. Fill the mini muffin cups 3/4 of the way full. These bake up quickly about 10 minutes per tray. Recipe yields 50 muffins.





Also on the agenda yesterday were valentine cupcakes for Sweets playgroup as we are having a little Valentine's party today. These were just the boxed kind with the sprinkles. However Sweets enjoyed her baking experience and of course decorating the cupcakes. I love cooking with kids, it is such a great work for them. Sweets has always been very sensorial and she loves the process of cracking the eggs. I'm hoping to make some progress this weekend on a few valentine's gifts I need to make and will post the results soon.

- Kim