Food

I Attempted some new snack foods today. My mom bought me a wonderful dehydrator so I made blueberry fruit roll ups. They taste fantastic but stain the hands. I think I'll go for apple next time. I also made peanut butter protein balls that everyone loved.
Right now I'm making walnut crackers. I'm hoping they turn out fantastic.

In the kitchen

K and I have been doing lots of projects in the kitchen.  We've been making lots of butter.  Here is some above that we molded into a pineapple.  My mom also brought as a grain grinder so we've been grinding out wheat before we bake. It makes things taste great. 

crackers

We made some really great graham crackers and it was so easy.  It took me forever to find a recipe that actually called for graham flour.  Most recipies use whole wheat.  The crackers tasted great!

Making butter

 I got a great new book for Christmas on how to make butter, yogurt, and cheese.  It kind of goes through them in lessons that build upon each other.  The first was making butter (and buttermilk of course).  It was super fun to make.  Next time I want to have a mold ready so my butter can have a fun shape.  Also I realized afterwords we probably should have salted it as we mostly just used it to butter bread.  The top picture I'm kneading the butter in the most wonderful clay pot my dad and his wife gave me for Christmas.  :)

sunb bread

We haven't been making as much homemade bread lately.  Which is too bad because I love homemade bread.  Anyway we made this sun bread on the shortest day of the year to welcome the sun back. 

suckers

 I made my first suckers!  Boy was it easy.  We made a whole ton of batches in all different flavors.  The butterscotch was my favorite.  We also made enough to enter them in a local candy swap.  We got back homemade gumdrops, marshmallows, truffles, and more.  I have to say the homemade vegan marshmallows were my favorite.  I just bought the supplies to try and make my own. 

Apple cups

 

I found this idea in Family Fun magazine.  K and I used a melon baller to carve out apples into little cups.  we filled the apples with cranberry and apple juice.  They were fun to drink out of and then eat. Even L enjoyed himself as one of the cups was made into applesauce for him.  :)

muffin tin lunch

Muffin tin lunch.  Ok its not a terribly creative muffin tin lunch but it was my first so I figured I'd post a picture, besides I just love this muffin tin.  I found it at a garage sale some time back.  K hasn't been eating much, but loved this idea so much he actually had a good sized meal.  Hopefully I'll be able to get a little more creative in the future.

K's 3rd birthday is coming up. He had requested a pink tea party. My mom bought me this great bundt cake mold of bugs. So this was my trail run at making vegan bundt cake. They turned out great! And they taste super good too!

Food adventures

For the first day of spring we made a bunny loaf. Boy was that some great bread! K enjoyed eating the bunny's ears.

On another day we also made bear claws. K saw them in a magazine and insisted that we make them. Of course the magazine didn't have a recipe so we had to figure it out for ourselves. They look cool but never did harden. Oh well. K was happy with the result anyway.

Fruit Salad

So I'm a bit behind here in the blogging world. Here are a couple of left over pictures from St. Patrick's day. We spent the day hiking around the nature center and for dinner I made a rainbow fruit salad. I used some frozen fruit to cut down the cost. The purple is naturally dyed coconut.

Maple candy in the snow

Found this great recipe at: http://rosinahuber.blogspot.com/2011/01/maple-snow-candy-recipe.html.

K loved it!Ours didn't caramelize quite like it should. i think I didn't let it cool enough before pouring it in the snow. It didn't really matter though. The taste was great and it was fun.

Fun Food

This butterfly sandwich is a grill cheese with apples and carrots.

This Heart veggie dog is made with hard noodles and cheese.

I've been having fun making K's lunches lately. I guess this is what happens when you spend too much time in the house sick. :) I got the idea for both of these from Family Fun Magazine.

Buddha's Hand

My brother bought me this fruit at the store. He said seeing it, he just couldn't resist trying it. After much internet research I found that you only have a few choses in how to eat it, use it as zest on meat, use it as an air freshener, or candy it. I went with making it into a candy. The process was fun, however, I was called away towards the end and ended up messing the whole thing up. Oh well. It still tasted good.

By the Way. Buddha's hand smells very similar to lemon and the candied peel tastes like candied lemon peel.

Homemade gingerbread house (vegan)

We had a spent a wonderful morning making gingerbread houses with out friends. Well to be honest we made the actual houses the day before and decorated them the next day. My friend's children are allergic to milk and eggs so we used a vegan recipe for both the gingerbread and the icing. I think they turned out great! Here is her website that links to the recipes that we used.

http://doodlebugdeb.blogspot.com/2010/12/gingerbread-house.html

Making cookies

Our dyed cookie doughK rolling out the dough with his tiny rolling pin
The cookies before they entered the oven
Unfortunately the colors didn't really hold

I was finally about to find some natural food coloring through a co-op. We decided to make Halloween cookies (I know I'm behind here). We had a great time dying the dough and making the cookies. Unfortunately, the natural dyes baked out as they cooked. Although when you took a bite the inside was still colorful. :)

Dad's Birthday

My dad's birthday was this past week. We had him over for dinner and cake. I made my first two layered cake. I was never much of a baker until recently. This is mostly because I found the best book where everything is baked using whole grains. Everything I have made has turned out amazing. For my dad's birthday I made lemon poppy seed cake with blueberry jam.

I also made him a window star. What do you make for the guy who has everything? I've been itching to make more window stars. Perhaps I should make some fall colored ones for the upcoming season.

Snail Bread

We made snail bread this week! I found the reciepe in the book, "Baking Bread with Children." First you make a wonderful pizza like dough with the pizza sauce baked right into. After rising you flaten it out and cover it with cheese. Then you roll it into a tube and slice. K had a great time making them and they actually turned out really tasty.

Canning Tomatoes

Cooking the tomatoes

Filling the Jars

Placing them in the pot.

All done!

Our garden has been producing tons of tomatoes so I decided to try canning for the first time. My mom came over to help me get started. We decided we'll do them in batches as they come in (there was only enough for about 6 cans this round). I found it to be a lot easier then I thought it would be. And fun!