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So This is Love

8 Feb

Andyroo is a super picky eater, but he will eat hamburgers. So we eat them more often than we used to. I found a really great bun recipe on allrecipes.

Banana Cream Pie was singing to her burger, so I decided to make a reel.

Here is the bun recipe. I always make a quadruple batch. That way we have rolls all week for snacking. Also, I usually sub half the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour.

Homemade Hamburger Buns

Ingredients

  • 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast (such as Fleischmann’s ActiveDry Yeast)
  • 1 pound all-purpose flour, or as needed – divided
  • 1 cup warm water (105 degrees F/41 degrees C)
  • 2 large eggs, divided
  • 3 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 3 tablespoons white sugar
  • 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • 1 teaspoon sesame seeds, or as needed

Directions

1. Place yeast into bowl of a large stand mixer; whisk in 1/2 cup flour and warm water until smooth. Let stand until mixture is foamy, 10 to 15 minutes.

2. Whisk 1 egg, melted butter, sugar, and salt thoroughly into the yeast mixture. Add remaining flour (about 3 cups).

3. Fit a dough hook onto stand mixer and knead the dough on low speed until soft and sticky, 5 to 6 minutes. Scrape sides if needed. Poke and prod the dough with a silicone spatula; if large amounts of dough stick to the spatula, add a little more flour.

4. Transfer dough onto a floured work surface; dough will be sticky and elastic but should not stick to your fingers. Gently form dough into a smooth, round shape, tucking ends underneath.

5. Wipe out the stand mixer bowl and drizzle in olive oil. Place dough in the bowl and turn it several times until the surface is thinly coated with oil. Cover the bowl with aluminum foil and let dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

6. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.

7. Transfer dough to a floured work surface and pat to flatten any bubbles; form into a slightly rounded, 5×10-inch rectangle, about 1/2 inch thick.

8. Dust dough lightly with flour if needed and cut into eight equal pieces. Form each piece into a round shape, gently tucking ends underneath as before.

9. Use your hands to gently pat and stretch the dough rounds into flat, 1/2-inch-thick discs. Arrange buns about 1/2 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet. Dust buns very lightly with flour. Drape a piece of plastic wrap over the baking sheet (do not seal tightly). Let buns rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

10. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

11. Beat remaining egg with milk in a small bowl, using a fork, until mixture is thoroughly combined. Very gently and lightly brush tops of buns with egg wash without deflating the risen dough. Sprinkle each bun with sesame seeds.

12. Bake in the preheated oven until lightly browned on top, 15 to 17 minutes. Buns will stick together slightly where they touch. Let cool completely. Tear the buns apart and slice in half crosswise to serve

Chermoula Dressing

26 Mar

This Chermoula (Moroccan Green Sauce) is delicious on Oven Roasted Vegetables.

Skeeter Pie’s perspective is

“Why is Mom blending up vegetables to pour over vegetables?”

Recipe:
4 garlic cloves
1 bunch cilantro
(Or mix cilantro and parsley)
1 1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp cayenne
1/4 cup olive oil
Juice of 2 lemons
Blender until smooth

Kid Capers

20 Feb

“Mom! I made custard! Ketchup plus mustard equals custard.”

Skeeter

Haircut day for Apple Pie

Apple Pie- Those eyes 😍😍

Granny and Grandpa gave us an incubator for Christmas. There have been eggs it it for 19 days-per Banana Cream Pie’s custom-made hatching day countdown. Only three days until fluffy cuteness.

Special hatching Calendar
Soon baby chicks will emerge!!

And…Blueberry Pie bleached his hair. Finally, I have a blonde child!

Blueberry Pie and Mom

October 5-Octover 11, 2020

10 Oct

First week back to home school after break went very well. I’ve begun teaching the Scooter Pies to read because they were barging into Apple Pie’s reading lessons and giving the answers before she could. They are reading pretty well, and for the first time ever, every child in the house can read a verse during family scripture reading. The Scooter Pies’ enthusiasm is good for Banana Cream and Apple Pie, my reluctant children.

For Art, we have been learning brush technique and using watercolors from tubes, but Tuesday’s lesson was free painting. Peach Pie experimented with our new watercolors, but the younger girls begged for a “fun art lesson like we used to do last year,” so we looked through the videos on Deep Space Sparkle Art’s YouTube channel, and they were inspired by a Cozy Cat . They drew and painted their own versions of cozy cats, and I didn’t even have to walk them through any steps. They know what to do with sharpies and watercolor now. I am in love with these cutie cats.

For geography, we read about island archipelagos. We found several on our globe, and then made our own archipelagos with air dry clay.

Skeeter

We built them on some cardboard from the recycling bin.

Key Lime Pie’s Archipelago
Banana Cream Pie “These are the Hampster Wheel islands”!
Apple Pie’s Island

For Composition, we watched a Writers On Writing webinar from Read-Aloud-Revial done by Jonathan Auxier (author of Sweep:The Story of A Girl and Her Monster, one of Key Lime Pie and my favorite books.) Jonathan Auxier showed many sketches and writing from his own journals and explained how his books have grown from those sketches and ideas. He talked about the hero’s journey motif, common in many books, and taught how to keep a journal that will grow into inspiration for writing. The girls began their own “Hero’s Journals,” and I was thrilled by the ideas laid before them.

I made the mistake of setting up the writing lesson by saying we were going to do something really fun. Banana Cream Pie was so upset by how un-fun she perceived her hero journal assignment to be, that she curled up in a ball and cried and refused to do anything I asked for over an hour. I’m considering prefacing lessons by saying they will be hard and boring. Maybe I’ll be more successful?

Current bedtime Read-a-loud: The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dagliesh

Random funny boy quote:

Skeeter’s Tree Pose

“Mom! Look at me while I do a tree pose. It took me awhile to master it.”

Banana Cream Pie

Random funny girl quote:

Banana Cream Pie: “Can I have one of these cupcakes?”

Me: “Do you mean the cornmeal mufins?”

Banana Cream Pie: “Oh, Never mind.”

Pretty Thing:

Blueberry Pie painted these flowers on rice paper for me for Mother’s Day this year. They’ve just been propped against the wall in my room. One day, I was at the thrift store and saw this frame and just knew it was right for something. I brought it home, ruthlessly removed the Degas print from it, and put the flowers in it. Maybe I should have ironed the rice paper, but I’m scared to ruin it. I’ve hung it in the hallway upstairs, and it is just right. I see it and feel happy multiple times a day.

The Endless Merry-Go-Round of Meals

Usually on a Saturday, I grocery shop and meal plan and a little bit of preparing to make the week’s meals go smoothly.  Since I teach piano until 6pm, dinner is pretty late if I don’t begin it before or have the girls make it.  Last weekend, I did none of that, and this week’s dinners were late and no fun to figure out when I was already tired from a long day.  I was determined not to have that problem this week.

So I planned and shopped, and then enlisted the girls to help me. I couldn’t have accomplished all this without them.

Peach Pie

We spent over 3 hours, but we put together nearly all the dinners for this week as well as peeling and chopping many vegetables for meals and snacking.

So yummy

Peach Pie made 4 loaves of wheat bread. We also made breakfasts: frozen burritos, yogurt, and granola. That way, I get time to study my scriptures in the morning instead of having to make breakfast for everyone.

I also made 8 dozen pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. My lovely neighbor shared her recipe with me. I love it because it is lower in sugar than normal, and the cookies taste better the longer they sit in the cookie jar.

What is left of the 8 dozen cookies? Maybe 3 dozen…

Dinner Menu for this week:
Sunday: Pinto Bean Soup and Cornbread muffins

Monday: Green Chicken Enchilada Casserole and Creamed Corn

Tuesday: Summer Sausage & Cabbage & Onions over Rice

Wednesday: Crock-Pot Lentil Soup

Thursday: Lazagna

Friday: Chicken Tikka Masala and Oven Roasted Cauliflower & Beets

Saturday: Leftovers or Pasta with Pesto

My favorite granola recipe from Alton Brown.

Apple Pie testing out the brine pickles that have been sitting in the fridge for about a month. Salty!

Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Oatmeal Cookies
3 sticks butter, softened

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 (16oz) can pumpkin
4 cups flour

2 cups quick oats

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt
1 large package semi-sweet chocolate chips


1. Pre-heat oven to 325

2. Cream butter, add sugars. Beat until light and fluffy.

3. Add egg, vanilla, and pumpkin.

4. Combine dry ingredients.  Stir into butter mixture

5. Drop heaping tablespoons onto cookie sheets.

6. Bake 15-20 minutes.

Makes 8 dozen

Favorite Poem read this week:

How Many, How Much

                        by Shel Silverstein

How many slams in an old screen door?

            Depends how loud you slam it.

How many slices in a bread?

            Depends how thin you cut it.

How much good inside a day?

            Depends how good you live ’em.

How much love inside a friend?
            Depends how much you give ’em.

Freezing Sweet Corn

12 Aug
Apple Pie and Key Lime Pie

My helpers stayed up until midnight washing and cutting corn off the cob with me. 😍😍 Why did we stay up late instead of putting it off until tomorrow?

One, it’s easier to work in the kitchen when kids aren’t asking for food every five minutes.

Two, I wanted to stay up watching The Chosen anyway and needed a good excuse.

More than a Little Bit

7 Apr
Zeke and his toast

Zeke: I learned how to butter my toast all by myself.
(Shows bread with slab of butter 1/4 inch thick over the entire surface.)

Man of the House: That’s great but I think you have more butter than you need. Let’s take some off.

Zeke: ok but I need more than a little bit.

justlikehismommy

Celebrating!

18 Apr

Celebrating big. Daddy has a new job (that doesn’t require us to move), and Sarcoxi High School has a new ace English teacher.

Side note: turns out we can take 9 children to a restaurant to eat and have an enjoyable time.

Watermelon is the Best Treat

16 Apr

‘Nana Pie

14 Mar
Apple Pie and “nana pie”

I’ve never made banana cream pie,

(Pumpkin Pie made this one, from scratch)

but I would make it again and again so I could hear Apple Pie say, “Please can I have more nana pie?”

Making Yogurt

30 Apr

I mentioned in my post Saving Money on Groceries: Part 1 that I make yogurt each week.  There are lots of places online that will share with you how to make yogurt, including in your crock pot (this post has some good advice).  I’m going to share this recipe because it has always worked for me.  Most of the others only worked sometimes.  Also, this recipe makes a nice thick yogurt, very similar to the consistency of store yogurt.  I like thick yogurt.

Making this yogurt requires about an hour of in kitchen time and then overnight to set up.  Most of your time in the kitchen is waiting for the milk to heat up and then cool back down, so you can clean the kitchen, play with play dough with your kids, or call your friend on the phone at the same time!

First, you will need a little equipment:

1 dairy or meat thermometer  (a candy thermometer will not work)  if you are extra lucky, you will have one of those programmable thermometers that beeps when it reaches a set temperature.

2 stock pots.  I use an 8 quart stock pot and one the next size up.

long handled stirring spoon, preferably stainless steel

insulated cooler *optional

4-8 wide mouth glass quart jars with lids *optional

Ingredients:

1-2 gallons milk (raw or from the store, whole, skim, goat, cow, whatever)

1-2 cups plain yogurt with live cultures (this can be Dannon Plain yogurt from the store, or yogurt left over from the last time you made yogurt)

Directions:

1.  I create a double boiler with the 2 stock pots.  I run 2 to 2 1/2 inches of water in the larger stock pot.  Then I set the smaller stock pot inside and pour the milk into it.

Yes that is a clothespin holding my thermometer in place.  I’m high tech.

Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t have filled that pot so full.

2.  Turn your stove burner onto high and let it heat the milk up to 180*F.  This is important because the heat breaks down the proteins in the milk so they can recombine into yogurt.  Even if you are using pasteurized milk from the store, don’t skip this step.

3.  When the milk reaches 180*F, turn off the burner and lift the pot out of the boiler.  I like to cool the milk quickly so I can get on with other things.  So I plug my sink and fill it half full with cold water and however much ice is in the ice tray in my freezer.  Then I set the pan of hot milk into the sink with the thermometer and check it occasionally until the milk temperature is down to somewhere between 105*F and 115*F.  It helps to stir the milk occasionally to even out the temperature and get a true reading.  Usually if my thermometer reads 115*F, I stir the pot and the actual temperature turns out to be 108-110*F.  110*F is the optimal temperature for yogurt culture.

Yep, shouldn’t have filled that pot quite so full.  The water looks cloudy because I spilled a little milk setting it into the water.

4.  Now remove the milk from the ice water and stir in 1 cup of yogurt for every 1 gallon of milk you used.  As I noted above, this can be yogurt from the store, or yogurt left over from last time you made yogurt.  I find I can “reuse” my yogurt about 4-5 times before I need to buy a new yogurt from the store.  So I just buy a pint of plain yogurt once a month to use as yogurt start and rarely have any problems.

**I like to scoop out about 2 cups of warm milk and stir the yogurt into it and then stir all that back into the big pot.  It’s not actually necessary, but I feel like it is less of a shock to the cold yogurt culture and that it helps me get the yogurt stirred evenly into the big pot.

5.  Now I pour the hot water from my double boiler stock pot into my cooler to warm it up.  In colder months I may even leave the hot water in the cooler to keep the yogurt warm while it cultures.  But in summer, I usually pour the water out.

6.  You can leave the milk in your big stock pot to culture, it works fine that way.  But I think quart jars are easer to handle for me and the kids.  So I pour the milk/yogurt mix into quart jars and put on lids.  If you are just going to leave the milk in your stock pot to culture, you can put it in your oven (turned off) and wrap a towel or blanket around the pot to help it keep it’s heat.  I’ve done that before successfully.  I just like using jars better.  (mostly because I also use this pot for boiling spaghetti and so having it in the fridge full of yogurt can be inconvenient.  Also because the side of the pot starts to get crusty after a few days and that’s yucky.)

7.  Set your pot or jars into the warmed cooler and put the lid on. Let sit 8 hours or overnight until the milk thickens into yogurt.  If I made the yogurt before lunch, then I check it before I go to bed to see if it has set up.  If it hasn’t, I let it continue to sit overnight.

In the morning, you have fresh delicious yogurt ready to be eaten!  So healthy and delicious.

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