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I realized that I have been baking way too many sweets lately. I made my chocolate chip cookies and had absolutely zero self control in regards to eating them. That was about a week and half or two weeks ago and I haven’t made any cookies since, but I want to so badly, I can practically taste those buttery, chocolatey cookies right now….

Anyway, since I have not been baking sweets, I still have a major sweet tooth that cannot seem to be ignored. Enter, once again, the Jessica Seinfeld “Deceptively Delicious” cook book. She has a recipe for ice cream sandwiches in there that I figured I would give a go at. It’s made with yogurt, buttermilk, lemons and graham crackers and they are absolutely fantastic! I cannot stop eating them, and I don’t feel bad because they are mostly yogurt. I need to make another batch I think…

My biggest problem with the recipe is the freezing times that it gives. The book says it should take an hour and a half for your yogurt mixture to freeze. Wow, was that one waaaaaaaay off. I waited almost five hours for it to freeze properly, and it still could have gone just a little longer. Since I had started making them in the evening, I was up late and couldn’t wait any longer for the mix to freeze to the proper consistency.

So, to overview, ice cream sandwiches; good. Directions on how to make them; bad.

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I like yogurt. I like the kind that comes in the little cups at the store. You know, the ones that have too much sugar and have yummy flavors like blueberry and cherry-pineapple. I do have a pet-peeve about yogurt, though. For some reason, it makes me absolutely mental when the companies that make yogurt put the fruit on the bottom of the cup. I HATE it. So much.

I mean really. Why? Why do that? It must save on cost or something. Instead of mixing all the fruit and sugar into the yogurt, they just put some on the bottom and the yogurt goes on top and I guess it saves a couple of cents? Too me, that’s just lazy. If I am paying money for the yogurt, I don’t want to have the to do the work of mixing it myself. The way I see it, that’s part of what I am paying for, not having to do the work.

Speaking of paying, did you ever notice that the yogurt that does have the fruit on the bottom is usually smaller AND more expensive then, say, the store brand that already has all the fruit mixed in? The store brand cups are usually some where between six and eight ounces and the name brand crap is usually four to six ounces. It also seems to be the only kind that you can buy, as well. When I go to the grocery store, if I’m not buying the store brand stuff I REALLY have to search for something that already has the fruit mixed in. What gives??

There is one more thing that really irks me about fruit on the bottom yogurt. It’s the stupidest thing, really, but bothers me none the less. I hate that when you have to stir up the fruit the yogurt gets all over the handle of the spoon. I don’t know why that bothers me so much, but it is probably the one that bothers me the most.

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So the kids have been sick for the past two weeks. Trent the first week, and Hunter the second. In addition to being sick, poor Hunter was cutting six teeth. I couldn’t do anything because all he wanted to do was nurse. Thank goodness they are both finally feeling better.

Today I have been playing catch up with my organization duties as leader of my Mommies group. I wasn’t able to post anything at all, or email any of my members, because I couldn’t type. I could look at stuff, but with Hunter in one arm it was impossible to do any sort of corresponding or updating. I still have a bunch of things I have to do, but for the most part I am now all caught up with everything, emailing people back and getting events up on my groups calender.

It has been pretty nice here the past couple of days and it is supposed to stay the same tomorrow. Since we’ve been cooped up for so long, I decided to take the kids outside tomorrow. We’re going to check out this neat play ground that I have been hearing a lot about since we have moved to our new neighborhood. I’ll take pictures tomorrow and try and write a review of the place. I’m really excited to get Trent out of the house, because he needs it badly. He hasn’t been good about taking his naps or going to bed, and I know it is because he has too much energy. Tomorrow he shouldn’t have any problems.

I’m also catching up with feeding my family. I have been struggling getting food on the table these past weeks, can you guess why? Anyway, I was at least able to get good nutritious food made every night, even if Trent won’t eat it. This weekend, though, I was able to finally sit down and make puree’s for baby food and to cook with! I have the Jessica Seinfeld “Deceptively Delicious” cookbook and I have been wanting to utilize it forever, I just never had the time to actually make the purees to make the recipes. I made up a ton of purees over the weekend and I am going to start using them this week in recipes. Tomorrow I am making the banana bread with cauliflower puree and the spaghetti pie with carrot and broccoli purees.

I was really excited to make the puree’s because I was using the new rice maker and hand mixer that I got for Christmas. I got the exact rice cooker that I posted about a couple of months ago, and let me tell you it is AWESOME! It has a retractable cord, I can set it to start cooking at a certain time, it has a slow cooking option. This thing is fantastic! I used it steam all my veggies over the weekend and then used my new hand blender to puree them. The hand blender is great too. It only has one speed, but it works so well that it doesn’t even matter. The feature that I like the best is that the stick detaches and can go in the dish washer. Rad!

Well, I have a lot more stuff that I could write about in this post, but I think it’s getting a little late. I can always write another post tomorrow!

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Today I’m attempting to make truffles as holiday presents. I found a really easy recipe online that I want to try out. Here goes….

Here’s the first finished batch, just regular chocolate. Half are rolled in crushed walnuts and the other half have cocoa powder sprinkled on top. Yum.

These ones are coconut flavored and dipped in white chocolate with cocoa powder on top of them. Hmm… one appears to be missing in the bottom photo.

These are the pumpkin pie truffles, made using canned pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice, dipped in chocolate with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

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I have to say that I am consistently impressed with the Target brand food line, Archer Farms. Everytime I pick up an Archer Farms product I am usually pretty happy with it, with the exception of their chocolate chip cookies. A few days ago I decided to try their ice cream and got the chocolate overload. Mmmmboy was it good! Usually when I get store brand ice cream I don’t like it, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Go Target!

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For the past week I have been feeding my family all these super healthy meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It makes me feel really good when I know my family is eating well. That pomegranate fish I posted recently was one of the meals. I made this quinoa dish that is a big family favorite. I call it a super food dinner because in addition to the quinoa there is also spinach, sweet potatoes, lots of garlic chunks and chicken. One of my easiest and healthiest one pot meals.

We had spaghetti squash with sauce and meatballs the other night. Another night I made a rotisserie pork roast with brown rice and roast vegetables.

For breakfast I’ve been making kasha with cranberries and a little sugar. That is really yummy. Since my husband isn’t too fond of cranberries, one morning I made it with blueberries.

It feels really good to finally be eating good food as opposed to the past month of fast food and dining out we have been doing because if the move.

My oldest son hasn’t been eating much, but I am not going to cook a seperate meal for him. He has to eat what we eat.

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Chicken and dumplings can be super easy to make anyway, but just opening cans and putting the contents in your slow cooker is even easier. I made this recipe last week when I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner with what we had unpacked.

12.5 ounce can of chicken
Family size can of cream of chicken soup
Chicken broth, enough to fill the empty can of soup twice
4 carrots, chopped into large chunks
4 celery stalks chopped into large chunks
Half of one vidalia onion, chopped into chunks
3 potatoes chopped into chunks
2 teaspoons Bell’s poultry seasoning
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 1/2 cups of Bisquick
2 tablespoons of cold butter

Put all of the ingredients, except for the Bisquick and butter, into a slow cooker and set to high. Combine the Bisquick, butter in a bowl and add just enough of the soup from the crock pot to make a dough that is not too sticky and refrigerate. Let slow cooker sit for four hours then form the bisquick mixture into half inch rounds and drop in the slow cooker. Let cook for another fifteen minutes and serve.

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Last night I made a really yummy dinner; salmon with pomegranate and honey; spinach, and smashed turnips and potatoes as sides. I have attempted to make salmon with pomegranate in the past, but that was before I really knew how to use the fruit and it didn’t come out all that great. This time it came out real good, maybe just a little too sweet but next time I will do better.
I have also discovered that I can sneak extra stuff into my smashed potatoes. One, I make smashed instead of mashed to keep the skin of the tuber and keep all the goodness and vitamins associated with it (hee hee, I used the word tuber in a sentence). Two, instead of using water to boil, I use chicken broth and don’t dump the liquid, but mash it with the potatoes, once again to retain nutrients. This dinner I also cut up a turnip and boiled and mashed it with the spuds since I am always trying to sneak good things into my families diet. (Let me make a note here, when I use the word diet I am NOT talking about how we are trying to lose weight using food but the things that we eat on a regular basis. It irks me when I use that word and people automatically associate it with weight loss.) When making my smashed potatoes I have also discovered that by adding plain yogurt as a substitue for sour cream you get a much better taste, lower fat and more calcium! By following all these steps I have gotten to the point that I am making really good and good for you potatoes.
Here is my recipe for the salmon:

1 large fillet of boneless salmon (I used about a pound and a half)
Half of one pomegranate
2 tablespoons of honey
1/4 cup of white wine
2 tablespoons of butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Place fish in an oven safe dish. If using salt and pepper, add now. Take as many of the pomegranate seeds from the fruit as you can and place on top of the salmon. Drizzle the honey over the top of this then pour the wine over that. Cut the butter into pieces and place all over the salmon and fruit seeds. Broil the fish until it flakes with a fork. If the top starts getting too well done and the inside is not cooked all the way through, take it out of the broiler and cook in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven until it is complete.

This recipe is different than the one I made last night in that I drastically cut back on the amount of honey I used.

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Something that I have been curious about for sometime is the difference between scalloped and au gratin potatoes. I looked it up on Google last week and found out that scalloped means cheese and au gratin means covered with bread crumbs… or something like that. Anyway, I decided to try my hand at making scalloped potatoes and improvised a recipe that came out really good. Here we go….

4 – 6 potatoes, thinly sliced (the thinner the better)
1 can of cheddar cheese soup
1 cup of chicken broth
1 stick of cream cheese (8 ounces)
1/2 cup of plain yogurt
salt and pepper to taste
shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and grease a 9 x 13 baking dish. While slicing the potatoes, put the soup, chicken broth, cream cheese and yogurt in a pot on the stove using medium heat. Put the potatoes into a large bowl and once the cream cheese is all melted pour the soup mixture into the bowl with the potatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste and stir. Pour the potatoes into the baking dish and sprinkle with the cheddar cheese, cover with a lid or tin foil and bake for an hour. Remove the lid and bake for another five to ten minutes. Let cool for ten to fifteen minutes and serve.

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Since my family will be moving soon we have been trying to empty out the freezers so we have less frozen food to move. I pulled out some frozen turkey from Thanksgiving last year and I have been trying to find something to do with it. Last night I was having a hankering for snack foods for dinner. I warmed up some of the left over turkey and put it in the food processor to shred it. I lined the bottom of an oven and microwave safe dish with refried beans, layered the shredded turkey over the top of that and that put salsa on top of all of that. Put it in the microwave for about four minutes and put cubes of Velveeta cheese on it and put it in the oven at three hundred degrees until the cheese was melted. With some tortilla chips it was great and really hit the spot for the snack food I was craving. It was a big hit with my husband and two year old, which always makes me feel good.

I love being able to recycle left overs into something else.

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