Oatmeal Cake This Way

I have a tendency to change recipes, and it doesn't always turn out great. Sometimes it does. I've had a long term goal to try to write down what I do so I can remember what does turn out well.

Today was the second time I made this oatmeal cake. I think the first time I made it I was looking for recipes that didn't use white flour because I only had a little in the house and needed it for pizza. Priorities.

The first time we added nuts to the topping, this time I did not.

Visit https://www.tasteandtellblog.com/oatmeal-cake/ for the original recipe.

 

Modifications I used:

1/2 c. coconut sugar instead of 1 cup brown sugar in the cake

1/2 c. white sugar reduced from 1 cup white sugar

whole wheat pastry flour instead of white flour

added a teaspoon of vanilla to the cake part of the recipe

1 cup coconut: I used sweetened coconut because that's what Walmart substitutions gave me, but normally I would use unsweetened from Azure Standard where I also got the pastry flour and oatmeal.

It did NOT need the full 35 minutes to bake.

Linen towel from Hammer and Thread on Etsy.

Creamy Coconut Milk

My newest experiment in the kitchen is making coconut milk. I used the recipe from the Wellness Mama blog, and coconut I ordered from Azure Standard. I used a loosely woven kitchen towel to strain out the pulp. It drips through pretty slowly so some squeezing with my hands or pressing with a spoon was needed. The recipe makes a quart.

Don't throw away the pulp, it can be eaten or used in baking! I have been making it into makeshift muffins with mini chocolate chips, but there's no official recipe to post yet.

The homemade coconut milk was very sweet and great for making hot chocolate. 

The cream will rise to the top, and in the fridge it hardens to a solid. The cream can be eaten by the spoonful, melted back into the coconut milk if you heat it when you use it, or just chopped into small pieces that will end up in your glass of milk or bowl of cereal.

A 32 oz. carton of So Delicious brand coconut milk costs a little over $2 at Walmart or Winco, so I estimate that homemade costs less than half of purchasing, plus you get the leftover pulp to use.

Coconut Yogurt Popsicles

These popsicles were inspired by creamy sweet Mexican coconut popsicles and coconut cream pie or pudding. I also give inspiration credit to the large amounts of plain yogurt I had in my fridge and my two voracious popsicle testers.

1 c. plain yogurt

1 T. honey (warm to soften if needed)

4 drops vanilla stevia sweetener

1/2 c. shredded coconut

Stir, freeze, serve.

This was a small batch and only filled 3 of the 4 popsicle slots in my mold. Other than that, it was a hit. It had a hint of yogurt tartness so if you want it sweeter and more ice-cream-like you could start with vanilla yogurt or something already sweetened. There are also non-dairy coconut milk yogurts that might taste great as popsicles. I'd love to hear what variations you come up with!

Citrus Cake in the Bread Machine

Perhaps your oven is in use with another project, your house is too hot to use the oven, or you simply feel the need to justify your $12 thrift store purchase of a bread machine. All these would be perfect opportunities to use your bread machine to whip up a tasty citrus cake (a copycat of the Starbucks Lemon Loaf). My recipe is based on this one, which might be a better option to try if you're just going to do it in the regular oven.

If your machine has a dough setting and a bake setting, you can basically override the the machine's preprogrammed routines and use it somewhat like an easy-bake oven. I have used a similar method to make cornbread in the bread machine. Some bread machines also have a specific cake setting. I have a Breadman TR875.

Cake:

1 c flour

1/2 c. oatmeal flour

1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

3 eggs

1 c. sugar

2 T. butter, melted

1 t. vanilla

1/3 c. lemon juice

1/2 c. coconut oil, melted

zest of one orange or lemon

Glaze:

1 c. powdered sugar

2 T lemon juice

Put all ingredients in bread machine and put on "dough" cycle. Use a small rubber spatula to help scrape the flour out of the corners and bottoms while it mixes. When thoroughly mixed, cancel the dough cycle, reach in and pull out the mixing paddle, and turn on the "bake" option for approximately 1 hour or until the middle is done. Remove, cool, and pour the glaze over the top.

Pretzel Rods

There is nothing new under the sun, or on Pinterest: others have already done a good job of listing and photographing all the picturesque and tasty things one can do with pretzel rods. My 3 tips to emphasize are:

1. Make sure you don't have too much chocolate on the pretzel or the toppings will drip off.
2. It helps to work as a team: one person rotates the pretzel over a dish while the other sprinkles.
3. For the white drizzled over chocolate (or vice versa) it was easiest to spoon up some melted chocolate, and pour it out in the thin stream from the spoon while passing the pretzel underneath. Move the pretzel, not the spoon.

We used toffee bits, crushed peppermints, various sprinkles, coconut flakes, and the ones with a lumpy "spiral" around them have a stretched-out caramel (think play-dough snake) wrapped around them before dipping. The styrofoam tray was our cooling rack. We barely snooped at all, so I'm going to have to make a few for myself at home with the leftover ingredients.

Animal Crackers

Today we had a friend here for the first "Letter of the Week" day.
We chose a theme of animals and animal crackers. I rolled out the dough ahead of time and the boys liked cutting out the animals.

Animal crackers and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers I think;
When I'm grown up and can have what I please
I think I shall always insist upon these.
What do you choose when you're offered a treat?
When Mother says, "What would you like best to eat?"
Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?
It's cocoa and animals that I love most! 

Easy Peasy Frozen Yogurt

But no peas involved. Unless you want them!

• 1 quart (4 cups) yogurt. We used peach!
• 1 3/4 cups milk. We used vanilla coconut milk, which already has a little sweetness and flavor. Whole milk was recommended by the original recipe I based this on.
• Optional mix-ins. We added frozen apricot chunks. You could add vanilla if your milk isn't already flavored

Mix first two ingredients and process with a 2 quart ice cream maker for 25 minutes or what the ice cream machine recommends. Throw in the fruit at the end. I think this recipe would be really good with blueberries and blueberry yogurt!

Once a Month Cooking (Month 2)

Last month 4 women and 9 of their sons convened on Rachel's house to cook the February 2012 menu from Onceamonthmom.com. It was a fun but intense 3+ days of cooking (the first day was a long day and then the other days were partial days of cooking). We learned a lot and got to try lots of new foods (some good and some....interesting?), and decided to give it a second go.

So this week we did the March menu. We substituted one recipe and changed a few details (for example, making regular lasagna instead of lasagna rolls to keep things simple). Instead of everyone buying so many different ingredients, we each took a section of the list. For example, I bought all the dairy products to make the meals for 4 families. Some of the things we had access to for free, such as chickpeas and applesauce. The night before, we each had a few tasks to do such as soaking and cooking beans, making dough, etc. That way we saved money by not buying the canned beans and biscuits.

We haven't crunched the numbers yet (I'll update when we do) but we think we spent about $120-130 per family to produce the 15 recipes. Perhaps a little more if you include things like freezer bags and containers. Each recipe was supposed to produce 2 meals worth per family, but some of the recipes seemed to produce a lot more than that. I think I have 4 containers of quesadilla filling, and 3 of the zucchini pesto. Everyone took home 2 big broccoli stromboli rolls and 1 little one. The lasagna recipe and the cinnamon rolls had some rabbit-like qualities to them (in quantity, not flavor)....I think I put together the equivalent of eight 9x13 pans of lasagna (some of the pans were smaller so it was actually more than 8 pans). Jamie spent most of Thursday rolling out cinnamon rolls.

(photos by Sheila)

15 recipes x 2 meals worth of each recipe x 4 families = 120 meals

120 meals x 5 people per family = at least 600 servings of food, more if you count leftovers


Some of the recipes are basically a meal in themselves, and some would need buns or a vegetable or various condiments to go with them. We had some extra bags of some of the veggies though that we split up among us, so some of those are already paid for too. I think this was an economical way to try new recipes!

Next month (or at least sometime) our goal is to plan our own menu. We can make some adjustments to have it run more smoothly with so much quantity and limited freezer space, as well as using some of our personal favorite recipes or hits from this month or last month's menu.

Besides the convenience of having all this healthy food in the freezer, it was a fun time getting to talk with others while we were cooking! The kids played (and built things, and bothered the chickens, etc.) in the fenced backyard and didn't get into too much trouble.

If you're thinking of trying this with friends, look at onceamonthmom.com. They now have some 5 and 10 day mini menus, so you could start small and then expand, instead of starting big and then trying to simplify like we did!

Valentine's Day Peanut Butter Heart Cookies

I saw some cute cookies on Pinterest, but I was either too cheap or didn't plan ahead enough to buy heart-shaped chocolates.

So I used Aunt Janet's peanut butter cookie recipe and added 3 chocolate chips to the top of each. After they baked, I used a toothpick to push the melted chocolate into a heart shape.

Lest you think it was a complete Martha Stewart experience, I did drop some.

I also let Tobias help. He wanted to make owl cookies (2 chocolate chips for eyes) instead of hearts. Then some of the owls ended up with more than 2 eyes, somehow. Then the eyes got poked with a toothpick. I am assuming they will all taste good though.

Lazy Blender Apple Butter

I'm trying to make a dent in the medium-sized pile of apples I have in my kitchen. I have a peeler-corer-slicer which is great for some things like dried apple slices, but for this batch of apple butter I decided to try something even easier. All the vitamins are in the peels, right?

First I cut up the apples. My "lazy" way of doing this is to cut off one side, avoiding the core. Then cut off 3 more slices, leaving a rectangular core. I took a few bites off each core and then fed the rest to the chickens.

Next I blended up these chunks in the Vitamix blender. I had about 10 cups of the blended mixture.

I added 1/2 c. of sugar, 2 teaspoons of vanilla, 1 Tablespoon of cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves. Then I turned the crock pot on high and placed the lid on sideways so steam could escape.

My kitchen smells amazing and I've snooped a few spoonfuls that tasted great. I will update tomorrow with the finished results!

Finished product: I left the crock pot on high for about 4 hours, and then on low for about 4 hours, stirring occasionally. By this time it was about half the volume of when I started. I plan to freeze some and keep some in the fridge. Maybe next time I will try making a larger batch and canning it!

Now to keep at that pile of apples...we are about to eat German Apple Pancake for breakfast!

Easy Microwave Pink Lemonade

Earlier this summer I threw a few lemonade concentrates into my grocery cart to make popsicles. The popsicles were delicious, but I wondered if I could make my own with ingredients I already had on hand, and maybe a tad healthier (no corn syrup). I think it ends up being a little cheaper too.

Here is my recipe, which I adjusted from several recipes I looked at online:

Easy Microwave Pink Lemonade

Add 3/4 cup sugar to 1 cup water in a microwave-safe container.

Microwave approximately 3 minutes until the sugar is dissolved, stirring after 1 or 2 minutes.

Add 1 cup lemon juice.

Add 3-4 cups water. Use 3 cups if you are going to be making popsicles, serving with a lot of ice, or just like tangy lemonade; use 4 cups for a more standard lemonade.

Add 4 drops red food coloring if you would like your lemonade to be pink. I did this because I had used rapadura sugar, which is brownish, and it gave the lemonade a dark color.

Peanut Butter Cookies and Invisible Coffee

It seems like my favorite blogs are always posting beautiful pictures of the tasty things they have been cooking up. We've been cooking too, although the pictures are maybe not as mouth-watering as they could be. Tobias is getting less destructive when he helps in the kitchen. He helped stir and shake cinnamon into cottage cheese pancakes, and helped squish peanut butter cookies with a fork.

The recipe for the peanut butter cookies (Aunt Janet's recipe) is:

• 1 cup of peanut butter, slightly melted
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 egg
• Roll, squish, and bake 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees

We re-shaped the cookies featured in the video and do plan to take them to church.

What are your favorite places to get new recipes?