Little Chick Deviled Eggs

We LOVE deviled eggs, and our girls love to help make them. So, my mom was excited to find the idea for these super cute chick deviled eggs via Pinterest. She and E(2) had fun making them, and we all enjoyed eating them!

Making Melkkos...South Africa

The girls and I made melkkos when we were studying South Africa. Melkkos is made from milk, flour, and cinnamon. It's easy to make and the girls thought it was yummy. Here is the recipe. The girls loved mashing the butter into the flour. We simmered it with a cinnamon stick. And it's done!

Easy Dulce De Leche...Argentina!

The girls and I made dulce de leche a couple of weeks ago, and it is absolutely deeeelicious!!!  It was also super simple to make!  The only ingredient is a can of sweetened condensed milk!  We took the label off the can and put it in a deep pot of water (at least 4 inches of water covered the can at all times...evidently, it will explode if it is ever uncovered).  We boiled the can for 4 hours.  After it cooled, we opened the can on both ends and the dulce de leche slid out....sooo good!  We put it on vanilla ice-cream and then sandwiched it between 2 shortbread cookies to make alfajores.

Chicken, Broccolli, and Cheese Empanadas...Argentina!

The girls and I made empanadas during our monthlong of studying Argentina.  All of the recipes that I saw for empanadas contained red meat, but since we don't eat red meat, we substituted chicken.  I took the easy way out and used an already prepared pie crust instead of making our own crust.  The girls really enjoyed rolling out the crust and helping with all of the steps in making the empanadas, and we were all covered in flour by the time we finished making them.  The empanadas were a hit!

Argentinean Lentil Stew and Chipas

The girls and I have cooked several Argentinean foods lately, and we've really enjoyed it!  I don't love to cook, so our study of Argentina has been a good motivator for me.  It has also motivated me to include the girls in meal preparation more often (which they have loved).

Last week, we made Argentinean Lentil Stew.  I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com.  The girls didn't love the stew, but they ate it.  O(5) loved peeling and helping cut the carrot.  She also helped cut the apple.

We also made Chipas (Argentinean Cheese Bread), which they LOVED!  O(5) said that kneading the dough was more fun than playing with playdough!

The girls loved mixing in all of the ingredients.  I'm guessing that I should have melted the butter, but I usually don't think of things like that until it's too late.




Kneading the dough is SO much fun!




They REALLY loved rolling the dough into golf ball sized balls.



Deeeelicious!

Crockpot Applesauce

When I was telling O(5)'s teacher about our super cool new apple peeler today, she suggested that we make crockpot applesauce. I'm so glad she did because it was super simple and deeeeelicious!

Both girls LOVE peeling apples with our new apple peeler (we bought it when we went on our apple picking camping trip).


After we peeled and cored 4 apples, I cut them into pieces and dropped them into the crockpot. The girls took turns adding the following ingredients... (here is a link to the original recipe)

1/2 tsp cinnammon
a little less than 1 T brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tsp Vanilla extract

After cooking on low for 4 and a half hours, I stirred the apples with a fork and they mushed into wonderfully mushy applesauce. The girls LOVED the applesauce. O had 3 bowls and asked for a 4th, and E ate 2 bowls full of the yummy stuff.

My only regret is putting the brown sugar in the applesauce...I refuse to buy applesauce with added sugar at the grocery store, so I'm not sure why I added it here. I didn't even think about it until it had been cooking for about an hour. I just hope this delicious, sugary applesauce didn't ruin the girls taste for the non-sugar variety :) Next time I'm planning to add in a cup of blueberries!

Making "Town Party Lemonade"

During "Laura" Camp, the girls and I had fun making (and drinking!) lemonade. We used the "Town Party Lemonade" recipe from the Little House books website.

The girls loved rolling the lemons before I cut them. They also really liked squeezing the juice from the lemons. O was excited to dissolve the sugar in the water, and this was a fun science lesson. She wants to explore this further at another time (she LOVES to do science experiments that she creates on her own).

Our Flag Cake

The girls and their friends had a great time decorating (and eating!) this flag cake on July 4th. My mom baked an angel food cake, and the girls "iced" it with Cool Whip. They then decorated it with blueberries and strawberries to make the stars and stripes. This is a July 4th tradition that we started a couple of years ago and hope to continue for many years.

Easy Microwaved Eggs

I have a confession to make...I rarely cook a hot breakfast for my children. I prefer serving them cereal and milk, yogurt,boiled eggs, and fruit. Occasionally, we'll have oatmeal. Sometimes, I feel guilty about this, but most of the times I'm ok with it :)

However, when a friend mentioned microwaved eggs a couple of weeks ago, it reminded me of making microwaved eggs for breakfast years ago in my "before kids" days. Since my girls LOVE eggs, I decided to try microwaved eggs this morning.

I poured olive oil in a microwave safe bowl and swirled it around to cover the sides and bottom of the bowl. I cracked 2 eggs into the bowl and mixed them around with a fork. Then, I microwaved them in 30 second intervals. I think I microwaved the eggs for a total of about 1 minute and 45 seconds...the last interval was only 15 seconds. Once they were cooked thoroughly (not runny at all), I cut the eggs into pieces and served them to my girls.

E(1) was THRILLED! She squealed and shouted "eggs!" when she saw her plate. O(4) liked the eggs, but she said that "daddy's scrambled eggs are better because he cooks them with milk." Maybe, I'll put a dash of milk into our microwaved eggs next time :)

Valentine's Day Cheerio Treats

The girls and I made these Valentine's Day Cheerio treats yesterday, and they are DELICIOUS!

We melted the butter (about 3 tablespoons) and mini marshmallows (about 3/4 of a bag) using the microwave.  Then we poured in the Cheerios a little at at time and stirred.  I didn't measure how much Cheerios we used...we just kept adding more until it looked right.




We then added in Valentine's Day m and m's.  Yum!




I pressed the mixture in a glass dish and let them sit over night.



This morning I cut them using metal cookie cutters.  This was NOT easy to do, and it definitely would only work with metal cookie cutters. 

There is only one Cheerio treat left...I'm so tempted to eat it, but I guess I'll be nice and divide it with Elliott and the kids in the morning.

Baking Bread

E and I baked bread (in our bread machine) on Wednesday morning.  E LOVED helping measure and pour the ingredients into the machine!  I hope to make baking bread an every other week activity. 





Since we made homemade bread, we had to have homemade butter to go with it!  We poured heavy cream into a small blender (previously used to make baby food) and blended it until it was buttery.  E did NOT like the noise, but she didn't mind quite as much after she tasted the butter.  Her little hand kept sneaking back to the bowl for just one more taste!





Here's our recipe for Honey Oatmeal Bread...

INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cups water

3 cups bread flour (we used 1.5 cups of bread flour and 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour)

2 tablespoons honey

1 1/2 tablespoons dry milk powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup quick cooking oats

2 tablespoons margarine

1 tablespoon active dry yeast


DIRECTIONS

Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select White Bread setting, and Start.
 
Here's sweet O using this recipe to make bread almost 3 years ago.