How Do You Dress Up Your Hot Cereals?

Maybe I'm the only one, but around here we make large pots of some sort of hot cereal for breakfast. Usually it's either Malto-Meal or oatmeal, but I fill my big dutch oven pretty fill with whatever I'm making that day. Since it's usually fairly plain tasting, I've found some ways to help my kids learn to love these hot cereals, with just a few additions.

Like today, to my massive pot of Malto-Meal (about 10 servings worth), I added somewhere around 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice, about 1 cup of brown sugar, and roughly a cup of milk. Other days I've done plain cinnamon and brown sugar, and sometimes I add nuts and/or raisins as well, depending on what I have on hand and what the kids are in the mood for. The nice thing about cinnamon, is that it has a lot of good properties, one of which being that it helps control blood sugar to a degree, so that the kids don't go on a sugar high from all the carbs. I love that about cinnamon, among other things. And my kids love the extra flavor.

Other flavors I've done are apple pie spice, as well as just a mix of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg (sort of like ginger snaps). They really liked that one. I have also added vanilla extract in the past (homemade of course), and honey in varying amounts.

While they weren't too thrilled about the plain hot cereals at first, after a few trial and errors, they seem to love it now, especially as the weather starts growing colder. Even the baby loves it now, with all the yummy flavors.

Lemon Ginger Cookies with Boysenberry Cream Cheese Frosting

This is my first entry in Bake at 350's Flavor Of The Month carnival. I missed out on the last one, which was pie, due to, well, life. But, I made it this time, and I'm excited to participate in the theme of lemon and/or lime. I chose lemon, mostly because I can't stand lime, but also because I have some good recipes with lemon in them. The following recipe is one I stumbled across recently, and fell in love with it. The frosting was something I concocted because I was in a crazy mood that day, and thought I'd be adventurous. I'm not sure how the adventure turned out, but the cookies are very good, and the frosting, while tasty, doesn't necessarily add to the cookie, though it doesn't take away from it by any stretch. As my husband put it, he's ambivalent about the frosting. But, it does make it look pretty :)

So, go check out the carnival over at Bake at 350, and if you have any lemon and/or lime recipes, go turn them in :)

Lemon Ginger Cookies

1 c. butter

2 c. brown sugar

2 eggs

1/3 c. dairy sour cream

1 tsp. lemon extract

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 1/2 c. sifted flour

2 tsp. soda

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground ginger

Cream together first 7 ingredients until fluffy. Sift remaining ingredients together and add to creamed mixture, blending thoroughly. Drop from teaspoon 2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) for 12 minutes or until done. Remove at once from pan. Delicious!! Yields: 6 dozen.

Boysenberry Cream Cheese Frosting

I took a half recipe of my favorite cream cheese frosting, and then melted down some boysenberry jam until it was runny. I then blended that into the frosting until it looked about right and I could taste the jam. I think I used only a few tablespoons.

The frosting is completely optional, you could even use a plain cream cheese frosting for these. I ended up topping them with some coarse sugar too, just to make them pretty.

Hair

I've been making some changes to my hair routine, and so far they're going well. On Monday, I washed my hair with a baking soda rinse, and followed it up with an apple cider vinegar rinse. Then, I didn't wash my hair for 3 days. It's insane, I know. Usually by the end of the second day my scalp is begging for mercy from the itching, but I didn't have that this time. Today, I get to wash my hair again with the baking soda, but no ACV rinse. I've made a rosemary rinse though, so we'll see how that feels. It's too hot to use it yet, but I'll be doing that in a little bit. I was surprised at the 'rosy' color of the tea though. I simmered a sprig of rosemary in some water for about 15 minutes, and it turned out a really pretty rosy color. I can't wait to use it, it smells so good.

Here are the sites where I got my ideas from:

Babyslime

and

Rosemary

I am hoping that the rosemary will help with my hair strength, since after 6 kids my hair has gone a bit brittle. Wish me luck :)

Havarti and Ham Herb Brioche

I got the idea for this from a comment that a friend made. She told me how she used to work in a bakery, and how the favorite item was the Havarti Dill and Ham Brioche that the bakery would sell. I had been wanting to make the Brioche from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, and this sounded like a perfect experiment.

I am not a big fan of dill, so I took the herb mixture from my favorite Herb Peel-Away Bread, doubled it to fit the amount of dough in the Brioche recipe from ABin5, and then got myself some plain creamy Havarti cheese, and some ham. I would have gotten some nice, maple honey ham from the deli, but they were closed up by the time I actually made it to the store, so I had to settle for cheap ham from the packaged section. Nothing terrible, but the deli stuff would be really good in this.


So, here is my recipe for the Havarti and Ham Herb Brioche.

Havarti and Ham Herb Brioche

Make a batch of the Brioche dough from ABin5. To the dough add:

2 Tablespoons dried Parsley
1 teaspoon dried Basil
1 teaspoon crushed Rosemary (try to find the crushed stuff, you don't want big rosemary leaves getting caught in your teeth)
1 teaspoon dried Thyme

Mix it all up and allow the dough to rest overnight. It is much easier to work with when cold and you need the dough to have set for a good amount of time.

3-4 ounces thick sliced ham
3-4 ounces thick sliced turkey
4-6 ounces creamy havarti cheese, plain

When your dough is ready, chop up a few pieces of ham and/or turkey. You can use whatever kind of ham or turkey you want, just dice it nicely so that it will go into the dough easily. Shred or dice some havarti, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 cup or so.


Flour the top of the dough, as well as your hands. Have a little flour on the side to help with stickiness. You don't want to over flour these, but you don't want them sticking to your hands either. Look for a nice balance.

Take a piece of dough roughly 3 ounces.

Flatten it out a bit and make a well with the dough. Fill with a little bit of Havarti, some ham, turkey or both, and a little more Havarti.


Close the dough around the filling, and place in a very well greased muffin tin. Do this 12 times (or 24 if you want to do two muffin tins). Make a nice little indent in the top of each brioche. Take a walnut sized piece of dough, roll it into a nice little ball, and place it on top of each of the brioche (this will be your top-knot).


Turn your oven on to 350 degrees. Allow your dough to rest for about 20-30 minutes or so, or until they've risen a bit. You don't quite want it to double, but you want it to have sufficient rising time.

Brush with your egg wash, andake for about 30 minutes or so, or until the bread is a beautiful golden brown. Allow to cool for a few minutes, pop out of the muffin tins, and eat warm.

I just barely managed to save a few of these to freeze and reheat, which would make a wonderful backup lunch for my husband. I'll let you know how well they reheat. **they reheated pretty nicely from the fridge**

As my husband and I were talking about these, we started coming up with some other ideas too. I thought about using an Italian herb mix, and filling these with some Provolone, mozzarella and pepperoni, to make some little pizza bread brioches. I could probably do some turkey and havarti or another type of cheese as well. The possibilities are endless :) My husband said they're like little hot pockets, but way better.

Wontons

I started making these wontons when I was in 7th grade. That was a very long time ago :) It started out as a foreign foods project for Social Studies. I ended up with China. So I went to the library, and started looking through all the cookbooks for Chinese cooking. I managed to find one that looked interesting. The cover was yellow, with red writing. I don't remember what the name of the cookbook was though, otherwise I'd probably be trying to find it now.

So, I looked through the recipes, looking for something that wasn't too "weird" or called for strange ingredients I'd never heard of. The first one I found was the recipe for Wontons. They looked relatively easy, and we had most of the ingredients available. The one thing we couldn't find was Chinese Parsley, which I found out many years later was actually cilantro. But, I hate cilantro so I stuck with our substitute of regular parsley.

Over the years I've tweaked this recipe to the point where I really don't even measure anything, I just add it until things look right, or smell right, or whatever pleases me that day. The liquids usually stay roughly the same (although I'll add a few extra squirts of soy sauce usually), but the dry ingredients usually get upped a bit, especially the ginger root. I love ginger root, and add probably about 10 times what the recipe calls for. It makes these taste soooooo good.

So, without further ado, here are my instructions for making some very good wontons. I will share the original amounts, but you can always feel free to increase or decrease whatever you like.

Wontons

1 whole boneless chicken breast, cooked
2 scallions
1 thin slice ginger root
¼ cup fresh parsley
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons soy sauce
½ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon oil
1 pkg. wonton wrappers or egg roll wrappers cut into 4ths.
1 egg, lightly beaten
Oil for frying


Mince and mix the first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl. In a small bowl mix the remaining ingredients (excluding the wrappers and the egg). Combine both mixtures and allow to stand for 30 minutes. Place a teaspoon of mixture in the center of a wonton wrapper. Using a chopstick or the back of a spoon, place a small amount of egg around two edges of the wrapper. Fold the wrapper in half, touching the sides with egg to the sides without egg, forming a triangle. The egg will seal the edges shut. Deep fry in oil until a deep golden brown. Serve warm or chilled.

It Is Finished!

My quilt that is! I finally finished the baby quilt that I've been working on for nearly a year. It is light and dark yellow, light and dark green, and white with yellow rosebuds. It also sports some origami flowers, which were a lot of fun to make. (I highly recommend Fantastic Fabric Folding by Rebecca Wat, it's where I got the idea for this blanket.)

Here is a slideshow of the blanket.

Homemaking 101

A homemaker is a person whose prime occupation is to care for their family and home.


That is my job. I have five children and a wonderful husband. I educate the ones that are old enough for school (and by proxy the ones that aren't). I bake, I sew, I clean... The list goes on. Here I am hoping to share some of my skills, life lessons learned (or being learned), and hopefully just try to keep my sanity, one post at a time.