I figured since my last post involved cheesecake, I’d sway to the healthy side this afternoon. There are people, like my dear friend Gill, who will eat something she isn’t super fond of in the name of health. She’s totally my hero. Then there are other dear friends, like my sister Nikki, who wont eat something unless it’s yummy. She’s my hero for the other side of my brain. The side that wants to eat Oreos for breakfast and then move on to Nutella pancakes for brunch. Mmmmmm. Anyhoo, I fall somewhere in between. Don’t get me wrong, I have been known to fall off the wagon and be found in my pantry mid-sugar coma covered in cinnamon hearts and candy corn. Mmmmm. I’m striving to strike a balance now where I eat as healthy as I can for most of the week and allow myself a balls-out weekend. Yes, I’m calling that balance!

This recipe should defo be classified as a weekday recipe. It’s not bad but I choose to eat it because of the grapefruit and the wheat germ – not because it’s an amazing breakfast treat. Also, instead of just telling you ‘grapefruit and wheat germ are healthy enough for me to force them on myself’, I’ll tell you why and also why I made these vegan. No, I’m not vegan – just to clarify. I wanted to get all specific and call them ‘Low Cal Wheat Germ Grapefruit Vegan Pancakes’, but I think ‘Wheat Germ Grapefruit Pancakes’ will do.

Aside from the obvious serious dose of vitamin C (you probably already know that C is amazing for your immune system and that it can help with inflammatory issues like asthma, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis – and of course that it helps you to fight and prevent colds). Grapefruits also contain lycopene (that’s where the pink or red color comes from), and to get all brainy on you, lycopene is a carotenoid phytonutrient which essentially means it helps fight free radicals – and those little bastards are totally evil. Super random facts about grapefruits; ranked among the highest fruits in antioxidant activity, lowers cholesterol, prevents kidney stones, protects against colon cancer, and helps repair DNA.

I didn’t think I had much to say about wheat germ till I got going. Ha! It’s full of thiamin, folate, magnesium, phosphorus, iron and zinc. So what? Well, thiamin helps your body convert carbs to energy and it’s way important for your heart, muscles, and nervous system. Do you love how scientific I am? It’s like, way important, man. Folate helps your body make new cells which is important for everyone but uber important for pregnant women. I had no idea what magnesium was good for until I looked it up for this post. Yeah, I’m a real authority on health people! Kidding! I just read a lot. Anyhoo, so magnesium is actually responsible for the contraction and relaxation of muscles! Interesting! It also controls certain enzymes in the body (that sounds mysterious, doesn’t it?) and the production of protein. Phosphorus I already knew is in every cell of your body! Isn’t that neat?! It’s mostly for your bones and teeth though. Iron as we all pretty well know is important, our bodies need it to make hemoglobin and myoglobin (found in red blood cells and muscles, respectively). They help carry and store oxygen in your body. And zinc well, over time I’ve read dirty things about zinc and your man, but taking my head out of the gutter, zinc actually helps your immune system fight off bacteria and viruses. Not just help your man feel like a porn star. Who said that?!

So why did I made it vegan? The original recipe called for both almond milk and skim milk, but dairy isn’t kind to my tummy and maybe not to yours either so I just went with a little more almond milk instead of both. Also, I replaced the eggs with ground flax seeds and water because even though one or two eggs in a single recipe isn’t going to mess with my cholesterol levels, I try to replace them when I’m not going to notice they’re gone so I can enjoy them with total abandon when the recipe I’m using needs them. So in pancakes I can leave them out, but I’m still going to make a tray of popovers on Sunday morning that call for 3 extra large eggs and happily munch away!

Moving on to the actual recipe. It’s been heavily modified from it’s original source so I’m calling it my own!

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons wheat germ
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 cups almond milk
1/4 cup vegan butter (ie Earth Balance)
2 medium grapefruits
2 tablespoons flax meal
6 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

First mix the water and flax meal in a bowl and let it sit to thicken up a bit.	Whisk together the whole wheat flour, wheat germ and baking powder in a big bowl.
Add the almond milk, vanilla extract and flax meal with water. Mix that up till combined.	Now attack your grapefruits. Squeeze about 1/4 cup of juice into the mixing bowl.
Chop up the grapefruits into wee pieces and add them, along with a bit more of the juice, to the mixing bowl.	Whisk! Whisk! Whisk!
Grapefruit aftermath.
First one!!
This recipe made 13 pancakes that were made from 1/4 cup of the batter.
123 calories each!

My most eager baker assisted me with this one. Actually, it’s gotten to the point now where I’m the one assisting her, which I totally adore! She gets really into it and unlike the usual ‘dump, stir, lose interest’ category that most kids fall into (including Wee One #1), she really wants to be involved in every part of it. So sweet!!

The weird thing about cooking and baking your way through cookbooks is there will eventually be a recipe no one wants to try. For some reason the word ‘cheesecake’ doesn’t sit right with the kids, and my husband and I are not huge fans of dairy. Well, correction. Dairy isn’t a fan of either of us. Once it was out of the oven though, and the whole house had this wonderful cheesecakey smell going on, the kids caved and each had a piece. And then another. And then more the next day till it was gone.

This was recipe #11 from Baking With Kids!

The recipe has you crushing crackers, you could just use ground graham (or wheaten) crackers.	Melt the butter and mix it in with the crumbs and the sugar.
Mix it till it’s mostly combined.	Once it’s in the well greased springform pan, press the mixture flat.
Now mix the ricotta and sour cream in a big bowl with your mixer (or a spoon).	Crack the eggs into a separate bowl to avoid shells in your cheesecake!
Tip the egss in!	She likes to watch the kitchen power tools very carefully.
Now add the icing sugar and the ground almonds. This is also when we grated the lemons and added both the zest and the juice from the lemons to the mix.	Sooooo creamy. Pour it over the crust!
Normally I’d say ‘sprinkle the slivered almonds on top and away you go’ but this Wee One is very specific about the placement of each almond sliver.	It’s her work of edible art!
Bake at 300F for 1 1/4 hours, then turn off the oven and leave it inside without opening the door for another 1 1/2 hours till the oven cools off. Then take the cheesecake out of the springform and serve it either as it is or with fresh berries!

When I first read this recipe, courtesy of non other than the most delicious Bakerella, I sat stunned. I was in awe of the amazingness of the overall concept, I was totally paralyzed by the urge to get up and make it right now and I was also a little concerned for my waistline. She even put a warning on the most decadent picture of this extremely sinful treat that says MAY COMPLICATE WEIGHT LOSS. Indeed, Bakerella. Indeed.

I did get up and make them right away though. They were ready for the kids after school treat and dudes – they were extremely happy kids when they walked in and smelled this seriousness. I was declared best mommy ever once they tasted them – duh.

The simplicity of this recipe makes it all the more awesome. If you can make chocolate chip cookies and you can make brownies, you’re golden. The only thing I am ever not keen on with Miss Bakerella is all the boxed stuff used in the recipe. So the original recipe calls for a Betty Crocker brownie mix and a Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie mix.

I however? Just. Couldn’t. Do. It.

So I made a double batch of Good Housekeeping’s cocoa brownie batter and a double batch of Good Housekeeping’s chocolate chip cookie dough.

Brownie Batter: 1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa 1/4 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 cup butter 1 cup sugar 2 large eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract	Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup packed brown sugar 1/4 cup granulated sugar 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla extract
Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan.	I doubled the recipe so I’ve got a whopping 2 cups of sugar here!
Mix the flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder.	Melt the sugar in the butter and add the eggs and vanilla.
Then add the dry ingredients and mix till it’s all combined. Brownie batter done!	Start on the cookie dough now by measuring out the sugars and the butter.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, with the egg and vanilla.	Measure out the chocolate chips and add them in too.
Cookie dough done!	Now comes the magic!
Grease a 13″ x 9″ pan and pour the brownie batter into it. Then dollop the cookie dough over it. Just look at it! YUM!	Bake it for about 35-40 minutes at 350F!
These brownies turned out so well words cannot describe.

I’m participating in Work in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

As you know by now, I’m a pretty monogamous knitter. If I have more than one project on the go, I will forget about other projects and they’ll never get done. Although there is the exception right now of my Beekeeper Quilt, which is more of an in-between projects project than an actual always-on-the-go kind of project. Other than that, I’m an extremely loyal knitter.

However.

I currently have two pairs of socks on the go because after being just a few rows into the Flying Arrows I’m making for the principal of my kid’s school, I was reminded that a wee little person I care about was about to turn one. The connection is weird and totally fueled by the internet. She’s my dear friend’s fiancee’s best friend’s kid. Yeah, I know. She’s way sweet and her mother and I are eerily similar so I set to work on finding the perfect sock pattern right away. The only trouble with socks for little people is it doesn’t take long for them to grow out of them. Sometimes, the kid grows out of the socks faster than it took to knit the damn things. Sooooo, legwarmers it is!! Plus bright pink legwarmers on chubby little legs is so freaking cute it hurts. You know it does.

So here is the one finished Flying Arrow sock. It’s actually a pretty quick knit and I haven’t had to rip it back at all. Score for me.

This is how far into the second sock I was before I tossed it aside to cast on for something wee and pink and cuter.
This basket of deliciousness is what will be taking up my evenings this week. I settled on Socks for Mary Janes, but because of the whole ‘babies grow way too fast to knit them cute stuff’ issue, they are going to be legwarmers. With no heel to turn and no toe to decrease to, I really have no excuse on these taking long to knit up. They really need to be knitted up this week because, yeah I have stuff to do! That stuff may or may not include posting a whole lotta recipes and crafty tutorials burning a hole in my hard drive – and it may or may not include this other basket of deliciousness. My Knit Picks order came in the same week that I finally caved and checked out the yarn store out here in the woods. Well, technically it’s actually in the closest ‘city’ to us (and I use the term city really, really loosely). They have a lot more nice yarn than I thought and I managed to hold back and only pick up 4 balls. Go me!!

So I know this will sound like gushing, and we have only ‘bumped into each other online’ a couple of times, but I’m a little in love with Mama Pea of Peas and Thank You. If you read her blog with any regularity at all I have no doubt you are a little in love with her too. Last week, for example, ‘Tonight we all needed a little comic relief (or a horse tranquilizer)…‘, I read that and thought, HOLY CRAP!! THAT’S MY HOUSE! Also? One of her blog tags is ‘pissing and moaning’. Love!!

I know, I’m such a creeper but really I love her extra for these bars, she concocted a recipe for gluten-free vegan chocolate chip granola bars that Wee Ones #1 & #3 love. They’re called Zee Bars because she was lamenting in her post on these little babies about the food marketed specifically to kids and how it’s exactly the same as the food marketed to adults, except they’ve slapped a little chocolate on it and spelled kids with a z. Right?! Dammit, my kids can spell! Anyhoo, I am still cooking and baking my way through her cookbook (I made the Fabulous French Toast today for brunch actually….), and I’m still not going to post any recipes from her book. However, this recipe was posted on her website so it’s fair game.

They’re way easy to make and even easier to eat! All you need is:

1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup oat flour (just run 1/2 cup of oats through your food processor)
1/2 cup vanilla protein powder (or another 1/2 cup oat flour)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp non-dairy milk (I used almond)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon
stevia to taste (or be a cheater like me and use 1/4 cup brown sugar) I have stevia, but no one likes it!
1/4 cup chocolate chips (I also cheat with this and use 1/2 cup)

If you throw on a little drizzle after the bars are cool you’ll also need:

3 tbsp chocolate chips
1 tsp coconut oil

So first, preheat your oven to 350F and spray your 8×8-ish pan. Theeeeeen, mix the oats, oat flour, protein powder, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and your brown sugar if you’re using it.
Mix up the applesauce, vanilla and almond (or whatever) milk.	Now mix your wet into your dry.
Fold in the chocolate chips.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.	Mama Pea describes it as ‘pulling away from the pan’, when you know it’s done.
So so so good. I could knock back a tray of these in an evening – no problem!

The 10th recipe we made from Linda’s Collister’s Baking with Kids cookbook and Wee One #2 totally took over! I was so impressed with her! She has really become a mini domestic goddess in training and it’s so sweet to see!!

  

Chocolate Cupcakes – from Baking With Kids (p. 17) Cake: 1 1/2 cups four 1 tsp baking powder pinch of salt 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa 3/4 cup sugar 7 tbsp unsalted butter, softened 2 extra-large eggs 1/2 cup whole milk Frosting: 3 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate 1 tbsp light corn syrup 2 tbsp unsalted butter
Preheat your oven to 350F. Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa and sugar.	This little miss is very precise, dontcha know.
Add the butter to the bowl, and crack your eggs into a small bowl first to be sure you don’t get any shells in your cupcakes (this is especially important when your helper is under 10 years old).	Theeeeen dump them into the mixing bowl.
Now add the milk!	Mix until you have a nice, smooth batter.
Divide the batter between 12 muffin cups – either grease the pan or use cupcake liners. Bake for about 20 minutes and voila!
For the frosting, break up whatever chocolate you like, (just make sure there’s about 3 1/2 oz of it), with the syrup and the butter. Melt it all together over a pan of hot water and mix till it’s all melty.
Wee One #2 attacked all 12 cupcakes with frosting and then covered them in jelly beans, life savers and whatever other candies she could get her little hands on. So cute and way too yummy!

Watching Miss America was always a yearly thing for me but it wasn’t an ‘event’ until one of my besties confessed a few years ago that she loves pageants – of course out came the champagne and plastic crowns! Since living in the woods for Miss America this year (& last year), I’ve made it an event with Wee One #2, who adores all things pink and girlie and glittery and pretty and omg she’s such a little diva I love it.

We usually have a big spread and make a whole night of it, but she was practicing her embroidery and I had been helping Wee One #1 with homework for a good part of the day – so we settled on popcorn but of course only pink popcorn would do for such a girlie occasion!

I’ve made loads of different caramel corn and I swear this recipe tastes just like the junk at the mall – the junk at the mall that you LOVE!! DON’T LIE TO ME! Ahem. I plan to try this recipe out with drink crystal flavors and different colors!

  

Old Fashioned Pink Popcorn – from Cooking Classy 2/3 cup unpopped popcorn kernals 2 cups sugar 2/3 cup half & half 1 tbsp light corn syrup 1/4 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla 6 drops red food coloring / dollop food coloring paste
Pop your popcorn and set aside. In a saucepan, whisk together the sugar, half & half, corn syrup and salt.	Cook this until it bubbles and looks all scary and you’re sure you’ve done something wrong. Use a candy thermometer to be sure your mixture gets to 232F.
This is when you take it off the heat and stir in the vanilla and food coloring. If you’re experimenting with other colors and flavors, switch them up now!	Mix the color in or the popcorn will be streaky.
Pour your neon goo over the popcorn. Mmm. Neon goo.	This works best of you divide all your popped popcorn in half first for easier mixing.
Spread out the shiny, sticky popcorn onto parchment paper and let it dry (if you can stop yourself from picking at it).
This stuff is addicting, so I’m glad I made it for a crowd!

  

Apparently stuffing an apple with raisins or something else like it is a popular treat for kids – kids of a different generation obviously! Not my generation either because I had never heard of it before but when I mentioned it to a handful of people they tell me their grandmothers used to make similar treats for them. As usual, Linda Collister takes the idea one step further and slathers the outside of the apple in meringue and uses almond slivers to give it a hedgehog feeling! So so so cute and the kids had a great time making them. I confess we made these forever ago, if these were recent photos there’d be three of them because Wee One #3 is way more active in the kitchen than she used to be. These were made on March 27/11 and were the 9th recipe we made from this book! Apple Hedgehogs – from Baking With Kids (p. 108) 4 small to medium very tart apples 8 ready-to-eat dried apricots 3 egg whites 3/4 cup superfine sugar 4tbsp sliced or slivered almonds
First, preheat to 350F and peel your apples.	Gather your almond slivers and raisins!
Remove the core of the apple, either use a proper apple corer or butcher it until it pops out like this!	Next make the meringue by beating the egg whites on high till they’re stiff and add in the sugar.
While Wee One #1 made focused on the meringue, Wee One #2 set to work on filling the apples with the raisins.	The meringue is maybe not as stiff as if I had made it, but I think it looks perfect by the hands of an 11 year old.
Now the stuffed apples are covered with the meringue….	….and the almond slivers are poked into the meringue!
They both took the placement of their almonds very seriously. It was quite a sight really.
Naturally, the higher up your hedgehog’s quills point the more likely they are to get a little, ahem, ‘crispy’.

So I mentioned last week that this year, I’m cooking and baking my way though Peas and Thank You‘s cookbook (you can grab the Kindle edition for 7 and change here). Usually I don’t start with the very first recipe but after my workout this morning I needed a smoothie and I had been wanting to try this one as soon as I read it.

I love this book so much, I’m not going to post any recipes from it. Yeah that’s right, I want you to buy it. I will however, give you the gist and tease you with photos of all the yummy creations I make from it. ‘Mama Pea’ as she refers to herself, is a fun and witty writer, her cookbook has about as many funny stories as recipes and I love it even more for that. The story behind this smoothie involves a whole lotta good natured teasing of her husband’s love for Tommy Bahama. Hi-larious.

This smoothie combines three things I love but have never put together; blackberries, ginger and basil. When I mentioned this to my dear friend Gill she thought it sounded like a winner, when I mentioned it to another dear friend who shall remain nameless I got ‘who knew??’ <- that's 2 question marks, people. So it's a flavor combo that might not sound amazing - but believe me, it totally is. I ment to have one small cup - I had two and then I insisted Wee One #3 finish off the rest of the batch to keep me from drinking it all. She liked it too! It's exactly the right kind of refreshing feeling I need post workout when I'm all flushed and pink and staggering off to the shower.

This is a winner and will definitely be used in full rotation in my kitchen!

These are so good it’s alarming. Yeah I know, it’s not a huge surprise that something Miss Nigella cooked up would turn out so good, but man these are so close to a peanut butter cup – without actually being a peanut butter cup, you know? I’ve been trying to find recipes for all our most loved treats so I can whip them up without a zillion added chemicals in them and this is defiantly a favorite we can all agree on. So good with coffee or hot chocolate – or really, whatever.

I used regular brown sugar instead of the muscovado because I honestly didn’t think it would make much of a difference. I’ve read since then that using muscovado sugar can make a huge difference – so clearly, I have no idea. I will make them again with the muscovado and report! Also, I didn’t convert measurements to cups because it could totally be argued that it’s not exactly the same.

  

Peanut-Butter Squares – from How to Be a Domestic Goddess p. 223 Base: 50g dark muscovado sugar 200g icing suger 50g unsalted butter 200g smooth peanut butter Topping: 200g milk chocolate 100g plain chocolate 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
I’m always so pleased with myself when I weight out all my ingredients without having to play around to balance it out! Lucky!
Mix all of the base ingredients until well combined.	It’ll be a little crumbly, just press it into a 8 x 8 (or whatever, really) pan.
Weigh out your chocolate!	Now melt it, along with the butter till it’s all creamy and lovely.
Pour the melted chocolate over the peanut butter base.	Smooth it out, or make little swirlys or whatever you like with the chocolate layer.
Let the chocolate set up in the fridge for a while before you take it out and cut it into pieces. I suggest 48 pieces because, as Nigella warns in the book ‘more-ish as it undeniably is, it is also very rich’. So amazing. If you are fortunate enough to be able to bring peanut-stuff to your work or school (or your kids’ school), bring these. Everyone loves them and they disappear fast!