Midnight cravings!

Ok, so I know I'm really just talking about food right now. I'm pregnant, so that's my excuse. But I promise I will talk about something after I get this recipe out!!

I have been having a crazy craving for a crisp of any kind. Last night I had had enough and just made one. I found this recipe and since it had the fewest ingredients of the ones I looked at real quick I went from there. I like a lot more fruit and oats in mine. and I came up with this version.

FRUIT CRISP

5 1/2 to 6  C fruit.
1/2 C Brown sugar
3/4 of a 1/2C measure of Honey. (just eye it up.)
2 1/4 C steel cut oats
1 C whole Wheat flour
1t Vanilla
1t Cinnamon
3/4 cup butter, Melted

Place fruit (I used 3C Peaches and about 3 C Frozen Field berry mix.) In the bottom of a 9x 13 ish dish
Combine all the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl and then spread on top of the fruit. (it is wet, so spread gently)

Bake at 375 for 35ish mins.

And oh my yum. This was done ay 11:30 last night and was worth the wait for just one piece!!

Yesterday, and Yes I'm totally using this as my reasoning why crisp was needed at 11: 30 at night, We walked my oldest over to sign him up for Scouts. I'm so excited for him!! I was in Brownies, girl Guides and Pathfinders and loved it. I hope he gets the same joy and experience out of it that I did. I am a little peeved that there are girls allowed in Scouts. I am a firm believer that Guiding is for girls and Scouting is for boys. I think the equality thing has gotten a little out of hand. You can't join a boy up for guiding. and Boys need an outlet that is just for them. it has become such a double standard. I do consider myself a liberal and fair minded person. but this is a bit much. If I wanted to sign a girl up for something and wasn't allowed I can sue. But since I have boys and want him in an all boy group I have no rights or say.    
I was told that only one or two girls ever join, So I'm wondering why if the point is to be on equal footing that the parents would want them to be in a group that wouldn't segregate them for camping trips where they can't really be in tents with their group members... any ways I'm not sure how the over night outing thing works. The group leader is a woman and I'm great with that. I think kids need woman in the group. Maybe my opinion will change as we go.

Guess it's been a while... and cookie update!

Well I keep meaning to do this, but time is getting away from me. I just realized I am closing in on 5 months to go in this pregnancy. Wow. Every time I think of it I think of the million things that I need to get done. LOL. House work catch up is a killer. 2 1/2 months of being too ill to move really did a number on the house!!
Anyways. I figured out the cookie recipe. It's pretty good. (in fact the kids are sitting on the couch with the bucket downing them now.. so I"m pretty sure that means they are a winner.)

CJ's real food cookies.

1C Butter Melted
3/4 C honey
3/4 C Unsweetened applesauce
2 Lg eggs
1 1/2t Vanilla
2 3/4 C Whole wheat Flour
1/2 t salt
3 C Steel cut/rough cut oats
2 cups Bitter sweet chocolate chips.

Pre-Heat oven to 350 F

Combine butter, Honey, Apple sauce and Vanilla. In a small bowl. (In all honestly, I just put it all together in the pan I melted the butter in, After I take it off the heat) Beat eggs well and mix with the butter mixture.
In a Med size bowl combine Flour, salt and oats.  All butter and eggs mixture to flour mixture. Mix well. Add chocochips and mix well again.


Put on baking sheet in tablespoon sized portions. these are not going to get bigger. So keep that in mind. You are going to want to kind of flatten them a bit so then cook even. So no big balls of dough on your tray. Bake for approx. 12 mins. (remember this depends on your oven so watch them the first few times) they should go a light to med golden brown. (again, this depends on your preference)

These would also be great with a hand full or so of dried Cranberries added, a Teaspoon of cinnamon. Or really anything else your heart desires. it is a wet enough dough that adding stuff isn't an issue. If you are thinking of adding a lot of something that will dry it up a bit omit 1/4 cup of the flour and just add it in as you think necessary after the extra ingredient. You may want to wait and add the chocochips after you add the extras and make a decision on the flour though.

So this is mine and Cj's second try through this. The first one we had 1t of Baking soda in them. and they rose quite a bit. So If you like a softer more cake-ish cookie, I would add the baking soda in to the flour mix.
Ok well thanks for joining us on our baking experiment! Glad we didn't have any huge disasters.. this time!! LOL

ahh. well..

We are one week in on our Real food challenge. It hasn't been that hard, But let me tell you! Today I'm craving Brusetta like a crazy person! So I'm having it. From a box, totally Not real food, but, I figure it's that or eat randomly all day. The lesser of two evils is giving in when you need to. Other then that we are doing great! I am noticing a difference in energy and the amount I want to eat. It is awesome seeing CJ make responsible food choices all on his own. He is not being forced in any way and when he asks if he can have something that doesn't qualify, I tell him it is not what he is supposed to be eating but it's his choice. 9 times out of 10, he is making a different choice. He is only 8, so I think it's huge that he is doing that. Now to work on his attitude! LOL. Todd is, Of course, being a doll And reading labels for me and being careful what he buys. We are are very aware of the fact that living on a budget means we also have to eat what we have in the house weather it follows the guidelines or not, but we are trying to do it so there is very little that doesn't work in any given meal and Bringing into the house only what applies. This is definitely going to be an easy to keep up lifestyle to keep up past the 30 day mark. So far we have only had 2 meals that had anything in it that wasn't within the guildlines. (that's including my Brussetta today.) We know that this isn't a huge stretch for us. It is definitely helping us to be much more aware of what exactly is in EVERYTHING we buy. Which is a great thing.
I have some recipes that I have been using to make our snack food that I will put up. we did the crackers right off of the 100 day real food website, but I wan't pleased with how they baked. They tasted great. and it was probably operators error. We decided next time to roll them out thin and cut them with a play-doh cutter. Sounds weird I know, but I'll take photos and show you. It was Todd's Idea and actually makes perfect sense. (Not that you don't always babe!!)
Yesterday Cj and I did some experimental baking. We Have come up with a "Real Food" cookie recipe. The only questionable item in there is Semi-Sweet Cocochips. It's not quite perfected yet. It came out really good, but more Cake-ish in a way. I like a good chewy, cookie. so I think tomorrow we may head to the bulk food store to re-load on some missing ingredients and give it another go. I'm pretty sure I know what changes need to be made to adjust it. When I get it right I will post it.

Our new Food experience

Well, let me be honest. It's not entirely new. We have been working sloowwllyy towards a more healthy eating lifestyle for a while now. But now I'm doing a Thirty day "real food" Challenge with a group of ladies I met online. (and a few I know IRL). We are all doing our best to follow the rules found HERE On this great website full of amazing information. (Really, go check it out... I'll wait...) My oldest, who is 8,  has volunteered to do it with me. Todd says he is glad he works at Starbucks and can get his fix at work. LOL. I'm sure not going to force him to stick to the rules around all that yummy temptation! So the trick is to find things to satisfy my pregnancy sweet tooth and still stay within the basic guidelines.. Toast with honey did it today, but I'm not holding my breathe on that one! Thankfully we have an awesome chocolate vendor at our local farmers market who sells fair trade chocolate made ethically right from the cocoa pods. There is no added sugar so that will take care of my chocolate cravings!! So anyways, I have looking for a great snack to have on hand so I didn't switch to auto-pilot and grab and handful of pre-packaged crackers for a quick snack fix and I think, after looking at a zillion Granola recipes I made one that I really like. I just sort of took the things I liked the most out of a bunch of recipes I liked (and I can't remember them all.. sorry) and mashed them together. So here is my version.

Granola

3 1/2 C rough cut oats

Enough water to cover oats in a bowl

2 T vinegar (I used cider 'cause that's what was easiest to grab)

appx. 1 cup each of

Almond slivers

Dried cranberries

Peanuts

unsweetened coconut shreds

sunflower seeds

(I think if I could have found pumpkin seeds I would have thrown those in too. But they weren't at the bulk store I went to this last trip.)

2T flax seed. (next time I would soak these first, but they were a last min addition)

2 t Cinnamon (plus the bit that "spilled" while I was scooping)

1 1/2 t ground Ginger

1/2 t nutmeg

1/2 cup honey

6T butter

2 1/2 t Vanilla Extract

OK so first on the soaking.

I have been informed, and it makes good sense, that because Seeds are meant to reproduce the plant they are not really all that meant to be eaten. and if you do eat them, They are build to be passed through your system. They have a layer built on the outside that stops them from being broken down by the human system. So, all thought we know that there are oodles of awesomeness inside seeds (and nuts) for our bodies, Lets be honest, If you can't absorb them, it's kind of a waste (Ahem). So In order to break down this barrier we need to soak the seeds and nuts to kind of confuse the seeds into saying "Hey! Lets grow a plant!"And that they signals the seed to begin to germinate. At that point our bodies can break down all that great stuff that makes your body strong.

Ok enough yapping.. On with the granola.

First the night before I put the Oats in a bowl and filled it to cover with room temp water. I then added 2 T of vinegar. I Think the exact instructions for soaking I read said 1T to 2C water.. I'm a winging it kinda girl though so I didn't remember exactly. This really only have to soak for 6 hours. I'm lazy, so overnight it is.

the next day I drained the oats, I just left them in a strainer lined in coffee filter for a while while I made breakfast and cleaned up... and I'm pretty sure half way through breakfast to.

Mix in with the oats all your dried ingredients. So al the way down to the nutmeg on that list up there.

Take a smal pan and melt together the butter and honey. then add the vanilla extract.

Dump the honey/butter mix into the oat mix. Mix well.

in a Lightly Greased baking sheet spread a layer of the granola mixture approx. 1.5cm thick. Pop into a pre-heated 250 degree oven. Now heres where is gets tricky..

If you want it kind of a chew granola bar texture. you only need it win there until the top is really firm but you can still push into it if you really try. This is how my kids seem to like it the best. this will take about 30-40 mins. If you want it crunchy granola you will need to keep it in the oven for about 60 mins. These times are not exact. (in case you haven't noticed, cooking for me never is!) And I strongly suggest you don't stray to far. They will burn fast once they start to go. (Ask me how I know....) if they hit a med brown colour pull them out otherwise you will end up throwing them all out too.. Keep in mind that it will cook for a few mins after you take it out of the oven.

I hope you like them. Really you can add anything you want to them. I'm sure mine will vary a lot to keep us from getting to bored. If I come up with any spectacular one's I'll update here!!