Homemade Chocolate Pudding

With school, work, and extra curriculars in full swing, it's been a little hard to find the time (or energy) to get a post up. But this weekend I made some chocolate pudding that turned out really good. I just had to share.

Unfrotunately, I didn't take any pics, but I will try to take some pictures the next time.

This particular recipe seems to hail from somewhere over the pond, and translated into English. I had to convert some of the measurements but I'll include what the recipe said versus what I actually did.

Chocolate pudding
4 servings

1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
3/4 dl sugar (I used about  1/3 cup)
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp vanilla powder
Pinch of salt

2 dl milk (3% fat) (abt 4/5 cup or I used 6.7 oz )
1 dl heavy cream (abt 2/5 cup or I used 3.3 oz)
2 large egg yolks
50 g dark chocolate (70%), chopped (abt 1.67 oz)*


1. In a medium saucepan combine cornstarch, sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla powder and salt whisking to get rid of lumps. Add cream and whisk until dry ingredients are dissolved. Next, whisk in the egg yolks and cream.
2. Place the pan over medium heat, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens.
3.As soon as the mixture thickens, remove the pan from the heat and add the chocolate and whisk until it is melted and smooth.
4. Pour or spoon pudding into individual serving dishes. Let the pudding cool, then cover the tops with plastic wrap. Refrigerate before serving.
5. Garnish with fresh whipped cream, berries and chocolate shavings.

 

* I bought 100% cacao in the baking isle (yes, that's isle) - one of those large Ghiradhelli bars. Each square is about half an ounce. And since it was 100% and not the 70% as recommended, I only used about an ounce, or 2 squares.

Once cool, I divided it out between the four kids. Even though it wasn't for me, I did get a taste off the spoon. It was super yummy! The only thing I would add is a squirt of whipped cream on top, but I didn't think it would travel well in the lunch boxes.

BIrthday Day #12 - Buttermilk Pie

Here it is - the big finish! Although, If you know me or my husband, this one doesn't come as a surprise.

Buttermilk pie is my husband's favorite treat, so I make an effort every year to make it for him.

Here is what you need: (Note: this makes enough custard for two 8-inch pies)

1 - KitchenAid Stand Mixer (Highly recommend)

5 large farm eggs
1 T. lemon juice
3 c. sugar
1 T. Vanilla
4 T. unbleached flour
2 c. buttermilk
1 stick butter, melted
Dash of almond extract (optional)

Start by putting eggs in the KitchenAid Stand Mixer with the whisk attachment. Turn on and walk away - seriously. The secrect to a light buttermilk pie is light, fluffy eggs - which you won't get if you stand and watch them becaue you'll be tempted to stop them too early.

So, while you're eggs are beating, make the crust. Here's what you need for that:

1 1/2 c. pastry flour
1/2 c. oil
1/4 c. milk
dash of salt

Mix all together and form into a ball. Press out onto lightly greased pie pan and smooth out with hands to a uniform thickness. Use tip of a spoon to make pretty scalloped edges.

This recipe will do one 8-inch pie pan. I have tried to double this recipe before, but it's very hard to evenly divide the dough between the two pans and I just generally have not had good luck with trying to double this recipe. So, if you need two pies, just repeat. It should look like this:

This is a very good all-purpose crust. You can dress it up a bit by adding in a touch of cinnamon or sugar, depending on the pie your making. No need to pre-bake. I've never had trouble with it cooking perfectly and it always comes out light and buttery.

Now that you've got your crust ready, check your eggs. They should look like this:

 

 

Aren't they pretty?

Now, sift together the sugar and flour. Carefully add the remaining wet ingredients to the eggs, mixing just slightly. Add the flour mix in a third at a time, mixing in between.

Just a quick note about the almond extract: I stumbled upon this one day when I was just a hair short of Vanilla extract. I had almond extract and I was desperate - so I added just a little bit. It adds a nice nutty flavor the pie. But - if you want a more traditional buttermilk flavor, you can leave it out.

Then, divide the custard evenly between the two pie crusts and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. My oven cooks a little slow, so I leave it in for an hour and ten minutes.

And now you should have:

Oh, so pretty!

Now, if for some reason you only want to make 1 pie and I bet you're thinking, "How do I divide 5 eggs in half?" Well, the number of eggs is really based on weight. My suggestion would be to cut it back to 3 eggs. I'd rather have it a little creamier than fall flat.

Normally, I point you to where I got the original recipe or idea, but this particular recipe is from an older version of Pinterest - my grandmother's recipe box.

It was the only thing of hers I really wanted after she passed because she was just an amazing cook. One of my fondest memories is visiting her house and smelling freshly baked pecan and lemon chess pies. Flipping through those carefully copied recipes brings back so many memories. Reading the notes she wrote to herself reveals her sense of humor as well as her practicality.

I also had a pair of German aunts that would send everyone in the family a huge box of Christmas cookies every year. And I'm talking huge - and inside was dozens of tea boxes filled with different kinds of cookies. I never knew how those two tiny German women drank that much tea each year!

Unfortunately, I don't know what happend to those recipes, but if I'm ever able to recreate them, that'd a crown jewel in my cooking crown. But - that's another blog for another time. :-)

Birthday Day #10 and #11

Day #10 and #11 happened to fall on very BUSY days. So these days didn't require any baking or much preparation. I'll make up for that tomorrow on THE DAY.

But, here is Day #10

The card reads: "You're such a great catch! I'm hooked on you." I have two bags of candy: one with Swedish fish and the other with gummy worms.

Here's the original idea.

What I wanted to do was have a bag of fish that had been caught with a little pail full of the wormy bait. But pails must be out of season right now because I could not find one ANYWHERE. Not even in the "summer toy clearance aisle" at the local mega mart.

Day #11 went back to "simple."

A Cloud candy bar with a card that reads, "You've got me on Cloud 9."

Sometimes, simple is best. :-)

Birthday Day #9 - applelicious

Oh my, it's starting to feel like fall in the morning! And I just can't resist turning my thoughts to fall foods. So for my husband's Birthday Day #9, I created this:

Baked apples topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. Yum! The card reads, "You're the apple of my eye."

Here is what I did:

Some how I ended up with about a dozen red delicious apples. So I needed to do something with them before they turned bad. I sliced 6 of them with my apple wedger and put them in a gallon zip bag.

Next, I added a tablespoon of cinnamon and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Then I sealed the bag very tightly and shook vigerously (kinda fun, I might add). Once I was happy with how they were coated, I spread them out in a single layer on my baking stone.

Then I put them in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Note: my apples were still a little crunchy with a very soft skin - which is how my kids like them. If you want your apples softer, you may need to bake them longer.

If I had stopped there, it would have been worth it. The cinnamon was so fragrant it filled the whole house with the scent of fall! So nice!

Once they were done, I put a scoop of the hot apples in a bowl; added a scoop of vanilla ice cream and the hot chocolate sauce.

My husband is not a big fan of anything cinnamon. And he was very leary to try this with the cinnamon smell so strong. But, the vanilla and chocolate sauce go a long way to keeping the cinnamon flavors in check. It was just the right about without being overwhelming.  

Fruit Roll up Failure

I'm sad to say I have to report a fruit roll-up failure.

I had some organic strawberries and apples set aside to make the next batch. Got everything puree'd and in the oven; set the timer - and went to bed.

My oven has a handy-dandy feature where I can tell it to turn itself off at a certain time - which is what I did since the fruit roll ups would be done baking at about 4 am. I heard the timer go off, got up to check on the roll ups, they looked good - and I left them in the oven and went back to bed!

They didn't burn since the heat was off. They just - overly dried. When I looked at them this morning they looked like a dried up river bed with cracks all the way through. I went ahead and cut them into strips thinking I might still be able to make them into roll ups, but they were just too brittle.

I tried one of the fruit crumbs - trying to see if they were worth keeping or just trash and start over. But the flavor was good and since I hate to throw that much organic fruit away, I thought I'd try to save it.

There's just no way to make them roll up, but I was able to get some of the strips off in sheets. I stacked them up and laid them in a plastic container until I can figure out what to do with them. I might still be able to pack them in lunches - more of a fruit bite than roll up. Or, I might use them in yogurt, kind of a fruit granola effect.

So while this wasn't a complete failure, it wasn't the results I was hoping for. Moral of the story: if you're silly enough to time these to go off in the wee morning hours, get up and take them out of the oven - don't just turn off the heat.

Birthday Day #6, 7 and 8

 

Birthday Day #6 was a lot of fun. This is where the whole "12 Days of Birthday" idea came from.

 

We had a family vacation to Houston over the summer. While there, we got to spend an entire day at the Johnson Space Center and NASA. It was the highlight of the  trip for me. As we browsed through the gift shop (the only gift store during the entire trip where we bought any type of keepsake) I saw the shuttle-shaped gummie candies and I just had to have them.

 

I'll give a little bit of the credit to NASA, they had little gift baskets already made up with astronaut ice cream and different little candies. And that's when I thought - hey, I outta do something like that for my husband on his birthday. But the pre-made baskets were a little more than I wanted to spend (are we really surprised?). But the gummie candies were more in line with my budget. :-)

 

And so an idea was born.

 

 

Day #7 got a little more creative:

My husband's favorite beer is Blue Moon Blonde. We don't splurge on things like beer very much so buying him a 6-pack seemed fitting for his birthday.

The card reads, "Real Men Prefer Blondes."

If you know me, you know I'm not blonde - hence the wig. Just a bit of fun. :-)

Now for Day#8 - we're getting into the serious gifts here.

 What do you get when you combine Dollar Store ice cream bowls, personal size Ben & Jerry's, Whipped Cream, chocolate syrup and cherries? A perfect birthday sundae!

The tag reads: "You're the "cream" of the crop, with cherries on top!"

Served on a platter on a Saturday afternoon. :-)



Pumpkin Bread Muffins

I'm all for trying to make the kids happy by fixing their favorite foods. I love to cook/bake, and I love it when what I've created makes them happy, too.  So, it's typically a win-win situation.

But, let's be honest, sometimes I just feel plain lazy. And even though I want to make the kids happy I just can't bring myself to pull out a dozen different ingredients and dirt 3 different bowls to make a pan of  __________ .

My oldest son LOVES pumpkin bread, and not just in the fall. He'd eat it year 'round if I made it. Finally, after he asked for pumpkin bread during the 2 hottest weeks of summer, I found a recipe that might possibly make us both happy - pumpkin cupcakes.

Here is what you need:

A box of yellow cake mix (I used a sugar -free version); a can of pumpkin (I used an organic pumpkin - NOT PUMPKIN PIE FILLING); and a tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice. If you're not big on spice you could cut that back some, but it did add a nice warmth to the cupcakes.

And here's the super-duper complicated directions:
1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.
2. Lightly grease a 12-muffin pan (or use liners).
3. Bake as directed on the box for cupcakes.

And then you end up with...

I have to admit - I was VERY skeptical about this recipe when I first saw it. I just wasn't sure how it could work - but it did and they were quite delicious. My son approved :-)

Oh, and the house smelled YUMMY all day!

And, of course, I didn't come up with the original idea, I just added the pumpkin pie spice. I'd love to share the original link with you, but it doen't seem to be working anymore. :/

Chocolate Muffins and Birthday Day #5

For my husband's Birthday Day #5 gift, I left him this at breakfast:

 

 

It says "I'm coo coo for Coco Puffs - and you." Those chocolate muffins were supposed to be mini muffins, but I did an entire pan of mini's and still had batter. So I decided to use the rest of the batter to make 4 regular size muffins for my husband and giving the mini muffins to the kids.

 

Here's why I LOVE these muffins - they have a cup and a half of veggies!!!

 

Here is the original link for the recipe.

 

Here is what I did:

 

Whisk together: 2 Eggs; 1/2 cup oil; and 3/4 cup brown sugar.

Add 1 cup finely grated zucchini and 1/2 cup finely grated organic broccoli. Mix in 1 cup self-rising flour (I didn't have any wholemeal); 3 tablespoons of Cocoa powder and 1 teasponn of baking powder. I was out of raw milk - so I used 1 tablespoon of low fat milk instead.

Then I spooned into greased mini muffin pan and baked at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. 

 

 

 

I didn't tell anyone that the muffins had veggies in it but everyone gobbled them up with no complaints (except my husband said they were a little "flaky" and that made them a little messy. But that's due to my flour substitution).

Oh - and those other 4 muffins you see in that box? Those are skinny "Funfetti" cupcakes that I made with a friend of mine who LOVES funfetti.

Here is the recipe, which we followed exactly.

This was super easy and would be a good recipe to make with kids. I mean, who doesn't like funfetti? And the batter fizzes up when you mix in the soda.

And super-duper bonus points for Mommy - I packed cupcakes TWICE in one week for school lunches and didn't feel a bit bad. :-D

Oh, and something else I learned while making the funfetti cupcakes - my friend works in the gas and oil industry. She advised me to avoid cake mixes (or any other kinds of food) that includes Propolene Glycol.

It's used as a sweetener in food but as an additive in oil/gas. Um - gross. Just thought I'd pass that along.

Birthday Day #3 and Day#4

Ok, I've fallen behind - I know. But things can get a little busy around here.

Anyway, on my husband's third day of Birthday, I gave my husband this:

It says "Thank you for being a 'Tea' - rrific husband!"

I also work for a non-profit organization that depends very heavily on volunteers. This is a great volunteer appreciation gift as well (or teacher).

Day #4 -

 

It's a can of mixed nuts with a tag that says "I'm 'nutty' over you!" Yep, I should have included some cheese with that because it is very cheesy. My husband is a big snacker so these types of things go over big with him. :-)

Birthday Day #2 AND Kabobs!

12 Days of Birthday: Day #2 -

 

Day#2 was pretty simple. The card says: "You might be a little 'kooky,' but you're my kind of crazy." Taped to the back of the card is a Kooky candy bar I found at HEB while standing in the check out line. I had never seen that kind before (then again, I don't normally browse the candy bar section), but I think you could also make this work with other brands or even a big cookie.

 

 

 

And, since I had a lot of comments on this particular school lunch, here is a pic of the fruit and cheese Kabobs that I made for the kiddos one day.

 

 

The Kabobs have fresh mozzarella cheese cut into cubes, followed by a slice of kiwi and a whole organic strawberry. My kabob skewers were big enough I could put 3 sets on the stick.

 

Also packed that day were organic broccoli and carrot sticks with homemade ranch dip. A few days later I used the same dip with organic celery sticks and that DID NOT go over well. So, pick your veggies carefully. :-)

12 Days of Birthday: Day 1

My husband's birthday is this month. I try to do something a little different each year. And with 4 kids with very active schedules, it's difficult to really plan anything big.

This year, I decided to do the 12 Days of Birthday (since my husband's birthday is on the 12th). Just a little something each day to show him that I love him.

Here is Day 1:

If you can't quite tell what it is, it's just a water bottle with a tag that reads: "You 'Sustain' me, through the good time and the bad. I love you!" Taped to the tag is a packet of Sustain Sport drink mix. I order it through the Melaleuca Wellness Company and it just so happens that on this day, dear husband had to go work at his side job of installing radiant foil in an attic.

Yes, I'm a dork. :-)

Steak - it's what's for dinner

We are fortunate enough to have a farm with cows, which means we don't have to buy red meat. But, that doesn't always translate to happy faces at the dinner table.

Oldest son: What's for dinner, Mom?
Me: Steak.
Son: What? Again? I'm so TIRED of steak!

I know, I know - my children are so mistreated.

Of course, when I found a recipe for "restaurant style steaks," I pinned it and decided to look it up the next time I planned steaks.

Here is the original link. It calls for fillet Minot, which I love, but when I have a calf processed I typically don't get that particular cut. But I've tried this recipe with both porterhouse steaks and T-Bone steaks and it seemed  to work out fine.

But, whatever kind of steak you use, here is what I did:

Soften up a 1/2 stick of unsalted butter just a bit. Mix in a scoop of Simple Salsa (a wonderful seasoning mix I was introduced to by a dear friend and have started putting it in EVERYTHING). Then, put this mixture in the refrigerator.

Heat 1/2 stick unsalted butter and 1 tablespoon in pan until it is super hot. While it's heating up, pre heat the stove to 400 degrees. Mix about a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of pepper together. Rub the steaks down with the salt and pepper.

Place steaks in pan for about 3 minutes on each side, and continuously scoop the melted butter and oil over the steaks.

Then transfer steaks to oven. I place mine as close to the top heating element as I can. I leave them in about 7-10 minutes because my kids won't eat the steak if it's still red.

It should look like this when it's done!

And, yes, red wine goes well with these steaks. :-)

These steaks were a huge hit both times. It even had my oldest son asking for SECONDS!!

I will say, the second time I made this I used sea salt and doubled the amount of salt and pepper I combined. And it was very salty - a bit too salty for our taste, but everyone still asked for seconds and NO ONE asked for BBQ!

No-bake Granola Bars

My kids (and husband) LOVE granola bars. Not the nice crunchy kind, but the ooey-gooey sugar-loaded kind. So when I found this no-bake granola bar recipe, I was excited. It really is super easy.

As always, click here to find the original link.

But, here's how I did it:

1/4 c. unsalted butter
1/4 c. local honey
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 c. quick oats
1 c. puffed brown rice cereal
toppings of choice

In a bowl, mix the oats and rice; set aside.

In a small sauce pan, melt butter, honey and brown sugar until it starts to bubble. Then reduce to low heat and cook for about 2 minutes. I stirred frequently, but I don't think the original recipe says to - up to you. Then, mix in the vanilla. The mixture will foam up, that's normal.

Quickly pour hot sugar mixutre over oats and stir to coat as evenlly as possible. Then press mixture firmly into a jelly role pan. I used my stoneware pan and it worked just fine. But, I would recommend using a spatula to firmly press the mixture into the sides and bottom of the pan. Otherwise, it will stick to your hands. It is important to get it pressed in firmly so that your bars don't fall apart when you cut them.

Here's what mine looked like:

Then, press in the topping of your choice. You can tell I used chocolate chips. But I'm already planning a batch with raisins and sunflower seeds. In my picture, I had make two batches since I pack 4 lunches a day plus whatever snacks my husbands wants during the day. :-)

Now, you'll need to let them sit for a couple hours before you cut them apart. Because I made this on a hot afternoon, I let them sit overnight.

With a sharp knife, cut the bars to the size you'd like. I lined a plastic container with wax paper and placed the cut pieces inside, with more wax paper between layers.

Then, I kept them stored in the fridge. I'm not sure you have to do that, but since my kitchen tends to get hot I didn't know if they'd re-melt or not, soo...

My husband was the first one to try them and he ate about 4 right out of the box!

So, these were  a big hit!

Pizza Pockets for school lunch

I had a request for this one. As I've said before, figuring out school lunches is always tricky. I love this one because the kids love pizza, but everyone loves different stuff on theirs. Plus, this way, I know what's going in their food.

I got the original idea from Pinterest (of course). This site has several other cute ideas that I haven't tried yet. Be sure to check it out here:

Ok, here's what I did. I buy the refridgerated Pillsbury artisian wheat pizza crust. Roll it out and cut it into several small pieces. I usually get about 15 squars out of it and that seems to be the perfect size for my muffin tin.

Then, using a silicone muffin tin so I don't have to use cooking spray, I put one piece of the dough in the bottom of each muffin cup. Obviously, you're putting a square peg in a round hole - but that's ok, you want the sides to stick up just a bit. Make sure you get all the air bubbles out form under the dough. With 15, there's obviously going to be a few oddballs, but that's ok. You can line as many of the muffin cups as you want/need. Keep the extra dough pieces to the side for now.

Then, put a spoonful of  sauce in each cup. You can use whatever kind you'd like. My secrect: I buy chunky vegetable marinara sauce, run it through the blender to smooth it out. Great way to sneak in a few extra veggies. Then top with a bit of cheese. Now, you've got individual pizzas. Some of my kids like chicken, some like olives, some like pepperoni or ham, so instead of fighting over what toppings we're doing, each child can have his/her own. (I also like to get the kids involved with this one. It's a super easy recipe and they can do their own toppings.)

Now, take an extra piece of dough and cover a muffin cup with it. Then pinch the edges of the top piece and the bottom piece together to kind of seal. Bake at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. Final results look a bit like this:

Notice I only have about 3 pizza pockets, the rest are little pizzas. Not all of mine like the extra bread.

Someone has also asked how I keep them warm in the kids' lunchboxes. I don't have a great answer for that one. I do warm them up in the mornings before I pack them, but with one child not having lunch until nearly 1pm, it's hard to keep it really warm that long. Fortunately, my kiddos don't seem to mind too much.

In other blogs, I've seen posts by people that had trouble with the middle being doughy. I've never had that problem, but perhaps it's because I roll the dough out a bit before I cut it up. BUT- if you do have a problem, one suggestion was cooking just the dough in the muffin cups for a bit before adding the sauce and toppings.

Nutella cookie-type-things

One of my children is particularly small for his age. Although he is not the youngest of my bunch (let's call him Spidey - one of his favorite characters), people often think he is because the youngest (who is about a year and a half younger) not only out-weighs him, but towers over him by a good 3 inches.

Being smaller has a lot to do with genetics, but he also struggles to eat as much food as the other 3. Combine that with the time constraints of a school lunch - not to mention all the distractions - and I figure I'm lucky he eats anything at all during school.

So, my Spidey Challenge is to create a school lunchbox menu that requires very little chewing (so no chewy fruit roll ups), no assembly (like homemade lunchables), but is also something he'll eat. I've learned to stay away from all sandwiches besides peanut butter and jelly, because he just picks them apart. But, as much as I like a good PB&J, I think even I would get sick of them after a while.

I came across a recipe for "healthy breakfast bars" that promised to be packed with protein. The original link is here: http://watching-what-i-eat.blogspot.com/2012/06/peanut-butter-banana-oat-breakfast.html

It looked decent: peanut butter, bananas, applesauce, and even added a scoop of protein powder. AND you could add carob for chocolate chips! Score!

But mine didn't quite turn out. Although I enjoyed them, the kids fussed about the chocolate chips. Which COULD BE because, unable to find carob at my local grocery store (not a complete surprise) I opted for the 100% cacao instead - hey - it's supposed to be full of antioxidents and it's still chocolate, right? Well, as far as my 4 were concerned, I couldn't have been more wrong.

So, for my next attempt I made a few changes and here is the final result (notice the pink silicone baking mat):

Here's what I did:
1 ripe and mashed banana
1/3 cup Nutella
2/3 cup plain/unsweetened applesauce
1 scoop vanilla protein (I use ProFlex from Melaleuca)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup quick oats

Mix indredients in the order listed. Let it rest about 10 minutes. Put your handy-dandy baking mat on top of the cookie sheet and place spoonfulls of the mix on the mat. I usually end up with about 18 cookies by the time I'm done, but you could obviously make more or less depending on the size of your cookie-scoops. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. When done, let them cool off before storing them in an air-tight container.

I keep these in the refridgerator, but I don't think you really HAVE to. Mine just like the cookies cold. They are a little soft, so keeping them in the refridgerator helps keep them in cookie form. :-)

Although I haven't packed these in a lunchbox yet, the kids did try out an earlier batch and they were big hits. And it's great as a mom to say, "Why, yes, I can pack a cookie in your lunchbox today," and NOT feel the urge to send an "I'm sorry" note to the after-lunch teachers for all the sugar pulsing through my children's veins.

I've thought about bumping up the protein a bit by adding a second scoop of vanilla protein mix. Protein is especially important for Spidey since he eats so very little and so very slowly. As I've gotten more comfortable cooking with milled flax seed, I have also toyed with the idea of adding in a scoop of that. Milled flax seed is a great way to work in extra fiber, a bit of protein AND reduce the amount of extra fats (like oils) you have to add into recipes.

See, our trick with Spidey is - get the extra protein in to maintain his weight, BUT due to some other issues he's got, he also could use extra fiber (or, um, help getting things to move along). So it's always a very delicate balance of getting the extra protein without clogging him up but not too much extra fiber that he just flushes everything through his body.

If I have further success (or not-so-successful) renditions of this basic recipe, I'll give an update. :-)

Fruit Roll-ups Experiement

With the start of school fast approaching, I've been working on finding ideas for the kids' lunches. Packing four lunches each morning can turn into a game of Pong really quick.

You know that game, right? The old Atari game that you played with the little knobby game controller (that you actually had to plug into the console). The ball bounced around from your paddle to colored bricks and you had to clear all the bricks. As you go through the game, each level gets more bricks and even adds a few bricks that you never clear out. Anway, by the time you get to the upper levels, the ball is bouncing around so maddly that it's hard to follow on the screen.

Trying to remember who really likes to eat raisins and who would rather chew their toenails off instead of even looking at a raisin can be a bit tricky at 6 am. So, last year, I got into the really bad habit of buying pre-packaged food for their lunches. Because, for some reason, my kids think that if you have food that comes in a store bought package it automatically tastes WAY better than anything in a Ziploc bag. Go figure.

But, this year I am determined to pack real food, better food and more whole foods in their lunches. For my oldest, this is going to be a little tough because he really doesn't like whole apples - unless you give him something to scoop with it. He also doesn't like raisins, grapes, oranges, or bananas packed in his lunch.Hmmm...

My mother had found a link on Pinterest for homemade fruit roll-ups. I thought it might be a possibility, because who doesn't like fruit roll-ups? The directions SEEMED simple, but sometimes, those are the projects that get me in trouble.

One day, a friend from church handed me a plastic bag of figs from her tree and I decided to give the fruit roll-ups a try.

You can find the original link here: http://www.loveumadly.com/2012/04/100-pure-love-for-100-real-fruit-snacks/

But here is what I did this time around: Using my handy-dandy food processer, I dropped in the figs, cleaned and de-stemmed. I also found a stray strawberry-applesauce cup that I decided to throw in as well. Hit puree.

Once it was a nice smooth consistency, I spread it out on my silicon baking mat & cookie sheet. If you don't have a baking mat, I would HIGHLY recommend investing in one. I use mine all the time. It helps eliminate the need for a cooking spray.

I didn't measure how much fruit puree I ended up with. The original link called for 1.5 cups, I really think I might have had about 2 cups. Once I spread the mix out in a thin layer,  a good bit of my mat was covered.

Then I put the mat & cookie sheet in the oven at 170 degrees farenheit. The original link above calls for 150, but mine only went down to 170. Then I set my oven timer to turn off after 8 hours. Again, I strayed from the original link a bit here. She suggests leaving the oven door open a bit to let moisture out. I couldn't gt mine to stay open unless I opened it up about 3 inches. I was afraid it would let too much air out so I kept it closed, but that didn't seem to effect my end result - which was:

After the 8 hours and a little cooling time, I took the cookie sheet out of the oven. I flipped the sheet upside down and on top of my silicone mat then flipped the whole thing back upside down (think about when you put a plate over your freshly baked cake then flip it over to get it out).

I used a pizza cutter to cut the dried fruit into 6 strips. I then cut wax paper into 6 strips and rolled the fruit up. I couldn't get my rolls to look as pretty as the original link and had to use just a bit of tape to keep it from coming un-rolled.

You might notice in the pic that there are only 5 rolls. That's because my husband was a bit skeptical about the outcome so we split one. And it was quite tasty! A bit of cross between a fig newton and a fruit roll up, which I think all four of the kids will love! Success!!

One other note, after going through the process, it seems to me like setting the oven at such a low temp for such a long time ends up being a food dehydrator. I don't have one so I couldn't try it that way, but it might just work if you do happen to have one.

The original link has suggested fruit combinations. I've only tried the one I listed above. But, it seems to me like it'd be pretty hard to go very wrong. I've been thinking about trying a veggie roll-up, too. But I'll let you know if I do. :-)

In the beginning

Welcome to my new blog!

With this blog, I hope to chronicle my adventures, successes, and failures as your fairly average mom, wife, daughter, mother, sister, and human being. If you're looking for a "professional" site, you might be disappointed. As the mother of 4 very active children, as well as a full-time director for a local non-profit, and the wife of a man who believes in volunteerism, my life is full of little details, reminders, and schedules. When you think of this site, think "streaming consciousness."

My everyday life is filled with pretty boring stuff, like what to pack in the kids' lunch? I want it to be reasonably healthy, but I also want them to actually eat what I pack instead of tossing it. And, what to make for dinner? Again, I'd like to eat without gaining weight, but the kids' (and the husband) have bigger appetites. And unless it comes out of a box, I have a hard time convincing my children that it IS real food. How do I fit my own workout routine in between this son's scout activities and that daughter's tumbling practice and before my husband's meeting? And even bigger questions like how do I pass my faith on to my children? Am I setting the best example of how a Christian woman lives?

I hope you find something to enjoy and pass along. Any projects or recipes I find and use from other sites I will do my best to make sure proper credit is given. If you happen to find something out of place, please let me know. After all - as your average human being, I'm bound to miss something from time to time. :-)

Here's to Dyngus Day!