Friday Photo Feature

A blog I regularly read does a Friday Photo Feature. The blogger is in Australia which is why I am posting this today.

Growing up a meal we had often was macaroni and stewed tomatoes. Yesterday I couldn't think of what to make so I made this. For some reason my son is rejecting noodles so I asked him if he'd eat bows the last time we were at the store. He agreed and ended up eating two plain bow noodles. No sauce! Its cheap, comforting and satisfying. You can top this with cheese and it's great with a crusty bread to dip.

Vanilla cupcakes

Picture added 10\23\11 - they were really yummy.


I modified this recipe. I decided on cupcakes for DD's birthday - half the recipe made 5 cupcakes so for a big family you may have to triple [or more] my recipe.

http://www.myvegancookbook.com/recipes/recipe.php?id=73




Preheat your oven to 350 and put cupcake papers in.


1 cup AP flour
1\2 cup sugar
1\4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1\4 tsp baking soda
1\2 cup vanilla rice milk
2 tbsp safflower oil
1\2 tsp white vinegar
1tsp vanilla

'Cream' oil and sugar together. Add the rest of the liquid ingredients. Mix. Add baking soda and powder, salt then stir the flour in until just mixed together. It will be lumpy. It will work out.

Bake for 20-25 minutes - rotate the pan half way through.

The batter tastes just as good as typical cupcake batter. I promise I'll add a photo later.

Birthday

On Thursday my baby girl turns two. I can hardly believe it. On one hand it's gone by so fast. One minute I am going to the hospital to have her and the next she'd running after her brother playing army men screaming 'attack!'.
On the other we have had a long, scary road of hospitalizations, allergies, seizures, Epi-Pens, medications, elimination diets, formula trials, scopes, blood work and those made time drag on. She is an amazing person. I am very blessed to know her and my life is only better for it. I love seeing her personality unfold before me - I don't know who she will be but I am so amazed at being included in this journey. No matter how stressful the medical stuff can be. Like every Momma I hope I make the right choices and guide her the best way. I have said sorry more than once already and I am sure I will a lot more. Hopefully she understands when I mess up I am trying my best and coming from a place of love and wanting the best for her. Although I bet, like me she won't get it until she becomes a mother herself.

As for birthdays - CAKE!! I am attempting a cake recipe to make 'safe' cake for her. No eggs, milk, butter....I am modifying a recipe I found to use things she can take and I've already trialed. I will share that recipe and hopefully a picture.

I got a new crock pot. Swoon. It's HUGE and fits a full sized loaf pan so I can try more baking. I am super excited. I also got a tiny one extra - I wonder if a cheese dip is in our future for Husband and I for date night. Although we've been on a pop corn kick right now I toss mine with olive oil, garlic powder, a little sugar and dried dill. Amazing!

First tastes of Fall

Homemade Alphabet soup

I used beef broth which my husband loved and instead of actual tomatoes, tomato paste so the boys wouldn't complain about tomato pieces. Alphabet noodles because my son loves alphabet soup in the can and the car noodles get too mushy.


Canadian style baked beans. Even after soaking them for about 18 hours or so they took a long time. Next time I think I might boil them after soaking them overnight before adding them to the crock pot with the goodies. I did not use bacon or ham and they still tasted amazing.




This is the first Pumpkin Puree of the season. I steamed the tiny pumpkin in a pot on the stove only took about 25 minutes. Usually I do hard squash in the crock pot and it takes about 3.5 hours. She doesn't like it plain or flavored like pumpkin pie [cinnamon and sugar added] but she loves it mixed with apple sauce.

I think I am getting sick

Funny thing about being a mother. You have the least amount of time to be sick but I have been sick more in the past 5 years than I ever was before. I have always thought since I am often tired, not eating as well as I should, dealing with other people's poop and boogers it's bound to happen - right? I try to keep good hand washing skills and mind not to touch my face. Some days washing before and after diaper changes, wiping noses and handling food my skin gets so dry and cracked.

So I have been taking it easy this morning while DS is at preschool and sipping my lemon tea. Still managed to be on my second load of laundry and got the sippy cups washed but I don't have much choice - cups, diapers, dishes, meals, laundry...never ends right?

Hopefully the kids will be nice and I can climb into bed early and get enough sleep. They kept Dad up all night he didn't go to bed until DS went to school - first DS then DD and then both had the nerve to grump about being tired at wake up call. LOL

The kids got a box from their Great Aunt, Uncle and cousins and now my parents box arrived this morning. My son loves the mail thanks to international family. We are very blessed to have supportive family even if they live far away. It also helps to start geography lessons states, counties, provinces, boarders, cultures, languages, food. Funny enough for me the BEST part of living in a multicultural city is ALL the different kinds of food. The strange things kids used to bring to school for lunch - what's that and often times it was amazing and something you want to have again. Although I am slowly introducing DS to soy free Asian food - until we find soy\shellfish free we'll have to have my butchered attempts at 'Chinese' food or 'Thai' food.

My mom send me a slow cooker cook book. Woot.

Time to put up my tea since my nearly 2 year old is so upset - 'tea' is her word for hot.

Salsa

I wanted salsa so I decided I had most of the ingredients I needed so I would make it. I was happy with how it turned out and it was even better the second and third day. I diced tomatoes, red onion, green pepper, minced garlic, pineapple[used canned] and then added cumin, cilantro, lots of fresh cracked pepper, salt and a splash of vinegar.

I think next time I will use more tomato and lemon or lime juice instead of vinegar.

I also made Spanish rice in the rice cooker. I copied what they had in the ingredients on the back of the box of 'Spanish rice mix' for the ingredients.

1 cup of white rice, picked over, rinsed and drained in the rice cooker pot.

I took a 4 cup liquid measure and put in 1 tablespoon of each red onion, green pepper and tomato paste[we felt it was too much so next time I will use half the tomato paste]. Finely chop those onions and peppers. Add enough chicken broth to bring the liquid up to 1 2\3 cup.

20 cranks of fresh ground black pepper

1\2 tsp dried cilantro

1\4 tsp ground cumin

I would salt the water well if you don't use chicken broth but I didn't use salt as the chicken broth is salty on it's own.

1 cup of rice cooks perfectly in 1 3\4 cups liquid. I figure the rice will hold on to some water from being rinsed and some liquid from the tomato paste, veggies etc.

Add liquid to rice and stir. Put in rice cooker and set to cook. It will pop up when it's done.

I was very happy with the rice. My husband has seconds and usually he's not a rice fan and even my son ate it.I also might try it with brown rice once I can figure out how to cook brown rice in the rice cooker.