Accidentally Delicious

In an effort to silence the call of our many sugary Easter treats, I chopped up a chocolate bunny a few weeks back.  I threw together a quick batch of cookie bars and used the chopped up rabbit in lieu of chocolate chips.  And because I can't ever seem to follow a recipe verbatim, I made some other changes to the basic recipe.  I used coconut oil instead of butter, lowered the sugar and added whole wheat flour.

And the results were surprisingly delicious!  (I say surprising because not all of my recipe alterations are successful).  The result was a cookie bar with just the right amount of sweetness and a hint of very complementary coconut flavor.  Think almond-joy cookie.  Yum!

If you're looking for a way to use up that leftover chocolate Easter bunny, try out my modified recipe below. 

Chocolate coconut cookie bars

1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 egg
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cup white all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups chopped up chocolate bunny pieces, m-n-m's or chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375 F. Mix sugars, butter, oil and egg in large bowl.  Stir in flours, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff).  Stir in chocolate pieces.

Press dough in ungreased rectangular 13 x 9 pan.  Bake 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. The coconut oil tends to make these a bit crispier than a regular cookie bar so if I suggest undercooking a little. Cool.  Makes 15-20 bars (depending on how big you slice).

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Enjoy the coconut chocolatey lower-sugar goodness!

Processed pantry

I've been attempting these past few years to cook more from scratch and keep fewer boxes of processed foods around the pantry.

I'm finding there are some food items I just can NOT make from scratch myself.  Bagels, sausage, cheese, potato chips . . . these are all products I have no desire to recreate.  (I tried making homemade bagels once.  It was not pretty.)

But what I'm striving to eliminate from our family diet is the processed starchy snacks that are filled to the gills with refined sugars and additives.  So far, I've only successfully eliminated one major item from our processed food stock -- granola bars.

After trying a few recipes that left me with less-than-yummy granola bars, my sister-in-law gave me a winner.  This recipe is AMAZING.  Literally.  You'll never want to buy store-bought granola bars again!  These granola bars are EASY to make and the results are consistently good.  Even for me who is a not-so-accurate measurer these bars turn out great every time. 

Check out the recipe in full here at allrecipes.  Be sure to read the first couple of reviews for some excellent tips on making these even more delicious!  I've only made these the basic way but according to the reviews you can make several variations that sound fabulous.

Next on my to-try-to-make list is homemade wheat thins.  If cracker making goes well, I'll attempt homemade cheez its.  These look unbearably delicious and cheesy.  And there are only 6 ingredients.  Yeehaw!  Now the real test will be to see if the kids will accept the homemade versions over the store-bought stuff.  I'll keep you posted!

What culinary experiments are you cooking up these days?

Looking for a good foodie blog

I have pared down the blogs in my reading list significantly.  I kept finding myself clicking the "mark all as read" button without even glancing at the myriad of posts that accumulated in my google reader pane. So I drastically slashed the number of blogs I subscribe to.

Now that I'm down to a manageable list of blogs to read I have NO food blogs listed.  None! And I am in desperate need of some culinary inspiration.  I've been in a serious dinner-cooking rut lately and I need help.  Dinner in the Horn household is becoming a rather boring affair.

I'm hoping to find a blog that's healthy-ish, inspirational and family friendly.

What foodie blogs do you read and would recommend?

New Recipes

In an effort to trim our weekly grocery budget I'm trying to make better use of my pantry and make fewer last minute trips for necessary ingredients.  This past week I didn't plan very well.   As 4 p.m. rolled around, I found myself searching Allrecipes frantically for meals to create with my pantry ingredients.

The results were not well-received.  At least not by the short people sitting at the table.  Made two big-time flops this week (tomato florentine soup and chicken fried rice with broccoli).   

Thankfully to counteract the meal-time flops, I also stumbled upon a few winning recipes this week. 

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats.  (found this recipe in a free calendar so there's no link, sorry!) This recipe was actually billed as *homemade granola bars*.  These are not at ALL like granola bars.  There's no baking involved and they turned out slightly crumbly.  Still it makes a yummy protein-filled snack.  And it must be eaten in a bowl or the crumby mess is out of control.  This is a great treat for preparing with small children.  My 3 year old counter-sitting helper loved mixing this all together!

Homemade hummus.  I like this recipe because it doesn't use tahini.  It's lemony and tangy and very easy to blend up for a quick healthy snack.  We've been eating this with pita chips, celery sticks, and on sandwiches.

World's best cornbread.  I was skeptical o this recipe touting such a brazen claim.  But after making this honey-laden cornbread, I'm a believer.  This IS indeed the world's BEST cornbread.  Try it for yourself and you'll be convinced too.  Beyond delicious!

What tasty new recipes have you stumbled upon lately?

Fall = Cinnamon

This weekend we had a few surprisingly chilly days which reminded me of the impending arrival of fall. Not yet, please!

Something about the cooler temperatures triggered the fall baker woman in me. Without realizing it, I baked FOUR TIMES this past weekend. Once a day I baked up something yummy containing cinnamon -- the delectable spice of fall.

The smell of spicy cinnamon hanging in the air is almost motivation enough for baking. I'm also hopeful that baking more for my family will mean that we'll consume fewer processed foods overall. And that's a VERY good and needful change for our family snacking habits.

Here's what I cooked up:

Friday: Dutch Crumb Apple Pie (This is Matt's all-time favorite dessert. Baked this to celebrate our collective survival of his first week back to teaching.)

Saturday: Zucchini Nut Cookies (Had 1 cup of shredded zucchini lying around so I tried this recipe from allrecipes.com. These were DELICIOUS and promptly consumed by my cookie loving tribe. No one could tell there were green vegetables hidden inside. After I revealed the secret veggie ingredient Chloe proclaimed, "Mommy, it is against the law to put vegetables in cookies!" I'm willing to break the law to make these yummies again.)

Sunday: Morning Glory Muffins (In an effort to have easily accessible breakfast sides, I baked up these healthful muffins. Again, Chloe rebuked me for these muffins contain vegetables -- carrots this time rather than zucchini. They are moist, tasty and full of lovely fall spices!)

Monday: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies with Peanut Butter Chips (Cookie jar was suddenly empty since the disappearance of the zucchini nut cookies mentioned above. The 1/2 bag of peanut butter chips inspired a batch of oatmeal cookie goodness.)

What are you baking these days?

Freezer cooking MANIA

As the baby countdown gets lower and lower, I am feeling unusually prepared. Especially in the freezer cooking department!

Ever since receiving our new deep freeze, I've been dreaming, planning and cooking. It's as though my nesting hormones have been channeled into freezer cooking. And now my freezer is filled and ready. (So come ON baby and make your appearance already!)

Today I did a freezer inventory and printed out cooking instructions for whoever might be using my frozen goodies to feed me. :)

I'm slightly appalled at how much stinking food I've stocked. Let me tell you I'm very excited about NOT cooking for awhile.

To accomplish this huge stockpile of freezer goodness, I never did an official "Freezer Cooking Day" as I intended. Instead, I did the extra cooking a little bit at a time. For some recipes, I simply tripled or quadrupled an entree I was already planning to make for lunch or dinner. Over Matt's spring break, I devoted a few mornings to freezer cooking and prepping.

I'd been watching Money Saving Mom's blog as she chronicled her freezer cooking days. While she certainly is ambitious and supernaturally productive, her recipes don't always sound appealing to me. So, I started with Money Saving Mom, used some of my own tried-and-true faves, and then supplemented with some marthastewart.com searching to come up with a good mix of recipes for our family's eating habits.

Here's the final tally:

• Spinach pie (x 2)
• Butterhorns (x 3) (I did one part whole wheat flour to 3 parts all-purpose)
  
• Turkey/Beef Spinach Meatloaf
• Honey Curry Chicken Thighs
• Teriyaki Marinated Chicken Breasts
• Meatballs (added spinach)
  
• Falafel (I added additional spices)
  
• Whole Wheat Pancakes (I used whole wheat white flour instead of all-purpose)
  
• Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Waffles
• Turkey Cheese Burritos
• Japanese Tofu Hamburgers
• Mashed Potatoes
• Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies
• Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Cooked Brown Rice (x 2)
  

Whew! Can't wait to start eating from the freezery goodness!

How many of you freezer cook to save your sanity come dinner time?

Freezer recipes

My girlfriends are the absolute BEST!

A few weeks ago they held a baby shower in honor of baby Horn #3. But this was no ordinary baby shower. Besides the fact that 3rd babies don't usually garner a party, my girlfriends went out of their way to make this baby shower unforgettable.

Instead of giving lots of little gifts, the gals all pitched in to get us a gift card to home depot towards the purchase of a deep freezer! ! ! I was speechless (and believe me, it's not often that I'm speechless) when they first told me the idea and I'm still in awe at the depth of the generosity, thoughtfulness, and love reflected in such a gift.

(The rest of the shower was awesome too -- we partook in paraffin wax dips, turtle cheesecake, and a scrabble tourney. And yes, I won at scrabble. The girls were so nice to let me win.)

I just ordered our new freezer this afternoon; since we don't have much space, we chose a 5 cubic foot model as shown at left.

So, now my task for March is to fill up this bad boy! My friends are all going to provide at least one meal for the new freezer (aren't they amazing?!?) but I'd like to do some of my own stock-piling as well. I anticipate that the first few months of caring for three children will be more than overwhelming. The mere idea of having frozen dinners ready-at-hand is heavenly.

Here's where you come in. I am a firm believer that the best recipes come from other experienced cooks. I'm looking for economical, tasty, healthy, and family-friendly freezer meal/entree recipes. Any stellar recommendations for me?

Pumpkin Bread

I made a double batch of pumpkin apple bread yesterday afternoon and although it made my kitchen smell divine, it didn't taste quite as good as I had hoped. In fact, Chloe wouldn't eat more than a few bites. She said it tasted like soap. Unfortunately, it did have a baking-soda-ish flavor.

With 8 more cups of pumpkin puree in my freezer, I'm gonna need a better pumpkin bread recipe! I love using allrecipes.com but I don't want to gamble with my next batch of bread. I'd much rather get a tried-and-true recipe from a veteran baker.

Any winning recipes for me?

(Speaking of winning recipes, if you're itching to cook with pumpkin you simply MUST try this pumpkin pancake recipe. It's our favorite fall treat!)

Apples

Seems like even after a busy week, I'm also itching to take the kids and do something special on Saturdays.

Since fall weather hit us with a bang this week and because last week's book in Chloe's five in a row curriculum was How to make an apple pie and see the world (GREAT book by the way) an apple orchard was today's obvious destination.

Matt had a meeting this morning so we dropped him off and headed to a nearby orchard. Unfortunately, it wasn't a pick-your-own apple joint but we still had a lovely time. LOTS of great apples at great prices. Plus a corn maze, pumpkins, a bakery, shop with local homemade items, and plenty of apple trees and gardens to walk through.

We came away with a peck of gala apples for $8. That's approximately 11 pounds of apples so I thought it was a fabulous deal. I currently have about 1/3 of the peck cooking for a big ole pot of applesauce. Yum!

By the way, I'm no good at corn mazes. We had to break our way through the dry corn stalks to find our way out.

Have you done any apple picking this season? What's your favorite way to prepare apples in the fall?

I have a smashingly good applesauce recipe that I never tire of. Though I do tire of peeling and coring the apples.

Happy apple season to you!

Help!

Dear faithful and wise bloggy readers,

HELP!

I bought a humongous pork tenderloin that was on super sale yesterday and I have no clue what to do with it. We've already cut it into thirds and Matt slathered italian dressing on 1/3 and roasted it for supper last night. It was delicious but with this much pork, we'll need some variety to keep our tastebuds interested.

A good pal of mine suggested slow-cooking it in the crockpot, shredding it for bbq pork sandwiches, and breading and frying it in slices.

Any other ideas for me?

Thanks in advance for your culinary assistance!

Summer treats

One of our favorite summer treats is watermelon ice. I'm too much of a cheapskate to buy popsicles plus I hate the fact that they're just sugar and water.

SO, our summer alternative is watermelon ice. It's super easy to whip up and a great way to use up every last bit of a monster watermelon. Our small family usually can only eat 1/2 a ripe watermelon in a few days. Instead of throwing away the 1/2 that gets overripe and mushy, I chop it into chunks and throw it in the freezer on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper. After the chunks have frozen (1-2 days), I transfer them to a gallon sized freezer bag.

As you can see, Clive heartily enjoys watermelon ice. :)

Check out the recipe below and make your own batch for instant summer refreshment!

What special summer time treats do you make to beat the heat?

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Fruit Ices

1/2 cup each, sugar and water
2 Tbs. lemon juice
Fruit of your choice (see options below)

1. If you're not using bagged frozen fruit, freeze chopped fresh fruit on a plastic cutting board or a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray.
2. In a small saucepan, bring sugar and water to a boil, then boil until sugar is dissolved. Let cool; stir in lemon juice. Place frozen fruit in food processor and puree while slowly adding sugar syrup.
3. Transfer to container or ice-pop molds and freeze or eat soft.

Fruit:
5 cups strawberries (or 20 oz. frozen bag)
3 cups sliced peaches (or 10 oz. frozen bag)
2 cups blueberries (or 16 oz. frozen bag) plus 1 banana
4 cups diced watermelon
1 cored fresh pineapple
4 cups seedless green grapes
4 cups diced cantaloupe
4 cups diced honeydew

Smoothie recipes

I'm discovering that when cooking, some items require me to use a recipe. Take smoothies for instance. I can make the standard yogurt-strawberry- banana-orange juice smoothie without fail but as I venture into different fruit combinations it's not as easy as it seems.

Today I tried doing a peach blueberry smoothie using plain yogurt as the base. I added a dash of oj, some honey to sweeten and some ground flax seeds for extra nutritional oomph. Clive drank it down excitedly but Chloe was less than enthusiastic about my impromptu concoction and only drank 1/3 of her glass.

I'm convinced now that I must stick to a recipe when it comes to smoothie blending. Some fruits go nicely together while others aren't sweet enough or don't compliment each other well. I made a yucky pineapple kiwi coconut smoothie once that was awful!

The key might be in the ratios . . . I tend to overdo it on the plain yogurt and then I end up dumping in way too much honey to offset the yogurty taste.

I love the ease and accessibility of summer fruits for smoothie making. Help! Any smoothie tips or winning recipes for me?

A love hate relationship

I admit it. I have a love hate relationship with my kitchen. Tonight I'm verging on hate . . .

After the kids went down this afternoon I embarked on a marathon cooking spree. In 3 hours I whipped up peanut butter cheesecake brownie babies (for a pal's bday treat), honey mustard oatmeal bread, spinach cheese rice, spinach feta pie (for dinner tomorrow night), and now a turkey is roasting. Most of those entrees are for a needy friend's family. I volunteered to make a meal for them this week.

I truly enjoy cooking and experimenting with new recipes. Usually I thrive on the challenge of creating a weekly menu that's within our limited budget, maximizes fresh produce, provides the nutrients we need, and is tasty and appealing to all. And I'm learning that's a very tricky thing to do.

But tonight after hours of coordinating dishes, preparing ingredients, washing dirty bowls, and reading recipe instructions I'm beat.

My husband took one look at the messy kitchen (despite my efforts to continually keep washing dishes the dirty pots and pans inevitably conquered my counter space) and said, "Let's order pizza tonight." I love my husband. :)

What recipes have you enjoyed cooking and eating lately?

Calling all crockpots!

I know I've been an off-again-on-again blogger as of late, so hopefully this post will reclaim my readership. :)

I'm hoping to make Thursdays our crockpot supper nights. Generally, Thursdays are very busy for us. The kids and I get on the road at 8:30 a.m. to make it to our weekly Bible study on time. After study we eat lunch in our church commons area and then drive back home for naps at 2 p.m. All the driving, child management (doesn't that make my job sound refined?), and food preparation wipes me out come Thursday afternoon. I either crash with the kids for a quick nap or hop online to work on these busy Thursdays.

Crockpot to the rescue!

In general, I don't have much crockpot cooking variety. Roast with onion soup mix, bbq beef sandwich meat, or ribs slathered in barbecue sauce is all I've done thus far. This week a chicken with bacon recipe is slated for Thursday's crockpot supper.

Anyone have a fabulous slow cooker recipe to add some spice to our Thursday night dining?

Victory over brown rice!

I have to share a personal victory with you all. I finally figured out how to successfully cook long grain brown rice!!! Thank you, Lord!

Until now my brown rice has always turned out too crunchy or too soggy and underdone. So, I gave up trying to cook brown rice for awhile. I bought instant brown rice for a bit and then even went back to white rice [gasp!].

Here's the secret: soak the grains for 15-20 minutes before cooking.

Why did I never know this?!? It's definitely made the difference in my brown rice. And my family (Matt especially) is very happy that I finally make rice that actually tastes like rice.

Do you all have any cooking giants to overcome?

Dinner and insanity

Last week was Matt's first week back to school. He's teaching 4 freshman writing classes. Yuck! Someday soon, when Matt completes his phd, he won't have to teach so many of the grunt-work classes.

And last week was my first full-time week of being a mommy of two. God and His marvelous grace got us through last week but I ended up exhausted! Caring for two small children has completely rocked my world.

We established a bit of a morning routine and then by mid-afternoon I was out of energy. Somehow naps aligned for a few of those days so I also caught some zzzz's.

By the time 4:30 p.m. rolled around I was in panic-dinner-preparation mode. The dinner hour has become insanity hour for our family. Everything seems to happen during that magic hour between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Clive gets fussy, mad and then very vocal if he doesn't get immediate attention. Cheerios only pacify him for a short time and then the gig is up. Chloe wakes from her nap, she's usually crabby and in need of a snack. Matt arrives home from school. And I'm rushing around like a rabid squirrel trying to remember what I'm cooking for supper. The ironic bit is that my dinners haven't even been turning out well. I made two dinners with some frozen whiting last week and one I couldn't stomach. Another night I fried some breaded tofu slices but forgot to season the breadcrumbs. And let me assure you, tofu needs seasonings.

After dinner I'm ready for bed. Too bad the kids don't go to bed at 6 o'clock. Maybe if I sneaked (yes, it is sneaked and not snuck) some benadryl into their meals they'd fall asleep earlier . . . .

The bonus in all of this mayhem is Matt. He's a super hands-on dad and he jumps right in as soon as he walks in the door. Another huge blessing about Matt is that he'll eat anything. He just douses an unsavory item with ketchup or hot sauce and then it's gone.

Anyone have any tips for making dinner a more pleasant, quick and efficient process?

Do you pick?

No. not your nose . . . do you pick blueberries? We ventured out to pick our own berries yesterday and it was marvelous! With two young in's and my mother-in-law in tow we drove to the countryside in search of some cheap blueberries.

I wasn't too impressed when we drove up to the farm and spied row upon row of scantly covered blueberry bushes. But upon closer inspection the bushes were loaded! An sweet old fellow sitting outside a trailer instructed us in picking and as we walked towards the field he hollered after us, "And eat as many as you like!"

I've always liked blueberries but fresh ones off the bush are INCREDIBLE. There's just no comparison. Fresh berries are juicy, sweet, tangy and perfectly luscious. I hope I never have to go back to the store-bought variety!

After about 45 minutes of picking, we weighed the berries and paid a whopping $7.20 for SIX POUNDS. Yum! Besides the well-known anti-oxidant cancer-fighting benefits of blueberries, my frugal little heart flipped at the cost savings. Only $1.20 a pound!

My freezer is now stocked with berries and we're munching on fresh blueberries constantly. And blueberry pancakes are on the menu tomorrow.

Have you been picking this year? How much do you pay per pound? What do you do with your berries?

Whole wheat flour extravaganza

Are you bloggers ready for some whole-wheaty fun?

Today I made four loaves of the most delicious wheat bread ever. I've had quite the time finding a truly yummy-tasting wheat bread recipe. The all wheat flour bread recipes I've tried create a product that is either way too dense for my liking or tastes more like cardboard than bread.

Mixing up the bread dough today got me thinking about wheat flour. I love using it but I only have two reliable recipes I use; one is for the aforementioned bread and the other is a peanut butter waffle recipe. I want to add more to my wheaty cooking repertoire!

Jenny M. recently linked up a tasty looking cookie recipe using wheat flour instead of white. What wheat flour recipes do you use and recommend? Email me your recipes at aliciamhorn@gmail.com and next week I'll post a collaboration of all your wheaty contributions. (Can you tell I like using the adjective wheaty?)

Grosser than gross

Before birthing children I thought baby drool was disgusting. Now that I've been hardened as a mom, not much phases me in the bodily fluid arena. I can handle potty accidents and vommit without much flinching these days.

But one thing that completely grosses me out is preparing a whole chicken. This afternoon I washed out and seasoned a chicken to roast this afternoon. I physically could NOT put my hand in the poor chicken's innards to get out the unidentified body parts. I closed my eyes and used a wooden spoon to remove said chickeny inside pieces.

Of course, I'll have no problem eating our succulent poultry friend for supper but when the carcass is all raw and naked I can't help picturing it as a live chicken fluttering around the farmyard.

Like, gag me with a wooden spoon. (That, by the way, was one of my favorite expressions in 7th grade.)

What's your ultimate gross-inducing activity?

The promised pumpkin recipes

More than a week ago I posted on my love of pumpkins and implored you, my fellow bloggers, to email me your fave pumpkin recipes.

I finally posted them today! I used googlepages so the format is a bit different than blogger. Click here to see the varied assortment of tasty recipes that came in. My sister even contributed some New Zealand-esque pumpkin recipes including the delectable Thai Pumpkin Soup.

Just because we're enjoying Thanksgiving leftoevers doesn't mean it's too late to cook up some yummy pumpkin! (If you have a favorite pumpkin recipe that you'd still like to contribute, email it to me at aliciamhorn@gmail.com)