Random thoughts

The Christmas holiday is over and so is the hustle and bustle. Sadly the holiday itself went too quickly. Hope was given up on making lots of homeade gifts but that's ok better planning next year. So it became the year of the pizzelles gave a light sweet treat in the shape of a snowflake. With all the bustle also forgot to take pictures of how they are made...ooops!

Well for now I can at least give the random recipes that we had a couple of weeks ago.

Banana Bread with Chocolate and Crystallized Ginger

The crystallized ginger was well worth it! This recipe is from A Homemade Life but the recipe called for eggs and yogurt which I substituted and hoped for the best. For the eggs I did the baking soda mixture and for the yogurt I used 1/4 cup soy milk mixed with 1/4 teaspoon cider vinegar. Banana bread just got better even with a few ingredient modifications.

Granola modified once again

This recipe I got from Wendy's blog because I wanted to try to make my own granola. Again a few ingredient modifications no nuts for this family and no one would be crazy for dried cranberries sooo... instead of mixing the oats with something healthy I mixed in some dairy free chocolate chips, I then followed the directions for the mixture and poured it over the oats and chocolate chips. Soon realized I mixed melted chocolate chips into the oats. Uh oh...well then I baked them for a total of 10-15 minutes because I used the quick cooking oats. With that many recipe modifications I wasn't sure what this would taste like. Sure enough another hit for this family.

Actually I made 2 batches one was the dairy free chocolate chips and the other was vanilla chips. Next time I'm thinking sunflower seeds and raisins. Goodbye quaker oats granola bars for a while.

Cauliflower not mac n' cheese

This recipe was from the last issue of Kiwi it suggested instead of using pasta when making mac n cheese use cauliflower. My caulflower in the cheese looked watery and bland not too appealing to me soooo.... what did I do? I seasoned it with Mrs. Dash (use whatever you like) and then mixed with white rice. Much more appealing and tasty!

Well that's the end of today's random thoughts. Looking forward to another very cold and short nature walk into the woods with the kids in search of branches.

Behind on Blogging

Ok maybe way behind on blogging. Just run down lately. Got sidetracked from any crafting or reading. Then tried to fight a cold but unfortunatley the whole family has had a cough, sneeze, runny nose, etc. Well at least it wasn't the flu. In between there have been school celebrating the arts for 2 of the kids and making many many pizzelles. I guess we could call it the year of the pizzelle.

Once school finished ran errands before the snowhit New England. Actually went shopping last weekend at a mall! Not Christmas shopping (thank goodness) just need some mom time with the 2 older kids. Very nice. But I was amused by the craziness. I held back many comments people throwing toys and "stuff" in their cart. I actually feel sorry for a little boy out there who is going to receive a shiney battery operated noisy robot that will eventually be thrown in a corner without thought not long after Christmas.

I think the most pleasant experiences have been at home watching the small moments, lots of science experiments and many water color pictures drying at the table.

I will return the beginning of next week in hopes of having pictures to show and random recipes.
I wish each of you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or a warm Winter Solstace!

May your celebrations be filled with laughter, good conversation, tradition (old or new) and of course good food with loved ones.

Been Baking

Already halfway through the week and a bit run down. Fending off a cold with echinacea while making pizzelles for Christmas gifts. I'll be back at the end of the week with this week's random recipes and if I'm lucky crafting progress.

Luisa's Winter Soup

This weekend when I went grocery shopping I bought a 6lb package of beef. Now that's way too much meat even for a family of 7. So what to do? I took a friend's advice and followed what she does cook it all and freeze for later meals. So I rolled 3 trays of mini meatballs and cooked them in the oven. One tray was for Tuesday night's dinner. I served the meatballs with white rice and made tomato sauce on the side for dipping. Some had the meatballs in a sub roll drizzled with tomato sauce.

Now even though I used only 1 tray we still had leftovers for the Wednesday night. Since there has been some coughing around here and there has been word of soar throats I thought soup is needed. I took all the leftovers and a couple of vegetables and came up with this:

Luisa's Winter Soup
2 - 32 oz boxes of Swanson no msg chicken broth
4 cups water
cooked white rice
handful of chopped baby spinach
1/4 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup tomato sauce
precooked mini meatballs
taco flavored shredded chedder cheese for topping
In a pot add broth, water, chopped carrots, chopped spinach and sauce. Bring to a boil and cook until carrots soften and spinach wilts about 5-8 minutes. Once vegetables are cooked add meatballs and rice and cook for a few minutes to warm up. Serve hot and sprinkle with cheese.

Luisa's Winter Soup Tips: Most of these ingredients are pre-made because they are leftovers. It's hearty and warm and good for colds. For my vegetarian friends skip the meatballs and use vegetable broth. I don't make a very good homeade chicken broth that's why I use the store bought. To make it allergy friendly use your favorite meatball recipe and omit the cheese for topping it's still tasty. Feel to use this recipe in your kitchen and make the necessary variations adding or taking what you like to bring a little bowl of warm soup to your table.

I'm not quite ready to be swallowed up by winter but the snow is here. New England weather got a little confused last week with one day of 57 degrees then a few days later snow. It's been nice weather for crochetting and reading and planning the holiday baking. What to do while making my holiday plans? Look to the scarves for motivation.

No I didin't make these. They were gifts from my aunt in Italy of course she probably whipped up all 6 in a week probably. She even made the pom poms! I'm determined to figure out how. My mom suggested we should just send for her to come and stay for month so I can learn everything. Wonder if she has time to drop everything for me? :)

Wanted: rest time

Just in need of some rest. I will pop in next week. Happy weekend finally!

Corner Cleaned Up

This one corner alone took about a week to clean up. Once it was empty a new book case was put in which led to phase 2. Over Thanksgiving break the books were pulled off the shelves, scanned onto librarything, then put all 628 books in my room to be sorted and shelved. Labelled the books while scanning so we know which ones were scanned thanks to a friends recommendation. I also labelled the shelves by category so we all know what goes where. It's a good check for me when I'm cleaning up. Even Melania at 18 months has a bottom row of books for herself to go through.

Now just tired....zzzzz.....