Remember when you were a kid and your mom would make cookies or brownies or cakes?  I loved those days because there was always the chance that you could like the spoon.  Those were the good old days before anyone worried about salmonella.

Now you can lick the spoon again.  :)

I swear this tastes like cookie dough batter.  (I was inspired by Chocolate Covered Katie’s use of chick peas in sweet recipes.)

Chocolate Cookie Dough

1 1/4 cup black beans

4 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla

4 tbsp agave (or other sweetener – more or less depending on how dark you like your chocolate)

Blend all ingredients together in food processor.  Eat with a spoon.  :)

(If you are serving this to your family or any unsuspecting friend, try to have them guess what the secret ingredient is.)

How about a date, sugar?  :)

Today I experimented with making my own sugar from dates.  My husband cannot stop eating the muffins I made with this “sugar,” so I’d say it worked as a substitute for white sugar.

How to make date sugar:

Slice dates and spread on an ungreased baking sheet.  Bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes.  Keep a close eye on them.  They burn quickly and mine got a little darker than I would have liked.

Once the dates are cool, grind in a food processor.  (If you have kids, let them watch.  The powdered dates make a fun “smoke” come from the food processor.)

You could use this powder as a sugar in toppings, such as for apple crisp, but if you want to use it in a baking recipe, mix it with a little hot water to make a paste.

For the muffins above, I used my chocolate donut recipe.  I replaced the cup of sugar with 2/3 cup of date sugar mixed with 1/4 cup hot water and I reduced the milk to one cup.

You can leave the muffins as is or add a little chocolate glaze, which is what mine have.  (I mixed a little cocoa powder with coconut oil and evaporated cane juice.)  They taste great either way.

Better than Heinz.

I will never be buying a bottle of ketchup at the store again.  This tastes so much better than store-bought.  I could eat it with a spoon.  :)

It does have some sweetener in it, but I’m much happier serving this to my kids than most of the pre-packaged stuff out there.  And it’s easy to make!  For now, I’m making it with tomato paste, but I will definitely be making this with fresh tomatoes when the garden crop comes in.  (Recipe suitable for canning to follow later this summer.  :) )

Tomato Ketchup

1 can tomato paste (try to find the unsalted with only tomatoes listed as an ingredient)

5 tbsp evaporated cane juice (or regular sugar)

2 tbsp vinegar

1/2 tsp allspice

1 tsp salt

1 tsp molasses

1/2 tbsp agave

1 1/4 cups water

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan.  Simmer over low heat for about 75 minutes stirring occasionally.  Let cool and then store in glass jars in the refrigerator.

I love flipping through pottery barn kids catalogs (and pottery barn catalogs).  Thank goodness they keep me on their mailing list even though I buy maybe one thing a year from them!  I use their catalog less for shopping and more for ideas.  The kids’ rooms in their catalogs are adorable, but I could never justify spending that much to decorate.  So, I’ve been creative – I made a couple of pottery-barn-esque Star Wars canvases for my son’s room and some wall art and a butterfly mobile for my daughter’s room.  (I’d be happy to share pictures/instructions if anyone is interested in those.  :) )

Lately, my focus has been on the babies’ room.  So far I’ve only finished their pennant banner.  This is a super easy and low-cost project that is very cute for a nursery.

Materials needed:

5 pieces of fabric (1/4 yard each) in coordinating patterns

1 package of single fold bias tape in a coordinating color

Rotary cutting mat and rotary cutter

Lay your fabric out across the mat.  Cut into triangles 10″ wide.  I was able to cut 6 from each piece of fabric.

Once you have all of your pieces cut, put two triangles of the same fabric together with their “good sides” facing.  Sew along the sides and leave the top of the triangle open.  Turn the triangle inside out some the rough seam is facing in.  Repeat with all of your other pennants.

Iron each triangle pennant to flatten your seam.

Pin each triangle in a pattern to your bias tape.  Sew along the top leaving a little space between each triangle and a bit extra on the ends for hanging.  When you are finished you’ll have a banner that’s over 10′ long.  Not bad for a project that only takes about an hour to make!

Now all I need to do is actually hang it up in the twins’ room.  :)

Anyone else have ideas for low-cost and crafty decorating in the kids’ rooms?

Quote of the day from my oldest: “This is the first time we’ve made a craft we can eat!”

I guess that’s what ravioli making seems like to kids.  Personally I thought two hours was a long time to spend making one meal, but they had fun in the kitchen.  I think next time we’ll just make pasta.  By the time the ravioli was finished I didn’t feel like making a sauce for it, so we just had it with melted butter.  It was fun to spend time in the kitchen with the older kids.  That pesky school time really cuts into our hanging out time.  :)

They’re so proud of the dinner they made.  :)

To make ravioli, start with a basic pasta dough:

2 1/2 cups semolina flour (I haven’t experimented with other flours, but I believe you could use bread flour here – Please let me know your results if you try this with different flours.)

3 eggs

1 tsp salt (approx)

2-4 tbsp water

Make a mound of flour on a clean work surface.  Create a divot in the center of the mound (looks like a volcano).  Crack your eggs into the center and add your salt.  Use a fork to break up the eggs a bit and then use your hands to incorporate the eggs into the flour.  (This will get messy!)

Once you mix that together as best you can, slowly add water to the dough until it comes together and forms a ball.  (You may not use all of the water.)  Knead it for a good 5 minutes.  It should be a very firm dough.

Wrap it in plastic wrap and set aside for about 15 minutes.

Get your pasta machine ready and mounted on your countertop.  I use an old Atlas pasta maker similar to this one.  Divide the dough into 4 pieces.  Rewrap the pieces you are not using.

Roll out the dough starting with the widest setting.  If the pasta breaks apart while you are rolling it, don’t worry.  Just keep folding it back together and feeding it through until you have one sheet.  Then keep moving your setting up until you roll it through setting number 5.  It will be very thin and almost transparent.

Now you are ready to make ravioli!

I used a ravioli maker but you could easily make ravioli without one.  You just need to lay out your sheet and put spoonfuls of filling along it.  Then fold the pasta over to make pockets.  You may need to wet your fingers to make a tight seal.  Then cut with a fluted cutter or a pizza cutter.

For filling, we sauteed some spinach in butter.  Then mixed it with a cup of ricotta, a little parmesan, nutmeg and one egg.

Boil these for 4-5 minutes and enjoy!

Not something to prepare on a busy day, but a fun project with the kids!  And it’s a good thing the twins napped well while the older kids and I made these, because this is what they do when they’re in the kitchen:

There is nothing better than the smell of baking bread.  And the smell of cinnamon raisin bread baking?  Unbelievable.  :)

I made two loaves of this tasty bread yesterday and today I enjoyed a couple of slices for breakfast toasted and spread with homemade peanut butter.  I’m not usually a raisin person, but in this bread they’re good.  Best thing about this recipe?  All whole wheat and no sugar!

Cinnamon Raisin Graham Bread

(adapted very slightly from Bob’s Red Mill)

2 1/2 cups White Whole Wheat Flour

1 pkg active dry yeast (I used the Hodgon Mill brand specifically made for whole wheat baking)

1/4 tsp ginger

2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup milk

3/4 cup water

1/4 cup molasses

3 tbsp butter

2 1/2 cups graham flour (you could probably substitute whole wheat flour here)

1 cup raisins

In your mixer bowl fitted with a dough hook combine 2 cups of white whole wheat flour, yeast, cinnamon and ginger.  Warm the milk, water, molasses and butter over medium low heat until the butter just melts.  Add to the flour mixture.  Beat slowly until combined and then beat on high for a couple minutes.  Add the graham flour and raisins and stir to combine (about a minute).  With the mixer running at a moderate speed, slowly add the last 1/2 cup of flour and then let the mixer knead the dough for about 4 minutes until it forms a ball on the dough hook.  Remove the dough hook and place your ball of dough in the mixing bowl.  Drizzle with a little oil and flip the dough ball a couple of times so it is completely coated in oil.  Cover with a towel and let rise for 1 hour.

Punch down the dough and divide dough in half.  Cover and let stand 10 minutes.  Grease 2 pie plates.  Form each half into a loaf and place in pie plates.  Cover and let rise for 1 hour.

Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

This bread tastes great toasted and spread with a little peanut butter.  I made some homemade peanut butter yesterday and it is ridiculously easy to make.

Peanut Butter

20 oz peanuts (I couldn’t find raw, so mine did have a little peanut oil and sea salt added)

Process in your food processor on it’s highest setting and wait.  It might not look like it’s going to get smooth and creamy, but it will.  All of a sudden it will look like peanut butter.  I probably processed mine for about 10 minutes because I like it creamy.

Every Thursday, before I do my grocery shopping, I make a menu of the week’s dinners.  This way I know exactly what to buy at the grocery and I know I’ll have ingredients for all of my meals.  I highly recommend doing this; it saves a lot of stress during the week.

That being said, tonight’s dinner was off the plan.  Some day’s you just don’t feel like sticking to a strict schedule.  So, I whipped up some risotto:

Rogue Sunday Risotto

1 cup arborio rice

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 medium onion, chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

3-4 cups frozen chopped spinach

1 cup cooked/canned garbanzo beans

4 cups vegetable broth

1 cup freshly grated parmesan

1/2 cup sliced almonds

salt and pepper to taste

Saute the pepper and onion over medium heat until softened.  Add the rice and cook for about 2 minutes until it is coated with oil.  Add one cup of broth to the rice and stir.  Cook over medium heat, stirring regularly, until all of the liquid is absorbed.  Repeat with the remaining broth, one cup at a time, until you’ve used all of the broth.

Meanwhile, steam the spinach until tender.  Toast the almonds lightly in a dry skillet over medium heat (stir frequently to avoid burning) for a few minutes.

Remove the rice mixture from the heat and stir in the garbanzos and spinach.  Then, add the parmesan, stirring until melted.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Top with the almonds and serve warm.  Yum!

We are a family of the cloth.

I can’t even imagine the number of paper towels, paper napkins, ziploc bags, etc. that we would go through in this house if we didn’t have reusable cloth products.  It may seem daunting to consider all of the disposable products you could replace in your home.  Take it one item at a time if it is new to you.  Or maybe you are already replacing your plastic grocery bags with reusables and are just looking for another way to reduce the amount of waste in your household.

Here are my tips on what we do at our house:

* Cloth napkins – We use them at home, for school lunches and when we pack a picnic.  Even with 6 of us, it really isn’t that much extra work to wash these.  Start small and use them just at dinner to begin with.

* Old-fashioned rags – I am amazed at the number of paper towels families go through.  We use old towels as rags for cleaning up spills and general household cleaning.

* Reusable sandwich/snack bags – My kids have a packed lunch and snack almost every day for school.  We would go through hundreds of ziplocs.  There is a great company called SnackTaxi (formerly HappySacks) that makes reusable velcro bags in fun prints.  They are machine washable and I’ve had some that have been in regular rotation for 4 years now and are still in great shape.

* Reusable shopping bags – Check out my post on making your own canvas bags.  Most people have switched to reusable shopping bags, but you should also consider reusable produce bags.  I have not tried making my own yet, but I have a set I purchased from Crate and Barrel.

* Cloth diapers – This one was the hardest for me.  I used only disposables with my first two kids, but I finally went cloth with the twins.  And it turns out, it’s not so hard.  Sure, it’s a little gross, but it’s worth it when I think about the number of diapers I would have been tossing into the trash.  I only wish I’d started sooner.  AND… it’s cheaper than disposables!  We use BumGenius diapers and they’ve already paid for themselves.

And, when it’s warm like it’s been, I can dry those cloth diapers out in the sun.  The sun is a natural stain fighter and it’s so much more energy efficient to skip the dryer.

Is there anything else I missed?  If you have tips on reusable products that work for you, please share!

Some days I start to get discouraged by the no-processed food plan.  Like days when I double a recipe for crackers and half of the batch is gone by the end of the day.  (Thank goodness I DID double the recipe!)  It seems like so much work for 2 days worth of snacks.

Oh well, at least the family and I are starting to view fresh fruit or vegetable sticks as a snack option.  Before our plan for the year, the kids would usually have goldfish crackers or granola bars (or even the occasional “fruit” snacks) as snacks.  We are definitely making progress!

So, here are today’s wheat thins (or postage stamp crackers as the kids dubbed them).  A rare picture of them taken before they all disappeared.

Wheat Thins (adapted from TheSpiffyCookie)

2 1/2 cups flour (I used white whole wheat)

3 tbsp sugar (I used evaporated cane juice)

1 tsp salt (plus more to sprinkle over the tops)

1/2 tsp paprika

8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup water (or a little less)

1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine all of your dry ingredients in a food processor.  Cut the chilled butter into small chunks and add to the dry ingredients.  Process until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.  Add the vanilla and about half of the water.  With the food processor running, slowly add the remaining water until the dough forms an elastic ball.  (You may not need all of the water, so add it slowly and stop when the dough looks ready.)

Working in very small batches, roll out your dough as thin as you can.  Cut into squares with a pizza cutter (or the wavy cutter I used for postage stamps ).  Place on an ungreased baking sheet and sprinkle with salt.  Bake at 400 for about 10 minutes.  (Keep an eye on them; they’ll need more or less time depending on how thick you rolled out your dough.)

Enjoy them before they disappear!

I love the idea of having fresh cut flowers all over the house.  It makes a room seem so much more cheerful.  There are two things that stop me from filling my house with flowers:

1. It gets a bit expensive because those flowers don’t last forever and pretty soon you need to buy more.

2. It feels a little wasteful and not very environmentally friendly.  There’s an interesting article on the floral industry at Scientific American.

So, what to do when you want some cheerful flowers in your house?  Potted flowers are an option, but I personally have not had much luck with those and usually end up planting them in the ground outside.  I’m not a fan of fake flowers, so for much of the year I have to live without a house full of flowers.

But… once spring comes around and local flowers are in bloom, I take full advantage of it.

Currently only the forsythias are blooming in my yard, so I snipped off a couple pieces and brought them inside.  That bright yellow color is so cheerful on the kitchen table that I can almost ignore the chaos of toddlers throwing their food on the floor and spilling their milk on the table.  :)