Mmmmm... Graham Crackers...

Hello to my bloggy friends! It's been a little while, and I'm trying to get all caughted up. For today, we have a yummy recipe!! There will be pictures later on, but my internet connection is being bad =(

{Homemade Graham Crackers}

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups graham flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup cold butter
1/4 c molasses
4 tbsp honey
1/4 cup cold water

Mix the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt & cinnamon) together in a large bowl.



Cut the butter into pieces, add a few pieces at a time, and mix it into the dry ingredients. It's easiest to use an electric mixer for this. Mix it until the butter pieces are itty bitty and well blended.


Now add the wet/sticky ingredients (honey, molasses, water & vanilla) to the mixture. Mix everything together until it makes a sticky dough.


Put the dough between sheets of parchment paper, and roll it out until it's about a half an inch thick.


Let the dough chill for about an hour. Once it's chilled, preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Separate the dough into two equal sized pieces. Roll each one out until it's about half as thick as it was. Make sure it's nice and square, and the edges aren't too thin. If they're too thin, they burn.


Use a small knife (mama uses a butter knife), and cut the dough into squares. We cut ours into smallish pieces, and get about three dozen crackers.


Put your cracker dough & parchment papers on a couple of cookies sheets, and poke some holes in the crackers with a fork. Bake them for about 10 minutes, or until they start to brown. Let them cool on the cookies sheets and ENJOY!

And best of all, these graham crackers don't have high fructose corn syrup or any artificial ingredients :)

Happy April Fool's Day!!

Here's a fun April Fool's Day dinner! We take Shepherd's Pie and make cupcakes instead!!

{Shepherd's Cupcakes}

4 medium potatoes
2 tbsp margarine or butter
1/4 c milk
1 medium onion
1 tbsp oil
16 oz beef crumbles/browned ground beef
1 c gravy




First you cut up the potatoes to make mashed potatoes. Mama likes to use an apple cutter 'cause she says it's easier.












Now you put the potato slices in a pot and cover them in water. Boil the water for about 20 minutes. Then drain the water, add margarine {or butter!} and milk, and mash them up.












While the potatoes are boiling, you can chop the onions. Mama uses the apple slicer for that too, then cuts them up nice and small-ish. After your onions are cut up, put them in a pan with oil to saute them.












Once your onions cook and become almost see-through, they are done. Add the beef crumbles or browned ground beef and gravy. Then you get to mix it altogether!!












Now that your meat mixture and mashed potatoes are done, it's time to put them together! Scoop the meat into a cupcake pan {an icecream scoop works great!}, and scoop mashed potatoes on top. To make them more "cupcake like", mama adds food coloring to the potatoes to make them pinkish red.












Now it's time to bake your cupcakes! Bake them at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes. After you take them out, you can make them more "cupcake like" by adding salt sprinkles. But be careful not to use too much salt like mama did!! Just use an itty bitty little bit.












To make salt sprinkles, measure 1/8 cup of salt and mix 3-5 drops of food coloring in.












Then spread it on a plate and put it in the microwave for a few minutes until it dries. Once it's done, you can put it on your cupcakes or art projects!!

Pancakes and Fruit... oh my!

I love me some pancakes. However, I'm too little to eat syrup, so we had to find some pancakes that were sweet and moist without it. Bring in mama's Fruity Pancakes. Even daddy and grandpa ate them {withOUT syrup} and loved them!!

We make them with bananas and blueberries. You can use your imagination to make them how you like them!

{Fruity Pancakes}

1 cup wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup honey or agave nectar
1 egg {or egg substitute!}
1 cup milk
1/2 cup yogurt
Your choice of bananas or frozen fruit


Mix together wheat flour, baking soda and baking powder. In another bowl, mix together honey, egg, milk and yogurt. Pour the stuff from the liquid bowl into the flour bowl, and stir everything all together!
















Now you have a couple of options...

{Option One}
If you want to make mini banana pancakes, cut up your bananas. {If you're using all of the batter for banana pancakes, it will take about 5-6 bananas}. Take a fork and dip your banana slices in the pancake batter.
















Put the banana pancakes on the greased griddle or pan {we use a pan sprayed with olive oil spray}.












Once the little pancakes get bubbly, flip them over.











Let them sit for a few minutes and these ones are all done! {Repeat as necessary}.











{Option Two}
If you want to use frozen fruit, put a handful or two of fruit in your pancake batter. Mix it all up.











Scoop some batter on a greased griddle or pan.











Watch for it to get bubbly and flip it over.











Let them sit for a few minutes and these ones are all done! {Repeat as necessary}.

Gabe's Favorite Cheesy Pasta

Every week mama and I make cheesy pasta. Every week daddy and I eat it all. It is my favorite food, and the best part is that it gets better the more leftoverish it becomes. Yummy!!

{Cheesy Pasta}

4 cups cooked pasta {about 16 oz}
2 tbsp butter or margarine
1/2 tsp chopped onion
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ground mustard
2 tbsp flour
2 cups plain yogurt {we like soy!!}
3 cups shredded cheese


{If you haven't already, prepare the pasta according to the directions.}

Melt the butter in a pan. Then add your onion, garlic powder and ground mustard. Let them simmer for about 3-5 minutes.











Add some flour. This will help thicken your sauce. Mix it all up and let it simmer for a few minutes.












Now add the yogurt and mix it all up. Let it simmer for a few minutes so it's all a consistent temperature.











Then slowly mix in your cheese. We used medium cheddar, but you can use different types/combinations. Rememberize that if you use less yellow cheeses, your sauce may not look as "cheesy".











Let your cheese sauce simmer for a few minutes to get the cheese all melted and mixed in. Then you can spoon some on your noodles. {Mmmm...}











Whatever is leftover can be stored in the fridge for about a week {it never lasts longer than that at our house!!} It gets even better when it's leftovers!!

Dinner was a little fishy tonight...

So mama found a new favorite recipe blog: The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen. And of course, I got to be a guinea piggy for a new food. Some of my favorite foods are avacado and fish, so mama found a fish salad with avacado mayonnaise recipe. Little does she know that I've decided I don't like either one anymore!! Welcome to the world of the picky eater.

She thought you might enjoy it though, and there will be pictures to come. Here is the recipe, which can also be found here.

{Avocado Mayonnaise}

I don't have an exact recipe for this because I just add ingredients until the consistency and taste are just right.

1 to 2 small avocados

1 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 to 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 to 3 tablespoons water

sea salt or Herbamare, to taste

Place all ingredients into a bowl or large mug and blend with an immersion blender (hand held blender). You can also use a blender or food processor, but given the small quantity of mayo you will be making it is much easier and more efficient to use a hand blender (makes clean-up easier too).

{Salmon Salad Sandwich}

I don't have any measurements for this either. But this is the type of meal that needs no measuring, just use your intuitions and let your taste buds guide you.

leftover cooked salmon, broken into pieces (canned or smoked salmon would also work)
avocado mayonnaise
diced carrot

diced celery

chopped green or red onion
1 to 2 cloves garlic, crushed

capers

finely chopped parsley

sea salt or Herbamare, to taste

Place all ingredients into a small bowl and gently mix together with a fork. Place a few scoops onto a slice of your favorite gluten-free bread, add some lettuce and another slice of bread. That's it! Enjoy!

Save the bees!!

I was a bee once. Last week. For Halloween. I couldn't fly or sting, but I got to run around lots. I visited mama at work and said HI! to lots of peoples. Then mama, daddy and I went to dinner with Auntie Jaci. I got to color with crayons, and I throwed them on the ground when I was done. What more could you ask for?











Well, I will have LOTS more to tell you later. My grandpa came to visit us from somewhere really hot and far away. We will be taking lots and lots of pictures, and doing all kinds of fun things. (I hope so anyway!)

In the meantime, mama made pizza last night and wanted to share her pizza dough recipe. She forgotted to take pictures, so we'll add those later.

{Pizza Dough}

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon molasses
1 cup warm water

Mix together flour, yeast, water and molasses. Add in oil. You can let it rise for 1/2 hour, which is better, but not super important. Put it on a large pizza pan.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.

Take out and add toppings.

Bake for another 10-15 minutes, or until cheese is melty.

More bananas!

Have I mentioned my love for bananas? Mmmmm....

{Banana Bread}

1 cup mashed ripe bananas {about 2 or 3 bananas}
3/4 cup chopped nuts

3 tbsp oil
1/2 cup honey or molasses
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup white bread flour
1/2 cup wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda {the picture shows baking powder, but it should be baking soda}
1/4 tsp salt

First you need to preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Then mash the bananas. You can do this with a potato masher, in the blender, or however else you can come up with. We do it in the blender, and chop the nuts at the same time. If you do this, you'll want to add the nuts slowly so they get chopped up well.

Once your bananas and nuts are mashed and chopped, mix them with the honey, oil, and vanilla extract.











Now you want to add the other ingredients (flour, baking soda and salt), and mix everything together.











Once everything is all mixed together, scoop the mixture out into a lightly oiled loaf pan. Mama likes to use spray oil for this. She also has a loaf pan that is a little too big, but it's okay. The bread still turns out great!











The bread should be baked for 45 minutes. Then let it cool, and eat it!











On minute 43 of the bread baking today, I smooshed my fingers in a drawer. Mama had to come snuggle with me until about minute 60, but the bread turned out okay. Hooray!!

Monkeys love bananas and so do I!

I {heart} bananas. I like bananas by themselves. I like bananas in cookies and muffins and bread. I like them raw and frozen and baked. I just love bananas.

I wanted to share one of my favorite banana recipes with you all. It's for banana nut muffins. Mmmmm....

{Banana Nut Muffins}

1 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup almonds

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup raisins {optional!}

1 cup mashed ripe bananas {about 2 or 3 bananas}

1 egg

1/3 cup oil or applesauce

3 tablespoons blackstrap molasses

1/4 cup plain yogurt {dairy or nondairy}


In a blender mix the almonds and oats.
















Put the almonds-oats mixture into a mixing bowl and combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon. Mix them together. Stir in the raisins if you're going to use them.

Now add the other ingredients, and mix everything together!











After everything is mixed, you can spoon the batter into a muffin pan. Then put the muffin pan in a preheated 370 degree oven for 20 minutes.











Once they are all done, take them out of the oven and let them cool. Once cooled, they are ready to eat... and super yummy!