Baked Oatmeal

We eat lots of oatmeal around here and it’s fun to shake it up a bit and serve it different ways.  This is one of our favorite oatmeal recipes.  We make two large pans and never have leftovers! This is Shannen’s famous recipe that he so graciously let me share!

Baked Oatmeal

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup dried cranberries (you can also use regular or yellow raisins…if you’re really feeling spicy you can do a combination of these!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. In a large bowl, mix together oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Beat in milk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract. Stir in dried cranberries. Spread into a 9x13 inch baking dish.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes.

Serve warm!

Homemade Lara Bars

I came across this recipe a while back. These are a great snack to have around. Everyone here enjoys them, even my hubby! (that’s saying a lot!) There are only 4 ingredients and they can be made up in no time at all! I love quick!!

• 2 cups Raw Or Toasted Whole, Shelled Almonds
• 1 cup Chocolate Chips Or Chopped Dark Chocolate
• 4 cups Whole, Pitted Dates
• 2 Tablespoons Natural Peanut Butter (or Sunflower Or Cashew Butter), Divided (or More, If Necessary)

Line a 9-inch x 13-inch straight sided pan with a piece of parchment paper so that the paper hangs over the long edges. Set aside.

Fit a food processor with a metal blade. Add the almonds to the processor and pulse until they are uniformly finely chopped (think fresh bread crumb texture.) Add the chocolate chips and pulse again until the chocolate chips are also finely chopped. Pour the chocolately nuts into a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Add half of the dates to the food processor and process until a paste forms and clumps together in the bowl. Open the food processor and add in 1 tablespoon of the nut butter and half of the chocolatey ground nuts. Replace the lid and process until evenly combined. Scrape into the prepared pan.

Repeat these steps with the remaining dates, chocolatey nuts and nut butter.

When all of the ingredients have been thus processed, wet your hands and use them to press the mixture as evenly over the bottom of the pan as possible. Fold the excess parchment over the bars to cover them and use something flat and heavy to press down firmly on the mixture until it is smooth.

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before moving onto the slicing surface.

To slice: Use the excess parchment paper like a sling to transfer the now-firm bars from the pan to a large cutting board.

Cut into desired size and store in the refrigerator in a tightly covered container. An unrefrigerated bar will be good for 48 hours, covered, at room temperature.

Homemade Marshmallows

In my fascination with label reading I discovered that marshmallow's have blue food dye in them and some marshmallows even contain pork. Yucko, yucko, yucko! So what did I do…make our own! Off to the internet I went and found this easy recipe. Once you taste these you will never be content with an ordinary marshmallow again! These are gourmet! I can’t wait to use these to make homemade Caramello’s this holiday season!

Homemade Marshmallows

3 envelopes of gelatin
3/4 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar (we used organic cane sugar)
2/3 cups light corn syrup (we used homemade…yeah that’s for another post )
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tsp peppermint extract (optional for the holiday’s)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 T cornstarch

Lightly grease a 9 x 9-inch baking pan. If you have a flexible silicon pan, use it! If not, you can use any metal or glass pan. It’s just easier to remove the marshmallows from the silicon pan.

In a large mixing bowl (or bowl of a stand mixer if you have one), sprinkle the gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water and allow it to dissolve for about 5-10 minutes,

Combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a very hard boil and cook for one minute (no need for a candy thermometer). Make sure you stir it frequently, and be careful – this mixture is very hot! Make sure you cover for a few minutes until the sugar dissolves.

Pour the boiling syrup on top of the gelatin and begin whisking on high. A stand mixer will make this job much easier though you can use a hand mixer. Just be aware it’s possible that you could burn up your mixer using it on high for this long!

Add the salt and whisk on high for about 10 minutes. At about 8 minutes in, begin dipping your finger into the mixture and dropping a small dollop on the counter to test how close it is to “done”. If you drop a dollop on the counter and within 30-60 seconds, it starts to firm up like you would imagine a marshmallow would, you can probably stop whipping. Ten minutes is usually enough; you can go as long as 12 if you’re unsure.

Allow the marshmallows to set until firm – usually about 4-5 hours. Once firm, combine 1/4 cup powdered sugar and 2 T cornstarch in a bowl. Use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut the marshmallows into cubes. It helps prevent sticking if you dip your scissors in the powdered sugar mixture between each cut.

Toss each marshmallow in the powdered sugar mixture and that’s it – you’re done! Store in a semi-airtight container.

Wow! I guess that crazed look in his eye means he likes them!

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

I try to be pretty health conscience about what I put in my family’s body.  I check labels on most everything.   I avoid all hydrogenated oils, food coloring, and high fructose corn syrup.  I realized last month that our chocolate syrup had ~shock~horror~ high fructose corn syrup in it!  I checked all the labels and they all had it!  Ugh! So I bought some organic chocolate syrup from Raleys. I won’t even tell how much that cost! Let me tell you that just one evening of ice cream sundae’s and a couple of Shaylah’s wonderful coffee’s and that bottle of chocolate syrup goes pretty quick!

My frugal mindedness and health consciousness collided at full force.  What to do, what to do??? Oh, yeah! Make my own!  Off to cyberland I went and found a recipe.  How easy is this?! Yay!  The best of both worlds…health and penny pinching! 

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

• 1 1/4 C organic sugar
• 1 C unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 C water
• 1/4 t salt
• 2 t vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, whisk together sugar and cocoa powder until most of the lumps are gone. Add water and salt and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. Bring to a boil and cook for a few minutes, until thickened, continuing to stir frequently. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes, then add vanilla extract. Store in air tight container in the fridge.

To make chocolate milk, add 1 tablespoon of chocolate sauce to a cup of milk and stir until combined.

Hamburger Vegetable Soup

Shelbie made this for us and it was a definite make again.  Even Poppet ate it, that’s saying a lot!

Hamburger Vegetable Soup

• 2 lbs. ground beef
• 2 cups chopped onion
• 2 cups peeled and diced potatoes
• 2 cups sliced carrots
• 2 cups shredded cabbage
• 4 (14.5-oz) cans diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup brown rice, uncooked
• 6 to 10 cups water
• 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 Tablespoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon basil
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 2 bay leaves

Brown ground beef and onion together until meat is lightly browned. Drain off excess fat. Add all remaining ingredients and bring mixture to a boil.

Cover and simmer for two to four hours. Check periodically and add more water, if needed. Remove bay leaves and serve.

Makes 18 to 20 cups of soup. Can be stored in the refrigerator for up to four days.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Shaylah is becoming a really good little baker around here.  She already owns the title of “chocolate chip cookie queen” and is also making quite the name for herself with her cinnamon rolls.

This morning she made us some Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls.  Let me just say….Mmmm!  They were very, very yummy!  So good I just had to share the recipe so we can all say Mmmm together!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

2/3 cup milk

¼ cup butter (half of a stick or cube)

1 cup pumpkin puree

¼ cup honey

1 t salt

2 eggs

1 T yeast

5 to 6 cups flour (Shaylah did half whole wheat and half white)

Butter

Brown sugar

Cinnamon

In a sauce pan combine milk and butter.  Heat until the milk is hot and the butter almost melted. Pour the milk/butter combination in the bowl of a Kitchen Aid or Bosch mixer.  Let this cool to lukewarm.  Add the pumpkin puree, honey, salt, eggs and yeast.  Stir until well mixed.  Add flour and mix until the dough is no longer sticking to the sides of your bowl but is still soft and pliable.  Let this sit and rise for 30 to 45 minutes. (Shaylah just put the ingredients in our bread machine)

Turn the mixer back on to punch down the dough.  Take the dough out of the bowl and divide it into 2 pieces.  Roll the first  piece out in a rectangle approximately 12x15 inches.  Butter the dough and sprinkle  brown sugar all over.  You can use as much or as little as you desire.  Sprinkle cinnamon on top of this.  Starting at the long side of the dough roll it up jelly roll style.  Pinch the dough to seal.  Cut the dough into one inch pieces. 

Repeat this with the other half of the dough. 

Lay out the cut cinnamon rolls onto a large jelly roll pan or in 2 9x13 pans.  Let them rise until the have doubled in size, about 30 to 45 minutes.

Bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes.  Glaze with a powdered sugar  glaze as soon as they come out of the oven, if desired.

Glaze

1 1/2  C powdered Sucanat or powdered sugar

3/4 tsp vanilla

2 - 3 Tbs milk

Mix until smooth and thin enough to drizzle.

Now we can all say it together….Mmmm! 

Homeade Ranch Dressing

Over the last year and a half we have made many changes to our diet in an effort to eat healthier. We have pretty much cut out all food coloring, hydrogenated fats, high fructose corn syrup and msg's.

For the most part we have all gotten used to these changes and have seen some positive health changes, such as Shannen's headaches have gone away. We had no idea that food color was a trigger for him.

One of the things we recently cut out was ranch dressing. I happened to read the label and saw that it had MSG in it. Yucko! Ranch is our favorite dressing so giving this up has been hard. What else do you dip your pizza in?

Today I tried a recipe for homemade buttermilk ranch dressing. We really liked it! Pizza here we come!!

Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup mayo (we like our ranch a little thicker so I added more of this)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon mustard powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (we used dried)
Bragg's organic sea kelp delight seasoning (this was not in the recipe, but I had it and decided to use some and it was wonderful!)

Stir together the buttermilk and mayonaise until fully mixed. Add in other ingredients and adjust for taste. I just put everything in our Magic Bullet and mixed it up.
Makes about 1 1/2 cups.

Taco Salad

Shelbie made a yummy Taco Salad the other night.  We love salads in the summer with fresh fruit.  Easy to make without heating up the house.  

1lb. Cooked ground beef
1 (16 ounce size) black beans beans (you can also make your own beans, we do, but cans are sure convenient)
1 (16 ounce size) pinto beans
1 package tortilla chips or corn chips 
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
4 cups chopped lettuce
2 small tomatoes, chopped
2 avocados, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 can (2-1/4 ounce size) sliced ripe olives, drained
1 1/4 cup salsa
1/2 cup sour cream
(We use French dressing instead of the salsa and sour cream sometimes)

Chop lettuce, tomatoes, avocadoes, and onion and put in bowl.  Add olives, cheese, beans, and ground beef.
Mix well and add French dressing or combine salsa and sour cream and use that for the dressing.  Put a handful of chips on the plate and add a salad on top. Enjoy!