Shaking Butter

The kids and I are reading through the Little House on the Prairie books, starting with The Little House in the Big Woods. We're loving the book! Inspired by the Ingalls we are having fun with a few crafts as we read through the books. Our first activity was homemade butter. We don't own a cow or a goat (yet!) and we don't have a butter churn, instead we used a clean jar with a secure lid, and heavy cream bought from our local grocery store. We filled our jar half way with cream and started shaking. We had two jars, and I let the big kids go first while the little ones were able to have a turn when their older siblings arms became tired. The kids had to shake the jar for maybe 10 to 15 minutes before the cream turned to whip cream, and then finally butter sitting in a jar of buttermilk! The kids loved this project. They had so much fun, that they couldn't stop talking about it all day. We squeezed the buttermilk out of the butter and separated the liquid and the butter into two different containers. To enjoy the fruits of their labor the kids then baked some fresh homemade bread to go with their butter. We saved the buttermilk, which I plan to use to make some buttermilk pancakes.

Apple Treats

Fall is a time for apples and all the yummy, warm treats that you can make from them. Recently, our family took a trip up to North Carolina to Justus Orchard (my sister-in-law's boyfriend's family owns the farm). My husband and I had a great time picking our own apples with the kids and playing in the orchard.

We ended up leaving with what I think was a 5lb bag of assorted apples, a 1/2 gallon of apple cider, a dozen apple donuts, and a jar of honey. So far I have made 2 sweet treats with my bag of apples, with still some to spare!

My first creation was an apple pie - of course! (notice how I braided the crust, I got that idea from pintrest)

Ingredients:

2 pie pastry crust

4 to 5 large apples sliced

3/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

butter

a drizzle of maple syrup

Directions:

1. Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg; add apples and toss well to coat.

2. Place bottom pastry in a pie a 9 inch pie pan and add apple mixture.

3. Dot with butter. Then drizzle maple syrup on top

4. Place second crust on top of pie filling, cut slits in top of crust to vent. Seal the edges of the crust. Or create your own crust design.

5. Brush crust with melted butter, then sprinkle with sugar

6. Bake at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes.

7. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake 40-45 minutes more or until crust is golden and filling is bubbly.

My second yummy treat were these apple ciders in an apple mug

Ingredients: 

2 apples, hollowed

cinnamon sticks

pre-made apple cider

Directions:

1. Hollow out your apples

2. Heat up your pre-made cider (I bought mine at the orchard)

3. Pour cider into apples

4. Garnish with cinnamon sticks

5. sip and enjoy!

I would love to add more apple treats to my recipe book, so please feel free to share your recipes in the comment section below! :)

Red, White, and Blueberry Treats!

Growing up holidays were always made special at our home. I looked forward to every event because I knew that my mom would make it fun for my sister and I. On our birthdays she would make special birthday pancakes for us, sometimes in the shape of our initials. As a mother now, I too want to make events fun and exciting for my kids and one fun way to do that is through food. So below are some fun red, white, and blue treats!



Of course I have to start out with these pancakes! These yummy red, white and blue pancakes are made with red velvet cake. Great way to start off your patriotic morning. You can find the recipe here: Fourth of July Pancakes

Pretzel Sparklers are easy to make and are fun and yummy for the kids to eat too! To make these cute treats just dip your pretzel tips into melted semisweet chocolates, cover with sprinkles, stand them up in a cup and sit in the refrigerator for a few minutes until firm.

Another easy treat, Patriotic Berries! These berries won't last long! Super easy to make. Melt 12 ounces of white chocolate chips in a microwave according to the package directions. One at a time, dip your dried strawberries into the chocolate and then into blue sugar. Place on wax paper and let harden in the refrigerator.

(recipe found at Family Magazine)

You can't have a 4th of July celebration without watermelon! Try out these cool Watermelon Pop Stars. All you'll need is a seedless watermelon, cut into one inch slices, a star cookie cutter, and a popsicle stick. 

(recipe found at Family Magazine)

Parfaits are a perfect summer treat and I found this cute Red, White, and Blue Parfait over at Better Homes and Garden

I hope you have a blast this 4th of July, eating hamburgers, hotdogs, and enjoying a firework show and I hope these treats add to the fun! 

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Cookie Exchange

I went to my very first cookie exchange on Friday with a group of ladies from my church. This exchange was super cute and super fun! Each lady brought in her own batch of cookies along with a enough recipes to pass around. Now my cookbook is filled with more cookie than dinner recipes, and thats fine with me!

For my cookie, I made and brought in Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. You're definitely going to need a big glass of milk for these.

Below I will show you how I made them :)

For your ingredients you will need:

1 stick of butter

1/2 Cup of chunky peanut butter

1/2 Cup of sugar

1/2 Cup of brown sugar

1 egg

1 1/4 Cup of flour

1/2 tsp of baking soda

1/2 tsp of baking powder

1/4 tsp of salt

1 Cup of chocolate chips

This will make about 18 cookies

Mix together the butter, peanut butter, and sugars.

Then add the egg and mix until fluffy.

In a separate bowl, blend the flour, baking power, soda, and salt. Then add these dry ingredients to the butter mixture.

Add the chocolate chips, mmmm :)

Then scoop out blobs of dough onto a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 350*F

Don't let the edges get too brown, and if the tops of the cookie still look like dough, thats ok! You're cookies will remain soft after they cool, which I LOVE!

After they cool plate them up and they are ready to eat!

Or take to a cookie exchange!

As I mentioned above this was my first cookie exchange, so I didn't know how to bring them, but I was told the way they were packaged was fine :) LOL

The exchange was fun, and I had a great time laughing and hanging out with a wonderful group of ladies. I hope you enjoy this cookie and surround with uplifting and genuine friends.

Skylar's Homemade Honey Butter

This is my beautiful baby girl Skylar. She is in the first grade and when she grows up she wants to be a chef! She loves to help mommy in the kitchen, and since she was 3 years old she's been creating her own little recipes. All of which I must admit were nasty, such as mixed eggs, flour, sugar, and whatever else she would mix in there, microwave and then expect me to eat, with a smile on my face. So I started teaching her how to make some yummy edible creations. For Christmas her grandmother, who she calls GiGi, got her an apron to wear in the kitchen, and whenever its time to bake, cook, or create, she puts it on eager and ready to go. 

One of her most recent creations was Homemade Honey Butter. Skylar made this all by herself and below she will show you how. This butter was delicious! 

The ingredients and materials you will need are:

A clean jar

A marble (optional)

Heavy Cream

Salt

and

Honey

Now lets get started!

Have your materials and ingredients ready

Fill your jar halfway full of heavy cream, then drop in the marble (the marble just helps with the mixing).

Then start shaking!

You're going to be shaking for a long time, so you might need a friend (or a mommy) to take turns with you when your arms get tired.

Half way through, your mixture will look like whip cream.

Keep shaking and have patience!

And soon, after all of your hard work, that white cream that has coated your jar will soon clear your jar and you'll have a large yellow lump in there, and thats your butter!

Spoon out the butter from the liquid thats left in there. That liquid is now butter milk! You can save that for other recipes.

 You will need to also take that butter and squeeze out any butter milk that is mixed in over the sink. Try to squeeze out as much as you can. Mom needs to help with that.

Sprinkle on some salt

Then drizzle in some honey. We eyeballed it to taste.

Mix it all together

Then spoon your mixture into a container that you can keep in the refrigerator 

And then you're done! Now you have some of the most amazing honey butter. This stuff is great on toast, dinner rolls, muffins, you name it! We ate it on toast for dinner that night and finished it off on toast for breakfast the next morning. Skylar was so proud of herself as we ate the butter and praising her for a job well done. I hope that you or your little ones have fun making this yummy treat! 

Enjoy your babies, have patience, and have fun in the kitchen! :)

Easy Homemade Pico De Gallo

I made this Pico De Gallo for our Super Bowl dinner on Sunday. It's an easy, fresh, yummy, spicy treat!

Here are the ingredients:

1 (maybe even 1 1/2) tomato, diced
1/2 onion, chopped. (Make sure you have more tomato than onion)
a few sprigs of cilantro, chopped
4 to 6 green onions, chopped
1 jalapeño, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
garlic powder to taste

and 1/2 green pepper (I didn't use a green pepper in the pico de gallo that I made Sunday, but that's only because I forgot the pepper at the store...it was still good though).

Chop, dice, and season your ingredients, and mix them up together in a bowl. Customize it by adding more of the ingredients that you like best and then refrigerate for 30 minutes to a hour. Then serve with tortilla chips, I like the scoops kind.

Enjoy!