Sausage and Peppers Burgers

I don't dress up for Halloween. My husband takes my kids trick-or-treating, I stay at home, some years I hand out candy, but most years I don't. I don't dislike Halloween, I just am not a fan of the sugar rush that comes with all the candy. I'm a mean mommy, I don't allow my kids candy or junk food. I do bake things at home, but we have very few packaged foods in our cupboards besides rice, flour, and spices. My kids complain that I have only ingredients, but no food, Personally I don't see that as a bad thing. We eat fresh everyday and I make almost everything from scratch (with the exception of cereal which we don't eat, milk, eggs etc.). So on Halloween my kids become candy monsters. As soon as they come in the door, I take their treat bags. Most of the candy goes with my husband to share at work the next day and my kids are only allowed to keep one small plastic bag full of sweets, no suckers or sugared gum (I hate cavities). Honestly, I am looking forward to when they are old enough to want to go to parties and not door-to-door.

My family used to eat burgers frequently, but now we only eat them once every couple of months. We try not to eat a ton of red meat (my family is finally beginning to love tofu), so when we do eat burgers I try to make them different than the ordinary. This recipe for Sausage and Peppers Burgers combines two types of meat for a juicy and delicious burger combination. The recipe is as follows.

Recipe adapted from the Food Network Magazine.

Sausage and Peppers Burgers

Ingredients

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 6 ounces sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
• 1 clove garlic, grated
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1 red onion, sliced 1/2 inch thick
• 2 red bell peppers, cut into 1/2 strips
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 4 slices provolone cheese
• 4 hamburger buns
• warmed marinara sauce

Cooking Directions

1. Combine the sausage, beef, garlic, oregano, 1/4 teaspoon pepper and 1.4 teaspoon salt in a bowl.
2. After well blended form into 4 patties.
3. In a skillet over medium heat add olive oil, peppers, and onion.
4. Sauté until peppers and onions are browned and soft, about 6-8 minutes.
5. Preheat a grill (or grill pan) to medium high heat.
6. Add the burgers and cook until browned and cooked all the way through (4-6 minutes per side).
7. Top with cheese for the last 2 minutes of cooking time.
8. Add burger to bun, toping with peppers/onions, and warmed marinara sauce.

Tips: 

• These burger can be made into smaller patties for children. I make my kids burgers into 1/8 of a pound since they couldn't finish a 1/4 pound burger. 
• If you don't have a grill a grill pan or a skillet would also be fine for cooking the burgers on the stove. 
• I have also tried this with chicken sausage and ground chicken. The taste was different (I also added Greek seasoning), but the flavors were still great together, plus it cut down on fat. 

Perfect Homemade Hamburger Buns

While I love fall, I have a strong dislike of holiday decorating. The worst part is that I have a closet full of decorations that I put up every year like clock work when my oldest was little. Then I had my second son and things got a little less fun. Now I am lucky if I get the table top tree up for Christmas. I always make big holiday meals and my table looks great, but decorations annoy me. I think they look great in other people's houses. In mine they spell dust, sifting through closets, and generally too much effort. I don't mind the putting up as much as the taking down. One of the funniest memories I have growing up was my dad wrapping yards and yards of christmas lights around a wrapping paper tube to put away. After the 10th one he just threw the rest away and decided to get new ones the year. My mom got mad and decided that we wouldn't decorate the next year. Instead of being upset, my dad and I remember it as the best Christmas ever since we were always the ones that had to do all the decorating and putting away. Luckily my kids are happy with lots of food and just one decorated table top tree. I am happy that it literally takes seconds to put everything away after the holidays. So at Halloween my house won't be the one with the decorated pumpkins, ghosts, and witches. It will still be full of laughter, fun, and food just with a little less decorating than the other houses.

I try to make everything I can from scratch, including almost all breads and baked goods. For years I tried to find the perfect hamburger bun recipe with mixed results. I found one that was quick, but the shape and texture just weren't perfect. Then about a year ago I tried a new recipe and loved it. It was perfect and I have been using it ever since. Here is the recipe, it makes the perfect buns!

Adapted from the Food Network.

Fluffy Homemade Dinner Rolls

Perfect Hamburger Buns

Recipe Type: Side

Preparation Time: 4h, 30m

Cooking Time: 0h, 40m

Ingredients

• 1 cup warmed milk
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 large egg, room temp
• 1 large egg yolk, room temp
• 5-5 1/2 cups bread flour

Cooking Directions

1. Heat the milk and 3 tablespoons butter on the stove, just until the butter melts.
2. Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the 1/2 cup warm water and the remaining 3 tablespoons butter.
3. Add the salt, sugar, egg, and egg yolk.
4. Stir to combine.
5. Dissolve the yeast in the 1/4 cup warm water.
6. Wait until it foams (about 5 minutes) and then add to the bowl.
7. Add flour until the dough comes together.
8. You may not need the full 5 cups.
9. Turn dough onto the counter and knead for 5-8 minutes.
10. Adding more flour (or warm water) as needed (you want a soft, but not sticky dough).
11. Place dough into an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 2 hours (or until double in size).
12. Punch down dough, re-cover bowl and allow dough to rise for another hour.
13. Punch dough down once more.
14. Make dough into 10 pieces.
15. Roll each piece of dough into a smooth ball.
16. Cut each ball through the center (like you would if you were cutting a bun to place a hamburger within) into two pieces.
17. Place the two pieces back together (the same way they were before you cut them) and pinch the seam close.
18. Tuck the pinched seam under the ball.
19. Place the finished bun on a parchment lined baking sheet and slightly flatten the bottom.
20. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
21. You should end up with 10-12 total buns.
22. Cover and allow the buns to rise for 30 minutes.
23. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.
24. After rising brush the tops of each bun with melted butter.
25. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
26. Brush the buns once more with butter.

Tips: 

• This recipe may seem daunting at first with all the steps, but it really isn't. Once you have made it once it is very easy and it takes me less than a 1/2 hour of actual work. 
• If you have a bread maker the steps up until the second rise work great in a bread maker. I normally use my bread maker on the dough cycle to prep bread, it's so much easier. 
• If you have instant or bread maker yeast, you can skip the step of proofing the yeast in water. I just combine my yeast with the flour and then add it to the wet ingredients. I only proof my yeast about once a month to make sure it's still active. 
• These also make great sandwich buns, so don't just limit yourself to burgers! 

Oven Roasted Corn on the Cob

I hate fireworks. I have never have liked them and I don't understand the fascination. Part of the reason goes back to when I was little and my mother's family thought that buying m-80's and setting them off would be fun. It wasn't and it pretty much cemented my hate of loud noises. In college I tried going to one of the huge fireworks displays at night and people were paying more attention to each other than the fireworks (if you get my drift, there more clothes on the ground than on the people). Thankfully my kids and husband aren't big fans of fireworks either so it has been almost 9 years since I have seen fireworks on the 4th. I do like sparklers, but with only males in my family they have no appeal to anyone in my house except me. So my family will be celebrating the 4th without fireworks, which is just fine in my book.

The 4th of July always makes me think of cookouts, and cookouts make me think of corn on the cob. While I would love to fire up the grill everyday, sometimes the charcoal grill is just too much effort (and my husband will not allow a gas grill anyone near our house). It's during these times that I grill my corn in the oven. It's easy and literally only takes 30 minutes. The recipe is as follows.

Oven Roasted Corn on the Cob

Summary:

Simple and easy recipe for oven roasted corn on the cob. Never soggy like boiled corn.

Preparation Time: 0h, 5m

Cooking Time: 0h, 30m

Total Time: 0h, 35m

Yield: Serves 4

Adapted from The Food Network.

Oven Roasted Corn on the Cob

Ingredients

• 4 Ears of Corn

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Keeping husks on corn place directly on the middle oven rack.
3. Roast corn for 30 minutes.
4. Pull out and season with salt and butter.
5. Alternatively you may also rub the ears of corn with butter and pull the husks back up before placing them in the oven.

That's it. They turn out great roasted in the oven without the soggy taste that often happens when corn on the cob is boiled. I have a huge corn on the cob obsession and when it gets cheap in the middle of the summer we eat corn almost everyday. 

Have a happy 4th of July tomorrow everyone! 

Homemade Mint Iced Tea

I am a horrible food stylist. It seems to be a talent that many food bloggers have. They spend lots of time shopping for the perfect plates, utensils, and tableware in order to take gorgeous photos. I have to admit I hate shopping for photo props. While I love the second hand store, I don't like shopping for vintage tableware, or linens just to make my photos pop. Plus, with overly propped photos I never know if I am supposed to be looking at the food. I get distracted by the beautiful colors, tableware, plates etc. and more often than not the food becomes the prop instead of the focal point of the recipe that it is supposed to be representing. Honestly I am also a little bit jealous. I wish that I had the patience, time, and follow through to be able to spend hours putting together my photos. Most days I am lucky if the food gets on the plate and the photo taken. One thing I do love is angles. I spend more time finding the right angle for my photos than the worrying about the props. After preping, cooking, and plating my food I just want the angle of the photo to represent my food in the best light and hope that maybe no one will notice that I didn't spend hours finding the perfect vintage table linen for my shot.

Today's recipe is an example of my less than stellar food styling abilities. When I had time to take the photo the mint had all been used and I had no leaves left for photo props. So I am sad to admit that my mint iced tea photos have no actual mint in the picture. Oh well, without further ado here is the breakdown of the recipe I tried today from the Food Network for Mint Iced Tea.

This recipe has 6 ingredients. It takes 2 hours and 20 minutes of total time, 10 minutes of which is active, and makes 4 servings. I only made a few small changes to the original recipe. First, I doubled the recipe to use the large amount of fresh mint that has exploded in my garden the last couple of day. Second, I used half sugar and half stevia. Whenever possible I try to reduce the amount of sugar in drink recipes since my kids are hyper enough without a ton of extra sugar added to their diet.

My youngest son fell in love with this recipe. He drank half of the pitcher this afternoon and insisted on drinking it with a sliced lemon on his glass, it was pretty cute. If you aren't a huge fan of mint you can take out the mint after a couple of hours and the tea will be more lemony than mint tasting. On the flip side if you are like my family and love mint, let the mint steep in the fridge for most of the day and the tea will have a nice crisp flavor.

For the recipe go to Mint Iced Tea.

Delicious Gluten Free Banana Bread

My brain seems to be on overload. I'm having one of those weeks where the combination of dreaded doctor appointments (which are luckily done), the end of the school year, and the stress of trying to figure out my life in two months when my youngest starts school is coming to a head. When I was at the store today I realized my patience with human beings seems to be pretty low, a woman almost hit our car when pulling out of her parking spot and I had to stop myself from saying a rather bad swear word in front of my kids. My husband isn't doing much better than me, he almost told the woman at the fast food drive through off for being less than pleasant. I think the end of the school year is driving all parents nationwide slightly insane.

I have been trying to clear out my cupboards and use the foods that I have already bought before school ends on Thursday. Last week in order to use the blackened bananas I had on my counter, I tried a new recipe for Banana Bread from the Food Network.

This recipe has 10 ingredients. It takes 3 hours and 10 minutes of total time, 20 minutes of which is active, and makes one 12 serving loaf. I made a few significant changes to the original recipe. First, instead of regular flour I used white rice flour and a small amount of xanthan gum (about 1 tablespoon). Secondly, I cheated. I poured all the ingredients into my mixer and let it do the work. I hate, hate, hate using two separate bowls when baking and I avoid it if I can. I found that the total time to bake the gluten free banana bread was slightly longer, closer to an hour and 20 minutes.

The texture of this bread was great. It tasted very similar to non-gluten free banana bread and my two boys couldn't tell the difference, they thought I had made them regular banana bread. The bread is a little on the buttery side, which I like, but if you prefer you could reduce the total amount of butter to 3/4 of a stick or substitute coconut oil.

For the recipe go to Banana Bread.

Slow Cooker Chicken Nacho Soup

I went grocery shopping last night with my two kids. We didn't get to the store until 9 and I was worried that the store would be crowded and my kids would be wild. Turns out I love Friday nights at the store. It was dead, no cranky women (like there always are on Saturday afternoons), very friendly cashiers, and my kids were perfect. It helped that they were tired and too sleepy to run around acting crazy. All I know is that it was the best grocery shopping trip I have had with my kids in years. I told my husband this morning that I am switching my shopping to late on Fridays, if nothing else it will help to keep my sanity the rest of the weekend.

It's been soup season in my house. Our spring weather has been all over the place. One minute it's 90 and the next we have snow. My oldest told me that the weather is drunk this year, it definitely has been a little off. Since I love soup year round (even when it's hot, weird I know), I tried a new recipe for Chicken Nacho Soup from the April issue of the Food Network Magazine.

This recipe has 17 ingredients. It takes 8 hours and 20 minutes of total time, 20 minutes of which is active, and makes 4 servings. I only made a few changes to the original recipe. First, I used homemade chicken broth. This is the method I use for most recipes, it saves money and cuts down on the amount of sodium. For the cheese sauce I allowed it to sit for approximately five minutes. This allowed it to thicken and made it easier to pour over the soup. Finally, I added the chicken at the beginning of the recipe. I prefer to cook my chicken in the soup adding flavor. The meat came out very tender, so there was no problem with toughness.

We are big soup fans in my house and this recipe went over well. It was mild enough for my kids to enjoy, but with enough flavor for my husband and I. You can adjust the amount of heat by removing (or not) the amount of jalapeno seeds. The recipe states that this dish makes 4 servings, but it was more than enough for my family of four with leftovers for the next day.

For the recipe go to Chicken Nacho Soup.

Slow Cooker Curried Chickpeas and Spinach

My two kids are currently watching PBS nature shows. While most kids love movies, cartoons, etc., my kids love documentaries, history shows, and animal shows. At first I thought it was a phase, then the phase only got stronger. My oldest wrote about Christopher Columbus in his class journal last week. While most kids were writing about monsters, princesses, what have you, my child was writing a history paper. When his class goes to the school library he goes to the reference section and comes home with science encyclopedias, and he reads them cover to cover. Most of my kids odd behavior I blame on my husband and I. My favorite books are classics and I love social and medical documentaries. My husband was a history major and knows the answer to just about any history question you can ever ask him, and he doesn't just give a simple answer, he goes on for 30 minutes. Apparently my kids are following on the traditions that my husband and I started, hopefully they can find other people that share their same interests.

The males in my family love meat, I was a vegetarian for over ten years. To make everyone happy I make meat for dinner 5 nights a week. The other two nights I make vegan or vegetarian meals. Over the years my husband has grown to love many of the vegetarian meals we have tried and his cholesterol levels have stayed nice and low. Tonight I tried a new recipe for Slow Cooker Curried Chickpeas and Spinach from the April 2014 issue of the Food Network Magazine.

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes 4 hours and 20 minutes of total time, 20 minutes of which is active, and makes 4 servings. I only made a few changes to the original recipe. First, I ran out of curry powder so I used a tablespoon and a half of curry powder and a half of a tablespoon of garahm masala. For the cheese I used 8 ounces of Feta and increased the amount of spinach to 15 ounces. I microwaved the spinach and then rang all the water out before adding it to the rest of the ingredients in the crock-pot. Finally, I served the curry over brown rice.

The amount of salt in this recipe is perfect. The cheese adds just enough that it doesn't need to be further salted, which is nice since most recipes have to have a large amount of salt adjustment. If you aren't a fan of feta another type of cheese such as paneer would also work. My husband and I really liked this recipe. It was easy to prep in the slow cooker and made more than enough for two meals when served over rice.

For the recipe go to Slow Cooker Curried Chickpeas and Spinach.

Homemade French Toast

There are certain behaviors and topics that get me overly excited or irritated. Respect or lack there of is a big one with me. Normally I can ignore most things, but last weekend my family and I went shopping in the capital city of our state. I don't know if everyone in the particular store had woken up on the wrong side of the bed or what, but everyone was rude. One women went so far as to push me in the checkout line and then rudely tell my oldest son 'excuse me'. This is a store which is a national chain and we shop at the location near our house frequently. At the location near us people are always friendly, but not this location. And I'm sorry to say it hasn't been just one time, it's every single time we shop at this location. I think people in this store location have had a little too much caffeine or lack thereof. It's funny how geography can make personalities completely different. By the time I leave the store I seem to be far less friendly and a lot more angry.

When I get stressed, or angry, or just because, I tend to make breakfast foods. I love breakfast foods, there is something so comforting about eating a big plate of waffles or pancakes. Last week I tried a new recipe for French Toast from the Food Network.

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes 30 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 4 servings. I only changed a few details from the original recipe. First, I used homemade challah bread (leftover from my giveaway). Second, I served the French toast with butter, not maple syrup. My youngest refuses to eat maple syrup, so I used butter and powdered sugar instead. Finally, I increase the amount of vanilla to a teaspoon and added a slight bit more of nutmeg.

This French toast turned out really well. It browned beautifully on the griddle and my youngest loved it so much that he ate 4 pieces as soon as it was done. I froze the leftovers and they re-heated well in the microwave (or you can use a toaster oven) for a quick weekday breakfast. This recipe would also work well for a brunch party or a holiday since it looks so nice on the plate and you could make big batches at once and keep them warm in the oven.

For the recipe go to French Toast.

Spaghetti Squash Tostadas

I am so sick of school fundraisers. That sounds horrible I know, but also very true. It all came to a head last week with a fundraiser not benefiting the school. I won't go in to details, but since I decided that I didn't want to have my son raise money he was not allowed to enjoy the popsicles and apple juice that all the other kids received for participating. I could have done the fundraising, but I chose not to. It was the 4th fundraiser since the beginning of the school year. During the first fundraiser my son raised 1200 dollars. I feel that that should be more than enough as my contribution for fundraising for the year. Apparently not though, they have had 3 more. Maybe I am getting old, but when I was growing up we had one fundraiser a year. One, nothing more. I understand that times have changed, things cost more money etc. However, I would rather donate supplies that I bought at 90 percent off at Target than donate to 4 fundraisers in 8 months. I joked with my husband that I am going to run for PTO next year with the slogan work smarter not harder. Obviously that won't happen, I'm way too much of a perfectionist to deal with all the fundraising drama. In the meantime I bought my son a whole box of popsicles for the dollar that he would have had to raise to enjoy the one at school.

 I try to incorporate at least one vegetarian or vegan meal into my meal plan every week. If left to their own devices my family would only eat meat (mostly bacon) three times a day. I prefer a more varied diet and have slowly converted them to my thinking. My husband has even started drinking the banana tofu smoothie I blogged about recently for breakfast every morning. Major progress. Last week I tried a new recipe for Spaghetti Squash Tostadas from the March 2014 issue of the Food Network Magazine.

This recipe has 12 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes of total time, 25 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I only made a few changes to the original recipe. First, I used homemade beans instead of canned. I prefer homemade beans, they are cheaper and far lower in sodium than store bought. Secondly, my microwave wasn't large enough to fit the spaghetti squash in so I roasted it in the oven instead. It was easy since it could roast the squash while the tomatoes and onions were in the oven. Finally, I make my own chili powder. The flavor is better and it stores for 3-6 months, so it saves money.

With 440 calories and 11 grams of protein these tostadas were a nice vegetarian meal option for my family. My husband absolutely loved the spaghetti squash and ate the leftovers without the tostada shell for breakfast the next morning. Like most kids my sons were thrilled with the spaghetti squash, it's very kid friendly. To cut down on the heat for their servings, I tossed sour cream with the squash on their plate.

For the recipe go to Spaghetti Squash Tostadas. 

Pork Tenderloin with Baked Apples and Barley

Pork Tenderloin with Baked Apples and Barley

I hate putting up holiday decorations. After this post I will probably get my Pinterest account revoked for lack of Christmas decoration enthusiasm, but I just don't have any. This anti-love of decorations was cultivated in the 80's. My mother had a basement cubby full of decorations for every holiday, and I do mean every (did you know that you can decorate for President's Day). While she loved the decorations it fell to my father and I to actually haul up all the boxes and do the decorating while she sat on the coach giving directions. One year my dad actually pulled the Christmas tree down after my mother had him re-do the lights again for the 12th time. After that we had pre-lit trees. When my mother passed away I was sent all her ornaments. She made most of them by hand and they are beautiful. I put them up for a few years, but ultimately decided that they are treasures that I would hate to have ruined. So they sit in a carefully done box in the closet and my kids picked out a table top artificial tree last year. It's white with blue lights and tacky, but they love it. They were fine with that being the only decoration and it took minutes to put away, my idea of the perfect Christmas decoration. So this year my house will not bleed Christmas cheer with decorations, but will be brimming with the love of family shown through togetherness and a big Christmas meal. For me that is a perfect Christmas.

One of my family's favorite foods is pork. My boys love it in any form, but especially as bacon or pork tenderloin. This week I tried a new recipe for Pork Tenderloin with Apples from the October 2013 issue of the Food Network Magazine.

Old Iron Furnace 

This recipe 11 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes of total time, 20 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I only made a few changes to the original recipe. I used Gala apples for the apple variety since they were what was available in my area. My tenderloin took less than 25 minutes to cook, it temped at 145 degrees at 15 minutes of cooking time. Make sure to tent the tenderloin with foil for 10 minutes after baking. This allows the juices to stay in the pork and makes for a moister tenderloin.

Vesuvius Iron Furnace 

My two boys fell in love with the barley. They had never eaten it before since I can't have it and therefore I normally don't serve it for dinners. Both of them were determined it tasted like stuffing. The apples were okay, but honestly the pork was better. When taken in the same bite though the flavors complimented each other nicely. The pan sauce was delicious and perfect with the pork.

For the recipe go to Pork Tenderloin with Apples.

Pork Tenderloin with Apples and Shallots

Recipe Type: Main

Summary:

A perfect fall meal of pork tenderloin, baked apples and barley with parsley and shallots. A great complete meal!

Preparation Time: 0h, 20m

Total Time: 0h, 40m

Yield: Serves 4

40 Minute Vegetarian Butternut Squash Posole

Butternut Squash Posole

I would love a weekend just to relax. It never seems to happen in my household. With two very active boys, grocery shopping and household needs my weekends seem to be more hectic than weekdays. Mondays end up being the day I recover from my weekend and start the craziness of my normal weekday routine.

The weekend also seems to be the time that my kids start acting a little crazy. They are decent during the week, but come Friday night everything goes south. By Saturday they are sick of each other and want their space. Last weekend my husband and I tried to enjoy a rare Saturday night out, which ended with a wild Sunday morning. Plus my youngest managed to shut his finger in a hotel door and his finger was more than a little swollen and purple. I'm hoping as they get older that things start to settle down.

Since it's winter squash season I have been using a lot of butternut and acorn squash in recipes. I love butternut squash since it's versatile and adds great flavor to dishes. Last week I tried a new recipe for Butternut Squash Posole from the September 2013 issue of the Food Network Magazine.

Butternut Squash Posole Food Network Magazine September 2013 

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes of total time, 30 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I only made a few changes to the original recipe. First my grocery store can be hit or miss with the types of peppers that they carry. There were no poblanos the week I made this recipe, so I substituted an Aneheim pepper since they were available. I bought regular tomato puree, not no salt added, I just added less salt to the recipe. Topping the posole with avocado is a necessary step. It takes the soup from being average to delicious. I really recommend adding it as a topping.

With 9 grams of protein per serving this is a nice vegetarian dinner recipe. My two kids fell in love with this recipe. They ate almost all 4 servings by themselves. I liked that it was easy to put together, while having enough flavor to satisfy everyone in my family. The only change I would make would be to buy 2 avocados since 1 is not enough for 4 servings.

For the recipe go to Butternut Squash Posole.

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40 Minute Vegetarian Butternut Squash Posole

Recipe Type: Main

Summary:

Easy vegetarian soup recipe. Kid friendly and easy to prep.

Preparation Time: 0h, 30m

Total Time: 0h, 40m

Yield: Serves 4

Soft Pretzels from the Food Network Magazine

Soft Pretzels

So apparently I no longer know how to do elementary mathematics. I went through upper level calculus in college, but my 7 year old had to explain his homework to me last night. Just so you don't think I'm a total failure let me give you the background. He was adding three number together (so lets use 4+5+9). I told him to add the first two and then add it to the third. He looked at me and told me I was wrong. What? Then he had to spend 10 minutes explaining how they learned to do it (completely different than I learned). I was so confused until I finally understood it. I laughed telling my husband the story, who still doesn't understand what my son is talking about. I'm just glad that I went to school in the 80's since everything is apparently turned upside down and backwards. The same thing has happened on other assignments. Apparently even though I have a Master's degree I would fail elementary school. My son finds it hilarious, I just remind him if the answer is the same I don't see why it matters how I get to it. It doesn't help that both of my in-laws taught school for 40 years a piece so I am surrounded by teachers. Luckily they don't know how to do his worksheets either. That at least makes me feel slightly better. This has been a long week for my household so I decided to reward my kids with a new recipe for Soft Pretzels from the October 2013 Food Network Magazine.

Rotary Park Huntington, WV

This recipe has 6 ingredients. I takes 3 hours of total time, an hour of which is active and makes 12 large pretzels. I followed this recipe pretty closely to the original. I did make a few minor changes. First I found that I only needed 5 cups of flour and I added two more tablespoons of warm water. My dough would not come together with less water. Additionally, I used bread flour instead of all purpose. I turned my oven down to 400 since they browned way too quickly at 425 for the first batch (I baked my pretzels in two batches).

Rotary Park Huntington, WV

My husband really thought that these pretzels would go great with beer, mustard or as a sandwich bread with ham. They would also go well with any German dishes especially those with sauerkraut. My two boys loved these pretzels and ate them as soon as they were cool. They do get a little less firm after they are stored so they are best served warm.

For the recipe go to Soft Pretzels. 

Soft Pretzels

Recipe Type: Snacks

Summary:

A delicious and straight forward recipe for Soft Pretzels. Great with mustard.

Preparation Time: 2h, 45m

Cooking Time: 15h, 0m

Total Time: 3h, 0m

Yield: Serves 12

Pumpkin Pancakes

Pumpkin Pancakes

A nutritionist has been talking to my oldest son's class. While this would seem a good thing with most kids, not so with my son. He has decided that all he is now going to eat is salad. Apparently the kids have been told that they need to eat salad with low fat dressing and lots of green veggies. I would see this as great advice for households that rely on a lot of pre-packaged goods. We are not one of those households. The only thing that I buy pre-packaged is cereal. My son is not eating junk food at home and is very thin. He has decided that he should now never eat any red meat or anything high in fat. I'm really not happy with the lesson plan. I understand that our state is overweight. My city has been listed as one of the fatest in America. However, my family is thin. We eat a variety of foods and everything is made from scratch. That also means that I have no problem with my kids enjoying a homemade brownie or french fries from a fast food restaurant occasionally. I am a big proponent of moderation. I also wish that we could educate families about proper nutrition such as recipe selection etc instead of making my thin child think that he can't eat certain foods. I grew up eating red meat, home baked goods and my mother's mean lasagna. If you ask anyone that knows me I am also thin and exercise everyday. The food has not made me fat, I eat decent servings and don't eat to the point I am too full. I hope that my son moves out of this phase. I talked to him about healthy food choices and that those choices can include higher fats as long as there is balance. Today's recipe is an example. My youngest loves pancakes, I love him eating foods with vitamins. So I tried a new recipe for Pumpkin Pancakes from the Food Network.

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This recipe has 14 ingredients (I only followed the part of the recipe for the pancakes). It takes 30 minutes all of which is active (different than the original recipe) and makes 4 servings. I made a large number of changes to the original recipe. The original recipe had a syrup and whipped cream, I prefer my kids to only have butter on their pancakes since too much sugar can make them a little wild. Additionally I made this batch gluten free using gluten free all purpose flour. Whenever you convert to gluten free you need to add more liquid, I added more buttermilk until the batter had a thinner consistency. I substituted low fat buttermilk for the half and half and used all canola oil instead of butter. I made the pancakes on my griddle, it's a great way to ensure nicely browned pancakes. Finally, I reduced the sugar to an 1/8 cup since my youngest doesn't like things too sweet.

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I doubled this recipe so my youngest had enough to snack on the rest of the day. They turned out very nicely and had a great pumpkin taste. Instead of topping them with syrup we ate them with melted butter and they were perfect. They are a nice way to celebrate fall and pumpkin is great since it is full of vitamins A and C. If you aren't a fan of pancakes I use pumpkin all the time in smoothies and they are delicious!

For the recipe go to Pumpkin Pancakes.