Kiersten’s Blog

I recently bought two new cookbooks.  One is Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld.  The other is The Sneaky Chef Returns by Missy Chase Lapine.  I thought these would bring some great ideas into my normal cooking.  You see, the problem is, London doesn’t like vegetables.  At least she says she doesn’t like vegetables.  I try everything I can to trick her and make her eat them, but the fact of the matter is, if she thinks it might be a vegetable, she won’t eat it.  When I found these books, I thought it was the perfect solution.  And it would have been, except that it doesn’t work.  Somehow, that girl can identify vegetables in ANYTHING!  She doesn’t even know it’s vegetables.  She just knows that she doesn’t like it.  I thought it would be a no-fail with stuffed shells.  London loves cheese.  The vegetable (cauliflower) was hidden in the cheese, so even if she didn’t eat the rest, at least she would eat the cheese.  Wouldn’t you know, she announced after one bite, that she didn’t like that kind of cheese.  Okay, maybe I was a little too overzealous with that one.  I tried mozzarella sticks How could one go wrong with mozzarella sticks?  That cheese was no good either.  I have tried a number of concoctions with ideas from those two books.  Not one has worked.  Today was sweet potatoes in grilled cheese sandwiches.  I didn’t even like them.  For the record, Ashton loved it.  I just told London to cover it with ketchup and she wouldn’t taste it.  That’s what I did.  At least she ate it that way (and she got nutrition from tomatoes in the ketchup, which was probably more than she got from the sweet potatoes in the sandwich).

There is another reason these books don’t work for us.  I think the recipes are good ideas, but really, how much vegetable puree can one hide in any one thing?  Not much.  London would be better off to just eat two bites of sweet potatoes.  It would probably go down a little easier (at least faster) and it wouldn’t have to ruin her otherwise moderately healthy meal.

Verdict: it’s probably time to post the books back on Amazon and give up trying to get my 4-year-old to eat her veggies.

Last week I made a cake.  It was a carrot cake from a mix with canned cream cheese frosting.  I planned on juicing a bunch of carrots and adding some pulp, but the carrots were hairy by the time I got around to juicing them and making a cake.  I thought I would make the cake a little more eye-pleasing by baking it in a bundt.  The only problem was, when I turned the cake out of the pan, half of it stuck, and I ended up piecing it together with the yucky canned frosting.  I was hoping that since it was cream cheese frosting it might taste better than the normal stuff, but it’s exactly the same.  So the cake didn’t taste horrible, but it didn’t taste great.  It did, however, look horrible.  We ate some of it and even fed the decent looking part to the missionaries we had over for dinner that night, but as I though about it, I knew I wouldn’t eat the rest of the cake.  It just wasn’t that good.  So I decided to make cake pops.  Bakerella makes them look so easy, so cute, and so yummy.  Well, hers are cute and possibly easy.  They’re not hard to do, but they are time consuming and don’t turn out nearly as cute as Bakerella’s.  I know.  I’ve tried twice.  Even with the cuteness factor gone, they sure taste yummy and I won’t have a problem downing the rest of that cake all by myself.  Curse you, Bakerella.  Instead of throwing away a mediocre cake, I’m stuck eating these delicious cake pops and getting fatter by the second.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go eat a cake pop.

Remember this post?  It gets even better.  Yesterday I got brave and stuffed a bunch of fresh baby spinach in the cup before I added the soy milk.  I couldn’t even taste the spinach!  Yay!  Healthy AND delicious.  What more could you ask for?  Two nights in a row now, I’ve chosen this over ice cream.  And that’s saying something.  I think I need to buy more bananas and soy milk.

You might remember that my grandma’s here visiting for the week.  She has taught me a few things in her stay so far, one of which is these pinwheel cookies.

I used my own simple but really yummy sugar cookie recipe.  I may or may not have shared that with you in the past.  It’s just 1 cup of butter, 1 cup (I think) of sugar, 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons of vanilla, 1 teaspoon of salt, 3/4 of a teaspoon of baking powder and 3 1/2 cups of flour.  Bake at 400° for 7 minutes.  That’s just off the top of my head but I’m pretty sure that’s it.  Anyway, it’s yummy because they’re soft and delicious.  I’m not normally a huge fan of sugar cookies, but these are really good.

Okay, back to the pinwheel cookies.  After mixing the dough, we divide it in half.  Since we were making valentine cookies, we made one half red (using red food coloring), and left the other half white.  We then rolled out the two separate colors on wax paper and chilled them for a bit.  Later we took them out of the refrigerator and set one on top of the other and rolled them up lengthwise.  We then chilled them a little longer (which isn’t totally necessary) and cut them into 1/4 inch slices and placed them on the cookie sheets.

Then I shaped them a bit to look like hearts.  I think they turned out really cute and it was definitely easier than dealing with cookie cutters.  We’ll for sure be doing this again!

I fit 90 cookies in my cookie jar. I'm pretty sure that's NEVER happened before.

I have discovered the greatest thing since I could eat dairy: chocolate shakes!  I bought some chocolate soy milk the other day and threw some bananas in the freezer.  Once they were all nice and frozen, I blended them up with a bunch of the chocolate soy milk and a scoop of peanut butter.  Yum!  I had one yesterday and another today.  It helps me not miss ice cream so much.  London didn’t like it.  That’s fine with me.  More for me!

Melissa gave me a recipe for these really yummy peanut butter cookies.  I think I’m a pretty good cookie maker but I haven’t been able to master peanut butter cookies.  They always turn out too crunchy for my taste.  I love a soft cookie.  This recipe was just the ticket.  I’ve made this recipe a couple of times but yesterday I tried a new twist to it.  Since going off dairy, I’ve tried to not even use dairy in my baking.  I didn’t have a suitable substitute for butter.  I guess I could have used shortening or margarine but shortening didn’t sound good and I don’t have any margarine.  In lieu of butter this time, I used a mashed banana.  I also substituted white flour for freshly ground wheat flour.  I had to use a little more flour than the recipe calls for.  I was a little worried that they would turn out bad but I was pleasantly surprised at how good they are.  Sure, they’re not the best cookie I’ve ever eaten, but they’re pretty darn good.  You can definitely taste the banana.  It gives them kind of a unique flavor.  So without further ado, here’s the original recipe:

Peanut Butter Cookies

Adapted from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

11⁄4 cups all-purpose flour

3⁄4 teaspoon baking soda

1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder

1⁄4 teaspoon salt

1⁄2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup peanut butter at room temperature

3⁄4 cup plus 1 tablespoon (for sprinkling) sugar

1⁄2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1⁄2 cup peanut butter chips

1⁄2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the flour, the baking soda, the baking powder, and the salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat the butter and the peanut butter together until fluffy. Add the sugars and beat until smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Add the milk and the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in the peanut butter chips. Place sprinkling sugar on a plate. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls into the sugar, then onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion. Using a fork, lightly indent with a crissscross pattern, but do not overly flatten cookies. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Do not overbake. Cookies may appear to be underdone, but they are not. Cool the cookies on the sheets for 1 minute, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

I’ve never used peanut butter chips and chocolate chips in them.  I’ve only used peanut butter or nothing.  Also, I don’t always roll them in sugar.  That’s just too much work for me.  Plus, who needs all that sugar?  Not me.

I have had some requests for my whole wheat bread recipe lately.  Okay, it’s really my mom’s recipe.  I posted it about a year ago but have since changed my blog, so here it is again.  In much trial with a lot of success (and some error) I have learned that additional gluten really does make a difference and so does the kind of wheat you use.  It NEVER turns out as good when I use hard red wheat.  When I use hard white wheat (I grind it myself), it turns out moist and yummy.  I made bread a week ago and it’s still really good, not too crumbly at all.  Enjoy!

I use my trusty KitchenAid mixer to mix the dough.  You can use whatever you have, even your muscles if you like.  I’m not strong enough to use elbow grease.  I LOVE my KitchenAid!  I usually use about 9 and a half to 10 cups of whole wheat flour.  (Sometimes I’ll use all white flour and throw some soaked cracked wheat in or make cinnamon swirl bread instead.)  Mix 4 cups of hot water (I use the hottest I can get from my tap), 1/2 cup powdered milk, 1 tablespoon of salt and 5 heaping tablespoons of sugar (I usually use brown sugar for brown bread and white sugar for white bread.  Don’t ask me why, I don’t know) until dissolved.  Add about 4 cups of flour.  Add 1/2 cup of melted margarine or butter (I use butter).  Add a bit more flour (maybe 3 cups).  Then add 1/4 cup gluten and 2 tablespoons of yeast.  If you don’t have instant yeast, reduce the amount of water by 1/2 cup in the beginning so you can use 1/2 cup of warm water to soak the yeast in.  I have had better success with the instant yeast.  Add the rest of the flour.  Don’t add too much.  Keep your kneading attachment on and let the dough knead for 5-10 minutes longer, until it’s smooth and elastic.  If it’s too sticky, add a little more flour and knead a little longer.  Then transfer the dough into an oiled bowl and let it raise in a warm place for 45 minutes to an hour.  I let it raise in my oven.  I’ll preheat it to 100 and then turn it off.  After it raises (about twice the original size) divide it into 3 balls.  Let it rest for 10 minutes.  Punch it down and form into loaves.  Raise in greased pans for about 20 minutes or less.  While they’re raising, preheat the oven to 400.  Bake on 400 for 13 minutes, then turn down the oven to 350 and bake 13 more minutes.  Take them out of the pans right after they come out of the oven.