Caramel Corn Recipe

Ho ho ho! This recipe is sure to please any Christmas party-goers or neighbors :) (Photo courtesy of my neighbor Katie, I didn't get a chance to snap a good one before we delivered all of our caramel corn!)

• 2 bags of unbuttered popped popcorn (12 cups)
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1 stick of margarine (not butter!)
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• Chocolate melts or almond bark (I use white and dark chocolate)

Bring brown sugar, margarine, corn syrup, and salt to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add vanilla and baking soda and mix up. Pour over popcorn and stir thoroughly. Put popcorn on a cookie sheet on parchment paper and bake at 250 for 30 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Melt chocolates and drizzle over the top. Enjoy!

The Most Important Recipe I Own

**Note - I originally wrote this for Deviantly Domesticated back in August of last year. Be sure to check out the site and sign up to get your free ebook!**

1 C flour
…1/2 C salt
2 tsp cream of tarter
2 tbls baby oil
1 C water
(I also mix in a little vanilla to make it smell nice and keep it from molding)
food coloring

Stir constantly over medium heat. When right consistency, remove and knead. Fold in color when right consistency.

–

Usually my day starts out with two children in my face, sometimes jumping on me telling me “It’s morning time mom! Time to get up!” Sometimes it’s very refreshing; other times I just want to curl up and go back to bed. Today started like usual, followed by my normal facebook update check and a trip to the gym. My son kept saying to me all morning “Mom, I want to do something special today. Can we make playdough?”

I have been teaching both of my children (Ethan, 4, and Cadie, 2) how to cook a lot lately, so this sounded like a good recipe for the day. I measure out each ingredient for them and let them dump it in a big bowl (usually cutting each part in half so they both get a turn). They each have a wooden spoon and they mix it around into sludge, then I pour it into our special “playdough pot” and heat it up on low heat on the stove. Their eyes get wider and wider as they watch it transform from a gooey mess into a pliable dough. I set it out on the table and start adding the food coloring. Today the consensus was to make orange and purple, so we also practiced figuring out with color combinations would produce the desired colors. Finally, the playdough is done. We break out the rolling pins, cookie cutters, “car squishers” and “noodle makers” and the fun begins. I love listening to their little imaginations go crazy with experimentation. “Mom, look! I make a snake!” or “yummy!” (from my 2 year old. We’re still working on that part.)

I guess this is kind of not only a food recipe I wanted to share, but a recipe for a fun day. Now if you will excuse me, I have a dinosaur to go make.


PS - This post has been linked up!

Quest to Live Healthier

Well, I blew it. All of the crap I have been eating this pregnancy seems to have caught up to me. I failed my glucose test at my last OB appointment. I have to go in tomorrow and do the dreaded 3 hour test at the hospital, and it sounds like the docs are expecting it to come up positive for Gestational Diabetes. DANG IT! So much for those bowls of ice cream every night. (I should put in a disclaimer that as I am typing this, I am letting myself eat my last Totino's Pizza. I would hate to see it go to waste in the freezer....)

Going through my pantry I realized how much sugar I bring in to our house. Sure, our granola bars may be "Fiber Plus with Antioxidants," but I guarantee they are still full of simple sugars and preservatives. And don't get me started on cereal. Seriously, if you want to buy healthy cereal you have to pay like $4+ a box for it! Ridiculous. So instead I have put lots of Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks, and Corn Pops and let kids eat those to their hearts' content in the mornings while I get some more zzzz's. Even the Honey Bunches of Oats is staring me in the face saying "unhealthy, unhealthy, unhealthy...."

I decided it's time to replace all of the sugary cereals and bars in our home with something homemade and healthy. I mean, you can buy healthy, but it's SO EXPENSIVE, and I even read an article about how healthy cereals still undergo a lot of the same processing the unhealthy ones do that strip away the nutrients and protein from the individual grains. No good.

I searched Google for "homemade cereals," and it astounded me how many of them DON'T HAVE PICTURES. Seriously, people, if you want me to try your recipe that contains some crazy ingredients like flax seed and other foods found in Boulder, YOU NEED A PICTURE for me to want to think that it looks good and make me want to try it. Here are some finds I did come across that had the courtesy to take an appetizing picture of them:

From Just Making Noise

From Firefly Blog

From Happy Money Saver

A major plus is that this week Sprouts is running at 25% off ALL BULK ingredients this week, so it's a great chance to go and get this hippy stuff for 25% cheaper. Hopefully I will like it, and my kiddos too.

Fighting the Cravings...

So, this pregnancy has been really bad for cravings. Like, really bad. I feel like I want nothing to eat but greasy, fatty foods. I've had times where I drive to Burger King at 10:45 at night because I want a Whopper SO BADLY! And the afternoons are the worst, when my kids are sleeping and I go scrounging around the house, only to eat chocolate and sometimes ice cream. Then throw on top that my husband and I have bowls of ice cream every night after kids go to bed. So yes, sometimes I have two whole bowls of ice cream in one day. Fruits and veggies, which normally sound good, don't sound or really even taste good any more. Let's just say that my thunder thighs (which my mom noticed last summer when I was pretty fit) are not happy with me, and I'm thinking this is going to be my hardest pregnancy to bounce back from. So, I decided I needed to come up with something a little healthier to make myself eat when those cravings hit. That's where this little beauty comes in:

This has always been one of my favorite summer salads. It still doesn't sound or taste particularly good, since it's all healthy and stuff, but it's better than cookies and ice cream! It's really simple: cucumbers, tomatoes, and green peppers, dressed in fat free Italian dressing. When those cravings set in, I'm trying to make myself eat healthier so recovery is a little better. We shall see....

Summer School Activity - Writing a Recipe

Today's activity is brought to you by the cutest boy in the world. Here he is showing off the final product of our school time today: a delicious loaf of pear bread.

Here is an easy way to incorporate baking and cooking into your school work for the day:

Materials:
Computer/Printer
White paper/cardstock
Extra paper/cardstock in color of your choice
Scissors (for adult)
Glue sticks

Prep Work: I Googled images of each of the ingredients in our recipe. I tried to stick to non-brand pictures for most of it, except for the baking powder because I didn't want it to get mixed up with baking soda. I copied each image and pasted it into a Word Document. I also wrote out the words for each of the ingredients in Comic Sans MS (I find this to be the closest font to the way they teach kids how to write). I cut out each image and word individually. Total prep time: 20 minutes.


Directions for kids:
My two year old had all of the pictures of ingredients in front of her. I had her find each ingredient as I read it from the main recipe. She then pasted each one on the extra colored cardstock.

As Little Miss found each ingredient, I had my four year-old find the word that matched it. He definitely can't read them, but he is working on using sounds he hears me say to figure out which word matches.

After he found each word, he pasted it next to the picture of the ingredient. (I should also note that ahead of time I had him copy the words "Pear Bread" on the top and explained that this is how we know what we are making.)

It took up both sides of the paper, but it is three-hole punched and is now in our school notebook for safekeeping.

After we wrote the recipe, I had the kiddos call out the ingredients and I found them in our supplies. Then together we baked some pear bread. We were able to make 2 smaller loaves with this recipe, one with raisins and one without. It can also make one big loaf if that is what you prefer.

Here is the finished product. Go ahead, be jealous of my breakfast for the next few days...

Modifications for different ages and abilities:
-For kids that are learning their letter sounds - only print out the first letter of each ingredient instead of the whole word.
-For kids that can already read - add the amount of each ingredient and cut out separately, then have the child find both the word and the amount to use.
-For kids that are learning how to add fractions - add amounts that, when summed together, make the total amount of each ingredient. For example: The recipe calls for 1 2/3 cups of sugar. Instead write 1/3 5 times and have them figure out the amount of 1/3 cups needed to make the total.

Pear Bread Recipe: (You didn't think I would leave that out, did you?)
-3 cups pureed pears (also works with zucchini instead!)
-1 2/3 cups sugar
-2/3 cups vegetable oil
-2 tsp. vanilla
-3 cups of flour
-4 eggs
-1 tsp. salt
-1 tbs. cinnamon
-1/2 tsp. baking powder
-Optional: 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350. Grease bottoms of 2 loaf pans. Mix fruit, sugar, oil, vanilla, and eggs. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into pans. Bake 50-60 minutes. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves and remove from pans. Cool completely before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temp up to 4 days, refrigerate up to 10 days. Also freezes really nicely.

PS - This party has been linked up!

My Favorite Dinner

This is by far my absolute FAVORITE dinner. A little bit on the expensive side for the cheese, but oh so very worth it.

Chicken Capri Salad
1 lb. chicken breast (even better if marinaded in Italian Dressing)
1 small block of fresh mozzarella cheese
Fresh spinach
Cherry tomatoes (or diced tomatoes)
Italian dressing

Grill the chicken until cooked, then shred or dice. (It goes a lot farther if you shred it.) Place bed of spinach on plate. Add grilled chicken, mozzarella and sliced tomatoes. Dress with Italian Dressing.


Absolutely divine.

Linking up to these great link parties!