Maple Bran Waffles

This is the picture you get when you have a crabby child eating her dinner. Then you tell her to not smile. Or Laugh. I mean it! Whatever you do. Don't. Smile.

Yeah, it works every time. She can't help but smile.

Look how hard she is trying NOT to smile. She has to look away so we won't see her smile.  Cause if we can't see her face then she isn't smiling.

Personally, I couldn't help but smile when I tasted these maple bran waffles from Dinner with Julie.  These were way too tasty to be make with whole wheat or bran.  Isn't that stuff supposed to taste nasty?  Shouldn't it taste like cardboard?  Not these waffles missy ma'am.  They are good.  Really REALLY good. I mean like you-can't-shut-up-about-them good.

I had got a good deal on real syrup a few months ago.  I've been hesitant to use the syrup because even on sale it was a bit on the pricy side.  But since I spent the money on it, I thought I should get over myself and use it already.

Not only did we use the syrup in the pancake batter, we used it on top of our waffles too!  This was the first time Blockette had actual real live maple syrup on her waffles.  At first, she said she didnt like it, especially after Mrblocko said the syrup was like the tree's blood.  Once I kicked Mrblocko under the table, and told Blockette removing the sap from the tree was just like when daddy gives blood, she thought it was the best thing ever.

I also thought the real syrup tasted "weird" at first.  I don't know that I've actually used maple syrup as Syrup for waffles or pancakes.  After a few bites, I realized that it was oodles better than the fake stuff.  Mrblocko and I agreed that we also used loads less than the normal corn syrup based pancake syrup.  I think the jury is still out if I am going to continue to buy the cheap stuff or splurge for the real thing.  If we use lots less, and consume less sugar in the process, is that worth the cost?  Lucky for me I have a while to make that decision.

As for the recipe itself, I used 1/2 c of wheat bran.  The recipe said 1/4-1/2 cup and I figured, it's was humid and I was trying to use up the wheat bran. Why not add the extra amount?  I didn't think it made the batter extra thick.  The batter was the perfect thickness for waffles, in my opinion.  I also used buttermilk powder instead of the real deal.  Instead of using water to reconstitute the buttermilk powder, I used skim milk.  The milk was going to go bad if it wasn't used up in the next few days, so I figured why not.  I don't know if adding milk and buttermilk added any extra special flavor to the waffles but it did save me from having to pitch spoiled milk.

Maple Bran Waffles from Dinner with Julie
3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4-1/2 cup wheat bran or oat bran
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup maple syrup or honey
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

In a large bowl, stir together the flours, bran, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the buttermilk, oil, maple syrup, eggs and vanilla and whisk until well blended. Preheat your waffle iron and spray it with nonstick spray or brush it with oil. Cook the batter according to the manufacturers directions (I cook about a ladleful in a thick Belgian waffle maker) until golden brown. Keep them warm in a 200F oven while you cook the rest. Makes 6-8 large waffles.

Baguettes

This is the crusty baguette from Babble. Um, except for one thing, they were not crusty.  I think this recipe was very misleading.

First off, they say this is a 30 minute crusty baguette.  Unless there is a new measurement for time, there is no way that is correct.  I had to bake these guys for 30 minutes and even then the center was still a tiny bit gummy.  45 minutes would have been more accurate, but at this point Blockette and I were hungry for dinner and didn't want to wait any longer.  I mean the child was wasting away from having to wait an extra 15 minutes.  How could I possibly make her wait another FIFTEEN MINUTES!!

So we ate it as it was.  The bread was good, just not the quick and easy crusty bread I thought I was going to get.  I made the bread so we could use it to sop up the extra spaghetti sauce on our plates.  For this, it did a great job. Yum. I mean freshly made bread is rarely not yum, even if you mess it up.

There was quite a bit of bread leftover so we used the remainder of the bread in grilled cheese sandwiches.  I sliced the loaf horizontally, and spread butter on both sides.  I grilled the flat, interior side until it was brown and crispy.  Then I flipped over the bread and grilled the outside.  While that was happening, I put pieces of thinly sliced cheddar on the flat side of the bread I had just grilled.  Then I topped the whole thing off with Penzey's Sandwich sprinkle. Once the cheese was sufficiently melted and the outside of the bread was nice and toasty I put the 2 sides together and smashed them down to get them to adhere.  If you have a panini press use it, cause that would be faster and more gooder.  (Yeah I said gooder.)

Of course, Mrblocko, ever the ruiner, had to add meat and tomatoes to his sandwich.  He said it was the most delicious sandwich ever in the history of the world but he is a big liar face because we all know that my plain grilled cheese sandwich was the bestest ever.  A ruiner and a liar face.  What AM I going to do with him?

Oh, one more thing.  This recipe was completely off about the amount of flour needed.  It says 3-4 cups of flour.  No way that could be right.  I mean it was only slightly humid out and I needed 6 cups of flour.  And that was just to be able to handle the dough.  It was still extremely wet and shaggy and sticky and unruly.  4 cups?  Do the people who wrote that recipe live in the desert?  The moon?  A vacuum? A Vacuum cleaner?  Well, beware if you try this recipe out.  Just keep adding flour until you can get the dough to behave.

Quick and Crusty French Baguettes from Family Kitchen
2 cups very warm water
1 packet yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
3-4 cups flour

Preheat the oven to 425F. In a large bowl, whisk warm water, yeast, and sugar. Set bowl on top of  preheating oven for 10 min. Stir in salt and add flour a half-cup at a time, til dough becomes soft but not sticky. Knead dough til elastic.

Cut dough into 4 even pieces. Roll each of them into 4 long, thin ropes. Twist together 2 ropes to form 1 loaf. Twist other 2 ropes together to form a 2nd loaf. Transfer both onto a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper.You can now bake the loaf right away or allow to rise for an additional 15-30 min on top of warm oven.

Now for the SECRET: Fill a large bowl with 3-4 c ice. Open hot oven and place baking sheet with  baguettes inside, then toss ice cubes on bottom of oven and quickly shut door. Do NOT open oven for 15 min. Bake til golden brown, 15-18 min. Serve fresh and hot with your favorite olive oil for dipping.

Poor Man's Smores

I first saw this idea for cheater poor man's smores on brown paper packages. Instead of using graham crackers and chocolate bars, you assemble the smore with a fudge stripe cookie instead. Then the next day I saw basically the same thing using a digestive biscuit over at Cooking Dunkin Style.

Then when I went to the store, what did I find?  A container of oatmeal fudge stripe cookies for $.59 and mint fudge squares (Essentially a graham cracker square shaped girl scout cookie) for $.39!!!  Why were these treasures on clearance?  I have no idea, but they were absolutely perfect to use in these "poor man smores!"

Mrblocko wanted to be super lazy and just nuke them in the microwave, but I put the k-bosh on that. In order to do that the cookie would have to be nuked along with the marshmellow, and that would make the chocolate coating on the cookie too melty to eat.  So we toasted the marshmellows on the grill.

Silly me forgot to soak the skewers so they kept catching on fire, along with the marshmellows.  Blockette was upset that the marshmellows were charred.  I kept telling her that was what made them tasty.  Oh non believer.  What a fuss she put up until she had that first bite.  She should really know better than to second guess her mother when it comes to things like this.

It was a really hot day when we made these so these smores were a bit more messy on the fingers than the regular variety.  The mess was worth it.  If I can help it, and I can, I don't think I'll ever go back to ordinary smores again!

Lightsavers

We are trying to get Blockette interested in Star Wars with a moderate amount of success.  She does like the Clone Wars cartoon, but seems bored by the movies.  Although, much to my dismay, she seems to really like Jar Jar. :::shudder::: 

As often as we correct her, she can't seem to remember that they are called Lightsabers not Lightsavers.  Clearly we are failing as geeky parents. 

If Blockette was more interested in Star Wars I'd totally make up an armory of these Pool Noodle Lightsabers from Muddy Boots.  Aren't they the coolest thing ever.  I wish I'd been invited to that birthday party, don't you?

Pickled Carrots

In my ever present quest to incorporate more veggies into my diet, I decided to give pickled carrots a whirl.  They are super easy to make, but will make your house stink like vinegar.  This was not a good thing.

The carrots themselves taste very much like mustard.  I like mustard, but it was a bit much for me. Blockette took one tiny bite and spit it out.  I don't think it was the taste so much, but the smell.  When I was making these, Blockette made a bigger stink about the smell of the vinegar than the actual stink.  Mrblocko was not brave enough to even try a taste.  Oh well.  You can't win 'em all.

The picture below is a half recipe.  It fits perfectly in one of those square 4 cup ziploc containers.

1/2 recipe pickled carrots makes 1.5 pints (Head over to Babble for the full recipe for
pickled carrots)
1/2 lb. of carrots, peeled. sliced into 4″ lengths and quartered
1 c water
1 c apple cider vinegar
1 Tsalt
1 T sugar
1/2 t brown mustard seeds
4 bay leaves
5 whole cloves
1/8 t red pepper flakes
pinch celery seed
2-3 smashed garlic cloves or a quartered onion (optional)

Wash and dry jars, rims, and lids.  Bring med pot of water to boil. Blanch carrots 1 min. Pack carrots in prepared jars. In same pan used for blanching, combine water, vinegar, sugar and spices. Bring heat up til  almost boiling and sugar dissolves. Pour over carrots, leaving 1/2″ head space. Distribute bay leaves, cloves, and garlic or onion, evenly between jars. Let liquid come to room temp and seal. Keep in frige for 1 week.

'11 Happy Happy Joy Joy Dance #21: Ren Fair Dress Re-make

A few years ago my best friend passed this dress on to me.  It quickly became Blockette's favorite play dress.  It made a wonderful fairy outfit with the addition of some pink fairy wings (also given to Blockette by my best friend.  Gee...she must be a cool best friend or something.)  This summer, it became painfully obvious that the dress no longer fit.  While the dress had adjustable shoulder straps and laced up the front, the dress had reached its limits.

Blockette was actually the third little girl to own this dress.  It was originally purchased at the Bristol Renaissance Fair for one million dollars.  OK, so it wasn't for one million dollars, but it was an insane amount of money for a toddler dress.  I looked to see if the company sold their merchandise online, but I had no luck in that department.  I did find that they are still at the Ren Fair, but then you have to figure the price of Ren Fair admission onto the one million dollars for a dress.  Of course that was nearly 10 years ago, so with inflation, a dress in Blockette's current size is probably two billion dollars.

Since I am all out of two billion dollar bills, I thought I might attempt to make the dress myself.  The dress in theory is quite simple.  The bodice is a rectangle and so are the straps, and the skirt is a 3/4 circle.  It would have been a piece of cake to make the dress in the exact same size, but alas, I was making the dress bigger.  Since I was making the bodice bigger, that meant that the circumference of the circle that was the waist on the skirt needed to be bigger.  I was also making the skirt longer, which meant that the circumference of the circle that was the hem also needed to be bigger.  Oh and remember, these are 3/4 circles so...aaaaaaaaaaaaaah.  Together, Mrblocko and I worked it out and I was able to draft a pattern.

My mom was nice enough to help me pick out the fabric while we were up at her house in July.  I was hoping for something metallic like the original dress, but we couldn't find anything that wasn't white.  White.  HA!  Not for my child.

I have to give a big shout out to the lady who was working at the fabric counter at Joann Fabrics that day. She helped me figure out how to lay the skirt out in such a way so that I only needed about a yard and a half instead of the five I feared I'd need.

Since we're giving thanks, a la the Oscars, besides the Academy, I'd like to thank my best friend.  In July, Blockette was at a reading program in the morning, once a week, at my best friend's church.  It was during this time that I was able to get this dress sewn.  You see, I needed to be sneaky, as this was one of Blockette's birthday presents. 

This time, I measured correctly.  Thank goodness I didn't mess up on this dress like I did with the petticoat skirt/apron.  The dress is just a tiny bit too big for Blockette, which is exactly what I wanted.

YAY!

Thankful Thursday 33.11

1. The look on Blockette's face when a few people broke into a chorus of Happy Birthday right after church service.
2. The rain stopped just in time for Blockette's birthday party.
3.  Running out of time vs activities at Blockette's Birthday party.
4. Great weather for Mrblocko's family reunion.
5. Mrblocko's idea to give leftovers from the reunion to the local homeless shelter.
6. Being "The best mom ever!"
7. We weren't late on the first day of school.
8. Surprising Blockette with heart in the middle apples.  (You slice the apple in circles and cut out the core from the slices with a cookie cutter.)
9.  Blockette's teacher seems awesome.
10.  Having someone to wait with at the bus stop when Blockette's bus was 20 min late.