Fried Cheerios

This is a snack I grew up on. My mom used to always make it and there were never any left-overs. It's one of the simplest snacks I make.  It's a good substitue for popcorn, especially with little ones.

You can control how much sugar you put on it too. When I've put on very little sugar, no one seems to really notice.  You can also add spices instead of cinnamon and sugar if you'd like. The possibilities are endless.

Fried Cheerios:

A large skillet (I use my 12 inch cast iron pan)
Stick of butter
cinnamon and sugar
Cheerios

It's really this simple....

Melt the butter. Add in enough Cheerios to soak up all the butter, add a little at a time. You can always add more in but it's hard to take more out if you add too many. Sprinkle on as much cinnamon and sugar as you would like. Keep stirring, on medium heat, till they start to brown. Pour into a bowl and enjoy.


Do you have a quick, easy snack that you'd like to share?

Pizza Night

My family loves pizza night.  We all like different types of pizzas so Pizza Night in our house is not call the local pizzeria and order a plain pizza so as to not offend anyone's taste buds. Mind you, we do order pizza out every couple of months, especially if the kitchen is actually clean.  Pizza Night in our house is a made-to-order event.

I say event because it usually takes 1-1/2 hours or more from start to finish.  We all like a different type of pizza.  Tink likes hers plain with cheese and no spices. Hubby and I have a low sodium, very little cheese, lots of basil, olive oil and tomato slices and chunks, pizza. Duke (as my teen likes to go by, he says the boys at the jazz club call him that. I love that boy's sense of humor) loves pizza heavy in garlic, cheese and no sauce.  Ickis likes a good old fashioned pizza with just sauce and cheese.

This is the crust I use: Pizza crust recipe. It's delicious. There is another one I'll be trying, from Peter Reinhart, and will let you know how it is when I get around to it.

I'm not retyping this recipe because there's not a thing I change. I make extra sometimes and put it in the fridge to make pizzas for lunch. Just let it reach room temp before trying to form it into disks.  It has handled being in the fridge for a few days with no issues.

Duke's favorite pizza so far was the Loaded Bacon Potato Pizza. The recipe is from my Betty Crocker.com cookbook but I'm just going to include how I made it. I didn't use the prepackaged pizza crust, sour cream potato topper, or prepackaged potato slices.

Here is the way I made it. I'm sorry for not having exact measurements. It's my Mema's fault that I've learned to improvise and just throw things together.


Loaded Baked Potato Pizza

Preheat oven, with pizza stone in it if you have one, to 400°F.  You may also make the pizza on the back of a cookie sheet.

Pizza Crust
Sour cream
baked potato
olive oil
pepper
bacon
tomato
shredded cheddar cheese
chives, I used scallions

Spread the sour cream over the pizza crust.  I mixed some dry onion and a little onion powder into it first.
Cut the baked potatoes into thin slices. Potatoes baked the day before and cold from the fridge work the best.  I think mine were actually from dinner a few days before hand!
Mix the potato slices with olive oil, and some pepper. and place over sour cream.
Top with crumbled up bacon, tomato, cheese and chives.

Bake 18-20 minutes or until potatoes are heated and cheese is melted.
Allow to slightly cool a minute or two and enjoy!

Homemade Greek Yogurt

I love greek yogurt. It took some time and few different brands but I finally found a couple that I really liked.  My dr suggested I eat one for breakfast each day and my Tinker Bell and Hubby started eating them almost daily too. At .80 to over a dollar each it was starting to add up in our grocery bill.

Then I got brave.

I decided to make my own.

I've had some really great batches and some bad batches that I was able to turn into desserts....yum cannoli!

I've used cheese cloth to strain it and have had to pull the fibers out of my spoon before, despite that, I've gone back to cheesecloth.

Hubby got me one of those expensive chinois strainers. That ended up going back and I'm hoping the refund will go towards a bread proofer for my upcoming birthday. (a hint for my honey, when he reads this!)

The yogurt leaked through the strainer and my whey (the liquid that drains from the yogurt to make it greek yogurt) was ruined by the runoff of yogurt through the strainer.

I like to use the whey in my bread, soups, to cook pasta in, to mix the chickens' food with, mix in smoothies or for just about any recipe that calls for water or milk. So the fact that I was no longer getting that "liquid gold" was very upsetting to me. Back to Amazon the fancy strainer went and I'm using good old cheesecloth again. I am more gentle now when scraping the yogurt our of the cheesecloth so I don't get fibers anymore.

I've used the oven, heating pad and the electric oven to keep it a consistent heat while it's incubating. The oven so far is my favored method. But, I do hope to use the proofer if I get it for my birthday (ok, so one last shameless hint and here's a link too, honey).

I have used both the crockpot and stove top for heating the milk.  I prefer the stovetop, I always end up with a creamer, thicker yogurt but I use the crockpot when I'm just too tired to stir for 45+ minutes.

My method, that I have taken and adapted from research and experience:

• Pour 1/2 gallon of milk (you can use whatever % you'd like, I like whole milk) into sauce pan, or crockpot. 
• Heat to 180 degrees. If using stovetop, heat very slowly and stir constantly to avoid scorching the milk. The addition of a thermometer with a temperature alarm what a huge help too! 
• Allow the milk to cool to around 105-110 degrees.
• Add in 2-3 teaspoons of plain yogurt (either from a previous batch or from the store)
• Mix it in well.
• Cover and allow to incubate. 
• It should incubate at 100 degrees. I preheat my oven, with a thick towel inside for about 2 minutes, just enough to make it warm inside. (I have an electric oven, wouldn't suggest putting a towel in a gas oven) 
• Then I wrap my yogurt in the warmed towel and put in the oven, with the light on, overnight. 8-10 hours.
• I strain mine through a cheesecloth lined strainer for about an hour, so it'sn really thick. 
• Then I place it in a big bowl and using my whisk, beat it for a couple minutes to make it smooth. You can skip this step and either put in right in the fridge or place into individual containers. I use the 4 oz Mason Jars for individual servings. 

I actually love homemade yogurt plain but have used raw honey, granola, organic jelly, smashed up banana and pineapple to flavor it at different times.

Do you make your yogurt? What types of flavorings do you like? I'd love to get some new suggestions for our kitchen! 

Quick Dinner

We were out too late today, alright, so late was till 5ish but still, it was too late for me to make the dinner I had planned. So I threw together a quick dinner from Wednesday night's left overs.

I make a roast chicken once every week to 10 days.  I always make broth from the bones and then we either have chicken soup or I just freeze the stock for later use.

Tonight's dinner:

4 c chicken stock from the freezer
whatever chicken was left from the roaster
left over potatoes and carrots from the roaster, cut up
I cooked a handful of Wacky Noodles in the broth...

....and volia, a quick easy dinner for a cold January evening.

This was my first time making chicken soup this way. It was delicious. I typically cut up the raw veggies and add them in to simmer in the broth all day. The flavor the carrots and potatoes already had from being roasted add an new depth to the soup. I will be making it this way again.















What quick meals have you made that turned out better than expected?

The Year Long Project

I have this really bad habit of starting things and taking forever to get them finished, if at all.

My menu board was one of those projects.

I started it last February and last weekend I finally finished it.

I found my inspiration here at The Creative Mama blog and year ago I dug out a very large old picture frame and created my board.  

The part that's taken me a year was committing meals to it! 

I've struggled, been distracted, changed eating habits, you name it, it was a reason not to finish pulling it all together. 

Now that it's done, the kids are really holding me to it. They come up, check to see what's listed and bargain and plead to switch things around if there's something coming up they like better. I'm really enjoying their reactions. 

I added extra "pockets" to mine and made cards that were for staples. When we run out of a staple, it gets moved from the middle pocket to the lower pocket.  On the back of each card is a listing of the ingredients needed for each meal. This is convenient so I don't have to pull out cookbooks or printed out recipes to see what I need for the meals I'm planning. 

Meal planning still does not come easy to me but I have hopes that this will help.  

How do you plan your meals? 

Instant Oatmeal Packets

We love a warm bowl of oatmeal on a chilly winter morning. I don't like to buy the instant oatmeal since it can be pricy if not on sale and I just prefer to have control over what my kids are putting in their bellies.

I found this great recipe on Pinterest, Instant Oatmeal.  Most of the time when I find a recipe, I use it as a "springboard" and totally modify it to what I like. Once in awhile I find one I like just as. This is one of those.  I did use raw sugar instead of white but that's the only change I made.

10 cups of quick oats
2 tsp salt (i omit this)
4 tsp cinnamon (i grind my own so it's a bit woody sometimes)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar (I use raw sugar, adds a deeper flavor)
snack size bags

1.  Measure 7 cups into a bowl. 
2. Blend 3 cups into a fine powder. I use my Ninja, but a blender can also be used. 
3. Add rest of the ingredients.
4. Mix well.
5. Measure 1/2 c at a time into ziploc bags.  
6. Pour in 3/4 cup water per baggie, microwave for one minute and add 30 seconds as needed. 
7. If you have a Keurig, you can use that hot water also. I've found that the medium cup setting works well for 2 baggies.  

I printed out the instructions for the kids AND I taped an empty bag for them to put the empty oatmeal bags in so I may reuse them. How much easier can it get for them!

I'd love to hear if you try this, how you like it and any changes, additions, substitutions you make.