Lettuce Wraps

We had a great time making food last night, together as a family.  It is a really fantastic part of home schooling and one of the things I love to do with the kids.

Since we had just finished a week reading about China in the mid 1900's we decided to take the kids for Chinese food on Friday.

As I got to thinking about it, I decided we would spend less money and have more fun if we just made it ourselves!

So we broke out our recipes for egg rolls, crab rangoon, and (a family favorite) lettuce wraps.  Mike and I showed the kids how to wrap the egg rolls and the won tons, they did a fabulous job!  Not one egg roll exploded, and if you have ever made them from scratch you will recognize that, that is a feat on its own!!

I have had a bunch of requests for the lettuce wraps recipe, so I thought I would post it here.  I did get this recipe somewhere, a long time ago, but I don't remember where, so I can't give credit, but I have seen other copy cat PF Chang lettuce wrap recipes that are the same as mine.

Special Sauce- combine all these ingredients, whisk and refrigerate.

1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 T. soy sauce
2 T. rice vinegar
2 T. ketchup
1 T. lemon juice
1/8 tsp sesame oil

Before you serve add:

1 T. Chinese hot mustard
1-3 tsp garlic red chili paste

***This does spice it up a bit, if you don't like spicy be moderate!!!  We just give each kid their own little bowl of the sauce and let them add their own mustard and chili sauce***

Next, you need to make the stir fry sauce.  I usually double the sauce, but this is the single ingredients:

2 T. soy sauce
2 T. dark brown sugar
1/2 t. rice vinegar
3 T. veg. oil

Mix and set aside.

2 breast fillet cut in small pieces
1 cup water chestnuts
2/3 cup straw mushrooms
3T.chopped green onions
1 t. minced garlic

Use the 2 T. of oil to saute the chicken.  If you chicken isn't cut up, cut it after you cook it.  Mince chestnuts and mushrooms (I make them unrecognizable)

Add all chopped stuff and to Wok with chicken and stir fry sauce.  Cook until hot.

You can use ice berg or bib lettuce to serve.  I just wash it the lettuce and gently remove the leaves.  Then each person can scoop the filling and put the sauce on their own wrap.

I will post the recipes for the egg rolls and crab rangoon another time :)

Kristen

Potato Leek Pizza

We love making home-made pizza in our house. I found the perfect dough recipe a few years ago, and have been using it as a base for my pizza ever since. It is very versatile and can be used to make a thick doughy crust or a thin crispy crust.

1 T. yeast
1/2 t. sugar
2 2/3 cups warm water
2 T. olive oil
1 T. coarse salt
7 1/2 cups flour

Mix together ingredients. I usually let the mixer mix it for about 5 minutes on a higher speed, then let it rest for about 10 minutes.

This recipe makes two crusts, If you want thinner crusts, you can stretch it to three crusts.

I made this crust yesterday and decided to try something new- potato leek pizza.

I got the recipe out of "The Pioneer Women Cooks", with some modifications (due to ingredients that I had in the house)

Three yukon gold potatoes, or red potatoes
1 leek (her recipe called for three leeks, that seemed like too much leek for me, but maybe that's just me :)
1/2 pound bacon
1 pound mozzarella
olive oil
salt
goat cheese
Parmesan cheese

First, I sliced the potatoes very thin. I used a slicer to get them potato chip thin. Then I soaked them in cool water and set them aside.
Next, I sliced the leek super thin and set it aside.
Then, I chopped the bacon and fried it up, once cooked I removed it from the pan and set it aside.
I put the leeks into the pan with the bacon grease and sauteed them.

After the crust has been stretched out on the pan, I sprinkled olive oil, garlic and coarse salt all over the crust.

Once the crust was ready to go, I dried the potatoes and layered them on to the pizza, overlapping slightly.

After the potatoes were on the pizza, I spread the leek all over the potatoes, then I sprinkled the bacon over that and the mozzarella last.

I didn't have goat cheese, but this is the time that the goat cheese and the fresh Parmesan would go on.

Then bake. She said to bake at 500 for 8-11 minutes. I baked it at 450 for about 15 minutes. I watched it closely and once the crust and top looked brown I took it out. I was so scared the potatoes wouldn't be cooked all the way, but they were perfect!

It was delicious!!

Kristen

Rosemary Focaccia Bread

So after stressing out for a week over this meeting with the principal, it got canceled!

Got a note last night from the principal and he said that he had a meeting and would not be at the tour today, so I rescheduled for next week.

Don't know if I am relieved that I don't have to do it this week, or upset because I am just continuing the stress for another week.

On a less stressful note, I made some delicious focaccia bread yesterday, and thought I would share it.

I made the bread just as the recipe states, but gave it about an hour to rise as dough and also an hour to rise once it was rolled out to its bread form. I know a tablespoon of salt sounds like a lot, but it is kosher salt, so it works perfect!

As for the top I didn't measure the salt, oil, rosemary, or cheese, I just sprinkled it on.

It was super easy, and so yummy!!

Orders Up!!

One of the many cools things about schooling our kids at home is the sense of independence I see them developing.

Their lessons for the week are largely self guided and because of this, they have learned to be very self-motivated.

Since they are home with me they are responsible for things that other children, who go to a traditional school, may not have the time to do.

For example, they all do their own laundry. Even the boys, who have been doing their own laundry now for about two years. They do a great job and work together to get it done. They sometimes choose to put it off, but quickly learn that that is not a good idea when they are down to one pair of underwear each, and the washer is being used by someone else that day :)

Another household duty that they participate in, that's a little more fun, is cooking. All four of them have become quite self-sufficient when it comes to kitchen work.

A couple of weeks back I hurt my neck/back, and literally couldn't move off the couch. Faith planned to make bake potato soup for dinner and I asked Kylee and Seth to bake a loaf of bread. They made the dough by themselves, rolled it out, let it rise, and baked it. I am pretty sure I couldn't have made a loaf of bread when I was 10 or even 12 years old!

And at lunch one of Seth's favorite things to do it take everyone's order and make them their lunch. This is often very complicated and involves hot lunches. Okay, who am I kidding, it ALWAYS involves hot lunches, my kids will only eat cold sandwiches if there is no other option :)

So about 10 minutes before lunch he runs around the house taking down everyone's orders and then hangs the sheet of paper from the microwave as he gets out his griddle to prepare these culinary masterpieces. He often has a sou chef by his side to do the side work, and help with clean up. Their cooperation is amazing, when they are doing something they enjoy.

I think his lunch time chefery (I just made that word up!) is awesome. Not only does it teach him to cook, manage a task, and work with others, but it also shows his sweet servant heart.

Kristen

Scone Friday!!

Yum!! Faith has started a tradition of making scones every Thursday night while Mike and the kids and I all go on a walk around the neighborhood.

Let me tell you, she has gotten pretty good at these things. I will share the recipe with you, so you too can have scone Fridays!! Be sure to read the comments, there is one from a person who owns a cafe and she gives some great suggestions for variations on the recipe!

For the last couple of weeks she has been making chocolate chip scones but this week she shook it up a bit. This time she added apples chopped and lightly coated in cinnamon and sugar, and cinnamon. Delicious.

Enjoy!!

Kristen

Bread bowls and Soup

With cold weather upon us it was time to break out the soup recipes again.

Luckily my kiddos have all developed a love for most of the soups I make. Broccoli cheddar is a favorite of all except one. And she isn't the picky eater, I know this is just personal preference.

Anyways, when I suggest Broccoli cheddar soup yesterday they all cheered, except the one. Then it was suggested that mom should make bread bowls for everyone. Initially, I thought,"you've got to be kidding me!" But then the one who didn't like the soup had a look of hope on her face. So I succumbed.

I found this recipe on my favorite site. The only change I made was I made six bowls instead of 8, I used my kitchen aid for all the kneading, and I used Bakers Bread flour from Sams club instead of all purpose. Really people, not only the type but the brand of flour makes a difference. Trust me I have made a lot of bread and the flour and yeast that you use makes a difference.

They turned out beautiful. The kids were all very excited and ate up the soup and the bowl!

For the soup I modified a recipe I found last year.

Here it goes

2 tbs butter
two chicken breasts
onion
garlic
pinch nutmeg
pepper
dried parsley
3 cups chicken bouillon-or broth
1 cup milk- with 1 cup flour
11 cups of water
three potatoes peeled, cubed and partially boiled
two carrots diced
two heads of broccoli- I used frozen, so I had to cook it less time. I just estimated how much to use.
three cups of cheese

I placed the chicken cut up, in a big stock pot with the butter. If you are going to use onion this would be a great time to put it in. We don't use onion, it hurts us.

After the chicken has browned I add the spices, carrots and one cup of bouillon. Let the chicken cook the rest of the way.

Then add the rest of the chicken bouillon (or broth) and the 11 cups of water.

Bring it back up to boil and while it is heating mix the milk and flour. Mix until it is smooth- no lumps, and slowly add it too the hot soup. If you have some lumps once you add it don't worry, they will cook out, beat them a bit with a whisk and they will disappear.

Add potatoes and broccoli. I turn the heat up and let it get to a rolling boil then turn down a bit but not too much because I like the broccoli to get pretty soft, so I can break it up with the spoon, before I serve. I usually cook this part for about 20-30 minutes. If using fresh broccoli, you will have to cook it a bit longer. Once we are about 5-10 minutes away from eating I add the cheese and stir. I didn't add any additional salt, but it did need a bit, I just added to my own, that way we aren't over salting. But it was a bit bland without it.

That's it. Easy and really yummy. I changed the original recipe, because it had a lot more butter and heavy cream. Also they mix the flour and butter and add it too the soup. Every time I did it the original recipes way, I had lots and lots of lumps that I couldn't get out, this way we had no lumps.

Kristen

Wow! What a Gorgeous Day!

79 degrees. The kids are all playing. Girls down the street, boys in back yard. It's really quiet. I am trying to motivate myself to go and do some MUCH needed yard work. But just haven't cared much lately.

This week was super busy. Mike was away at Innovate '08 so the kids and I were on our own Wednesday afternoon-Friday evening. I never like it when Mike leaves. But this time seemed especially hard. Lots of reasons.

The kids and I got to go and take care of Paula, her mom and the boys on Thursday night. We made a ton of breakfast food for dinner and devoured it all. I am talking- a whole pan of sausage gravy, close to 20 home made biscuits, 28 pancakes, 10 eggs scrambled, one tray of lemon bars.

We definitely made a dent in it! There is nothing like comfort food and good friends.

Then Friday we finished up our school week, weekly cleaning of the house, went to the library, and music and then to a friends house to help with some moving stuff. Got home just in time to greet Mike at the door at 7:30.

Popped pop corn, cracked open some movie candy, and watched Bee movie as a family.

Slept great for the first time in a few nights last night!

Tonight, Mike and I have been blessed with some tickets to Mama Mia. Long story about the tickets, but lots of mixed feelings. Definitely excited about spending the evening with Mike.

To the person who gave us the tickets, you know we love you, and are going to have a good time in your honor.

Kristen

Pirates Island

Here is the pirate ship before it went to the party, sans sails.





























The pirate ship at the party all ready for it's final voyage.










And finally the pirate ship with cannons blazing.






Kristen

Are You Ready For Some Football?

So it's Wednesday, and it has been a very busy week!

My good friend Paula had a birthday (happy birthday friend!) as well as her twin boys (born on her birthday seven years ago). Her oldest son had a birthday a couple of weeks ago and so they had all their birthday parties this week. I told Paula I would make their birthday cakes for them, for their parties, as a present to her, for her birthday.

I bet you can't guess what the first party's theme was?

It seemed like such a simple cake but it gave me the hardest time. Partially because I insisted on using the yummy frosting that is really horrible to work with. Partially because after I finished the logo I didn't realize that my decorating bag was dragging across the cake and wiped it entirely off the cake :(

The second party had a pirate theme. We found the cake idea on familyfun.com. The pirate ship was no problem but I had read that it was difficult to keep together so I created an ocean out of a sheet cake for it to sit in. It was so easy and very cute. Lukey, one of the birthday boys, wanted to contribute his shark to the ocean so that was very fun!!

I loved giving this special gift to the boys and their mom! It was fun and I hope they all know from it how special they are to me and my family!!

I will post pictures of the pirates cake when I get them.

Kristen

Kylee's Cake is finished!!

It's finished!!!! It was a pretty easy cake and didn't take too long. And Kylee is out of this world happy with it, so it is all worth it.

We the girls and I are gearing up for our day at the water par, pray for me.

Kristen

I Spent the Afternoon Putting Bikinis on Bears

Kylee is finally getting her birthday party tomorrow.

Since we are doing a one-friend-fun-day for birthday's this year Kylee chose to go to a water park for the day with her best friend Allie.

I asked her what kind of cake she wanted and she chose this. I don't know how close I am going to come to it, but here is the beginning. I am going to finish it in the morning.

Wish me luck!!!

Kristen

Grilled potatoes

I don't know about you, but in the summer I would much rather cook outside.

Grilling doesn't heat up the house and doesn't leave you with a bunch of dishes. All good things :)

I have been trying my hand at grilled potatoes and haven't been doing very well.

But found this recipe and they turned out sooooo good.

potatoes sliced
cream of chicken soup
onion sliced (optional)
1/4 cup of butter sliced
seasoning-garlic salt, pepper

I just cut up enough potatoes for our family (six) and mixed them in a bowl with the soup and onion slices. Poured it all out on to a piece of foil and cut the butter up all over it. Added seasoning and sealed. (I wrapped another piece of foil around the whole thing because I wanted to turn it over half way through the cooking.

I grilled it on the top rack of the grill for an hour, at med. heat, turning once.

Then when it was done I dumped it on a tray and sprinkled cheese over it to melt.

It was so good.

Mike and I decided that it was so yummy and could become very versatile depending on the type of soup you used. I was thinking maybe a cheese/bacon soup (is there such thing?) would be good. You could even make them Mexican style by using cheese soup and salsa or chilies. The original recipe I stole it from had cream of mushroom soup and fresh mushrooms which sounds soooo good but I would not make to serve my kids. No good would come from that!

Kristen

Joshi's Birthday cake

I wasn't so happy with the way the bowling ball turned out.

I wasn't going to post it but then felt lame that I would only post the ones I thought were good.

I think it would have been better had it not been green. A black ball would have been more realistic. Also, if I had had a ball pan I think it would have looked much better.

But the best part of this cake is that it tasted really really good!

I did use the bake and fill pan, and Joshi picked chocolate mint pudding to use as the filling. Also since I only starred the number and the rest I just frosted and pressed flat, I was able to use the good frosting!! Yum!!! The good frosting recipe is here. (I use half butter half shortening) Enjoy!

Week On

Okay so the kids are still gone, but my playmate has gone back to work :(

We had so much fun last week!! Mike is a great person to hang out with!

So my plans for this week are:

clean the carpets in the entire house
stain shelves for school room
put together new desks for school room
install new shelves in school room
plan school for second week of July
lay in the sun at the pool (everyday?)
finish my book and begin new book

Today I cleaned all the carpets on the lower levels of the house, put the first coat of stain on the shelves, and laid out in the sun at the pool. Oh, and I read a good chunk of my book.

Also, something different from last week, I cooked dinner tonight!!! I didn't do much cooking last week but am vowing to get back into it this week. Tonight it is grilled potatoes, carrots, and onion with kosher salt and olive oil, chicken breasts with Emril rub (grilled of course), and oatmeal peanut butter cookies for dessert. Yum!!

Not too bad for the first day!

Kristen

Faith's 12th Birthday!!!

I just finished the Wicked cake!!!

We asked Faith what she wanted for her birthday and she said she just wanted to go and see Wicked with her best friend! So we got the tickets and we are going tomorrow on her actual birthday.

No brother's, just her best friend, Sarah, and me. We are going to have a blast in Chicago!! (Thanks Paula for watching the sibs.)

To go with her Wicked birthday I made her a Wicked cake. Her and Sarah are spending the day today doing girl stuff and tonight some neighborhood friends are coming over to have dinner and cake.

I will post more pics later.

Kristen

New Recipe

I haven't posted a recipe here in a while but I found two good ones last night. The first was for a marinade for chicken fajitas. The only change I made was I doubled the ingredients. Soaked the chicken all day then grilled it last night along with some green bell peppers brushed with olive oil and coarse salt. It was really good. The kids and Mike all raved.

The next one is a big deal for me. I love baking. I think most things taste better from scratch, but I have to admit brownies are not one of them. I have tried several brownie recipes and none taste as good as the Ghirardelli box brownies you can buy. Why go through the trouble when the box tastes better?

Well, I found this recipe last night and made these. Oh man!! They are soooo good. The only change I made to these was I sprinkled a handful of butterscotch chips in to the batter right before I put them in the oven. I am converted. I will make these from now on!

Kristen

The big snow hasn't hit yet. I am having my doubts that it is really going to dump as much snow as they say. Just some flurries so far.

So I am sitting here listening to the kids eat their lunch and devouring a delicious chicken salad sandwich made from the chicken I made last night from this recipe here. I highly recommend it it tastes just like a rotisserie chicken. But you must, must, must, make gravy with the drippings because it made for the best mashed potatoes and gravy ever!!!

My main goal today is to make sure the snow doesn't get too deep before we shovel the driveway.

Kristen

Update: I take it back it is snowing really hard now with huge snow flakes.

Hittite Recipes

Last night Faith made hummus, lentils and pita bread. She has been studying and reading about the Hittites this week and those were all foods that had ingredients that came from that area. We also made some greek chicken from a recipe I was sent, and even though it was cooked on the inside grill it was still yummy!!

Let me tell you the hummus and chicken stuffed inside the pita with some fresh cut avadcado was so good!!

here are the recipes:

Hummus-

1 can garbanzo beans

1 fresh lemon juiced

2 cloves garlic

2 1/2 Tbs Sesame Tahini

1/4 tsp cumin

dash or salt and pepper

Add all ingredients to a food processor and process until smooth; adding water and or olive oil to achieve desired consistency.

You can find the pita bread recipe here. I gave Faith the recipe and told her to start it while I was vaccuuming. All of a sudden she came runnning into the room and she was visibly upset. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she ahd really messed up the bread!! So I said i was sure we could fix it and good job catching it. So I followed her into the kitchen and she explained that she had read 1 1/2 CUPS of sugar instead of teaspoons. Okay, this was a dump and restart but at least she caught it before she baked it!!!! She did great the second time around and they turned out so good. Really easy to make.

You can find the Greek chicken recipe here.

Thanks Alicia!!

Kristen

Cooking Up Some Patience

Man am I tired!! We are finishing up our last week of school before Christmas break, Mike is working like crazy getting ready for Christmas Eve and the four services that are to be, basketball is still going through this week, and the kids and I have been doing a ton of baking.

We are finishing up our three week mini unit on non-European ancient cultures, with our focus this week on the ancient Americans. Lots of reading out of some great books, history and literature, but not a lot of cool activities. So I thought why not spend our activity time this week baking for Christmas. The kids love to bake. I love to bake. Confession time.

Okay, I don't have a lot of patience for helpers in the kitchen. I don't just mean children. But children definitely fall into the category of ones I don't have patience with in the kitchen. Don't get me wrong, I want to have them learn with me and I do have the serene image of the kids and I working together in the kitchen them gently stirring a bowl of batter while I smile and crack eggs. But let's face it that isn't how it happens. The batter never stays in the bowl, the ingredients usually get strewn from one end of the kitchen to the other and what child can resist licking fingers in the middle of cooking? EEWWW!

While they were little I convinced them that you learn by watching. That worked for a little while. But now that they are all older not so much. Faith luckily stuck it through the "learn through watching" stage and is a really great cook now. She can make snikerdoodles like nobody's business!!! But she has unfortunately also inherited my "lack of patience in the kitchen" gene.

Okay, I got off the subject there. I did, even though it nearly killed me, have them all help out with the baking this week. Seth and Kylee helped with the chocolate cookies with Andes mints melted on top, Faith and I both worked on fudge and Faith made her famous snikerdoodles. Josh and Seth dipped the crackers in the melted chocolate to make the thin mint cookies- I can't even describe what the kitchen looked like when they were done with those- and no they were not allowed to lick their fingers. Tomorrow we go for another batch of Carmel corn, since my first batch ran into a little problem I like to call "I need new cookies sheets", and probably some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to finish off the baking week.

So enjoy some baking this week and earn some patience.

Kristen

Pumpkin Seeds

My favorite part of Halloween is the pumpkin seed baking!!

It seems every year I am trying to find a new and better way to roast these little guys. They turned out great this year. Thought I would share the recipes.

I have made these sweet and spicy ones before and decided to try them again this year. They are really different and yummy.

First you clean off the seeds. I just take out the big chunks of pumpkin and wash the seeds in a colander.

Then spread about a tablespoon of olive oil on a cookie sheet and dry them in the oven flipping every fifteen minutes or so. Just till they are starting to turn brown. I did it at 350 for about a half an hour.

Then take 1 1/2 tbls. oil and put it in a sauce pan. Heat. Add the seeds and 2 tbls of sugar. Cook until the sugar melts. About one minute.

Transfer to a bowl with these spices mixed in it.

3 tbls. sugar
1/4 tsp coarse salt
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 ginger
1 pinch cayenne

coat and let cool.

With the seed from our second pumpkin I tried this new salty version. It turned out really good.

Clean the seeds then put them in water. 2 cups of water for every 1/2 cup seeds. Also add 1 tbls. salt for every cup of water. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for 10 minutes. Drain. Spread a tbls. olive oil on a pan and bake in the oven at 400 for 20 minutes. I was worried the consistence would be weird but they are so good and very salty. Infused with it!!

Happy Halloween!!