halloween treats: part 1

Joey and I made these fun little Halloween fruit cups for dinner on Saturday. She loves oranges and went crazy eating the leftovers. She is a great kitchen companion when you need someone to come up with creative faces for the jack-o-lanterns. The kids loved them, although William tried to take a bite of the whole thing, orange rind and all, and was a little put off. He enjoyed it when I showed him how to eat it right.

Jack-O'-Lantern oranges

from Taste of Home Halloween magazine 2008

8 small navel oranges (or one for each person you're feeding)

1 small apple, chopped

1/2 cup halved seedless grapes

1. Choose which side of the orange will be the jack-o'-lantern's face; cut a thin slice from the bottom of each so that it rests flat. Cut another small slice from the top. Spoon out pulp. (They make that sound so easy. I cut around the edges with a knife and then scooped out what I could with the spoon.) Chop pulp and combine with apples and grapes; set aside.

2. Cut faces as desired. (You just have to cut through the orange layer, so don't slice in too far.) Optional: decorate with cloves and/or slivered almonds (for teeth). Spoon mixture into jack-o'-lanterns.

h is for hootenannies

Hootenannies

Heat oven to 425.

Melt 2 Tbsp. butter in 9x11 Pyrex cake pan in oven.

Mix well in blender:

6 eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

1 tsp salt

Pour ingredients into hot pyrex pan and cook for 20 minutes. It will rise in the oven and fall when removed.

Serve with fresh fruit and cream, jam and powdered sugar, or syrup.

We grew up with hootenannies for dinner every once in a while. I'm not really sure why they are called that. My kids call them puffy pancakes. It's a really simple, quick, easy, light dinner. Even the clean up is easy. This recipe also comes from Grandma Doxey.

We had these with fresh strawberries, blueberries, frozen raspberries, bananas, and yogurt for dinner the other night. Everyone ate it and loved it. BJ even said that if we have more dinners like that I might turn him into a fruit-lover. It just feels good to eat fresh food in the summer, don't you think?

g is for granola

I went to visit my mom in March this year in Moscow. Every morning for breakfast I had a bowl of granola and yogurt. It didn't take long before I was addicted, so I began pricing it here once I got back. It's so expensive! I was sad to see how much it was because I couldn't feel good about spending that kind of money when there are so many cheaper breakfast alternatives. In May we had an enrichment meeting and one of the mini-classes was on using your food storage. I had gone on a home-made kick before and just let it fizzle, but this class inspired me to try again. I looked for some granola recipes online and found some that looked pretty good. Most of them are more complicated than I would like, especially since more ingredients means more money to be spent on it. Then I found this simple recipe in my Taste of Home cook book. I have made it several times and it's really good with yogurt and berries. Caleb likes it with milk. The only thing I had to buy for it was wheat germ, since I already had all the other ingredients. I found a 12 oz. bottle of wheat germ at Walmart for about $4, which is about how much a small box of granola costs. So instead of about 12 servings for $4, you get about 12 cups of homemade granola for the same price. And I just found a 20 oz. jar of wheat germ at HEB for $5 this week. That'll make two batches and cut the cost almost in half. It's so easy to make, although it does require a couple hours at home. Here are the specifics:

Toasted Granola

Ingredients:

• 2-1/4 cups packed brown sugar
• 2/3 cup water
• 6 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1 jar (12 ounces) toasted wheat germ
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

In a large saucepan, bring brown sugar and water to a boil. Cook and stir until sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat; set aside. In a large bowl, combine the oats, wheat germ, flour and salt. Stir oil and vanilla into sugar mixture; pour over oat mixture and toss to coat. Transfer to two greased 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pans. Bake at 250° for 1-3/4 to 2 hours or until dry and lightly browned, stirring every 15 minutes. Cool completely on wire racks. Store in an airtight container. Yield: 11-1/2 cups.

d is for dessert

D is almost always for dessert at our house. I love treats. I love making them, eating them, and giving them away. I love to make pretty food, and this almost always means something sweet to me. Last night we had a family over for dinner and I decided to make a fruit pizza. I have made this lots of times and several different ways and I almost always get asked for the recipe. I just combined a few different recipes to make up this one. It's really versatile and really tasty. Last night I made one big pizza and actually baked it on my pizza stone. It worked great. I had to take something to a baby shower once and decided to make individual size pizzas to take for that. I did those little ones again for our young women at New Beginnings this year. I made it once to take to a friend and used my spring form pan for a mini size pizza. They all worked great. You could make some cute ones with flower shaped cookie cutters. Hmm... I may have to try that soon.

Crust: (use your favorite sugar cookie recipe, here's one of mine)

1/2 butter

1 cup sugar

2 3/4 cups flour

1 beaten egg

Blend butter and sugar thorougly. Add flour and beat thoroughly. Add beaten egg and blend.

Shape and bake at 400 for 10 minutes.

(Does anyone else LOVE how few ingredients there are in sugar cookies??)

Frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese (feel free to use light, or fat free)

2/3 cups sugar

juice of 1 orange (you could use 3 Tbsp. or so of oj from concentrate too)

You just bake the crust as you want (one large crust, a few smaller pizzas, or cookie size) and let it cool. Then top it with the frosting and decorate with fresh fruit and berries as you like. It's delicious and nutritious!

a is for apple

Most days my kids enjoy apples with their lunch. Not too long ago I decided to save a dollar or two on a bag of apples by getting Red Delicious instead of Gala. I thought maybe I'd just been kidding myself that there is that big a difference between the two. So we pulled them out at lunch time and after one bite I knew I had made a three pound mistake. I do not enjoy Red Delicious apples. Being the sneaky mom that I am, I cut the skins off and fed them to my kids until they were gone. That still left me apple-less for about a week. After I had my fourth baby I remember eating at least one whole apple every day for about two weeks. They tasted so good and I didn't have to worry about them bothering my sensitive pregnant stomach. They were, of course, Gala apples.

Have you ever tried a Honeycrisp apple? It's like Heaven...

Lucky for me, apples also make great snack projects. You can see just a few examples in these pictures. You can make a dog using raisins and cheese. You can make lady bugs with peanut butter and raisins. We even made Lightning McQueen with marshmallows, peanut butter, and raisins. The possibilities are endless!