Owen's First Homework

Owen had his first homework assignment on Monday to create a family penant (with your family). The directions were to trace everybody's hands, put your name somewhere on the penant and decorate any way you wanted. It was a lot of fun to have a project to do together although I'm very curious to see what other penants looked like. We weren't sure how much influence we were supposed to have so we decided to not have any:)

Cranberry Coriander Oatmeal (modeled after the flavor in these scones but minus the orange because I forgot to buy one)

Apple Cinnamon Steel Cut Oatmeal - if you check out the link for this recipe you'll see why I wanted to try it. Plus, I was looking for another recipe using steel cut oats. I need to remember to make time-intensive recipes the night before because I think I ate an entire meal's worth of food while I was waiting for this oatmeal to be done. Worth it though because it was super good and much better than the other apple oatmeal I made.

PB Banana Oatmeal

I've probably made something like this before but since I'm still recreating quickbread flavors I had to include this. You're probably getting sick of reading about my oatmeal. Well, I'm not done yet! I just committed myself to a very large canister of oats. I'll try to put up some pictures of my children though too.

Mango Oatmeal

I tried to recreate the flavors of one of my favorite quickbreads into this oatmeal so I put in ginger, cinnamon, raisins, mango and a bit of lime juice. Pretty good!

Beer Pancakes

Turns out beer pancakes are a horrible idea. No way I could have seen that one coming...

This oatmeal was good though. No beer involved, just some maple syrup.

Deceptive Oatmeal

I'm continuing on with different oatmeals and making smaller portions of them! This way I don't have to eat the same kind for a week since no one else in the house is participating. This recipe was from Deceptively Delicious and it was sooooo good. Maybe my favorite so far. The secret healthy ingredient was sweet potato puree. I'm definitely going to make this again.
Recipe Here

Apple Oatmeal

I liked the apricot oatmeal so much that I decided to find another recipe for the slow cooker and came across this one. It was alright but I'm hoping the leftovers will be even better and the flavors will have time to meld. You couldn't really taste the apple. It came out a nice caramely color since I accidentally dumped a whole lot of cinnamon into it! Also, I changed the recipe a bit-no butter, steelcut oats instead of regular, and 3 1/2 cups of water + 1 cup of soymilk instead of 2 cups of milk.
Recipe Here

Apricot Oatmeal

This oatmeal was made in the slowcooker overnight and it was really yummy. It was actually really nice to wake up and have a warm breakfast ready to eat. Owen is a little wary of my oatmeal concoctions after trying the first two but I convinced him to take a bite and he admitted to liking it too.


Recipe Here

Strawberry Almond Oatmeal

I figured out how to make oatmeal look pretty! Hide it under lots of toppings! This oatmeal was not very exciting or enjoyable. Water+oats+cinnamon+strawberries+almonds=blah. I ended up throwing in some raisins to up the sweetness. I've only done two different kinds so far but I think using milk instead of water makes a huge difference.

Oatmeal!

So I've done 30 days of different breakfasts (twice!) and it's a whole lot of work so I decided to do something that requires a little less planning. I'm going to have a different oatmeal every morning (except for the mornings where I have oatmeal leftover from the day before which happened to me the first day...) until I get sick of eating oatmeal. One thing I didn't consider was that oatmeal doesn't photograph particularly well, I'll have to work on that.

This was an overnight oatmeal made with steel-cut oats. I can't figure out where I got the recipe from but it was 1 cup of steel-cut oats, 2 cups milk, dollop of honey, cinnamon and raisins. Mix it all together and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Then you just pull it out of the fridge and eat it! It was very chewy but I still liked it.

My Mother's Day

Waffles for breakfast!


I was trying to plant some seeds with Owen and he was super upset about getting his picture taken... I think he didn't want any evidence that he was actually enjoying himself for a moment.


A fort!

I wanted a picture with Paige and Owen and he happily obliged but when I saw them and realized I looked like a giant crazy person Owen refused to take any more! He let out this huge sigh and just walked away. I thought it was hilarious. I actually look less crazy in this picture than I did in the other ones, trust me.

Blueberry Waffles

I know these are just waffles and not really all that interesting but they were so tasty that I wanted to remember them anyway. I had actually bought blueberries to make blueberry pancakes on January 28 for National Blueberry Pancake Day but then I forgot. When I remembered the next day Owen insisted on having blueberry waffles instead. I have another chance this month anyway because of National Pancake Week:)

Where's the Food!?

Remember back when I used to make food? And not just desserts but actual dinners for my family? I know...it was so long ago...I'm pretty sure they don't remember either... Well, I'm going to start doing that again! And I'm writing it here so that I will be shamed into following through. Here are some of my favorites from last year (after removing desserts and utter failures). I'm pretty sure all of these pictures have been on the blog before.

Lemon Pasta. I'm not sure if this was the first time I made this or not. But I love this and there was a picture of it in my photos from 2009 so there it is.


Stuffed Eggplant. I don't consider this a failure even though no one else would eat any of it. I swear it was good! And it took a considerable amount of time to assemble so that counts for part of it!


Calzones. Made with homemade dough and lots of random, fun ingredients.


Carrot Cake Pancakes. Anytime you can pretend that pancakes are healthy because they have a vegetable in them is good. Then you can use that as an excuse to eat them for dinner...if you even really need an excuse to have breakfast for dinner. I don't.

Grilled Pizza. More homemade dough. Lots of work but well worth it in the end!

Pasta with asparagus, peas and cherry tomatoes! Not sure what the official name was for this recipe but it tasted as good as it looked.

Ham Sammies! Super easy and super tasty.

Tofu Lasagna Rolls. Another fantastic revelation. You really can't tell it's tofu, I promise. Everyone liked them so you know I'm not making that up.

Old Food

Here are some things I made semi-recently that I never posted about.

Peanut Butter (and Jelly) Muffins-The recipe didn't call for jelly but I added it to a few on a whim since they looked boring. I'm glad I did because the ones that didn't have jelly also didn't have any flavor. I've since lost the recipe I used but you've at least been warned!


Chocolate Chip Pretzel Bars- I think I was actually making these to give to someone but they were too soft and gooey to cut so we ended up eating them all...They tasted like butter. With some chocolate thrown in. Super good but I'm not sure I should ever make these again...

Smoothie Pancakes...?

In my attempts to get Owen to eat a little healthier I try to hide veggies and other healthy ingredients in things that I know he likes. I made this Cottage Cheese Blueberry Smoothie yesterday for him and it was absolutely awful (even after adding some strawberries!) but saved it in the fridge because I felt bad throwing it out. This morning I decided to substitute the milk in our pancakes with the smoothie and it was a big hit! With everyone!

Book Review and Pancakes

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies--Yay! I finished! I didn't speed through this one because I figured I knew how it ended (having read the original). It was good and I even laughed out loud a few times! To really enjoy this book though, I think you have to have read the original but if you like zombies you can appreciate it anyway. I think the author took the exact text of Jane Austen's version and then manipulated it from there. I enjoyed the ridiculousness of it.

(Owen taking time out to pose with the book while devouring a chocolate bunny pop)

Remember those Carrot Cake Pancakes? Well these Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes are from the same blogger so I was really excited to make them. The verdict? They were good but not super awesome and great. They needed more oatmeal and more raisins to feel like an oatmeal cookie. Kind of like when you eat Raisin Bran (although I try not to...) and you're eating around the bran looking for more raisins.

Success!

It hasn't been happening very much lately but I finally managed to try out a new recipe that everyone liked! They were carrot cake pancakes! You have to actually like the taste of carrots because this batter does nothing to disguise them but they were terrific anyway. Owen had them for breakfast with applesauce (there's no way I'm cleaning syrup off of a 2 year old...) and then one for a midmorning snack and then another with his lunch--all by his request. Pat and I each had one in the evening as a snack with some leftover cream cheese frosting we happened to have and I thought it was fantastic. Recipe Here. (I didn't make the cream cheese spread in the recipe nor did I add the pecans to the pancake batter and oops, I forgot to add the salt too!)


I haven't been very crafty lately which is a shame since Easter has a lot of possiblities for craftiness but I did manage to make a fun new wreath for the door.

French Breakfast Puffs

I don't know why these are different from muffins but they are somehow. They were really good, I think the cinnamon-sugar topping may have something to do with it...


Aww...This picture is so cute even though Owen either had his eyes closed or was looking at the camera he was holding. We had attempt number one yesterday for getting a good Christmas picture of all of us...we'll try again today...

And...I'm Back!

I took a break from blogging and making new breakfasts for a few days since Pat was home and Owen decided his new wake-up time was 5 am. Thanksgiving was great but Owen magically deleted all the pictures from that day so we took some pictures of us eating the leftovers!

Cinnamon-Pecan Pancakes from yesterday morning! I think I have four more to go...

Biscotti and Cocoa

Breakfast this morning was some Maple-Walnut Biscotti and a mug of hot chocolate. I figured with my last two bad breakfasts I needed to go with something more reliable. I think part of the problem is that I'm trying to make healthy versions of breakfasts that aren't necessarily supposed to be light eating and that's altering the taste too much. Luckily the biscotti turned out to be healthy-ish and also yummy.

Bleh Pudding

I know this looks disgusting. It's my breakfast bread pudding. Please don't make this. You don't want any part of this. That's two bad breakfast days in a row! I should have known bread pudding in the microwave was a bad idea...especially when I used my failed bagels as the bread...


Fun with the camera


Rare photo of the elusive sleeping Owen. He refused to take off his winter jacket when I put him in bed.