Low Carb for Me!

I'm back on the low-carb wagon after three weeks off, and feeling so much better. (Joint pain is almost gone! Gluten is my joint-pain culprit.)

Made this "break your fast" chocolate pudding last night. It needs to sit overnight in the fridge. I thought, "No way is this five servings, because, really, who eats just 1/2 cup of pudding and is satisfied?" Let me tell you that I am having trouble finishing my four ounces.

It has the craziest ingredients (hard boiled eggs!) and tastes wonderful. I used my Vitamix blender to make it. From the cookbook shown in the picture.

Maria Emmerich is the author. She is a whiz at recipes, and her cookbooks are GORGEOUS. She's an adoptive mama, too, another reason to love her. She and her husband run several Facebook groups that are helpful, and welcoming, if you are interested in support there.

After-Shave

Did you know that you can make aftershave?  Since one of our boys reacts to scents that are not from natural sources, I made aftershave for the boys.  Seriously!  I did!

adapted from a recipe on Recipegoldmine.com

Herb Garden Splash

2 cups white vinegar (you can use witch hazel or rubbing alcohol)
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon savory
1 whole bottle of whole allspice
2 whole bay leaves


Combine all ingredients and store in a sterilized glass jar for 1 week. Shake occasionally to mix contents. Strain and pour into a tightly capped bottle.

This smells a lot like Old Spice. Don't let the vinegar-y scent fool you---when that part evaporates, the spice smell will linger. I let it sit in a quart-sized canning jar for 2 weeks. It gets a dark color, just like "real" aftershave. 

What to put it in once it's made?  I bought some cheap aftershave from Wal-Mart, making sure I got glass containers.  I emptied out the cheap stuff and washed the bottles.  Once the aftershave was made, I used a meat flavor-injector similar to this one but without the needle attached.  It was very easy to suck up the aftershave from the canning jar where it steeped and "shoot" it into the glass aftershave bottles.  I added the boys' initials to the bottles and covered the paper with clear packing tape.

Confections

Here is my favorite sugar plum fairy. JT took this photo for me Sunday morning. Doesn't she look yummy enough to eat?

Blowing kisses to JT....
And here's the confection that came from my kitchen this afternoon. Betty Crocker's recipe for brownies, with Glossy Chocolate Frosting. I sprinkled crushed candy canes on top. This is a recipe I remember my mother making when we were growing up, minus the candy canes.
Brownies

2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1/3 cup shortening (use oil for the best outcome)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional--I usually do not add nuts)

Heat oven to 350*. Heat chocolate and shortening over low heat, stirring constantly, until melted. Remove from heat. Mix in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in remaining ingredients. Spread in greased 8x8 pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until brownies just begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool and then frost with Glossy Chocolate Frosting. (also delicious plain, or dusted with powdered sugar)

Glossy Chocolate Frosting

3 TBS shortening
3 squares unsweetened chocolate
2 cups powdered sugar (I sifted mine after measuring)
1/4 tsp salt (oops, I forgot that today!)
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

(this amount will easily cover a double-recipe of the brownies--as a matter of fact, that's what I did)

Heat shortening and chocolate in saucepan over low heat until melted. Stir in remaining ingredients and beat with a whisk until smooth. Place pan of frosting in a larger bowl of ice and water. Continue beating until frosting is glossy and thicker. Spread over cooled brownies. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup chopped nuts, or 3 crushed candy canes, if desired.

Thirty Days of Thanks...

I am thankful for a bag of sugar. Yup, a 4-lb bag of sugar. (Have you noticed they aren't 5-lb bags anymore?) I ran out, and couldn't make chocolate syrup for the little Princess who lives here. Chocolate syrup is a must for milk, you know. So, on Monday morning, after JT's karate class, we headed to Aldi's. No way was I going into Wal-Mart for sugar and coming out with a buggy full of necessities (well, they'd be necessities to JT and Luci).
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But I couldn't find plain old white sugar! I found brown sugar and powdered sugar but no white sugar. Came home disappointed, and ready to explain the facts of life to Luci, as pertaining to chocolate syrup. Before having "the talk," I dug around in the cabinet for the third time and guess what I found? A bag of white sugar!
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Here's the recipe:

Better than Hershey's Chocolate Syrup

this is tweaked from the recipe that came with the Feingold materials.

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup water
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Mix sugar, cocoa, salt and water in saucepan. Heat until boiling, stirring constantly until everything dissolves. Remove from heat and add vanilla. When it has cooled down, pour into a clean chocolate syrup squeeze bottle.
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For a glass of chocolate milk, add 1-2 TBS syrup. Great on desserts and in coffee mochas, too.


If the syrup has little lumps in it, or develops a foamy top, strain it before storing. It only takes a second and makes everyone happier once it's on the ice cream.

Martha Stewart Quiz for Thanksgiving

You are undoubtedly
Roasted Root Vegetables

Take Martha Stewart's Quiz and see which Thanksgiving side dish you are. I am definitely NOT Roasted Root Vegetables. I bet she doesn't even have green bean casserole in her choice list! (Add 1/3 cup sliced almonds to that green bean casserole to make it the right way, according to John.)

Hey, Feingold friends: Did you know that French's French Fried Onions are now cleared for use on stage 1?

Trunk-or-Treat

We had Trunk-or-Treat last night at our church. We've always lived in the country, where trick-or-treating just was impractical. (We've never had anyone come to our door.) Trunk-or-Treat at church is the only Halloween thing our kids have ever known. I'm not real crazy about Halloween, so this suits me. Show up, give out candy, let the kids play, go home...and you don't have to decorate your house for Halloween.


Bryan went as Indiana Jones. The hat and whip were birthday presents. He was a great hit, and even got hugs from a couple of youngsters who are fans of Indy! One teen girl made a big impression on Bryan--she said, "Hey! I know who you are! You're hot!" John and I about died laughing. He does look good, doesn't he?

Luci found a big character she could actually love without crying first. Bryan's friend Josh was Sparky the Fire Dog, and Luci knew it. The fire department's chief goes to church with us, and brought the Fire Safety House to the big bash. This one is not from our community, but you can get an idea of what a Fire Safety House is here.

Rachel and Luci.

It took me a while to figure out that this is Jay, Josh's dad. All he added were the glasses and teeth, but it was such an effective disguise!
It was cold for us! 49* by the time we left. Luci and JT hung out in the car for part of the evening. Luci has sweats on under her princess dress (they're pink, of course!). JT was the Karate Kid.

John and I had a corny "couple's costume"--we were Black and Blue.

Luci got her face painted...

and got a pretty shiny necklace from this lovely lady.

I love that everything at our festival is free. The food is off-limits for our Feingold kids, except for the soda pop and water given away. I made sure that we had supper before we left home, and brought food for us just in case. (Martha Stewart's Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies are better than any candy! Recipe follows.) I confiscated what little candy Luci actually got. Most of the time she played little carnival games and won happy meal prizes, played on the moon-walk toys, and hid out in the van when scary people came by for treats. Scary to Luci is anyone not in a Princess or Tinkerbell costume.

We brought Feingold acceptable Mary Jane peanut butter kisses and plastic bug toys and pencils and magnets (from Walmart and OrientalTrading.com) to give away. We passed out nearly all of our stuff, 2 items per child, so that means about 650 kids came by! Add in the parents, and we had a multitude!

We've already made our Walmart run this morning to buy all the leftover bugs and pencils they had at half-price for next year. You can see I also got half-priced silly string for the kids.

Martha Stewart's Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies

1 cup flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 stick butter

8 oz milk chocolate (4 oz. coarsely chopped, 4 oz cut into 1/4 in chunks) --(NOTE: This recipe works with any combination of chocolate--I have even used up to 2 oz. of unsweetened baking chocolate. Semisweet, milk, and dark chocolate work very well in this recipe. Using chocolate chips is fine, too.)

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325*. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt in a medium bowl. Set aside. Melt coarsely chopped chocolate (4 oz) with the stick of butter in a small heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. (I just melted mine in a small saucepan over very low heat--but watch it so it doesn't scorch.)

2. Transfer chocolate mixture (butter and chocolate melted) to the bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment. (NOTE: a regular mixer would be fine, or use your own strength to stir it by hand--Martha Stewart always puts in such exact directions--don't let her stuff intimidate you!) Add sugar, eggs, and vanilla, mix on medium speed until combined. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture. Fold in chocolate chunks.

3. Scoop batter using a 1 1/2 inch ice cream scoop; place 2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. (note: I didn't use parchment--I just scooped out dough with a spoon) Bake until cookies are flat and surfaces begin to crack, about 15 minutes. Transfer on parchment to wire cooling racks. Let cool 5 minutes. cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Our St. Patrick's Day Meal

We love corned beef and cabbage at our house...but the corned beef was so doggoned expensive! $11 and up here. So, we have the cabbage, and in honor of our Chinese-Irish-American family (Luci's Chinese, John's and my families have some Irish roots, and we are all American!) we are having a Chinese Black Pepper Beef and Cabbage Stir-Fry.