Lactation Cookies

This weekend I made some cookies with a few lactation boosting ingredients.  I posted a pic on Facebook and got a few inquires about the recipe, so I’m posting it here.  There are a bazillion lactation cookie recipes out there you can find on Pinterest or via Google.  This one is similar to another cookie I make, just with some milk boosting extras.  I have also eaten another version of lactation cookie that was different than this that I liked a lot.  I may hunt down that recipe at some point.  I did not create this recipe, but I made enough modifications that it’s different than where I started.  :)

I don’t always do this, but it really satisfies my OCD tendencies to lay all the ingredients out like this before starting to mix.  :)

Ingredients:

1c (2 sticks) butter, softened (Mine happened to be salted; I don’t think it matters.)
1 1/2 cups sucanat (This is sugar that is much less refined than white sugar; you can also use half white sugar and half brown sugar.)
2T ground flax seed
4T water
2 eggs
1/2-1t vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat flour (Mine was freshly ground.)
1t baking soda
1t salt
1t cinnamon
3 cups rolled oats (I used old fashioned; I imagine quick cooking would also work fine, as would a mixture.)
1c chocolate chips
4T brewer’s yeast (also called nutritional yeast; I found it in the bulk section at HEB)
1c chopped pecans (optional)

To make:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix together the ground flax seed and water and let it sit for a few minutes.  Beat together butter and sugar well.  Add eggs and mix well.  Add flaxseed mix and vanilla and mix well.  (I just left my stand mixer on low while adding all these things in.) Mix together flour, brewer’s yeast, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, then add mixture to wet ingredients.  Add oats, then nuts (if using), then chocolate chips, stirring after each addition.  Scoop onto cookie sheet using a cookie scoop (yay!) or two spoons, allowing a little space for them to spread.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, depending on how you like your cookies.  Let them sit for a couple of minutes, then remove to a cooling rack.

I think next time I may try throwing a little peanut butter in there (and maybe some banana?)  They’re hearty and pretty tasty and an excellent excuse to eat cookies! 

Oh, and for the record, the milk-boosting ingredients are the oats, flaxseed, and brewer’s yeast.  A friend commented that you could just add flax and the brewer’s yeast to a bowl of oatmeal for the same effect, and that’s a really good idea too.  :)

This recipe made lots of dough, so I froze most of it so I can make just a few cookies at a time.  To freeze, scoop the dough out with your cookie scoop onto a cookie sheet (really cram them on there), and put in the freezer overnight.  Once the balls of dough are frozen, remove them to a freezer bag, then thaw and bake as needed!

iPod pictures

It makes me sad that my iPod takes such horrendous pictures.  It’s just so handy to use though that I take ‘em anyway!

So here are some pics from the last week or two that I took on the iPod.

Swollen feet, take one:

Not this past week but the week before was pretty rough.  I was feeling pretty bad and we found out that Matt was going to lose his job.  Then on Saturday this wonderful card came in the mail:

It was a HUGE spirit lifter and a great boost.  Every week the staff at church has a staff meeting, and at the meeting they bring up prayer requests like hospitalizations, new babies, deaths, and so on, and I guess God prompted someone to include me on the list.  Then everyone signs the cards and mails them out.  Boy did I ever need this!!

Ignore the scary face here – I think he was mid facial change.  I just had to snap a shot of James looking so sharp.  Gran got him some new Crocs and he spent several days wearing them EVERYWHERE.  On Sunday morning they just happened to match perfectly with what Matt picked out for him to wear, so he got to wear them to church too.  Phew!

This is what it looks like on the monitor during my non stress test each week.  In this particular session, Baby B’s heart rate is on top, in black, and Baby A’s heart rate is just below, in pink.  They’re both being graphed in the green area.  The line on the bottom is me, but I’m not exactly sure what’s being measured.  The big spike is just the monitor getting adjusted. 

Very blurry shot of James and Joanna wrestling.  They do this a lot.  :)

Jessica’s swollen cankles, take two:

Natalie’s hair before school on Thursday.

I made banana nut pancakes for lunch one day for the kids and myself.  I made up the “recipe,” but they turned out great!

I love making pancakes from scratch, and I have a few recipes I like using, depending on the day.  One very easy one is to pre-make a quick mix and then all I have to do is add egg and milk.  It’s like Bisquick but far far better food.  I had Matt make a batch for us this past weekend.  It is so nice to have some in the freezer, ready for almost instant-gratification pancakes.  I can barely do anything in the kitchen anymore.  The recipe comes from Heavenly Homemakers and can be found here.

So, if you’re interested (or if you’re me and looking for this later), here’s how I made the banana nut pancakes!

Ingredients (Double batch)
4 mashed bananas (I used some that had been in the freezer)
3 eggs
2 cups of milk
2 1/2 cups of quick mix
handful of chopped pecans

Whisk ingredients together and pour onto a hot (350 degrees) griddle.  Cook until bubbly and they start to lose their shine, flip and cook another minute or so. 

Since the bananas added a lot of liquid, I played around in a couple of batches with my measurements.  Sometimes the consistency was very wet, but it always tasted good.  :)

I saw this on the front door yesterday and I had to take a picture – a giant exclamation point!  It came from just the right things hanging in front of the mirror on the hall tree.

A wonderful friend brought over a meal this week including a pasta salad with lots of veggies in it.  I was finishing it up a day or so ago and James came over and started finishing off all the veggies!  I couldn’t believe it, but he ate a ton of veggies on purpose.  Yay!

Cookies and a Milkshake for breakfast!

“Milkshake”
1 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons natural peanut butter
1 frozen banana
as much fresh spinach as I could jam in there (not necessary but super healthy!)

I put all the above into a regular mouth pint jar (not size shown in picture), and attached it to my blender.  Pulsed for a few seconds and split it between a couple of kiddos.  It’s pretty green with the spinach in there, but you can’t taste it.  :)

“Cookies”
2 very ripe bananas
1 cup of quick cooking oats
few chocolate chips (not necessary, but delicious)

Mash bananas and combine with oats and chocolate chips.  Scoop by the tablespoon full onto a greased baking sheet (or use a Silpat mat).  Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes until golden.  They’ll still be kind of soft, but not goopy.  Recipe from here.

The children were very excited to have cookies and a milkshake for breakfast, and everything was about as healthy as could be (ignoring the chocolate chips of course.)  Yea for happy breakfast people!

Leftover Chicken!!

These are a couple of things I like to make (and that the kids mostly like to eat) when I have leftover chicken.

Chicken pockets:

Here’s the recipe for the chicken pockets.  I definitely consider these to be a compromise food because of the crescent rolls.  I don’t really think they have any redeemable qualities, aside from deliciousness.  :)

Anyway, I make these by throwing the ingredients in my kitchen aid with the paddle on.  How did I ever live without that thing?!

Then I scoop some in the middle of a crescent triangle:

And then kind of fold it up around the filling.

I tend to go for done versus pretty.  :)

They are very tasty!!

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Another thing I love love love to do is a creation originally from my mother.  We’ve both tweaked it with time.  This is what I do these days ----- yuuuuum!

Chicken patties, or (if you’re feeling fancy) Chicken croquettes:

In some oil and/or butter, I cook (really whatever veggies I have around) onion, carrots, and garlic until quite tender.  I really like them to taste more like butter than veggies.  :)

At the very end I throw in some chopped fresh spinach.  It doesn’t take much for it to get all wilty and yummy.

I throw it in the kitchen aid (LOVE THAT THING!) with some leftover chicken.  {I realize there are no measurements here; it’s pretty much just whatever you’ve got.  I would say the chicken and veggies are probably pretty equal.

My mom has figured out how eliminate crackers from this dish, making it a very low point, low carb, low whatever meal, but Ritz are very very easy.  :)

I throw a couple of eggs in and some crackers – I probably used 1/4 to 1/2 the package – it just needs to sort of be able to hold it’s shape as a patty.

I use my big cookie scoop to put blobs out.

Then I form them into patties with my hands.  I’m not sure a non-stick surface is my ideal surface for these guys, but the griddle is soooo handy for cooking them all up at once.  My counter isn’t level, so I struggle with the oil pooling in just one spot.  :)  I like to use oil (I think might actually be palm shortening) even though it’s non-stick because it gives them that yummy, crispy brown coating.

All we’re needing to do is cook the egg, so it doesn’t take long.  Yum!

I like mine with a little ketchup.  I love eating a whole bunch of veggies that don’t taste like veggies!  :)

Lately

So my back has been killing me since Monday morning.  I’m not sure what I did, but it wasn’t good!  And you know what doesn’t mix with back pain?  Child care!  Ow!  I felt quite a bit better yesterday, but I’m pretty sure that’s because from about 8:45 until 1:45, I was sitting on my couch.  :)  I’m so thankful for that time to rest!  My house is a PIT though.  It’s very sad.  I’m not really losing sleep over it though.  I know I need to strengthen my core muscles, but I’m pretty sure I also need to wait until my back is better.  But then I really am going to exercise or something. 

For real. 

Really.

We picked up forty pounds of organic Fuji apples this week from our co-op, and today I got around to making some applesauce.  I didn’t really feel up to putzing in the kitchen today, but making applesauce is very easy and it needed doing.  I hadn’t returned my MIL’s crock pot to her, so I went ahead and loaded up hers as well as mine with apples this morning.  Here’s my lazy easy method for making applesauce.  (Do not be alarmed that it’s a very long paragraph.  Apparently I’m feeling blabby.)

Ingredients: apples, water  :)

Core and roughly chop the apples.  There is no need to peel.  I basically cut the apples into eight slices then chopped each slice across in half.  You just want them to be uniform-ish so they’ll cook evenly.  I took no pictures because the light in my kitchen makes me sad.  Put as many apples as you can fit into the crockpot and add about a half a cup of water.  The apples are going to be plenty juicy; the water just keeps everything from sticking.  Today I cooked the sauce in the crockpot because of all the kiddos around, but you can easily do it on the stove as well.  It just takes a little more babysitting and it’s done faster.  Put the lid on the crockpot and set it to low.  Mine were done at about 3 1/2 hours, but there’s plenty of wiggle room there.  When the apples are very soft, you’re good.  I have an immersion blender (love!) but you can do it without.  I just used the stick blender right in the crockpot to puree it.  I like the applesauce very smooth.  You can also just mash it with a potato masher for a chunkier style.  Before I had my handy gadget, I would puree it in batches in the regular blender.  It’s messier, but just as effective.  Each crock put full yielded 4 pints (pictured above).  Because of my back hurting and the 4-5 very small “helpers,” I decided not to can these batches.  Instead, I let the sauce cool, put it into jars (because I love jars), and stuck them in the freezer.  They’ll keep there for several months and I have no doubt they won’t last that long.  :)  I was thinking it would be pretty space-efficient to pour the applesauce into gallon ziplocks and lay them flat in the freezer.  It just wouldn’t be as good for the earth.  :)

I also made some apple “chips” in the oven, but I need to tweak my method a bit before I try again.  The kids liked ‘em though. 

In totally unrelated news, Natalie has been thumb-free for almost three weeks!  Her dentist said she could come back and get a prize after she stopped sucking her thumb for two weeks.  We finally had a chance to stop by Thursday after school.  See what she picked?!

She is so proud of herself and I am too!!

This picture’s been sitting in my “to blog” folder for several days, but it just doesn’t fit with anything.

 

Poor James is pretty good at walking in heels!

Hee hee.

Pinterest Recipe Success

I’m planning to get caught up on the miscelaneous things that I’ve taken pictures of recently.  Though James is currently yelling “eat time!” at me, and he’s already pushed his high chair into the kitchen.  So… we’ll see how much gets done.  :)

I found this recipe for Sweet and Sour Chicken and Fried Rice on Pinterest, and last week I gave it a try.

It turned out sooooooo good!  The kids were pretty “eh” about it, but that’s typical for most dinners I serve.  :)

It’s hard enough for me to make a new recipe, much less one with the “help” of my children, so I didn’t take any process shots.  The blog with the original recipe has some pictures in it, and I plan to make this again (maybe on a weekend?) when I can take a little time and take pictures.

The recipe absolutely took longer than I thought it would; I think I was in the kitchen two hours to get it done, but it was worth it to me!  It won’t take as long the next time I make it, now that I know what I’m doing.  The only change I made to the original recipe were the oils for frying.  I won’t use canola for anything, and I simply didn’t have sesame oil.  I subbed palm shortening for both, and it was great.

To me, the chicken didn’t taste so much like sweet and sour, more like another dish that I’m absolutely drawing a blank on but that I like very much.  (Helpful, aren’t I?)  It totally hit the spot for Chinese food; I’m glad I can fix that craving without having to go out!

Gingerbread Men!

Joanna’s class read some gingerbread men/boy/baby stories this week.  When she came home on Friday, she and Natalie spent some time drawing gingerbread men.  They were pretty excited about them, so I thought we should try and make some gingerbread cookies.  I checked my pantry and found the only thing I was missing was ginger!  I couldn’t believe I had everything else – molasses, people-shaped cookie cutters, shortening, etc., but I didn’t have ginger.  We decided to go ahead and measure out our other ingredients and have Matt stop for some ginger on the way home.

Joanna (and of course James and Natalie) helped me gather everything and get it ready. 

I used the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook since that’s often a good place to start.  I’m not going to type that recipe here because you all should have that cookbook.  :)  And I’m lazy.  I did make a couple of my standard substitutions.  I always use freshly ground white whole wheat flour in place of all purpose.  I also used sucanat in place of white sugar.  For the shortening, I used palm shortening, which is ridiculously better for you than Crisco or the like.

The kids were being kind of crazy so I didn’t get a second chance at this picture like I would have liked.  I thought it was so pretty how the paddle made a pretty flower in the shortening.  :)

I did not take many process shots since baking with three “helpers” is hard.

We mixed up the dough and let it chill overnight in the fridge.  It didn’t need that long, but it would have been too late for the kids to start that evening.

So this morning after breakfast we rolled out the dough and made the cookies!

Rolled out cookies are not my favorite kind to make – they’re far too labor-intensive.  :)

But this was educational.

I wasn’t going for perfection here.  I was just excited that I actually had people cookie-cutters.  In fact, I don’t even remember why I have them.

Matt took all these pictures, and I’m very proud of him!  (I set the camera on auto for him, but I think he did a great job of framing the shots and shooting from a good angle.)  Yay Matt!

This one is out of focus, but I still love the way it looks:

I LOVE how James turns to the camera to give a sideways smile whenever I pull it out.

The finished cookies!  You can see we slipped a gingerbread train engine in there as well.

I decided we didn’t really need to decorate them.  We only made half the batch of cookies, so maybe we’ll decorate the next go round.  Or, maybe not.

The leg fell off of Joanna’s gingerbread lady right before I took these pictures.  Oops!

I wasn’t really expecting the kids to like them very much (gingerbread tastes much too healthy to be dessert, if you ask me.), but they all loved them!

First I just gave James the head of the gingerbread man.

But he wanted the rest of it as well.

And this is what happened when he ate the whole thing and I wouldn’t let him have more.

He looooooooooooooves cookies!  I have no idea where he gets that.  :)

I didn’t taste them, but they were proclaimed very tasty by all the children, Matt, and my mom.  I did love how the house smelled like Christmas for a while here in September!

Gluten-Free Cookies

This recipe is from my friend Martha, who, not coincidentally, eats a gluten-free diet.

She made them at something I went to at her house, and then sent along the recipe because they were yummy!

Pardon the blurred recipe, my aperture wasn’t quite open enough I think.

The major reason I made them was because I was craving chocolate chip cookies, but I was out of flour.

Gluten-free cookies are a good fix for that kind of situation.  :)

Look at that cute baby leg! {He is covered in baking soda, which he spilled – whoops!}

They have a very interesting texture.

They’re very light and very sweet.  Mine tasted different than I remember Martha’s tasting {still good though}, but I’m sure that has to do with my subbing sucanat for white sugar.  It’s pretty powerful stuff. :)

They were also very crumbly, which I don’t mind.  I just ate them with a napkin under my mouth.  And I made the kids stay in one place when they ate them.