Winters Kids

Just a little update about what in the world we're doing these days…

Archive for the ‘Good Eats’ Category

Remarkable

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Does anyone else find it rather remarkable that you can use rotten fruit and curdled milk and end up with something that’s not only gorgeous, but absolutely delicious? We had some rotting bananas hanging around, so before the fruit flies moved in, Mylie and I decided to make some banana bread. Of course, my recipe calls for buttermilk, which we do not have. BUT, did you know you can substitute a scant cup of milk that you mix with one tablespoon of lemon juice? The acid curdles the milk and gives it the same chemical properties as buttermilk. Or something like that. Anyway, you come out with delicious bread, and this time we experimented with one of my Demarle molds (best bakeware EVER). So not only did it taste delicious, it was rather gorgeous to look at, if I do say so myself :) .

Sunflower Banana Bread

Here’s the recipe, if you’re interested:

  • 1 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 to 4 medium)
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup chopped nuts, if desired

1.Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, 8 1/2×4 1/2×2 1/2 inches, or 1 loaf pan, 9x5x3 inches.

2.Mix sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Add bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened. Stir in nuts. Pour into pans.

3.Bake 8-inch loaves about 1 hour, 9-inch loaf about 1 1/4 hours, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.

From: The Betty Crocker Bridal Edition Cook Book

Posted in Good Eats, Karli | No Comments »

Butterfly Lunch

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

So, after I aired all my dirty laundry in my last post, I thought I deserved a little reprieve. It turns out, I do (sometimes) have mommy successes and I need to broadcast them as the come. :)

I’ll be the first to admit, however, I hate making my kids breakfast and lunch. Breakfast I hate, because, well, I highly dislike most breakfast foods. Luckily, my kids don’t and would be perfectly content with cereal every day. I often feel guilty about letting them do that.

In the case of lunch, however, I am the one who would be content with PB & J’s every day. It’s so much easier… such an efficient lunch. And yet my kids grow weary of them. Unfortunately, when I try to get creative, it usually blows up in my face. I read about all kinds of moms who make lunch out of things they can put in muffin tins. My kids just stare at muffin tins and then look at me like I’m nuts for trying to serve them something in such a ridiculous manner.

I’ve tried making “ants on a log,” or a various assortment of things rolled up in a wrap. They occasionally eat quesadillas, but once I got the healthy tortillas, that lost it’s appeal as well.

But today, I succeeded. Mylie has been studying butterflies in preschool this week, and for some reason requested a butterfly lunch on the way home from school today. I took the opportunity and ran with it!

I give you:

The Butterfly Life Cycle Lunch
I neglected to take pictures of the actual lunch, so I’ll have to describe it.

Eggs
Butterflies lay their eggs on leaves, so for this portion I took one leaf of baby spinach and added some dried cranberries on top.

Caterpillar
From the egg, a caterpillar emerges. Keep in mind, I was punting here… but a baby carrot made a fairly acceptable caterpillar representation.

Chrysalis
Anyone who’s read The Very Hungry Caterpillar knows that after he eats his way through a smorgasbord of food, the caterpillar wraps himself up in a cocoon and becomes a Chrysalis. I was stumped on this part, but finally figured it out. I spread cream cheese on a tortilla and cut it in half. In each half I rolled up a baby dill pickle. Voila! Chrysalis.

Butterfly

And finally, after 14 days, a beautiful butterfly emerges! So, for the end of our butterfly life cycle, I cut a (that’s right) PB & J into triangles. I put the points of the triangles together for the wings. I thought about using a celery stick for the body, but didn’t want to press my luck, so our butterfly just had wings.


The main reason I’m so ecstatic about sharing this lunch was that it was a raging success! Both my kids devoured every last bite, and asked for more. Of course, if I were to offer any of those things to them individually, they’d give me that crazy look again. So, thank you Eric Carle, for inspiring healthy eating in the Winter’s Home.

Posted in Good Eats, The Kids | 2 Comments »