Just Another Winter Weekend

This weekend was certainly a busy one. Actually, I didn't even leave the house except to go to the grocery store for our week's food and to take the 3 boys on a 2-hour neighborhood walk, where Jaguar started his nature collecion with some itty bitty pinecones and some various acorns. Bobcat walked pretty well, but I carried him in my sling most of the time, and Lynx was quite conversational and satisfied with the wet washed look of all the plants and trees.

Bobcat discovered a fascination with moths. He was quite scared of them...well, he is still very frightened when they randomly take flight near him, but he loves to look at them and talk about them as he points. We went around last night and counted all the moths up in the corners of the walls and on the ceiling, and I noticed they look like little hearts upside down ~ how perfect with the upcoming Valentine's Day.

Today was our baking day, as it usually is on Sundays, so Jared was in charge of making Apple Poppy Seed Bread in the bread maker. It called for apple sauce, of which we had none, so he is seen here cutting up apples for our homemade apple sauce. We have honestly not yet tried it, which is silly because fresh bread that is warm out of the oven or bread maker is the best. Once we try it, if it is good, I will create a posting with the recipe.

Lynx is seen hand-creaming the butter and sugar for our Dark Chocolate Heart Cake made from scratch (usually we are guilty of using cake mix). He was quite "buff" this time because he did it completely by himself and without complaint. Our electric mixer is from like the 1950s passed down from my grandmother, and it isn't performing too well. We can't afford a new one, so we make due. His cake was very yummy, soft and moist and very tasty! A recipe worth sharing! The recipe of course didn't call for making a heart, but we decided to anyway because I found a heart-shaped cake pan at the thrift store and it again was inspired by Valentine's Day, though it is a little early. It is actually called  Dark Chocolate Cake I, and we modified it to half measurements.

They were determined to build a house. They took the cardboard box cutout house from the back deck, some mats, chairs, a couch cushion, and blankets to create the structure and bedroom of their house. Lynx created a laundry room with a washer, a kitchen with a sink, cupboards, and a full pantry. They even had a mailbox out front. Lynx plays wonderfully with his brothers...when he wants to ;). They took a trip to the store (their bedroom), where Lynx was inspired to make tons of money and setup an elaborate display of merchandise to purchase and price tags. This literally took up hours of their time. Yay!

The look of satisfaction as he savors our newly founded houshold snack, Nori. Nothing like a nice helping of tasty and mildly salty seaweed. Yum!

We decided to attract our local birds by creating some delicious treats. Jaguar helped me to prepare our Suet, a mixture of cornmeal, oats, peanut butter, lard, flour, and so on. It is fairly dry, but it globs together pretty well. When we were done, we put some in the hanging net seen below for the birds to feed from. We also strung peanuts on some yarn and tied each end to nails at both ends of the somewhat weathered birdfeeder. The rest of the huge batch of Suet was placed in old jars and stuck in the freezer. Unfortunately, we did this late in the day, so we can only expect the birds tomorrow morning. In addition, Daddy pulled himself away from his continuous studying and played some basketball outside with the boys.

They read, I ironed and did some more loads, Lynx rode his skate board, Jaguar his scooter, Bobcat practiced his talking and skills of imitation, we all did a lot of cleaning, hanging out, and so much more.... Good night (or day) to you and I hope you enjoyed our weekend full of simplicity.

Apple Sunday

Though we live in Apple Hill, 'tisn't the season for apples. That was a few months ago, but we were still inspired to have warm, fresh-cooked sweet apple tastiness. Since Sunday is our baking day, we decided to celebrate the wonderful essence of organic apples. Actually, it was quite funny because as we were driving toward our house on Friday I looked over at our 92-year-old neighbor's house thinking to myself that I needed to make him a pie, when about 1 second later Jaguar randomly bursted out with, "I want pie, Mom." Who says there isn't telekinesis?

This was the Organic Honey Apple Pie we made (we should have made hearts, but the fall leaf was the only cookie cutter I could find) just before we stuck it into the oven.

And here is the golden, flaky crust (though the pretty edges didn't remain so pretty) and sweet, warm, juicy filling of our final product fresh out of the oven. It was delicious! I recommend using honey instead of sugar because it is better for you, and also you should use less than the recipe calls for because apples have their own natural sugars that are superb when baked.

These are our apple fritters. It gives me an excuse to buy beer. Beer batter is so perfect for these greasy delights. I just thinly slice 2-3 organic apple. For the batter I mix 1 cup each of beer and flour, 3 Tbs of sugar, and 1 tsp of salt. Heat up at least half an inch of oil, dip apples and turn momentary, then place finished fritters onto a paper towel-lined plate and Vuala!!!

Feel free to send your comments about yummy apple recipes you have tried, or that you want to make. Or if you make these fritters, let me know what you think!