Saturday Morning

I'm baking cookies with my husband, who is also my best friend, even though we can't agree on anything most things when it comes to baking.

The kids enjoyed playing in the snow this morning, so now I'm able to enjoy their little tracks in the snow while I stand by the window doing dishes.

This is a good day :-)

I still have so many people to shop for, & what I have bought I haven't wrapped yet.  I told my husband about his Christmas present last night... he mentioned he'd like a pair of gloves, and I just can't keep my big mouth shut.. so now he knows, and I'll be on to trying to find something else for him.

Thank Goodness for online shopping or I wouldn't have anything done!

PANCAKE UPDATE

We made pancakes again.  Last nights supper was a healthier version of these pancakes. 
*I added 1/2 cup of wheat flour.  This was our first adventure with this.  We'll continue to experiment, because it worked very well.  The pancakes weren't too heavy at all.  I'll try to add more next time.  Someday I'll tell you about my "newbie" adventure with wheat flour.  It's not a great story.. It's actually a rather embarrassing story, but with a happy ending.
*I used the homemade butter I made last week. 
Finally..
*I also added blueberries.  Can I just say we all really dislike blueberries.  The little man tolerates them because he thinks they're frozen Popsicles, this sweet child has never really experienced a delicious dreamsicle.  But I thought I liked them, because I tried them once and they were okay.  So I bought a case of frozen blueberries and threw them in the freezer to use whenever we needed.
  Blueberries are great for brain health & memory, which is why I started eating them.  I was having terrible memory loss that would leave me in tears not being able to remember past events, some of my kids favorite memories I could hardly picture.  I would even look at a picture I had taken and have no idea when it was from or what it was about.  :-(   Blueberries are also a cancer fighter.  That is super important to me as our family has dealt way too much with that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad disease.  Someday I'll tell you about the amazing woman I was blessed to call  my mother-in-law. :)

I need to stay on topic here... Alright..The point of this post is to let you know these minimal changes, I believe, will provide our family with better health.  I don't know if it will make us live longer, because I don't know how long we have here on earth.  But for this day, these pancakes made us happy and our bodies feel good. 

Even with the blueberries, the pancakes were delicious!  I'm not kidding you, both of my children ate 3 of these suckers (well, pancakes, no more suckers.. remember? haha)! 
As I was mixing these and watching the color of the batter change from milky white to brownish (wheat flour), to a nasty lavenderish-blue (blueberries) I thought we might not even get past the first bite.  I have been known to throw our whole supper down the drain & call up Pizza Hut because I'm scared it will be terrible.
 My husband, bless his heart, walked in the door as I was just mixing these up.  He offered to take over the cooking so I could clean up the kitchen (really, I didn't even have to beg him!).  Of course I accepted his offer!  This man has so much faith in me, I can't even tell you how great that is.  He poured this foreign batter into the pan and never once said a word about how awful they looked. 

I can honestly tell you, these were VERY far from awful or terrible they were pleasantly WONDERFUL! 
I can't wait to take make these again, and even take them a step further.  I LOVE easy recipes, and I love even more that my family loves them!  And while I'm at it, I LOVE my family too!  I gladly praise my creator for all of these blessings!  Thank you God!!


PS. Thank you to the man, woman, or team that invented spell check.. I'd look like a fool without you!!

Thought of the day

 I read this today and wanted to share. 

Leonardo da Vinci was famous for his paintings but only managed to compose 17 painting in 67 years, and some of those were never finished. Freud claimed that this was because Leonardo's father had abandoned him. Leonardo said his inability to finish projects was because his interests were "so many and so diverse."

I'll post why this is so special to me later, after I've had a good long talk with God and my husband about what is happening right now.

YES! I did it! Pancakes!

My sweetheart and I had a nice morning making breakfast together.  Here's what we tried today.

FROM THIS:

 TO THIS:

 THE RESULTS, THESE BEAUTIFUL HOT CAKES! 

I used a pancake recipe found here.  I added cinnamon because I've read/heard that it's healthy.  There are some statistics on it from the health diaries .  Cinnamon can help with cholesterol, blood sugar, yeast infections, reduction in cancer cells, anti-clotting effect in blood.  It's also a natural food preservative. 

 Although, we sure didn't need that last benefit, there was only one pancake left when the breakfast dishes were cleared. 



  

What I love about this, even more than the fact that it's healthier, is that it's less clutter!  No need to stock an extra box on a shelf, the recipe uses ingredients I already keep on hand.

I dedicate this post to my dad.  The grandkids always beg for his pancakes when they have sleep overs there.  He uses a boxed mix, but he makes them into the cutest teddy bear shapes.

 Maybe he'll ditch the box & give this simple recipe a try next time.

Homemade Butter Recipe

This family is making the switch from cheapo plasticy margarine all the way to HOMEMADE BUTTER! 

I used my fancy shmancy Kitchenaid mixer and it was so incredibly easy!   
Ingredients: Quite literally, you really use just plan old  Heavy Whipping Cream

• Pour cream into bowl. (I used 3 of these cute little cartons)
• Attach whisk and mix on medium-high until mixture thickens.
• Once thick switch to the flat beater (it's easier to get the butter off of this, then it wont stick in the whisk).
• When the cream turns to a buttery yelllow color and is thick remove from mixer. 

 Pour off the butter milk (save for something else, or just drink).  Rinse the butter in the sink to get all of the butter milk off.    I did this by holding chunks of the butter in my hand and squeezing the extra buttermilk out until the only liquid running from the butter was the clean water I was running over it. 

Store in a container with a lid.  Enjoy with homemade bread, rolls, or anything else you would like butter on. 

You may also add seasonings to flavor the butter. 

& my neighbor also suggested to lightly salt.  I checked this out, not only will it give it a little bit of flavor, but the salt also helps the butter to keep longer.  Woo!  Bonus! 

My husband LOVES butter.  He puts butter on everything.  So for years I had been buying the biggest cheapest container I could buy.  Although this really isn't a cost effective move in terms of food dollars, I believe that long term (health care costs) that this was a great switch for our family.  I had the butter on some homemade pancakes today, and I also approve! 

If you make this let me know how it turns out for you.

Oh.... Okay, so I should be honest and add here that there would be many more pictures, that was my intention anyway.  But mid-mixing I broke down crying about how bad I suck at making things from scratch and this was never going to turn into butter.. and poof, before I knew it, the mixture had thickened and my husband heard the buttermilk sloshing around in the bowl which meant it was almost ready... I would've heard it, if I weren't so busy feeling sorry for myself.  So a big THANK YOU to my husband, for encouraging me, and not putting up with my whining.