April Lunchies

Cream Cheese Sandwich, Cheese Stick, Apple and Banana Muffin

Mike's Sandwich!

Pusheen the Cat Cookies

When I picked Meredith up from school Thursday she wanted to make Pusheen Cupcakes.  I thought this might be an idea for her upcoming birthday but she wanted to make them right away.  I remembered I have an awesome chubby cat cookie cutter, so we were ready to go!

A picture of Pusheen otherwise known as 'Dorito'

We used our standard shortbread cookie recipe (from the previous blog entry) and the cookies turned out great!  Meredith and Jeffrey had fun decorating and eating them too.  The cookies were so good I wish we had made more!  

Meredith helps decorate cookies!

Meredith and Jeffrey frosted these cookies, they look great!  And yummy!

St. Patrick's Day

Shamrock Cookies!

I made cut out cookies for St. Patrick's day using my favorite recipe from 'The Joy of Baking':

Shortbread Cookies:

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt (optional if using salted butter)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Cream the butter until smooth with electric or hand held mixer.  Add the sugar and beat until smooth (about 2 minutes).  Beat in vanilla extract.  Mix in flour until just incorporated, don't overbeat.  Flatten dough into disk shape and refrigerate at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 350, warm dough slightly till it can be rolled out (8 sec. in microwave).  On lightly floured surface roll dough out to 1/4 inch thick.  Cut into desired shapes.  Place cookies on baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes until cookies are slightly brown.  Cool on rack.  Makes about about 20 cookies

Vanilla Buttercream:

1 Stick room temperature butter

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1-2 Tbsp. milk

Cream butter until fluffy, add sugar 1/2 cup at time - will be thick.  Add vanilla and some of the milk, add more milk to get desired consistency.

These cookies are great because they don't contain egg (for those with egg allergies).  We served them when Meredith was 3 and had several friends with egg allergies.   They can be modified by using 'Earth Balance' buttery spread to make them dairy free as well.  The cookies don't contain baking soda or powder so they do not rise and distort shape, which is also great for cut out cookies.  The vanilla and butter make them taste (and smell) great!  They are one of our favorite cookies for Christmas and other holidays that require cute cookies! :) Jeffrey said he was hesitant to eat the cookies with smiley faces because they were 'too cute', but I reassured him and told him that they WANT to be eaten.  

St. Patrick's Day Lunch!

  

Lunchy roundup!

Fall lunch with pumpkin muffin and pumpkin mellowcreme!

Jeffrey made his own lunch!!  The tangerine is a ghost saying 'boo'!

Cute 'Pumpkin' Snack I made for when we went to the Arboretum Pumpkin Festival!

Lunch for Jeffrey First day of Fall

Lunch for Meredith on a day we were out of bread and apples!

Christmas Lunch for Meredith, including marshmallow stars and christmas trees.

Jeffrey's Christmas Lunch (He eats a lot of food now!

Mike's Lunch!  Includes home made trail mix, and blueberry muffin. :)

Back to School Lunchies!

Another School year has started and now I am packing lunches for Meredith, Jeffrey and Mike.  Meredith has started Kindergarten this year and it is very exciting.  Jeffrey is in 3rd Grade and Mike is an Associate Professor of Biology at PSU. :)

Here's some of the kids lunches from the first 2 weeks of school:

Meredith is having peanut butter sandwich, cheese stick, and strawberries are her favorite fruit for lunches at the moment.

 

Jeffrey always has peanut butter sandwiches, he likes fuji apples, and has a variety of veggies, crunchies, cheeses and salami.  Meredith is much more particular about her lunch choices, and has almost the same thing every day.

Cookies

This year I made Cookie Butter White Chocolate Blondies for the annual cookie exchange.  They turned out pretty yummy, but I found it challenge to cut bake them and cut them evenly because I made a double batch - and baked them in two different kinds of pans.  (But I am a bit of a baking perfectionist so that would probably not concern most people.)  I modified the recipe a bit by adding some chopped pecans too.  Here's the recipe:

Cookie Butter Bars:

• 1 cup (125g) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 5 Tablespoons (1/3 cup or 75g) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup (200g) light brown sugar, packed
• 1 large egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup Biscoff spread (or Trader Joe's Cookie Butter)
• 1 and 1/4 cups (225g) white chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F degrees.  Spray 8x8 or 9x9 inch baking pan with non-stick spray (I like Trader Joe's coconut oil spray for baking)

In a medium sized bowl, toss together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, stir the melted butter and brown sugar together until combined. Whisk in the egg and egg yolk, then add the vanilla. Stir in the Biscoff(or Trader Joe's Cookie Butter) spread. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Be careful not to overmix, which will result in crumbly, hard blondies. The batter will be very thick. Fold in the white chocolate chips. 

Spoon the batter into the prepared baking dish. Bake for 25-26 minutes. The blondies may appear very soft, but they will set up as they cool. Allow the blondies to cool completely- about 3 hours - before cutting into squares.

Makes 16 blondies. Recipe may easily be doubled and baked in a 9x13 pan for 35 minutes. Blondies stay fresh at room temperature for 1 week.

Healthy Harvest Farm Share

Winter Salad Mix, Romaine Lettuce, Celeriac, Rutabaga, Parsnips, Beets, Sweet Potato, Carrots, Kale