Mexican Coke!

It is the little things in the life that make someone smile like they have won the lottery.  For Jake that was receiving a gift of Mexican Coke. 

A few weeks ago my cousin was visiting from New York City and we were talking about Jake's diet and how he has never had things like Coke because it has corn syrup in it.  Which led to me saying that Mexican Coke is made with real sugar and you can buy it in some places in the US that have large Jewish populations because it is Kosher.  Being rural southern Ontario we can't get it here though.

Fast forward to last week.  Unfortunately my uncle passed away and my cousin came home for his father's funeral.  As we left the funeral home after the visitation Jack told me he had a gift for Jake and he would give it to him at the family reunion.  So Saturday we go to the beach for our reunion and Jack & his partner presented Jake with a box with 8 bottles of Mexican Coke!  I have never seen Jake so happy.  Even though it was warm from sitting in the car he had to open it and try it right away.  He loved it of course!

Jake drinking his first Coke.

I have to say that the thoughtfulness of this gift brought me close to tears.  Jack, you will never know how happy this made Jake and how it touched my heart that in the middle of traveling to your father's funeral you stopped to buy my son Coke.  Thank you.

Chicken Strips

Nick had some sad news recently.  One of his best buddies is moving away.  Poor Nick is so sad.  His friend is only moving a few hours away but it may as well be the moon when you are in grade school.  So I decided to make one of his favourite foods for supper - chicken fingers.  They are simple to make, just a little time consuming.

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 large bag of Lays chips
2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 400F.

 

 

Cut the chicken breasts into strips. 

 

 

Put the eggs into a shallow pan or bowl with a couple teaspoons of water and beat to combine 

Crush the potato chips finely and put into another shallow pan.

 

Dip the each chicken strip in the egg wash and then roll in the crushed chips.

Put on a cookie sheet or a cooking stone.  (I love my Pampered Chef cooking stones, definitely worth their price.)

Cook until done.  How long it takes depends on how big your strips are.  Mine usually take about 25 minutes.

Serve with a dipping sauce.  We use BBQ sauce or honey mustard sauce or this honey garlic sauce.

Every Bunny Loves Cake!

Easter was approaching and I was in charge of bringing a dessert to Mom & Dad's for supper on Good Friday.  I wanted cake but not just a regular cake, I wanted something special.  Pinterest to the rescue!  I found a cute bunny cake to make.

I made two round cakes using the recipe on the Pamela's Baking Mix website.  (The recipe only makes one layer so I doubled it.) 

I left one cake whole. 

Then I cut the other one into two ears and a bowtie.  I ended up having to modify the ears a little so that the cake would fit on my board but it turned out fine.

I made an icing out of Earth's Balance Shortening, icing sugar, vanilla and almond milk.  I iced the whole cake with a thin layer of icing (a crumb coating) and then added the other pieces and iced them too.  I let it sit for an hour so the thin layer of icing set up and then I iced the cakes as a whole.

Then for the fun part, putting the candy on!  I used Unreal candy coated chocolates (just like Smarties) for the eyes and the bowtie, Enjoy Life chocolate chips for the mouth, India Tree pink sprinkles for the ears & yellow for inside of the bowtie and Glutino pretzels for the whiskers.

 

 

HAPPY EASTER!

 

 

 

Hamburger Helper

I used to love Hamburger Helper until I realized what a mess of chemicals it is.  So when I found a recipe for home made Chili Cheese Hamburger Helper on the internet I needed to try doing a version of the regular one.  (My version is dairy free and gluten free.)  You can prepare a bunch of premade packages ahead of time just put the pasta in one bag and the spice mix in another.  Then all you have to do is add the browned ground beef and the wet ingredients and it is just like the boxed mix, ready to go in a moments notice!

1 pound of ground meat (I use chicken but you can use turkey or beef)
1 1/2 cups of pasta (I use rice pasta shells)
2 cups of milk (I use almond milk)
1 cup of water
2 tbsp corn starch
1 tbsp dried onion
1 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt

Brown the ground meat in a frying pan.  Add pasta, water and milk.  Sprinkle in the mixture of spices and cornstarch.  Stir to combine and bring to a boil.  Once it is boiling turn it down to medium-low and put a cover on the pan.  Let it simmer for 15 minutes or until the pasta is cooked and the sauce has thickened.  Sometimes I have to take the lid off for the last few minutes to get the sauce to thicken to the consistency that I prefer.

I took a picture of the final product but it didn't turn out very good and the meal is already eaten so I will give you some pictures taken by the boys with my phone.  You never know what kind of pictures they will take of themselves when they get a hold of an unlocked phone.

Pumpkin Spice Donuts!

I think one of the hardest thing for us to find without artificial preservatives, colours, flavours or corn syrup is donuts.  I am pretty sure it has been at least 6 years since Jake had one.  That is a long time with donuts!  When I saw that you can buy pans to bake them in the oven I was pretty excited but of course I could not find them any where in my town.  So the next time we were in the city I found some.

I used Pamela's Baking Mix to make these.  Here is a link to the recipe that I based them on.

4 tablespoons of melted coconut oil
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup of pumpkin
1 1/3 cups of Pamela's Baking Mix
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
couple shakes of nutmeg

Mix the first 4 ingredients together.  When well mixed add the rest.  Mix until incorporated.  Get a large ziplock or piping bag ready and fill it with the batter. 

Pipe the batter into the donut pans so each donut indentation is 2/3 full.  Don't cover the centre nub or your donuts will rise over it.

Bake in a 350F oven for about 20 minutes. 

The tops (on the right) will still be a light brown colour but the bottoms (on the left) will be much darker.

I removed them from the pan when they came out of the oven and let them cool on wire racks. 

When they cooled I put vanilla icing on them.  I started icing them however I happened to pick them up but soon realized it was easier to ice the tops because they were flatter and the bottoms were quite round.    They were then handed over to the boys who decorated them with India Tree Natural Sprinkles.

They have gotten rave reviews from everyone who has tried them!

Baked Apple Oatmeal

I was cruising around on Pinterest and saw a picture of a baked oatmeal and it looked really good but I didn't have most of the ingredients that the recipe called for so I decided to make my own recipe up.  The boys gave the results two thumbs up!

2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of salt
3/4 cup of pecan pieces
2 apples, peeled, diced
2 cups of milk (I used almond milk)
1 egg
1 tbsp of vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F.  Mix the oats, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, half the nuts and half the apples together in a bowl. Grease an 8 x 11 dish and add that mixture to the pan.  Sprinkle the rest of the nuts and apples on top.

In the bowl you just emptied mix up the milk, eggs and vanilla.  Gently pour that mixture over the oatmeal mixture.  Jiggle the pan to make sure it is evenly dispersed.

Sprinkle another tablespoon or so of brown sugar over top if you want a nice crunch.

Bake in the oven.  I don't know how long I baked this for because I lost track but I think it was about 45 minutes.  I will warm it up in the oven in the morning and serve it with breakfast but really it could be a nice dessert.  With a little whipped cream or whipped coconut milk on top it would be lovely.

Nick is 8!!!!!

Here is the Star Wars cake that I made for Nick's birthday.  He and his friends thought it was pretty cool.  I have to agree. 

It was a vanilla cake with buttercream icing.  The yellow icing was made with a few shakes of tumeric added to the basic icing.  As the icing sits it gets more and more yellow.  This picture doesn't really do it justice.