Back in the kitchen

We’ve been busy in the kitchen again. First we made gingerbread cookies. I love the recipe we have because it is relatively low on sugar (as cookies go) and has good stuff in it like wholewheat, and ½ a cup of molasses…plus I often throw in some ground flaxseed too. The kids love to make them because after all the usual fun of pouring and mixing, they get to kneed the cookie dough, roll it out, and then choose which cookie cutters they want to use. About two years ago I invested in a $9 bucket of 101 cookie cutters by Wilton, it was a very worthwhile investment. Not only can we make all kinds of festive goodies, but educational ones too, with all the letters and numbers; but best of all (at least for mom! ;) ) is that if your kids ever go through stages of not eating too much, just make them stuff using cookie cutters and they will gobble it up! Dino-shaped sandwiches, truck pancakes…you get the picture.

The boys rolled and cut the cookies themselves.
Out of the oven.

I got the recipe from The Petit Appetit Cookbook: Easy, Organic Recipes to Nurture Your Baby and Toddler by Lisa Barnes:

¼ cup unsalted butter
½ cup of lightly packed organic light brown sugar
½ mild molasses
1 ¾ cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 ¾ cups organic whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground cinnamon (I usually add a little more)
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp salt
1/3 cup water (I usually add a bit more or it is on the dry side)

Stir butter, sugar and molasses in one bowl, and then all the dry ingredients in another bowl. Slowly mix together alternating water and dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Mix well, kneed if necessary. Roll out with a rolling pin, cut your shapes with a cookie cutter and transfer onto a baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven (350F) for 7-9 minutes. Check doneness by pressing on the cookie, if the dough springs back they are done, if not put them in a little while longer.

After the cookies were in the oven we moved onto making humus for lunch. My boys were born in Israel and raised on all the delicious Middle Eastern food that we ate there, so humus is pretty much a staple in our home.

Ready to eat, but oh how I miss the fresh pita...

With a side of this.

And this is what it looks like once in Rylan’s hands! :)

Under the weather

The boys and I were all under the weather today, me the most, I think...we have what seems (knock on wood!) to be a pretty mild cold...hopefully we will be over it in a day or two, but in the meantime we settled in for some good R&R. I cancelled all our activities today, we stayed in our pjs, made beds out of the couches, watched a little t.v., read books (until my throat could no longer take it), took extra vitamins, and drank warm tea, then went for a brief walk in our neighbourhood to soak up some good ol' vitamin D.
When we got home we snacked on some hot, fresh bread we had just pulled out of the oven (I used this easy and delicious recipe). We ate more of this bread for dinner with the homemade cream of tomato soup I made to go with it.

So, a quiet day at home, but before I go take a hot shower and climb into bed, I do want to share this with you - last night I made this build-a-letter alphabet set. I downloaded the templates from this blog, and cut out the shapes using thick craft foam. This seems very similar to the wooden sets that go with the Handwriting Without Tears programme. Anyway, it was a fun exercise. Rylan enjoyed it as he would a puzzle, and I had him trace the letters (as I used to with the sandpaper letters) for a little letter formation practice.

Damian also had fun with them, he managed to form a few of the letters, but mostly enjoyed just playing with the shapes. In a few months I am sure he will get good use out of this set.