A Crazy Beautiful

Homemade Almond Milk

There are tons of slighly different ways out there to make almond milk. I perused quite a few websites and blogs before I attempted to make mine.  So, here it goes...

Homemade Almond Milk

1 cup raw almonds

4 cups water

1 teaspoon pure vanilla (optional)

Nut milk bag

Soak almonds in water. I soaked mine overnight, so for about 8 hours (you could soak them longer if you wanted).  Strain water and place almonds in  blender (we use a Vitamix) with 4 cups of water and vanilla if using.  Blend for about 1 minute. Place nut milk bag over a jar or pitcher and pour the whole almond mixture into bag.  The milk will drain into the jar, while the pulp stays in the bag.  Give bag a squeeze to ensure all of the liquid is out. There you go...there is your delicious almond milk!

*I saved the almond pulp and dehydrated it to be used for coating fish or chicken.

The day I started reading 50 Shades of Grey

Last week I had one of those days...my kids were running around like wild animals, not listening to a word I was saying, totally ignoring me... I had cleaning and packing to do before our camping trip and quite frankly, it was one of those days where I would normally pour myself a large glass of wine at the end of the day and RELAX.  Well, since I have a sweet baby in my belly, I instead made a loaf of to die for banana bread and started reading 50 Shades of Grey...let's just say I was relaxed after that!!!

So, here is the recipe and ladies, if you haven't read that oh so talked about book...well, go get your copy!!!

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter-Banana-Chocolate Chip Bread

• 1 cup Whole Wheat flour
  
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 medium bananas mashed (very ripe)
• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1 large egg 
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Coat standard loaf pan with cooking spray.
3. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in large bowl.
4. Whisk together mashed bananas, peanut butter, yogurt, egg, and oil.
5. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture until combined.
6. Fold in chocolate chips.
7. Scrape batter into loaf pan.
8. Bake 40-50 minutes, or until toothpick comes out.
9. Unmold then cool completely before slicing.
10. Indulge while reading 50 Shades of Grey

Vegan Farmers Market Butternut Squash Soup

What you need:

1 butternut squash (peeled, seeds removed, and cut in to 1 inch squares)

1 yellow onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

3 carrots, cut in to 1 inch pieces

2 apples, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces

2 cups of low sodium vegetable broth

3 cups of water

1 teaspoon each of dried rosemary, thyme, sage

1 tablespoon of sea salt

1 tablespoon of black pepper

1 teaspoon of nutmeg

A hand blender or vitamix blender to puree soup

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees, place squash in till soft (about 40 mins)

In a large stock pot, add 1 cup of vegetable stock, 2 cups of water, onion, garlic, apple, carrot and bring to a boil

Once squash is finished add it to the pot, using your hand blender slowly add remaining stock and water while blending or in batches, transfer to your blender leaving the center lid off to let the steam drift out.  Start blender on low and slowly turn it up higher until soup is pureed.  Put pureed soup back into stock pot and add salt and pepper and herbs.  Enjoy with some delicious crusty bread!

Homemade Graham Crackers

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1/4 milk (I used rice milk)

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup wheat flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

Sugar or cinnamon sugar to sprinkle on top (optional)

1. Beat butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl. Beat in honey, milk and extract until smooth.

2. Stir together dry ingredients and stir into batter.

3. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.  Roll the dough 1/8 inch thick, half at a time, on a floured board.  Cut into 2-3 inch squares and place on baking sheets.  Sprinkle with sugar or cinnamon sugar if you would like.

5. Bake 10-15 minutes

Enjoy with your favorite glass of milk (for us it's Rice Milk)!

The Gingerbread Mishap

I started with this recipe and used their templates to make our homemade gingerbread houses.
I let them cool and began assembly so that my kids could decorate.
It went from this to this in a matter of minutes.  I called for my husband to reinforce the walls, but nothing could save it, not even little toothpicks.
I was frustrated. I wanted to cry; my husband wanted to laugh. I kept my cool.  After rolling out dough, cutting templates and baking for 2 hours, that was pretty good for me.  After learning a few tips from my uncle (who is the homemade gingerbread house master), I know what I need to do next year....so after deciding to munch on our fallen gingerbread houses,(which were delicious by the way) we opted for the gingerbread house kits this year.

My daughter was so excited once I put the kit together and nothing was falling over and sliding down..."Yay, mommy did it!" she screamed

They both enjoyed decorating their houses so much.

My husband and I just enjoyed watching their creativity!

Beautiful works of art that we did not consume.  We are now enjoying looking at them sitting on our dining room hutch while we still snack on the fallen pieces of our mishap.

Believe me, next year, mommy is going to be ready to tackle the gingerbread house again!!!

Banana Cranberry Bread

We had tons of cranberries left over from Thanksgiving and I didn't want to waste them so I thought I'd whip up some banana bread and throw some cranberries in...oh my gosh, the result was amazing....the sweet with the sour was delicious!!!  My son helped me "make" as he called it, which added to the fun!

Banana Cranberry Bread

3 to 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted salted butter
3/4-1 cup light brown sugar, depending on the level of sweetness you prefer
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
1 1/2 cup of flour

1 cup fresh cranberries

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, vanilla and then the spices. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour, mix. Add the cranberries, and stir until just incorporated. Pour mixture into a buttered 4×8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan. slice and eat!

I am definetely whipping this one up again...so good!!!  My kids also loved it, which is always a bonus!

Baked Apples

After seeing this recipe, I knew I had to give our recently picked fresh apples a little lovin'....

My recipe is a bit different, but I'm sure just as scrumptious!

I peeled and cored the apples. I then dipped them in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar, stuffed them with chopped walnuts and corn syrup and began wrapping them in puff pastry.  My daughter helped me with wrapping them and enjoyed it so much!  We served them with a scooop of vanilla ice cream, but unfortunately did not get a picture of that because we devoured them so quickly...

They were so tasty...I can't wait to make them again!!

Tuscan Farro Soup

A few weeks ago my son was at preschool and devoured a bowl of soup that his teacher had made for lunch.  She gave me the recipe and WOW...I can see why he loved it so much!  It is called Tuscan Farro soup..a little bit about what farro is (I had never heard of it) below and the scrumptious recipe.

One of the most ancient grains in Italy is farro, a wheat with a nutty flavor that was once the staff of life for Romans.  Today farro is grown primarily in Tuscany and is the undisupted star of most Tuscan soups.  With the exception of bread soups, nothing gives Tuscans more satisfaction than a large bowl of thick farro soup.  Here in the US, farro can be found in most Italian specialty stores or in health food stores....so without further ado, here is one of the most amazing soup recipes I have ever made!!!!

Tuscan Farro Soup

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 medium carrot, finely chopped

1 celerey stalk, finely chopped

5-6 fresh sage leaves shredded or a pinch of crumbled dried sage

1 (28 ounce) can Italiann plum tomatoes with their juices

6 cups Chicken broth

1 pound farro (that has been soaked in cold water to cover for about 2-3 hours, then drained)

 

Heat the 1/3 cup oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Add the garlic, onion, carrot and celery and cook, stirring until lightly golden and soft,  8-10 minutes.  Add the sage, stir for about 1 minute, then add the tomatoes.  Season with salt and pepper and bring the sauce to a boil.  Reduce the heat to medium low and cook stirring from time to time, until the sauce has a medium-thick consistency, about 10 minutes.  In a large pot, bring the chicken broth to a boil.  Drain the farro, rinse it under cold runing water and add to the broth.  As soon as the broth comes back to a boil, stir the sauce into the broth, reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered until the farro is tender and the soup has a nice thick consistency, 30 to 40 minutes, stirring from time to time.  Tast and adjust seasoning if need be.  Let the soup sit for 15 to 20 minutes, then serve with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

 

And of course he just couldn't get enough of it...

Fresh Bread...mmmm!

A few years ago we bought a lovely breadmaker, which I had forgotten about until our move this summer.  I was so excited to find it and I told myself I would begin making our own bread since I could control what went in it and there is nothing better than fresh baked bread.  So yesterday, I made some sprouted wheat sandwich bread (my kids have been raised on sprouted wheat bread and love it)

Sprouted Flour Sandwich Bread

4 tablespoons sliced room-temperature butter
4 tablespoons  maple syrup
1 1/2 cups room-temperature water
4 cups  Organic Sprouted Flour (wheat or spelt)
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
2 teaspoons yeast

Place the butter, maple syrup and water in the breadmaker first, then put the flour, salt and yeast in last so that the yeast is not touching the wet ingredients.  I put my breadmaker on the wheat setting for medium crust and started it.  It took about 4 hours from start to finish (although I know not every breadmaker is the same-cooking times may vary).

I took it out to cool on a wire rack (one side of my bread came out a little caved in, although it didn't look pretty, it didn't affect the taste). I call it rustic!

This morning I had a piece toasted and slathered with creamed honey...oh my goodness, delicious!!

Back to school cupcakes...

We found out on the first day of school that my daughter's Kindergarten teacher celebrated her birthday the day before school.  Being the room mom, I could not fail at my job just yet, so I talked to all of the other Kindergarten parents and I told them I would make cupcakes, another mom said she'd bring a small gift from the class and we decided we would sneak in at the end of class Thursday afternoon and sing her happy birthday....so this was my opportunity to make these cupcakes that I've been eyeing on Pinterest for weeks now...

Because of lack of time with homework, soccer and school meetings, I opted to use a chocolate cake mix and vanilla frosting to make these cupcakes (which if you know me at all, goes against my belief in baking...I always use homemade recipes).  Believe me, I am still having anxiety about it...ha, I know, I'm crazy! 

Anywhoo, I used red food coloring to make the frosting red and then dipped each of the frosted cupcakes in red sprinkles.  For the stem, I used a half of a pretzel stick and for the leaf, I used a Watermelon Airhead candy cut into a leaf shape....and voila....there you have it, the apple cupcake!

My daughter can't stop staring at them and thinks they look so fun...let's hope Mrs. Sutton and the rest of the class enjoy their back to school birthday cupcakes!!!