Way back when, I did an internship with the DC area food bank and one of the tasks I was given was coming up with easy, healthy recipes that people who came to the food bank could make with the food they were given. The recipes had to use ingredients from the boxes they received, and they had to involve minimal cooking (since many of our customers didn't know how to cook or have access to stoves). One easy recipe that could provide a nutrient punch? Trail mix.

In the years after my time at the food bank, I worked as a camp counselor, student teacher, and now a mom, and have had plenty of time to refine my trail mix recipe. And I learned: there's a formula for making the perfect trail mix and it looks something like this:

3 cups grain (think pretzels, puffed rice, cereal, cheerios)
1 cup nuts
1 cup dried fruit
1/2 cup something sweet (think mini marshmallows, white or dark chocolate chips, m&ms)
1/3 cup seeds (pumpkin and sunflower are our faves)

Trail mix is one of mine and A.'s favorite things to make at home, it involves no real cooking but lots of measuring and stirring (which feels like cooking to a little kid). And she can pick the ingredients she prefers, within the parameters of the recipe, which is also big deal for my independent "I'll do it myself!" toddler on the cusp.

The trail mix we're currently snacking on is 3 cups pretzel chips, 1 cup pistachios, 1 cup dried cranberries, 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, 1/3 cup sunflower seeds. Yum!

Do you have a favorite trail mix recipe?

I find it a little hard to get worked up over Valentines Day, coming so quickly on the heels of Christmas. But Anouk really loves it, and is really excited about it, so I am trying. I've been slipping some of these Valentine bears in her snack for the last week or so, and they have been a big hit.

It's the easiest DIY ever: Teddy Grahams + red icing. The icing can get a little blobby which I am sure can be fixed in some way but I balk at spending too much finesse on something that is going to be eaten by a toddler in three seconds. Anyway, I just tell myself that the blobby hearts are anatomically correct ones, I am giving my kid a head-start on biology! #tigermom

Happy weekend!

Anouk's BFF Miri came over the other day for a morning playdate, and we made cinnamon sugar snowflakes for snack. It's pretty much the easiest, most toddler-friendly baking project ever -- all you need is flour tortillas, melted butter, cinnamon and sugar.

After microwaving the tortillas for 10 seconds or so, to make them softer and easier to work with, fold the tortilla into fourths and cut as you would a paper snowflake (I helped a lot with cutting the snowflakes for the kids as little kid scissors aren't the best at cutting anything bread). Brush melted butter over each snowflake and top with cinnamon and sugar (we used the pre-mixed cinnamon sugar from the spice aisle at the grocery store).

Bake for 5-10 minutes at 350 degrees on a lightly greased baking sheet and enjoy with berries and whipped cream (we ate ours with fruit salsa made with the last of the frozen strawberries from last years' visit to Cullipher Farms).




 ^^ SUGAR!!! ^^

Recently,  our friend Mylinh (who I met through this very blog!) returned from overseas bringing us a delicious marzipan lion to devour. Just a few days later, I saw this post on making marzipan tree decorations for cakes on Oh Happy Day and it was perfect timing because Anouk had been asking for more "lion candy." We decided to have our friends over and give it a try. We also decided to go a little further than the original project though and make our own marzipan instead of using pre-made almond paste. Because how hard can it be, right?

Turns out it isn't hard as much as it is tedious, blanching and peeling all those almonds. But once you've done that (or if you find almonds already blanched), it's pretty much the easiest thing ever.

Homemade Marzipan

Ingredients:

1.5 cups ground blanched almonds
1.5 cups powdered sugar (with extra for dusting)
1 egg white
2 tsp almond extract

NOTE: This recipe calls for raw egg. If you are a little weirded out about eating raw egg, you can use the egg white substitute in the refrigerated section of the grocery store; it is pasteurized. 3 tbsp = 1 egg white.

Directions:

First, blanch the almonds: Bring a pot of water to a boil and dump almonds in for 30 seconds. Drain, and immediately transfer to a bowl of cool water. The skins should pop right off when you pinch the almonds. Dry with a paper towel before grinding.

Grind the almonds in the food processor until they are very fine powder. Mix the almonds with the powdered sugar, add the egg white and almond extract. Mix in a stand mixer until the ingredients come together into a ball (like bread dough). Turn out onto a surface coated in powdered sugar and knead until smooth. The marzipan should not be sticky -- if it is, coat with extra powdered sugar and knead some more.

To make our marzipan Christmas trees, we made cones out of the marzipan and rolled them in green sprinkles and shredded coconut (for snow) before inserting a pretzel stick into the base for the trunk. Oh Happy Day's recipe mentions wetting the marzipan very slightly before adding the sprinkles, to help them stick better. Next time, we'll do that.

We found that letting the trees sit for an hour or two led to a more stable tree but most of them didn't last that long.



 
 We also found that marzipan and pretzel is a combination that is pretty legit. Ritter Sport, why aren't you on this?

You know how in old novels people are always spending a wild Saturday night taffy pulling with their friends? A few weeks ago, simply because we have run out of things to do, it's been a long summer, Anouk and I decided to try it. She's really into cooking lately, and I'm always up for eating something delicious. And it turns out taffy candy is a great thing to make with little ones who want to try making something a little more advanced than celery boats or Watergate salad but still beginner level. There are bubbles! Thermometers! Lots of stirring and rolling! It's kind of a gateway recipe to actual cooking.

We decided on saltwater taffy (because isn't that one of the best parts of a beach vacation?) and used the recipe found here as our jumping off point.

Funfetti Saltwater Taffy (adapted from the Cupcake Project)

Ingredients: 

1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Candy thermometer
Sprinkles of your choice

Directions:

Butter a shallow baking dish. Combine the sugar, cornstarch, corn syrup, butter, water, and vanilla in saucepan, mix to combine, and set on the stove over medium-high heat. Heat until the mixture begins to boil and the candy thermometer reads 265 degrees (or the hard-ball stage, if you don't have a thermometer and are winging it, which means that a little of the hot syrup, dropped into cold water, will form a hard ball but will still flatten if you try to squish it).

NOTE: The original recipe called for a lower temperature and a softer taffy but I was worried it might not be taffy-like enough and upped the temp. The result is a very chewy candy that is the texture of a Sugar Baby -- you may want to watch out for loose teeth when eating!

Once the candy has reached 265 degrees, pour into the buttered baking dish and cover with a layer of sprinkles. When the candy cools is cool enough to handle, scoop it out onto waxed paper and begin to pull. This basically means you pull it toward you, fold it back over on itself, and do it again. Continue for about 10 minutes -- the candy will lighten in color and become harder to work as you go.

Roll the taffy into a rope and, with buttered scissors, cut into pieces, which you can then wrap in wax paper (or else they will stick together). I let Anouk do some of the cutting so we ended up with pieces of nonuniform size -- about 35-40 of them in all. We ate most of them and gave some to our friends. They went fast!


Good luck to everybody starting school today! Here's to a fabulous first day for a wonderful year.

For a lot of people, Easter means roast lamb and mint jelly, but in my mom's Lebanese family, holidays mean a Mediterranean feast is in store. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter always open the floodgates for me, and in the weeks after, I find myself cooking all of my old favorite family recipes because I'm suddenly in the mood for them. Right now, in our fridge, we have homemade hummus, some leftover kusa (meat-stuffed squash) and these pretty lifts (pronounced liff-its) -- turnips pickled in vinegar and colored pink with beet juice.

I learned most of these recipes at my grandmother's side, and it's very important to me to pass them down to Anouk. This recipe is so easy to make that I thought it would be a good one to start with. Plus, everyone the in the house loves them -- they go fast. It's almost not worth making them unless you make a huge batch. Spicy, tangy, and earthy with a snap. There's nothing else in the world like lifts.








Ingredients:

1 lb. turnips
1.5 cups water
1.5 cups distilled white vinegar
5 tsps salt
5-6 garlic cloves, smashed
crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

Directions:

Peel the turnips and cut into bite sized chunks. Mix up a bowl of brine by stirring together the water, vinegar, and salt (if you need more for the amount of turnips you've got, mix another batch). Place the turnips into Tupperware or mason jars with the garlic (about 2-3 cloves per container). Add red pepper if you'd like -- about 1 tsp per 8 ounces.

Pour the brine over the turnips. Place 2 slices of beet at the top and replace the lid. Let sit in the fridge for 1-2 days. Every 12 hours or so, open the jar and taste a lift, and adjust the flavorings (more salt or pepper if you'd like). You'll know they're ready when the brine turns a deep red and that the flavor is just right when you can't eat just one.

Serve the lifts as a side with hummus, pita and olives. We like them on spinach dressed with some of the brine mixed with olive oil, or just by themselves, eaten like popcorn while watching a movie. Yum!

What favorite family recipes have you shared with your kids?

On our snow-day-before-last (? they've all started to blend together), when boredom was setting in with a vengeance, I learned how to make bagels at home. This might sound really stupid, but I'm not sure I ever really knew that you could make bagels at home. I mean, I guess I knew ONE could, but not an average person like me. I think I thought you needed special training or equipment or something like that.

Turns out -- you can make bagels at home! You make the dough, you let it rise the appropriate number of times, and then you boil your bagels in water before baking them in a very hot oven. It's all a lot simpler than it seems it should be (although once you get going things move pretty quickly, which is why we have only iPhone photos to mark this post, sorry about that).

And yes, I will admit that ours are not the most attractive bagels ever but you have to trust me: they are so, so good. I never had had a fresh, just out-of-the-oven bagel before and now that I have, I don't think I can ever go back.

We've sampled several different recipes over the past few weeks but keep coming back to this one for New York Style Bagels by the Sophisticated Gourmet because 1) it's tastiest and 2) you don't have to let the dough proof overnight, which I hate because I am impatient. We like this recipe so much that we've been making up a batch every Sunday. A. really loves the whole play-dough aspect of this recipe and I really love having my family together in the kitchen baking for the week ahead, it seems like such a wholesome (read: generally unlike us) thing to do. And James really loves these bagels with butter, and he's not a carb guy, so that's saying something.

Happy Thursday!

Purists are going to hate this recipe because authentic Irish soda bread has only four ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. This dairy-free recipe has a few more and comes out a bit more dense and sconelike than the traditional recipe. But my kid can eat it, so that's a plus. And it's also really good.

And easy -- Anouk mixed this one up herself (I pre-measured everything and laid it out for her). Just so you know, each raisin was placed into the dough individually. It looked like a very important part of the process so don't forget it.

Dairy-free Irish Soda Bread (from Food Allergy Mama)

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar (we used about 1.5 T honey and .5 T molasses)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1.5 cups soy buttermilk
1 cup raisins, dried cranberries, or currants

Mix up the soy "buttermilk" by adding 2 tablespoons of white vinegar to 2 cups of plain soymilk. (Don't be a hero and try to taste this. It isn't like real buttermilk at all, but it works for the recipe). Let sit for 5-10 minutes. It should look grainy and thick when it's ready.

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the soy buttermilk a little at a time and mix with a rubber spatula until the dough comes together. Add the raisins. Press into an oiled 9-inch round cake pan or iron skillet. Mark a cross in the top and bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until brown.

My sister brought me back a bag of lavender sugar from her trip to France last summer. It was so much fun to cook with -- it made my old tried and true recipes seem fresh and exciting again. We used it in as much as we could -- in lemonade, shortbreads, sugar cookies -- and even experimented with a lavender-sugar caramel.

I enjoyed my present so much that I thought it would be a good thing to try to DIY for our own handmade holiday. (The sugar my sister gave me was handmade by monks who have been making it since the 1500s or so, but I refused to be daunted.)

We ended up making three different batches of flavored sugar to give as gifts this holiday season: rosemary, lemon, and lavender. Here's how we did it.
















1. Gather your desired herbs and rinse, let dry (It's definitely best to use fresh herbs for this!) For lemon sugar, peel the fruit and lay the peel aside in a warm place to dry for a day or two, otherwise the moisture in it will make your sugar clumpy. When the peel feels dry to the touch, cut a few notches in it with scissors and you're ready to go.

2. Fill a clean small jar with a layer of herbs. Then add a thick layer of sugar. Repeat until the jar is filled. Use more herbs for a stronger flavor and less for a lighter one.

3. Let stand for 3-4 weeks, shaking and turning daily so that the flavor can be distributed throughout the jar (Anouk was a big help for this step). Test every week or so, until the flavor is as strong as you want it.

4. Strain the sugar through a sieve to remove the herbs and/or peel. If you like, you can leave a few small springs for festivity's sake. Pour back into the jar and tie with baker's twine or ribbon. Include a handwritten recipe for something to use the sugar in if you like or a small box of tea to use the sugar with.

I think the thing I like best about this -- besides the fact that it's so quick and inexpensive to make --  is that it's a grownup friendly DIY gift that little hands can put together almost all by themselves. Next I'd like to experiment with combining some of these flavors -- rosemary and lemon, lavender and orange peel. (And then I'd like to experiment eating some delicacies made with them).

Have you ever cooked/baked with flavored sugar? What did you make?

Have a great weekend!

This recipe is one of our fall go-tos -- it's hearty and colorful and spicy and cozy, a real crowd pleaser. It's easy enough so that Anouk can help me assemble and "cook" it, and there's something about eating apples in a savory dish that I find really intriguing. Best of all, this dish is sort of a chameleon dish -- it's good with everything, from sausages to pork to roast chicken or turkey to breakfast-as-dinner, and, if you take out the onions and replace the sage with cinnamon (and add a dollop of whipped cream), it even makes a super dessert.

Ingredients:

3 medium sweet potatoes

1 large apple

1 small onion

1 tablespoon coconut oil (or butter)

pinch sage

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Pierce the sweet potatoes with a fork and pre-cook in the microwave, for about five minutes, or until soft but not mushy. Remove, let cool, and remove skins. Dice sweet potatoes, apple, and onion and add apple and onion to a pan with the coconut oil. Cook on medium high heat until the apple is tender and the onion translucent. Add diced sweet potato, salt, pepper, and sage, and cook until the onion starts to caramelize.

Happy Monday!

• I like the idea of oatmeal but in all honesty, I'm not much of an oatmeal person. There's just something about the texture that I find kind of gloppy and unappealing. But curling up with a warm bowl on a cool morning is, and so I'm always on the lookout for breakfast cereal substitutions that will give that cozy effect. In the past, we've really enjoyed a hot cereal made from almond meal, but lately, our go-to is a kind of quinoa porridge that we adapted from this recipe. The texture is amazing, it doesn't get soggy or mushy, and it's packed with protein which is a nice start to your day. 

• Quinoa is also very adaptable to all different kinds of flavors, so we've been experimenting with peanut butter porridge and a version with apples, but with fall in the air, it's all about pumpkin so that's what we've been using most frequently. 

• Directions: 

Lately, Anouk's most-often uttered phase is, "I do it myself!" She says it during bath time, when she gets dressed, when we return books to the library, and most of all, when I ask her if she wants to help me cook. Because I have an inquiring mind, I started to wonder, what WOULD happen if I let a not-quite-two-and-a-half-year-old cook something -- all by herself? Then I pulled out all of the ingredients for banana pudding and decided to find out. Because of A's milk allergy, our version of this pudding is dairy free (hooray!).

Ingredients:

1 package instant vanilla pudding
1.5 cups coconut milk
1 box vanilla wafer cookies
3-4 sliced bananas
Coconut whipped cream

Directions:

Follow the directions on the back of the instant pudding box to prepare the pudding. The trick of using coconut milk for this is to 1) use full fat coconut milk, the stuff in cans as opposed to the cartons, and 2) to use a half a cup less than the package calls for. It should set up nicely, but if it's too thick, you can add more milk, a little at a time, to think it out. Put a layer of cookies in the bottom of the bowl, follow with a layer of pudding and a layer of sliced bananas. Repeat. Serve with whipped cream on top.






I measured out the milk for the pudding and helped A. stir the lumps out. I also sliced some of the bananas and gave her a general overview of the project. But other than that, Anouk assembled this recipe on her own, all by herself.

The end result is a little pudding-heavy, and several of the banana slices and a bit more of the cookies went into her mouth instead of the bowl. Oh, and our carefully mixed up coconut cream had a tragic accident with the floor, so we were sadly without delicious (non)dairy topping this go-round. But she was so happy with her creation that I'm deeming the project a full-blown success.

Tastes like victory!