Books!

I love books! Recently I've been trying to go thru and read all of those random books on my shelves that I just haven't gotten to before now. I really wanted to share quickly about the two most recent books I've read. While the theme was almost the same the books were quite different.

The first book I read was "Heaven at Home: Establishing and Enjoying a Peaceful Home" by Ginger Plowman. I had never heard of Ginger Plowman before finding this book; I am definitely looking forward to reading more of her work. Her style is very comfortable, like you are sitting with a good friend, but also filled with much wisdom and practical application. Each chapter in this book is dedicated to one aspect of a home, starting with your relationship with God. She then goes thru topics such as your marriage, in-laws, children and then to household tasks such as organization, housekeeping and hospitality.

I tend to underline while reading books and this book definitely has a lot of underlining. She had many Biblical principles and also many simple, practical ways that can help daily routines to run more smoothly. One big thing that I really appreciated was when there was a topic (such as how she schedules her day) that doesn't have scriptural basis she always stressed that these ideas are what has worked for her but that it was not God's Word so not to feel bad if it was something that just would not work in the readers life/home.

The book also included some great ideas for encouraging unity with your children. One idea that I have since implemented (and has seemed to at least make my kids stop and think) is the truth that they are each others best friends. When they are not being kind I'll ask if they are treating each other as a friend? Would they treat their other friends the same way? In many cases (not all ;) ) just asking those questions helps them to realize their own attitude and change their behavior.

The second book I recently read was an easy fun read "The Duggars: 20 and Counting" . It was fun to read how they have adapted their home to meet the very different needs of running such a large household. I really appreciated them sharing how they try to focus on character qualities no matter what the task.

One example shared is how that they focus on teaching about self-control while potty training and using the fact that God designed our bodies to give us warnings so that we know when to head to the bathroom, avoiding an "accident". They went on to share how that as their kids get older they refer back to that illustration when their children are tempted to exhibit a lack of self-control and how that God has given us a warning system (our conscience) and also a way of escape (I Corinthians 10:13) and that self-control heeds those warnings and makes the escape, avoiding "accidents".

Evolution of a recipe... UPDATE (and another yummy treat)

First, I wanted to say a huge Thank you to everyone who responded with their thoughts and ideas. I think I've finally gotten the recipe figured out and wanted to share. I made a batch of the Healthy Hermits the other day. While not exactly the same the texture is very close to the store bought ones. Here is the updated recipe with some more details at the end.

Healthy Hermits:

1 1/2 cup raisin paste (I soak raisins in hot water and then puree them)
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar (or sucanat)
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 eggs
1 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole grain flour *
1 cup oats
1/4 cup almonds or walnuts chopped fine
2 TB sunflower seeds
2 TB poppy seeds
1/4 cup flax seed
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cloves OR nutmeg

Mix all wet ingredients. In separate bowl mix together all dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet mixture. Stir to combine. Pour into greased 15 X 10 inch pan. Bake at 350 until done 15-17 minutes. (start checking at 15 minutes!!) Cool, cut into bars. Approx. 3 dozen (depending on how big you cut them).

When these baked up there was some air trapped under under the batter so mine had some "mountains" but I just poked them with a knife to release the steam and it worked fine (they fell correctly and once cooled you couldn't tell). I also ran out of ground cloves so I substituted nutmeg. The flavor was still really great.

...and now for another treat :)

Right before Valentine's day I was trying to decide what to make for the kids to bring in for their classmates. My sister in law posted on Facebook a link to a recipe for Red Velvet whoopie pies. I thought they would work great for a Valentine's treat. After looking over the recipe (found here) I decided that I wanted to change things up a bit.

I generally don't like making whoopie pies because the idea of using that much shortening just bothers me and I just find it gross :) I really liked this recipe because it used butter rather than shortening and only used 1/2 cup in the cakes and 1/2 cup in the filling (much better than the full cup of shortening, just in the filling, that I'd seen in other recipes).

My only real issue with the McCormick recipe was that the recipe called for a whole bottle of red food coloring. I don't like using artificial ingredients when I cook and so the idea of dumping a whole bottle (yes, I realize it's only 1 oz) into perfectly good cake batter bothered me. I was sure I could find a better alternative.

While thinking over my options (and doing some searching on Google) I remembered that I had a bag of frozen raspberries. YAY! I ended up making two minor changes to this recipe that really worked well.

First, I thawed the raspberries and drained them (saving the juice). Then I used 2 TB (1 oz) of the juice in place of the red food coloring (please note: this did not color the batter red but I needed to replace the fluid in the recipe and the raspberry juice worked for that). For the filling I left out the vanilla and added 2 TB (I started with 1 but really needed the second one) of the raspberries to the filling. I whisked it all together in the mixer and filled them as normal. While the cakes were not red, the filling was a great shade of pink and still fit the bill for a Valentine treat.

These really were the best whoopie pies I'd ever had. The raspberry flavor is strong enough and really goes well with the chocolate. I'll definitely be making these again and will probably try some other variations in the future.

Why share all these recipe adventures? I want to encourage you to not be afraid to change things up. I rarely follow a recipe exactly. Once you begin changing recipes and substituting ingredients you'll learn what does and doesn't work. This knowledge has saved me a lot of last minute trips out for one or two ingredients, has been very useful now that I have two children with food allergies to very common foods (apples and tomatoes), and it's fun! Just one note of "caution" make sure to note (either mentally or on paper) what changes you make so that you can recreate the dishes that you really love. Happy Baking!