Soda Biscuits and Homemade Butter

Feeling pretty smug about our recipes today!

First, we made biscuits using a homemade Bisquick mix.  They were delicious.  As they should be with the 1/4 cup of butter they baked in!

While they baked, we made butter.  I wasn't sure how it would turn out.  We started with some heavy cream; each had a little in a container and they shook and shook and shook.....and kept shaking until they were tired.  Then the adults took over.  And we got tired.  So in a cold bowl it went, and we took turns using the hand mixer.  I was just about to give up when....it started to stick together and look like frosting.  We kept mixing.  Little by little, we saw it separating.  We had solids and liquid. Bingo!
We pushed the solids to the side and poured off the buttermilk.  We put the solids into a bowl of ice water (not necessary, but it give the butter a longer shelf life) and poured off liquid until it was clear.  Tossed in a pinch of sea salt, and we had butter!

We had also made a little bowl of honey cinnamon butter.  The biscuits were delicious with both.  We read "Biscuit Wins a Prize" and also "Cupcake" to celebrate Oliver's 4th birthday.  What a great day!

Soda Biscuits

2 Cups baking mix (like Bisquick)
1/2 cup plain Greek Yogurt
1/2 cup lemon-lime soda
1/4 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 450.  Melt butter in 9-inch square pan. Cut yogurt into biscuit mix, add soda.  It will be a very soft dough.  Sprinkle additional biscuit mix onto table or board and pat dough, about 1 inch thick, and cut biscuits using biscuit cutters or a glass.  Place biscuits in pan and bake 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Baking Mix:
10 cups flour (I use 5 cups whole wheat white or whole wheat pastry and 5 cups organic all-purpose)
1/3 cup baking powder
1/4 cup sugar  (or sugar replacement, such as organic coconut sugar or dried organic cane juice)
4 tsp. salt
2 cups shortening that does not require refrigeration (Crisco).  I used solid coconut oil.

In large mixing bowl, stir flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.  With a pastry blender, cut in shortening or oil until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Store in covered airtight container up to 6 weeks at room temperature.  If you use any whole wheat flour, it will keep best in the refrigerator.

(http://faithfulprovisions.com/2012/02/23/how-to-make-your-own-bisquick/)

Chicken Gnocchi Soup at JaJora Olive Oil Co.

What a great group of girls!  We had a fun time making soup in the beautiful JaJora Olive Oil store, with the warm Tuscan colors and the sunlight streaming through the windows. How appropriate to be making a copycat Olive Garden recipe.

The girls split into two groups.  Each group had a copy of the recipe with different ingredients highlighted.  They had to find the ingredients and the tools needed to prepare them...the vegetable peeler to peel carrots, a crinkle cutter to cut the carrots, a chopper to chop onions and spinach, measuring spoons and cups to measure milk, chicken stock and spices.  We talked about what it means to heat our oil until it's rippled and cook our onions until they're translucent.  They thought the induction cooktop was pretty cool...literally.  Cool to the touch.  And what is gnocchi, anyway?  Many of them had already had it.  But not in soup.

We had NO leftovers!  I did make sure I got one bite, with a gnocchi in it.  (Do you call it "a gnocchi"??)  Delicious!  And I was told that Maura made it for her family tonight.  I'm sure it won't be long before the others do, too.

Winter Classes

The holidays are crazy busy, aren't they?  I enjoyed all the fun classes we did in December.   I was ready for a nice break, spending time with family. I'm sure everyone has the same experience....sometimes the "break" is more hectic than the everyday same old-same old.  We traveled.  A lot.  Hockey in the state and out.  Visiting relatives out of town, relatives visiting us.  My father-in-law became very sick with the flu.  As soon as the kids went back to school, my teenager got it.  A few groups classes I had scheduled cancelled....due to the flu.

I decided to focus on cleaning my house from top to bottom, and making sure the rest of my family and I stayed well.  Made a batch of elderberry and rosehip syrup; a few shots a day are working wonders.

So today, I am planning my upcoming classes and I'm so excited!  I will get them on the calendar very soon.

Here's what's in the works:

For Advanced Gourmets, ages 10-up:
Chicken Gnocchi Soup, just like the one you get with unlimited breadsticks at that great Italian restaurant

Afternoon Tea with Mini Vanilla Bean Scones, just like the ones you get at that expensive coffee place  (do you see a theme here?).  And our Scones will be Paleo. That may be an unfamiliar term;  it means they will be made without refined sugar, dairy or grains.  I have begun making quite a few recipes like this.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they're not quite what I expected.

For Growing Gourmets, ages 5-9:
The Sandwich Swap--we will read the book by Queen Rania of Jordan, and make Hummus and Peanut Butter (or Sunbutter) and eat Hummus on Pitas and Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches.  It's a good book with a great message about being accepting of new things.

Labels:  What's in our food?  We will read package labels and make one recipe from scratch and one from a box.  It will be interesting to see which we prefer.

For Chef Sprouts:
All About Dough--we will make various recipes from homemade dough.  Sprouts should have fun mixing, stretching, rolling, cutting.

Choose your own ingredient--We will have a recipe where we can choose ingredients.  Sprouts can either bring their ingredient or let me know ahead of time what they choose.

Balsamic Strawberries with Whipped Mascarpone Cream

Last night's class let me experience what it would be like to have girls instead of boys.  Just me and the  girls making a delicious dessert to make us feel special.  It was quiet, relaxed and laid back.  Our eyes watered a bit while reducing our balsamic vinegar, sugar and lemon juice,  But it was so worth it.  This recipe is simple but tastes so good.  If you've never tried Mascarpone cheese, give it a try.  It's so light and airy, smooth and creamy.  And fairly inexpensive at Walmart.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Balsamic-Strawberries-with-Whipped-Mascarpone-Cheese-105321

10 things you should never say...

10 Things you Should Never Say to your child about Food

I have probably said all these things at one time or another.  How about you?

Budding Chefs in the News

Nice article about cooking with children in the Appleton Post-Crescent Living Well section last weekend.

Living Well

Make your own Pizza Lunchables

I loved seeing all the children today at the Children's Museum of Green Bay! It was United Health's Healthy Kids Week, and today's focus was healthy lunches. I enjoyed meeting Becky Engum, Dietitian and author of "Creative Kidney Cooking" who also showed kids how to eat a healthy lunch by making a colorful plate. As promised, here are the recipes used for the Make your own Pizza Lunchables.


 Pizza Sauce

 Ingredients:   28 oz. can diced petite tomatoes, undrained
3 tbsp. olive oil
 1 tbsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried oregano
 ½ tsp. dried marjoram
 ¼ tsp. salt
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced

 Directions:   Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool a bit. Use an immersion blender (or potato masher) to break up tomato chunks for a smooth sauce. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.

 Recipe adapted from http://annies-eats.com/2009/07/23/pizza-sauce/

 Pizza Crust:
 No Fail Pizza Crust

 2 1/2 - cups all purpose flour
1 - teaspoon salt
1 - cup warm water
1 - tablespoon baking powder
4 - tablespoons butter, softened
1 - 1/4 oz packet yeast (I used rapid rise)

 Dissolve the yeast in warm water and set aside. Mix the flour, salt and baking powder together. Add the softened butter and cut into the flour mixture using a pastry blender or fork. Add the yeast mixture and stir together to combine. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until well blended. Place the pizza dough into a oiled bowl and turn the dough to coat. Let rest for about 20 minutes. Cover the bowl with dish towel or plastic wrap while the dough rests. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Separate dough into 18-20 golf ball size pizza dough balls. Set aside and let the dough rest for about 10 minutes. On a floured surface roll out each pizza dough ball into a 4 inch circle. Place each pizza round on a pizza pan or baking stone. Prick each with a fork a few times. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the bottoms are very lightly brown. Remove from oven and let cool before removing from pizza pan. 

Recipe from: http://www.mommyskitchen.net/2011/08/diy-pizza-lunchables-another-back-to.html

 I also made the crust, rolled it out and cut circles with a biscuit cutter. This yielded a thicker, softer crust. Either way is fine, it just depends on children's taste preference.