Bobby saw Daniel and his Grandpere making Raisin Bread on Daniel Tiger and has wanted me to make it ever since. I found this recipe for Cinnamon Bread and completely forgot he had wanted raisins, so I was going to just add them to the recipe, but I forgot… and it took me until now to finally make what he had originally asked for.
So I found this recipe for Yogurt Raisin Bread, but didn’t have all the ingredients she listed, so I made it my own and it still turned out really good! Here’s my version… I had no plans to add in the chocolate chips, except Alexandria was helping me mix it together and mistook the raisins for chocolate chips when she saw them in the bowl, so I let her throw in some chocolate chips too!
2 Eggs 1/3 cup Chobani Whole Milk Plain Greek Yogurt 2/3 cup 2% Milk 2 tsp Vanilla Extract 1 tsp Almond Extract 1/3 cup Applesauce (this was actually the Kirkland pouches I get for my kids, it is exactly 1/3 cup) 2 cups King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour 1 tsp Baking Soda 2 tsp Baking Powder 1/8 tsp Salt 1 tsp Cinnamon Powder 1 cup Raisins 1/2 cup Chocolate Chips
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
Coat a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan with cooking spray and flour.
Whisk together the eggs, yogurt, milk, vanilla extract, almond extract, and applesauce until well blended.
Stir in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon until just combined.
Fold in the raisins and chocolate chips.
Scoop the batter into the loaf pan, and bake for 45 minutes – until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Turn the bread into a wire rack to cool
Enjoy!
I love that we can find recipes to try at home, so that we know exactly what is going into our kids bodies! And I especially love when they are simple, because this busy mama doesn’t have much time to spare!
I can’t, in good judgment, buy a box of frozen corn dogs because… My kids probably won’t eat them 🤷♀️.
Sometimes they’ll ask for a corn dog when we are eating out, but more often than not, they pick the corn off the dog so really… They just wanted a hot dog. They are also the same kids who want just a patty with cheese and don’t want the hamburger bun (whose kids are these really 🤔) 😂 😂 😂.
Anyway, I was trying to fix the kids lunch before Easter dinner and decided to make some corn dog muffins. I wasn’t all Susie Homemaker and making my muffin mix from scratch… It came from a bag 💁♀️.
I just mixed it together, cut up some turkey dogs and baked them in mini muffin pans.
The kids ate them! 🙌🏼
I had a little too much batter left, so I made a new concoction by adding a half of a can of corn, and a laughing cow cheese in the middle. Those went into jumbo muffin pans.
1 Serving of our favorite Protein Powder (we use 2 scoops of Lean)
Mix it together (I recently started warming the peanut butter and honey for 30 seconds so it is easier to mix before adding the rest of the ingredients), scoop out (if you don’t have scoops, they are amazing, I never had them before until my mother-in-love passed away and we kept lots of her baking items since she was an awesome baker, they come in so handy) and form into bite size servings, then chill for a bit so they aren’t so sticky for little hands.
And went with the honey option instead of the maple syrup, and added in a little bit of Almond Extract. Any time a recipe calls for Vanilla extract, I used the Vanilla, and add in the Almond Extract as well. I love the taste, and it makes everything a little more delicious!
So… I pulled it out and let it cool 10 minutes before I cut it and seems like it could have baked a little bit longer. I’m going to let it cool all the way, then refrigerate it and see if it stays together better tomorrow.
The kids loved it (I did too), and I love that they have another option for breakfast now.
As an update, I pulled it out of the fridge for an after dinner snack and it totally stays together now! 🙌
I saw a YouTube video with this idea, and tried it from memory. I think it would probably have been easier with the larger sized croissants, but this is what I had.
I bought these to make pigs 🐽 in a blanket but the kids weren’t impressed. 🤷♀️
So this is my attempt to get them to eat them so we can finish what is left in the house.
While I usually tend stay away from things that are “enriched” because let’s be real, they aren’t enriched with anything good, as a matter of fact, the good that was in it, has probably been removed, I occasionally make eggceptions 😂. Check out this great article about Enriched food
Back to the point… so even though these croissant are made with enriched flour… it’s ok to have some crap food every once in a while. Just make sure you are having more healthy than unhealthy, and I don’t mean 51%/49% I mean more like 80%/20%.
So in order to know what is going in my family’s body, I like to make most of our food at home, because the pre-made, pre-packaged foods usually have things in them that are probably not so good for you. But, I am a busy mom, so sometimes we do have pre-packaged or fast food… But that isn’t what we have most of the time.
So…. if you must go to a fast food place and have an egg and cheese croissant, why not try making your own at home instead, you’ll save money, and you’ll know exactly what is in the food you are eating. You can easily heat them up and keep the crispy flaky layer by popping them into your Air Fryer (I LOVE my Air Fryer, I am actually selling my old toaster oven because it takes up more space and I love the simplicity of the Air Fryer!)
First, scramble your eggs and try to keep them flat as you cook them.
I used my Tupperware microwave egg cooker.
Pour the egg in, pop on the top, pop onto the microwave for 2.5 minutes and it’s ready to go!
Next… Open your croissant 🥐 package. These always freak me out because of the POP. But… I remember in the video he hit the container on his counter to open it. Genius! It pops it open as it hits the counter so it didn’t scare me. ❤️
I had my second batch of eggs cooking, but this is all you need to make your croissants! You could add bacon or sausage too if you like, but I tried just eggs and cheese this time.
Layer your egg then cheese then wrap it closed.
I followed the baking directions on the packaging.
So these are baked and ready to go, and I’ll be offering them up at breakfast time to get my kids to try something other than the usual, cereal, yogurt, or bar.
Grandma Sandi was known for her English Toffee and I think everyone looked forward to Christmastime because they knew if she would be around, her English Toffee would most likely be with her.
If you haven’t heard of Grandma Sandi, or Sandra Lee (not the famous baker that you see her products in the store, but the famous baker that if you knew her, you knew you were loved, and that you were special, and that if you had a birthday, she would be sure to bake your favorite treat with lots of love) then let me share a little about her. She loved everyone and never met a stranger, and most importantly she loved the Lord and loved sharing about Him.
She only birthed one child, my husband, but she loved on everyone like they were her own kids. Her dream was to be a Grandma, and with my hubby getting a late start on marriage, meant she was waiting for a while. We (my hubby and I) finally met in October 2010, were engaged in July 2011, were married in May 2012, and had our first baby in March 2013. My Mother-in-love, Sandi, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer 7 weeks before our wedding, and participated in a clinical trial. She lost her hair the week of our wedding, but was blessed to find a salt and pepper wig that looked like her own hair, except shorter, so people just thought she had gotten a new haircut at our wedding. She also developed not only Bells Palsy, but bilateral Bells Palsy while she was battling her cancer. She was working at Jenny Craig still, but it was difficult for her to speak to customers like she used to because it impaired her speech, but she still tried her best. She was on disability at times, and one of those times she came out to our place to visit her new Grandbaby, Victoria (who was born 4 weeks early due to HELLP Syndrome). While she was visiting, my hubby had this amazing idea to record his mom cooking some of her famous recipes so we could share them with the kids. One of those recipes was her English Toffee. While it didn’t actually turn out that day (I think we only had unsalted butter in the house…) we are glad to have the memories to hear step by step how to do it, and we also have her handwritten paper copy so we could try to recreate it.
We tried once or twice before, and once it didn’t harden, and another time we cookied it a little too much…. (I don’t remember if we tried both with the same batch… or if it was 2 different attempts). But… this year I decided to try it again… and it finally worked!
Interestingly enough… I decided to try to make her Toffee, having no idea that The Chargers were playing football that evening. My hubby had left to exchange the artificial Christmas tree that we had bought that night, because only the bottom two sections lit up, but not the top section.
When he got home from picking up the new tree, and was watching a commentary of the game on YouTube, we got the new tree lit up in all three sections, and I got Grandma Sandi’s English Toffee to finally work… then The Chargers won! So… we definitely had some excitement that night in our house.
So, here is Grandma Sandi making her English Toffee…
And here is her recipe:
And here is our batch that finally worked.
Next time, I’ll put the butter in and let it start melting before I add the sugar…
I had added the sliced almonds here…
Keep stirring
Add broken pieces of chocolate across the top, after you have poured out and spread around your toffee, then put anotger jelly roll pan on top to keep the heat in to melt the chocolate 🍫 I had just bought those Hershey Bars with almonds from the grocery store the day before… I don’t know why they had already turned white on the corners 🤦♀️
Use a spatula to spread the melted chocolate (I used 1/2 lb, my hubby said I should use more next time) then put the other pan back on and put it in the fridge. I left it overnight.
Take it out and poke it with a butterknife to make breaks.
Taste test it with the hubby to see if it really turned out… Delish!
Break the rest up to share!
I hope you love this recipe as much as everyone else has! ❤️
For as long as I can remember, my mom always baked cookies and made a pot of Mexican Hot Chocolate every year as a treat for us to have while decorating our Christmas tree. I think my Dad and I would actually start out making the chocolate chip cookies, but after we’d had enough of the raw cookie dough, we we would let my mom bake the rest. 🙂
Here’s my mom’s recipe:
Fill a large pot a little over halfway with water, add a cinnamon stick and bring to a boil
After water is boiling, scoop 1 cup of the boiling water into a glass measuring cup and add in 2.5 Tablespoons of Baking Cocoa Powder (she uses Hershey’s) and stir so that you have a chocolate liquid.
Add chocolate liquid back into the pot of boiling water, and lower the temperature to Medium, and let it boil for 5 minutes, keep stirring.
Add 1.5 cups of granulated sugar, let it boil for 5 more minutes, keep stirring
Add a can of evaporated milk, and 1 or 2 cans of fresh milk, then let simmer for 2 minutes
Turn off the fire, stir, then use a hand mixer to whip it up (I used my immersion blender with the whisk attachment).
So I kept seeing the recipes for Yogurt in your Instant Pot, but… I didn’t have everything I needed, and the instructions looked way too complicated, so I never tried it.
Then… I saw one that said I only needed Milk and a yogurt starter (and that meant I could totally use one of the store bought yogurts in my fridge, because it just needs to have live and active cultures). So… I set out to Costco (my grocery store of choice) and was happy to pick up a 2 Gallons box of milk, because the recipe called for a gallon, but… I decided to just do half the recipe.
When we used to buy milk from the Costco in Oxnard, it would last FOREVER. They had 3 of the 1/2 Gallon Cartons in a box and they were Organic Horizon 2%, so we would get 2 or 3 boxes at a time and it would last us for months. When we moved to Visalia, they only sold a box of 2 Gallons in it, and it wasn’t Horizon, and they actually just switched Producers in the last few weeks, and it would be expiring in like a week. My kids don’t drink milk nearly as fast as they used to, and when the best buy date is like tomorrow, and we still have a spare gallon in the outside fridge, we have to buy a huge box of cereal, so my hubby can have cereal with milk for every meal, so we don’t have to throw milk away.
So, I was very excited to try the recipe so we could use half of the first gallon of milk on yogurt, and I wouldn’t have to also buy yogurt, or smoothies… I was thinking ahead. Plus, the Producers milk would be good for like 2 weeks from the date I purchased, it so I was also happy I’d have a little extra time if I didn’t get to making my yogurt right away.
So, I decided to make it on a Friday, completely forgetting we would be having an Ohm Hour that evening…
Here’s the recipe, then I’ll tell you my experience after…
Ingredients:
1/2 gallon of milk (I used whole milk, but you can use whichever milk you prefer) Just a tip, 1/2 gallon is actually 8 cups
Yogurt starter, I used 1/8 cup of a storebought yogurt with live and active cultures, or you could use 1/8 cup from a previous batch you made at home
Instructions
Sterilize your Instant Pot (IP) by adding 2 cups of water to your IP, make sure the steam release handle is closed, press the steam button, then set the timer for 1 minute. After a few minutes, your IP will come to pressure and will steam the water for one minute. After it beeps, do a quick release (I put a towel over my release handle and twist it open so the steam can escape into the towel and not get water everywhere). After all the steam is out, open the lid and dump the water out.
Pour your half gallon (8 cups) of milk into your IP. Turn the steam release handle to sealed. Press the Yogurt button, then press the Adjust button until the displays says “boil.” The IP will now boil your milk. This will take around 45 minutes, but may take a little shorter or longer., depending on how long it takes to build pressure. After the milk has boiled, your IP will beep and the display will read “yogt.”
This next step is the step that requires the most attention. After the display reads “yogt”, you need to remove the metal pot from your IP and set it on the counter, with a liquid thermometer inside so that you can see when it cools to 110 degrees F. You can speed up the cooling process by adding ice packs around the pot, and stirring your milk, but I just let it sit for an hour and it was slightly over 110 degrees so I checked 10 minutes later and it was ready.
Once your milk has cooled to about 110 degrees, you can add your yogurt starter. Slowly add your yogurt starter as you are continuously stirring, so that your starter is mixed evenly throughout your milk.
After it’s all mixed up, put your metal pot back into your IP and put the lid back on. Press the yogurt button again, then press the adjust button until it displays a number. This number is the number of hours that your yogurt will culture. You can use the “+” and “-” buttons to adjust how long you want your yogurt to culture. I planned to let mine go for 8 hours since we aren’t lactose intolerant, but you should let it culture for around 24 hours if you do have lactose issues.
After you’ve selected the number of hours, your IP will beep and then display 0:00 as that is how long it as been culturing. This timer counts up, so you’ll see how many minutes or hours it has been culturing.
When your yogurt is done culturing, your IP will beep a final time and then display “yogt.” You can now transfer your yogurt to your preferred storage containers. I put mine in meal prep containers. Store your finished yogurt in the fridge. It should keep for several weeks.
So… that’s how it should be done…. this is actually how my version looked…
I sterilized my IP, added my milk,
set my milk to boil
and walked away. I came back around an hour later and it was ready for the next step. I pulled the pot out, put in the thermometer, which actually happened to be my mother-in-loves, and I’ve only ever used it when trying to make her English Toffee… which reminds me, we should try to make it this year, and as I was trying to lean it against the side of the pot, it fell in….
so I scooped it out with a spaghetti spoon… I did get it hooked to the side,
then covered the pot with a towel while I went outside with the kids to play.
After an hour, I checked on it, and it was still a little warm, so I had Alexa set another timer for 10 more minutes. After she alerted me that my 10 minutes was up, I left the kids playing on the trampoline, listening to Grim Grinning Ghosts and ran in to get my yogurt to add to my boiled milk. I used a whisk to make sure my yogurt was completely mixed in (I used blueberry, I thought it was just plain yogurt on top, since the fruit was on the bottom, but the yogurt did come out a little blue.. oh well), then I set my IP for 8 hours. I was 5 hours later that I realized we had an Ohm hour starting in 10 minutes.
I didn’t know if I should stop the IP, and potentially ruin my first batch of yogurt, or let it run, and potentially risk my ohm hour streak… so I let the Yogurt keep culturing. I still don’t know if we ruined our streak, but we would have just been completing our 3rd hour in a row since I ruined the streak a few weeks ago when I didn’t realized our Eco mode on our Nest thermostat upstairs was set wrong…. oops! Before bed, I decided to check on the yogurt, it did look pretty creamy, but as I was scooping it into meal prep containers, it was still kinda watery…. So I did what I thought I should do… stirred it up and set it to culture overnight.
In the morning it was still looking like a hot mess, just like it did when I left it the night before. I scooped it into containers anyway and stuck it in the fridge. A couple hours later when I shook the container, it was firm. So, definitely not as watery as it was in the warm pot, but the consistency still looks a little off.
I did, however, ask the kids if they wanted to try a smoothie. I usually buy them the little drink smoothies, that they love, but this time I got to make it myself, so I knew exactly what was it in, and they LOVED them! I added some of my chunky yogurt… a whole banana (that I broke into pieces), a big strawberry, a little milk, and a couple drops of strawberry stevia, then I used my immersion blender to get it into the smoothie texture that they are used to. I poured it into little Tupperware Snack cups, that I had no idea actually could use sippee top lids on them, and gave them to the kids. They all asked for seconds, so I had to make another batch.
I can definitely get used to making my own yogurt, and getting to make whichever flavors we want by adding our own fruit or ingredients. I may mix up some honey in it tomorrow for them.
Next time, I’ll start earlier, and definitely not during an ohm hour day.
Saw this during our visit to Costco last week and it was a decent price, especially considering it was organic and grass fed beef.
So… I bought it.
Then Ryan checked the “best by date” today, that’s what he does 🤷♀️ he makes sure we try to eat food before it goes bad, but if it does happen to pass the date, he takes it upon himself to finish it, so that food does not go to waste in The Superhero Family house.
It was best by 2 days ago 🤔 so I’m guessing you know what we had for dinner tonight. 🍝
The kids ate it without complaining. I however have had better tasting pasta sauce. It wasn’t horrible, but it just wasn’t what I was looking forward to.
Will I but it again? No. Do I know how to make my own pasta sauce from scratch? No. Am I able to critique pasta sauce? Being 1/4 Italian, I believe I can.
I do hope to learn to make my own sauce from scratch someday, but for now, I’ll probably stick to the Kirkland Signature Organic Marinara sauce as I do love the flavor.
Did you know, that I didn’t know, until I was in high school, that I am 1/4 Italian? It finally made sense why Italian food is my favorite, and how I could eat lasagna for an entire week straight. 🇮🇹 And I also didn’t know that most people make their lasagna with ricotta cheese but I grew up with it being made with cottage cheese, so that’s what I use… And I am pretty sure it’s cheaper too.
I just threw together some protein balls for the kids that just earned myself the title of “The Greatest Mom in the World” from Bobby… Complete 180 from when he told me I should go live with another family a few weeks ago… and when I walked out the front door, he was not a happy boy.
I’ll be making these more often.
I was making my protein shake for lunch and I like to throw in some peanut butter powder, shredded coconut, and some cinnamon powder. Alexandria asked for some of the coconut, so I put some in her mouth, she loved it. Bobby wanted some too, so I gave him some. Then they wanted more…
So I put some in a bowl and was feeding them with a spoon. Then Alexandria took the bowl over so she could feed herself. I decided to make it a little less messy, so I added some creamy peanut butter, so it would all stick together. Then, after she finished that and wanted more, I decided to just make some protein balls so that they could pick them up and make less of a mess.
I just threw this together without measuring. Oats, Peanut Butter, Honey, Protein Shake, and Shredded Coconut (this is the one we use), and rolled them into balls, and Alexandria and Bobby loved it!
Instructions
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