Sandwich Rolls

I was looking at some cooking blogs (I love cooking blogs) and I came across a fun thing to do with pancakes. They were called 'Rainbow Pancakes'. My kids were immediately hooked on that idea. Sundays after church is usually when our family enjoys a huge breakfast. More often than not it's pancakes and a sausage-egg scramble. This past Sunday they requested none other than 'Rainbow Pancakes'. It turns out that I am running extremely low on food coloring so for the color orange I make pumpkin pancakes. I only had two drops of yellow left, not enough really but it did turn the pancake into a deeper off-white.

The other two colors were blue and green. As is custom in our family, we added chocolate chips. The kids had as much fun making the pancakes as they do eating them. Next time I will have all colors on hand and have truly rainbow pancakes.

(This way does dirty alot more dishes.)Tonight for dinner we are having BBQ shredded pork sandwiches. I like to make my own sandwich rolls, they just taste so much better. I asked James if he wanted to help again ( since all the other kids were in school ). He is happy and willing, I love it!

He loves using the beaters.

He didn't want to mix the flour into the dough, "too messy" he says. He wanted to wait until I "had it in a ball". Then I let him try kneading it. I let him do it as long as he wants.


I set aside the dough to rise and by the time it was finished the other kids had come home from school and Rachel wanted to have a turn to help.

She greasing the cookie sheet so our sandwich rolls don't stick.


Now she is shaping the dough in to two-inch balls. She loves to do this part. Anytime I have to shape dough for something, she is there.

This was our dinner tonight. I steamed the broccoli in our food steamer that we have had since my husband and I got married 11 1/2 years ago.

The sandwich rolls turned out pretty good, as did the BBQ pork.

I

Traditional Pumpkin Pie

I know, I know, it's been so long since my last post. It's a challenge getting the kids to cook with me when there is so much other things they need to do. For example; homework. They are doing homework while I am cooking dinner. And sometimes my kitchen isn't as clean as I want it to be, so I don't want to take pictures in my messy kitchen.

My 4-year-old is going to have to do most of the cooking for this blog since he is the one at home and has all the time.

My 10-year-old came home with this pie crust that she made all by herself at an activity in our church. She requested Pumpkin Pie, her favorite pie.

I followed a "FAMOUS PUMPKIN PIE" recipe. I like simple. James only agreed to make the pie filling as long as I didn't make him take a bite when it was done.

He has already combined the sugar and spices in a seperate bowl.

In a bigger, mixer bowl, he broke two eggs all by himself. The first he basically crushed and we only had to scoop out two, small pieces of shell. I coached him through the second and he did perfect.

I think adding the pumpkin was his favorite part. I liked it, too. It took him so long that I had enough time to roll out and braid one french bread dough loaf and set it aside to rise.

Now it's time to add the sugar and spices mixture.

It's time for the canned milk.

Kids cooking does not come without messes. There are plenty of those. But that's okay, they can learn how to clean them up, right?

That filling looks so delicious. I did give him a hand with pouring, I didn't want to take any chances with this yummy filling.

And here we are! Baked, and already sampled. Well, sampled much later after I set it outside to cool off. My husband and I ate the first slices. The kids were in the dungeon (downstairs playroom) watching Looney Tunes.

James did such a good job on this pie. It was so good I had a half a slice more. I am getting hungry for another piece just sitting here blogging about it. But I can't or I won't be able to stop at just one piece. And Emma is expecting another piece when she gets home from school.

Swiss Caribou

My little helpers.

I am so grateful that Rachel and James love to help me in the kitchen.

Tonight they are helping me with Swiss Caribou, a new twist on the classic 'Swiss Steak'.

We start out by chopping up one zucchini and one yellow summer squash.

To be able to quickly prepare this dish at supper time, I cooked the caribou roast in a slow cooker, let cool and then the kids cut it up into bite-sized pieces.
Set the meat aside. Heat up some olive oil and saute the zucchini and squash.

I sliced up the sweet onion (Walla Walla or Vidalia) and the kids put it into to skillet.

For added color I sliced up a few carrots from our garden and put them in with the veges. Rachel stirred a little bit.

After the onions, carrots and squashes are tender, we add 1 can of stewed tomatoes and 1 can tomato sauce. James worked hard to open a can all by himself.

Then they added the chopped caribou.

While the meat and vege mixture is heating up on a low setting, James helps to prepare the noodles. He loves helping to add noodles to hot water.

Here is the end result. I think this dish is yummy. It's one of my favorite dinners. Even though James and Rachel helped make the dinner, they weren't happy about having to eat onions and squash. I insisted that they atleast give it a try. They ended up eating quite a bit of what was on their plate.

Smoked Red Salmon Bellies

Every summer my husband commercial fishes Red Sockeye Salmon and brings some home for us to enjoy. Before filleting the fish he slices off the bellies and we smoke the bellies. The belly of the salmon is the fattiest part of the fish and is so, so delicious smoked or not.

The Brine:

2 qts of water

1c sugar

1c Salt

1/2c brown sugar

A sprinkle or two of Liquid SmokeBellies in the brine. Place a plate on top of the bellies to help them stay in the brine. Place a lid on the bowl and put it in the fridge for 1 hour or more. Depending on how stong you want the flavor to be. I put our fish in no longer than 2 hours because we like a mild flavor.

After 2 hours I took the fish out of the fridge, rinsed off each belly and placed them on the smoker racks and pat them dry with a paper towel. I let them sit for one hour.

It doesn't take that long to smoke. In 1 hour, on a low-high, they are cooked. If you like a dryer smoked salmon let it smoke longer. We like it moist so 1 maybe 2 hours at most. King salmon bellies take a little longer than 1 hour.

Smoked Sockeye Bellies are done. A couple get eaten right away and the rest get vacuumed packed and placed in the freezer. In our family, everyone but James will eat smoked salmon. He's out numbered, he might as well change his mind.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam

Not a recipe but it's still cooking.

I had the kids practice their cutting skills with rhubarb from our own yard. They love to help cut and they do such a good job. They are always reminded to be careful and do fantastic.Then they took turns with the chopper.

James stayed with the cutting and chopping until all the rhubarb was done. Good man.
I took care of the rest. Hot, boiling fruit is better left to mom.

It's the first time I have made strawberry-rhubarb jam and I can't wait to try it.

Ramen James

James asked me if he could have noodles for lunch and I said, "Yes." I told him I would make it.

I must have taken too long because he started making them himself. He made two packages of Ramen noodles all by himself. He got the pan out of the cabinet, filled it with water, put it on the stove and turned on the burner, all by himself. He cut open the packages and put the noodles in the not-yet-boiled water. He cut

open the seasoning packets and dumped them in. He waited until the water boiled and I served the noodles.

Here he is enjoying his noodles. Here is what my stove top looked like when he was done.

Clafoutis (Kla-Foo-Tee) with Peaches

I know, it has been a long time since the last recipe. I have been out of town, then there was the last week of school and that has kept us all very busy.

My daughter, Rachel, found this recipe in an issue of the LDS Friend magazine and she wanted to try it.

In a blender....

...add four eggs and....
...two cups of milk.
She couldn't help but look at the camera while I snapped a picture.

Add 1/3 cup flour....

.....and 1/3 cup sugar.


1/4 teaspoon salt..

...and 1 teaspoon vanilla or Almond extract (which I think would have been better)

Blend together for 30 seconds.

I can't remember where I put the lid to the blender. It'll show up one day.

Pour into a pie dish. I coated the dish with a nonstick spray first even though it wasn't mentioned in the directions.

Rachel puts in the peaches. We are using canned peaches because that is what we have on hand. You can also use strawberries, blueberrie, and kind of berry.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until it doesn't jiggle.

I think with this recipe I would do a few things different. I would add a little more flour; maybe take it up to half a cup. Try a different fruit and have whipped cream to spray on top.

I thought it was good but not great. I will try it again some day with the changes.

PW's Creamy Lemon Crumb Squares

This is the second time I have done this post. Yesterday I spent an hour and a half loading pictures, making sure they are in the right order, and then typing the text to go along with each picture. I previewed the post to make sure everything was spelled correctly and I was very happy with the result. I published the post to the blog. But when I went to view the blog, right away I realized........it's the wrong blog!!!

All that time and effort; I was not happy any more. So here I am, starting all over again. This time I made sure it was the right blog.

Rachel is helping me with this recipe. She is happy to help me. I guess when we're making dessert any of the kids would be happy to help me.

She starts with 1 stick of slightly softened butter and 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar.

We take turns mixing them together.--
In a seperate bowl, Rachel sifted together 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp baking powder.

She adds 1 cup oats to the butter and brown sugar....

...and stirs to combine.

Next comes the sifted flour mixture. The recipe says to add the oats and flour together, then stir. But I decided it would be easier for her to stir with one at a time.

This is the fun part for kids, I think. Mixing with the hands. (Clean hands.)

By mixing with her hands, she was able to distribute everything more evenly.

Once the mixture is well combined, I put half in a 13x9 baking dish. The recipe calls for a slightly smaller pan, 11x8, but I don't have one that size. We both press down the mixture.

Nest comes the "creamy lemon" part.

In a bowl, mix together 1 (14 oz.) can of sweetened condensed milk, 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice and..............

.........the zest of one lemon.

That was no easy task for Rachel. She tried and tried but only managed a little bit of zest.

Scott wanted to give it a try.

He produced more zest but Rachel, not willing to give up, wanted to try again. She got better results for sure but I ended up taking over to finish.

I poured the lemon mixture on the first layer and carefully spread it around. Rachel and I used our hands to sprinkle the remaining crumbs over the lemon mixture. Bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Now, the recipe directions say to cool for 30 minutes after baking, then cut into squares and refrigerate for a couple of hours or until cool. However I did not wait that long. It was already 8:30 on a school night so we went ahead and served it hot. It does hold together better when its cool but it tastes good either way. My husband added whipped cream to his so of course the kids had to have some too.





Rachel is very pleased with her dessert. I thought it tasted good and the kids liked it too but I think they prefer cookies, cakes or ice cream. It was fun to try.