Baking Friday: Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Today for baking Friday we did a Chocolate Sandwich Cookie. The recipe wasn't pretty, but I think we finally got there. It wasn't gf to start.

 

 

 

Then the dough was sticky so we pounded them out by hand and cut them out that way.

 

 

Frosting time. We tried to use natural dye, but apparently after a few years it doesn't work anymore?

 

 

Tucker Frosted his tongue

 

 

Nummer

 

 

This plate is now gone.

 

 

Nummer!

 

 

My Brother can bake? who know?

 

Allergy Free Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
By Marcie Dingerson

1 Cup Palm Shortening
1 Cup Organic Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla

Cream together and add

1 teaspoon Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt
1 Cup Brown Rice Flour
1 Cup Tapioca Flour
1/2 Cup cocoa

Mix, might have to add some applesauce to glue it together. I used a bit too much glue and had to add in some tapioca flour. So play. Bake at 300 degrees for 20 minutes.

Filling

2 1/2 Cups Confectioners' Sugar
1/2 Cup Palm Shortening
Pinch of Salt
1 Teaspoon Vanilla

Mix and then add water until it's frosting. I didn't have to add much.

Then fill cookies and put them together. Or do what Tucker did and just tasted the frosting?

Pumpkins

 

 

We picked the front yard pumpkins. 48 total. All small-ish size. We will start to can these and then pull the back yard pumpkins. Stay tuned for those. 

Chocolate Swirl Bark

Sadly this is the best photo I could take. It's hard to take a picture of something like this. But tell ya it's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. I came across this blog post and just know I had to make it. So I used it on Cooking Friday.

Today alone has been very interesting. As I had to run to the store this morning for chocolate. We invited neighbor girl over to cook with us. Well she goes to a "public" school. But Friday's are half days. (really don't understand this) So asked her about her day. A walk-a-thon and a dance. Huh? Did you do any school work? No. Head spinning, eye rolling me going HUH? Well ok. Not judging. I can't see sending my child to school for that? OH and they were handing out boyfriends at the dance. Asked her if she got one. She said no. I said good, you don't need one!

But anywho the kids had a blast making this. A great way to teach Ethan between Tablespoon and Teaspoon, and me getting an OHHHHHH. Well at the store today Ethan scored some of his own measuring cups and spoons. But moms way of cooking is getting a spoon out and dumping, I don't measure, so explained to him why I grab a certain spoon to do my dumping. OHHHHH.

So in a matter of time two pans of bark were done and into the freezer. Neighbor girl came back after chores and tried the bark. Then took some over to her family who totally enjoyed it. She then came back and the kids had bark here and played until bedtime.

The recipe is here I didn't change a thing. Check out her blog, AMAZING.

So Ethan did two recipes for Cook With Me Friday....Score!

Let's Talk Bread

So I got a new bread pan used Swagbucks to pay for it. And I finally got around to using it today. I used it as part of cooking Friday. So Ethan got to make the bread. We used this recipe and honestly I was disappointed. Not in the recipe, but the outcome of the bread and the pan.

 

But WAIT! What if I doubled the recipe? So since everything was out and the pans were still dirty, let's double and do it again. Funny how fast Ethan picked things up. He has yeast going in no time.  

 

 

 

Then dumping it into the mixer.

 

 

Then our flour mix.

 

 

Here is the outcome of both breads. Much better doubleing it.

 

 

OH so much better. But wait, is is slice-able?

 

 

YEP! And now I have a winner. I have a great recipe and a great pan that can hold a rise. Grilled cheese sandwiches tomorrow!

 

I used this awesome recipe

My bread flour mix is

1 Cup Brown Rice
1 1/2 Cups Tapioca Flour
1/2 Sorghum Flour
1/4 cup Pea Protein (I use split yellow peas and grind them up myself)

To make the big bread I doubled the recipe.

Canning Carrots

So today we dove into the first carrot bed. We are doing half this bed today and half tomorrow. Then next weekend do the same thing with the second carrot bed.

 

 

 

Ethan and daddy were out pulling carrots, cutting off tops, and washing and bringing them in.

 

 

Tucker was in with me, peeling, slicing and jarring.

 

 

Our carrots this year are AMAZING. We doubled up the bed to just give them room to go. And go they did.

 

 

No idea what happened here.

 

Today we canned 41 quarts of carrots. 

You know it's the end of the season when

You have buckets of onions everywhere.

 

 

Tomatoes everywhere.

 

 

Clean empty jars hiding everywhere.

 

 

And full jars lining your hallway.

 

 

And more full jars lining the rest of your hallway.

 

 

We start carrots tomorrow, wish us luck. 

Medical Bills, Mortgage and ARGGGGGGG

 

So we postponed the Mortgage Challenge to pay for the medical bills that started to pour in. In doing so we had enough to pay off the hospital bill when it came in. And we will have the first payment for the arm doctor.

 

BUT then I have this nagging feeling. And after some thought, I need to get back to paying down the mortgage. Well the arm doctor will take monthly payments. So I think after I put down the first down payment, I will go to monthly payments. We can't go full force back into Mortgage, if anything maybe just 50 a week, as I will have to save 25 a week for medical. In doing this it might take up to 10 months to pay off the arm doctor. But another thought is to use the tax return to pay them off and full force back into mortgage.

 

BUT Christmas is coming. OY. BUT I'm a frugal master. Because I started shopping weeks ago. Yep. Because now is the time to get DS games. My boys don't care if they are brand new in box. I've been paying about 4 dollars including shipping. I watch books and when they drop I buy. I'm watching a few Lego's now, but might have to buy those local and coupon those out.

 

It will be a light Christmas. The boys understand that. I've been teaching my kids it's not about stuff. They are grateful Cole has an arm and it's healing. They also want to see the house paid off and we had a very enlightening talk at dinner the other day and what we could cut and send that money to pay off the Mortgage.

 

Mortgage is sitting at 123,500.

 



Mushrooms!

 

 

Aren't they lovely? So in love....My two newest mushrooms. Love having stuff handmade verses store bought that doesn't last longer then a year. Been saving all summer for these. Hoping one day to get a few more. But only time will tell.....Right now I'm in love. 

Stuff

 

We had ten tons of rain here. Enough rain for flood warnings and everything. So I wasn't in the garden for a few days. And boy did it show. I picked a counter full of tomatoes.

 

 

 

And a table full. Off to the side you see a few cucumbers. I found those without looking. So this morning we dug out all the crockpots. And filled all four with tomatoes. One for tomato sauce, and three aimed for ketchup.

 

 

Then this morning I went out to work in the front yard garden. Thought I would start with pulling the eggplant because it has done NOTHING. Well except it has ten babies hanging off of it. Are you freaking kidding me? So I let it be and worked on the strawberries.

 

 

The front yard pumpkin patch. Last count was 26, but since then we've had at least two babies, maybe more. Who knows.

 

Tomorrow we start to pull leeks. We only have hundreds to pull. I have three beds ready to be cleaned out. So work on those, well trying hard to keep up with the tomatoes. They are coming in fast and furious now. 

Cooking Friday Chocolate Cake

So part of Home Schooling this year is baking/cooking. I'm really focusing on Ethan. So every Friday we will be in the kitchen baking or cooking something. First up Chocolate Cake.

 

 

 

The cake didn't stand a chance. At the moment there is half a cake left. It will be gone tomorrow. Neighbor girl saw the cake and had snack with the boys. I don't think wild horses could have dragged her away from the cake.

 

And every Monday someone will be writing out the recipe and making a recipe book.

 

This came out of the Divvies Cookbook Here I actually really like this book, it's not gf, but I have been able to use a brown rice and tapioca flour mix just fine. This is the chocolate cupcakes. Just in cake form, baked at 350 for 30 minutes. One recipe per one pan. So we made the recipe twice.