I wanted to make a festive weekly treat for the kids a bit before the sugar rush of the actual holiday…so here they are, and a week early…our cookie Conversation Hearts!
You’ll want to save this sugar cookie recipes. It’s one of the best I’ve ever come up with. And the icing…let’s not even get started on the heavenly icing!!

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookie Conversation Hearts

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies
Makes 3 Dozen

Ingredients
1 c butter
3 oz (6 tbsp) cream cheese
.5 c sugar
1 egg
.25 tsp salt
1 tbs vanilla
3 c flour
Heart Shaped Cookie Cutter
Butter Icing [Below]
Script Icing [Below]

Method
Cream the butter, cream cheese & sugar in a mixer or by hand.
Add the egg, salt, & vanilla until combined.
Add the flour by the .5 cup until a soft dough forms.
Refrigerate for 2-24 hours.
Heat oven to 375.
Roll cookies on a floured surface or between parchment or waxed paper ~.25-in thick.
Cut into heart shapes.
Place onto parchment or silpat lined pans.
Bake for 7-10 minutes or until slightly brown at the edges.
Cool cookies completely.
Make Base Icing & Script Icing
Ice Cookies with Base Icing.
Allow icing to firm up for at least 30 minutes before applying Script Icing.
Apply words to your cookies with the Script Icing.
Phrases to try: LOVE, BE MINE, FRIENDS, URGR8, LOL, SAY YES, MARRY ME, SWEETHEART, FATE, KISMET, XOXO…

Butter Icing for Sugar Cookies

Ingredients
3c icing sugar
6 tbs butter, slightly softened
1 tbs vanilla extract
2+ tbs milk
gel or liquid food colouring to suit

Method
Blend the butter, sugar, milk & vanilla in a mixer, starting on low speed and moving to medium-high as the icing comes together.
Add additional bits of milk by the tablespoon until the icing just reaches a spreadable consistency.
[Optional] Divide icing into several bowls.
Add gel or liquid food colour [to each batch] to suit.
We used pink, purple, blue, and green

Script Icing [3 Options]
1) Small gel decorator icing tubes from the grocery store, or a larger tube fitted with a small circular icing tip.
2) Reserve left-over base icing, add additional icing sugar [and food colouring] if necessary to get to a pipe-able consistency.
3) Add small amounts of milk by the tablespoon to 1 or more cups of icing sugar until you achieve a thick, pipe-able consistency. Colour as desired.
Options 2 and 3 should be placed in a piping bag fitted with a very small circular tip for writing.

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Summer of Funner : The Lunchbox Season : In Defense of Burning

Welcome back to The Lunchbox Season! |
We’re looking forward to another school year full of family fun, featuring art projects, writing workshops, math craziness, canning bliss, advent calendar and march break olympics, and recipes galore.

Here’s a “weekly treat” to get things rolling.

For the first full week of school, I sought to improve upon a treat I’ve had in my bag of tricks for some time…Granola Bars. I make these at least once a month in my rotation of lunchbox treats for the kids. Then why didn’t I post them on last year’s edition of The Lunchbox Season? Well, about half of the way through the school year last year, my son started complaining that his bars were a bit crumbly and sometimes difficult to manage at his desk. So, over the course of last spring, I took my time reformulating the recipe and getting it into tip-top shape. In fact, I came up with several variations of a chewy bar that the kids absolutely loved. So, here you have it, our best ever recipe for a nut- and seed-free (i.e. school-friendly) Chewy Granola Bar.

Our Best Chewy Granola Bars, A Flexible Recipe
makes 16 bars or 32 small squares

INGREDIENTS

First, choose the Delightful or Decadent dairy-sweet combo:

Delightful
.5c unsalted butter, softened slightly
.5 c brown sugar
.5 c honey, corn syrup, molasses, rice syrup OR a 50:50 mix of any two of these

Decadent
.66c unsalted butter, softened slightly
.5 c brown sugar
.66c honey, corn syrup, molasses, rice syrup, OR a 50:50 mix of any two of these

Along with the Delightful or Decadent combos will go:
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
.5 tsp salt
[optional] 1 tsp cinnamon
[optional] .25 tsp ground ginger

Next, choose any ONE of the these flexible grain combos: The Chewy, The Luscious, or The Kookie

The Chewy
our chew-chewiest bar, with a slight bit of crumble, but nothing a kid can’t handle
.66 c quick oats, pulverized in a blender or food processor
2.33 c additional oats & 1 c rice-krispie/other puffed-type cereal OR 3.25 c additional oats

The Luscious
a chewy bar with a super-soft-baked cookie consistency
.75 c quick oats, pulverized in a blender or food processor
2.25 c additional oats & 1 c rice-krispie/other puffed-type cereal OR a very full 3 c additional oats

The Kookie
our most cookie-like but still chewy bar – the least likely to crumble
1c quick oats, pulverized in a blender or food processor
2 c additional oats & 1 c rice-krispie/other puffed-type cereal OR 1 scant c additional oats

Finally, Choose Two Cups of Mix-ins!
choose 2 c of any of the following in any ratio you choose
Chips: milk, butterscotch, dark or white chocolate chips, [we almost always use at least 1 c of some sort of chip in our bars], toffee bits, M&Ms, busted pretzels, raisins, dried currants, cranberries, cherries, or small bits of any other dried fruit, unsweetened coconut, mini-marshmallows, smashed candy canes or pretty much any other smashed candy, …go wild!

METHOD
Heat your oven to 350.
Grease a 9×13-in baking dish or pan with butter or baking spray.
If you are using a metal pan, line the bottom of the pan with greased parchment. [The bars are sliced in the pan.]
In a mixer, combine butter and sugar until extremely fluid.
For an easy pour, spray your measuring cup[s] with oil or baking spray or wipe them with your empty butter wrapper before measuring out your honey or syrup.
Incorporate honey, syrup, molasses or your preferred mix of these sticky sweets into the mix.
Incorporate eggs, vanilla, [spices], and salt.
Incorporate pulverized oats.
Incorporate additional oats and blend well.
Incorporate [additional cereal] and blend until just barely mixed.
Incorporate 2 cups of Mix-ins.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until slightly brown on the edges.
[The center of the pan may still be soft, especially with Decadent option.]
Place the pan on a wire rack.
COOL COMPLETELY in the pan before slicing.
If it’s particularly warm, or if you have a shaky hand, of if you’re just set on perfection, you may also wish to refrigerate your pan for an additional 10-15 minutes before slicing.
Slice and serve the bars or wrap and store for future consumption.
Enjoy!

The Decadent Chewy with Chocolate & Butterscotch Chips

The Delightful Kookie with Chocolate & White Chocolate Chips

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Summer of Funner : The Lunchbox Season : In Defense of Burning

This weekend,we found ourselves with two very large bunches of Kale. Having already prepared a very large drawer  full of salad greens, we thought that the best idea would be to make kale chips for the pantry. Since we had so much kale on our hands, we were able to mess around and come up with four original twists on our basic kale chip. First, read our Kale Chip Essentials for all of the basic instructions. Then,  choose from one or more of the five Flavour Profiles below: Basic, Honey Cinnamon, Garlic & Pepper, Soy Nut Sesame, & Spicy Chile Nut – and get baking! 

Kale Chip Essentials

Measuring
1 bunch of kale provides 14-16 cups of torn leaves.
Each of the flavour profiles below uses 8 cups of torn leaves and produces a large soup bowl (3-4 cups) of chips.

Preparation
To prepare the kale for baking, wash each bunch thoroughly.
Remove the green ruffly leaves from the stem and ribs. (Use the stem and ribs for compost or soup.)

Rip and tear the ruffled leaves into medium sized pieces.
Dry the kale with towels, or, preferably, use a salad spinner to dry those pieces out in large batches.

Flavouring and Baking
Mix 8 cups (half of one bunch) of torn kale leaves with one of the flavour profiles below.
Spread flavoured kale onto parchment lined pans. 2-3 pans per 8 cup batch.
Make sure kale leaves are spread out and barely touch one another. Do not overlap.
If you use more pans and spread the kale further apart, kale takes less time to cook and will not take on a burnt taste.
You can use old tin cans or raised cooling racks to stack more than one pan on top of each other on a single rack in an oven.
The thicker/more developed the flavour profile (below) the longer it will take your chips to bake.
Cool on parchment-lined pans for 10 minutes before removing to a bowl or air-tight container.

Hold the Salt!
We recommend that you do not add salt until after the chips are baked.  
Kale shrinks significantly in the oven.
What looks insignificant in terms of flavouring an 8 cup bowl of fresh kale leaves becomes quite significant when that bowl shrinks by more than half in cooking!
 
 

Flavour Profiles and Cooking Times

Plain Kale Chips
Pour 2 tbs olive oil over 8 cups of torn Kale and stir thoroughly.
Spread Kale onto 2-3 parchment lined pans
Bake 25-30 minutes at 275.
Add salt to taste.

Honey Cinnamon Kale Chips
In a Small Bowl, Mix:
3 tbs honey
2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
Drizzle this Mixture over 8 cups of torn Kale and stir thoroughly.
Spread Kale onto 2-3 parchment lined pans.
Bake 30-35 minutes at 275.

Garlic & Pepper Kale Chips
In a Small Bowl, Mix:
3 tbs olive oil
1 tbs garlic powder
1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
Drizzle the Mxiture over 8 cups of torn Kale and stir thoroughly.
Spread Kale onto 2-3 parchment lined pans.
Bake 30-35 minutes at 275.

Soy Nut Sesame Kale Chips
In a Small Bowl, Mix until thin, smooth and wet:
3 tbs natural peanut or other nut/nut-substitute butter
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
Drizzzle the Mixture over 8 cups of torn Kale and stir thoroughly.
Spread Kale onto 3 parchment lined pans.
Bake 35-45 minutes at 275.

Spicy Chile Nut Kale Chips
In a Small Bowl, Mix until thin, smooth, and wet:
3 tbs natural peanut or other nut/nut-substitute butter
2 tbs Sriracha chile sauce
2 tbs balsamic vinegar (more if the mixture is too thick)
Drizzle the Mixture over 8 cups of torn Kale and stir thoroughly.
Spread Kale onto 3 parchment lined pans.
Bake 35-45 minutes at 275.

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The Lunchbox Season : Summer of Funner : In Defense of Burning

It’s been a long time since we’ve shared one of our Weekly Lunchbox Treats!
This week, we’re adding a bit of Valentine’s flair to the mix!
The kids were enthralled by the bag of Caramel-filled Herskey’s kisses that made its way into the house last week. So, I decided to come up with a special thumbprint cookie to incorporate the rest of the bag!  Since we didn’t have quite enough kisses to finish our batch of dough, I also uncovered a bag of mini-kisses from the cupboard and used those in a heart-shaped riff on the original! After tonight’s simple Sunday supper, the kids tested them and approved!! Lunchboxes here we come!

Caramel Kissed Chocolate Thumbprints
and
Mini-Kissed Chocolate Hearts

Ingredients
1 c unsalted butter
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tbs vanilla extract
2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 - 1 c coloured sprinkles, mini chips, flaked coconut, or sanding sugar
1 bag Hershey’s Caramel Kisses, unwrapped
and/or
1 bag Hershey’s/Chipits Mini Kisses 

The Method
Heat oven to 375.
Make the Dough
Cream butter and sugar. 
Beat in eggs and vanilla.
Gradually add salt, cocoa powder and flour until dough begins to form a ball. 
If dough is too soft to work with, refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Using your hands, roll the cookie dough into 1-inch diameter spheres.
Roll the spheres in ramekins filled with coloured sprinkles, mini chips, or other delectables to coat.

For Caramel Kissed Thumbprints
Place candy coated cookie-dough spheres on parchment lined pans. 
Press your thumb in the center of each sphere.
Bake for 11-12 minutes.
Make sure to unwrap your kisses before the cookies are finished baking!!!
Remove pan from oven.
Immediately press an unwrapped Hershey’s Caramel Kiss in the center of each cookie.
Cool on wire racks.

For Mini-Kissed Hearts
Press each cookie-dough sphere between your hands to flatten to approx 1/2 in thick.
Free-form the flattened dough into a heart shape.
Use your index finger to indent each heart in 3 places.
Bake hearts on parchment lined pan for 11-12 minutes.
Remove pan from oven.
Immediately press 3 chocolate mini-kisses into each cookie.
Cool on wire racks.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S WEEK!

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The Lunchbox Season : Summer of Funner : In Defense of Burning

28 Days ‘til Christmas
No Time to Sit Around & Wait!
It’s Time to Test New Recipes
For Santa’s Cookie Plate!

This is what the kids will see on the hallway table when they come down the steps this morning:

And this is what they’ll read on the oustide of the shadowbox (my apologies for using “time” twice. I was up at little too early this morning…):

The next step will be to open the shadowbox:

and to read the brand new recipe inside:

It didn’t take long to figure out what to do on our first day of Advent. After all, we needed a new weekly lunchbox treat!  Luckily, my friend Evelyn Manangan-Price, from http://www.fromtheseed.blogspot.com had posted a “wish-I-could-eat-the-picture” photograph of a glorious batch of cookies she’d whipped up, and she was gracious enough to point to where we could find her inspiration recipe.  So, with a few additions of our own (we had “toffee bits” on hand), we had something “new” to try on this, the first day of a “new year,” according to the folks that  matter.

Below, you’ll find a plain text version of the recipe, which is an adaptation of a Cook’s Illustrated classic. You’ll notice the inclusion of a “secret ingredient” which our friend was kind enough to share with us. We didn’t ask for her permssion, though, to share it with the rest of you. So, for right now, it’s still a secret! Please note that it is not necessary to use the secret ingredient to produce absolutely fabulous cookies. It’s just an added bonus. Why not try a secret ingredient of your own? Anything you have on hand…a pinch of this, a dash of that..a crushed candycane, perhaps, or a splash of orange liquer. Or bide by my personal motto: “If your response to the dish is ‘Alack,’ add a splash or two of your best cognac!”

Chewy Chocolate Chip Toffee Bit Cookies

October 17, 2011

 A few weeks ago, I splurged on a boxed set of Star Wars themed cookie cutters at Williams Sonoma. This set of Star Wars™ Heroes & Villains Cookie Cutters includes the heads of Boba Fett, Yoda, a Stormtrooper, and Darth Vader. Ever since, the kids have been demanding cookie cut-outs in their lunches. So far, I’ve made Vanilla Yoda Cookies and Chocolate Darth Vader Cookies.

The recipes below are for no muss, no fuss cookies. As glorious as the Star Wars cookies on the Williams Sonoma website look, I was not about to make several different colours of icing and pipe them onto the load of cookies I planned to bake for the lunchboxes. Instead, I coloured the cookie dough green for Yoda, and settled for the brown of a chocolate cookie for Darth. Before baking, I topped each cookie with coloured sugar crystals to match. By eliminating the icing, and restraining yourself with the sugar crystals, you’re eliminating a goodly amount of empty calories from the kids’ lunches.

 If you’re looking for some magical inspiration for things to do with Star Wars cookies like these, I suggest you check out the special Star Wars section of Just Jenn’s fabulous website. Her Green Tea yoda cookies are sophisticated and chic (I’m planning on making them for my next ladies’ night!) I also like the way she uses these cookies and others like them as cupcake toppers – perfect for birthday parties! Moreover, her Star Wars Party ideas are fabulous: Han Solo encased in carbonite (jello) and Death Star watermelons! So, after you try these simple guys, get yourself on over to her site!

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Yoda Sugar Cookies
 makes 60+ cookies (I freeze half)

1 1/3 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tbs milk
2 tsp vanilla
several drops of green food colouring
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 cups flour
green sugar crystals/sprinkles

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 Darth Vader Chocolate Cookies
makes 50-60 cookies (I freeze half)

1 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups brown (or white) sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2/3 cup cocoa powder
black sugar crystals/sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit. Cream your butters and sugars before adding the remainder of the wet ingredients. Add food colouring to the yodas, keeping in mind that the cookies will lose some colour during the baking process – Go dark! Then, sift in the blended dry ingredients. Once the dough forms into a ball, divide it in half and wrap each half in plastic film. Freeze one half of the recipe for later use. Refrigerate the other half of the dough for an hour or so (if you can wait that long!). Roll refrigerated dough to between 1/4 and 1/8 of an inch. To make things quick and easy, I roll my dough between waxed paper sheets. Cut and press cookies, and place them on parchment lined cookie sheets. Sprinkle cookies lightly with coloured sugar sprinkles. Bake for 7-9 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

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Quick Links for Mobile Users:  The Lunchbox Season : Summer of Funner : In Defense of Burning

September 18, 2011

We’re paying homage to a favourite (unnamed) local bakery with this week’s lunchbox treat: COOKIE METEORS

Insert yourself into the little tale below.

Then, try the recipe!

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It’s the kind of treat you’d empty your pockets for. There’s this bakery downtown that sells a certain chocolate chocolate chip cookie. This cookie’s shiny. In fact, its surface glimmers. Yet, that surface is cracked, too, so that you can see the soft, brownie-like interior riddled with chocolate chunks and larger walnut pieces. You don’t even like walnuts all that much, but you’ll pay whatever you’ll have to pay for these cookies. They have this great self-service set-up at this bakery, see, where you fill your own bag with far too many cookies than you likely ought. Then, you pay by the pound. This way, when you go up to the register with your bag full to bursting, you might be absolutely gob-smacked by the price. However, you’ll be too infatuated with the idea of having one of those cookies (you’ve pretty much had your hands all over them, anyway) and too embarrassed by the sheer weight of your haul to even think of asking to put a single cookie back. They’re worth the ridiculous price, you reason. Yes, yes, they are absolutely amazing. And, you’ll go back again, too, most any day, at the drop of a hat.

Later on, when you’re not studying or working near that bakery anymore, you get the idea that you want to try and recreate this ideal cookie in your kitchen at home. You substitute cocoa powder and melted chocolate for some of the ingredients of your traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe — no luck. You make brownie batter and attempt to drop it on a pan — even worse. Then, one hot summer day, you’re sitting in the dentist’s office, about to have an x-ray of your please-just-don’t-let-them-be-rotten teeth, when you come across a picture of a shining chocolate cookie in a Christmas magazine for seniors, a magazine, unfortunately, whose name you’ve already forgotten. (Your apologies for having been so completely absorbed by the prospect of a potential “cure” that you cannot now give credit where credit is due…) This cookie, you think, looks eerily similar to the cookie you’ve been trying to knock-off with no luck for over three years. So, you grab a tooth-brush-shaped pen from the counter and jot down the recipe on the back of an advertisement for clear braces, you know, the kind you think would probably make you lisp if you wore them every day.

Stopping at the grocery store on the way home from your surprisingly stellar x-ray, you gather all of the ingredients you’re sure you’re missing back at home. And, at this point, you’re getting a little angry, too, because the sum total for a whole batch of these potential replicants, even if you’d had absolutely nothing on hand at home, seems to be about a quarter of the price of maybe two or three of those cookies you’d purchased from that favourite bakery of yours. Though, you’ve forgotten all your cares in thirty minutes, anyway, because your hair and your entire kitchen smell like melted butter and chocolate. You barely wait to let those cookies cool before you test them, too. They look just right, bright, crackling, fudgy, studded with nuts. And they taste almost…almost…So you try the recipe again (why not?) with a few tweaks of your own…and there you have it, the bakery cookie that you thought you’d never be able to recreate.

These Cookie Meteors are now your go-to cookies for almost any special occasion, and, more often than not, with a change or two, here and there, in terms of what you put into that last measuring cup of mix-ins, your favourite weekly treat.
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Cookie Meteors (nut-free for school, of course)
makes 16 large or 32 smaller cookies

1 cup chocolate chips, semi-sweet or dark
2 squares unsweetened chocolate, chopped fine
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
1.5-2 tsp vanilla
1 additional cup of semi-sweet, dark, or milk-chocolate chips or chunks
1/2-1 cup white chocolate chips or other mix-ins (chips, candies, dried fruit, etc.)*

*You can use nuts as mix-ins. too. However, don’t bring them to school or to places where you might find someone with nut allergies. Best bake on the safe side!
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• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or silpats.
• In a high-heat-friendly glass bowl set 0ver a pot of boiling water, melt the butter, the first cup of chocolate chips, and the chopped unsweetened chocolate.
• Set the bowl aside to cool for a few mintues OR transfer the melted chocolate mixture to another mixing bowl.
• Add the sugar, flour, and baking powder to the chocolate mixture, stirring until combined. The mixture will now look thick and slightly grainy.
• Stop to test that the mixture is cool enough, at this point, to add eggs without scrambling them and chocolate chips without melting them. It might be hard to leave things at this stage, but better to be careful than to have to start over.
• Once the mixture is relatively cool, add the eggs one at a time and the vanilla. The mixture will now begin to shine.
• Add your additional 1 cup of chocoalte chips and your 1/2 – 1 cup of white chocolate chips (or other mix-in).
• Using a large tablespoon, drop large dollops of the cookie dough onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet. (Use a teaspoon if you’d like to make smaller cookies.)
• Bake for 7-9 minutes, until the cookie looks shiny. It will still be soft to the touch, though. Don’t overbake!
• Carefully move the parchment or silpat of cookies onto a wire rack. Cool for as long as you can before sampling!

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Quick Links for Mobile Users The Lunchbox Season : Summer of Funner : In Defense of Burning

I guess the kids don’t like to peel their own bananas. What goes to school fresh and lively in the lunchbox comes back home bruised and blackened. Towards the middle of the week, there’s nothing left to do but cut your losses, cope, …oh, and vow never to buy bananas again. Or, maybe you’ll just want to keep using the kids’ lunchbags as veritable banana ripeners after you try our Double Batch Banana Bread (we get 1 parent-friendly and 1 kid-friendly loaf from this recipe) as well as the Elvis and Allergy Monkey versions of our Vegan Banana Ice Cream. 

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Double Batch Banana Bread
makes 1 plain-boozy loaf  & 1 mix-in loaf

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar + 1 tsp for topping a loaf
1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
7 super-ripe bananas
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or other mix-in (i.e. chips, nuts, candied ginger)
1-3+ tsp rum or other liquor/liquer (optional)

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• Heat the oven to 350 F.
• Spray two loaf pans with baking spray (or grease and flour).
• Cream butter and sugars in a mixer until light and airy. 
• With the mixer on low, add eggs and vanilla.
• Cutting the banana peels at the tips, squeeze the bananas out of the peels and directly into mixer. (You could mash them, first, in a separate bowl, but why bother?) Keep the mixer going slowly until you have incorporated all of the bananas into the the dairy and sugars. Don’t worry if there are still a few chunks. The mixer should take care of them in due time.
• With the mixer on low, add all of the dry ingredients (flours, soda, salt, and cinnamon) until incorporated.
• Using a measuring cup or ladle, fill each loaf pan equally with about 1/2 of the total mixure in the mixing bowl.
• Pour 1/2 cup of chips (or other mix-in) into one of the loaf pans.
• If you don’t want to have a second, plain loaf  (although, we guarantee, this bread is delicious without the addition of anything sourced from the LCBO!), you can pour 1-3+ tsp of liquor/liquer into your “plain” batter to make it just plain boozy!
• Divide the remaining 1/2 of the bread batter equally between the two loaf pans.
• Using a spoon or butter knife, carefully stir the mix-in-filled loaf so as to incorporate the mixins without disturbing the coating at the edges of the loaf pan.(We’re sure there’s a better way. However, when baking in bulk, we are slackers!)
• If you’re making your plain bread boozy, do the same sort of stirring with your liquer-filled loaf. (Yes, at times, we are slackers!)
• Gently tap each loaf pan on a countertop or table to distribute the batter evenly.
• Using a butter knife or toothpick, draw a line down the middle of each batter-filled loaf pan so that the bread can “breathe.” This is probably just superstitious, but it’s getting closer to Halloween…
• “For special,” as the kids would say, sprinkle the top of your plain-boozy loaf with that extra 1 tsp of brown sugar.
• Bake your loaves in the centre of the oven (or wherever the bread will fit) for approximately 55 minutes or until a knife comes ouf of the middle of each loaf fairly clean.

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Vegan Banana Ice Cream
makes 2.5 cups

Elvis Style

5 ripe bananas, peeled, sliced, and frozen
1/3+ cup peanut or other nut butter, preferably nuts-only, sugar-free, chunky or smooth
1/4 cup vegan chocolate chips (optional)

Allergy Monkey Style

5 ripe bananas, peeled, sliced, and frozen
1/3+ cup soynut butter
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes (optional)

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• Remove your frozen banana slices from the freezer. If you have a moment, you might want to bang your container or freezer bag against the table or countertop to separate the slices a bit.  You might also use a knife to separate the bananas, at least the larger chunks, from one another as the slices tend to get stuck together in the freezer.
• In a food processor or a very powerful blender, pulverize your frozen banana slices for at least two minutes. Yes, it is going to look like there’s no way in God’s green earth these frozen chunks will ever turn into something remotely resembling ice cream.
• Add your pea, soy, or alt. -nut butter to the bowl of the food processor and continue to pulverize the mixture.
• As the -nut butter begins to become incorporated with the frozen bananas, the mixture should become smooth and supple. This does, however, take a little work. Occasionally, you will want to stop the machine, remove the lid, and, using a long wooden spoon or rubber spatula, relocate some of the last remaining banana to the space near or below the blade of the processor. Be careful! Make sure the machine is turned off, if not unplugged! And, use a long wooden spoon or rubber spatula to place your bananas closer to the blade, nothing metallic! 
• If your mixture is still resisting ultimate pulverization, hang in there!! You might choose to add a bit more -nut butter to the mix to see if this loosens things up!  
• If the mixture remains chunky even after you’ve added a bit more -nut butter (this happens, sometimes, for us, for instance, when our -nut butter has been stored in the ‘fridge instead of coming fresh from the cupboard), begin adding warm water to the processor, 1 tablespoon at a time.  Be sure to pulverize for a good 30 seconds or so before you add each additional tablespoon of water.  A few tablespoons should do the trick!
• Once your mixture reaches a relatively smooth ice cream consistency, you can either place it in a bowl and stir in your chips and/or coconut with your wooden spoon, or you can add the mix-in directly to the processor. If you choose the latter option, of course, you just might end up with finer bits of chocolate or coconut in the finished product.
• Of course, any mix-ins are optional. You can go for the ”Basic, Sugar-Free Style” by simply pulverizing bananas and adding a -nut-only butter, and nothing more. You can also try the “Make it Sweeter Style” by using sugar-added butters instead of natural ones or by adding a spoonful  to about 1/4 cup full of your favourite syrup or honey. We find that buckwheat honey adds a particularly rich flavour.
• NOW EAT THIS ICE CREAM RIGHT AWAY!!!!  Neither Elvis nor the Allergy Monkey like to go back into the freezer!  

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The Lunchbox Season : Summer of Funner : In Defense of Burning

September 10-11, 2011

This weekend, we used Paint, Pencil, and Chalk to transform the front porch floor into a virtual blackboard and to begin the design work for a logo to use on all of our canned goods. We also baked Block Party Brownies for a Saturday night street party and Go Big or Go Home Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies for our weekly lunchbox treat.

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Paint, Pencil, and Chalk

Our porch floor has long been in need of a makeover. The cracked evergreen paint is on its way out. And, I’ve been dying to paint it black, not so much so as to have a sleek,crisp exterior look (I mean, how long will that last?), as to have a giant blackboard for chalk drawings, chess boards, and long divison. (Think Summer of Funner 2012!)

This weekend, I finally got down to business. On Friday night, while the kids were decompressing with papa on the couch after their first week of school, I did all of the necessary prep work, i.e. furniture removal, sweeping, mopping, securing loose steps with a few wood screws, and electric sanding. Turns out I’m a natural with the hand-held sander! This way, I was able to get up at “o’dark-hundred” on Saturday morning and get to work. The morning was clear and cool, and the hardware-store brand 2-in-1 primer and paint I chose made for an easy, economical job. I finished two coats before lunch!

Meanwhile, on Saturday morning, the kids spent some time making pencil sketches for the logos that we would like to use to label our canned goods and our holiday baking. (See The Day in Condiments for some of our culinary wizardry). When we were shopping for school supplies, we found some circular, linen-coloured Avery labels that are just the right size for the standard lids of our canning jars. Yippee! And the kids wanted to leave their fingerprint on them, so to speak. Here are a few of their sketches so far….I call them Horse and Dillo.

We’ll likely get back to this canning-label task next weekend. Although, I think that the next stage of sketching for our logos will have to take place on this all-too tidy porch, and in brightly coloured chalk!

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Block Party Brownies Go Down Well With Beer

On Saturday night, we went to our annual summer block party. I had heard through the grapevine that the local Steam Whistle Brewery truck would be stopping over with a birthday keg for one of our hosts. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of anything more perfect than a chewy chocolate chip-filled brownie to complement an ice cold Steam Whistle. (The kids adore the brownies, too.) Here’s our adaptation of a recent Cook’s Illustrated recipe (March/April 2010) which we’ve altered to our taste (less oil and less fuss about the chips and the cooling process) and re-christened the Block Party Brownie.

Block Party Brownies
makes 24

1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup boiling water
2 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
4 tbs unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 additional egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (or a mix of semi-sweet, white, &/0r butterscotch chips)

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• Preheat oven to 350 with the rack in the lowest position
• Line a 9×13 pan with two layers of tin foil, with one set of long edges hanging out over the 9-in sides so that you can easily remove the brownie from the pan
• Spray foil lined pan with baking spray
• Whisk cocoa powder and boiling water until smooth
• Add chopped unsweetened chocolate until melted and smooth
• Add melted butter, oil, eggs and egg yolks and whisk again
• Whisk in sugar and vanilla
• Using a spatula, add flour and salt to this bowl of chocolate glory
• Add chips and fold gently
• Pour batter evenly into pan
• Bake for 35 minutes or until knife comes out relatively clean – don’t be fooled by the melting chips!
• Lift the brownie from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.
• [Optional: with a long knife, remove the crispy 1/4 inch around the edge and reserve for ice cream topping or toasting as biscotti. I think I must be the only person in the world who does not like crispy edges on a chewy brownie...but who knows?]
• Slice brownie into squares.

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Packed: Go Big or Go Home Cookies

I’m not a very patient baker. I’d much rather make a sheet cookie or a plate of bars than deal with the hassle of preparing and baking dozens of batches of drop cookies. And with kids “helping,” the desire to reach the finish-line goes into hyperdrive…Still, you can’t beat the taste of a good drop cookie. So, this week, we thought we’d supersize the simple oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe I had long-ago written down on a scrap of paper – likely cribbed from one of my mother-in-law’s cookbooks. Here’s what we’re packing in our lunches this week…

Go Big or Go Home Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 20

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups rolled oats

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• Heat oven to 375.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat butter until smooth.
• Add sugars, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon, beating until combined.
• Beat in eggs and vanilla.
• Beat in flour
• Beat or stir in rolled oats.
• Drop dough with a giant spoon onto parchment lined baking sheets. The portion should be somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball. Flatten the ball out a bit with the back of the spoon.
• Bake for 12-14 minutes until the edges are a lovely golden colour.
• Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container.

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]]> http://thelunchboxseason.com/2011/09/12/paint-party-pack/feed/ 2 roseye Glowing Chalk Porch Before Front steps After Logo Horse Logo Dillo porch black Chewy Brownies For a Crowd gobigorgohomecookie http://thelunchboxseason.com/2011/09/06/fruit-leather-101/ http://thelunchboxseason.com/2011/09/06/fruit-leather-101/#comments Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:51:35 +0000 Roseanne Carrara http://thelunchboxseason.wordpress.com/?p=16 ]]> September 6, 2011

We just couldn’t begin The Lunchbox Season without an experiment in the kitchen!

Welcome to FRUIT LEATHER 101!

I try to put something homemade into our school lunches each week. Over the long weekend, I looked into the possibility of making oven-dried “fruit leather,” that is, the natural, low sugar, corn-syrup-free version of the prepackaged “roll-up” or “fruit by the …meter” you find at the grocery store. After all, these pre-packaged goods are just knock-offs of the hippy “leathers” we used to find in “health food stores” when we were kids, aren’t they?

 
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INGREDIENTS

4 cups skinned, sliced fruit and/or berries and/or applesauce
1/3 cup honey
Juice of 1 lemon
Baking Spray
Water

EQUIPMENT

Parchment Paper
9×13 Rimmed Cookie Sheet or Jelly Roll Pan
Medium Saucepan
Spatula
Immersion Blender, Traditional Blender, or Food Processor
Pastry Brush
Knife, Pizza Cutter or Cookie Cutters

PREP TIME

20 minutes food preparation
10 minutes attending
6-12 hours unattended baking

MAKES

12 1.5 x 6.5in leathers

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INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat your oven to 150 degrees Farenheit. If your oven only sets to a higher temperature (170-200), you can leave the oven cracked open during the cooking process.

Simmer the fruit,* lemon juice and honey in a pot for about 5-10 minutes (for berries), 15+ minutes if you are using firm fruits like apples, bringing the fruit to a soft enough state in which it can be pulverized.

*If you’re using a fruit with seeds/crunchy bits that you don’t want in your leather, heat these ingredients first and pass them through a sieve before adding the rest of the fruit, lemon juice and honey

Using your immersion blender or another kitchen gadget, pulverize the mixture.

Place parchment paper over your rimmed baking sheet (including the raised edges — you’ll have to do some folding) and spray with baking spray.

Pour your pulverized fruit mixture into the pan until you have about 1/8-1/4 inch even throughout.

Place your tray into the oven for 6-12 hours. (If you must leave the oven door open to lower the temperature, this may take even longer.) After the four-hour point, begin checking hourly for that classic “fruit leather” consistency. After about 5 hours, or when the top of the mixture has become somewhat tacky, invert your leather onto an additional piece of parchment paper, put it back in the pan, and heat with the reverse side up for the duration.

Once you can touch the leather and peel it off of the paper without it ripping or wobbling too much, you know it’s ready. If any of the leather edges get brittle during the dehydration process, you can use a pastry brush to paint them with a bit of water.

Slice your leather into rectangular strips or into the shapes of your choosing and serve. Be sure to wrap and seal these leathers for storage or they will get moldy.

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ASSESSMENT

Ingredients?
I started out with six cups of fruit (3 each sliced strawberries and fresh blueberries) and 1/2 c of honey for my recipe, but I had far too much fluid for my 9×13 cooking sheet. (I used the excess as a fruit sauce for scones! Yum!). 4 cups of fruit and 1/3 c honey will certainly be sufficient.

Equipment?
Most fruit leather recipes I’ve read call for the use of plastic wrap as a pan liner instead of the parchment I call for here. When I made these at home, I did use plastic wrap for the first 5 hours of cooking time. Then, when the top of the leather seemed to be quite firm, I flipped the whole thing over onto a piece or parchment for the duration of the cooking cycle. I will omit the plastic wrap and use only parchment paper next time around, which is why I don’t call for plastic wrap in my instructions, above.

The Process?
It took 10 hours for my fruit leather to become fully dehydrated. The edges, particularly on one side of the pan, were too dry/hard at one point. (This proves that our oven is not level!) Still, I had to keep the leather in the oven so that the rest became dry enough to serve. To return the brittle edges to a softer state or to prevent them from drying out in the oven at all, use a pastry brush to coat the thinner/dry bits or edges with water. You can do this at any stage of the cooking process.

Time?
It doesn’t take long to throw all of these ingredients together and get them in the baking tray. 15-30 minutes, tops. However, the cooking process takes quite a long time, making the oven “unavailable” through at least two of three family meals if completed during the daytime. I will make this overnight next time, brushing the dry edges with water towards the end of the cooking process if need be.

Presentation?
The leathers themselves are glossy, shiny and beautiful. However, I did not find a pretty way to wrap these leathers by the time they came out of the oven (ie past my bedtime!). I placed each leather on a strip of parchment, rolled it up, and wrapped this roll in plastic wrap. I’ll find a prettier alternative next time around.

Taste?
Fantastic! Not too sweet, just berry-licious!

Will We Make These Again?
Yes, most definitely.

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