Make it Monday!

This past Friday, I taught our girls (and a friend) how to make tortillas! We're using the Portraits of American Girlhood curriculum for our 4th grade school year and it is SO much fun! Currently we're studying Josefina who lived in New Mexico before it was a part of the US in 1824. Since I have Mexican and Spanish blood in me, all the cooking and food lessons got to be my job for this one! It's exciting!!!

Here's Layla (Sonya's Girly), Zoe (My Girly) and their friend with their first home made tortillas!!!

My little Miss-Moody-Moody-Attitudey looks SO happy, doesn't she?!?!

We started by mixing together about 6 cups of flour (unbleached all purpose), 1/2 cup vegetable shortening, almost 1/4 cup of baking powder, some salt and warm water added one tablespoon at a time.

Don't even bother with a spoon... just get in their with your hands. It's really important that you add the WARM water only one tablespoon at a time. If you add too much, you end up with yuck. If you add too little, you can always add more!! You basically want it to be like slightly dried out play dough. Soft and pliable, but not overly sticky.


The munchkins can't efficiently mix it all the way, so I had to get in there and help. I'd advise you to keep one hand clean and firmly holding the bowl at all times!! 

Now here's where I don't have a lot of pictures... my hands were covered in tortilla dough!

At this point, you want to roll your dough into 1-2 inch balls and set aside. I usually stack them in another bowl. If they sit too long and dry out, add a splash of water and knead it in your hands for a minute.

Next you'll roll out your balls on a lightly floured surface one at a time. I use a piece of heavy duty pipe (some sort of metal) which is also what my mom, grandma and great grandma used. They're never perfectly round because well... I'm not a machine! I'm an imperfect human being! Even my little guy got in on the tortilla rolling action. He made a happy tortilla :)

Once they are rolled out, you will cook them. I cook mine on a cast iron tortilla grille. Using a clean kitchen towel, press and turn until slightly browned. Pull it to the edge with the towel and flip so you can cook the other side. Here is Grammy Sandee-Mom (as my kids call her or Grammy to Layla) demonstrating!!

ENJOY!!!!

Another option is to make Sopapillas!! Once you've rolled your torts, cut them into quarters and fry in hot oil. Flip part way through, drain on paper towels or in a paper grocery bag, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon! We enjoyed ours with Abuelita Chocolate Syrup and Honey!!! Here are our girlies enjoying their sopapillas! We hope you enjoy yours!!

~Alicia

Salted Caramel Mocha Cupcakes!!!!

In our last post I told you a little bit about a recipe for Salted Caramel Mocha Cupcakes that I had found which inspired me to alter some recipes I have and make my own cupcakes from scratch instead of an altered boxed mix!!

Here's what I started with!!

Salt, cocoa powder, caramels and coffee!!! I don't drink instant coffee... I just use it for my chocolate cake recipe, so I just get the cheap stuff. Works the same!


Here we go! Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and line a muffin tin (or in my case, my muffin stone) with paper bake cups.

I know my stone is ugly... but ugly stoneware is loved and well used stoneware!!!

Next in a large bowl, combine:


3 cups all-purpose flour (I used unbleached)
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. table salt (I used iodized sea salt)

Mix with a wire whisk.

In a large measuring cup (I use a 4 cup glass measuring cup) combine the following:

2 cups of HOT water
3/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
4 Tbsp. instant coffee granules (5 or 6 will give you a stronger coffee flavor)
2 Tbsp. distilled white vinegar (YES vinegar!!!)
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract (YES a WHOLE tablespoon!!!)

No need to stir this, just put it all in the measuring cup. I forgot to take a picture of this step! Please, forgive me!!

Next, pour the ingredients from the measuring cup into the dry ingredients and combine with the whisk. Trust me - the whisk is enough, no need for a spoon.

Fill your cupcake liners about 3/4 full with this yummy nummy batter (which is OK to snack on! No eggs = no salmonella!!)!

Bake for 20-25 minutes! Make sure to bungee shut the oven! Oh wait... that's just at my house! See!!

Long story short... my oven is old and has a broken spring! If I don't bungee it, the kitchen gets HOT and the gas runs NON stop!!

While you are waiting for the cupcakes to bake, unwrap your caramels and place them in a bowl until needed. Also pour a couple teaspoons of coarse Kosher salt into a small bowl.

Now it's time for frosting!! This is an altered butter cream recipe. It is good!!! I fire up the Kitchenaid for this one!!

In a mixer (or large bowl and use a hand mixer) combine:

1 cup vegetable shortening
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
1 pound powdered sugar
1 T. Meringue powder (found at Joann and Michaels with the cake stuff)
10 tsp water added one at a time

This is pretty simple, put everything but the water in the mixer (or bowl), turn it on. I use the "2" setting on my mixer. You want it high enough to mix it, but not so high that it throws the powdered sugar out. Add the water one teaspoon at a time. I used 10 tsp, use more or less depending on the humidity. You want it slightly firm and you'll see why later!!

Cupcakes are done! Pull them out of the oven. Let them cool in the pan for 5ish minutes.

Aren't they beautiful?!?!

Now move them to a cooling rack to cool for another 10-15 minutes. At this point you can put your next batch in the oven!

Next you're going to scoop out a small amount from the top of the cupcake, put in a caramel, sprinkle with some of the coarse kosher salt then replace the top pressing down. It won't be completely flat.

I did this while they were still slightly warm which made the caramels melt a little bit!! YUM!

Now it's time for the frosting!! You can just spread it on. I used my fun gun thingey!! It's kinda like a pastry bag, but without the bag.

If you do it this way, make sure you swirl from the outside in!!

Next you add a drizzle of caramel sauce (I just used an ice cream topping that was in my fridge!), a sprinkle of salt and I topped mine off with a few chocolate covered coffee beans!!!

DE-LISH!!!  I really liked the mild coffee flavor of the cake!! Using a caramel candy instead of caramel topping made this easier to eat... I didn't have caramel oozing all over my hands. It was still messy, but not as bad as it could have been! I did the vanilla frosting since it reminded me of the whipped cream that Starbucks puts on their Salted Caramel Mocha Frap! To make the coffee beans, I just melted down a few milk chocolate candy melts (Wilton makes them, I got them in a bulk bin from a local grocery store), threw in some of my own Dunkin Doughnuts coffee beans and put them in clumps of 3 on wax paper to dry. Good stuff!!!

If you try this, please share with us what you thought!! I've only made them this one time but I am SO excited about them and could not wait to share!! And please - share our blog with your friends!!!

Have a great rest of your weekend!!!

~Alicia

Coming soon...

Hi Friends!
  With getting into the swing of the new school year we've neglected you!! Sorry about that!

We do have a couple of FUN things coming up to tell you about!! Today we made some Tortillas and Sopapillas from scratch! Pictures and such will be up soon!!

The thing I'm most excited about... Salted Caramel Mocha Cupcakes!!! I saw a recipe on Pinterest, but it was basically brownie mix with some instant coffee and a caramel hershey kiss shoved inside once it was done cooking. I'm all about doing things from scratch and I've got an amazing idea! Once I have it perfected, I'll post step by step photos with a full recipe and instructions!!!

I LOVE experimenting with baking, though I usually get my inspiration from others! Is there something weird you'd like to see me try and make?! Let me know! I have a husband and 2 kids who LOVE to taste test as much as I love to bake!!

~Alicia

"Just Tivo It!"

This weekend while spending some time a friend I was talking to her about how we watch the few TV shows we like to watch - we hook one of the laptops up to the TV with cables of some sort or another. Her 10 year old daughter was right there as we were talking and asked why I couldn't just watch it while it's on.

"We don't have cable TV, and our antenna doesn't work."

"So can't you just Tivo it?!"

"No, we don't have a Tivo because usually a DVR requires a cable TV subscription."

"You don't have TV?!"

This young girl (whom I adore, by the way) was floored that we don't have cable TV! My kids are no longer phased by it. We've been without it for over a year and a half now. We have Netflix so they can still watch some of the stuff they like and we rent movies (for free!! hehe!!) at the Blockbuster Express boxes (Blue Box!) every once in a while.

It really got me thinking... this generation, these kids that we are raising are SO used to instant gratification. We have cell phones that do things that I never imagined as a kid! I'm not that old, but I am in my early 30's and if I'm perfectly honest with you, I will tell you that I was SO embarrassed to have my first cell phone. I passed my drivers test and less than a week later, my dad brought home a phone... OH-MY-GOSH... what was he gonna make me do?!?! Take that brick with me everywhere?! Well he did, and it came in handy. I sure as heck couldn't call daddy from my pager when my beat up 1976 Mercedes Benz (my first car, by the way) refused to start in the mall parking lot while it was pouring rain outside. The cell phone helped. Back then, did I think that something smaller than that brick would be able to check my email, order pizza or give me directions to those Supertones and Five Iron Frenzy concerts I was always driving to?! Heck no!

My children will never know a world without GPS, mobile email, iPhones, iPads (both of which my kids can work better than I can - they are only 5 and 8!) or TV's without remote controls! I want to give them whatever purity I can - plain simple things. All these things are good and do have a place, but we can honestly live without them.

We don't need to go to the grocery store to buy cookie dough to make cookies... let's make the dough to make the cookies!!

We don't need to run out to buy a loaf of bread... let's make some!

We don't need to keep up with the Jones'... let's be happy with what we have and not depend so much on material things. There is so much more to life than all these electronic gadgets and do-dads, so much more than all this "stuff" that society makes us believe we need. I have decided to try and teach my children the difference between a "want" and a "need". It's something we've been working on. Something we need to do better with. Something that I hope they will understand as adults.

LOAD 'EM UP!!

     In my house one of our favorite things to eat are potatoes. Potatoes are good for you, cheap, and best of all, filling! I love making baked potatoes for dinner, they are a great thing to have when you are busy doing lots of other things and don't have the time(or energy!) to cook. Even though they are a great thing to have for dinner, they take an hour to cook in the oven. Yes, I know they can be cooked in the microwave, but I'm just against microwave cooking (It doesn't taste as good to me). The crock pot is a great way to "bake" your potatoes!

Here's how to make Crockpot Baked Potatoes:

1. Wash and dry your potatoes. ( After I do this, I also like to rub just a little bit of olive oil on them and sprinkle them with sea salt)

2. Cover each potato in aluminum foil and place in the crockpot.

3. Cook on Low for about 8hrs (This is great if your out running errands, or have to work during the day! You can get things done and then dinner is ready when you get home!Which means you can spend time with your family and not slaving in the kitchen!)

4. Load up with your favorite toppings!
I like my potato with butter, sour cream, salt and pepper. (I know how Plain Jane of me!) Some fun toppings to add could be: bacon bits, chives, cheese (pepper jack is yummy!), bell peppers, chili, broccoli, cauliflower,or mushrooms. The possibilities are endless!

We hope you enjoy crock pot baked potatoes as much as we do! We would love to hear how you load up your potatoes!

Happy Campers!

With the summer starting to wind down, I thought it would be great to take my daughter camping; after all, what is summer without a camp out! (hint: it's not summer without camping! ha ha!) To make it an official summer I had to plan a trip, so last weekend we got away to the great outdoors of Grammies Wilderness (OK, OK, it was Grammies Yard, but it was still a great escape!) This was an awesome alternative to packing up and heading out somewhere, not only did it not cost me anything (besides food), it was so low stress (compared to real camping where you have to pack up food, and clothes, and equipment, etc)! My daughter and I experienced just the right amount of the "wilderness"(I like camping but I also like running water, flushing toilets and a comfy place to lay my head)! This idea of a backyard camp out is great for any age kid, from toddler to teenager, it's always fun to camp out!

First we had to set up camp! I set up the tent all by myself (the kiddo "supervised" ha ha!), and I only had to look at the directions one time! We set up our tent on the deck because I was paranoid about bugs getting in (I'm sure I really had nothing to worry about though)! We didn't have sleeping mats so we laid down the cushions from the patio furniture inside, it was actually pretty comfy!

After all the hard work of setting up the tent, there was a rumbly in our tummies! Camping makes you hungry! We built a fire so we could cook some dinner! (FYI the insides of old washing machines make fantastic fire pits!)

Though I didn't catch my own dinner, I did buy it at the grocery store. We cooked up some pork chops and fresh grown veggies from the garden in true camping fashion. We wrapped them up in foil and let the campfire do the rest.

After Dinner comes...Dessert! There is no other dessert to have while camping other than S'mores! So of course we had some and then S'more! ( I don't know if you can tell by the picture but we got the extra large marshmallows. They were gianormous!!

(If you don't have access to a fire pit or fireplace to roast your marshmallows, set up some candles and create a makeshift camp fire, it's still great fun and works good for s'mores!)

While we were sitting there watching the fire, my daughter says,"Hey Mom, shouldn't we sing a song, or tell a story or something?!" I told her I didn't have any stories so we could sing a song if she wanted. She then stated that she didn't know what song to sing, so I busted out with a bad rendition of KumBaYah ( I thought it was a great campfire song), but she looked at me like I was a weirdo! After a few more s'mores we decided to go to bed, lets face it we were both pretty excited to sleep in the tent!!

We got all snuggled in and then giggled and chatted for a while about the happenings of the day. We drifted off to sleep underneath the stars (they're really Christmas lights that are in the tree above us, we're in the city so there really aren't too many stars to see!) It was a great camp out and we both enjoyed our time together! There is something about camping that is magical and mysterious, no matter if you're in the middle of the woods, your backyard, or even in your living room!

(Even if your kids have started school, it's still technically summer! Take advantage of the great weather and do a weekend backyard campout!)

HAVE FUN CAMPERS!

~Sonya

A Time For Everything

    Lately, I’ve been feeling a little stressed out! Sometimes being a single parent can be a bit overwhelming! Even with the incredible support system my family provides for me, I often think about how much easier things would be if I had another half. I wish I had a husband to financially/emotionally/mentally support me so that I could be a housewife/mommy all day long! I am constantly being updated via facebook and twitter of all these amazing moms and the numerous amazing things they do on a daily basis.

For example: "Today I went to the grocery store, cleaned the house, completed the laundry, landscaped the yard, wrestled an alligator, and knitted an afghan for all five of my children's beds, oh and we did two full days of school in half the time it normally takes us”. I then sit back and wonder where do they find the time to do these awesome things??  I certainly feel I miss out on doing a lot of cool things with my daughter in the 8 hours I spend at work everyday. I sometimes feel that our weekend is just time to catch up on all the day to day chores we get behind on the rest of the week. By the time it's all said and done....not one alligator is wrestled, and well that’s just not cool! Weekends, especially summer ones, should be a time to relax and enjoy your family, and by all means have some fun!

    
With that being said, I guess it’s all about time management and prioritizing.  This really got me thinking about the things I put an emphasis on in my life. Of course work is a big priority. I need to work to take care of my daughter and myself. Another big one is tae kwon do (my daughter is a black belt!); we spend lots of hours there every week. I also have school (I started again this last term). I look at this list and I wonder if I’m prioritizing the right things. These are very important things and I definitely will not take them off my list, however, I feel my list is lacking and needs to be added to. As a mom I am generally with my child all the time (aside from work),so, why is it that I feel like our time to enjoy each other is the time that’s left after everything else is already completed; the time when we’re both tired and grumpy and just ready for bed, not really when we’re at our best.  I recently read a poll that said, men and women on average spend 5 hrs a day engaged in leisure activities, 2 of those hours being consumed by watching television. Now, I’m not a big television watcher (I usually watch maybe an hour a week), but I am on the computer quite often. If I cut computer time each day I could then replace it with time that I spend solely with my daughter.  We could do whatever: read, watch a movie, talk, knit an afghan, or even wrestle an alligator! Now this is just an example of how we think our time is full up, but really we’re just not filling it with the right things. Take a conscious look at what you fill your time with, and I bet you will be surprised at how much of it is taken up by meaningless and mundane things.

     The Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 3 that, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:”  Sometimes it may not feel like there is enough time to be the “Super Mom”, but there is always enough time, its just how you choose to spend it! J

~Sonya

What are some ways that you find time to fit it all in?