Cooking Lessons - Thin Mints Recipe

I came across a website with a vegan thin mint cookie recipe and was intrigued. I tried it out today, with some modifications. The cookies came out delicious. Its definitely going to be a recipe that I add to my rotation of cookies for Nathan. Even Justin tried one and gave them two thumbs up, and he is pretty particular to anything that is egg and milk free. Evan didnt like them, but, he doesnt like mint at all, and these cookies, even with the modifications are very minty. I might be tempted to even half the mint extract again the next time I make the cookies, they were very strong mint flavor!! The recipe as stated here yielded 38 2 inch diameter round cookies. If I were making the recipe again, Id double the entire thing and freeze half the dough for later use.

Start with 1 1/4 cups of flour.
Add 1/2 cup of cocoa powder.
Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda.
Mix well. The actual recipe calls for pulsing in the food processor, but, I dont have a food processor and didnt think it was necessary anyway.
Add 3/4 cup vegan margarine. I use Fleischmann's UNSALTED. For some reason the salted package contains milk. So, if you want these to be dairy free, dont use anything but the UNSALTED brand. I softened my vegan margarine for about 20 seconds in the microwave before I added it. Vegan margarine is so soft to begin with that it almost is not necessary to soften it at all.
Add 3 tablespoons of rice milk. I guess you could use soy milk as well, but, since Nathan is allergic to soy, we stick with the rice milk. This is our favorite rice milk, and one of the cheapest Ive found.
Add 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract and 1/4 teaspon of peppermint extract. I cut the peppermint in half for this batch, and like I mentioned above, the cookies were still VERY minty.
Mix all the ingredients together well, I did this with a spoon until everything was pretty well blended and then I just used my hands.
Eventually you get dough that looks like this:
Wrap up the dough and put it in the fridge for about an hour. Roll out the dough into small balls and flatten them with your hands into 1 1/2 inch rounds. This is very messy and sticky. The dough sticks to your hands like crazy. Bake in the oven at 350 F for about 12 minutes, give or take a minute. Your cookies will come out like this.
While the cookies are cooling you can make the coating for the top. Use 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips (dairy free of course). Add 1/2 tablespoon vegan margarine. Melt this. I microwaved mine slowly, stirring every 20 seconds or so until it was just melted. [The original recipe called for adding peppermint to the coating too, which I did not do, because I could already smell how strong the cookies were, and may or may not have sampled a cooling cookie.]

Once the cookies are fully cooed, put a dollop of coating on each and with the back of a spoon spread it evenly on the top of the cookies.

YUM!
Now try not to eat the whole batch before Nathan wakes up from his nap :)

Cereal!

With food allergies, its the little things that sometimes brighten my day. Like today when I was doing our "allergy" food shopping at Hannafords and found cereal for Nathan! I have searched the cereal isle time and time again while out grocery shopping and have never been able to find one that doesn't contain corn, meal or syrup. Today I stumbled upon Puffed Rice cereal that contains nothing but puffs of rice. No sugar, no color additives, preservatives, and most importantly no corn. I was delighted and brought it home to promptly try out on Nathan. Being that its just rice, I was figuring it might be a hard sell. So, I popped that bag right into his brother's Rice Krispies box and viola, instant excitement for cereal! I added a bit of rice milk in a bowl to the puffs and handed him the spoon and told him to dig in. I also told him that he could keep the box in front of him while he ate because one of the best parts of eating cereal is reading the box while you eat. "Nate-Nate read and eat?" he asked. Oh yeah buddy, welcome to the world of cereal.

And eat he did!!!!
And eat...
And eat...
He was one happy kid. Wait until tomorrow when I add some fresh blueberries to his cereal - its going to BLOW HIS MIND.
Today was an allergy-win day!!!

Ryan, What Did You Do Today?

If you lived in my house, you would know who Ryan was. But, since we are at maximum capacity here folks, Ill fill you in on the little family secret. Ryan is my middle son. What? You say that you clearly remember that my middle son's name is Evan? Well, you are wrong. Or at least Nathan says you are. Nathan calls Evan "Ryan" constantly. Its not something that sounds sortof like Evan/Ryan or something that you could mistake as Ryan. No, its actually clearly just Ryan. And its persistantly consistent. Its gotten to the point where I have caught myself referring to Evan as Ryan as well. Nathan will ask, "Where Ryan go?" And without even thinking I will say, "Ryan went to school". Today I caught myself saying it in front of Evan, to which he didn't even bat an eyelash. Its *almost* become a nickname, in some bizarre not-shorter-than-his-real-name nickname way (like Jack and John, which, OMG I still dont get). Poor Ryan.

And speaking of him. Today was his 6 year physical. Evan is 46 inches tall (he grew three inches since last year!) and 44 lbs. He is in great health and such a great boy!

The last two days have been a whirlwind of activities around here. What did we do? Well, there was kickboxing class for me, two karate classes, cub scouts, a playdate for Evan, Evan's physical, and an after school playdate for Justin. Phew....

Around the House This Weekend

This past week was just beautiful weather, we spent most of the time outdoors doing yard work, playing and enjoying ourselves. I have very little pictures to show for it all, I was too busy soaking up every single minute of the sun and vitamin D. This weekend was back to reality, the temps were cool and the weather was wet, more like the weather we would expect.

We still had a wonderful weekend, despite the rainy cool weather. Saturday the older boys both had karate. In the afternoon I had a yoga retreat which was wonderfully relaxing and peaceful. Saturday night Evan spent with my parents. Sunday Justin and I did errands and grocery shopping. Justin and I have this new routine where we grocery shop together, and hit up the local used book store on our way. Its really fun to get lost in the shelves of all those books just waiting to be read, its even more fun to share it with Justin who has inherited my love for books and reading, especially book series. Its dangerous with the two of us together because we lose track of time so easily together exploring the books. Its a special time for me to spend with just Justin. It also makes me look forward to the tedious task of grocery shopping a little! Sunday evening our long lost son returned with my parents and we all shared dinner together.

I dont think I ever posted pictures of our completed basement project! Here it is in its completion. The room is HUGE. We have plenty of space for the kids to all play and have many activities going on at once. We have a games and projects table.
We have a bookshelf overflowing with books for the boys.
We have a huge open space for playing whatever the boys want. We also have a couch, tv and the Wii downstairs.
Im so thrilled with the space. And the boys are too. Its so much quieter on the weekends when Nathan naps, to have the boys in the basement instead of constantly reminding them to be quiet. Its also alot easier to keep the house clean on the living levels.

Here are a couple random pictures of Nathan from our week/weekend:

Belt Testing

This is a great video of Evan doing his karate second tier orange belt testing from this week. Evan is the boy closest to the camera, on the left side of the screen. Evan is doing fabulous in karate. He is much more controlled and coordinated and is picking up on the moves quicker. Ive noticed he is able to organize the steps in each move better than when he began. Im so happy with the program and his effort.

In his program, at the younger age, they test by following the instructor. As they age into the older program they test on their own, without the aid of their instructor.

Evan got his second level orange belt and Justin got his yellow belt this week. Both boys are very excited!!!

March 21: Then and Today

This was the view of the yard and Nathan playing in it today, on March 21st, 2012.This was the view of the yard with Nathan playing in it last year, March 21, 2011.
Nathan was in a bathing suit in the water today for the better part of the afternoon. Last year he played outside in his winter jacket and hat amongst snow drifts. I like this year much, much better.

The Week and Weekend

My marigold seeds are already sprouting! Im excited for our garden this year! We are planning on adding a big (hopefully) deer-proof fence this year to the garden. Last year we lost all our pumpkins and our winter squash to the deer and groundhogs living in our woods. We are hoping that this year will be different with a fence!!! And also lots of marigolds planted around the exterior.Justin and I started a pineapple plant indoors as part of his cubscouts arrow point achivements.
Nathan decided to wear shades one day in the house. What cracks me up about this picture is that if you look close enough at it, you can see all these finger prints all over the glasses, I wonder how he can even see out of them!!!
Evan wearing his spy glasses, acting cool.
Rainbow cake bowls in the sink make me happy.
My parents took the boys out of school [shhh...] one day this week and went to the Planetarium. They had such a wonderful time. They simply could not stop talking about the experience. Justin has decided he is in love with all things stars and planets lately. He wants to be an astronomer when he grows up. He was especially excited about the trip.
The boys brought their own cameras with them on the trip and took lots of pictures. Actually, it was quite comical to upload the pictures and see what they took. There were just as many pictures of the lunch out with Nana and Pa as there were at the Planetarium.
We did alot of burning this weekend. Cleaning up the yard, and cutting some trees down that were giving shade in our garden where we didnt want shade. The boys loved the big fire.

The weather this weekend was beautiful and made for such a wonderful weekend outdoors. I love our yard. I will never get over how much happier I am living in a place where the boys can run free, and bike and play and enjoy the outdoors. Added bonus of our land, gardens and peach and apple trees, blueberries and blackberries (all with buds!) and so much to do. A very happy weekend indeed!
Justin and Evan competed in the pinewood derby this weekend. Justin placed first for his den, and Evan placed first for the sibling competition. Both boys were really proud and especially because they had their Pa and dad to cheer them on.
Justin's is the third from the left on the bottom row with Pickachu drawn on the hood.

Evan's Birthday Party

Evan had his karate birthday party this weekend. I have to say, I've been to quite a number of birthday parties in my years as a mom, and Ive hosted quite a few myself at various locations, and this was by far the best party Ive been to. It was so well organized which made it really fun for me to just sit back and watch Evan enjoy himself with his friends. All the kids were SO well behaved and listened to the instructors so well. Evan was beaming with happiness the entire time. They did a great job of making him feel so special throughout the party.

First all the kids got special karate head bands. Evan got his first and got to call up all his friends to receive their bands.
Even Nathan got a band.
All the parents helped with one of the activities, the kids punched and kicked bags that the parents held. Justin had fun beating up on his old dad :)
Nathan did every single activity with the kids. He just followed right along happy as can be. Rarely does he get to step foot on the karate mats, usually during class he has to watch from the sidelines.
Evan had 16 of his friends, what a great group of boys and girls. Really nice kids. Most were from his kindergarten class. Our neighbor friend the boys play with all the time came. And it was very special that his cousin Andrew was able come share in his special day.
My mom made a fabulous Mario Kart cake for Evan, upon his request.

The very end of the party Evan was inviting to break a board with his karate instructor. This is him asking, "permission to break a board sir".
And he did it!!!! He was so proud!!!
On the way home, perhaps the record for the most balloons ever fit in a mini van at one time?

Happy St. Patty's Day

Hope the luck of the Irish shined down on you today and all that you did!!! We had a fun day celebrating with some leprechaun mischief, and festive foods.

The leprechaun left green foot prints in our bathroom all over the sink, the wall and the mirror.

He also turned the toilet water green!!!!

True and hilarious story: yesterday I bought the boys new trash cans for their bedrooms. I put them in their bedrooms yesterday afternoon. The boys slept in their rooms overnight, woke up this morning, saw the mess the leprechaun left, went back in their rooms, saw the new trash cans and brought them out squealing in delight: "the leprechaun brought us new trash cans". Im glad they were delighted, as weird as it may have been.

This year we didnt have time to build traps. I was a bit sad because this is a time honored tradition in our house. So, instead I made up for it with lots of St Patty's Day inspired foods.

Rainbow fruit with marshmallow clouds.

Green pancakes.

A special very green decorated dinner table. The boys got Lucky Charms cereal for dinner (along with meatloaf and other healthy foods) as a special treat.

And a special cake, its supposed to be green grass with gold nuggets. And when you cut into it....

You get a rainbow surprise! Evan helped me dye all the white cake batter yesterday. He had lots of fun with that.