Fried Tortilla Pies

Fried Tortilla Pies

(The I've run out of everything breakfast)

Sometimes life throws us curve balls.  This past month we were served several in a row.  That meant that I had to rely on our supplies instead of going to the store all the time.  Frugality has been the name of the game.  So when it came time for breakfast the children gave me sad looks when I offered oatmeal or grits (again).  They brightened up when I offered biscuits....but sadly not enough Bisquick for that.  HMMMMM So I looked in the fridge and a half a pack of flour tortillas caught my eye.  I remembered my mom used to make fried tortillas then put butter and sugar on them.  An idea came to light.   Tortillas, jam, butter, sugar, cinnamon!  Fried tortilla pies.  

Ingredients needed

Flour tortillas

Strawberry Jam

4 TBL butter

2  TBL virgin coconut oil

cinnamon (to taste)

1/4 cup sugar

whipping cream (optional)

1. Heat oil and butter in a frying pan. I did mine on medium.

2. Place a small amount of jam in  tortillas and roll up.  I secured mine with a tooth pick,  

3. Fry tortillas till they are golden brown 

4. Place on paper towel and drain then top with cinnamon and sugar 

5. Place a small bit of whipped cream on it and enjoy!

Incidentally. the children loved them.  I am sure they would make a fabulous dessert as well as they are mostly devoid of nutritional value, but oh were they good!

Homeschool Reason #4 Your children are safer in your home

Homeschool Reason #4

Your children are safer in your home

I have waited a month to do this post; mostly because it is ghastly.  So many innocent children died and there are no answers forthcoming.  We cannot just say, "oh this is terrible, but some good will come out of it."  No, a mad man took innocent life and there it ends.  Schools do their best to protect children.  The days of complying with the attacker, calling the police, waiting for the negotiator to arrive in the hope of a safe release, are a distant memory. Schools can have alarms, buzzed locked doors, an armed guard, and still, evil can visit itself there.  The very setting of a traditional school lends itself to mass casualties.  There are many defenseless children who are cared for by disarmed teachers and administrators. It is an inviting target to those who want to do as many terrible acts as possible in the shortest amount of time.  The best thing I can think of to immediately make our schools safer is to simply allow teachers and administrators to take courses on weaponry and to carry concealed.  Criminals are generally cowards who look for the easy target. I know this proposal is fraught with questions and fears, but pilots are armed now and terrible atrocities have not happened as a result.   You cannot legislate evil away.  You cannot fix evil by eliminating tools, and there will always be another tool to use if a person really wants to do evil things.  The best you can do is be prepared to defend yourself and those you love.

Now can evil visit me at home?  The simple answer is, "Yes. Certainly."   However, when you home school, you are less of a target for a madman than a whole host of innocent young ones.  Unless we are being stalked, a homeschooling family is simply less visible.

Beyond anonymity,  a homeschooling family may add many security features to their home to make it more secure. You can bring in a pet to alert you to the presence of someone not in the family.  You have the freedom to arm yourself. If you are threatened with lethal force, you can return in kind. 

Let me perfectly clear, if someone comes in to my school to do evil, the principal and vice-principal won't be defenseless.

Teriyaki Chicken over rice

Chicken teriyaki 

over rice with stir fried veggies

(How to get kids to eat cabbage)

It is New Years again.  We were at the store picking up small family New Year's party items; chips, dip, stuff to make pigs in a blanket, and the Little Debbie version of twinkies.  Walking through the produce section I picked up the compulsory head of cabbage and black eyed peas for the new year.  My beloved husband gave me a sideways look and said "you know you'll be the only one eating that right?"  I nodded my head, but after this past December we need all the the luck we can get.  Walking through the store I saw split chicken breasts on sale and an idea began to take root.   The kids love Asian food.....Asian food sometimes has cabbage in it.......hmmmmm,

This is an adaptation of about 5 different recipes for chicken teriyaki.  Adapted because I don't usually carry sake (/ˈsɑːkeɪ/ or /ˈsɑːki/) in my kitchen and I was fresh out of fresh ginger.  

This makes enough to feed 6 people for dinner and have enough leftovers for 1 lunch.

Prep
Chop 2 chicken breasts and pound them (with a meat mallet) into smallish bits.
Put it in a zip lock bag or marinating bowl and add a quarter cop of soy sauce and a dash of sesame seed oil.
Set aside.  I marinated mine for about an hour.

Get your rice going

4 cups chicken broth (or water)

2 cups rice (I use basmati)

Salt 

Pepper

Combine, bring to a boil, then lower heat. Cover and simmer until liquid is absorbed
Stir occasionally. Remove from heat when no more liquid.

Now make the the sauce

1/2 cup soy sauce

10 table spoons brown sugar

3 table spoons honey

1 teaspoon powdered ginger

1/2 tsp powdered garlic

1 cup water

Combine and simmer. Set aside for plating.

Vegetable stir fry

Chop 1/4 head of cabbage

1/2 small yellow onion (chopped small)

2 cloves garlic chopped

2 carrots peeled and chopped

1 head if broccoli broken up 

3 TBL coconut oil

1 splash of wine vinegar

 Heat up coconut oil on medium.  Once oil is hot, sauté veggies about 10 minutes, at 5 min mark add splash of vinegar.  Then add 1/4 cup of teriyaki sauce (above). Cover and steam for 5 minutes. 

Chicken 

Take the cooked veggies and put them in a bowl for serving.
Take the same pan (without washing) and add the chicken and marinade.
Take marinated chicken and sauté over med heat adding 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce (above) about half way.

Serve
layer as follows:
Rice
Veggies
chicken
3 tbl's of teriyaki sauce on top

Homeschool reason #3

Homeschool Reason #3  You teach your child what you want them to know about a religion and no injuries need occur. 

http://hamptonroads.com/2012/10/mom-says-teacher-hurt-child-during-islamic-lesson

I cannot imagine a catholic person attempting to teach a child to make the sign of the cross.....just would not happen.  Not to mention injuring a child in the process....sheesh

Home school Reason #2-  Spanking is in the domain of the parents

When I saw this story I wanted to ask the people in school "are you just stupid or did you hit your head?"

I am not anti-spanking at all.  I think a disobedient child sometimes must learn through their bottom instead of their head.  A swat on the tail end is often a very good attention getter for a child.  However, I am of the firm belief that the person who spanks should also be the person that has bandaged their wounds, kissed their heads, calmed their fears, and prayed with them.    So I have a problem at the start with anyone other then a very close relative spanking a child. 

Other people may disagree.  That is fine.  Can we all agree that it is a bad idea to have two men spank a teenage girl?    To make things even better, the school is doubling down on it and doing away with the same gender spanking policy (that was ignored in this situation).  UGH that has disaster written all over it. 


Texas school OKs opposite sex spankings after principal breaks rule

  Preamble:  I am not the most blog savy person.  When Chris put  our computer back together after a crash last December I lost the password and the location for my blog.  After wanting to make many posts, but not having a way to do so I finally asked Chris how to get to it.  Could not be simpler...duh....feel like a bit of a dunce.  

So this is my thinking here.  I still plan to post great recipes, however I am going to add an additional section, news stories that outline some of the reasons why I home school.  This is not a jab at anyone particular person, or county.   Just a continuing irritation I have with the public school system as a whole.  We pay (as a country) a great deal of money for a public education system.  Each of us pay whether or not we use the system or not.  Stupidity and out right lunacy should not be the order of the day.   If  a family has no choice but to use our public schools they deserve better than this. 

I of course have other reasons (scriptural, philosophical, etc) why I home school.  I may put that up too.  What I will link to is the lunacy that is in the papers nearly every day.  As a sort of catalog of the reasons I don't put my children under the authority of the system. So without further Ado let us list two links that are on everyone's radar today. 

Home school Reason #1  Children's dietary needs are individual and specific

The first lady has been on a rant about nutrition around the country.  That is great.  I am all about nutrition.  Through lobby she has gotten schools to change what they serve...fabulous....change was needed.  What they did was they limited calorie content and protein content and made it a cross the board standard that everyone had to adhere to.  (Banging my head on the wall).  What they should have done was offer higher quality choices.  The nutritional needs of a wall flower science kid are very different than the needs of a football player farmer boy.  The needs of a student that had gym class last period are different than the needs of a person who had photography.  If you are interested in the stories....here they are


Complaints Mount Against Michelle Obama’s New Lunch Menu

School lunch calorie limits leave bitter taste with some Kansas students





If they are all about education....how about we educate children and let them make some choices. This is a school isn't it?

As for me I am glad my children had omlets for breakfast.  Will get a filling and healthy lunch (probably tuna sandwiches and carrots), then will have baked ziti with green beans for dinner.  Those will fullfills the needs of their growing bodies.    Moms are better at gauging and fulfilling a children's dietary needs than a system.

Pumpkin Dump Cake

How to make pumpkin dump cake


So today I made a pumpkin roll.  I love pumpkin rolls ever since my very good friend Erin introduced me to them, I crave them.     Sadly unless I make two  it only uses up 1/2 of a can of pumpkin leaving me with a bunch to either throw out (and my frugal nature makes that near impossible) or to stick in the refrigerator where I will find it two weeks from now and then throw it out.  So I decided I would make an additional pumpkin yummy treat.  I looked up cookies, cakes, and then stumbled upon pumpkin dump cakes. 

Dump cakes are one of our families favorite deserts. So I thought I would give this one a try.  I adopted the recipe for what I like and what we had around the house. 

You need:

1/2 can pumpkin puree
1 can evaporated milk
3 eggs
1 cup brown sugar---I used 2/3 brown sugar 1/3 honey---was really good!
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Cardamon
(or you could simply put in pumpkin spice for all three)
1 box of yellow cake
2 sticks of butter
Pretzels to crush up
Coconut flakes

So this is how I did it.  Feel free to improvise of course.  The recipe I looked at called for almonds and graham crackers on top.  I did not have those soooo

1. Set oven at 375, grease a rectangular cake pan

2. Beat together sugar, eggs, pumkin, spices, evaporated milk, and then pour into pan

3. Gently sprinkle yellow cake mix on top, the crushed crackers (or in my case crushed pretzels), then the nuts

4. Melt and evenly (or as best as you can) distribute the two sticks of butter

5. Bake for 45 min to 1 hour--it is ready when the knife comes out clean. 


I put whipped cream on it too---oh so yummy.  I bet Ice cream would be amazing.

Kefir Chocolate Ice cream

Everyone knows yogurt is generally good for them, and those familiar with kefir know that it is like yogurt only better on the probiotics.   I got my kefir grains about 2 weeks ago and have been making very nice kefir (about 2 cups a day) for the past week.  I have used it in smoothies and to make various bread items and in oatmeal, but I was looking for a new use for it.   Since obtaining my $5 garage sale ice cream maker I have found a tasty one.  

ICE CREAM!  

Who doesn't like chocolate ice cream?  So now instead of being a completely decadent waste of calories I am now getting something back for my effort.  (Makes 1.5 quarts)

What you need

3/4 cup of kefir
3/4 cup of coconut milk
3 bananas (some people use a avacado, but then you would have to adjust the sugar a bit)
1/2 cup of whole milk
1/2 cup of half and half
1/2 cup of sugar (you could probably use another sweetener like honey but then you would need to adjust the liquid to fit your ice cream container)
1/2 cup of baking cocoa
dash of cinamon (optional)
dash of cardamon (optional)
1 tsp vanilla extract.

Put everything in your blender and blend well.
Process for your ice cream maker's requirements.  Mine I just put it in the frozen ice cream bowl and turn it on for 45 min.   (Pay attention to the liquid requirements of your container--mine I can only have 4 cups in at a time--yours may vary)

Lemonade/Limeade

Does anyone else LOVE fresh lemonade or even better fresh limeade.  A tall cool refreshing balance of sour and sweet.  There is precious little my husband I like better than this. A few years ago Chris and I came across a fellow making fresh limeade and it was perfect!  A casual conversation with him and he gave up some of his secrets.  So I share them now with you.

What you need
4 cups sugar
4 cups water
lemons or limes
ice
sparkling water

1. So to start you need to make a sugar water solution.  What I do is I heat about 1 cup water to 1 cup of sugar and make a little over a quart of sugar water.  Heat the water till boiling then pour in the sugar and stir till it is dissolved.

2. Fetch a glass of ice

3. Juice the lime/lemon and leave 1/2 of the juiced citris fruit in the glass with the ice

4. Add the sugar water until about 1/4 of the way up the cup

5. Add the sparkling water

6. transfer back and forth a few times to a different cup or if in a sealed container shake vigorously.

7. Enjoy!  Really it is best enjoyed with straw.  

Roasted Tomato Sauce

I....Love... tomatoes.  I... LOVE... tomato gardens!  But what do you do when you have eaten tomatoes in every fashion you can think of, and your beautiful plants are giving you a bumper crop?  Canning tomatoes takes forever, and is a complicated process really only worth it if you are canning 25lbs plus.  So what do we tomato lovers do when we have 10 beautiful tomatoes on our kitchen counter and can't figure out what to do with them ?  I have the answer. ROAST THEM! 

I discovered this a few weeks ago.  It is super easy, yet yields an amazingly robust tomato  sauce. 

How to make this sauce.

Preheat oven to 225

Ingredients

Tomatoes
olive oil (I use cold pressed Extra Virgin)
garlic powder or chopped garlic
thyme
salt and pepper

1. Take however many tomatoes you have and cut them into pieces.  If you have big beef steak tomatoes I suggest 1/8ths, if you have little cherries 1/2 will do fine.

2.Put them in a bowl, drizzle a bit of EVOO over the top.  Dust them with garlic, thyme, salt and pepper and mix it up.  I just use my hands for this.  You could use other spices.  I just like these.

3. Put them on a cookie tray skin sides down and bake for at least 2 hours.  I like to bake them until they are browning just a bit on the edges and are still a little wet.  The longer you bake the the thicker the sauce--but don't wait too long they can burn  :*(

4. Let them cool  (don't ask how I know to do this!)

5. Put them in a blender (skins seeds and all!) and puree.

6.  Enjoy or freeze for later use.

I have found that this makes a great sauce to serve over pasta with browned Italian sausage as the meat. 

Peanut Pork Stir Fry

Ever start out making one recipe then figure out you don't have an ingredient (or in my case just can't find it) and it is the essential spice?  Sometimes it is a blessing in disguise.

I started out making what I thought was going to be a Koren based stir fry.  I got the rice going in the broth.  Put in the sesame seed oil and the coconut oil and fried up the garlic put in the carrots, and the pork (sliced pork chops).  Then I went to make the sauce---and where did I put that ginger--not the spice cabinet.  Maybe it is on the kitchen counter--nope.  Hmmmm--do I have any fresh ginger--not this time.  Time to rethink this!   What do we have here, soy sauce, honey, and ---crunchy peanut butter!  So what came out was a very nice Thai-ish peanut sauce.  It is really good!

Both the husband and all the kids ate it so fast that next time I am going to make double.

So here is how to do it!

4.5 cups chicken broth
2 cups basmati rice 


1. Cook rice in chicken broth.  You could use water--but chicken broth tastes better especially if it is homemade.

2 pork chops cut into strips and then cut in half
1 clove of garlic
2 carrots
1 TBL coconut oil (if you think you need more--put more in)
1 TBL sesame seed oil (this is strong stuff I would not use alot more than that!)
Broccoli  (I used a quart sized freezer bag that I had filled with costco frozen broccoli) Prob a head would do

In a different pot
2. Saute the garlic for a min or two with the oil, then put in the carrots and the pork.
3. Stir the pot every once in a while to ensure that nothing sticks or burns

Peanut Sauce

1/3 cup of soy sauce
2 TBL honey
2TBL crunchy peanut butter
Dash of ground cayenne pepper

4. Mix sauce together in a small bowl--you don't have to whip it--just mix up
5. When pork is done pour sauce over pork, add the broccoli.  Let it simmer for a few minutes (I think it was about 10 minutes on med/low).  You could probably simmer it for less--just make sure your broccli is done.

5.1 Call the kids in, and make them wash their sandy hands
5.2 Set the table
5.3 Settle the fight about who gets to put the forks on the table tonight
5.4 Get yet another fork to replace the one that the two year old threw on the floor
5.5 Call husband downstairs to wrangle the youngest while you and the oldest get the cups on the table.

6. Serve the pork peanut sauce over the rice!

Amount this serves....well it served my family of 5 with about 1.5 cups of rice left over, but no peanut sauce left over so adjust the recipe accordingly.

Hope you like it as much as we did.  Let me know if it turns out for you!

My New Blog

So my husband says I need a place to store my rants, philosophies, stories and  recipes.  He kindly set up a blog for me.  Isn't that nice!   So here it is!   Perhaps we will start with recipes as I am all ranted out today :)

So follow along if you wish as I trace the bouncing directions my mind races while I do laundry, dishes, and otherwise try to be a mom and a wife.  Comma splices and run-on sentences are just a fact of life around here.  Perfection in grammar is just not going to happen with toddlers bouncing on me.  So lets start the adventure!