Day 80 - A Thanksgiving Feast

 It has been quite a while since we have posted about our cooking.  But that is not to say we have not been cooking.  Don't judge people by their lack of blogging.  The reason why we have not been blogging much is because we've been quite busy.  More than busy, actually.  Super duper busy.  My parents went to San Antonio.  We stayed with our Grandparents.  Plus school.  And after school stuff.  Plus I got sick with bronchitis 5 weeks ago and it did not get better until about 3 days ago.

Today's the 80th day of our challenge.  We're going to cook and blog occasionally because it's so busy for us.  I don't know if it is for you, but it is for us and so we hope you like our blogging when we do it.

Okay, onto today.  Today my mom and me have made multiple things.  Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving and 24 people will be having dinner, we have to prepare tons and tons of stuff.  I'll name the things we are cooking:

• Stuffing
• Pumpkin Cheesecake
• GF Rolls
• Pear Butter
• GF Pumpkin Bread

I think that is all.  Phew!  That is a lot.  We haven't done the pear butter, nor the rolls yet, and trust me, making all that other stuff takes a long time, people.

Before we could make the Pumpkin Cheesecake, we had to make GF gingersnaps.



Because the recipe calls for gingersnaps for the crust and we had to make it GF for my brother.  So we did GF gingersnaps from this good cookbook.

Then I made the crust by crushing the gingersnaps.



Then came the filling which called for some kind of thing called Frangelico which we did not have because we can't buy it in our town.  We didn't have any substitutes for that stuff, so my mom called our neighbor and she had almond extract and that would do the trick, so thank you, Mrs. Spratlen!



I will post the recipe tomorrow if it tastes good.






Putting on the sour cream topping


Then we made stuffing.  Of course I am vegetarian and won't eat the sausage or turkey or anything for Thanksgiving.  My brother does not like stuffing so we didn't make this GF, but I made mine vegetarian.  My mom helped me make a vegetable broth.  I absolutely love stuffing for all my life.




The reason we are making so many pumpkin deserts is because all my family loves pumpkin, and not just love it, but LOVE pumpkin stuff.  So we made pumpkin bread, which is GF and which Jared has made before... thank you, Mrs. Stutzman, maker of the best pumpkin bread ever!



I took a break while everything was cooking, and I deserved the break.  My mom and I had been working nonstop from 10 to 1:30.  Imagine cooking for that period of time.  For my break I played a game on the DS called Carnival Games, which, by the way, is very fun.  You get to pretend to go to a real carnival.  You get tickets and get prizes and go to really fun games like you were really at a carnival.

You get cotton candy, and you get all this stuff you want.  My favorite game is The Dart game.  There are 3, but I like the one where you shoot octopuses.  It is pretty fun.  There are a bunch of different games people would enjoy.  I would recommend Carnival Games!  It's a fun game for kids.  Jared likes it, too, and so does Caleb.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!!!

Day 79 - Enchiladas

Recipe From Our Mom

Hello, my name is Jared. What's your name?

Mexican is one of my favorite foods. Every time when my older brother's girlfriends come over, we mostly have Mexican food. We don't make it as since we've been doing this blog, but we've been still been cooking it.

Yesterday I also got a haircut. I don't have to wear a hairnet anymore. Actually, I've never worn a hairnet, but that's irrelevant.

Anyway...

Today we made enchiladas. It wasn't really super difficult. My mom cleaned out the seeds and veins in some dried pasilla chilis then boiled them for around 2 hours.

They do not smell good. They definitely do not. But once you get over the smell, it's not so bad.

Blend the chilis with some water or broth, a good lug of tomato sauce, salt, and some Adobo.

Then you have to strain out the skin flakes.

You grate a bit of Jack cheese, chop some olives, and we used leftover chicken for some of them. Heat up some corn tortillas in the microwave until they are soft.

Then fill them, roll them up, and you have a delicioso meal!

We forgot to take a finished picture, so sorry 'bout that!

2 THUMBS UP!

Day 78 - Strawberry Fruit Leather

Recipe from MOM Magazine

You probably thought we forgot about you, but no. Mmm-mmm. No.

I'd never forget about any of you!

I was sick this last week and stayed home from school for 3 days. Our family was really busy. My mom had to finish her book. She's a writer and has a due date. My brothers had band. My dad works.

We cooked, but didn't blog.

But today I am blogging. While we were at the doctor last week, my mom saw a recipe in MOM Magazine to make Strawberry Fruit Leather. It looked good so she copied the recipe into her phone and then later, after we had strawberries, we made it.

All I had to do was puree the strawberries. Of course you wash them and cut off the stems. Jared did this with me.

You just puree them in the blender. This means to blend them like a smoothie. Then you add 1 tablespoon of honey. You can actually add a little more honey, or some sugar. We didn't and our fruit leather is very tart. Or you can find sweeter strawberries.

So then you put parchment paper on a baking sheet with sides. You pour the strawberries on the paper and spread it really thin.

You bake it for 2-3 hours at 250 degrees, then let it sit overnight.

We cut it into strips and rolled it up.

I think you could do this with other fruit, too, like raspberries, and stuff. It is cool!!!

1 THUMB UP because ours was really tart.

Day 77 - Sausage Bread

Recipe from Mom

This is day 77. Today we kind of did 2 things to make up for our absence. First, my mom made potato and leek soup. To go with that, I made sausage bread, and since it's Tuesday, our dessert night, I made pumpkin muffins a really easy.

Sausage Bread is our own recipe. We mainly make it when we have potato cheese soup, but we decided to make it with this other soup today.

Basically, I you make dough in a bread machine. We used Gluten Free Pantry's French Bread mix.

In the bread machine

Then you make some sausage in a pan.

You spread 1/2 the dough in a loaf pan.

Put sausage in the middle.

Put the rest of the dough on top.

Then you bake it, and it's 11 million thumbs up good.

My mom makes it using frozen bread dough (it's not gluten free). She rolls it out, spreads the sausage in the middle, and rolls it up like a jelly roll. My dad and her like it with mustard. We have it every Christmas, too.

The other recipe is a pumpkin muffin recipe. You get a spice cake mix (we used Namaste GF brand), one can of pumpkin, 1/2 cup of apple sauce, and 1/4 tsp of pumpkin pie mix, which we don't have, so I sprinkled cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger in it.

That's it. You mix it together, put in muffin tins, and bake it. 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

I think we should up the thumb scale to 5. No, never mind, we'll keep it at 2. These muffins are 2 thumbs up all the way!

Day 76 - Potato Cheese Soup

Recipe From My Mom

After we hit day 75 we kind of mellowed out. We sort of needed a break. It's been 2 days since we blogged.

We decided that we're not going to blog about our cooking everyday. We're still cooking, but will blog a couple times a week until we get to day 100, and maybe more.

We've been really busy because my grandparents brought us a stray cat from the lake.

We've been really busy with it since it's not potty trained and has peed on my bed and on Jared's bed. Then we found out she is pregnant. Plus my mom isn't feeling well, and neither am I, and my brothers had their first band competition and came in 2nd place, so, yeah, we've been busy.

But still eating healthy.

Tonight I made my mother's homemade potato cheese soup. I chose to make this recipe because it felt like a soup day and it's quite yummy.

It's also really easy. You just peel potatoes, cut them into squares, boil them up for about 30 minutes. You also chop carrots, celery, and onions and sauté them in a pan.

Then after those are done, you add them into the broth and potatoes.

You grate some cheddar cheese while that's cooking.

Next you blend the potato and veggies together with a hand blender.

Sophie's Cooking Tip of the Day:

If it's too thick, I learned you can add a little milk to make it less thick.

Then you add cheese, some dill weed, and salt and stir it all up.

It's really easy and good. My whole family loves it (except Sam). This has been another night of cooking from Sophie the cooking girl!

2 Billion Thumbs Up

Day 75 - Pumpkin Muffins

Recipe from my mom's recipe box

We're celebrating today! It's day 75!!!

We had a Book Fiesta to go to at my school tonight so we just got home now at 8:00. I wanted to make something for my class at school. I thought it would be a fun thing to do and since tomorrow is October 1st, my mom said I could make pumpkin muffins for them. I hope they like them! I think they will.

I wanted to do a different recipe than the pumpkin bread Jared made, so I did a pumpkin recipe my mom had in her recipe box. There isn't as much sugar in it as the other one.

Gluten Free Pantry Flour

By the way, I've been a vegetarian for 3 days now. I will inform you how it's going. I am doing awesome right now. I saw a dead fox on the road and it kind of grossed me out, plus I'm against hunting so I'm trying it. Plus because they give the animals antibiotics so they don't work on us. I want to be healthy.

I'll let you know how the muffins are tomorrow!

Good night.

~ Sophie

Pumpkin Muffins

1 1/2 cup flour or gluten free flour mix like Gluten Free Pantry

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 nutmeg, cinnamon, baking power (each)

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup oil

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/3 cup water

2 eggs

Combine dry ingredients, then add oil, eggs and pumpkin. Slowly add water until blended. Pour into greased muffin pans or muffin cups.

Cook for 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes

Day 74 - Stewed Fruit and Crumble

Recipe from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and Jamie Online

Hi, hi, everyone. It's 9:15 and my mom just got home from a book signing. I cooked at, like, 4:00 this afternoon, but now it's past my bedtime, so we're writing a quick post.

Today I made stewed fruit and Crumble. I used plums and a pear which we got from the food co-op yesterday. I'd never made stewed fruit before, but I have made a little crumble before.

This was a very easy recipe. It took about 30 minutes. A little bit more if you do the crumble. It's sort of like an apple sauce, almost, except we used the pear and plums. It was chunky. Stewing fruit is not as easy as it looks. You have to cut all the fruit, which is weird because you really notice the texture of the fruit.

It was juicy. You just cook it with a little water and sugar.

I used sugar in the raw, which my dad uses for his coffee.

When it's done, the fruit is very hot.

You add the crumble topping and then bake it. The crumble topping is just flour, sugar, butter, and oats (we used GF Bisquick).

The crumble topping

I had to get the skin out!

I only had a taste because it's not our dessert night. Yesterday was dessert night. Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday are dessert nights. I think we're a healthy family because we don't eat dessert all the time and we don't go to fast food places.

1 1/2 THUMBS UP

I would have liked it a little less chunky. But it was good.