Our Harvest Week Celebration

Last week we celebrated the Autumn Equinox with a Harvest Week Celebration, and a Harvest Feast!

Of course we had to decorate and add some festive harvest decor!

I drove an hour and a half round trip to get these great corn stalks. It was worth the trip!

All the large pumpkins pictured are from our pumpkin patch! Aren't they beauties?!

One of the crafts the kids made last week were napkin holders using fall colored beans and pasta. 

This is one of the place mats I made for the feast. Each child had their own using a picture I took that week. These were the cutest turkeys I've ever seen!

Fall themed games with leaves and pumpkins featured heavily through the week.

Some of the families brought in their harvest shares this week. Here's is a wonderful squash from Eric's garden. I can't wait to replant the seeds!

For the feast, everyone brought a locally grown garden fresh harvest dish to share. It was sublime!

Henriikka and Eric brought cheesy potatoes, using fresh potatoes from their garden, with a side of homemade salsa using fresh veggies and peppers form their garden. 

Laura and Joel brought a homemade raspberry cheeescake using fresh raspberries from Laura's dad's garden.

Jessica brought homemade applesauce and zucchini bread, while Kaelonnie brought homemade apple butter to spread on the bread, made by Tayson's grandmother.

Zach and Desi brought us fresh salad with garden tomatoes, a wonderful variety of veggies including bell peppers, apples, carrots and zucchini, with delicious hummus dip. 

Liz and Brad brought devilled eggs using fresh eggs from a local farm.

The kids were all so excited about the feast. They loved talking about what each person brought as they were eating and loved knowing where their food came from. Liz even included a whole egg to show the kids from the farm!

The feast and the whole week were so much fun to celebrate. Thank you to all of my families for your participation and help to make our feast such a success!

Making Pasta!

This week the kids and I made our own pasta for fettuccine alfredo. It was going to be chicken and noodles but I changed my mind at the last second when I realized I had everything to make alfredo sauce.

This is a simple pasta recipe- flour, eggs, salt and a little milk.

Stirring it all up.

The first kneading. It takes about ten minutes of kneading to release the gluten so it feels a little bouncy.

We let it rest & relax for about a half hour (no picture) covered with a damp tea towel.

Then another round of kneading until it's smooth and ready to roll out. 

We rolled ours to about 1/2 inch thick, but normally it would be more like 1/4 inch. With a rolling gadget it's much easier to get the perfect thickness, but I kind of like the rolling process when doing this with the kids. And the thicker dough is actually a bit easier for the kids to eat when it's cooked.

After flouring the top surface of the rolled out dough, it gets folded up until it's one giant jelly roll. The flour makes sure it doesn't stick to itself.

Then we slice! Each slice unrolls into very long pasta strips. Most have to be cut in half before hanging.

We cut the pasta a little wide to use as fettuccini noodles. Here they are hanging on the pasta drying rack. You can cook them right away, freeze them, or dry them for about 2 hours to use later. 

Since they were a bit thicker they cooked perfectly in about 12 minutes. The kids loved the long thick noodles and named the baby sized ones Oskar and Elijah as we were hanging them. :-)

Tomatoes, steamed broccoli, grilled chicken strips and just finished alfredo sauce over handmade fettuccine pasta made a lovely lunch that everyone enjoyed!

Picture Pancakes

This morning was picture pancake day! It's something we do about once a month. For now it's random and a fun surprise for the kids when they arrive. 

We make oodles of fun pictures and shapes for breakfast and letters for everyone's name. Then the kids have to figure out whose name each letter goes to for a quick literacy lesson.

This is the bumblebee I made today, and I also made hearts, stars, squares, triangles, circles, happy faces, clouds, trees, flowers, sunshines, pac-man ghosts, snakes, worms, a Portuguese Man-of-War, fish, spirals, and more. Other months I've taken requests for spongebobs, princess crowns, people, cars, trains, Phineas & Ferb, Big Bird, spiders, and houses.

I make my own whole wheat batter and make it healthier by sprinkling freshly ground flax seed to the wet side right after I pour the batter onto the skillet. Adding the flax directly to the batter before it gets poured changes the consistency and makes it thicker, too thick to make proper shapes. Plus, when flipped, the pretty side is clean and the underside has the flax, something the kids don't even notice! We topped it today with homemade cranberry sauce that I made using honey and cranberries, plus a few extra dried ones for fun. 

Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

Today we mixed it up with some delicious breakfast cookies. These are the EASIEST cookies in the world. They have zero bad stuff, and lots of good stuff. And they are delicious. 

I made banana-oatmeal-raisin-walnut breakfast cookies. The only two ingredients you actually need are the banana and oatmeal. The rest is all optional and based on your own preferences. 

I added raisins to mine today but you could also use chocolate chips or carob, cranberries or other dried fruit of choice. I dumped in the rest of what we had in the jar, maybe a cup's worth?

Quick cook oatmeal is likely easier, but since I buy mine organic it's not quick but it still works out just fine. I hand grind it up a bit as I put it in the bowl and a little after to help it bind a little better. Again, I dumped in the rest of the oatmeal that we had, which was probably 2 cups-ish.

You'll want to use ripe and old bananas, but you can just as easily use fresh ones. I used 5 bananas today, which was the rest of what we had, plus the mix was still too dry with only 4 bananas.

I like walnuts for brain food for the kids so I went with those, but pecans would have been yummy, too! Also, next time I make this I will add a lot more walnuts because I think they work really well in this recipe. I chop mine before adding to the mix. I think I used maybe 3/4 c of nuts.

Here they are baking in the oven. You can pack them in pretty tight because they don't spread out or rise.

And after they rest for a half a minute on the cooling rack they go onto plates and into tummies while still warm. 

I don't measure for this recipe, but here is an approximation:

1-2 cups oatmeal

2-4 bananas, mushed

Mix the two. It should be stirrable but not drippy runny. Add more of one or the other to get it thick enough that it doesn't spread out when dropped on the pan in a spoonful.

Then add whatever other ingredients you want- spices like cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, nuts or seeds, dried fruit, etc. Mix it all together (I actually end up using my hands but a big sturdy spatula or wooden spoon might work, too).

Drop by spoonfuls on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or so, depending on the size you made them. The smaller ones may be ready at 15, and bigger ones need up to 30 minutes. *If you don't use parchment paper, you have to grease the pan or the oatmeal WILL stick.

They do stay a bit chewy and it's almost impossible to over bake them. I haven't tried it but these would likely do well as dehydrated cookies, too, so you could keep them raw if you wanted to. Great work-out food or on-the-go breakfast.

Super mega healthy breakfast that kids enjoy because it has the word 'cookie' in the name, looks like a cookie, smells like a cookie and tastes like a cookie. So cookies win! Woo-hoo!

A Welcomed Garden Share

The deliriously sweet and lovely Laura, Brooklyn's mom, brought us some fresh garden spinach yesterday to share with the kids. Thank you, Laura!! 

With one of the two fresh pineapples I picked up the day before, I decided to make nu-licious (nutritious and delicious) spinach smoothies for the kids today.

It was a perfect treat this morning and the kids luuuuved them! They even asked for more.

Peasant Bread

We made peasant bread this weekend and Alex could not stop eating it. I had lofty plans to get photos of this bread sliced and in a better backdrop, but every time Alex walked by the cooling bread (this was taken right after it came out of the oven) he picked off a piece rendering my bread photo-unworthy. :-). He loved this stuff so much he stopped playing outside and came in to get more, over and over.  

It's a very easy bread to make, and yummy.

This bread is baked in bowls instead of loaf pans, though I'm sure you could do it that way. When it's sliced, you can use it as sandwich bread and it has a lovely artisan shape. 

This bread doesn't need to be kneaded or rolled out. It can rise and bake in the same bowl, making clean-up much easier. 

Peasant Bread

Set out butter and let soften at room temperature over 20-30 minutes.

Then...

2 teaspoons yeast

1 tablespoon honey

2 cups warm water

Dissolve honey in warm water.

Sprinkle yeast over top. No stirring needed.

Let yeast activate over 10-15 minutes until nice and foamy on top.

While that happens...

4 cups bread flour

2 teaspoons sea or kosher salt

Combine in bowl and set aside.

Using softened butter, butter two medium sized oven safe bowls. Pyrex is great. Maybe a couple teaspoons. Maybe more. More butter = more yummy.

When yeast is finished, pour over flour/salt mixture.

Stir with wooden spoon or spatula. Clean sides well.

Dough will be very wet and sloppy. That's good for this dough.

Once the dough is well mixed and the sides are clean, you'll have a gloppy blob at the bottom of your bowl. Divide into two and put into buttered bowls. Remember it's gloppy so you'll just have to go with it. You'll see.

Cover the bowls of dough with a tea towel for an hour and a half. Two hours is OK, too. This is the first rise. Keep the bowls in a warm place. 

After the first rise is done, preheat your oven to 425.

Now, take salad forks and poke down the dough, or use a spatula to fold the wet dough onto itself several times to 'punch' it down. This isn't a doug where you use your hands to work, it's just too wet. Once the dough is small again, cover again for 20-30 minutes. This is the second rise.

After the second rise, the dough should be filling most of your bowl. If it isn't even close to the top (3/4 full is a good measure) the the bowl is probably too big. Use a spatula to transfer to a smaller bowl. Don't forget to butter the new bowl first.

Now bake at 425 for 10 minutes.

Turn down the heat to 375 and bake 20-25 more minutes. 

Remove bowls and turn over onto cooling rack. If you buttered well, the bread will fall right out. If it feels a little stuck, try using a butter knife to gently slide around the inside edge. 

Slather with buckets of butter and enjoy!

MORE TIPS

*When cool, you can use this as sandwich bread.

*Store inside a bag for a few days or freeze. But it's not likely to last longer than the end of the day in most households!

*After 3-5 days, when it's a bit stale, cut into squares and dry in oven on 170 degrees until toasted all the way through. Add garlic, parmesan or other seasonings to make into croutons, or grind down to make breadcrumbs. 

*A trick to helping your dough rise- preheat oven to 170 degrees, or lowest setting. Turn off as soon as it reaches it's temperature. Place covered dough bowls into warmed oven (that is turned OFF) to rise. 

*You can modify the recipe with 1 cup rolled graham crackers + 3 cups flour. 

*Using whole wheat flour changes the consistency. Experiment with what you like. I used half bread flour (unbleached) plus half whole wheat flour. 

*I use honey to activate yeast for breads and it works great. You can also use regular sugar, using the same measurement.

*I use real butter in all my recipes. I imagine you could use margarine or other butter substitute if desired. 

Eating Our Rainbow

These were some of the colorful veggies we had today. 

I didn't get a pic of our carrots which were also in the mix. 

Yum!

Making Bread

 Today we made bread!

When making bread, we tell a story...

First we have to make some soup for the hungry yeast. We mix 2 cups very warm water and a big spoonful of honey. This is the soup. The yeastie beasties are VERY hungry and so we add a T of yeast to the soup and watch them eat. When they get foamy we know they are happy and well fed.

When the yeast are all full, it begins to snow! We sprinkle 4 cups of flour over them, taking turns stirring and kneading and sprinkling until the snow storm has passed. Sometimes it's a blizzard, an avalanche, and sometimes just a light blanket. We add a dash of sea salt.

Once the flour is all mixed in, and it's hard for us to stir and the dough isn't sticky anymore, it's time for the dough to take a nap. The dough is VERY tired after all that work. We put it to bed (large bowl), cover it with a blanket (kitchen towel) and let it sleep. We now consider our dough to be a baby. We know that naps make us BIG and strong, and so we have to wait for our dough baby to grow big and strong, too.   

After about an hour, we gently and lovingly uncover our dough baby and check on it. Our baby has grown SO big!! It's time for our dough baby to wake up and play. I add flour to everyone's workstation on the table, and sprinkle flour on everyone's hands, then pull off big blobs and give one to each child. 

Now they can fold, knead, squeeze and punch down their dough until it's just right. 

Many talk to their dough babies, " I love you my little dough baby, but I am going to have to eat you soon. Don't worry, I'll make more of you again!!"

Letting it snow / sprinkling flour onto the yeast mixture.

Stirring.

More stirring.

More snow.

It's getting thicker and more solid now.

Time for the dough to rest and take a nap.

After an hour, the dough has risen to twice it's size!

Kneading the dough.

Placing shapes onto baking sheets. The kids can make ANY shape they want.

You can see everyone does something different. Some like big blobs, some prefer to roll small blobs, some do snakes and worms. It all ends up just fine!

This recipe really makes quite a bit. It takes me 3-4 cookie sheets and two oven batches to bake these.

Now we let the dough rest a little longer, maybe 20-30 more minutes. It's hard work being shaped and punched!

Then I place them in the oven on 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

With this recipe, the dough doesn't rise much more, and it bakes pretty quick. I take out smaller pieces and let larger ones bake a little longer. This dough isn't dark when it's done, it stays pretty light.  

We also made honey butter.

A lovely snack time outside on this cool sunny day. 

Warm handcrafted bread fresh from the oven and sweet butter. Yum!

Taste wise, the bread is a little sweet but not too much. The bread is dense and not like loaf bread. This particular recipe is great for kids because it has very few ingredients and it's really easy to make. It's almost nearly impossible to make a mistake. And best of all the kids get to make their own pieces, rather than a larger shared loaf, which is fun, too, but this is a nice way to show their creativity and be expressive in their baking. Also, the kids get their own baked items when they are done, so they get to see what their creations look like at the end. And they can take their leftover pieces or piece home to share with family or save it for later.