The air is starting to cool and fall is in the air! for us that means baking and enjoying some of the seasons yummiest produce.
Here are my family’s top ten fall recipes!
Talk Back: What is your favorite fall food?
This week, I’ve got a bunch of event planning and scheduling to do, so I’m trying to plan out some easy/quick meals that use what we’ve got on-hand.
Breakfasts are usually the same for us: Protein shakes for grown ups, and pancakes or something along those lines for the kids. We have plenty of protein shake fixins’- I bought a lot of very ripe bananas recently, chopped them up and froze them in individual bags along with other fruit to make “shake/smoothie sacks”.
Lunches are leftovers, salads, or a protein shake for me and the Mister, and The Big kid has a specially packed lunch of whatever he’s into at the time (which changes frequently). Bitty Bird eats whatever I’ll feed her.
I’m only posting our dinner plans, and links to recipes.
Monday: Pancakes and sausage with fruit (it’s our Group ABA night, so we don’t get home until late)
Tuesday: Leftover Pizza with a fresh green salad
Wednesday: Grilled Chicken and Roasted Veg
Thursday: Stir Fry- I picked up a bunch of new sauces recently, I’m pretty excited to try the mall!
Friday: Date Night!! WOO HOO!
Saturday: Tacos with the fixins, after all, it is Cinco de Mayo.
Sunday: Probably Bean, Rice, and Cheese bowls. We’ll have leftovers from the night before!
I’d love to hear about what you’re having this week! What new recipes are you trying?
I know today is Pi Day, but Henry doesn’t really like pie (except Cheesecake), and I’m always looking for ways to get more protein into my buddy. He has a lot of food aversions, so most meat is a no-go (I don’t really count the occasional chicken nugget he inhales), same with beans, lentils, peas, and most other traditional sources of protein.
And who doesn’t love chocolate chips cookies…..
On the Back of the Kodiak Cakes Power Cakes mix I noticed that they say you can swap their mix 1 for 1 with flour, leavening, and salt in any baking recipe. Challenge accepted!
I turned to my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, the one on the back of the Tollhouse Chips Bag.
Making a few modifications based on what we had in the house, and we were ready to bake!
Here is the Original Recipe. One thing I really recommend is to cream the butter (basically use the electric mixer to “fluff up” the butter) for 30 seconds to a minute before adding the sugars.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Here are the calorie stats for the entire batch of cookies and per serving, which is 2 cookies. I serve Henry 2 of these with an 8 ounce glass of milk. So the total protein for his snack is 12 grams.
This recipe makes 5 dozen cookies.
Do you have a secret to getting your kids to eat more protein?
It’s back… We’ve already been through a few areas, and Henry is itching for a big cuppa Cocoa from Starbucks and a ride in Miss Sally (my car) to go check out all the lights in ONE NIGHT!
We love looking at holiday light displays, and I’ve noticed more neighbors than in past years are putting up lights all over east county! If you want to get out and check out the sites (and lights), here are our favorites:
EL CAJON, 92021
LAKESIDE, 92040
SANTEE, 92071
We pack the kids into the car after dark with cocoa and snacks and head out for a drive. It’s a fun way to spend time together, and it’s pretty frugal!
What holiday traditions do you want to share with your kids?
So I’m a day late… Mr. was sick yesterday, paired with the first day of spring break and I was toast by 11am! That being said I picked up some cheese, milk, and veggies yesterday. We’ll be good for the rest of the week!
I’m just posting dinners for our meal plan. The kiddos have started eating a small toasted bagel with cream cheese for breakfast along with fruit. Hubs likes Oatmeal (my recipe for an easy almost instant oatmeal mix can be found here) if he’s got time, otherwise he and I have protein shakes with frozen bananas and PB2.
Lunches for Lil’ Man are usually Peanut butter and crackers, fruit, milk, a protein muffin (aka a kid cupcake), and applesauce cup. He takes his lunch every day! This week is spring break, so I’ll be cooking lunch at home or we’ll have a picnic/sack lunches if we are on the go (but we may have pizza out- I haven’t decided). Hubs usually has a protein shake or I pack him leftovers or a frozen entree.
Bitty Bird and I usually have leftovers from the night before, or soup, sandwiches, quesadillas. She eats almost anything!
Monday:
Tuesday:
Weds:
Thursday:
Friday:
Saturday:
Sunday:
The menu may change, as I pull stuff out of the pantry to rotate what we’ve got (I am trying to cut down on waste, and put the older stuff up front to get eaten first.
We went to the Zoo today with friends, and I made sure to fill up our snack backpack and bring our drinks!
During a recent pantry clean out, I discovered 3 pounds of brown sugar.
So, I unleashed my google fu to find a recipe to use some of it up. I discovered this recipe from The Pioneer Woman, but it didn’t quite meet our needs (aka what was in the kitchen). So with some changes, I whipped up a batch of chewy, yummy, spiced oatmeal cookies that are sure to please even the finickiest cookie monster!
I had to make 3 batches because they just kept disappearing!
Spiced Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookies (Adapted from this recipe )
Ingredients
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Beat together the butter, coconut oil, and sugars until fluffy. Beat in vanilla and eggs.
Mix together the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices in a separate bowl. Add it into the wet ingredients, mixing it until just combined. Mix in the oats until just combined. Don’t overmix!
Drop scoops/spoonfuls of dough onto a lightly greased cookie sheet, spacing them a couple inches apart. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until dark and chewy. These cookies spread when you bake them, so make sure to give them room to grow!
Let them cool slight on the pan after removing from the oven, then transfer the cookies.
Makes 24-36 cookies (depending on the size cookie you make)
I had a can of pumpkin open the other day and I decided to make cookies. Part of the show that hubs is in has a scene where all the characters eat cookies on stage. They had been eating Madeline’s, which are super tasty, but high in calories.
So I opted to bake something a little lower in calories. I also made the cookies quite small (1 tablespoon, instead of two), to cut down on calories. I added pumpkin instead of the eggs and some of the fat to lower the calories and add fiber and fruit.
In keeping with the spirit of using up what we have in the house, I also used only brown sugar, as we were out of white sugar.Lil’ Man was a big helper- He added the chocolate chips and helped scoop the dough onto the cookie sheets. He’s going to be a Master Chef yet!
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
Directions:
Makes 3-4 dozen cookies.
Variations: This recipe is east to make as vegan, just sub out butter for the solid fat of your choice. To make GF, sub in GF flour of your choice. To make it nut free, omit the almond meal and increase the amount of flour to 2 cups.
Hewes Family Fun 