APPLE CIDER SYRUP

Okay, I know that technically this is does not contain apples, but it is apple themed. Plus, it is the season to eat things like pumpkin pancakes and apple cider syrup, right?!

3/4 c. sugar
2 T. cornstarch
1/8 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. cinnamon
2 c. apple cider (I think you can use apple juice too)

In a saucepan, mix together sugar and cornstarch. Add nutmeg, cinnamon, and apple cider. Bring to a boil. Serve on pancakes or waffles. This really does go great with pumpkin pancakes, if you'd like that recipe, let me know and I'll post it.

Cinnamon Apple Streusel Bars

We usually make these around Christmas and they are so good!

1 1/4 c. graham cracker crumbs
1 1/4 c. flour
3/4 c. packed brown sugar (divided)
1/4 c. sugar
1 t. cinnamon
3/4 c. butter, melted
2 c. peeled and chopped apples (about 2 medium apples)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 13X9 inch baking pan. Combine graham cracker crumbs, flour, 1/2 c. brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon, and butter in large bowl until well blended; reserve 1 cup of mixture. Press remaining crumb mixture into bottom of pan. Bake 8 minutes. Remove from oven; set aside.

Toss apples with remaining 1/4 c. brown sugar in medium bowl until brown sugar is dissolved; arrange apples over baked crust. Sprinkle reserved 1 c. crumb mixture over filling. Bake 30 to 35 minutes more or until apples are tender. Remove pan and cool completely. Drizzle with glaze (listed below). Cut into bars. Makes 3 dozen bars.

Glaze
Combine 1/2 c. powdered sugar and 1 T milk in small bowl until well blended.

Recipe is from "Old Fashioned Christmas Cookies," Publications International, Ltd.

Nilla Apple Crisp

Kraft gets credit for this recipe too. We made this over the weekend and it was really good!

Nilla Apple Crisp

8 cups thinly sliced peeled Granny Smith apples (about 4 large/2 lb.)
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar, divided
2 tsp. ground cinnamon, divided
1/3 cup old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats
1/4 cup cold margarine
25 NILLA Wafers, crushed (about 1 cup crumbs)
1-1/2 cups thawed COOL WHIP Whipped Topping

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Toss apples with 1/4 cup of the brown sugar and 1 tsp. of the cinnamon. Spoon into 8- or 9-inch square baking dish.
COMBINE oats, the remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon in medium bowl. Cut in margarine with pastry blender or two knives, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add wafer crumbs; mix well. Spread crumb mixture evenly over apples.
BAKE 30 to 35 min. or until apples are tender. Serve warm or cooled. Top with whipped topping.

Simply Lasagna

Okay, so for my hamburger recipe I'm just doing a link to the Kraft recipe that our family loves for an easy lasagna. What's great about this recipe is that you don't have to cook the noodles before putting them into the lasagna, so it save a lot of time and in my case a lot of scorch-marks on your fingers!

With this fun idea for a weekly ingredient, you'll probably figure out that I'm addicted to Kraft recipes. We get a quarterly (free!) magazine with their recipe ideas and it has been a fun way for me to try new things. If you're interested, check out this magazine online.

No more cold medicine for kids under 2

An article came out on CNN yesterday about cold medicines for children under 2. We all have little ones under 2 so I thought this was information we could all use. Especially with cold season approaching us.
To see the article click here.

Baked Spaghetti

Here's mine. I love this stuff but it's got brown sugar in it so how could it not be good? And we are not huge onion or celery fans over here so I always leave those out and I just add more green pepper.

Baked Spaghetti

Ingredients:
8 oz spaghetti, cooked
1 ½ lbs hamburger
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1-2 stocks celery, chopped (optional)
1 16 oz can stewed tomatoes
16 oz ketchup
3 T brown sugar

Brown hamburger, onion, green pepper and celery in skillet. Salt and pepper to taste. Mix in spaghetti, tomatoes, ketchup and sugar and pour into large pan. Bake

Temp- 400 degrees
Bake Time- 30 min
Serves- 6-8

Enchilada casserole

This is a great fast recipe. You can do it with hamburger using red enchilada sauce or chicken using green enchilada sauce - both are delicious!

Mix:
1 can red enchilada sauce
1 can(small) diced mild green chiles
1 can petite diced tomatoes
cooked hamburger (I usually do anywhere from 1/2lb to 1 lb) - you can cook your hamburger with a little onion and green pepper if you want. I usually just have mine frozen, so I just pull it out of the freezer, microwave it, and mix it in.

Layer in a round casserole dish:
Corn tortillas
Enchilada mix
cheese
(until dish is full - last layer should be cheese)

Bake at 350 until golden bubbly, usually about 1/2 hour... until heated through. You can serve it with sour cream or even lettuce and guacamole.

Weekly Ingredient

Hey Blogging Mommies,

We're going to start something new on here that we thought would be fun. On the sidebar we are adding a "Weekly Ingredient" box and every week the ingredient will change. So if you have a good, easy recipe that has that ingredient in it, post it up. Make sure you label the post with "recipes" too so that we can all easily find all the recipes when we want to.

If you don't have a recipe that's fine or if you have a recipe that you want to put up that doesn't have the ingredient in it, that's definitely fine too. This is just to give us more ideas of something to post and hopefully we'll build up our recipe section a little.

Since this week is half over already we'll start with a super easy one.

If you ever have any fun ideas to make this blog more fun let us know! Keep the good posts coming!

Homemade Finger Paints

My friend Martha Stewart gave me this recipe and we had a blast this morning finger painting. I have to admit half the fun is making it together with your little one.

4 TBSP. Sugar
1/2 cup Cornstarch
2 cups Cold Water
Food Coloring

Stir sugar and cornstarch together and add cold water. Heat on stove on medium heat (stir constantly) until thickened (only a couple minutes) and then separate into bowls and add food coloring for desired color. I just bought finger painting paper at Target for a few bucks. So easy and so fun!!

Deceptively Delicious

So, I don't usually get to choose any shows during the day (whenever they t.v. is on we're watching Sesame Street or our new favorite Super Why), but since Rachel took an extra-long nap yesterday I caught Oprah. She had Jessica Seinfeld on talking about ways to hide vegetables into meals. We've actually been really lucky with Rachel being willing to eat vegetables, but I thought this was a great idea to make sure that your family is getting enough vegetables without having to nag your kids to eat. Basically all she does is puree steamed veggies (carrots, cauliflower, etc.) once a week and keeps the purees in plastic baggies in her fridge to add to whatever she's cooking. She then just adds at least one puree to the meal (depending on the color so it doesn't look weird for the kids). She has put together a cookbook of all types of recipes that incorporate these purees, but she said that you can really add them to anything (scrambled eggs, mac and cheese, brownies). I was just excited because making the purees is pretty much how I make baby food anyway, so when I start doing it for Ian I'll just double it to also put in our meals - well, if it doesn't taste crazy! Anyways, if you'd like to learn more, check out her "Deceptively Delicious" tips.

IDEAS FOR TIME SAVING MEALS WITH YOUR FREEZER

Okay, I have no idea what to call this post, but it seems I've had freezer on the brain! When my mother in-law was here, she saw how much stuff I ridiculously try to cram into my small freezer. I'll admit, I'm a freezer junkie, but it just save so much time and energy... and food! So, the day she left, she paid for half of a chest freezer for us. I was SO thrilled, it is just the right size and I'm loving the extra freezer space. So, here goes, my favorite ideas for freezer stuff:

1. Celery: I buy a bag of celery hearts from Costco (I think there are 4-5 for about $3.00), then I leave one out and chop the rest, put it in snack size ziplocs and freeze them. Then later, I can use them in soups, stir fry, lasagna... whatever

2. About once or twice a month, I cook a bunch of chicken in my crockpot, shred it, bag it and freeze it. Talk about easiest meals ever!!!

2 1/2. When I buy a huge package of hamburger at Costco, I cook all but a handful, bag it in small ziplocs, freeze it and then it is ready for whatever I want to do with it, soup, tacos (just add the seasoning), etc.... you get the idea

3. dry beans: you can get a bag of dry beans for less than a dollar. Since beans are a long process, I cook a whole bag at once, put them in little ziplocs, freeze them, and then use them in soups, casseroles, salads, just like I would out of a can. (We never eat the whole can at once, and this way, I get a lot more for my $)

4. Pizza dough: Trader Joes has awesome pizza dough for 1$. Or, you can make your own, double the batch and freeze half of it in a ziploc. Before you want to use it, just get it out in plenty of time for it to thaw on the counter. It works great and saves the mess of making dough everytime you make pizza (we make pizza a lot!)

5. It seems like fruit (especially banans) ripen insanely fast here in MN. So, when my bananas get too soft, I peel them, sometime I slice or moosh them, or just leave them whole, bag them and freeze them. THen you can use them for banana bread, and smoothies.

6. I just heard this idea, I havn't tried it, so if you do, post a comment and let us know how it worked out. My friend in Rochester has an apple orchard, she said she picks her apples, peels and slices them, and then freezes them. She says they work great to cook with, and don't really turn very brown. She loves to use them like this in apple pies, apple crisp, etc. Sounds like a great idea to me!

I've decided freezing food is a great way to go, if you need more ideas or recipes for food I fix and then freeze, let me know!

Women who know...

I'm sure as mothers we were all struck by Sister Beck's talk in this mornings General Conference (If you are unfamiliar with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints click here) She shared ways that we as mothers can strengthen our homes and families in a way that didn't make me feel guilty for all of my shortcomings but rather motivated me to be the best mom starting now. Here are some of the principles that I pulled out of her talk...feel free to add more or comment!

Mothers who know:

Know who we are
Who God is and have made covenants with him
Desire to bear children (hmmm, maybe I'll be a little less whiny in my next pregnancy!)
Honor Sacred Ordinances and Covenants
Are Nurturers (and good homemakers!)
Are Leaders
Are always Teachers
Do less (I especially loved this principle of allowing less media in the home and less distractions that take children out of the home and away from the family)
Live on Less and Consume Less
Choose Carefully and try not to do it all

You know you're a stay at home mom if...

-On the days where you don't have anywhere to go you tend to stay in your pajamas until at least 2:00

-Substances like pee, poop, spit up, throw up, snot, and spit no longer seem so terribly disgusting because you're usually covered in one of them.

-You can carry a diaper bag, a purse, a handful of mail, a couple bags of groceries, and at least 2 kids from the car to the house.

-You and your friends are used to having choppy conversations that are constantly being interrupted mid sentence to help a child, catch a child, or yell to a child.

-You have the morning cartoon schedule memorized... and so does your child

-You know how to cut a peanut butter sandwich into triangles, rectangles, or hexagons!!!

-Only you can translate what your 18-24 month old is saying

-You've become an expert at peeling the skin off of apples, peaches, pears, and grapes!

-Baby drool is pretty much the same thing as water right?

-You get to see firsthand all your child's milestones (first smile, step, words, days of school, etc...) and you're the first person they run to when they are hurt or upset.

Being a stay at home mom is definitely a full time job, but it's the most rewarding one out there.

Kid Chores

I've been thinking a lot about things that Rachel can now help with around the house. She is always so proud of herself whenever I figure out things that she can help with, and I was wondering what types of things you have your kids do to help? When I'm up to having her "help" she loves to help me put her clothes away, dust, wash the windows/floors with her spray bottle of water, sweep with her little broom, and put the silverware away. And, of course, cooking is always very exciting with toddler assistance! So, any ideas would be very much appreciated because she loves helping and I appreciate the enthusiasm about household tasks!

Ideas Needed!

Want a turn to ask the "Tricks of the Trade" question? Or do you have a good idea for the weekly poll or ingredient of the week?
We definitely want all our mommy bloggers to help us out with ideas for these and we always want to have all of our authors and readers involved. So leave a comment here or email MommyDiariesAdmin@gmail.com if you want a turn or have an idea!
And if you're not an author on the blog but have a question you'd like us to ask we'd love to hear it! Just leave a comment and one of us will ask it the next available week!