Homemade Mini Corn Dogs and a Grapple...

I know what you're thinking..."What the heck is a grapple?"

Well my friends, let me enlighten you! A grapple is only the most delicious, crunchy, crispy, juicy apple on the market! It makes my mouth water to talk about it! Hold on, I need to get a napkin....okay all better.

 

 

A grapple is a hybrid. It is a cross between a red delicious apple and a grape. Now, I'm not sure if they spray the apple with the smell of grape, which my 10 year old was disgusted by, I might add. She's spent most of her life being medicated and detests the smell of grape because it is the go to flavor of medicine on the market. But anyway, this apple smells like a grape soda, and when you bite into it, you're not sure if you're eating a grape or an apple. It truly confuses your mind, but just for a moment. If you have never had a grapple, you must try one!

Inara and I shared the last one today. They only come in a pack of four. And I have to add that they are not cheap....soooo worth every penny though! I promise! Just ask Inara...she likes to eat hers with a little bit of peanut butter.

 

 

As we were eating our grapple, I was making our lunch. On today's menu, homemade mini corndogs.

I used my favorite cornbread recipe, straight out of my "red and white cookbook." A.K.A. Better Homes and Gardens. But you could use a cornbread mix, such as "Jiffy" which I keep on hand in my pantry for those quick meals or weird cravings I find myself having every so often.

I used five (even though only four are pictured) turkey dogs for this recipe and cut them into 1-inch pieces.

 

I grabbed my mini muffin pan and sprayed it with cooking spray and placed my cut hot dog pieces to the cups.

I then spooned the cornbread batter into the cups and covered the hot dogs.

I put the pan in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes or so.

Don't they look golden brown and delicious? They were very pleasing and Inara ate all hers and wanted more!

I Could Have Been a Detective!! Okay, Maybe Not.

I wasn't planning on posting anything today, but I wanted to...no...needed to boast!! I have been playing the game of Clue since I was my sons age. He's 12, going on 13 and we finally introduced him to the game. I have never...ever...won...until...........TONIGHT!!

Yes, you are reading this right...in the 21 years that I have been playing this game, I have never won...without cheating. I must say, I gloated and rubbed it in good!

Miss Scarlett, in the Ball Room with the wrench!!! That is how it all went down!

Better Than Those Mall Things They Call Pretzels...

Wow, those last few posts were awfully depressing! I have been riding on an emotional roller coaster as of late, but those days are over...well, okay, at least for today. I will try not to post anymore depressing gibberish.

Anywho...I digress. The other day, I baked the most delicious and addictive pretzels EVER! I had never made pretzels before and I was actually very intimidated by even t
he thought of doing it. I decided that I was going to at least attempt it and stop being a scardy pants. I was reading a homesteading magazine called, GRIT. I love this magazine! It has so much great information and the recipes are awesome!

It just so happens that I ran across this recipe for homemade pretzels and decided on
a whim to make them. No really, it really was on a whim!

It's a simple recipe and the whole thing takes only about two hours to complete from start to finish...even could be less.

Start by mixing and kneading the dough as the directions say to do. The dough turns out very smooth and light.

When the dough is done being kneaded and risen, put it on a lightly floured surface and divide it up into 8 or more evenly sized pieces.

Shape into your pretzel shapes...or however you'd like to shape them...because really, does it matter? You could do tiny pretzel bites if you would like. I'm going to try that next.

After the shaping, you should have your water bath boiling already, you put your pretzels in the boiling water and leave them for about 3 minutes or so.

Put them on the parchment lined baking sheet and coat them with your egg wash and sprinkle on your salt.

Bake them for about 20-25 minutes until they're nice and golden brown.

These will not last long! They're that good. My family devoured them in less time than it takes to put a full meal on their dinner plates. We hadn't even blessed the food yet. Silly kids! Me? Noooo...okay, yeah me too!

Soft Pretzels

1 1/2 cups warm water
2 1/2 tps active dry yeast
1 TBSP Sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 TBSP salt
1 egg
Coarse or kosher salt

Water Bath

1 Gallon water
1 TBSP baking soda

1. In a large bowl, mix together warm water, yeast and sugar; let sit for 5 minutes, or until foamy.

2. In separate bowl, combine flour and salt. Add to yeast mixture and mix until it comes together. Use your hands to combine into a ball. On lightly floured work surface, knead dough for a few minutes until a smooth, sticky dough forms.

3. Place dough in a large oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 45 minutes.

4. On a lightly floured surface, divide dough into 8 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a long rope, 18-20 inches long. (Don't over-flour your hands or the work surface as this will make the pieces more difficult to roll.) Twist each piece into a pretzel shape by placing the arc of the pretzel at the bottom (closest to you). Round the two ends so they're facing the arc and twist them around; "paste" them to the opposite sides of the arc, using a little water, if necessary. Place on baking sheet covered with parchment paper.

5. Prepare water bath. Once boiling, use slotted spatula to transfer each pretzel into water and let boil for 3 minutes, flipping once halfway through. Drain on a cooling rack, then transfer parboiled pretzels back to parchment-lined baking sheet.

6. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Brush egg wash (beat egg with 1 T water) generously over each pretzel and sprinkle with coarse or kosher salt.

7. Bake for 25 minutes.

*From the publishers of mother earth news. GRIT Country Skills Series. Volume 5. Page 68.

Enjoy your delicious pretzels!

A Fort, Some Crayons and a Pillow...

What do you do when you've had an early morning argument with the hubby, you've gotten a big reality check when you check the account and actually see how much has been cut from your husbands pay, and you are already depressed about having to quit school because of financial reasons and you have to finish taking care of it? You build a fort, add some crayons and a pillow and snuggle with the sweetest little 22 month old little girl ever!

 

That's what the theme for today! Inara loves it when I build a fort and we can just sit under it and color or read books. Sometimes we'll do it and stay in there all day...at least until the kids get home from school.

Today, we decided to color on her Dora coloring pages. It's almost nap time so we brought in her comfy Yo Gabba Gabba blanky and her pillow.

 

The day just got a little better though, because, just a few minutes ago, I got a call from my school and was told that I will be able to continue my classes and graduate this year! All I have to do is catch up in my classes that are currently underway. Two weeks to catch up with. YIKES! Time to get to work as soon as I get the go ahead! Web Design III and Environmental Science, here I come!

Changing it up a little...

Okay, so I haven't posted in a few days. There's a good reason for that...then again, maybe there's not. I've been feeling a little down lately. In fact, right after I wrote my last post, I seemed to go into a sort of depression state. I'm still going through it a little, slowly fighting my way out. It seems I go through this on a regular, but sporadic, basis.

I suppose that it could be self inflicted more than a mental issue, though maybe my self infliction is causing my mental issue? Let me spell it out for you. (TMI warning in #2. If you're male, you may want to skip it.)

Self infliction #1. I am trying to potty train an almost 2 year old that seems she's ready. I assure you, we're doing it slowly and on her terms. You see, almost from the time she could walk, Inara would come in with me when I had to use the potty. We bought her a potty chair to sit next to the big potty so that she'd begin the association. As she got older, she would start grabbing her diaper when she peed and eventually started stripping her diaper off after every pee. So, we started putting her on the potty, trying to get that muscle memory developed. Which brings us to today...she pees nearly every time she gets on the potty. My problem, she doesn't seem to care when she pees in her training pants. How on the planet Earth, do I get her to CARE?

Self infliction #2. Be prepared for TMI! I'm having my own "womanly" issue. I am at a loss as to how I can curb this problem. I have been having this problem since my sweet little Inara-Jayne was born. (Anyone else seeing a trend here?) She was an unexpected miracle for us, being born 6 years after our third child and 6 years after we had decided that three was a good stopping point. Anyway, after I had her, my periods started getting longer and longer and heavier and heavier. I had a period at one point for 9 weeks. I have been to a few doctors now, that have told me that everything checks out and what I'm experiencing is "normal". Really?! Is not being able to leave the house for fear of bleeding all over myself, "normal"?! Is having to go through several packages of SUPER with WINGS pads per month, "normal"?! Is having to take 2-4 showers a day and doing my laundry due to bleeding through, several times a day, just so I will have something to wear the next day, "normal"?! Someone, please tell me I'm not going insane and that you are having this problem too. Maybe someone who has conquered this, can tell me what they have done. I am not content with just "living" with this. This, IS NOT normal!

Self infliction #3. This blog. I started it, thinking that I just got a new Kitchen Aid mixer, I can make bread now and I want to shout it to the world!! Apparently people don't want to see my posts on bread and other yummy treats. So I have been trying desperately to think of something I could do and how I could do it. I want to have a blog that people can come to and sit down with their cup of coffee or tea and read like the paper...and foremost, relate to it. I want to be able to get and give advice. I want to share my family with the world because I think they are the best thing to have ever happened to me. I don't know how to do it. Writing has never been my strong suit, but I've decided that the more I do it, the better I will get. Hopefully, my lack of writing skills will not make you want to read elsewhere. If you have any advice on writing a blog, please let me know...I am so open to anything.

Self infliction #4. My weight. Because of my "womanly" issue, I have not been able to exercise because it's just not physically possible. It's hard enough to walk around the house without having the problems listed above in #2. I don't want to be caught in a Zumba move having to pause, very quickly, I might add, and take a run to the bathroom only to have to change my clothes and do a load of laundry. Workout ruined. Even though I cannot exercise right now, I have been trying to make healthier choices and when I eat during the day. I have felt a little more energy despite the anemia that I've got due to excessive loss of blood, but to no avail. I feel such despair when I look in the mirror, and because of that, I think my children see it.

If there is anyone out there at all that is reading this, please, I don't care what the advice is, would you mind just leaving me a comment down at the bottom? I would love to have someone else's opinion. Any opinion. :-)

Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully, I have not depressed you in the process.

I Need Some Advice...

Man have I been lazy lately. Yesterday, I did attempt some chores. I actually got the dishes done but only a couple loads of laundry actually made it through the wash and dry cycles. I go through phases where I don't want to do anything, mainly in protest because my children have not been taught properly the art of chores and why we must do them. I am admitting right now, that I am lax in discipline. In a word, I'm weak.

Let me explain;

Photo courtesy of http://schoolofdisney.com/Stories/Cinderella/readthestory.htm

 

As a teenager, I did a lot of chores. I helped to raise my sisters from the time I was a preteen until I was 19 and got married. Cooking and cleaning was an everyday thing for me, and then there was the diaper changing and helping with homework while both of my parents worked to keep food on the table. Because of that, my childhood was limited to going to school, and coming straight home to help with my sisters. It was on rare occasion that I was able to hang out with friends or participate in sports. Now, I don't tell you this to put my mother or father down and say that I resent it, because I don't. I tell you this, because it explains why I parent the way I do. I want my children to do those things that I was not able to do. I don't want my kids to look back on their childhood and only remember that they had to do chores all the time.

This brings a big problem to light. You have probably figured it out by now and are screaming at your computer screen or rolling your eyes at me. I am limiting my children's abilities. I was given all of those chores as a child and now as an adult, I know how to do things. My children will not know how to do certain things when they get out on their own. My son will be able to go on his mission in about 5 years. I have a very short amount of time to teach him things that he should have been learning gradually over the years.

The other day we were doing our montly ward cleaning at our church building and Hyrum was vaccuming the carpet in the relief society room when I heard his friend making fun of him because he didn't know how to vaccum properly. I looked up from what I was doing and sure enough, I saw my almost 13 year old son pusing the vaccum only in the forward direction around the room. At that moment, a duh moment for sure, I realized that I was stifling my chilren. If I didn't teach Hyrum those things he needed to know, his wife would not be very happy with me.

Now that I have figured it out, admitted that I have been a horrible mother and acknowledged the wrong that I am doing, the question that remains is, how do I go about fixing the problem? How do I fix it so that they don't hate me for all of a sudden throwing these things on them or making it look like Mom is just being lazy and I'm just pawning it all off on to them. How do I coordinate the chores with extra curricular activies? If someone has any advice, I am open to it.

Again, Mother, if you're reading this...I am thankful that I know how to do these things that I had to do as a teenager because I am able to take care of my family to this day.

Mini Chocolate Cake Donuts

My intentions with this blog was to have it be about my everyday life and what I like to do. Apparently, I like to eat! So far, everything on this blog has been food. Today's post is also food...hmmm, I might have a problem. Do they have a foodaholic's anonymous? No? Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to suffer then. ;-)

As I was thinking about what I was going to do for today's post, Ginny (my 7 year old) decided she wanted to make some mini donuts in her donut maker that she got for Christmas. How cute is that?! It makes little mini donuts! My hubby likes to experiment with different things and has used it to even make donut shaped pancakes. I kid you not! Nothing he makes is "normal".

So we decided to use the donut maker for what it was actually made for...donuts. We whipped up a chocolate cake donut concauction and it turned out perfect!

Some left over cream cheese frosting from the carrot cake the other day and some sprinkles and, viola!! We have mini chocolate cake donuts! Perfect for snacktime!

I decided that I'd post the recipe for you if you'd like to have make your own little mini donuts...or big donuts. We don't discriminate in this house!

Chocolate (Mini) Cake Donuts

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened baker's cocoa
1 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup milk or buttermilk (we used buttermilk)
3 Tbs butter, melted
Powdered sugar glaze (we used cream cheese Frosting)
Sprinkles (optional)

If you're not doing them in a mini donut maker like we did, you'll need to set your oven to 325 degrees.

Bring together your flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, mix together your eggs, sugar and vanilla until thick. Mix your butter and milk together in the bowl or measuring cup that you melted the butter in.

Gradually alternate pouring the butter mixture and egg mixture into the flour mixture, stirring after each addition. Mix until the batter is smooth and not lumpy.

We put our batter into a ziplock bag and cut a hole in one of the corners. That way, you won't have a huge mess to clean up. Squeeze some batter into your pan or donut maker that has been sprayed with cooking spray about 2/3 of the way full. Bake for approximately 5-8 minutes.

Turn out your donuts onto a wire cooling rack and then pick them up and dip them into your icing so that the tops get completely covered. Immediately take them over to your sprinkles and dip them in icing side down so that the sprinkles can cover the top.

Enjoy your fun and way cute creation!!