The Pinterest Diaries: The Two Ingredient Cookie

We are trying to switch over to eating more "farm foods" (also known as whole foods) at our house. We are not a 'gung ho' family -- probably more because of the adults than the kids! -- so this will be a gradual process. I thought a good place to start would be the two ingredient cookie I saw floating through the boards of Pinterest.

The concept is a cookie whose base is only two all-natural ingredients -- bananas and oats -- thereby eliminating potentially harmful (and potentially GMO) processed oils, excess sugar and flour. We are fortunate to not have any food allergies in our household, so we don't have to worry about sensitivities to gluten or anything like that. But my kids do love a cookie and I love keeping them healthy so I thought if I could lighten a cookie up the natural way, we could all indulge and not have any negative consequences.

I also liked that you could add "mix-ins" of any type to the cookie to tailor it to your tastes. We chose raw chopped almonds, cinnamon and chocolate chips, but I was thinking pistachios and dried cranberries would be good, too. Or coconut and chocolate chips. Or a big spoonful of all-natural peanut butter.

So, we got to work on what could only idealistically be called the "recipe." First, we gathered our ingredients:

three small (over)ripe bananas, raw almonds, cinnamon, chocolate chips

Then we chopped the almonds. Josie helped.

Next, we mashed the bananas into a bowl.

We added about a cup of the quick oats and mixed until it looked like this:

There's your two ingredients right there.

Then we added the good stuff --

                                      chooooocolate chiiiiiiips

Stirred it up and dropped by tablespoonfuls onto a well-greased cookie sheet. Is 'tablespoonfuls' a word?

These don't spread really at all because there is no butter or oil, so you can put them pretty close together. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Let cool on a rack.

Yep, pretty much like that.

So what grade would I give them, you ask? Well, I hate to say it, but they get a D+.

I gave one to my daughter Josie, who was eagerly awaiting the final product. She ate all the chocolate chips out of the cookie, handed me the rest and said, "here Mommy, I saved this for you." That pretty much sums it up.

The cookies turned out gummy, rubbery and weird. With there being no flour or sugar to give you that cookie crunch, you basically just baked a banana with some oats thrown in there for texture. I mean, what did I expect, right? But I guess I was hoping for a miracle, where I could eat six delicious cookies for breakfast in one sitting and tell people I just ate a handful of oats and a banana and would not be lying.

Online, the cookies have received (with only a few exceptions) rave reviews, so I feel like it must have been user error. It is possible that the bananas I used were too ripe. Or maybe I should have flattened out the cookies more. Or added some minutes to the cooking time. I think I will experiment and try again as I now have a giant 80 lb. canister of quick oats waiting to either be used or become a moth buffet. I did really like the addition of almonds to the cookies though and will likely use those in another cookie recipe since I do not really like walnuts, which are ever-present in cookie recipes.

Anyone ever tried the two ingredient cookie with success? Care to share your secret? (Unless your secret is just "I love cookies that double as rubber balls" -- that's a secret I don't need to know.)

A Shift in Focus

Remember me?

I have been struggling with the direction of this blog lately. I love to write, I love my girls, and they are an endless source of inspiration. But I was starting to dread coming up with material that would please everyone and be entertaining but would also not cross privacy lines. I don't want my kids to hate me later for exposing their every feeling and phase for the world to see. I don't want to feel like a reporter of my life, spending my time angling for that perfect photo instead of
getting in there with the family and making a memory together that we
remember in our minds rather than on a computer screen. I feel endlessly
guilty about this.

Then on the flip side, I get too personal and probably overshare. Not the
gory details necessarily, but bare bones emotion and complicated
toddler feelings and behaviors of my girls. Sometimes I picture them in
10 years, reading this and being angry or embarrassed at the fact that I
have spilled supremely personal details of our daily lives out into the
world without their permission. And then, again, I feel guilty.

Sometimes I get a little paranoid and worry my oversharing will
result in a serious problem, like giving a stalker material or allowing
internet sickos to use my girls' photos in whatever way Photoshop allows
them to. It happens. Not often, but it happens.

I realize my blog audience is fairly small at this point, so you might be wondering what I am so worried about. But these words and photos go out into the universe and I can't control where they end up. Even if I deleted my blog, the content is pinned on Pinterest, liked on Facebook and shared on other sites and that's all a bell I can't unring. Raising little ones at this time when social media and mommy blogs are equating strangers and random acquaintances with close friends and family is sort of uncharted territory, and I'm not so sure I want to explore it.

So I think for now, I will move the focus from more personal parenting stories via my children's follies to other baby and kid topics... DIY projects, preschooler activities, cool baby products, stuff like that. I do want you guys to like me, but more more than that, I want my kids to like me, you know? I know all you parents out there will understand. :)

One Word Wednesday

Bakers.

 

 

One Word Wednesday

omgpreteen

Souper Tuesday: Turkey Soup

Well, I missed the Tuesday deadline, so today is Souper Wednesday. Perfect though because it is cold, blustery and really snowy outside!

As for soup, I have saved the best for last. Huh, you say? Turkey Soup, you say? That is the best of the four?

YES!! The name might be kind of lackluster, but the soup is not. In fact, I am going to go out on a limb and say this is the best soup I have ever had, save a phenomenal lobster bisque I had in 1998. I wish I could take credit for this soup, but I can't. In fact, I have no idea where the recipe originated, I got it from a friend. But please, please, try this soup!

On Thanksgiving, my aunt and uncle decided, AWESOMELY, that it was going to be their job to get all those tiny bits of meat off the turkey once everyone had eaten. I am so glad they did, because those leftovers are what I used for this soup. I just popped them in a freezer bag and into the freezer they went. You could also cook up a turkey breast, shred it and freeze it if you can't make this soup right away. P.S. if you do freeze it, no need to thaw it out 100% as long as you shredded it first. I thaw it out enough so that I can break it up a bit, then put it right in the soup!

Turkey Soup (makes 4 large servings)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups water


• 1 can cream of chicken soup, undiluted


• 1 can stewed tomatoes (I cut them up smaller)


• 2-3 cups shredded turkey


• 5 small red potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes


• 3 carrots, peeled and chopped


• 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped


• 1 garlic clove, minced


• 2 chicken bouillon cubes


• 1 tsp. salt (to taste)


• 1 tsp. dried basil


• 1/2 tsp. dried thyme (I love thyme, so I use a little extra!)


• 1/4 tsp. black pepper


• 1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning


• 1-1/2 c. milk

Directions:

1. Bring first 14 ingredients to a boil in a dutch oven. I whisk the cream of chicken soup and water together first until it is well blended, then I just go down the ingredients list and add them all in one by one.

2. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, stirring and tasting occasionally, at least 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. I let it go more like 2 hours!

3. Right before serving, stir in milk. Warm through, stirring often. Serve very very warm but not boiling hot!

4. You're done! Easy!

My husband loves this soup so much, we were both genuinely sad when we ran out of leftover Thanksgiving turkey! Please try this soup, you'll be so glad you did. Have I mentioned how much we LOVE this soup??? GAH

An aside: have I mentioned how much I also love my dutch oven? I think it is out of production. I got it at Target, it is by Chefmate and I believe it is the 5 quart size. It was super cheap, I think I paid $29.99. From everything I read after the fact, it sold out like hotcakes at a firehouse breakfast. I guess I got lucky! There are two similar (read: affordable) pots that are popular, the Tramontina 6.5 Quart:

and the Lodge 6-Quart Dutch Oven.

Aren't they purty? Then there's always the classic Le Creuset 5 Quart Casserole

That's just a paltry $275. My Chefmate is definitely no-frills, and I'm not sure how high of a temperature you can use it inside the actual oven, but I love it nonetheless. If you ever come across one at a yard sale, or if they reissue it, snatch it up!

Hope you enjoyed the Souper Tuesday series! I can cook alright for the most part, but I am psyched at the way these soups have turned out. I think soup may be my thing. I will add the recipes to my "recipe" tab as soon as I can. In the meantime, we return to our regular baby-and-kid related programming! Stay warm, spring is coming!

One Word Wednesday

(It's still Wednesday, isn't it?)

Freezing!

Souper Tuesday: Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup

First, let me assure you that this has not turned into a soup blog, or even a food blog. Far from it (just look at my photos, ugh! Clearly I will never be a food photographer!). It's just that I have been on this soup kick, and at the same time, I've been really busy and writing my usual posts takes much longer than writing a post on how to make soup. Tomorrow I will bring back One Word Wednesdays, and I have other posts in the works that are more related to baby and kid stuff specifically. So have no fear!

Today's soup was born out of a lack of recipes online for Chicken Tortilla Soup that were to my liking, much like the Beef Barley Soup experience. I wanted a slightly spicy soup, and I had some chicken to use up, so Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup seemed great. A lot of the soups online involved me making tortillas by hand and cutting them into thin strips and frying them, all things I have just no interest in doing. So I just used tortilla chips instead. Just as good, I tell you! This soup had lots of flavor and of course you control the spiciness, so you can make it mild for your kids or extra spicy for yourself!

Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup (makes 4 large bowls)

Ingredients:

• 1 box (I think it's a quart?) chicken broth (I used low sodium)


• 2 cups water


• 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked and shredded


• 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil


• 1 can yellow corn


• 1 can petite diced tomatoes


• 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped


• 1 can black beans


• 1 tsp. minced garlic


• 2 chicken bouillon cubes


• salt


• chili powder


• fresh lime


• tortilla chips


• mexican blend finely shredded cheese (optional)

Directions:

1. In a dutch oven, saute garlic in olive oil until just fragrant.

2. Add chopped onions and saute until onions are transparent.

3. Add tomatoes, corn and black beans and stir until warmed through. (You can see from the photo that I forgot the black beans; what can I say, taking a 2 and 3 year old to the store you're bound to forget something! The soup was still good without the beans, but would have been better if I had remembered them.)

4. Pour in your box o' chicken broth and your 2 cups of water and stir. Heat for about 5 minutes on medium, then add chicken bouillon cubes. These are optional and some people don't like to use them; totally up to you.

5. Add shredded chicken to the soup. I like to broil mine (just because it is fastest) and then I shred them with 2 forks.

6. Stir well and heat through, then add salt if needed and chili powder. Start small and add more as the soup cooks if needed. I was surprised to find myself adding a pretty decent amount of chili powder two more times during the cooking process... I usually don't like things too spicy, but that extra kick worked great in this soup.

7. Turn the heat up and bring to a boil, then turn down to low, cover and simmer for at least 30-45 minutes. Mine went about an hour and 15 minutes total.

8. Taste often and adjust seasoning as needed.

9. Serve with tortilla chips. You can add shredded cheese on top right before serving -- it kind of melts into the soup which added a nice additional texture. I also highly recommend a generous squeeze of lime (I used two wedges) but wait until the very end to add it!

This soup was definitely a winner and would go great with a Negro Modelo! My husband only eats soup when it is really cold out, but I think this soup would be good in the summer, too. Let me know if you try this one! It's delicious!