Whole Wheat Goldfish Crackers

The  other day, I was browsing through Babies R Us because I had nothing better to do to kill time. I ended up in the food and formula section... really? Tiny little individual bottles of "toddler" apple juice? How is this any different from plain old apple juice I can buy for about a quarter of the price at the grocery store? Little adorable packages of "Baby Puffs"? How is this different from cheerios? Now, while I do make my own baby food for a fraction of the price of store-bought packaged baby food, I do understand the convenience of a sealed jar of baby food for, say, traveling. But "Baby Puffs"???
Anyways, while at Babies R Us I used up the last of the money I had on a gift card from baby showers many moons ago, and got a sippy cup with HANDLES so that The Squirt can actually hold it himself. It was a hit. I also got one of those snazzy snack cups with lids that Baby can stick his hand into and pull out snacks without spilling said snack all over the place. You know the ones I mean? The theory is brilliant. The execution... well, lets just say there are cheerios all over my floor. Granted, far fewer cheerios than there would have been had I just given my child a cup of cheerios without a fancy lid on it. But still... messy.

Well, after acquiring said snack cup, my next step was to find something to fill it with. Cheerios are the obvious choice. But I just had to come up with something that I MADE. MYSELF. Because I'm stubborn like that. So, I poked around on the Pinterest for a while and found this recipe for homemade goldfish crackers. A couple of tweaks later, I present to you: Homemade Whole Wheat Goldfish Crackers of Awesomeness.

Whole Wheat Goldfish Crackers (printable recipe)
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
4 Tb butter
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
2 Tbs cold water

Place cheese, butter, flours, and salt into food processor. Pulse until mixture resembles coarse sand. Add water, and pulse until dough forms. Wrap dough in saran wrap and chill for 10 min or so.
Preheat oven to 350F.
Roll out dough ... thinner dough makes crispier crackers, thicker dough makes puffier crackers. Puffier is easier on baby, FYI.
Cut out shapes -- I made myself a goldfish cookie cutter out of a strip of soda can, and I also made some square cheese-it shapes by just cutting squares with a pizza cutter.
Bake for about 15 min.

Now, if The Squirt could just figure out which end of the cup the snacks come out of...

Watermelon Limeade

 I had leftover watermelon.

It is hot outside and cold drinks are wonderful things.

Hence, watermelon limeade.

In other, totally unrelated news:
My 8-month-old isn't so big on limes.

Watermelon Limeade (print recipe)
 8 c cubed watermelon
1 c water
juice of 6 key limes
1/2 c sugar

Blend all ingredients together until smooth. Chill and serve.

Watermelon-Strawberry Koldskaal

Sometime back, I found a recipe on one of the blogs I was following for "koldskaal."
I was intrigued. Evidently, this is a traditional Danish dish that usually is made of buttermilk and other ingredients, and is eaten a kind of cold sweet soup during the summer.

Today was hot, and I decided to try my hand at making my own version of koldskaal from what I had in the fridge.
It was very simple: Watermelon. Milk. Yogurt. Strawberries. Dates. Egg.

It was amazing! It was light and frothy and sweet (without sugar!) and very filling. One bowl was plenty for me. I will definitely be making this again.

The inclusion of a raw egg might be a deal-breaker for some, but I figured... I eat raw cookie dough like there's no tomorrow, and that has raw egg in it... why not? It actually made this soup really frothy and creamy, and probably helped to make it so filling. But hey, if it's a deal-breaker for you, just leave it out. I won't tell.

Watermelon-Strawberry Koldskaal (print recipe)
1 thick slice watermelon
2 c strawberries
1 c milk
1 c plain unsweetened yogurt (I used greek yogurt)
1 egg
5 pitted dates

Blend together all ingredients on high until smooth and frothy. Chill, and serve. Makes two largish bowls.

Making an Art Journal

For a long time, I have kept my journal in a book of blank pages rather than lined pages. I like the freedom of being able to draw or write however I want, without lines to get in the way.

My last journal, however, is about 6 pages away from being full, and I have been wanting to get a new one, with watercolor paper. The rougher, thicker paper would be so much fun for drawing or even painting on, and I had my eye on several beautiful journals on Etsy that had watercolor paper and leather covers.

The problem?
They run about $80 apiece.
For the cheaper ones.

Soooo.... my husband, the ever-capable jack-of-all-trades told me that we could make one.
And since he can do pretty much anything, I believed him.
So we made one.
Here's how.

We found watercolor paper on sale at Office Depot, around $4.50 for 16 pages of 140lb paper.
We found leather in Morgan's ever-present piles of "useful scraps."
That he saves for Forever and a Half.
Projects like this are what he uses to prove that he shouldn't have to throw them away.

We cut the paper in half, and then folded each sheet in half. (We folded them one at a time because folding them all at once, or even in groups, was not working so well.)
We then stacked them into four groups of 8 sheets of paper apiece.

At the center crease of each stack of paper, we marked where we wanted the holes to sew the journal together. We then used a sharp little nail to pound each hole through the stack of paper. Morgan actually filed the nail to a sharper point, but I think you could just use a sharp nail.

We did the same thing with each stack of paper. Theron really thought he should be allowed to help.

I then sewed each stack together with heavy thread.

When the stacks were all sewn together, we held them folded and trimmed the edges. Because the paper is so thick, once the stack was folded, the middle pages stuck out a bit more than the outside pages. We trimmed the excess.

We then laid out the leather with the first set of paper in it, and marked how we wanted the front cover. We then marked where the holes in the paper fell, and pounded matching holes in the leather.

I sewed the first batch of paper into the leather, then marked and pounded the next set of holes about 1/4 inch over from the first set. I sewed the second set of paper into these holes. I repeated this for all four sets of paper. 

We then trimmed the leather to the size of cover I wanted. I made the back cover wrap around in a flap over to the front. 

I wanted a leather strap to tie the journal closed with, so Morgan (brilliant man that he is) cut a long strap by cutting the leather in a spiral. 

We cut three slits in the cover of my journal, and one slit in the leather strap, to attach it. Maybe the pictures will explain this better than I can. 

And.... journal! 

For less than $5. 

And a couple hours of work. 

Chicken and Peach Teriyaki Skewers

I have two confessions to make.
One: I like low prices.
Two: I love salty-sweet foods.
Like chocolate-covered pretzels.
Or that salted caramel mocha that Starbucks used to serve.
Or salt on my watermelon. Or peach. Or nectarine. Or any other sweet fruit.

So, when peaches were on sale at my grocery store, I got a whole bunch. However, these cheap peaches were also very hard and not ripe, altogether lacking in the qualities that make peaches good for snacking on, in my opinion. So, they were the perfect peaches to experiment with the savory applications of peaches.

Enter: these teriyaki skewers. The sweeter flavors of peaches and honey and ginger combine quite nicely with the salty-savory of chicken and soy sauce. In my humble opinion.

I marinated a pound of chicken in homemade honey-teriyaki sauce for about half an hour. I would recommend marinating them longer, but I was hungry. And I'm an impatient person. Who doesn't plan ahead. So they only marinated half an hour.

Then I sliced up three peaches and tossed them with sesame oil and balsamic vinegar.

I threaded the skewers, alternating chicken and peaches, and then "grilled" them in an iron skillet. I have found that an iron skillet on my stove makes a decent substitute for a grill. But if you have a grill, hey, go outside and grill them!

They were a great summer meal, and came together pretty quickly.
Or at least, they would have if I had not been taking pictures the whole way through.
That's how a lot of my cooking goes, though.
Oh well.

Chicken-Peach Teriyaki Skewers (print recipe)

1 pound boneless chicken

1/4 c soy sauce
1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
1tsp fresh pounded ginger
2 Tbs honey

3 peaches
1Tbs sesame oil
1Tbs balsamic vinegar

Mix soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, ginger, and honey in bowl and marinate chicken for at least half an hour.
Slice peaches into 8ths and toss in sesame oil and vinegar.
Thread skewers, alternating chicken and peaches.
Grill until chicken is done (about 10-20 minutes).