More cooking days

Kayla and Hunter have been away visiting grandparents for nearly 2 weeks now.  It's been strange to only have 2 children again.  I love the time with Tanner, and the peace and quiet (Hunter and Tanner are LOUD together) but I am definitely missing my big kids.  Since they are on my mind, I thought I'd post about a couple of our cooking days before they left.

Kayla chose to make "Coconut Lime Sours" on her cooking day.  You must try these!  Kayla and I tried them at the Georgia's home and we were hooked!  They have such a unique taste--sweet, sour, crunchy, chewy--my mouth waters just thinking about them.  You can get the recipe here.  If you don't like lemon or lime, skip this recipe.  My boys won't touch these, but us girls think they are great!

On Hunter's cooking day, he wanted to make funnel cake.  We love to buy these at fairs and amusement parks but we hate shelling out $7 or $8 for one!  We found this easy recipe online.   Although these were delicious, I have no intention of making them again.  As I mentioned before, I don't like deep-frying.  Not only is it unhealthy, it's so messy.  Add loads of powdered sugar to the equation and you get an even bigger mess!  I didn't like the clean-up, but the funnel cakes were a huge hit!

In spite of my assertions, I'll probably end up making these again.  Tanner has asked to make Funnel Cake for every cooking day since this one.  So far, I've been able to talk him into other things, but it's only a matter of time before I give in!

Tanner

Tanner has been begging to make sugar cookies for awhile.  I've been wanting to cook with my kids more but they always want to do it when I have other things planned and even if I'm already cooking, let's face it--it's faster and less messy to do it myself!  I finally decided I needed a designated "cook with your child" day.  I rotate through the kids and give them each a turn to pick something they want to make.  I can plan ahead this way, get the ingredients we need, and mentally prepare myself for the mess! :)  When it was Tanner's turn, he finally got to make sugar cookies.  We did make a big mess but we both had fun!

He shared the cookies the next day with his preschool friends.  All the kids got to frost and decorate a cookie themselves. 

 Brinlee, Tanner, and Truman

By the way, we did a pre-school co-op with 3 other families this year and it was perfect.  It was only one day a week and only 4 children.  It was low-stress, low-pressure, and Tanner loved it.  Kayla loved when it was our turn to teach because she could help and be a little teacher herself.  I loved having the kids here too but I especially loved having Tanner gone one morning a week so I could do school with the older kids in peace! :)  It's amazing how much we could accomplish without him interrupting us.  I loved it so much that I've decided to actually send him to preschool next year.  I will miss him and I will miss the cute little kids that were in our group, but I think I will enjoy teaching my older kids for a few hours a week in peace.


While I'm talking about Tanner, I want to share a few things.  He turned 4 in February and I somehow missed writing about him. You never know how your kids will turn out when they get older, but I want Tanner to know that for the first 4 years of his life, he has been our little dream child.   There is a gap of 5 1/2 years between Hunter and Tanner.  We were hoping (and trying) to have children sooner but it just took a long time for it to happen.  As his birth approached, I got really scared about what it would be like to have a baby in the house again.  Things were getting pretty easy with 2 older children who could dress, feed, and entertain themselves.  We could go about anywhere and do anything.  I thought it would be a huge adjustment to go from 2 kids to 3 but it didn't feel that way at all.  It was just delightful. 

We have enjoyed every stage of Tanner's development.  Tanner has been easy in so many ways due to his mellow and easy-to-please disposition.  We didn't have to walk the halls with him at church because he would actually stay quiet during Sacrament meeting (definitely a change from our other children).  We were able to drop him off at Nursery at 18-months without any problem as opposed to Jason attending Nursery for 2 years straight with another child.  He hasn't thrown many tantrums in his life and when he does get upset, he isn't too hard to calm down.  He was even easy to potty-train!  He is an observer and loves to watch first, then jump in later.  He loves to build and tinker.  He loves to play with trains and cars and build with blocks.  He loves to give snuggles and my day isn't complete until I've had "morning loves," "afternoon loves," and "night loves".  He always delights me with the new things he is learning and doing.  Tanner is the kind of child that makes me want to have a dozen more children.  He isn't perfect but he is just right!  I love my little Tanner man!

What's for dinner?

Do you ever cringe when you hear that question?  I do, or rather--I did.  Jason used to ask me that in the morning when he called me and I dreaded it.  Why?  Because I didn't know what I was going to make for dinner!  Leave me alone!  (I mean, well...yeah, that's what I meant).  He was trying to be "helpful" and give me a whole day to think about it so I could come up with something by dinner time.  Sometimes I had an answer.  I didn't mind the question on those days, but on the other days--it was downright annoying.  So, I finally came up with a solution a couple of months ago and now I'm ready for that question every day.

What was my solution?  It isn't rocket science and I'm sure plenty of people out there do it...it's called "meal planning."  I have tried to do meal planning in the past but I always found myself scrambling to come up with a menu the day I was going to the grocery store and some weeks, I just didn't have time to sit down and do that kind of planning.  I looked into freezer-meal cooking where you shop and make an entire month's worth of meals in one day but I knew in my heart I would never want to spend a whole day making meals and cleaning the kitchen.  I looked into subscribing to an online service that would send me a weekly grocery list with recipes for each night of the week to go with it.  I came pretty close to choosing that option but as I looked at the menus, I wasn't sure if my family would eat the stuff.  So, I finally sat down and asked my family what meals they like (that I make) and I made a list.  From that list, I made a 2-month dinner menu, hitting our favorites every month and the semi-favorites every other month.  I tried to alternate the meals our kids love with the meals Jason and I love (that the kids won't eat) so the kids at least get something they like every other day.  I also tried not to put too many time-consuming meals in one week, or too many  high-fat meals in a week (of course the high-fat meals made the favorite list!).  Voila!  I now know what we are having for dinner every day, it has been such a blessing, such a stress-reliever!

I took it a bit further and made a repeating weekly menu with breakfast, lunch, and snacks.  I homeschool so we are eating at home all the time and I got tired of the food question all day--"What can I eat?  What's for breakfast?  What's for lunch?"  Tanner can be very demanding about what he wants to eat but now he wakes up and says, "What's on the menu?"  It's nothing fancy--oatmeal one day, cereal another day, eggs & toast another day, but it just helps us have more variety and it gives me a few less things I have to think about and make decisions on in a day.

So, on my fridge I keep a print-out of my weekly menu (Breakfast, Lunch, and Snacks), in a page-protector, the dinner spot is blank--not-printed, dinners are hand-written in with a wet-erase  marker.  At the end of each week, I look at my 2-month menu and write-in which meals we are going to have the following week on my weekly menu, I write the date on the 2-month menu (also with wet-erase marker).  Choosing weekly from the 2-month menu gives me flexibility to change things around if we have a date or a dinner invitation.  It doesn't take long to do this because the meals are already planned and I know the ingredients.  My kids love checking the daily menu, my hubby loves knowing that dinner is planned, and I love knowing what I'm making for dinner.  It doesn't seem so bad to cook when you can mentally prepare all day for what needs to be done (and do some stuff early in the day).  My kids are getting to eat their favorites that I often wasn't prepared to make.  When my son complains that he doesn't like what we're having one day, I can just say, "Well, we're having one of your favorites tomorrow so be happy."

I thought I better report on this now while it's STILL working! :)  Most of my grand plans work for awhile and then I have to try something different.  Maybe this will spark an idea for someone out there who has also struggled with that high-pressure question--what's for dinner?

I'll end with a recipe from tonight's menu--"Oven-baked Chicken."  This is Hunter's favorite thing besides steak (which I don't make, he get's that at Oma and Grandpa's  house).  This is EASY and yummy, but not low-fat, beware! :)  It has made our once-a-month list but Hunter wishes we could eat it every week:

Oven-baked Chicken (from Bisquick box)
1 Tbsp butter
2/3 cup Original bisquick mix
1 tsp. paprika
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
Chicken drumsticks/legs (as many as you want)

1.  Heat oven to 425.  Melt butter in a 13x9-inch glass baking dish in the oven.
2.  Combine all other ingredients except the chicken and put it in a gallon-size ziploc bag.
3.  Put a few drumsticks at a time in the bag and shake it around until it is coated.  Place them in your hot, buttered, glass dish (you want the pan and the butter to be hot).
4.  Bake 35 minutes, turn chicken and bake an additional 15 minutes or until thermometer reads 180 degrees.  Crispy coated chicken awaits you!

Notes:  You can use other bone-in meat but my family likes drumsticks the most. You can make this with or without skin. I don't like the skin so I take it off MY drumsticks before coating them but the rest of the family likes the skin so I leave it on theirs (it's much easier).  You can coat at least 15 drumsticks with this recipe (but you will need more than one pan and more butter).  You can usually buy them for 99 cents a pound at Costco.  I bought 30 drumsticks for about $8.00 and that will easily make 2 meals.  (For most families it would be more meals but my boys pack away this chicken).  This was a big hit with the missionaries too.

Try it out and let me know if you like it!