Thumper Cakes

Thumper and I decided we needed cupcakes this weekend. So I looked at a few recipes, got the general jist and away we went into the kitchen.

These were Banana-Chocolate Chip Cupcakes we ended up with.

• 2 cups flour
• 2 bananas
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 package milk chocolate chips
• 3 Tbsp Cocoa

Preheat the oven to 350, spoon the batter into the paper cups, try to be neat ... but remember you have a 3 year old helping, so thats pretty much impossible.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes until done.

You can frost them if you decide to. But! remember they transport much easier without the frosting. I can give one to Thumper without worrying about stickyness everywhere in the TV room.

Thursday night Gratin

Came home tonight to find Pamela greeting me at the door as she ran off to the market for essentials (dog food, milk, kitty litter), so I went searching the cabinets for dinner fixings.

On the counter was a couple of potatoes left over from baked potato/chili night on Monday. Looking in the fridge showed a 1/2 stick butter some milk and an opened bag of Mexican mix shredded cheese.

Turn the oven on ... 425 degrees ... now .. go do it, while you get the rest of the ingredients and tools necessary to do the job.

Washed the taters, and then did a quick and dirty job peeling them. Not really caring if I got it all peeled off, just .. I don't know ....60%? 75%?

I sliced them into thin slices, layering the casserole pan with a few layers, making sure to each layer (salt, black pepper, and Italian Seasoning). On the top layer after the seasoning I added the cheese and then about 3/4 of a cup of milk.

The oven was hot and ready by then, so I covered it in foil and then put it in the oven, let it bake for about an hour, then pulled the foil off and turned the broiler on and allowed the bubbly mixture to get brown on top.

Pull it from the oven and let it rest for a few minutes, then plate and enjoy! We had ours with a Kielbasa that I sliced into rounds and stir fried in the cast Iron skillet until they has nice crunchy bits.

Variations to the theme:

• Add a thin layer of carrots


• Add some caramelized onions


• Add some browned Italian Turkey sausage


• oooohhhhh some peas! for a bit of color...

This was almost as easy and pain free as making Quiche, but not quite.

Cub ate everything we put in front of him (potatoes, cheese... how can you lose?). Thumper on the other hand, ate a few pieces of kielbasa and called it good. *SIGH*

Cub's Hot Milk

Cub loves hot chocolate, no doubt about it, Don't most kids (and most adults)? But what Cub really wants to drink is 'Hot Milk'. I think I made it for him the first time when he was about 2 and it's been his favorite ever since.

It's pretty simple to make, I imagine most of you have made it once or twice.

Take your nice heavy saucepan, put it on the burner over medium heat. Add the following ingredients in no particular order.

• 2 Cups Organic Whole Milk
• 1 Cinnamon Stick broken up
• 3 TBS Honey
• 1 TSP vanilla Extract
• 1 Cardamom Pod broken open, let the seeds float in the milk

Heat the milk to just a bare simmer, don't walk away from the stove, stir the milk, smell the delicious aromas.

Pour it into your favorite mug, the one you found, you know ... the one with the chip in it, the one you reach for on lazy Sunday mornings. Pour the milk in through a sieve to get out all the 'bits' and grate a bit of nutmeg over the top.

Enjoy ... when the others ask you what you're drinking, just point them toward the saucepan and share.

Thumper Scones

So, Thumper decided he wanted to help a recent Sunday morning making Biscuits/Scones. I had been reading online about the differences between the two, and there really didn't seem like much change to the routine, so I was willing (like I had a choice) to let him help in the preparation.

We started out with the basic Biscuit recipe and then went off on a tangent from there. I pulled down the 'sweet' basket of spices and we opened jars and sniffed the products. Rolled the Nutmeg across the counter and shook the Vanilla bottle to make sure there was enough extract to be added and have enough for "Cub's Hot Milk" to go with the bread.

Finally it came down to Cinnamon, Vanilla, Freshly grated Nutmeg and a couple of handfuls (his and mine) of dried fruit - cranberries, blueberries, cherries. Coming up a close second was Cardamom, Raisins and Chocolate Chips (His momma put a kibosh on those.. darn her).

I started with the basic Biscuit recipe (at this point turn the oven on ... 450 degrees)-

• 1 1/2 Cup AP Flour
• 1/2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/2 Stick of Butter
• 1 TBS Baking Powder
• 1/2 TSP Salt
  

I chunked up the butter, threw it in with the flour mix and used the pastry knife until it was crumbly like sand. Then we added the 'new ingredients' -

• 3 TBS sugar (white, brown, honey, stevia, whatever ...)
• 1 TBS cinnamon
• 3/4 cup all together of dried fruit (more or less)
• a couple of scrapes of Nutmeg
• a splash of Vanilla

Then I realized we needed something to make it all stick together and also something to help it rise. So I added 1 TSP baking soda, and put it all in my Kitchen Aid Mixer, added the dough hook and started it swirling. Slowly I added Buttermilk until a very tender dough was in the bowl.

I pulled it out and dropped it on the Whole Wheat Flour dusted island in the middle of our Kitchen. Thumper fingers immediately went into it and started poking. I kneaded it just for a second to let my hands warm it up a bit and to shape it. I patted it out to about 2 inches thick and then I let Thumper push the cutter in and make the biscuits/scones.

We placed them on a Jellyroll pan all bunched together and pressed our thumbs down on the center of each just to create a dimple. Into the oven they went and 15 minutes later our masterpieces came out.

They had risen beautifully and were golden brown on the top. They split easily with a fork and were devoured in no time. They go really well with just plain butter (Cub's Fav), Nutella (Thumper's MUST) or Strawberry-Rhubarb Marmalade (my all time favorite)