Then I cut up a bunch of fruit and vegetables so we will actually EAT them while some of the kids played a fun game they made up. |
They made paper pizzas and opened their own pizza shop. |
The living room was trashed but they had a lot of fun! |
After I finished my produce-cutting adventure, I made 3 batches of blueberry scones. Two batches will be eaten at breakfast tomorrow while one went into the freezer. Recipe at the end of the post... |
Avalon said, "Take a picture of me, Mom." After I took it she said, "Me see Avi." |
Then, because the kitchen wasn't quite hot enough, I decided to make 5 loaves of banana bread! Recipe is Betty Crocker's...just a basic one. All of these went in the freezer. |
While the bread was baking, I made the rounds with my camera again. Here Avalon is feeding her baby some cereal in her high chair. |
Cainan is making more |
Elisha's got his pizza baking on books from the kids' bookshelf. |
A Ha! Here's Miss Lynzie Mae, the dedicated artist, busy copying a painting from an encyclopedia. She spent the afternoon in the kitchen working on her paintings. |
I believe Michael said this was a Papa Murphy's Cowboy Pizza.... |
More by Lynzie... |
Oh! More by me too! I made chili and cornbread for dinner. Cornbread recipe came from the side of the box but I'll put my chili recipe at the bottom of the post too. |
Avalon said, "I just LOVE tornbed!" (That would be "cornbread") |
Because we had some strawberries in the freezer, I decided we needed a quick batch of strawberry jam to go with our cornbread! You can make this delicious freezer jam in 15 minutes! You can find my easy tutorial here. |
After I got all the other little ones to bed, I had a chance to go in and look at the paintings Lynzie did today. This is her favorite of her hero, George Washington. Looking good, Lynzie! |
and ultimately, the Lord Jesus. Thank you, God, for this blessed life! |
(makes 8 scones)
1 cup blueberries or other fruit
1/3 c. + 2 Tb. sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, in cubes, slightly softened
2/3 cup half-and-half or cream or cold buttermilk **TIP: (I mix a couple TB. of bottled lemon juice with regular milk and let it sit about 10 min. for easy cheater buttermilk)
Topping:
1 tablespoon sugar (I used coarse decorator sugar)
Preheat oven to 400.
Sprinkle bite-sized fruit with 2 TB sugar; set aside.
Mix the rest of the sugar with the flour, baking powder and salt. Using a pastry blender, mix in the butter until it looks crumby...(not CRUMMY...there's a difference!! :) Stir in fruit and then buttermilk.
When it's all mixed together, set it in a big blob on a cookie sheet and form it into some semblance of a circle about 3/4 inch thick or so. Cut into 8 wedges and either space them out on the sheet or bake them in the cut circle and recut on the lines after they're baked. Sprinkle with coarse or regular sugar. Bake 15 minutes or until golden in places and no longer doughy.
Chili
(makes about 10 servings...you can half this or freeze the remaining if you don't need this much)
6 cans beans (We like to use black beans)
2 cans refried beans
1-2 pkg. taco seasoning
1/2 c. bbq sauce
1/4 c. dijon or spicy mustard
Rinse 6 cans beans in strainer. Place them in a pot with the refried beans and all other ingredients. Add 2-4 c. water. You want to start out with the chili quite a bit runnier than you like it. Cook and stir often until it has reached your desired thickness. This could be anywhere from a half hour to an hour and a half...depending on how much water you add. The more water you add, the longer you have to cook it and the more flavorful it will be as the beans absorb the flavors from the other ingredients. If you're in a hurry, just add a couple cups of water so there's a buffer there to keep it from sticking to the pan while it's heating up and dissolving the seasoning and you'll be good to go in about a half hour.