Ginger banana cookies - MMMM!!!

Mudmama asked me to post some recipes for Nature girl as they are baking to help with reading, math and dexterity, and, I am sure, the sheer fun of it. Here for her mixing mashing pleasure are:

Emily and Willow's Ginger and banana cookies

1 1/2 cups of flour (all purpose)
1/2 cup almond flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp ground cloves

Mix well - With hands! (even baby hands - with no egg, simply remove baby/ toddler clothes, hide stainables and have at it. Willow loves this part!)

In another bowl mix
3/4 cup soft butter
1/4 cup molasses
1 cup brown sugar
1 ripe banana

Mix well with hands and a spoon

Mix wet and dry ingredients together.

Place on a prepared cookie sheet, flatten (baby hands work great, though results are not uniform! )

Bake for 8-10 minutes in oven at 325 or so. My oven is hot so we have to keep on eye on these.

Tada - yummy cookies to get with milk, water , tea, bubbas..

Enjoy!

Nature Girl scones

This has been an excellent weekend. I feel all renewed and spring like, with creative ideas and connections to my little brood flowing. Two gems have set this going. One, this morning I finally found a dream recipe for simple scones in a book that Nature girl gave me for Christmas. I changed them into cranberry scones, as there were no currants on hand - but they were crispy on the outside, moist on the inside, butter meltingly delicious!

Currant/(cranberry) Scones

3 cups all purpose flower
1/2 cup of sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup currants or cranberries ( I chopped the cranberries to be more curranty sized)

3/4 cup chilled butter, cut in small pieces ( worked ebven though mine was not chilled )
1 cup butter milk ( I used milk as I had no butter mlk )
1 tbsp fresh grated orange peel ( optional - but yummy! )

1-Preheat oven to 425 F

2-Grease cookie sheets

3-Mix dry ingredients ,

4- Cut in butter with pasty cutter or two knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs .

5-Stir in buttermilk and orange peel. Stir until mix forms soft dough that clings together.

4-Flour hands and divide dough in half and shape each half into a ball.

5-Pat each half into an eight inch circle on cookie sheets.

6-Score each circle into eight wedges with a floured knife cutting about 3/4 of the way into the dough.

7-Bake 16-18 minutes or until lightly browned

Delicious! Willow especially loves these and now I won't miss going to breakfast at the Manx anymore.. if i can figure out how to make Jeuvos Rancheros ..

Thank you Nature girl!


the second really cool thing that got me going was this crafty note posted on Facebook by Mudmama:

he first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

- What I create will be just for you.
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- You will receive your item before the end of the year (or sooner).
- You will have no clue what the item is going to be. It could be a story. It could be a piece of handmade jewelry or an art doll. I may draw, paint, collage or knit something. I might bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that in order to receive a gift, you have to repost this and make and send out five surprises of your own, so if you aren't gonna follow through and make something for five others, you get nothing from me.

P.S. You can still play if I didn't tag you...I just started to included the people I thought might want to join in.

I just love that something gets created by this chain n and more is given then received. Like the best school projects, it is pushing me to think creatively and I am actually going to come out of this with tangible rewarding creations. I think I have my five though it may be only four. I really want to see this idea passed on. I know that Fraulien Falkenburg is doing so on her blog too.

Happy Valentines day!!

Happy Valentines day! We are having a low key day here as I'm not a big fan of romantic valentines day. W's gift was to sleep in late with no pestering by yours truly.

My mom always made it more of a kids day, and we would come downstairs in the morning to new pajamas and cinnamon hearts - so that's I try and do. Willow is too little for the red dye festival this year. The kids got their heart cookies, lovingly decorated by Emily. I hear that they are all gobbled up. Yay!

Pictured here is Tyren's cookie from last year - lovingly inscribed with a portal reference.

I hope this day finds everyone thinking of how they are loved or can add a little love to the world.

Dusted - if I had a child

Beautiful song . I know I posted the lyrics before but just listen --- I am not so sure about God , and you cant have jelly beans for breakfast every day. The idea is what Èm aiming for though.

Arrows directorial debut!

Baby sign

Willow is learning sign language and she and Emily love this site. Check it out!
http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi

I Like To Move It, Move It - Madagascar 2 ( LONGER VERSION ) with lyrics

For Ng - we'll be thinking of you tomorrow - they changed the video but you can enjoy the song.

The Dinosaurs Song

For DM, NG, WT and Sprout - love Willow. She adores this and makes a dinosaur roar when she watches it.