Blogging

Oh my, I did not realize how long it has been since I last made an entry. It has been pretty hectic around here. Now Jonah and I are sick and not to much is getting done. But at this point it doesn't bother me. I haven't experimented with any new recipes lately. I have kind of had a boring cooking experience lately. Well, during Christmas my mother bought me a fondue pot. We tried a recipe with sirloin steak and a really good chili sauce. I will try to find the recipe on that and post it since it was pretty simple but very good.

I just made a bloody mary chicken in the crockpot. It was pretty good. It calls for bloody mary mix, but since I had spicy V8 I just decided to use that. You put the chicken in the crockpot. I used 2 small cans of the spicy V8 with a lb of boneless skinless chicken breast. If you like more sauce then use more of the V8. Then you add carrots, celery, a little minced garlic and onions. Cook on low for about 8 hours. I served this over couscous since I love it. It really wasn't that expensive with the V8. I did not price the bloody mary mix so I am not sure how much that would cost.

Food Storage

The the left there is a button to link to a really cool website on food storage. It is awesome and I think you all need to check this website out.

Also, with everything going on I have been researching a little more on preparing my food storage. I have a few roadstops. One problem that I have is that Jonah and I live in an apartment. We cannot store propane in our apartments. So I posted my question on egroups.com asking about other sources of fuel. This was a really big issue for some when Hurricane Ike decided to grace us with his presence. It was enough proof that any weird thing could happen no matter where you live. Generators were hard to find for some. I believe that I mentioned in an earlier post that some lost power for over a week. Luckily fast food restaurants were open! That may not be the case next time.

So when I posted on the question I received several good ideas. I will try to list the responses in the next few weeks.

The first one I read was about the petromax lantern. This is really worth looking into. I am sure I can store some of these in my food storage. I wonder how that would look if I had one shelf of food storage and another shelf of pure drinking alcohol? That would be funny! :)

Another issue I have is drinking water. This will be something I will have to look into soon. I love the idea about the 55lb drinking water tank but it would not fit into my apartment. This is one thing that I will have to work on since you will have to use a lot more water if you are storing freeze-dried and dehydrated food. When I get more information on water, I will post things that I find.

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Ooooooooohhhhh! Banana Pancakes!

Tonight I was planning on having leftover "Harvest Moon" Macaroni and Cheese. But as I listened (salivated actually) to my mom discuss her decision for pancakes to feed the missionaries, bananas popped into my mind. I don't even know how bananas came into it since I only remembered how I complained about my box pancake mix. It just is not sweet enough. She suggested to add sugar. But then the bananas started invading my mind! And so I went onling to find bananas and pancake mixes. Here is a divine recipe for banana bread pancakes.

Banana Bread Pancakes
2 medium firm-ripe bananas, peeled, sliced
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 cups Aunt Jemima® Buttermilk Complete Pancake & Waffle Mix
1 cup water
1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (about 2 medium bananas)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup Aunt Jemima® Syrup, warmed
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans, toasted if desired
Combine sliced bananas and sugar in small bowl; set aside.

For pancakes, combine pancake mix, water, mashed bananas and cinnamon in medium bowl; stir with wire whisk until large lumps disappear.

For each pancake, pour scant 1/4 cup batter onto hot lightly greased griddle; top with 3 to 4 banana slices.

Turn when pancakes bubble and bottoms are golden brown.

Serve topped with warm Aunt Jemima® Syrup and pecans.

Chopped pecans can be found in the baking section. To toast, place in single layer on microwave-safe plate. Microwave on HIGH (100% power) 1 to 1-1/2 minutes, until fragrant, stirring once.
Recipe Yield: 16 Pancakes

Serving Size: 2 pancakes

Nutrition Information:
Calories: 340, Calories from Fat: 60, Total Fat: 7g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 5mg, Sodium: 380mg, Total Carbohydrates: 66g, Dietary Fiber: 3g, Sugars: 42g, Protein: 5g



It is from the Aunt Jemima website and so worth making it. So tonight's dinner with Jonah (a.k.a. Mr. Picky Pants) was a hit as he was singing "Mommy's great for making me Banana Pancakes!" (Do you all remember 'Bill Cosby Himself'?)

Halloween

Tonight in celebration of Halloween, I am cooking a recipe that Rachael Ray had on her 30 minute meals show on Food Network the other day. It is Harvest Moon Macaroni. You can find the recipe on Food Networks website.

The recipe calls for frozen butternut squash. I unfortunantly was unable to locate the boxed squash at my grocery store. Of course now there are millions of grocery stores, but it is finding that one that carries it! I am all for convenience! I had to bake the squash and then puree it. To do that you cut it in half lengthwise and clean out all the seeds and as much as the yucky dark orange stringy things from it. It won't hurt if you cannot get all of the strings out. Then you place it flat side down on a cookie sheet and cook at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or so. Then you let it cool enough and scrape the squash in your blender and puree. Now I am waiting to make the dinner. I will post what I thought of it and if it seemed like a hit.

The other day I made the guacamole and it tasted like the real deal. I will post the recipe later. But since using salsa (I love to drown things in it), the dip turned tan. So I added green food coloring while I blended it. It didn't look too bad and Jonah at it. At first he was looking at me like I was nuts. But he eventually gave in.

IKE

Well, I have not posted anything in a while since Hurricane Ike decided to grace us with it's presence weeks ago. We did not get any rain but we had 70 MPH winds. My weather radio was alarming to stay off the roads. It was pretty bad. We had trees and electric/phone poles down. Many people were without power here. I was extremely lucky since I did not lose power. I did have power surges which caused my CPU not to work (since it was running when it hit-and it was on a surge protector). So anyway, I haven't posted much since then.

I did make a quick meal in my crockpot the other day. I need to use my dried black beans that are in my food storage. I cooked the dried beans in my crockpot. Of course when they are done, you drain and rinse them. You then put it back in your crockpot with a little water and then salsa to taste (I had my beans swimming since I wanted a stronger salsa taste). I had that on warm/low for about 8 hours. When I got home I added minute rice to it and let it cook until the rice was done. It makes a really good burrito filling. My only problem was getting the beans to set. I had to cook them for two days which I know should not take that long.

I am trying the silken guacamole tomorrow. It has tofu it it. I have been watching Food Network lately (mainly Racheal Ray and Semi-Homemade) and Sandra Lee was making guacamole. Her guacamole did not have tofu, but it had peas and salsa in it. I am going to experiment and combine the two recipes (the tofu guac is the recipe mentioned earlier that was in a "Wondertime" article about dinner dips). From what I have heard that peas and tofu blend with the avacado flavor so you get the good stuff and not taste it. So I decided to sacrifice my son to this experiment. Hopefully, he will just eat it. I am also sprinkling in flaxseed meal in it. I don't know but I am crossing my fingers that it will be good!

Speaking of the Food Network and Rachael Ray, there are a bunch of recipes I want to try. What is so cool about Food Network is that you can watch the shows online. So check it out if you can! I think they have some neat recipes on there. I will post the recipes I try of RR with a link because they just sound yummy and very healthy.

Book of Mormon reading time

Last year I set a goal that I would read the Book of Mormon with my son in one year. I would love to say that this has happened! We are halfway through Mosiah. Which is awesome still. I may not meet my goal, but at least I am trying! I somehow lost our Book of Mormon reading chart so I searched on the internet to find it again. I came across this site. It has some really neat printables, but there is a scripture notebook that you can buy for kids. I think it is cute.

http://www.bookofmormondiscovery.com/ScriptureNotebooking.html

The Book of Mormon for Latter-Day Families is a very good tool for family scripture study. It is kind-of expensive, but it is worth the money. Now, I think this book I am going to add to my Christmas list for Santa Claus (I have been ever so good!) because it is a wonderful book.

Here are two more links that are great. The first is a Primary Sharing Time lesson posted on lds.org about scripture reading. The second is on sugardoodle.net and it has a very cute scripture reading chart for kids. I have not been able to locate the other reading chart I used that was really cute, but this will work!

http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,2045-1-4369-1,00.html


http://www.sugardoodle.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1934&Itemid=429

And last but not least, if you have a hard time getting your personal scripture reading done, go to this website. http://www.readthescriptures.com/