Baking with Sunbutter

J is allergic to peanuts. We haven't had trouble avoiding foods that could cause him trouble, but I do sometimes feel bad that he won't get to have a classic PB&J or a delicious Monster cookie (peanut butter, oats, M&Ms, and more...)

We purchased a jar of Sunbutter hoping it would give us more lunch options. Neither he nor I really liked it. It isn't bad, but it does taste very strongly like sunflower seeds.

I had been meaning to try baking with it. Maybe we'd be able to keep a few of those family favorite cookie recipes alive for him.

A friend of mine from my college days posts every year on her blog about one of her family cookie traditions - owl cookies!

You can find her post with the recipe on her blog: Owl Cookies by Saroy

Her cookies always look so cute and I did have that sunbutter waiting in the fridge, so I gave it a try. I replaced the cup of peanut butter with a cup of sunbutter. I cut the baking powder in half so that my cookies wouldn't turn green. I also replaced the yummy cashew nose with melted butterscotch chips to avoid any nut cross contamination.

The end result wasn't a failure. My husband really likes PB cookies and said that these were a good substitute. Fresh out of the oven I found the sunflower taste overpowering, but I had another today and it had better balance. The kids both ate their cookie yesterday, but haven't asked for seconds. This might be partially because the Halloween candy influx has already started.

The texture of the baked cookies is a little dry and rough. I wonder if the dough needs some other modifications due to the Sunbutter.

I'm definitely going to try this substitution in a few more recipes and I can see owl cookies becoming a tradition here too. They were easy, the kids helped out, and the cookies are so cute!

*Additional notes*
I stored our owl cookies in an air tight container and it has improved them! They are not as dry or crumbly now and the flavors have really mellowed nicely. Instead chalking it up to an interesting experiment, I now totally would make them again.

I'm very excited to try monster cookies with sunbutter now. I think the oatmeal and sunflower taste will go well together.

Small traditions

I recently saw a recipe for crock-pot chicken that is so simple you can't really even call it a recipe. Place a whole chicken, rinsed with the giblets removed, in the crock-pot. Sprinkle salt and pepper on top. Set it on low for 8 or 9 hours. The result is surprisingly delicious.

I've been trying to make at least one crock-pot meal a week. Usually it's enough for 2 or 3 suppers and takes some of the pressure off the early evening when the kids all seem to need attention. I can put an effort toward supper as I find time in the morning and some days it seems like that is the only thing I accomplished in the day.

But on the rare occasion, getting into the kitchen right away in the morning inspires me to stick around a while - maybe bake something or think more creatively about the rest of the day's food or even just tackle the pile of mail that seems to grow on the counter.

Today's easy crock-pot chicken, combined with the fall leaves drifting outside, led me to pumpkin. I was thinking pumpkin muffins or bread, but J was very excited about a pumpkin pie. The baby was sleeping, so we mixed up the dough for the pie crust and put it into the fridge. I really do enjoy baking with my kids, especially when they get to the age where they can independently stir.

The pie crust needed to chill, J needed a snack, and then the baby woke. After a short break, we cleaned the last bowl of tomatillos and made a sauce to be used with the chicken leftovers. Then he helped me make the pie filling, roll the crust, and get it all into the oven.

Fall has so many traditional foods. Foods that bring back memory after memory. J and I used the last bit of crust to make a handful of pie crust cookies. Another simple recipe - roll out the excess crust, spread on a little butter, top with cinnamon and sugar, cut and bake. The timing is tricky - they never finish if you are watching them and they always burn if you take your eyes away. We used the toaster oven this morning, just to be sure not to ruin them.

My mom makes pie crust cookies with her extra crust. On Sunday mornings or holidays the smell of all the good food cooking would keep me near the kitchen. Pie crust cookies were that little treat to whet your appetite and tide you over until the main event. Today J and I sat in the kitchen watching the leaves fall, talking about our upcoming visit to MN, and speculating on what Papa and R would think of the pie.

We used a deep dish pie pan today, I took one my mom was discarding, but typically there is too much pumpkin pie filling for a standard pie plate. It was always good to be near the kitchen when the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie came out of the oven because there was always a little custard cup of filling to share.

Our little family has had one Thanksgiving without relatives around. R was almost 4 and J was almost 1 and we were living in New York. We still planned the big feast. Papa went to run in that city's traditional Thanksgiving 5k and right after he left the power went out with the turkey cooking and the parade on TV. The outage was short, 15-20 minutes, and our dinner survived, but I recall that morning every time I open a can of pumpkin. R colored turkeys that I drew for her while we waited for the power. Eventually we made the pie and I shared the extra filling with her, smiling as she pretended to be a Rockette.

Tomatillos!

My husband rented a garden plot this summer (I'll have a post about that at some point!) and we've been enjoying the fresh produce.

Our local greenhouse is only open from mid-April to mid-June and they had a huge sale during the final week of business for the season. G checked it out and found a few bargains, including a tomatillo plant for a quarter! It was really overgrown and spindly, so we didn't expect much, but we've had a huge harvest.

We were introduced to tomatillos when we had a CSA share a few years ago. Until this summer, I'd only cooked with them a couple times and have always made the chicken enchilada recipe I posted about on my other blog.

This year we tried canning our own salsa verde. It was our first attempt at canning and we wanted our salsa to be safe, so we used a recipe published by a university extension service.
Our jars all sealed! We haven't opened one up yet to try, but we did enjoy the sample of salsa leftover on canning night. It was excellent with a little sour cream mixed in.

Today my son and I prepared another group of tomatillos for freezing. We took off the husks, washed them, trimmed any bad spots, boiled them for 10 minutes and then put them into freezer bags.

We had a lot of fun and it was an easy project for him to help with.

Pasta!

R and I had some extra time in the kitchen this weekend while my parents were here and we broke out my pasta maker. I haven't used it in probably 10 years! We used Grandpa M's noodle recipe and they were delicious. It is a tradition to have them every year around Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa M's house - freshly made and mixed with lots of butter.

I have a hand crank pasta machine and R did the majority of the cranking while I guided the pasta. It really goes smoothly with two people. The pasta machine takes care of the rolling and cutting - so it is a speedy process. I can see R and I trying out a few other types of fresh pasta this winter.

Grandpa M's noodles

• 2 c. flour
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/4 to 1/2 c. water

Measure flour into bowl, add eggs and salt, mix. Add water 1 Tbsp. at a time. Mix to a stiff dough. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Cover and let rest 10 minutes. Divide dough into 4 equal parts and roll 1 part at a time into a paper thin rectangle. Roll rectangle around rolling pin. Slip out rolling pin and cut dough crosswise into 1/8th inch strips. Cook in boiling salted water for 10 to 15 minutes.

Preschool cookbooks

We bought two cookbooks for R this Christmas and we've been having fun testing them out.

Pretend Soup, by Mollie Katzen

Mollie Katzen wrote the Moosewood cookbooks. We thought this would be a fun set of healthy recipes for foods R could help cook for us all to enjoy at dinner.

Yesterday we tried making pink fruit dip with frozen raspberries, cream cheese, and yogurt. It was a good dip, but the yogurt flavor was a little overpowering. She ate some of it and I think we could modify it to be more to our tastes.

Tonight we were counting the minutes until Papa would come home and R found the salad bar recipe in the book. We found some good salad toppings in the kitchen (carrot, mushroom, olives, cheese, croutons) and spent the rest of our time prepping them. I cut everything and she put it into small cups. Both kids were excited about making things a little fancier and I think she ate more veggies tonight because they were "hers." Also, it was a good reminder that spending a little time doing something like cutting up olives for salad can be an afternoon saver.


Cooking It in a Cup!
We picked out this book because we thought R would enjoy the novelty of the cups. Also, it has a wide variety of basic foods that will be good for snacks and lunch.

We plan to make some baked rice cups later this week and the roasted broccoli I think, but this morning both kids suddenly wanted scrambled eggs so we tried the "easy eggs."

It doesn't get much easier - scramble an egg with a fork, pour into one of the cups, microwave for 30 seconds, let cool for 2 minutes. The kids really enjoyed watching the eggs grow and almost overflow in the microwave. R and I thought they were a little plain (we'll add cheese next time), but J ate all of his egg and then stole the majority of mine. He's been eating up a storm since his 2nd birthday, so this will be a great easy snack for him.


Both of these cookbooks were recommended for kids age 4 - 8. There are a lot of cookbooks for older kids who have more skill around the stove, but I was glad to find these with the abilities of a 5 year old in mind.