Pizza, pretty much the universal party favorite of kids and adults alike.  Even more fun is having the construction of the pizza take center stage at your get together.  I’ve seen kids have a blast making their own pizzas at birthday parties, and the same goes for family dinners.  Give the kids a bit of dough, some flour and a rolling pin and let the fun start.  (We have to hide the toppings or else two cans of olives disappear before the dough is even rolled out!) We love to make pizza in the summer when cooking it on the barbecue lets us enjoy the outdoors while keeping the house cool.  While you can put the dough straight on the grill rack, we’ve found it’s much easier to both carry and bake your pizza if you use a pizza tray made just for the barbecue.  Although the long handled pizza trays tend to cost less, I’ve been told that it’s easier to grill with the short handled pizza trays as you can close the barbecue cover all the way.  The trays also make great gifts for that special someone who loves to grill.

Many supermarkets offer fresh pizza dough (white or wheat) that’s inexpensive and convenient.  You just need to let it sit at room temperature for 20 minutes and it’s ready to shape.  I also make whole grain dough in the bread machine, which takes a bit of planning for the 3 hour dough cycle.  Last summer, my brother-in-law, our family’s grilling guru found the perfect quick pizza dough recipe you can make at home that’s ready in 20 minutes.  I’ve made it myself, it’s fast and tastes great too!

Quick Pizza Dough

1 cup water
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups flour (plus 1-2 Tbsp for kneading)
3/4 tsp salt
1 pkg quick rise yeast

• Mix water and oil and heat to 125°.
• Mix flour, salt and yeast in a bowl.  Add hot water mixture to dry ingredients.
• Knead with fingers for 2 minutes.  Sprinkle on more flour until dough is smooth and elastic, not sticky.
• Let dough rise for 10 minutes (30 minutes if you used active yeast).  Roll out dough and add pizza toppings.

If you would like to try grilling your pizza, follow these steps:

• Preheat grill to 350-400°.
• Grill pizza for 10-15 minutes, until cheese melts and dough is baked.
• Check the pizza every 5 minutes.  If crust starts to burn, turn off middle burner and continue baking with indirect heat.

A couple years ago, my kids and I took a trip with my mom to visit my aunt and uncle. We had a great time seeing relatives and exploring near their home in the mountains of Montana. And my uncle took my kids for rides on the 4 wheeler- an experience they still gush over today. We had a wonderful time, and during the course of our stay I learned something: my aunt is a fantastic cook! She made us incredible oatmeal pancakes which have become a favorite at my house.

Oatmeal Pancakes

2 cups oatmeal
2 cups buttermilk
2 whole eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup flour
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

• In a large mixing bowl, combine oatmeal and buttermilk. Let soak 1/2 hour.
• Add the rest of the ingredients to the oat mixture.
• Spray a skillet with cooking spray and use an ice cream scoop to drop batter onto medium hot skillet. Cook until golden brown, flipping once. (I use an electric skillet, which is a lot easier.) Serve with a fruit saute such as apples or peaches, syrup and nuts.

I have made them with regular milk, and they turn out fine (but are missing the little tang of buttermilk.) I’ve also substituted unsweetened applesauce for the butter- the pancakes are a little flatter and stick a bit more, but are otherwise great! These pancakes are great with blueberries mixed in to the batter. Give them a try this weekend, and I bet you’ll agree there never was a tastier way to eat oatmeal! And many thanks to my aunt and uncle for such a memorable visit- we’ll have to do it again soon!

While swapping recipes, the Flying Hen and I found out that we had a favorite cookbook in common, the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.  Our mothers used older editions of the book and my Rooster even admits to being impressed with the wide range of topics covered in this timeless kitchen reference.  So on a recent trip to the bookstore, the familiar red and white checkerboard cover on a kids cookbook caught my eye.  It was Better Homes and Gardens Snack Attack!

Our kids like to help out in the kitchen, but those times seem to be getting fewer and farther between once school started.  I wanted to get the kids involved in the kitchen again and still fit it into our school schedule.  Better Homes and Gardens Snack Attack! is full of fun recipes for kids to make, and the bright illustrations and large recipe photos caught their eye right away.  And I was happy to see a short list of ingredients for most of the recipes.  We already own a few kids cookbooks that don’t get used because the recipes were either too complicated or the photos just didn’t make the food look appetizing to kids.  A recipe can be tasty and healthy, but if it doesn’t look fun to make it will probably be skipped right over.  We jumped in and tried the Wonton Chips, Groovy Smoothies, Ham ‘n’ Cheesy Calzones, Crispy Chicken Dippers, Double Decker Delights, Lunch Box Oatmeal Cookies and Zippity Pop Popcorn.  So far the kids have had a blast making their snacks.

Better Homes and Gardens Snack Attack! comes with over 40 recipes.  In addition to the easy instructions and minimal ingredients, the snacks are reasonably healthy (any breaded items are baked, and you can choose how organic/whole grain/fat free you want to go with the ingredients).  Several of the recipes would also be great for party snacks or playdates.

If you’re looking to have fun with your kids in the kitchen take a peek at Better Homes and Gardens Snack Attack!

I don’t know why this recipe is in my recipe box or where exactly it came from, but we are glad we have it.   We make this a couple of times a year, usually in the heart of winter, and it is so good even the kids go for it.   Now, I know Velveeta creates different emotions for different people, and we NEVER use it except in this soup, but if you try it you won’t deny it!  Here it is:

6 Large carrots, sliced

4 Stalks of celery, chopped

5 Large potatoes, cubed

1 medium onion, chopped

1/4 cup butter

add two cans chicken broth

simmer for 30 minutes

add two cans cream of potato soup and

one pound Velveeta cheese, simmer 10 minutes

add 1/2 cup sour cream just prior to serving.

We typically use organic veggies, substitute vegetable broth for chicken broth, and  use low-fat sour cream, and it tastes warm and hearty.  But with all the veggies, this recipe is also a fairly healthy, very easy hit!  And, as my Rooster seems to say about everything, it is even better if you add bacon. I’ll leave that one up to you.

Bon appetit!

I was warned by several friends that once I had kids my short term memory would suddenly drop to half it’s normal capacity.  I never dreamed that it would be true.  What began as the consequence of diminished sleep due to a newborn has failed to improve with time.  In fact, it’s gotten worse.  I’ve tried to ignore the latest casualty, but as I write this with the evidence drifting in from the kitchen, I must confess what my family has joked about for the past two years:  I can no longer make a grilled cheese sandwich.

I am a very organized person by nature.  I’m the “open the box and read the directions first” type.  I’m the one who remembers where everything is stored in the house, keeps our busy schedule under control, volunteers at the kids schools, you know the drill.  Well, it turns out that I can’t turn the multi-tasking off.  In that handful of minutes it takes to nicely brown bread I am always convinced that I have time to squeeze in one extra task.  Change the laundry.  Open the blinds.  Feed the dogs.  Check email.  And that’s when it happens:  suddenly my sense of time disappears.  And grilled cheese gives you no warning, sitting so innocently in the pan, the top looking normal as the bottom is burned to a cinder.  Now I have such an appreciation for those lovely pancake bubbles that clearly show when flipping is in order.  Last week I even tried not stepping away from the stovetop, but that didn’t help either.  I started chatting with my Rooster and chicks and you guessed it, another burn.  We all got a good laugh out of that one, and I’ve decided that grilled cheese is just out of my control.  And this way, it will be a real treat if I ever hit golden on the first try!

Is there a person alive, child or adult, who doesn’t like pancakes? Well probably, but not at our house. It surprises me when I hear people say they don’t know how to make them (without a box of mix) or don’t have time for them. If I make them during the week I only make a single batch for the kids and they don’t take much longer than cereal (but are much more welcome on a cold morning.) Here’s a quick and easy recipe for pancakes with ingredients you almost certainly have on hand. They’ll give your kids a special morning!

Pancakes (for 2-3)

1 cup flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt (I use about half this, and they are great)

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons butter, melted (I use about half this, and they taste fine)

1 egg

Instructions:

1. Mix the dry ingredients together.

2. Add the milk, egg and melted butter. Using a spoon (not a mixer!) mix everything together well but don’t worry about small lumps. (You don’t want to over-mix the batter, and small lumps dissolve when you cook the pancakes.)

3. If possible, let the batter rest for 15 minutes (to relax the gluten in the flour and make your pancakes more tender.) If you don’t have time for this, they’ll still taste great.

4. Heat an electric griddle to 350 degrees, or on the stovetop heat a non-stick skillet to medium. When hot (flick water on the surface; if it dances, your pan is hot), pour out about 1/4 cup batter to form each pancake. Cook until bubbles form over the surface, then flip and cook the other side. Enjoy with your favorite pancake toppings!

This recipe is easy and quick to prepare. For a family of four, double the recipe. If you want to impress company, triple it! For blueberry pancakes, add 1/2 cup thawed blueberries to each batch. Bon appetit!

Here’s a quick and easy breakfast idea for Valentine’s Day that’s healthy too!  I saw a picture of this recipe in a magazine many years ago (I can’t remember which one).  My Rooster and I were both working full-time and this caught my eye as a nice way to surprise him with a cute Valentine’s breakfast that fit into our early morning schedule.  I’ve made it every year since and it’s a hit with our kids who also love oatmeal and yogurt.  I use old-fashioned oats, but instant will work too.  The same goes for the yogurt – pick your sweethearts favorite; and the oil – use what you have on hand.  You may need to adjust the amount of oatmeal and yogurt depending on the size dish and cookie cutter that you use.

Oatmeal with a Yogurt Heart

1 cup cooked oatmeal

1 6 oz. container strawberry yogurt

Large, heart-shaped cookie cutter

1 tsp. canola oil

Small plate

Sliced strawberries (optional)

1. Lightly grease both sides of cookie cutter with oil.  Place in center of plate.
2. Fill inside of heart with yogurt.  Spoon oatmeal around outside of heart.  Remove cookie cutter and garnish with sliced strawberries.  Serve immediately.

I recently read a statistic in a magazine (can’t remember which one) that alarmed me. According to the magazine Americans spend 90% of their food budget on processed or prepared food. Yikes! In a society where we are constantly being told processed food is bad for us, why would we buy so much of it? The reasons are, or course, that it’s cheap and easy. In our house, much more than 10% of our grocery money is spent on produce and baking supplies, but we are certainly guilty of buying processed foods: dry pasta, sauce, veggie burgers and bread are a few things I don’t often make myself. My husband and I decided we could do better, so we undertook a project: we decided to make our own bread for a couple of weeks.

Bread baking is nothing new at our house. We’ve always enjoyed homemade bread on special occasions and know it’s not a terribly difficult thing to do. But our everyday sandwich bread was baked in a factory far away and brought to our store on a truck. Could we do better? I started off by making a loaf in a bread machine my mother-in-law lent me. While it was baking, I whipped up a loaf of wheat from a recipe on a bag of wheat flour. Both turned out great, but the bread machine loaf was small and didn’t last long, and the wheat loaf I made was baked in a round on a cookie sheet- yummy, but not great for sandwiches. When the bread was gone a few days later my husband (who is really the bread baker in the family) decided to get into the act. (Disclaimer: In no way did I force my husband to bake bread for MY experiment. He is just competitive and knows he makes better bread than I do.) He made a great loaf of rye and another wheat in a bread pan, (much more practical for everyday use.)  My husband likes to use a no-knead recipe which means he mixes up the dough in the afternoon, then shapes the loaf the next morning. Three hours later, I pop it into the oven. A few days after all his work, guess what? We were out of bread! (I never noticed how much larger store-bought loaves are!) When I told my husband, he sighed and went to work. This time, he made some wonderful sandwich buns and another loaf of wheat (which, by the way dear, is almost gone.)

Yesterday I went grocery shopping, and when my husband got home he went straight for the fridge. “You didn’t buy any bread?” he asked with a sigh and just a hint of pleading in his eyes. I hadn’t, but his reaction tells me our experiment is about over. He’s been such a good sport! Maybe I’ll break down and buy some bread next week, but I’ll miss the fun of having our own little bakery. I’m still not crazy about spending so much money on processed foods, but baking your own bread does take a lot of time. Also, homemade bread is delicious and we’re probably eating too much of it!

Hmm… maybe it’s time to make all our own pasta for a while….

Here’s a sweet Valentine’s Day dessert that’s so easy your kids can make it.  It seemed that everyone knew about this recipe when I was growing up, it’s a great side dish for summer potlucks too.  Although I omit the crushed pineapple (my family prefers a smoother fluff), many are fans of adding not only pineapple but some chopped walnuts or pecans for additional flavor and texture.

Cherry Fluff

12 oz. whipped topping

20 oz. cherry pie filling

20 oz. crushed pineapple, drained (optional)

• Mix ingredients.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Last week, as our plane landed in the Sea-Tac airport, our seven year old chick exclaimed,”I hope we can go to Lowell’s for lunch!”  We had visited the great city of Seattle only five month’s ago, and found ourselves at Pike Place Market multiple days. We would buy fresh fruit  and veggies to supplement our out of town diet (see my Staying Healthy on the Road hints here), but much to my Rooster’s delight, also went to Lowell’s (a fantastic, casual restaurant with GREAT food and views) multiple times for lunch and dinner.  Our daughter fell in love with the seafood.  Real seafood, like you find in Seattle and search for in Colorado.  One of her favorites was the fresh clam chowder in a bread bowl.  So after returning to Colorado, I thought I’d try a very quick clam chowder at home.  The chowder was a hit for all of us.  If you try it, and add a twist as I always do, and let me know how it worked for your clan.

The basics:

• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 3 cups diced potatoes
• 1 bottle (8 ounces) clam juice*
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2 cans (approximately 7 ounces each) clams*
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups half-and-half
• 1 cup milk

The twists:

• 4 slices bacon, diced
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• *If you have time, steam 1 lb of fresh clams, use broth and clams in lieu of bottled juice and minced clams
• One tablespoons dry sherry

Preparation:

Cook bacon until crisp in saucepan, remove.   Add onion to bacon drippings; sauté until softened. Add potatoes and clam juice (or broth), salt, and pepper. Cover and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until potatoes are cooked. Remove from heat. Add minced clams (or fresh clams, removed from shell). Whisk flour into milk; add to chowder with half-and-half. Cook over medium heat, continue stirring until clam chowder thickens and bubbles, or about 3 minutes.

Garnish with parsley or a pinch of paprika (it looks pretty).  We like to eat it with a warm, crisp baguette or loaf of sourdough.  Serves 4, unless you are like my Rooster, who apparently turns into a camel when he eats chowder and can eat all four servings on his own.

For our kids, picking the theme of their birthday party is a very important decision.  And of course the cake is a big part of the celebration.  At first, I considered myself lucky if our party theme was included in selections offered by our local supermarket bakery.  I found out pretty quick that what was shown in the picture is often not what ends up on your cake (I guess that falls under artistic license).  Although the kids initially loved the little plastic trinkets that were scattered on the top of the cake, they were old news by the end of the week and they would get tossed in the trash.  What was getting the decorations, the cake or the landfill?  The next year I began to customize the cakes myself and the decorations were either edible or they were useable.  Here are a few options for decorating your child’s birthday cake:

Order the cake, add your own toy for the decoration

If you already have a toy that you were planning on giving your child as a present, this option is the least amount of work for you, but it could also be the most expensive.  This will work for almost any birthday theme, just take the toy with you when you order the cake and have any frosting decorations colored to match.  We have used the same style of store decorated cake for three separate parties and customized them with the following toys:

• Pirate party: Pirates of the Caribbean pirate ship (and pirate candles).
• Thomas the Tank Engine party: New engine for your little one’s collection placed on a piece of track wrapped in plastic wrap.  Use a bit of sticky-tack or tape to keep the engine from rolling.
• Underwater Adventure party: Scuba diver and treasure chest bathtub toys.

Bake your own cake, use a cake mold and concentrated icing paste

You will need to take the time to bake your cake, but if you watch for those 40% off coupons from your local craft store you can go beyond the basic round layer cakes for less than the cost of a store-bought sheet cake.  Many companies give several cake ideas for each mold, so there is the potential to reuse them for future parties.  A friend showed me the beautiful and vibrant frosting colors you can make using the concentrated icing paste available at many craft stores.  A little goes a long way with these colorings, so I’ve been able to get a lot of mileage from the small containers.

• Outer Space party: Make a Saturn cake from a soccer ball cake mold.  Use extra cake batter for cupcakes (moons, asteroids or stars).  Saturn’s rings are made from melted chocolate wafers (craft store).  Spread melted chocolate on waxed paper in a half circle and let harden.  Slice cake and insert chocolate rings.  Add a bit of frosting to the rings so they stick to the inside of the cake.  Frost planet with base color and add swirls of accent color.
• Crayon Box: I saw this cake at a party several years ago.  The idea came from a cake decorating book, and this is where I learned that you need concentrated icing paste to get rich frosting colors.  Use a rectangular tray to bake the crayon box, cut out a notch for the box top opening, and cover ice cream cones with frosting for the crayon tops.

Bake your own cake, cover cake with fondant

Jump in and try fondant to give your cake a unique look.  Little Red Hen shared an easy recipe for making your own fondant.  Her rocket ship cake turned out beautifully, and after her assurances that it wasn’t that hard to make, I was ready to give fondant a try.  It was pretty easy, I just needed to use a lot of cornstarch to prevent the fondant from sticking to the table when I rolled it out.

• Rocket Ship party: Use a football mold for the body of the cake and cut the fins from a circular layer cake.  Cover body of ship with one color fondant.  Cover fins with accent color fondant.  Place covered pieces together to assemble cake.  Cut out letters with cookie cutters and add cinnamon dots for rivets.
• Monsters vs. Aliens party: Can you guess what movie hit theatres before my son’s birthday?  Turns out fondant is the perfect “cover” for this B.O.B. cake.  In case you’re wondering, B.O.B. is a “gelatinous mass”.  Use a soccer ball mold for the top of the head, and round cake layers to stack up the body.  Offset the cake layers to give the body an irregular shape and place head on top.  Push wooden skewer vertically into cake to prevent layers from sliding.  Note: Cut the skewer an inch shorter than the stack as the layers will compress due to their weight.  Drape with fondant, leaving folds along the base.  Color a ping-pong ball for the eye and push into cake.

Last year when my son turned three, he shared his birthday party with two of his pals whose birthdays fell in the same week. I like to bake, so I volunteered to make the cake. I asked the other moms what their sons wanted as a party theme. One boy wanted a rocket ship birthday, another wanted Veggie Tales, and my son just wanted everything green. Boy was I sorry I asked! Then, to top it off, one of the other moms (a hen who shall remain nameless) said she thought fondant would look nice on the cake. GULP! I had never done, nor wanted to do, fondant. It’s beautiful, and if you watch an expert do it fondant looks as easy as pie, but in real life I doubted that. It is available for purchase in craft stores, but it’s expensive and many reviews say it tastes awful. But, always ready for a challenge, I started some research. True fondant takes several ingredients you may not have on hand: glycerine, corn syrup and unflavored gelatin come to mind. But I found a recipe that replaces those ingredients with something easy to work with and inexpensive to buy: mini marshmallows. The recipe I originally used was from a website called Fondant Making 101 by Peggy Weaver but some of my technique was borrowed from a Youtube video by a woman named Amber. I recommend both sites for more information.  By the way, the picture above is our final product, a green, Veggie Tales-piloted rocket to the moon. And it tasted great, too!

Easy(ish) Fondant

Ingredients

16 oz. bag of mini marshmallows
2-5 tablespoons water
2 lbs. confectioners sugar
½ cup shortening (you’ll be digging into this as you work, so put it in a bowl next to your work area.)

1. Melt marshmallows with 2 tablespoons water in the microwave. Microwave for 30 seconds, stop to stir, and repeat until they are melted (about 2 1/2 minutes total).  Of course, melting makes the marshmallows very hot, so be careful when handling them.
2. Heavily grease a countertop. Dump approximately one pound of the confectioners sugar onto the counter. Then heavily grease your hands- backs, palms, and between your fingers.
3. Dump the melted marshmallows onto the sugar and start to knead like bread dough. At this point, it is very sticky and you’ll be wondering if this is some cruel internet hoax I’ve played on you. I promise, it will get better! As you work the sugar in, add more and continue to knead until your fondant isn’t sticky any more. Add water 1/2 tablespoon at a time if your fondant is tearing. You’ll need to keep greasing your hands and the counter, too.  NOTE: Don’t feel you have to work in all the sugar. I only used about 1 1/2 lbs., at which point the fondant wasn’t sticky but was still quite pliable. 2 lbs. made it hard as a rock.
4. Once your fondant is elastic and pliable, it is best to store it overnight. Give it a thick coat of shortening, wrap it in plastic wrap, then put it in a re-sealable storage bag. (Press as much air out as possible.)
5. When you are ready to use your fondant, you need to knead it again to warm it up and make it smooth. If you wish, this is the time to add food coloring. Sprinkle a good amount of corn starch on your counter to prevent sticking, and roll the fondant out to the appropriate size (sides+ top of cake, + 1 inch extra). You’ll want your fondant to be about 1/8 inch thick. Your cake should be completely cooled and have a 1/4 inch layer of buttercream frosting on it. (The buttercream is necessary to smooth the fondant and help it stick to your cake.) Lift the fondant onto the cake, smooth it out and trim the edges. Use the remaining fondant to decorate (it works great with cookie cutters!).
6. Don’t store your cake in the fridge- moisture will build up on the fondant. It will keep in a bakery box on the counter for 2 or 3 days.

Give fondant a try. It isn’t as difficult as I had first imagined, but it’s certainly not something I would do on a regular basis! (The professionals are safe from me.) And, to be fair, it turned out that my husband (our family bread baker) is better than I am at making fondant.

Ahh, my favorite time of the holiday season…the week after Christmas.  The crazy hustle and bustle is over and I love that our family can just hang out in our pajamas all day.  This is when we take time to sit down and play with all of the new toys that arrived under our tree.  By New Year’s the initial shine has toned down and the kids start asking to do crafts and other projects.  Our boys love helping out in the kitchen and every winter we take time to make a special treat for our feathered friends.

My oldest son first came home with these birdseed ornaments from preschool.  The ingredients are inexpensive and the ornaments are simple to make.  My two year old helped make them as the Christmas presents he gave last year.  We baked a batch of ornaments this week as part of our “last day of vacation” activities.  The boys had fun deciding which trees to hang the finished ornaments in, and later my dogs were balancing on hind legs trying to figure out how to get at these wonderful smelling objects that had suddenly appeared in our yard.  I’m glad we don’t get bears raiding our bird feeders or they would probably do the same with these ornaments!

Birdseed Biscuit Ornaments

1 tube (10 ea) refrigerator biscuits
1½ cups birdseed
Plastic Container (sandwich size)
Pencil
Cookie Sheet or Baking Tray (with edges to catch extra seeds)
String or Raffia (something safe for birds to use in their nests – not ribbon)

• Pat biscuits flat.
• Pour birdseed into plastic container.  Place flattened biscuit into container and cover with seed.  Press hard to make seeds stick in dough.  Place seed-coated biscuit on cookie sheet.  Use pencil to make hole in biscuit.
• Bake biscuits at 400° for 8 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove from oven and open any pencil holes that baked closed.  Let biscuits cool.
• Thread string through holes in ornaments.
• Hang ornaments in trees and watch to see who is first to find the treats!

I’ve been baking ginger cookies a lot this holiday, but they are so delicious I’m not sick of them yet! A couple of recipients have asked for the recipe, so I thought I’d give it to everybody. These make great gifts for neighbors, teachers or the milkman, and are a great addition to a cookie platter. As a bonus, they are VERY easy to make- a needed attribute this time of year! This recipe was originally given to me by a dear friend of the family, but I’m not sure of her source. You can use it to make either giant or more traditionally sized cookies (I’ve included instructions for both, so be sure to double check baking times). But better make two batches- they are hard to resist until company comes!

Giant Ginger Cookies

4½ cups flour
4 tsp. ground ginger (the fresher the ginger, the spicier the cookies)
2 tsp baking soda
1½ tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp salt
1½ cup shortening
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
½ cup molasses
¾ cup coarse or granulated sugar

1. In a medium mixing bowl, stir together flour, ginger, soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat shortening on low for 30 seconds to soften. Gradually add 2 cups of sugar. Beat until fluffy. Add eggs and molasses. Beat well.
3. Add ½ of the flour mixture to shortening mixture. Beat until combined.
4. If using a hand mixer, mix the rest of the flour mixture in with a heavy spoon. If using a heavy duty stand mixer, use it to stir in the remaining flour mixture.
5. FOR GIANT COOKIES: Shape dough into 2 inch balls using a ¼ cup of dough per ball. Roll balls in the ¾ cup sugar.   FOR REGULAR SIZED COOKIES: Scoop out dough with ¼ cup measuring cup, then split in half. Roll each half in sugar.
6. Place on ungreased cookie sheet, about 2½ inches apart (2 inches for regular sized cookies). Bake at 350 degrees, 12-14 minutes for giant cookies, 10-11 minutes for regular sized. Bake until they are light brown and puffed.
7. Let stand 2 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool. Makes about 22 giant cookies or 45 regular cookies.

I hope you love these cookies as much as I do! Enjoy!

For the Kids

1. Bone Chillers

2. Ice Princess

3. Fossil-iced Dinosaurs

4. Classic Lego Bricks

5. Lego Pirates

6. Lego Belville

7. Hello Kitty

For Your Inner Geek

8. Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite (with R2D2 Ice bucket!)

9. Ice Invaders

10. Tetr-ice

11. Pi-ce

12. Stone Cold Stonehenge

The Ocean Theme

13. Shark Fin

14. Fishbones

For Moms and Dads

15. Gin and Titonic

16. Cool Jewels

17. Cool Jazz

For Grandma and Grandpa

18. Frozen Smiles

For the Environmentalist

19. Global Warming Ice Tray

For the Season

20. Snowflakes

Wow! We can’t believe Thanksgiving is tomorrow already! With all of the hustle and bustle of our lives, it seems like this holiday always manages to sneak up on us at the last moment. If you’re like us, you might still be figuring out what you’re serving tomorrow (besides turkey of course!). So, we thought we round up all of the Five Hens’ recent Thanksgiving and fall recipes right here in one place to help you out with your menu and your food shopping today. We also included links to some our other recent Thanksgiving posts too.

Recipes

Death by Mashed Potatoes: One of Little Red Hen’s Thanksgiving staples is a mashed potato recipe that, if eaten on a regular basis, could quite possibly kill you.

Spiced Cranberry Sauce: Painted Hen’s recipe for fresh cranberry sauce from the Culinary Institute of America.

Eggnog Pumpkin Pie: Little Red Hens calls this “the BEST pumpkin pie I’ve ever had (and I’ve done some research, believe me)”.

Butternut Squash Soup: This light and creamy soup has a wonderful fall-inspired flavor, especially for those of us who are fans of butternut squash.

Thanksgiving Crafts and Tips

The Thankful Tree: Help your kids express what they’re thankful for this year with these two quick and easy craft projects that you can do with your kids this Thanksgiving.

Time to Talk Turkey: Little Red Hens’ in-laws are all very gourmet. But, her dad had a heart attack over the summer and is on a low sodium diet. Find out how she plans to make everybody happy this Thanksgiving.

Do You Have an Autumn Ritual? Every year we take our two boys on our autumn ritual in the Rocky Mountains to see the bugling elk. What are the autumn rituals that you share with your kids?

Keeping Kids Happy on Long Car Rides: Over the river and through the woods? The holidays are here and that means road trips to the relatives’. Here are some of our favorite tips and ideas to help the kiddos pass the time quickly and comfortably while you’re on the road this holiday season.

Last week I shared my favorite recipe for Spiced Cranberry Sauce from the cookbook Cooking Secrets of the C.I.A. by the Culinary Institute of America.  (And it’s a real deal on Amazon.com compared to when we bought it full price back in the day!)  My other fall favorite is a delicious Butternut Squash Soup from the same cookbook, and by favorite I mean we’ve made it so much that the book falls open to the page with this recipe.  This light and creamy soup has a wonderful fall-inspired flavor, especially for those of us who are fans of butternut squash.  And if you have a lot of food to prepare on Thanksgiving Day (ok, who doesn’t) you can make the main part of the soup the day before, and resume with Step 5 on the big day.

Butternut Squash Soup with Ginger Cream

2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 onion, minced
1 stalk celery, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 small carrot, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice
2 tsp minced fresh ginger, divided
2 to 3 cloves garlic, mashed
Two 1-pound butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed (about 4 cups)
½ cup dry white wine
5 cups chicken stock
1 small stick cinnamon
¼ tsp grated nutmeg
2 tsp fresh lime juice
½ cup evaporated skim milk
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
½ cup heavy cream, chilled

1. Melt butter in heavy saucepan over medium heat.  Add onion, celery, and carrot and saute until tender, about 5 minutes.
2. Add 1 teaspoon of the ginger and all the garlic and saute for 2 minutes.
3. Add the butternut squash and saute for 2 minutes.
4. Add the wine, stock, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the squash is completely soft.  Remove the cinnamon stick.  Puree the soup in a food processor.
5. Return soup to the saucepan and add the lime juice and evaporated skim milk.  Bring to a simmer and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.  Set aside and keep warm.
6. In a deep bowl, whip the heavy cream to soft peaks and fold in the remaining 1 teaspoon ginger.
7. Ladle the soup into warm bowls and serve topped with a spoonful of the ginger cream.

Serves 6

Here at Five Hens, we are on a Thanksgiving recipe kick. I’m certainly getting some great ideas, and I hope you are, too! This is my recipe for Eggnog Pumpkin Pie, the BEST pumpkin pie I’ve ever had (and I’ve done some research, believe me). I got this recipe a few years ago from Morning Fresh Dairy, an all natural, local dairy that provides products to people in Northern Colorado. It is a rich, flavorful pumpkin pie that will wow your Thanksgiving guests. They’ll never guess how easy it is to make!

Eggnog Pumpkin Pie

1 can solid pumpkin
1 1/4 cups eggnog
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon salt
single shell, unbaked pie crust*

Combine all ingredients. Pour into the unbaked pie shell. Bake at 375 for 60-65 minutes. Refrigerate until serving.

Pie Crust

* While any crust be great with this pie filling, this is the pie crust I use for pumpkin pie. It is a little bit sweet, and the cinnamon goes nicely with pumpkin. This is the crust from Mrs. Cobb’s Pumpkin Pie in The Cat Who… Cookbook by Julie Murphy and Sally Abney Stempinski. (It’s a great cookbook, and the origin of my Death by Mashed Potatoes recipe.)

5 Tablespoons shortening
1 cup flour
1 Tablespoon powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
3 Tablespoons ice water or just enough to hold dough together

Combine flour, powdered sugar, salt and cinnamon. Cut shortening into flour mixture with a pastry blender or fork until mixture looks like coarse meal. Add water a tablespoonful at a time, mixing lightly into flour mixture with a fork. Gently form into a ball. Roll out into a circle 1/4 inch in thickness on floured surface (I roll it between two sheets of waxed paper, which prevents it from sticking to the rolling pin and makes it easy to move into the pie pan). Place in a 9 inch pie pan. Chill 5-10 minutes before filling and baking.

It’s that time of year when we all start pulling out our favorite recipes to begin planning for our Thanksgiving celebrations.  I was never a fan of cranberry sauce until my Rooster (who’s the cook in the family) made this recipe, and now it’s my favorite.  I’ve asked him to make these cranberries for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.  They taste great warm or cold and I just can’t get enough.  I’ve even had the poor guy scrambling to find cranberries when my craving has happened to be out of season.  This easy recipe is from one of our favorite cookbooks, Cooking Secrets of the C.I.A. by the Culinary Institute of America.

Spiced Cranberry Sauce

12 oz. bag (3 cups) fresh or frozen cranberries
½ cup port wine
¾ cup sugar
2 Tbsp fresh minced onion
1 tsp fresh minced garlic
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1 tsp grated orange zest
Juice of 2 oranges
Juice of ½ lemon
1¼ tsp dry mustard
¼ tsp ground ginger
⅛ tsp cayenne pepper
Pinch ground cloves
¼ tsp salt

1. Rinse cranberries and remove any imperfect berries, stems or leaves.
2. Combine all ingredients in a 1-quart saucepan.  Cover and bring to a boil over high heat.  Reduce heat and simmer lightly for 5 minutes.  With a fork, press the berries against the side of the pot until they are all crushed.  Remove from heat.
3. The sauce can be served immediately, or covered, cooled and reheated for later service.  It can also be served chilled, with cold appetizers.

Makes 3 cups or 10 servings.

My son came home with his first hand-shaped turkey last week, so I knew it was time to take down the Jack-O-Lanterns and get out the cookbooks. My husband and I are hosting the meal again this year and we always have a good time planning a meal for about 16 people. Both my family and my husband’s get together this one day of the year, and we all have a good time together despite the broad sweep of political and religious ideas (everybody is always on good behavior!) But this year I have a new challenge: My in-laws are all very gourmet and like to try exotic new recipes. On the other hand, my dad (who has never liked exotic food) had a heart attack over the summer and is on a very low sodium diet. Argh! How can I make everybody happy?

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an end-of-the-world kind of problem. Really, I’m more thankful than ever this year just because my dad is around! I’d make him nothing but chocolate cake if he wanted it. And my in-laws are wonderful people who wouldn’t think twice about a bland dinner since they know the circumstances. I’d just like to cook something that makes everybody happy! But how do you make mashed potatoes taste good without salt? Or stuffing? Or green beans? Or even dessert? Help!

There are many low-sodium recipe websites in cyberspace, but I’m always dubious of things like that if I don’t know anybody whose tried them. Maybe I should just get cooking and try some out. But if any of you have any suggestions for delicious, low sodium side dishes you’d like to pass along, I’d love to see them. With some research and a little help from my internet friends, I’m hoping to make this a Thanksgiving dinner everybody will love! (And as an aside to my father-in-law, I’m still planning to make my Death By Mashed Potatoes, so there’s no need to worry.)