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Our May Day Fun

May 1, 2012 by Laura 16 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Because I grew up making and delivering May Day Baskets, I just assumed everyone knew what May Day was all about. Seems from many of your comments on my Gratituesday post that May Day is new to many of you! Here, let me share the fun with you…

The way we’ve always celebrated the first day of May is to create some sort of basket, fill it with flowers or goodies, then deliver the basket to someone’s porch. Tradition holds that you are to “sneak” the basket up to the house, set it down, ring the doorbell, and run away without the recipient catching you! It’s a fun way to celebrate spring and a great way to bless others. We’ve never been very good at the “sneaking” part, but it sure is fun to try!

I can’t believe how excited our three younger boys were this year as they were working on this project. (Our oldest may have been excited also, if he wasn’t so busy trying to finish his freshman year of high school. That kid has been working SO hard this year on Biology and Algebra!)

I pulled each boy into the kitchen with me separately to make a treat for the baskets. This made for some great one-on-one time, plus made life less hectic in the kitchen. Justus decided to make Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. (He usually wears glasses, but his are broken right now – par for the course when you have an active 12 year old boy. If you look at his right eye there, you can see that not only did his glasses get broken, he has a nice injury to brag about too.)

He did a beautiful job on the cookies…

Malachi helped me make some mini Banana Muffins…while listening to DC Talk. ;)

One recipe made 36 mini muffins, baked at 400° for about 15 minutes (in case you were wondering how to adapt the Banana Muffin recipe).

Elias helped me make a big batch of Trail Mix, then all the boys set to work making cards to include in the baskets.

In the meantime, I packaged up all the treats.

The “baskets” we used were actually just recycled ice cream buckets my dad had given me. This worked perfectly!

And now, we are heading out to deliver the goodies. I believe I am just about to witness my sons launching themselves off of our friends’ porches – which I’m sure they will do in absolute silence so as to keep our May Day delivery a big surprise. ;)

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Compromising at Christmas Time

December 13, 2011 by Laura 21 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Some of you may remember reading this post last year, as I wrote it for another site that had asked me to contribute. This year, I decided to tweak it and post it for you here!

Coconut Cupcakes

I am always so tempted to make food compromises at Christmastime. There are extra events going on, making it harder to put healthy meals on the table. Plus, there are sweets and holiday goodies at all of the parties and get togethers. SO MUCH SUGAR…and it always looks so pretty. Ah, frosting and sprinkles. Why must you tempt me so?

So, what should we do? Avoid all parties and shun all forms of sugary goodness? Or throw caution to the wind, dump a whole container of sprinkles directly into the frosting bowl, grab a spoon and get down to business?

Sugar bonks our immune system right on the head, so the motivation to stay healthy is helping me reach for carrots instead of fudge. But I also know that if I avoid sugar completely, I’m likely to eat the entire pan of fudge later. Allowing treats is okay – sometimes.

But here’s what I’ve decided:  The treat has got to taste really, really good. I’m not wasting my sugar intake on a tasteless, dry cookie or a three day old donut. Any treat I indulge in needs to be fresh and gooey. There needs to be chocolate involved. Or cream cheese. Or both.

And here’s another way I compromise during busy times like this. I’m not making every single bite of our food from scratch. Even during what usually tends to be a busy Christmas season, my family still prefers to eat three (to seven meals) a day. I find that buying baby carrots or pre-made whole grain English muffins helps save my sanity. MOST of the time, I cut our carrot sticks, and bake all of our bread. Right now, I feel good if I’ve remembered to give my kids vegetables in the first place. If I need to spend just a little bit more for some healthy convenience during these next few weeks, so be it.

It’s all a part of keeping Christmas time simple this year.

I think we need to cut ourselves some slack. When we work almost constantly to save money and make food from scratch, that buys us a little bit of “chill out time” during those weeks when you can’t tell your comings from your goings and your Christmas lights are tangled up around the tail of your frustrated cat.

The moral of the story is this:

Try not to eat much sugar, and when you do indulge in a treat, make sure it’s the kind that makes you faint from deliciousness. Also, when your son’s birthday falls a few days before Christmas, go ahead and buy “take and bake” pizzas for the party because making a homemade crust might make you say things you’ll regret.

Yes indeed, I’ll be buying pizzas for my son’s birthday next week. Guilt free.

It’s okay, I’ll make whole wheat organic crust again in January.

When do you make compromises? What compromises have you had to make during this season?

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Homemade Peppermint Patties

November 27, 2011 by Laura 44 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Yum

This post is all Amy’s fault. ;)  She linked to a recipe for peppermint patties last week and made me very hungry for them. I figured you wouldn’t mind me testing and adapting the recipe, then sharing it with you. These would be perfect holiday treats to make and share with co-workers or neighbors, or to wrap up to take to a gift exchange.

This recipe actually calls for leftover mashed potatoes – how fun is that? Since I had a pound or four of mashed potatoes left over after Thanksgiving, I decided I could spare the 1/2 cup needed to make this recipe.

But before we go any further, I need to let you know that this recipe is a little different from those that I usually share. There is not much about this recipe that is healthy. These peppermint patties consist mostly of sugar. Do not make this recipe and serve it to your family for breakfast. Do not assume that since there are mashed potatoes in these, they can be considered a vegetable to be served as a side dish to your pot roast. Do not sit down and eat this whole batch by yourself. Do not make this recipe very often, for these patties are addicting. I will not be held responsible for you getting sick off of homemade peppermint patties. In fact, I hereby relinquish any responsibility for influencing you to make these. Just because a recipe is posted here does not mean you have to make it. Nobody here is forcing you to get out your mixing bowl. Actually, you really shouldn’t make these at all. No. You should just read through this post, then nod and smile. Then you should promptly move on to read about something less sugary, like this Angel Ornament post.

Yes, whatever you do, do not make these peppermint patties.

Peppermint Patties 2

Homemade Peppermint Patties (adapted from Domesticated)

1/2 cup leftover mashed potatoes
1 Tablespoon melted butter
2 teaspoons peppermint extract
5 cups powdered sugar (told you there was a lot of sugar)
1 cup chocolate chips
1 Tablespoon coconut oil or palm shortening

Stir together the mashed potatoes, butter, peppermint oil and powdered sugar to form a thick dough. Spoon a teaspoon at a time onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. (I was able to form 38 teaspoon sized patties from this dough.)

Press down the dough and shape as small patties. Refrigerate for 3 hours, or freeze for 45 minutes.

On the stove top, melt together the chocolate chips and oil. Dip the chilled patties into the chocolate to cover them. Chill until set. Admire the peppermint patties, but do not eat them. Do not even lick your fingers.

Good luck with that. ;)

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