Gluten Free Friday - Flour-less Peanut Butter Blossoms

After filling 24 Advent bags for the days leading up to Christmas, I had about half a bag of Hershey Kisses left over. When Wednesday rolled around, and I was preparing some food for our mid-week couples Bible study, I decided to use the rest of the bag to make these yummy treats! I make flour-less peanut butter cookies ALL of the time for the kids, so I basically used the same recipe, made a smaller ball of dough for each cookie, put a thumbprint in the middle instead of a criss-cross, and stuck the "kiss" in the thumbprint when they came out of the oven.

While I was baking them, I was remembering that these particular cookies have a specific name, but I could not remember what it was. After racking my brain, I was thankful when Jeff - one of the husbands - said, "Peanut butter blossoms - they are so good!"
That's it! Peanut Butter Blossoms! Thank you, Jeff!

Here's the recipe I used, which is sort of a double batch. It will make about 5 dozen cookies - great for your cookie exchange, holiday entertaining, or gift giving!

Peanut Butter Blossoms

2 jars natural peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking soda
4 eggs

bag of Hershey Kisses

In a large bowl, stir together all ingredients until thoroughly combined. Roll dough into small one inch balls. Place on cookie sheet, and press thumb into center of each ball making a shallow indention. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 350*. Remove cookie sheet from oven, let cool a couple of minutes, then press one "kiss" into each cookie. The kisses will melt, but they will keep their shape and harden again after thoroughly cooled.

P.S. If you look closely, you can see that the above pictured "blossom" (not my photo!) has also been rolled in white sugar. After you roll each piece of dough into a ball, then roll it again in a small bowl of sugar until it is completely covered. Place on cookie sheet, and then make the indention with your thumb!

My dear friend Lois ALWAYS rolls hers in sugar which makes them extra-yummy!

It is Good to Give Thanks....

It is good to give thanks to the LORD

And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;
To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning
And Your faithfulness by night,
With the ten-stringed lute and with the harp,
With resounding music upon the lyre.
For You, O LORD, have made me glad by what You have done,
I will sing for joy at the works of Your hands.
How great are Your works, O LORD!

Psalm 92: 1-5

We've had a wonderful week of Thanksgiving preparations - preparing food, decorations, and most importantly our hearts. We also had a great Thanksgiving Day with a houseful of friends from church.

The kids got especially excited about our Thanksgiving exercise this year. We tried to make our "leaves" last several nights - each night after dinner writing a few things we are thankful for. They kept asking to write things down during the day and pretty soon filled up all the leaves I had cut out. Robert and only got 5 leaves each! What follows is a list of things we are thankful for this year, and wrote down on our "thankful leaves."

A warm November...powerpoint...art...Kayla's love for animals...homeschool...Friday night movies...Chicago Bears...church planting...The Today Show...family bonding time...our trampoline...hot cocoa...trees and plants...the magic of birth...doughnuts...home cooked meals...the Bible...God's forgiveness...Prudential Tower Nachos...Creation...health...Buddy...the Bible...snow and winter...holidays...my friends...music...my family...my pets: bunnies, chickens, and Buddy...sunsets...fried eggs...rain...Mercyhouse...college student friends...Kory's maturity...dates with Mel...a husband who loves, serves, and helps me...my backyard...Cooper's fun-ness...Kayla's thoughtful, helpful, and kind spirit...Kory's strength, wisdom, kindness, and maturity...Cooper's music, humor, kindness, and forgiving heart...Netflix...football...and animal babies!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Livin' in the Land of the Literary (and the Historical, and the Political, and the Financial)

So said Hester Prynne, and glanced her sad eyes downward at the scarlet letter. And, after many, many years, a new grave was delved, near an old and sunken one, in that burial-ground beside which King's Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tombstone served for both. All around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate - as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport - there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald's wording of which might serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow: -

"On a field, sable, the Letter A, Gules."
The Scarlet Letter, Chap. 24

Elizabeth Pain's Grave in the King's Chapel Burying Ground

As the curious investigator may STILL discern????
I first read The Scarlet Letter for a high school English class. Recently, I read it again in preparation for the Challenge 1 Classical Conversations class I'm teaching. I could not believe all of the references to Boston and locations that I have had the privilege of visiting many times. But, had I made all those trips to Boston in the last 10 years and never realized that Hester Prynne, of Scarlet Letter infamy, was buried in the graveyard next to the King's Chapel??? I've visited the chapel at least 20 times taking Texas tourists for Freedom Trail strolls! But, should I really be surprised? After all, in the last ten years, I've been able to visit the homes of Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and last, but not least, Emily Dickinson. (I actually used to live on the same street as Emily!) I've also walked around Walden Pond several times, and recently visited Salem's House of Seven Gables about which Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote in 1851 -the year after The Scarlet Letter was published.

While at the House of Seven Gables back in August, I asked the museum docent if Hester Prynne was really buried next to Arthur Dimmesdale in the King's Chapel Burying Ground. Well, it turns out that Hawthorne really had me going with that "curious investigator" thing!

"No," she said. "There is no actual Hester Prynne, but there is a woman buried there who some think may be the woman upon which the character of Hester is based.
Her name is Elizabeth Pain."

Well.... I would be sure to check that out next time I'm in Boston!

And my opportunity came very soon after that. My dear friend Kelly (a.k.a Miss Riggs) and her husband Jack came for a visit a few weeks back, and I thoroughly enjoyed taking them to Boston. (I really love Boston and never tire of taking and touring folks around that amazing city!) As we approached the King's Chapel on the Freedom Trail (a walking tour of the major historical sites in Boston), I greatly anticipated looking for Elizabeth Pain's headstone and grave. I walked into the chapel and noticed right away that they sell copies of The Scarlet Letter in the small gift shop area. I asked for directions to Elizabeth's grave, and easily found it in the burial ground outside the above pictured headstone. It is thought to possibly be the grave of the woman whose story matches Hester's because of the coat of arms that adorns the headstone. It seems to match the description in the final line of the novel: "On a field, sable, the Letter A, Gules."

Of course, there are many theories about who this woman was - and who the beloved, yet guilty minister was. I have since read several of those ideas and will spare you the details, but let me tell you...they completely fascinate me! And to think...they were real people, and it happened right here. Amazing.

Mrs. Mallard and her Ducklings:
Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack

And do you recognize these little guys? They are the ducklings from Robert McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings. The story takes place right in the Boston's Public Garden which is directly across the street from Boston Common. You can even still ride a swan boat on the pond there - which the kids and I have done many times.

Kelly and Me in front of the Old South Meeting House

Another book the students and I read this semester was Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. It takes place during the time leading up to the Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The book is historical fiction, and so I found myself again wondering how much of it was true. Like, did Johnny really go and listen for a secret phrase spoken by Samuel Adams in a rally at the Old South Meeting House?

"Now, Johnny, you are to listen to what Samuel Adams says next. Look you. If Mr. Adams says, "Now may God help my country, " come back here. Then we will take off our disguises and each go home and say nothing. But, if he says, "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country," you are to get out of that crowd as fast as you can, and as soon as you get into Cornhill begin to blow upon this silver whistle."

Johnny Tremain, Part 6, chapter 6

Well, when we visited the Old South Meeting House on that Boston trip, we walked inside, and there was Samuel Adams (in cardboard cutout) holding a sign that read,
"Do you know my secret phrase?"

So, it was true - the signal to go and dump the tea into the harbor - and I'm standing in the very place it happened!

Samuel Adams' Grave in the Granary Burying Ground

Samuel Adams and Paul Revere are also major figures in the book (as they were in the Revolution!) and they are both buried in the first burying ground you come to as you walk the Freedom Trail. John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin's parents are buried here as well.

View from the Prudential Building Observation Floor

A few weeks after that trip to Boston with Jack and Kelly, I had the privilege of going back there on a field trip with my students and showing them the things they had just read and written essays about! Our day in Boston began with a trip to the Federal Reserve Bank where they participated in a wonderful program on economics, received a package of shredded money, watched a video on the Federal Reserve System ( I could hear Ron Paul's concerns running through my mind all the while!), and competed in an investment game complete with real historical investment scenarios. This was a wonderful opportunity for them, as one of our subjects this semester is economics, and they've been working hard to invest a pretend $10,000 in the stock market, collect weekly articles on economic current events and report on them in class.

After the Bank tour, we hit the Freedom Trail and took note of the above mentioned sites, completing a fill-in-the-blank worksheet at each historical place. We finished up our day with dinner and shopping at the Prudential Center which boasts every restaurant and hip shopping venue you can imagine.

And here are the students who got to participate in the hands-on literary, historical, political and financial field trip to Boston - Brianna, Megan, Britta, and Kory.
(I know. Poor Kory. In a class with his mom and three other women!)
Of course, they don't know how blessed they are to live in the place where American history and literature began, but this native-Texan-turned-perpetual-New England-tourist does, and I just LOVE sharing it with them!

Gluten Free Friday - Praline Sweet Potatoes

I can hardly believe Thanksgiving is next week! We will be having our usual gathering of a few families and any folks who can't travel to their own homes for the holiday. It is one of my kids' favorite days of the year - lots of guests and lots of food and lots of football - like heaven!

If you've ever eaten Mexican food in Texas, you know that you can't leave the restaurant without being tempted, on your way out, to buy a praline, which is a candy with lots of butter, sugar, and pecans. They are delicious, and this recipe adds their sweet - candy-ness to top off a wonderful Thanksgiving side dish. Inspired by an old Austin, TX Junior Forum cookbook called Changing Thymes, this recipe is one of Robert's favorites. I think I left it off the menu one year and he pouted, so it has now become a forever traditional Krum Thanksgiving dish. It is easily made gluten free and dairy free if you tweak just a few things. This morning on the Today Show I even saw a sweet potato dish that used coconut milk and a bit of curry! So, go ahead and substitute the milk with coconut or almond or rice, and the butter with something like Smart Balance if you need a dairy free dish!

Praline Sweet Potatoes

6 cups mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1 stick butter

Praline Topping:

1 stick butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1/2 cup GF flour

Mix (I use a hand mixer) together mashed sweet potatoes, brown sugar, vanilla, milk, and butter. Spread in a baking dish.

For topping, stir together butter, brown sugar, pecans, and GF flour until crumbly. Sprinkle on top of sweet potato mixture. Bake at 350* for 30 minutes. Topping should spread out a bit and may even be bubbly. Serve warm.

*A couple of times, I've added GF oatmeal, cinnamon, etc. to the topping to make more of a "crisp" topping. Yum!

Gluten Free Friday: Out-of-Town + Sick Kids = Recipe Rerun

We just returned a couple of hours ago from an annual denominational meeting in Maine. When we left we were fairly sure Kory was getting over his 2 days of low-grade fever, and that it would be fine to leave all the kids with two of their favorite kid-sitters: Rachel and Virginia. (Thank you so much ladies!) Well...Kory called us this afternoon upset about how sick he was feeling, and it was pretty obvious that he had taken a downward turn with whatever bug he has. Then Coop got on the phone to say that he was starting to feel badly, and I was getting anxious about being 3 hours away and leaving them with college girls who don't have time to be sick! Fortunately, Kayla went to spend the day with one of her favorite friends, and has been feeling fine. We finally made it home around 8pm, and then it was Kayla's turn to start coughing! So...we now have 3 with fevers, coughs, sore throats, and congestion. Swine Flu? I have no idea, but I do know that this thing is so rampant - and it's only November. I was getting the heebie-jeebies this week just hearing people talk about how sick they or their kids or their husband or their neighbors are or had been.....washing my hands every hour and stocking up on Zinc, Echinacea, Vitamin C, etc. Actually, when I went to Whole Foods to purchase these things, they were almost completely sold out of ALL of it!

So pray for my kids to recover quickly. I hate it when they're sick, but I have always loved the opportunity it is to really nurture and serve and love them. It seems that tomorrow I will get ample opportunity for this - blankets, movies, hot tea, and some homemade soup! As, I made a batch of homemade chicken stock this week and put it in the freezer, I had a feeling it might not be there long, and I was right! Tomorrow I will thaw it out and use it to make this soup. I posted this recipe almost 2 years ago after making it for my sister's family who had the flu. It was inspired by one of those recipe books that shows you how to "sneak" veggies into your family's meals - hence the steamed and pureed cauliflower, onions, and celery! Don't be afraid to use 4 or MORE freshly pressed garlic cloves into the soup! It makes it taste great and contributes to the healing benefits with its anti-microbial properties.

"Creamy" Chicken and Rice Soup

1 whole chicken
1 carton GF chicken broth
1 cup rice, uncooked
1 lg. onion, chopped
3 celery stalks, sliced
4 carrots
1/4 cup olive oil
4 garlic cloves
1 small head of cauliflower
salt and pepper to taste

1. Place chicken in large pot of simmering water. Let simmer until done. Set aside to cool. Save broth.

2. Cook rice according to package instructions. Set aside to add to soup before serving.

3. Cook/Steam cauliflower until tender. Drain and place in blender or food processor.

4. Saute' onion and celery in olive oil until tender. Add to blender/processor with cauliflower.

5. Blend cauliflower, onions and celery until it looks like creamy white mashed potatoes. Press 2 cloves of garlic into this mixture and blend some more. This will be the "cream" part of the soup and a sneaky way to get some veggies in!

6. Remove cooked chicken from broth and debone. Pour out some of the broth from cooked chicken. Skim some of the fat and particles off until it looks clear. Add carton of both to this.

7. Add carrots and chicken pieces to broth.

8. After all of chicken has been added, pour in the "cream" and the cooked rice and stir.

9. Press 2 more cloves of garlic into simmering soup, stir.

10. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Makes about 6 quarts. Serves 10-12

And for those brave enough to eat the green stuff, I would add fresh or frozen peas and some fresh kale!

Gluten Free Friday - Cheese & Pesto Straws (and a kombucha update!)

My little (big!) girl has turned into quite a chef lately. She has always loved to help in the kitchen, and has even been known to purchase cookbooks with her own money. (A smoothie cookbook that she uses regularly!) For her 9th birthday, we bought her DK's Cookbook for Girls, and recently she has made several things from it. In fact, in the last week, I think she's cranked out about 5 different items!

But, the cheese and pesto straws have been everyone's favorite. The only gluten free substitution we needed was the flour - everything else is naturally gluten free. We even had the handy pesto pops in the freezer, which saved a trip to the grocery store for jarred pesto. These are wonderful with soups, salads, or just as a snack by themselves. They are not difficult to make; in fact, Kayla completed the entire process by herself!

Cheese & Pesto Straws

1 1/2 cups GF flour
pinch of salt
1/2 cup chilled butter, cut into small cubes
1/2 cup Gruyere or Cheddar, finely grated
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated
1 whole egg, plus one egg yolk
2 Tbsp pesto

Sift flour and salt in a mixing bowl, and add butter working it into the flour with fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in 3/4 cup of the cheeses. Beat together whole egg and egg yolk, and stir into flour along with pesto sauce. Mix until it resembles dough. Roll it out onto a floured surface, and cut into narrow "straws." Transfer straws to a cookie sheet, and sprinkle the remaining cheese on the tops of each straw. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 350*. Let cool on a wire rack. Yum!

P.S. The kombucha is still sitting in the cabinet above my frig. I see bubbles around the rim of the container, as well as gatherings of bubbles on the surface of the tea. So...something is happening, but it might be another week or so before the "mushroom" forms. Stay tuned.....

Kombucha: Sweet Tea for the Crunchy

Sweet tea is a staple in most Texas/Southern restaurants and homes. When Robert and I were first married, we had a pitcher of it in the frig at all times. Breakfast was the only meal we didn't drink it with, and that was only because we were drinking hot tea first thing in the morning. You wouldn't even think of not having sweet iced tea available for dinner guests, but it wasn't just a mealtime drink. Many an afternoon there would be a trip to Sonic or Bill Miller BBQ drive-thru to order a large sweet tea - a craving and the seemingly perfect relief from those sweltering Texas summer afternoons.

Same thing in Oklahoma where we lived for 4 years prior to our 2000 mile move to New England in 1999. Except I think it was even sweeter there - almost like syrup, if you ask me.

Well, then I started reading up on the stuff that makes tea sweet - white sugar. I suspected it was the culprit in the extreme fatigue I was feeling, and ended up being convinced I should remove it from my diet. That meant the cookies, brownies, etc. we had for dessert almost every day, but it also meant that the sweet tea had to go. (I've never been a big soda drinker, but even gave up the occasional Coke.) I began drinking nothing but water at meals and during the day, and using agave or maple syrup in my morning hot tea. (Agave is sweeter than sugar, so you can use less, and it has a lower glycemic index. It does have the same amount of calories, though. Maple syrup is actually the best sweetener nutritionally.) I could tell a huge difference in my energy levels, and without meaning to, I lost about 25 pounds in a fairly short amount of time. (I think this also had to do with my undiagnosed Celiac Disease and malabsorption issues. Sugar, I think, was the only way I was keeping weight on at that time. I certainly wasn't absorbing much from actual food!)

After all of these discoveries, and more reading, I began to make a lot of changes to my diet - taking out gluten (because of the diagnosis of an intolerance), dairy, a lot of starchy carbs, and most all processed foods. I also began to add a lot of things - nuts and nut butters, fish, lots of salads, and other greens, hummus, fruit and fruit smoothies, eggs, and more veggies. I have never felt better physically, and really enjoy learning more about nutrition and its connection to health.

Two summers ago, our family visited another pastor's family in Connecticut. The wife is a native Texan, the husband and kids have Celiac Disease, they homeschool, had a bat and rabies shots experience like we did.....just many strange similarities to our family. One of which was that Sandy, the pastor's wife, had been using the cookbook Nourishing Traditions quite a lot to preserve food from her garden by fermentation. I also had the cookbook, and had become interested in the same type of ideas. She asked me if I had ever made or tried Kombucha, and expressed interest, but some reservation in attempting to make it herself. And the "smelly, rotting, mushroom" she described as being involved in the process definitely lessened my passion to venture into making this "magic elixir." I pictured a black, hairy, octopus-looking, mushroom in a bowl of its own rotting juices covered in cheesecloth and creating a huge stench in my kitchen. I was becoming "crunchy" for sure, but that was just too much "organic" for me.

A while later, my sister began talking about drinking bottled Kombucha from her Austin, TX Whole Foods store and raving about it. Next, my friend Kim mentioned picking some up at our local Whole Foods and that it drinking it gave her a very healthful feeling. Then, I noticed it for sale at our CSA farm by a local company. OK. Enough exposure and prodding.....time to give it a try. The $3.50 price tag and the initial sour smell upon opening a bottle were worrisome, but the taste was wonderful, and the feeling after drinking it was enough to keep me going back for more. I drank a bottle the day before the half-marathon, and a few sips the morning of - convinced it was going to give my digestive system an extra boost and keep my stomach from getting upset near the end of the run. At dinner the night before, I picked up a magazine introducing a new line of vitamins and supplements, took it back to our hotel, and found it to also include a two-page article on ......Kombucha! Why is this drink so delicious, trendy, and healthful? And is it really the by-product of a rotting mushroom?

The article listed many of the beneficial properties of Kombucha, and while it lamented the price per 2-serving bottle, ($3 - $5) it suggested that it might be worth the investment so that you don't have to deal with the gross-ness of making it at home. The author described the Kombucha mushroom as "slimey" and "booger-like!"

My interest in making it was not completely squelched, though. Robert was out-of-town for a speaking engagement last weekend, and as is my usual pattern, I stayed up way too late at night doing all sorts of things. One night I spent a couple of hours researching Kombucha recipes online, and watching YouTube videos of multiple Kombucha cult-members making their own - and making it look so easy. Here's what I found out:

1. Kombucha is nothing but fermented sweet tea - perfect for the Texan turned crunchy! (And the sugar gets "eaten" by the yeast, etc. during the fermentation process.)
2. The ingredients are water, sugar, black and green tea, and a Kombucha culture.
3. The "mushroom" is not a REAL mushroom, but rather a "scoby" or a "symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast." (And it's white or light brown - not black and hairy!)
4. You can order a pre-formed scoby or make one yourself.
5. Kombucha is really good for you with its probiotic, anti-microbial, and detoxifying properties.

Here's a photo of the mushroom floating on top of the fermenting Kombucha:

So yesterday, I finished gathering my supplies, and started the Kombucha making process at home. Since I did not order a mushroom to add to my tea solution, I needed to grow my own. This just means that I added a bottle of already made Kombucha to my tea. Over the course of a couple of weeks, one should form on the top of my tea, and I will be able to use it in future batches. The mushroom or scoby is also referred to as the "mother" since every time you use it to make a new brew, it has a "baby." This can be passed on to your Kombucha making friends (of which I'm sure you have MANY), or kept and added along with its mother to a new batch. They can also be frozen or stored in the refrigerator, which causes them to go dormant, but will revitalize again at room temperature.

So basically, you bring a gallon of water to an almost-boil. Add one cup of....yes, white sugar (can be organic, of course), and 4-6 black and green tea bags. Organic tea is good to use here, too, as conventional teas sometimes contain chemicals that will kill the needed bacterias in the solution. Let the tea steep about 15 minutes, remove tea bags and let sit until the tea is cooled to room temperature - too much heat will also kill those organisms. After it cools, pour into a glass gallon container, add one bottle of pre-made kombucha tea, cover with cloth and secure with a rubberband or tie of some sort. This will need to sit undisturbed, in a fairly warm place for up to 2 weeks. One demonstration I watched had the tea sitting on a heating pad for that duration. The ideal temperature for the process is between 70 and 80 degrees. I placed mine in the cabinet above our refrigerator which always stays warm with the heat given off by the frig. You can tell the tea is ready by its semi-sweet taste, vinegar smell, and effervescence. Bottling it and/or keeping it in the frig for a few days with increase the effervescence.

Another thing that is really important to remember is to sterilize all equipment you use in making the brew - saucepan, spoon, glass container, your own hands, etc. I washed all mine in very hot soapy water, and then rinsed in boiling water, and dried the outsides with a clean dishcloth. If mold happens to form anywhere in the solution, the entire batch needs to be thrown away.

I'll try and keep you posted on the progress....

One of the most healthful acids produced in this process is glucoronic acid. This is also produced by our own livers as a detoxifying agent in our bodies. It is extremely helpful to have extra amounts of glucoronic acid to combat the many toxins we eat and inhale each day. Kombucha also contains lactic acid and acetic acid which are both responsible for reducing pH and eliminating pathogens in the body. And these are only a few of its amazing properties. I read several accounts of cancer patients using it with success, and the maker of the store bought brand began bottling it because of his mother's reversal of cancer while drinking it.

It's good stuff, y'all! Makes my crunchy Texas heart happy and my New England body feeling good!

Stayed tuned for the final result....