havocandmayhem.com

I was finally able to make the pretzel rolls yesterday & they are wonderful!  Havoc has already declared I need to make them more often. I’ve made them a few times in the past with various recipes none of which thrilled me. This time I used one from Pioneer Woman’s Tasty Kitchen site. This is the printable page http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/breads/pretzel-rolls-3/?print=1# But let me tell you a few things about it 1-½ cup Warm Water (110°F) – does it feel warm, but not hot to your finger? yes? then it is fine 1 package (1/4 Oz. Packet) Active Dry Yeast (not Quick Rise Yeast) – this is 2.25 teaspoons if you do yeast in bulk 2 teaspoons Sugar 4-½ cups Unbleached All-purpose Flour  2 teaspoons Kosher Salt 4 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, melted ¼ cups Baking Soda 1 whole Egg, Lightly Beaten Pretzel Salt, To Sprinkle On Top I used regular sea salt instead of Kosher & large grain sea salt instead of pretzel salt because I ...

These are so easy to make. Just go get your favorite sugar cookie recipe & make it. (mine is from Joy of Cooking & includes cream cheese which makes a wonderful texture with these)   Then divide it into 4 sections. My cookie dough recipe makes 48 cookies so I divided it into 8 batches. This was a tad excessive. 4 or 5 would have been fine. Get your hands on some gel food coloring. It has to be gel if you want the vibrant colors. The drop kind of food coloring is pretty much useless for this. The colors are pale & it changes the texture slightly. How much gel? Just this much. Dip the toothpick into the container, swirl it around, pull it out, stick it in one of the dough batches, swirl it around and then stir the dough until the color is spread through out. Chill the doughs in plastic wrap in the fridge for a couple hours. Then divide it into small sections with a butter knife Take 3-4 different colors & put them together. You want a lump ...

For the ill prepared. Chocolate crackers 1. Realize you have a lot of graham crackers left over from the cookout. 2. Remember there was a cookie recipe for them in one of those mysteries with the really annoying sleuth that you have been reading & you copied it. Find it. 3. Lay out graham crackers on foil lined pan 4. Start 2 sticks of butter melting 5. Get one cup brown sugar   a. Realize there is no brown sugar in the house because *someone* (I’m looking at you DH) made cookies last week and did not tell you they used all the brown sugar   b. Google ‘brown sugar substitutes’ and find many proportional variations of ‘add molasses to white sugar’. Debate between 2t to 1 cup and .25c to 1 cup   c. Realize you aren’t just making cookies, you are also making blog fodder. Get your camera & channel the Pioneer Woman. 6. Remove 1T butter from pan. Add 1 cup white sugar and 1T molasses. Stir until melted together, bring to a boil and stir c...

So easy an unorganized ditz could do it. And I’ll prove it to you. Step one - get a quart sized mason jar Step one A – get a step ladder Step two - which probably should have been step one, find your recipe Step three - heat a quart of milk in the microwave to 180-185 degrees F in 2 minute increments, stirring each time. This takes about 6-7 minutes in my microwave. Get distracted by step 4 & fail to photograph step 3 Step four– search for thermometer to check the temp of the yogurt after first 2 minutes Find only cases and the long missing apple corer Step 4a – stick yogurt back in the microwave for another 2 minutes while you tear through every drawer in the kitchen until you come up with one of the thermometers. Step 4b – once yogurt reaches 180 degrees leave it to cool on the counter to 110-115 degrees. This takes about 45 minutes. Do not put the hot glass jar in the fridge! Trust me. Step five – gather your other ingredients (probably this...

This is the result of a recent trip to my local bulk foods market. Sunday I decided to make my favorite soft flat bread recipe and discovered I was nearly out of white & wheat flour and several other flours. Naturally I did not discover this until the liquid ingredients were all mixed together with the sugar, salt & yeast so I couldn’t just say ‘oh well’ and walk away. I had to come up with something.  The bread ended up being a mix of white bread flour, whole wheat flour, soy flour, oat flour, buckwheat pancake mix, oat bran and some Self Rising flour. (I needed 7 cups of flour because I foolishly was making a double batch) It was *interesting* texturally.  Not bad, but not at all what I want in my flat bread. Normally I stick with white, wheat and flax meal, sometimes bran. The market is just down from the boys’ TKD class so I dropped them off Wed and headed over there. They have these little carts because the aisles aren’t wide enough for bit carts. Mine ...

I don’t drink smoothies in the fall & winter. Smoothies are a warm weather drink, like milkshakes and ice cream. Except of course for random weather induced Blizzard cravings and really…54 inches of snow in 2 weeks…I deserved a DQ Blizzard. But it’s spring now and I’ve been in the mood for smoothies. They make lunch so much easier for me when there are no leftovers. They keep me from making pepperoni rolls. They are sweet and if I add protein powder are nutritionally rounded. Several of us were talking about smoothies we like to make the other day. I said something along the lines of “lately I go with mango, frozen berries, V8 Frusion and some yogurt” I had the least amount of adjectives of anyone in the group, having a total of only 1 adjective – frozen. Everyone else’s smoothies were full of adjectives – organic, local, homegrown, homemade, hand juiced, farmer’s market, in season, fresh, high protein and popular buzz words – Greek yogurt, flax meal, spinach flakes. Like i...

Lately, whenever I open the pantry I am greeted by this They’ve been in there for a couple of weeks. Different ones on different days. I think they are on a rota or something. Mayhem reminds me every day that the dinos would like some muffins. Mayhem himself does not like muffins so he isn’t in this for gain. Today was the coolest it has been in weeks, which is not so cool really, more like the difference between 94 degrees and humid and 91 degrees and not quite as humid. So I decided to take pity on the dinosaurs & make them some muffins. I was out of bananas so my standby recipe was out & I went looking for something new.  I found a recipe for peanut butter muffins written on a random scrap of paper in my mom’s old Good Housekeeping Cookbook. I had all the ingredients, so I went with it. But I used some chocolate peanut butter I bought at the Mennonite market.   I don’t know where the tiger came from, but the triceratops is missing. I mixed it all...

There are times where I wish I could say "I made my mother's ragu, handed down through the generations from mother daughter. It's an old family tradition from the Old Country." But we're Irish & German, have been here since 1780 or so, and my foremothers embraced the convenience of early modern agribusiness prior to WWII with a startling eagerness. Oh there were jars of home canned stuff in my Nan's larder when I was a child, but no one had seen her can a thing after 1951. Tellingly perhaps, I cannot remember any of the jars every being opened, let alone eaten. This is my family's traditional ragu. It even says 'traditional' right on the label. I'm rather fond of it actually. There are so few 'family recipes' in my background that I take what I can get. But sometimes, usually around now, when it gets really cold for the first time in months, the complete lack of Italian blood in me calls out for a dish of rich meaty ra...

I made cupcakes Saturday and muffins yesterday. The cupcakes were for a pot luck party my bunco group was having. The muffins were for the family. I ate several of both batches. The cupcakes were cheesecake brownie cupcakes. I used the recipe for Mrs Field's Cheesecake Brownie Cups found here at RecipeZaar.com. However, I am not sure what it is with me & measuring, but I ended up with 16 cupcakes instead of 12. They were very well received. I had 2 bananas that needed to be used yesterday so I made muffins. I was going to make peanut butter banana muffins, in the hopes of tempting Mayhem to actually eat a muffin rather than just demand to make them. But he'd gone on a PB&J spree over the weekend & there was insufficient peanut butter remaining. I decided to replace it with Nutella. Chocolate, bananas, hazelnuts...yum! Nutella Banana muffins Preheat oven to 400 and prepare 12-18 muffin cups. (recipe claims 12, I made 18) In a large bowl mix together ...

I worked myself into enough irritation about the muffins and forgot to post the recipe. *I* like them even if the boys are only so-so about them. I bet if I made them with Nutella and raspberry jelly Havoc would like them more. Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins This makes a dozen regular sized muffins. Use paper muffin cups. Preheat oven to 375. 1.5 cups AP flour 1/2 cup brown sugar 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 teas baking soda 1/2 teas salt Combine in a large bowl& set aside 1/2 cup smooth natural peanut butter 2 eggs at room temperature Mix these together well in a second bowl then add 3/4 cup milk 1 tsp vanilla 4 tblsp really soft/ melted but too not hot butter and mix thoroughly. Add to dry ingredients and mix until just combined Let sit for 10 minutes. Then spoon into muffin cups, filling each one about 3/4 of the way. Add a teaspoon of grape jelly to the center of each cup, making an indentation as you do. Bake for 20 minutes

I made muffins. I made those muffins specifically to give to Havoc when he came home from school. See, I have this vision in my mind of the kind of mom I want to be - the kind that greets their children with home baked goodness and milk when they get home from school. The kind that sits down with them at the kitchen table and asks them how their day went, in a casual, non-cross examining manner. I want my kids to have a memory of a mom who fed them fresh from the oven baked goods and listened with interest & sympathy to their thoughts after school. I've been waiting for almost 6 years to get a shot at being this kind of mom & now it has finally happened. I have no idea if I actually am that sort of mom, or if this particular fantasy of mine will last beyond next week, but it's worth a go. I have the essential elements - I like to bake and I am a good listener. But I am also lazy and selfish and get involved in other things to the point where it is too late to bake so...

Havoc has informed me that today is the allosaurus' birthday. ( We have about 20 plastic dinosaurs, 2 are allosaurs). They are 26 today and they would like banana muffins at their party. The orange crocodile was content with Cheerios at his party last month but I suppose allosaurs think big. I made muffins with the help of Havoc, Mayhem and 2 allosaurs. (the lighting in my kitchen sucks in the morning) There has never been such a mess making muffins before. Those allosaurs need to learn to control their tails. Melted butter got knocked over, the 'wet stuff' bowl had stuff sloshed out of it, molasses seeped slowly across the counter and pureed banana splattered everything when Havoc took the lid off the mixer too soon. Usually I just get flour all over the place. Other issues include - melted butter instead of softened butter, plus spilling it so it wasn't actually 1/2 cup, more yogurt than the recipe calls for, probably not enough flour due to humidity and an...