This week from Becky's kitchen

There were lots of strawberries to use up.  And there were the usual 3 meals + 2 snacks a day.  And I needed to take something to our play date today to share.  It may not have been that much more than the usual amount of kitchen action, but it sure seemed like it!  Maybe it's just because I was mindful and documented a lot of it for your reading & viewing pleasure.

Let's run through some of our creations.

Monday
It was another day of thunderstorms, so the kids and I stayed inside.  Leighton was in his jammies all day, Riley got half dressed, and if I recall correctly, I showered and got completely dressed and ready for the day.  Go Mommy!

For morning snack, I made the kids strawberry banana smoothies.  Leighton sipped his quickly and requested a second one, and Riley enjoyed the first half of hers and then started raging about something and karate chopped her cup off her tray before she could finish it.  I lunged to grab it in time but missed it.  I didn't take a picture, but now that it's more comical a few days later, I wish I would have.  The girl has technique!  There was smoothie in every possibly direction, on walls, around corners, under chairs.  I have no idea how she did it, but I am still finding small splashes!  Here are the smoothies and kiddies prior to Riley's mess.

 

I took some of the smoothie mixture (organic while milk vanilla yogurt, strawberries, banana) and made frozen yogurt dots for afternoon snack.  These were a major success.  I can't wait to make them again and to try different flavors.

I really wanted to bake something with the strawberries, but we were out of eggs, and there was no walking to the store in the rain.  I found a recipe online for strawberry yogurt scones that only used one egg white, so I figured I'd just skip it and hope for the best.  My audience is fairly receptive to pretty much anything I bake, so I figured it would get eaten no matter what.  I made several small changes in addition to the omitted egg white, so I thought I would share my final version.  They were good - much better fresh when they were crispy on the outside, in my opinion.  They were a little less scone-like than I would have liked, but no one else complained at all!

1 ½ cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 cup diced strawberries
2/3 cup vanilla yogurt
3 tbsp. butter, cold
sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 400°. Combine flours, flax seed, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Cut in cold butter until small crumbs form.  Add in yogurt until just moist.  Fold in strawberries.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. With hands well floured, knead the dough four times.  Roll it and pat it and mark it with a ... oops, lost my train of thought!  Let's try that again.  Roll it into a log and cut 12 discs (usually for scones I make a rectangle and cut 12 triangles out or occasionally I roll it and cut with a round cookie cutter, but I was feeling like something different).  Sprinkle with sugar.  Bake for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.

Another egg-less recipe I got started on was for homemade cereal bars.  I had made these a couple years ago and we all loved them.  I have meant to make them several times since, but haven't.  I am not sure why.  No good excuse!  So, I quickly got the filling made and put it in the fridge for later in the week (I will get to the recipe later on in this post).

After all this strawberry madness, it was time to make dinner.  Leighton had asked for salmon at the grocery store on the weekend, so we had a 2lb piece in the fridge.  We always have salmon pretty much the same way.  I wanted to change it up and try some kebab recipes I had been given.  Two problems: 1. This salmon was not skinless for making kebabs and 2. I couldn't decide between the two recipes.  I know, I know - surprise, surprise that I was feeling indecisive!  The second problem was easily solved.  I decided to make some kebabs of each recipe.  The first problem was a little tougher to tackle.  Roy was at work, and for those of you that know me well, you know I am not so much a fan of fish.  The smell doesn't really agree with me.  And yes, I know, fresh fish (apparently) doesn't smell fishy.  Uh huh.  Tell that to my nose in the grocery store at the fish counter.  THAT fish is fresh and it certainly smells fishy to me!  And when you're making it for dinner at home, it smells fishy.  But, I've learned to get over it.  With salmon at least.  Baby steps.  Anyway, where were we?  Oh yes, the salmon with the skin and no Roy around.  I didn't take pictures of this, but I really should have.  Because I am sure most of you won't believe me.  But I did it - I took that skin off.  I've watched enough seasons of Top Chef and countless episodes of various shows on Food Network, so I was very well equipped, in theory, to do the job.  Now, although I don't think I'll be winning any Quickfire challenges on Top Chef for my knife skills, you would have been pretty impressed with how well I did.  I certainly was. It came off in one piece and very little salmon was wasted.  My second yay Mommy moment of the day!  I then diced it up and put half in a maple soy salmon skewers marinade and half in a lime cilantro salmon skewers marinade.  Leighton loooooved the maple one but wasn't a fan of the green bits in the other.  Riley wouldn't eat either.  Roy liked both.  Guess it was a good thing I was indecisive and gave them both a shot!

Tuesday
We had beef kebabs for dinner.  I used the marinade I remember my parents always using growing up - soy sauce, pineapple juice, and lots of fresh garlic.  For the skewers, I used beef, three colors of peppers, zucchini, onions, and fresh pineapple.  Yum!

Wednesday
Those muffins got a post all of their own!

Thursday
Today I made the homemade cereal bars to take with us on a play date.  I had made this recipe a couple years ago (using prunes instead of dates) and had great success with it.  I see that Megan had reworked the recipe, so I looked at the two side by side and decided on the following:

Filling:
3/4 cup prunes
1 1/2 cups strawberries
1/3 cup apple juice

Dough:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup old fashioned oats
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 Tbsp baking powder
2 Tbsp ground flax seed
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup cold butter
2/3 cup applesauce

350 degrees for 22 minutes (next time I will bump to 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes, I think - in addition to being indecisive, I am also impatient!)

Friday
Not sure what tomorrow will bring, but I think we've got enough leftover baked goods to see us through.  And if I recall my meal plan correctly, we're going easy for dinner - spaghetti with steamed carrots!