Cheese-It's (No added salt, no coloring!)

The other day I found myself finishing a box of cheese-it's. Every time I brought another handful to my mouth I was saying this is the last one. But it is never the last one, because, well, they are cheese-it's. Luckily I was snacking sans baby, but in retrospect, I probably would have eaten less because I wouldn't have enough time to snack. Anyway, after scanning the ingredient list, I figured I could do myself a favor and make my own cheese-it's.

The recipe is crazy simple, and baby friendly! I made sure to use white cheddar to avoid color additives, and grated my own cheese to nix those pesky anti-caking ingredients, like potato starch. Added bonus this recipe only has 4 ingredients. Four!

What you need:

Cheese Grater
Food Processor
Silicon Baking Sheet
Plastic Wrap
Flour for dusting your working surface
Rolling Pin
Cookie Cutter of your choosing (Smallest you have)

4oz Shredded Cheddar
2Tbsp Cold Butter
1/2 Cup Flour
1Tbsp Cold Water

Let's Bake:
- Grate your cheese
- In your food processor add your grated cheese, cold butter, and flour

- Pulse until you have a very fine dough

- Slowly add in your water until the dough comes together. I added in one tablespoon at a time

- The dough should stick together, and shouldn't fall apart when picked up

- Form the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and let it chill in the refrigerator for about 20 mins

- After your dough has chilled, Set your oven to 350 degrees 

- Put some flour on your working surface and roll out the dough.

- The dough should be thin enough to see through. It you want to keep it thick, then your cheese-it's will come out puffier 

- Once your dough is rolled out to your desired thickness, use your cookie cutter to cut your cheese-it's out of the dough.
- I only had a piping bag tip on had so, that it what I used. But next time I'm thinking a pizza cutter might be a easier option. Especially since these don't look anything like cheese-it's, and I know that might make some kiddos say "no way!"

- Place your cheese-it's on your silicon tray, I used a tooth pick to add the center dot to make them more cheese-it authentic. 

- Put these bad boys in the oven for about 15 mins, they should crisp right up, so watch them if you have a temperamental oven. 

Don't these look great?! I had to remind myself on multiple occasions that these were for the kiddo, not me. I only made 3 dozen out of this, and froze the rest of the dough. I wanted to see if it froze well. It does. 

The second time I made them I didn't put the enter hole and I used a convection oven. I think the center hole kept them flatter and crispier, but I could be wrong. Either way my kiddo loves the crunch and the flavor. I store them in a plastic bag or tupperware in the fridge, and they retain their freshness, flavor, and crispiness!

Enjoy! 

Carrot Chips

Ever have that moment when you missed the mom newsletter a few weeks back, only to suddenly realize you've been happily doing a big "no, no"? Of course you haven't. There is no mom newsletter. This moment did happen to me the other day though, I found out that raw carrots are one of the "worst" things you can give to a baby. Well, my kiddo LOVES carrots. It was one of the first finger foods that we gave him (oops). He would just hold it and be so proud of himself! It was adorable. Now he shaves it down with his teeth until there is nothing left. Just a nub. What can we say - he enjoys it. Just goes to show you that all of us are incapable, right? Oh well...

It got me thinking that he would probable really enjoy a carrot in a softer form. So here it is - a carrot chip. Easy to hold and eat, and loved by all! He eats them warm or cold. So they are the perfect snack to have with us at all times. Bonus - simple ingredients! I'm not going to lie, they are a tad bit labor intensive. The first time I made them I kept saying to myself "he better like these," and "I'm not making these ever again, ... unless he likes them." Well, jokes on me. He can't get enough of them. So when I made them again I tried to stream-line the prep process. Hopefully, they are easy enough to make now, and you won't be cursing me under your breath when you make these.
I haven't experimented yet with adding more veggies or using just a different vegetable, but that is next. Maybe broccoli? Or brussel sprouts? Or cauliflower? And I bet that I can make them into more of a "cookie" by adding cinnamon!

What you need:

Vegetable Peeler
Food processor
Bowl
Cookie Scoop (optional)
Parchment Paper
Baking Sheet Pan

1 and 1/2 cups shredded carrots (about 12 oz)
1/2 cup cheddar cheese
2 eggs
1/4 cup oat flour

Let's Bake:

- Set oven to 350
- Peel your carrots

- Using your food processor grind up 1/4 cup of oats into oat flour
- Pour your oat flour into a bowl
- Using your food processor pulverize your carrots. It should look like you are an expert chef and know how to dice up your carrots into perfectly diced pieces.

- Throw your carrots into the bowl with the oats
- Next grab your cheese, cube it, and throw it into your food processor. If your cheese is pre-shredded or you want to shred your own cheese just skip this step and put your shredded cheese into the bowl with the carrots and oats
- Add in your 2 eggs
- Roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. They best way to work this dough is to get your hands in it!
- All the ingredients should come together easily, but not be too thick

**
- Now here is the labor intensive part. You take a cookie cutter and press a thin layer of your dough into it, then gently pull the cookie cutter away. This takes for-ev-er. Please feel free to do it this way.
**
- OR Using a cookie scoop (mine is pretty big) scoop some of your dough out, then split it into two balls and place on your cookie sheet with parchment paper

- Once that is done, go back through and press down each ball so it is more chip like

-Try to make all patties the same thickness, this way they will cook evenly
- Pro tip: when pressing your carrot balls down, start at the back of your tray, otherwise all of your chips will have an upward slop from where you tried to avoid hitting the unflattened ball behind it.

- Cook for 20-25 mins, or until the edges get a golden brown

Yum, golden deliciousness!
These freeze great, and I am very happy with my adjusted way of making them!

Enjoy!

Spinach and Ricotta Pinwheels

Now that you have a delicious pastry dough at your disposal. It is time to put it to good use!

I jumped right in and made a pinwheel. My kiddo loves them. Currently on the short list of acceptable foods.

I won't waste anymore time, here we go!

Spinach and Ricotta Pinwheels 

What you need:

Rolling Pin
Hard Flat Surface to work on
Hand blender with bowl attachment, or blender
Small Bowl
Non-stick baking sheet

Pastry Dough
Flour to dust surface
2 Handfuls of Spinach
1/2 cup ricotta Ricotta
Spices
Egg for egg wash (optional)

Let's Bake

- Preheat oven to 400
- Dust your surface with some flour
- Place your pre made dough in the flour and use your rolling pin to flatten out the dough

You can see that the dough is thin, but not too thin that it will fall apart if you move it. Remember we are stuffing this dough! 

- Let the dough rest while you blend up your handfuls of spinach 

You want to make sure that the spinach is chopped up fine, but not into a paste

- In a small bowl mix together your 1/2 cup of ricotta (or more to taste) chopped spinach, and spices 

- Take mixture and spoon it on to your rolled out dough 

- Evenly spread mixture all the way to the edge of the dough 

I made these twice before posting - props if you noticed that the dough was different!

- Now this is where I made my mistake. I rolled my dough from top to bottom. I should have rolled it from left to right (referring to the picture) 

- This would have allowed me to have a longer amount of dough to work with and to cut up.

- Once you have your dough and filling all rolled up, let the dough chill for a few minutes in the fridge (another mistake I made, and I had my filling spilling out all over the place. Made this mistake twice, and they still come out fine, but I invasion that the dough will cut better - you will have to let me know!)

- Line your non-stick baking sheet with your cut pinwheels - mine were about 1.5-2 inches wide

- They will not rise so you can put them pretty close together 

- The first time I made these I didn't put and egg wash on them, and they came out fine. If you are looking to make a more eye appealing pinwheel, then I would suggest an egg wash. Looking at the pictures, I know which one I would want to eat - but kids [sometimes] aren't picky.

With egg wash

Without egg wash 

- Pop them in the over for 30-40 min
- Keep out what you need and freeze the rest. They freeze beautifully!


Enjoy!

Fresh Pastry Dough

I've been looking for vessels to put the kiddo's food in. He's ooooover everything that I've posted so far.  Luckily he still loves breakfast - scrambled eggs, french toast, oatmeal, muffins, and frittatas. Needless to say lunch and dinner have become very trying. We've lapsed into eating a lot of small meals though out the day. I think it is him trying to tell me he wants to be a little bit more independent, or maybe he's just too chatty - he keeps making his bits of food talk to each other instead of eating them. Whatever this little eating bump is, there has been some light. He loves these pinwheels! I have even been able to sneak some chicken into them undetected (shhhhhh).

I saw someone make pinwheels for their little kiddo, and I was sold. But I ran into that similar problem - pastry dough, while flaky and delicious, has too many ingredients in it for my kiddo. So what did I do? Put my bread machine back to work. I made a fresh dough, and then filled that dough with all sorts of yumminess.

Fresh Pasty Dough

What You Need:

Bread Machine

1/2 cup water
3/4 cup butter (unsalted)
2 1/2 cups flour

Let's Bake:

- First place your butter in the freezer for about 15-20 mins

- While the butter is chilling measure out a 1/2 cup of water and throw some ice in it

- Get your bread machine ready and measure out your flour
- The reason for the freezer and ice is because you want to preserve the buttery goodness for as long as possible throughout the dough process! This will give you the flakey quality that you are looking for.
- After 15 mins, cube up your butter and put it in the bread machine

- Add your 1/2 cup of ice cold water (leave out the ice)

- Add your 2 1/2 cups of flour

- Set your bread machine to dough and go about your business! This is a great nap time prep!

- Once the dough is done split it into two even balls

- I used one immediately for pinwheels, and froze the other 

This first dough I used came out a bit dense. I will probably let it rest a little more before I use it again. When I used the frozen dough - it was perfect! Light and fluffy and a HUGE hit.

I will be using this again to make pizza, and maybe even cinnamon rolls!

Stay tuned for the pinwheels!

Enjoy! 

Meal Planning

Now that we have a good grouping of foods that the kiddo likes (I'm saying this with my fingers crossed, because he just decided that he hates a couple of our staples) I decided that it was time to share how we organize our meals. 

I do a lot of big batch cooking, so I can just pull it out of the freezer when I need it. I was finding more often than not, though, that I would forget to pull out the meals ahead of time and we had to deal with the whole song and dance of heating up in the microwave. Why is it that 10 seconds is not long enough but 15 seconds make the food as hot as lava? Riddle me that!

Anyway, the way we food shop is by deciding on our meals ahead of time, and then writing down what we need to buy. So I figured I could do something similar with the kiddo. I spent a few extra minutes thinking about his meals, and then I would check the freezer and I would add what I needed for him to our list. This would work out great until I lost the list every week, and then no one knew what they were eating! 

Then my husband brought home a white board and asked if I could use it, and I thought for half a second, and said YES!...

I spent about a day using it before I remembered that my handwriting resembles that of a dog trying to use a marker in an earthquake, and decided that I needed to get crafty! 

I took to pinterest and found that no one knew how to put labels on a white boards. I then realized that this was way beyond my crafting ability, and I would need to bring in the experts! 

Here is my expert: KaitlynsCraftCloset

It helps when you have friends that are even more crafty than you. Kaitlyn makes beautifully crafted monograms and vinyl decals for all sorts of projects, including mugs, water bottles, and kitchen supplies (Seriously, check out her site - she does tons of things!).  I shot her a text asking if she thought her vinyl lettering would work on a white board, and she said of course! 

I won't bore you with the details, but I will obligate you to look at the gorgeousness that is now in MY kitchen! 

Don't you just want one for yourself!? DO. IT.

I divided the white board up using duct tape, but the vinyls are what really make this beauty. Now we all know what's for our dinner, and what the kiddo is eating on any given day! The rest is just for fun and organizing.

Happy meal planning!!