Shannon Yee

So, I finally bought a Nutrimill. And, I’ve been using it and enjoying fresh flour in all sorts of baked goods. Today, I made some pretty yummy muffins. Here’s the recipe:
Muffins
2-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup applesauce
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups blueberries (I used frozen.)

Crumble Topping – mix well with fingers or fork
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch nutmeg and salt
2 Tablespoons butter, room temperature

Mix dry ingredient together in large bowl. Mix wet ingredients and add all at once to dry. Stir until just combined. Add blueberries, folding in gently. Scoop approximately 1/4 cup of muffin mix for each muffin into buttered muffin tin and top with about 2 T. crumble. Bake at 375 F for 25-30 minutes. Enjoy!

So, for my birthday, I made myself two cakes. One for breakfast and one for dessert. It was a wonderful way to start and end the day, and they were both delicious.

The coffee cake was inspired by Ina Garten’s. Here is my yummy breakfast cake recipe:
1 1/2 cups buttermilk or yogurt (I did a mixture)
2 cups white whole wheat flour
8 T. (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sucanat
3 large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the streusel:
1/4 cup sucanat
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup chopped pecans

For the glaze, whisk together:
1/4 c. confectioners’ sugar
1 t. real maple syrup
few drops water

Mix together buttermilk/yogurt and flour and allow to rest covered at room temperature or slightly warmer for at least 8 hours.

After flour has been soaked, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a bundt pan. Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment for 4 to 5 minutes, until light. Add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla and rest of ingredients. Add the flour mixture to the batter mixing until mostly smooth.

Pinch together streusel ingredients with your fingers until it forms a crumble. It’s easiest to add nuts at the end, but it doesn’t really matter. Put 1/2 the streusel in the pan, pour half the batter on top and then sprinkle with remaining streusel. Spoon the rest of the batter in the pan, spread it out. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Eila says it’s “Onolicious!”

If you know me well, you know that I enjoy freshly baked cookies over just about everything else. But for a birthday, the kids informed me that I had to have a cake, so I found a chocolate chip cookie cake that looked like it would fit the bill.

Cookie Cake
4 T. (1/2 stick) butter
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup succanat
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour 9-inch round cake pan.
Cream the butter, peanut butter, and sugar, scraping down sides as needed. Add egg and vanilla and mix thoroughly, another minute.
Add the dry ingredients and combine on low speed until just a few dry streaks remain. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Press the batter into a smooth and even layer in the pan. Bake until lightly golden and puffy around the edges, approx. 25 minutes.
Cool for 10 minutes and then run a paring knife around the edge of the pan to release the cake. Cool in pan on wire rack for several hours.

1. Family. I love them all. It’s just not right that there would have so many awesome people in one family and that I am apart of that family. I think I have something like 75 people in the extended family and they are all so much fun!
2. Faith. Who and where would I be without the saving grace that is constantly at work changing me and has given me life?
3. Friends. It boggles my mind to think of all the people that I have called friend and have returned that over the years. I am most thankful for those who still call me friend when I am not a friend.
4. Food. Honestly, I love to eat and create things with food. I cannot think of anything more fun that sharing a delicious meal with friends or family.
5. Games. Playing games is really fun and helps me to be at ease in a group of people when I wouldn’t normally.
6. Home. It’s where the heart is (and also the messy kids and hubby that I love so much!)
7. Computer. I really like to have all sorts of information available for me to learn and get organized, etc. It’s so convenient.
8. Health.
9. Books. So many to read, so little time.
10. Bed. I’m really tired and it’s so comfy…

With all the rain we’ve been getting, I’ve been doing a lot of baking. Yesterday, the kids and I made some bread and crescent rolls (at Eila’s request, but she didn’t like them). Monday, we made corn dogs (at Josiah’s request, which he loved) and today we made Snickerdoodles (per Joe’s wish). We also made a yummy lentil dish.

Everyone loved the lentils with chicken and rice. Here’s the recipe:
1 T. olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 T. spices (oregano, basil, rosemary, marjoram, parsley, thyme)
1.5 cups lentils
4 cups chicken broth
lemon juice
balsamic vinegar
asiago cheese

Saute the onion, carrot, and garlic in olive oil. Add spices. Dump this mixture into rice cooker and add lentils and chicken broth. When tender, add a couple splashed of lemon juice and a splash of vinegar. Serve with rice and leftover chicken and top with grated cheese.

My house smells so good right now, like warm honey and almonds. I think that there are few things better than homemade treats. My favorite sweets include freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon rolls and granola. I couldn’t wait until breakfast and had a bowl while it was still warm!
Here’s the recipe:
3-1/2 cups rolled oats
2 cups almonds, smashed/cut in pieces
1/4 cup shredded coconut
small handful of brown sugar (about 2 T. probably)
1/4 cup honey and a little extra
1/4 cup oil
Mix together, then spread on cookie sheet and bake at 250 F for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Stir occasionally while cooling to prevent clumping.

Every week I make a plan of meals in my head, this week I’m going to write it down…

Breakfast:
Pancakes
Fruit and yogurt smoothies
Oatmeal (with dried apricots or honey)
Toast (honey whole-wheat recipe from Gwen) with peanut/sun butter
Egg, lettuce, tomato sandwich
Zucchini muffins

Lunch:
Rice salad and fruit
PB & J and veggies and fruit
Pizza and fruit
Hummus on crackers and veggies and fruit
Grilled cheese and veggies and fruit
Taco salad (cucumbers and green peppers) and fruit

Snacks:
Toast & cheese
Fruit & yogurt
Veggies & hummus
Nuts
Zucchini muffins

Dinner:
Pizza (homemade) and salad
Lentils and rice (onions & green peppers)
Lasagna (veggie?)
Broccoli, tomato, sausage rotini
Fish, couscous, green beans
Tacos and black beans
Caprese salad and spaghetti

If you eat fast food regularly or frozen dinners more than once in a while then you might benefit from the information in this book, but I really don’t know many people who aren’t at least vaguely familiar with how they should eat. I think that Mr. Pollan gets it right when he says that it is a matter of priority. Spending more money and time on food to have a greater quality of food and a lesser quantity of food is of interest to me and lots of people that I know (because let’s face it we often associate with people who are interested in the same things we are), but not to the general public.

This book has an interesting discussion of the rise and preeminence of nutritionism in America and the deleterious effects of this philosophy. It also contains an amazing resources section with lots of other places to go for more information on eating well all around. I would add the resource of NourishMD for moms as it is a company devoted to encouraging moms to feed their kids real food. The first seven words (and the entire third section of the book) are the recommendations for eating real food. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.” I found this book to be a recap of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” with the addition of basic holistic eating info.

I did sort of laugh at Michael Pollan’s suggestion that eating real food is a type of rebellion… Those darn hippies.

Something that I think about often – about five times a day – is what to eat or what to prepare to eat. I, of course, want it to be healthy and wholesome and tasty and easy. Well, this book is sort of about that. It is really about where our food comes from (or where it could come from) and how it gets to our table. I found it to be a very interesting topic and well researched and written. The author is a journalist, so I expected as much. This is the type of book that will cause you to re-think what you eat and how you spend your food money. If you are happy eating processed corn and aren’t interested in change, then do not bother with this read. I really appreciated all the info on farm industry as well as the history of the organic movement. I learned a lot about mushrooms and grass and more than I wanted to know about corn, chickens and cows in the farm industry.
I think I’ll try to read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food next.

Being thankful should be so easy. I know all the things I have to be thankful for, and yet I find myself wanting to complain all the time and having a hard time not being cranky all the time. This week I have been especially irritated at everything, pretty much all the time.

I was/am irritated that my B-H contractions turned to real contractions and then no baby. I’m irritated that Eila and Josiah aren’t perfect and that my house is constantly in need of cleaning and we always need to eat. I should be thankful that we have a really nice house and lots of toys and art projects to make messes with and plenty of food to eat. I should also be thankful that baby boy is developing perfectly and that my body is getting ready for labor. I should be thankful, and I’m trying… sort of.

So, today was Josiah’s visit to the allergist and after two hours, I came away with a prescription for singulair and an epi-pen as well as a tired and hungry little boy, whose skin test showed no allergies. It seems strange to me that despite a clear skin test, the allergist felt that the evidence was strong enough for Josiah to need me to carry an epi-pen around everywhere we go. He went for a blood test too, but we’ll discuss those results in a month. In the meantime, we are to continue to stay away from dairy and also eggs now. Plus, Josiah is to get a bath of at least 30-minutes each and every day followed by lots of lotion.

I don’t know if I’ll fill the prescriptions, but the allergist made a good case for the singulair especially since Josiah seems to be getting a little cold now and that is a big trigger for his asthma. I hate to disboey orders and not follow directions, but at the same time my main role (IMO) as his mom is to take care of him as best I can. Part of taking care of Josiah includes not pumping him full of unnecessary drugs and also taking the steps needed to prevent the preventable (like breathing problems due to a cold.)

This past weekend was momentous for the Yees as it was the first time I left for more than a few hours. Brian took off two days from work while I traveled to Dallas for the MOPS Int’l Convention. I had a great time learning and gaining vision and perspective and having a little bit of time to refresh. The trip did result in the complete weaning of Josiah. There is nothing left for him to get, but he is still asking often. He seems okay with a chocolate (rice) milk substitute, even if a little disappointed. This means that I am able to resume a normal diet as full of dairy as I desire.

Eila is very hopeful that she will have a little sister in about 6 months. I am now over 14 weeks pregnant with baby #4 and Eila has been very clear that she would like this one to be a girl. We’ll find out on November 5, God willing, if she is going to get her wish. I am feeling pretty good, if a little bit tired. The kids have been really interested in the baby since we checked out a very informative book from the library (maybe a little TMI was included in the first reading, but Eila hasn’t seemed to notice the skipping of the middle since then!)