Custard Peach Pie

Everyone knows that marriage is all about compromise.  And when it comes to pie, my husband and I had to compromise. 

I'm all about fruit pies.  I'm not talking about that fake stuff that comes in a can.  I'm talking about fresh fruit straight from the garden.  My parents have a massive garden and as a kid we ate so many strawberries and raspberries that I actually got tired of them by the end of the season.  But fruit pies are what I know and what I like. 

Then I met my husband.  He's all about the fluffy pies... french silk, strawberry creme, custard, you get the picture.  He finally convinced me to try a custard pie about six years into our marriage.  All I could think of was, "Gross!  Who eats these things?" 

That is, until I took my first bite of what I call the Anderson Girls' Custard Peach Pie.  I think it was when I had just given birth to our daughter that my friends, Kelsey and Caroline, brought a pie for me.  It turns out that this pie was the exact compromise Dave and I needed - fresh fruit and custard.  It's a perfect mix of juicy peach flavor (even if the peaches are mealy!) and the creamy sweet custard.

It's a long-standing tradition for the girls in their family to get together each summer and make many of these pies.  How cool is that?  It's become a tradition in our house, too, since I finally have a pie I can make and not end up eating it all myself!

Here's the recipe.  It doesn't get much more simple that this!

Custard Peach Pie

1 pie crust, bottom only, unbaked
5 peaches (more if they are small)
cinnamon
2 heaping tablespoons of flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup heavy whipping cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Line the pie plate with the unbaked crust.  Peel the peaches, slice, and place them in the pie crust.  Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Mix together the flour and sugar.  Stir in the cream, being sure to get all the lumps out.  Pour the mixture over the peaches in the crust.  Bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours - I like to bake it the full time to make sure the crust is done.  Cool completely and refrigerate before eating.


Click here for a printer-friendly version.

Monster Cookies

OK folks, it's time for another recipe share.  I keep taking pictures of baking projects, but get distracted and never finish taking photos of the process.  But I was successful today!  On today's agenda is Monster Cookies, yet another of my favorites from childhood with a slight variation. 

Monster Cookies are packed with chewy goodness: oatmeal, peanut butter, flax seed, chocolate chips, and M&M's.  They taste oh so yummy (especially with a tall glass of ice cold milk!) and they freeze really well.

You will need:
1 stick of butter
1 1/2 cups peanut butter (I used natural)
1/2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 teaspoons corn syrup
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/3 cups ground flax seed
2 teaspoons water
4 cups quick oats
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup M&M's

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter, peanut butter, sugar, and brown sugar.

Be sure to soften your butter if it's been refrigerated, just make sure you don't melt it.  I usually warm the stick of butter in the microwave for 15 seconds, turn it, cook for another 15 seconds, and continue until it's soft. 

Here's a side-note about peanut butter:  we have switched to eating natural peanut butter.  I love the taste (maybe a little too much considering how quickly we go through it), and it's made with just peanuts and a little salt.  Watch the labels, though.  I've noticed manufacturers are starting to hide sugar and other random stuff in their "natural" peanut butter. Natural peanut butter needs to be stirred before using it.  

When measuring peanut butter, the Pampered Chef Measure-All measuring cup works really well because you can set it to the amount you need to measure, fill it up, and just push the bottom up so the peanut butter comes out.  No more scraping the sides of a regular measuring cup.

Anyways, on with the recipe!  Stir up the butters and sugars until well blended. 

Then add eggs, vanilla, corn syrup, baking soda, ground flax seed, and water.  Stir until well blended. 

Time to digress again.  Flax seed is awesome.  It is really good for your health (lowers blood pressure among other things) and can be mixed into a lot of different things and you'll never know it's there.  In order for flax seed to be digested it has to be ground up, also called flaxseed meal.  That's another thing manufacturers try to be tricky about.  They like to put whole flax seed in their products, which really doesn't do your body much good.  Flax seed comes in two colors, brown or golden.  The nutritional benefits are the same, but I usually buy the golden color because it's easier to hide in food.

Add oatmeal.  The dough will be stiff; stir well. 

Then add chocolate chips and stir.  

 Drop dough onto a baking stone.  I like to use Pampered Chef baking stones and the Pampered Chef medium scoop because they both work really slick!  The mounds of cookie dough are nicely rounded and uniform in size. 

Add some M&M's to the top and press them into the cookie slightly. By the way, do you like my Christmas M&M's? It's what was in the cupboard. :)

Bake in the preheated oven for 12-13 minutes.  If you're using a regular cookie sheet it may take less time.  Cookies are done when they are a very light golden brown on the edge.  This pan was in the oven just a minute or so too long.  I guess I was too busy fussing around with the camera.  Oops.  :)

Allow to cool 5 minutes on the pan and then move cookies to a cooling rack.  YUM!!

Click here for a printer-friendly version.

Table Topics for Kids

Dave and I like to take little overnight trips to small towns around Minnesota.  It's a chance to spend time with each other without the chaos of the kids or the feeling that we should be doing something "more important" like washing laundry or mowing the lawn.  We also like to pick up a little memento from each town.  

On a warm BEAUTIFUL late-winter weekend we traveled to St. Peter.  While we were there, we ran across this set of Table Topics for Kids cards.  It's been a Sunday tradition ever since to pull out two or three cards and go around the table to share our answers.  The questions aren't anything genius, but they get us talking about things we wouldn't normally talk about, such as...

Are you afraid of anything?


What would you love to invent?


What would you choose to come out of the school drinking fountain instead of water? (ice cold milk, of course!!!)


What's your favorite breakfast?  (Whole Wheat Pancakes win!)







The set of cards was kind of spendy (just shy of $20, I think), so for you crafty do-it-yourselfers, you could make something similar.  I plan to make a set of my own once we've gone through all of these.  I'm thinking...

1.  Brainstorm ideas for questions.  There are tons of journaling ideas out there on the internet so a quick search would probably yield some good ideas.

2.  Type the questions up on Microsoft Word using two or three columns or Microsoft Excel using big square cells.

3.  Print them on cardstock.

4.  Cut out the questions so the cardstock is about 3 inches square.

5.  If you want to get fancy, mount the question cardstock on some fun printed cardstock so the back of each card looks interesting.

If you have suggestions for some thought-provoking questions, write them in the comment section below.  I'd love to get some questions typed up this summer and attached to this post to share.

My new favorite pancake recipe

Hi.  My name is Sarah and I am a pancake snob.  

No, seriously, I'll tolerate pancakes from a mix, but pancakes from scratch are SO much better and really not very time consuming.  My favorite recipe for my entire life, up until about a month ago, was the one I grew up on.  I'm pretty sure the recipe came from my mom's old Betty Crocker cookbook that's falling apart at the seam.  I don't know for sure that's where it came from because I memorized it so long ago.  Every Saturday morning while my parents were milking cows I would make pancakes for the family.  Except back then we didn't buy buttermilk; my mom would just add some vinegar to the whole milk before she headed to the barn so when I got up it was good and thick for pancakes.  Anyways... I digress.

Recently, in an attempt to make the recipe more healthy, I made a few changes and I'd like to share that recipe with you now.  It's even better than the original!  The major change I made was to use oatmeal and white whole wheat flour rather than regular white flour and added flax seed.  If you've never used white whole wheat flour, I encourage you to give it a try.  It seems as though you can substitute it for 100% of regular white flour in recipes (I haven't had any trouble doing this) and it has the same nutritional benefits of whole wheat flour.  

I apologize for the lack of mouth-watering photos, but the light just wasn't up to par this evening as I made pancakes, eggs, and sausages for supper.  :)

Whole Wheat Pancakes

2 eggs

2 c. buttermilk

1/4 c. oil

1/2 c. instant oatmeal

2 T. ground flax seed

1 1/2 c. white whole wheat flour

2 t. baking powder

1 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

Grease and heat a griddle.  Beat eggs in a bowl.  Add buttermilk and oil; mix just until blended, being careful to not over mix.  Add oatmeal and flax seed; mix just until blended.  Put the remaining ingredients into a sifter or separate bowl to mix together.  Add to liquids and mix just until blended; be careful to not over mix.  Test the griddle by tossing a few droplets of water on it.  If the griddle is hot enough, they droplets will jump, sizzle, and evaporate.  Spoon pancake batter onto the griddle and watch for the sides to become slightly set.  They won't form bubbles like they do with regular flour, so you just need to periodically check the underside and flip when it's medium brown.  Cook the other side; remove when medium brown.  I like to serve the pancakes with strawberries, raspberry sauce, blueberry sauce, or real maple syrup.

Here's a link to a printable page with the recipe.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I got a hankering for one of my favorite cookies today...Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.  Believe it or not, my memories of the cookie start with school cafeteria food.  In high school we could get shakes and I loved eating a Chocolate Crinkle Cookie with a chocolate shake.  Yes, it is true; the more chocolate, the better.

I tried the Betty Crocker recipe found on the Betty Crocker website.  They turned out better than the recipe I usually use, which was a pleasant surprise.  I also tried a new little trick.  Rather than rolling the dough into balls and rolling each ball in a bowl of powdered sugar, put about 5 balls of dough in a ziplock bag of powdered sugar and carefully shake it up. 

There will be excess powdered sugar so shake each one a bit as you pull it out of the bag.  Also, a small scoop works slick to portion out the dough and make it into a ball shape.  No more hands covered in sticky dough!

Halloween Costumes

I can fondly remember making Halloween costumes when I was a kid.  Other than a mask here or there, we didn't go buy a costume from the store.  Rather, we used our creativity and things laying around the house to create our costumes.  Here's a couple photos I found from the "good ol' days" with my brothers and me.

I hope to continue the tradition with our children to make their costumes.  I look forward to when they are a bit older and can take a more active role in creating their costumes.

K was a doctor today.  It's the same costume that Santa "contracted" me to sew last year as a dress-up costume.  I used two patterns, a costume pattern by McCall's for doctor scrubs and a pajama pattern by Butterick.  The scrubs were made as the pattern instructed.  The doctor coat was made from the pajama pattern; I used the pattern for the button-up jammie top.  I also used the special stitches on my machine to add her name to her pocket. 

B was Superman and I owe most of his costume to Dana at http://www.dana-made-it.com/ and all of her awesome tutorials.  I used the 90-minute shirt tutorial to make the top.  I also added a yellow felt belt (Ha ha!  That rhymes.).  The Superman logo was painted on the shirt using a freezer paper stencil (a.k.a. Poor Man's Screen Printing).  Click here for a tutorial about using a freezer paper stencil.  The pants were just traced from a pair of pants B wears, but here's a tutorial for making your own pants pattern.  There are also tons of patterns for a basic pair of pants, including both of the patterns listed above.  B's cape was a piece of red cotton with a casing on one side to gather it by his neck.  I ended up tacking it on to the shirt rather than having a string tied around his neck to keep it a bit safer.

Now that I spent my spare time during the weekend making B's costume and spent last night trick-or-treating, I better get working on the never ending job of correcting papers!

Apple Bars

You know your recipe is a keeper when your cookbook looks like this.

Since much of what I bake is seasonal, I'm going to share some of my favorite recipes here as their season is upon us.  Fall... APPLES!  This recipe is a family favorite, and as you can see from the cookbook, it's a well-used recipe.  If I have nice round unbruised apples, I have an added bonus of being able to use my handy-dandy Pampered Chef apple peeler/corer/slicer.  That's always fun.  :)  As far as apples are concerned, I usually use Granny Smith or Haralson for baking. For a list of common Minnesota apples and their best uses, click here.  I hope you enjoy these as much as my family and friends do!

Apple Bars

2 1/2 c. flour

1 t. salt

2 T. sugar

1 c. shortening

1 egg + milk to make 2/3 c.

6 c. apples (peeled and diced)

1 c. sugar

1/3 c. flour

1 t. cinnamon

1 c. powdered sugar

2 T. hot water

Crust:  Combine 2 1/2 c. flour, salt and 2 T. sugar in a bowl.  Cut in shortening with a pastry blender.  Beat egg in measuring cup and add milk to make 2/3 c.  Mix well.  Stir into flour mixture.  Divide crust mixture into two piles, one slightly larger than the other.  Take the larger pile of crust and pat it into the bottom and up the sides of a 15.5 x 10.5 inch baking pan (I like to use the Pampered Chef bar pan).  Add a little flour if needed to get it to not stick to your fingers.  Reserve the other pile of crust mixture for the top crust.

Apple Filling:  Mix sugar, 1/3 c. flour and cinnamon.  Add apples and stir to coat the apples.  Dump the apples onto the bottom crust.

Top Crust:  Divide the remaining crust mixture into two equal amounts.  Lightly flour your counter and roll one of the pieces into a rectangle that will cover half the pan.  I usually hold the pan next to it to check that the size is right.  Carefully fold it into thirds to make it easier to pick up and place it on the apple filling, unfolding it so it covers half the pan.  Do the same for the other amount of crust mixture.  There will be a seam down the middle of the crust, but no one will care.  Trust me. :)

Baking:  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is a little golden.  Cool completely.

Frosting:  Combine powdered sugar and half the hot water.  Stir it up really well so there's no lumps.  Add just enough of the rest of the water so it will pour off a spoon, but keep it pretty thick.  Drizzle it over the top of the cooled apple bars.

Enjoy!

Click here for a printer-friendly version of the recipe.  :)