Gingeneering

Oh yes, is that magical time of the year where we buy a grocery cart of candy (and a bag of salad…to compensate) and make for the kitchen. It’s Gingerbread House time!

This year everyone wanted to do their own building. That left me feeling a little daunted, that’s a lot of gingerbread! Turns out it wasn’t so bad after all. The kids are both getting pretty good. Emilie directed Kevin where to put frosting. Jack actually wielded the frosting bag himself. You should have seen the concentration on his face. It was amazing. Both their houses turned out pretty cute. After they went to bed I iced the ‘lawns’ and added the powdered sugar ‘snow.’ When they woke up they were amazed. “It snowed!” Was Emilie’s pronouncement.

Now don’t go thinking this was a one evening deal. Nope, this is, and always will be, a multistep process. One evening I made dough (This year I used a new recipes that makes more dough and uses ‘cheaper’ like Crisco instead of butter and dark corn syrup instead of molasses – Looks and smells like gingerbread, tastes like plywood) The next day, while the kids were at school, I rolled, cut, and baked pieces. While the kids were eating lunch I glued things together. After dinner that night the kids did their houses. I’d been working on mine off and on during the day and finished most of mine after the kids went to bed. Kevin did his the following night while I wrangled children. Just go slow, be open to interruptions, and you too can build a gingerbread house.

Emilie’s House – Top , Jack’s House – Bottom

I did a lighthouse this year. I reminded me of my Mom when I saw it while browsing Pinterest one day and I said, “OOOooo, I’m building this!” Mom has always enjoyed lighthouses and costal themes (have you seen her master bath?) She dreams of retiring to the coast some day. So a lighthouse it was. Thankfully the site included free templates do I didn’t have to design my own.

 

 

 

New this year I tried my hand at candy glass. While it seems daunting it turned out to be pretty easy. There are yellow ‘panes’ in the light house windows and if you look closely you can actually see the gumdrop light inside. I also use glass to make the ocean. Most of the other candy and edibles are pretty straight forward. Though, I will say, the greenery on the windowsills is Thyme, and the candies for the tower stripe are this vegan black licorice stuff we found at Old World Trading (a great place for odd candies) it was pretty gross, but was great for gingerbread houses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t go thinking I’m the only Gingerbread Master in this house either. Kevin harbors a secret talent in the kitchen. The man makes a to-die-for cheesecake, and his pecan rolls are mouthwatering. Combine that with his engineering skills and It really is no surprise he can whip out a gingerbread creation.

Kevin got it in his head to build an “outdoorsman’s” gingerbread house. He built a little cabin in the woods complete with burly gingerbread mountain men and moose. Yes, there is gingerbread in his structure. A support wall/truss at either end. Other than that it is entirely made from jumbo pretzel sticks. The roof is leftover candy glass panes from the lighthouse project. The fire is pretzel sticks, black chocolate rocks, and some flattened and sliced spice drops. I will admit that I made the trees by icing sugar cones while Kevin built his cabin (it was a timesaver). I will say my favorite piece, by far, is the mount above the door! That is a pretzel broken in half glued to a candied pecan (FWIW those pecans also make good ‘rocks’ for chimneys)

We now have a whole gingerbread village on the breakfast bar. Guess I’m going to have to find another place to store all our assorted ‘treasures’ (Kevin said I should say ‘treasures’ instead of ‘crap’) during the holidays…..

Thought for Thursday

Today I made gingerbread men…..

No alcohol was involved in their creation. Though I may eat them with a cup of the “good” eggnog . This is just what happens when one kid takes an extra-long nap and the other gets bored with your kitchen shenanigans and decides to go read Mighty Machines books in the car (the mightiest machine he’s got since we won’t get him that combine he’s been dreaming of).

For what it’s worth the legless/armless/headless cookies are from actual cookie cutters my friend Effie gave me several years back. They are just waaaaaayyyy to much fun not to use. Aren’t they? 

Banana Chip Muffins

These are a big hit with both my munchkins and my husband. They are a good way to use up those brown banana’s. You can make them with our without the chocolate chips and still have a tasty outcome. Plus, it’s a good recipe for any young chefs you may know. Smashing the banana’s is Jack’s favorite part….after adding the chocolate chips that is.

I give credit for the recipe to my fabulous Mother in-law. I’m not sure who she got it from, but whomever the original creator is should be commended!! 

 

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup sugar
• approx. 1 1/3 cup mashed bananas (about 3 medium)
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cups Old Fashioned oats
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt.
• 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line cupcake pan with cupcake wrappers.

In medium bowl combine egg, vegetable oil, and sugar. Beat until smooth, then stir in mashed bananas. Set aside.

In a second bowl combine flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir gently into the banana mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Don’t over mix.

Drop mixture into cupcake pan filling each well roughly 1/2 full. Bake for 18 – 20 minutes. Remove from oven and enjoy! (Seriously, if you don’t get right on them they’ll disappear before you get a chance.) Yield approx. 18 muffins.

Gingerbread Construction

After a late night at the office Christmas party on Thursday, Emilie took a longer-than-normal nap Friday afternoon. Housework was at a decent point so I decided to get started on our Gingerbread house. Yes, this year it is a house.

The past few years our ‘house’ had been a barn. It’ a lot of fun to do, but its big and takes some time. With two kids, one who is old enough to help, it was decided that we would downsize this year. Besides, I found a great set of Wilton Gingerbread House cookie cutters on our last trip to Boise and I really wanted to use them. So instead of a barn this year we are going with Gingerbread ‘cabin in the woods’.

The first step in building a gingerbread house is dough obviously. House dough is almost the same as gingerbread cookie dough but uses a lot more flour. The extra flour results in the dough becoming stiff and brick-like when cooked. Bad for snitching a sweet treat, great for sturdy walls and stiff roofs.

Jack loooooves to help in the kitchen. Adding flour, sugar, and other dry ingredients are his specialties. He also likes to stir. Also, there is no such thing as ‘neatly’ cooking with Jack. You have to expect a fine dusting of flour all over everything by the time you are done. It is NOT recommended to have him as an assistant if you are low on patience or in a hurry.

Anyway. So there we are in the kitchen. We’d gotten the dough finished and we were at the point where it needed to be wrapped in plastic wrap and chilled. I turned the dough out of the bowl onto the counter. It was sitting there like a big brown lump. I turned to get the plastic wrap out of the drawer when I hear him shout “Tractor Tracks!!!” I also hear a thud as he bounced off the chair in search on the nearest vehicle for making “tractor tracks”…turned out his excavator was closest.

For those not in the know. ‘Tractor tracks’ is what Jack does with Playdough. He loves to flatten it out and drive his tractors and assorted construction equipment across it to see what the tracks look like. I guess that big pile of dough seemed a good candidate for making tracks in. Since the house dough isn’t meant for eating and the Excavator had just been washed (I’d caught it digging trenches in his applesauce at lunch) I let him play a bit with the dough. Then we wrapped it and put it in the refrigerator.

Today we cut out and cooked pieces. Tonight I’m working on building the house so the icing can harden before we decorate tomorrow. I suspect Jack will eat more candy than decorate….but he’ll have fun anyways.

Pumpkins and Grandparents are A-Maize-ing

My folks made the long drive out to see us this past weekend and deliver some furniture that needs to ‘stay in the family.’ We took advantage of the fact that there visit was so close to Halloween and got to share some of typical All Hollow's Eve traditions with them.

The first was our annual trek to the pumpkin patch. We go to this little roadside place west of the house. I’m not sure of the real name, but I call it the ‘honor-system’ patch. It’s not manned and there is just a locked box to put your money in. You are ‘on your honor’ to put in the correct amount.

Emilie was gung-ho to put everything in her mouth from pumpkin vines (I imagine those must be prickly) to straw (fiber anyone?). Though she has no clue what pumpkins are all about I still think she had a good time.

Jack was excited about the patch…until we arrived and he spotted the tractors parked behind it. After that it took a lot of effort and every ounce of our patience to keep him focused on picking out a pumpkin. All he wanted to do was go see the tractors!! In the end we snagged a pumpkin that he had rolled around a bit and left before he melted down over not being able to go touch the tractors.










After the pumpkin patch we swung by the CSI (College of Southern Idaho) Ag/Hort club’s Corn Maize. My Mom had never been to a corn maze and neither had Jack or Emilie. Guess we got a real deal on this trip. Jack led the way. For a 2 almost 3 year-old he has surprisingly good direction. Still we managed to wander around quite a bit and get good and ‘lost’ before finding our way to the exit.


The weekend is short, too short, so the day after pumpkin picking and corn mazing we jumped right into some other ‘fall’ activities. What’s Halloween without something sweet?
Jack loves to cut things out with cookie cutters. His usual medium is play-dough, but we though Sugar Cookies would be just as fun. Turns out everybody thought it was a good idea. We got the whole gang crowded in the kitchen cutting out pumpkins, apples, acorns, cats, and leaves.


Of course what is a good sugar cookie without a little frosting?? I tried convincing Jack that frosting was better on the cookie to no avail. Even little Emilie seemed to think frosting would be better served someplace else than on a cookie.


Lastly…we carved pumpkins! Well, at least we got the kids’ pumpkins carved. Seems by this point both big and small people alike were running out of steam. So after cleaning out and putting faces on Jack and Emilie’s pumpkins we sealed them with petroleum jelly (so they don’t dry out before Halloween) and left the other three for later this week. I’m thinking maybe Friday or Saturday.






The very final thing we did was put the Halloween costumes on the kiddos and have a fashion show for Grandpa and Grannie. They were a hit…but the rest of you will have to wait until Halloween to see the photos.

Sous-Chef Duchow

In recent weeks Jack had become even more interested in the kitchen than ever. Maybe it was all the Christmas baking, or perhaps it was when he realized that if he pushed a chair into the kitchen and stood on it he could see what all is going on. Either way he is in love with all things kitchen related.

Grandma and Grandpa Duchow sent Jack a grocery cart for Christmas. From the moment he saw it he knew exactly what to do; put food in it. He received a bunch of wooden sliceable food/pantry items from Grammie and Grandpa Wannamaker, Aunt Carrie, Uncle Rob and his cousin that are always in the cart.  He also raids the pantry for canned good, Top Ramen, and so forth. Some times he must go ‘shopping’ at Costco or Wal*Mart or some other ‘buy anything’ store because he has tractors, balls, or even the attachments to my stand mixer in his cart.

The general rule…if you can’t find it try checking the cart.

If he’s not grocery shopping Jack is ‘cooking’. He helps Kevin and I make meals and if 5pm rolls around and dinner hasn’t been started…Well, it is not beyond him to get out pots and pans to put up on the stove. Then maybe add a couple odd cans of something from the pantry and by that time mom or dad will catch the hint that Jack Duchow is hungry.

Most of the time he seems to ‘cook’ for pleasure though. He’ll spend a good half hours putting the mixing attachments on and taking them off the stand mixer. The coffee pot is another love. I’m really not sure what the fascination is, but he thinks it is fun. Don’t even get me started on the crockpot or toaster…

Needless to say all small appliances remain unplugged these days. The pantry has been reorganized so only approved items are within his reach. Glassware and knives are not left out on the counters. For the most part he knows his boundaries, but better safe than sorry.

Still, I think he’ll be making gourmet meals, or at least chocolate chip cookies, by the time he starts kindergarten.