Daring Bakers: Nanaimo Bars

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.



We started by making gram crackers which are deceptively hard.
The hard part is the dough is SUPER sticky and hard to roll out. And if you want your crackers to not be rock hard, you have some major baking time issues to work out. Since I was just using these for the nanaimo bars I didn't have the patience to work out the timing right to make them for straight eating. If anyone did manage to get these to bake so they were stiff to hold but soft to eat please let me know how long and what temp you baked your grams for.

The grams were then used in the base of the nanaimo bars. I used marshmallows instead of coconut because that's what i had on hand, and I'm the only one around here that likes coconut. This dessert is not for anyone who is counting calories or watching fat. I decided to make a 9*13 pan since we had gusts coming. It used over a pound of butter. I think I would have liked these better if the 'custard' layer was more pudding-ish and less butter.

Click Here for the recipes.

Not Me Monday: the Dishwasher Incident

Today I did not head the clinking of glass while I was sitting at the computer trying to pick paint colors. And if maybe, just maybe, my ears had picked up some disturbances, I most certainly did not find my 14 month son to be the cause of this. Nope, not me. My son is an angel and while he LOVES to help with the dishes he certainly does not climb INSIDE the dishwasher.



Having found that the sonic disturbances we not my son, I did not then proceed to take photos rather than removing him from the dishwasher. Not me, I'm always responsible and take excellent care of my house hold appliances.



I certainly did not photograph him while he continued to take out my precious few remaining glasses and then perch them precariously on top of my measuring cups.



For the record, Harvey does NOT enjoy the vertigo induced by bouncing on the slightly broken dishwasher door. Nope, not my son, not one bit.



Go see what others haven't done this week at mcMama's

Baby Bibs

For Christmas I made Harvey some new, larger bibs.

I drafted the pattern myself, based on a bib a friend had.

Harvey enjoyed modeling them for me. They are great because the baby can't pull them off or to the side. Also, because they wrap around the arms the ties won't ever suffocate or choke the baby.

Do you guys think anyone would buy something like this if I made them for etsy?

snow days

Well it finally snowed out here. Everything shut down for about 2 days. Well no, I take that back. Nothing shut down except the schools, but it was cold.

Captain and I took Harvey out in the snow. He liked it about as much as he liked the grass.

I just love how Captain and Harvey have the exact same expression on their faces.

The only smile we caught outside!

Roller Coaster

So a friend is letting us borrow this baby roller coaster.

Harvey immediately started liking it and he didn't even know what to do with it yet.

He just sat there trusting that anything with wheels would be a blast

Don't worry, Harvey was not disappointed.

WHEEEEE!

Harvey now pushes the coaster cart around the house until one of us stops what we are doing and pushes him back and forth along the track. I can't wait till he can get on and off it himself.

Lemon Pepper Sauce

Tonight I made Lemon Peper roast pork with mashed potatoes, and I wanted a sauce to go with it. None of the internet recipes suited my needs so I made one up. It was soo yummy I thought it would be nice to share.

Lemon Pepper Sauce

3 tbs butter
3 tbs flour
2 tsp lemon pepper
2 tsp chicken bullion *
1 c water *

Melt the butter, add the flour and seasonings. Let cook till bubbling. Add the water and simmer till thickened. * you can substitute 1 c chicken broth instead of the bullion and water.

Watch out, this is plate licking good.

Christmas Morning

This was the ONLY gift Harvey wanted to open. He really liked that it was already started for him. It took about 10 minuted from start to finish for him to unwrap this thing.

It was a fairly typical morning for us. Captain loved his socks, I loved my new cooking equipment and Harvey... well Harvey loved the blue bag his plushie polyhedrons came in.



Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.