Monday, March 7, 2011

Baking Day

I've been trying to make my grocery dollar stretch a little farther and feed my family healthier foods.  Really the only way I can figure to do this is make more things from scratch at home.  And thus, baking day was born.  For this instalment of baking day the agenda was, whole wheat pancakes, Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, and Banana Bread.  And the results:

I made Zonya's recipe for banana bread found HERE, this we will eat this week for after school snacks. I probably won't freeze any of it.

The chocolate chip cookie bars recipe also came from Zonya, go HERE if you want it.  These will go into the freezer for treats in my nine year olds lunch.  They do have a lot of sugar in them so they really are more of a treat but apparently it is totally dorky not to bring a treat in your home lunch.  Really you may as well just give up on ever having a life if you are that big of a loser that you can't even bring a treat in your lunch.   So this will be better than a Hostess snack cake (although I'm sure it does not carry the same amount of trading power)! 

And for the pancakes, I made half using my usual pancake recipe but replacing half of the white flour with whole wheat and cutting the oil called for down by a lot (like more that half). The other half I used a new recipe called, Whole Wheat Fluffy Pancakes.  They definitely taste like 100% whole wheat but I think my family could get used to them.  We do already eat 100% whole wheat bread so it's not that much different.  The pancake recipes are from cook books so I don't have a link for them but if anyone wants them I will add them to the site.  Obviously most the pancakes will be going into the freezer.
 And the totals: 2 loaves of banana bread
                        24 chocolate chip cookie bars
                        32 pancakes

Last week I made some frozen roll dough as well.  I just use a basic roll recipe with whole wheat flour.  After I shape the rolls and before they rise I set them on a pan to freeze, when they are frozen I take them off put them in a baggie and voila, my own frozen roll dough. 


And this is what your toddler and your kitchen look like after baking day!  At one point I looked over and he was pouring salt from the salt container all over the floor.

5 comments:

  1. LOVE the cute baking helper! Sooooo, if there was one recipe that is the best to try first, what would you recommend??? Is there one that the kids really like (and my kids might actually eat??)
    At the store yest I was buying pancake mix (because I am not as awesome as you and I just buy the mix!) so I bought some whole wheat mix too and I thought I would try mixing the two and see if my kids would do it..I will let you konw!(they acutally did like whole wheat pancakes once we had a prepardness fair but every time I tried the same recipe after that my kids didnt like them so I finally gave up!)

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  2. No one was too crazy about the 100 percent whole wheat pancakes. I'll be making them 1/2 whole wheat 1/2 white from now on and calling it good.
    My kids all LOVE the banana bread and I really think it is a pretty healthy snack. Good old zonya lists all the nutrition information and for one slice it works out to 137 calories, 4g fat (that is making it with the ground flax seed so it is a healthy fat, but you can always make it without and then the fat would be lower), 3.5g fiber (less without the flax seed) and 7g sugar.

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  3. After I wrote the above comment I remember hearing once that when you cook flax seed it destroys the Essentail Fatty Acids so it is still really great fiber but to get the healthy fat benefit you can't cook it. You could sprinkle it on oatmeal, blend it in a smoothie etc. But I am abviously NOT a nutritionist so if you really care you better research it for yourself.

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  4. Cooking like that with kids around is seriously impressive! I can barely get through dinner. ;) I would LOVE your pancake recipe!!! I would love to try making pancakes from scratch.
    It's kinda cheating because it's from a box and about only half wheat, but I really like Krusteaz wheat and honey pancakes. That's mostly all we eat - Mikade really likes them too. If I want to get crazy one the wheat I eat the Lehi Roller Mills - whole Grain - Heart Healthy - Hotcake mix. They are good but really are hearty.
    I also make protein pancakes - that Mikade likes too. Super healthy and taste yummy.
    The basic recipe is:
    5 egg whites
    1 cup cottage cheese
    1 cup oatmeal (the quick oats)
    cinnamon and vanilla to taste
    Blend it all up until it's smooth and has the consistency of pancake mix - then cook them like pancakes. It seems weird - I know.
    You can also add banana into it or other random things like nuts. I usually tweak the recipe one way or another. They are delicious with warm fruit over the top - I usually use frozen raspberries. Let me know if you try it.
    (Yikes - long comment! ;)

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  5. Oh, I totally plan on making the banana bread! We eat it a lot, but I always use a recipe that calls for a stick of butter. :/ Did you really use whole-wheat pastry flour. I'm confused by the "pastry" part. Is that just reg. flour??? Ha,ha.
    Of course I will still be adding chocolate chips though! ;)

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