Christmas Morning

This Christmas was the first year we woke up in our own home on Christmas morning! So I thought I should at least document with some pictures :) We had a lovely quite morning where Soraya enjoyed opening presents and getting things out of her stocking. Jack was pretty busy and preoccupied with other things...so Soraya got to open his presents as well :)

Sweet Potato Souffle

Here is one of my new favorite recipes! It's great for the holidays, so I thought I would post it here to share (and so that I don't lose it!!)

Sweet Potato Souffle (from allrecipes.com and edited by me :)

Ingredients
3 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 tablespoon white sugar (I use maple syrup instead)
1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup white sugar (I use maple syrup instead)
1 cup heavy cream
5 eggs
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt

Directions
Bake sweet potatoes in the oven at 375 for a few hours, until soft.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a 2 quart souffle dish. Sprinkle dish with 1 tablespoon maple syrup, shaking dish to evenly coat bottom and sides.
Place the sweet potatoes into the bowl of a kitchenaid mixer. Add the butter, 3/4 cup maple syrup, heavy cream, eggs, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt. Process until mixture is smooth. Pour into prepared souffle dish.
Bake the sweet potato mixture in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Bake the sweet potato mixture until edges are slightly browned, about 40 minutes more. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Break Dancing Jack

The Yummiest Pumpkin Pie

We've been making many many pumpkin foods as of late. But our favorite is for sure this pumpkin pie recipe!!

Filling (from The Pumpkin Cookbook)
1 pumpkin, about 1 1/2 pounds
1 cup cream
2 eggs
1/2 cup maple syrup
4 tbs spelt flour
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Cook the pumpkin. I cut it in half and bake in a glass baking dish, face down in a bit of water. It takes about an hour on 350. Once pumpkin is cooked, scoop out seeds and throw away. Then scoop the flesh away from the skin and process in a food processor, blender or I sometimes just use my kitchen aid mixer.

2. In a bowl combine pumpkin, cream, eggs, maple syrup, flour and spices and beat until evenly combined.

For the crust I use the Incredibly Good and Easy Pie Crust from Wholesome Homecooking.
1 1/4 c spelt flour
1/8 c maple syrup
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 c butter (I have accidentally doubled the butter before..talk about fabulous!)
2 oz cream cheese

In a bowl, whisk together flour, sweetener and salt. In a mixer, beat butter and cream cheese together well, scraping sides of bowl once or twice. Add flour mixture to butter/cheese mixter in mixer bowl. Combine at medium low until crumbly, like coarsse cornmeal. Scrape down bowl and mix at medium high until dough forms large clumps, about 30 seconds. Transfer dough to a greased pie plate. Pat out with the palm of your hand evenly. Distribute up the sides of the plate.

Pour in pumpkin mixture. Bake on 400 for 30 minutes.

We like to buy some heavy whipping cream, whip it in the mixer then add to the pie before eating :) Enjoy!!

Cookies

Soraya's big birthday bash is next week. I can't believe she is 3!!

She is super excited. She had to make it through Jack, Mommy and Gus' birthday parties before getting to hers. We took her to a party store to pick out her plates. Going in she said she wanted Blues Clues. But after considering Little Einsteins, she chose Cinderella. Just could resist :)

So everytime I ask her what she wants to eat at her party she says "a cookie" which sounds a lot like turkey. Soraya hasn't ever been much of a cake fan, so we are going with it.

Her birthday is on Wednesday so we are having our neighbors over with their 3 girls, Maysun, Adelaide, and Imogene. We are having a taco bar and the much requested peanut butter cookie (without any refined sugars or flours of course :)

Then on Saturday all of the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are coming up for a grand birthday brunch with a giant chocolate chip cookie (no refined flours or sugars once again :)

So here are some pics of us practicing our cookie making :)

Apple Orchard

I took the kids to an apple orchard a few days ago. We went with a friend Julie and her son Trevor. We walked up the the older gentleman in charge, each of us with a one year old on our hip, me holding Soraya's hand and Julie being 8 months pregnant. So the gentleman just looked at us...so I said, "We are wondering about the pick your own apples" and he just looked at us quite perplexed...so I said, "Can we pick our own apples?" And he gaves us a concerned look again and asked how we thought we'd pick our own with the babies around (meanwhile, there are tons of already picked apples on the table behind him). I said, "oh, we will figure it out thats no problem. We have strollers and back packs..we are good...so how do we pick our own apples.

So the man gave us our bags and proceeded to explain which trees were ready to be picked. They had Johnathon apples, the best for applesauce making, and Ira red, red delicious, and yellow delicious.

We had a wonderful time picking apples. After awhile Jack was down walking around, getting covered in the dew covered freshly cut grass, as you can see in the picture he dropped his apple quite a few times :) Soraya loved it and didn't want to leave (as usual). After awhile Jack was down walking around, getting covered in the dew covered freshly cut grass, as you can see in the picture he dropped his apple quite a few times :)

The next day we had apples fried in butter with cinnamon for breakfast and applesauce as a snack. Tonight will be an apple crisp per Chad's request :)

My Man

I don't really have much to say...nor much time to write anymore. But all I can say is it just doesn't get any cuter that this :)