"Bats in a Cave" with Fruit Salad

Sometimes we play with our food and make cheesy object lesson recipes. (What, you don't?) So we made some meatballs and then decided to turn them into bats. It goes with our cave theme. With a little ketchup you can make anything smile, at least that's what four year old Connor thinks. We peeled the carrots to look like the bones in the phalanges of the bat's wings. And in case you have an utter lack of imagination, I should inform you that the breadsticks decorating the plate in various sizes are to make stalactites and stalagmites. (Obviously). And also that some bats really like to eat fruit, and incidentally so do we!

 

Make some rolls. Get an early start two hours before dinner. We used the River Cottage Cookbook French bread recipe and just cooked it in strips at 400 for 12 minutes. The kids had fun making them different sizes.
Cost for 1 loaf bread: 
~ $3.96

Meatballs with wraps

• 1 1b beef ~ $6.75
• 1/2  lb carrots ~ $0.68
• 3/4 small cabbage head ~ $1.93
• 1/3 c oatmeal or flour (I used oatmeal) ~ $0.36
• 2 eggs ~ $0.34
• 2 1/2 T soy sauce ~$0.10
• 3/4 tsp powdered ginger ~ $0.10
• 1/3 onion sautéed ~ $0.50
• Splotches of ketchup for face

First saute the onion. Mix raw beef with oatmeal,  eggs, ginger, soy sauce and sauteed onion. Form into golf ball size balls.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.


Peel the carrots and peel cabbage in whole sheets.
After the meat has cooked use two meatballs for body and head, cabbage sheet for wings, and carrots for arm bones.

$10.76

Fruit Salad

• 1/2 small seedless watermelon (about 4 lbs) ~ $3.00
• 3 medium apples ~ $1.20
• Handful Chocolate mint (in my herb garden)
• 1 TBSP lemon juice

Mix right before eating. Enjoy!
$4.20

Total Menu cost $18.92 or $3.19/ each

Breakfast in bed, a jar of happiness

Remember those glorious B.C. (before children, as we like to call it) days of lounging in bed, sleeping in very late with your partner for hours on a weekend morning? No? Well, me either. Not really.

One of the greatest cruxes of our marriage is that one adores and the other abhors sleeping in. This, as you have probably already discovered, along with other essentials like what temperature you are going to keep the thermostat, who is going to take out the recycling, whether you are going to have an alternative fuel vehicle, is probably the real stuff that should be in prenuptial agreements. Fortunately, one of us is also warm bodied so the other reptilian soul is usually coerced into lingering a little longer. And nothing makes that quite as sweet as breakfast in bed, pulled together really quickly in your jammies, before your feet get cold.

I had these kind of romantic moments in mind when thinking what to give an old friend as a wedding present. So I gave her breakfast in bed, in jars. Some mason jar scones, homemade jelly. If you want to do more you could add some summer sausage or a sweet cheese like almond cheddar or blackberry wine cheddar or directions on how to make clotted cream, or a gift certificate towards a membership with the Oklahoma Food Coop. And if you like wrap it in an antique handkerchief or a blue ribbon. 

Mason Jar Blueberry Oat Scones

• 1 tsp baking powder $0.05
• 1/2 baking soda $0.05
• 3/4 cup oat or wheat flour $0.23
• 3 tsp Energ Egg replacer (not local) $0.12 (or omit this and just add 2 real eggs when making the recipe).
• 3/4 cup finely ground corn meal $0.75
• 1/4 cup sugar $0.36
• 1/2 c. powdered milk (not local) $1.92
• 1/4 cup of dried blueberries $0.82

 1/4 cup of water

• 4 tsp Scrumptious strawberry spread $0.90

Mix the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, and egg replacer. (Energ egg replacer is a great substitute for eggs in most baked goods and is useful when you have run out of eggs, are cooking for friends with allergies, or trying to make a dry mix). Use a funnel to put this in the bottom of your sterile mason jar. Pack tightly down with a spoon. Then layer the cornmeal, next the sugar, next the powdered milk then the dried fruit on top, remembering to pack tightly after each dry ingredient layer. Put in a quart mason jar.

To prepare mix with 1/4 cup of water then add 1 tsp of water at a time till it is moist enough the dough can be shaped into circles or triangles but is not goopy. (Or if you add too much water just make muffins)!

Bake at 375 for 12-15 min.

Makes 6 large scones.
Total: $4.90

**********
Serve with:
3/4 lb Turkey sausage $4.49

Clotted cream 
3 oz fresh cream  $0.94
pinch of salt

I think that this cream from the Oklahoma Food Coop will work best because it is not ultra pasteurized and this allows the cream to clot better.

The night before put sausages in a crock pot and cover with water.

Then set a shallow baking pan with a lid on top. Add water to go up the inner pan halfway. This creates a double broiler. Pour your cream in the inner pan and cover with inner and outter lids. Set your crock pot on low all night. When you wake up to put the scones in the oven you should be able to scoop the buttery cream off the top (save the remainder for another recipe) for your scones.

Total: $10.63 or $1.77 each

Blue Skies, Nothing but Blue Skies

Blue jays. Blue birds. Blue bonnets. Blue skies that seem to go on forever. And occasionally, very occasionally, blueberries- in Oklahoma. These are some of the things that color my world.

 

Berry picking is such a delight. But perhaps even more so, when you realize how hard it is for these little guys, the underdog, the bottom race horse, the low man on some proverbial mid-west agricultural totem pole to get here.

No doubt, this climate is rough. Last year over 90 consecutive days over 100 degrees and we continue in a drought that rivals the dust bowl era. In recent years the record high and the record low can occur same year. This year Lavon Williams, of Maple Creek Berry Farms in Poteau, Oklahoma told me it was the giant hail (think bigger than softballs) that threatened his entire crop just two weeks before it was picking season. Last year the pond dug to water the crops was unexpectedly alkalizing their soil. Tiff-tough that's what his farm is made of.

In southeastern Oklahoma he raises berries organically and in June we got to pick some! The $22 for a large 5 quart bucket or $4.50 a quart seemed more justified considering the challenges to get them there. And picking you own is certainly one of the most affordable ways to get your own organic fruit. Eating organic fruits whenever possible, also means you are minimizing everyone's exposure to pesticides- many of which began as derivatives of neurotoxins devised to be weapons of war.

To me blueberries are one of the most delightful berries to pick. Little gems that keep shape without getting mushy. And you don't look like an axe murderer when you are done. As my baby daughter and my husband sought out the shade, my two sons came to help me pick eye-spying which were ripe in each cluster.

Plunk-plunk-plunk like prize marbles in our buckets. Marbles won in the game against shrewd mockingbirds greedily sitting onnearby trees. Hard earned loot for the six year old who learned the value of closed toed shoes as he combated ants.

With two small handfuls in his bucket, my three year old had stopped abruptly. "Me go ask man if me have 'nough put mine ice cream." Indeed. His objective met, he was contentedly finished.

In forty five min we amassed about four cups of blueberries and were reminded to pick while willing, but pack up soon enough they want to come back for more. Stay tuned for blueberry scones and breakfast in bed!