Homemade pop tarts - updated

Monday is here again, and we are running out of bread.  Baking day!  I'm not terribly motivated right now, but I hope that some baking will raise my spirits and block out the world for a little bit.

The apple pie that I made on Friday was pretty much a success- I used granulated maple sugar instead of white, and I never want to go back.  Gooey-mapley-goodness.  The only problem I had was that my bottom crust was too thin, so the filling leaked and stuck to the bottom a little bit.  The pieces didn't cut well, but it tasted so good that no one cared!  Three days later, and it is gone.  Jon and I love pie for breakfast (pie-breakfast), and after it was gone, he requested that I make something else that had pastry for breakfast.  After sleeping on it, I realized, I can make pop tarts!  They sound super easy, can be eaten on the go without toasting, and I can put whatever I want in them...like my jam, or nutella....I'm about to start baking, and hopefully they will look nice enough to take some pictures later.

The kits are not taking to litter training as fast as I want them to...and with continuous sinus headache from being in my own apartment (mold + Mary = ughhhhhhhhhhh *sticks head into couch cushion*), I've given up for the moment and just filled their entire cage floor with litter and hay.  I'll deal with that later, but at least they will get used to going in litter and won't be sitting in urine outside the box.  I've been using way too many paper towels on this.

I need to get moving.  My goals of bread and pop tarts for the day are quite minimal, so I'm hoping that either this coffee will kick in, or the excitement of baking will wake me up.  Time to go grind some flax seeds.

UPDATE:

I decided that to get the healthier version that I wanted, but with the ingredients that I had, that I needed to mix a few recipes together.  Here is the recipe that I am using, from both Smitten Kitchen and Peas and Thank You:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup a.p. flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. sea salt
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup agave nectar
1 t. vanilla

Filled with: homemade peach jam
No frosting.

I blended the flours, baking powder, and salt, and cut in the butter (If you want to go vegan, use the coconut oil or something like it, like recommended by Peas and Thank You).  I then put in the nectar and vanilla, and enough water to make the consistency of a pie crust.  After that, I followed the recipe written by Peas and Thank You, except I didn't chill the dough.  My kitchen is warm, but I have very little patience.  A marble rolling pin helps, though, with keeping the dough in line.  I had a little trouble keeping the perfect rectangle shape, so I just rolled it out and cut it with a knife to get the shapes that I needed.  I also only ended up with five.

The bread dough is rising now.  I used granulated maple when I proofed the yeast, and molasses instead of brown sugar, and butter.

Last minute baking, because I forgot until last night that some friends were coming over...

Yesterday, Jon asked me to confirm with some friends about when they were coming over today...I had completely forgotten that they were coming, and I hadn't planned for this is my grocery shopping!  And now, my car is pretty much stuck because of the ice in the parking spot, and I'm afraid that if I can't get out, I'll just slide down, go through the fence, and right into the river.  That's the awesome part about parking on a cliff.  SO my plan to run to the store today is out unless the sun helps a bit, so I need to come up with a menu with things I already have or, because Jon did get out this morning, could easily grab last minute before coming back here.  Here is what I've come up with so far:

(Dietary concerns: no meat today for our guests, so this meal is vegetarian!)

Roasted Root Vegetable Soup
Side Salad (Mixed greens and homemade vinaigrette)
Apple Pie (Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book)

I'm also cooking a loaf of no-time bread for dinner with some friends in NH tomorrow, substituting half the white flour for wheat.  So not only is this menu making full use of what is in season and is vegetarian, but it leaves me lots of time to clean the apartment!

At least if they come early, I can distract them with small rabbits.

Cooking rabbit.

It is done.  I have rabbit meat* in the fridge, and I now need to figure out how to cook it for dinner.  I'm thinking roasting or braising?  I'm very disappointed that the only recipe in my cookbooks for rabbit are hassen pfeffer, rabbit cheese, and rabbit cooked in sour cream (thank you, Russian cookbook).  I still need to disjoint it, but there seems to be some good information about that out there.  I'll post about how it goes!

*Jon and I watched a video on youtube of all places on how to dispatch and butcher a rabbit.  It was one of the hardest things we have ever done.  Just the smell...But it is a good things to know how to do, and if we plan on butchering farm animals in the future, this helps a lot.  I won't post the link to the video, because it is very graphic, but I would be happy to send the link to anyone that is interested.

So today I have a new gadget-toy: an electric mixer!!!  I am super excited to use it, and it really is so much better than whisking for half an hour...I either loose interest, get distracted, or agitate my old shoulder injury...But now I can make all the meringue that I want!  I am going to do some macaroons that call for stiff egg white peaks and then some lemon meringue pie.  Today is also bread day, with the usual wheat bread recipe.  Pictures to follow!

The rabbits are now a day over one month old, and they are huge, playful, curious, and cuddly.  I am so glad that they are healthy and doing so well!  I hope to take pictures later if they hold still.

Also,  Boston Cream Pie is awesome.  But you should follow the recipe and actually use powdered sugar, not granulated, or the glaze will be really crunchy...

Homesteading.

The kits are weaned and it is time.  This weekend, Jon and I will be processing Ruby for meat.  The kits are doing beautifully, and I should be able to tell what sex they are soon.  I am also looking to sell Max, and hopefully a fiber enthusiast would love him.

There are mice in the kitchen.  The past two days I have come in to find droppings all over the counters and the dishes in the drainer.  I am very tired of sanitizing everything...but what else can I do?  I put baking soda in the places that the droppings were (they run through it, stop to clean themselves, and there is a reaction in their stomachs that causes gas, but they can't expel the gas, so they implode).  Less cruel than poison or a trap, I think.  I will also put peppermint extract everywhere, which they detest.

I am getting very tired of this apartment (the cave), and am very much looking forward to May when we hopefully move to NH!  We are looking at the second story of a beautiful farmhouse with a view, a barn, and lovely elderly landlords downstairs.  If everything goes well, it would be everything we have been hoping and praying for.  There are lilacs, a space for a HUGE garden, trees, even a farm a few houses down.  We would be close to my parents and many friends.  The landlords used to be good friends with my grandparents, too, as well as the grandparents of my friend that lives there now.  It isn't the biggest place, and it also might have mice, but the worst noise we will have to deal with is blasting "Sound of Music" in the evening.  Thank you, Lord, for watching over us and helping bring us to this farmhouse!  I will also be able to get milk and some veggies from my parents, I might be able to barter my spinning for some eggs and lamb, and I am going to ask  my parents if we could buy meat from them.  I will try to grow as much as I can myself, and I have been working on that list to find other things locally.  So pretty much, I have been doing my knekker-happy-dance for days.

This is pretty much how I dance.
And yes, it is in Norwegian.  Norwegian is cool.

Homemade chocolate chips and cheese puffs!

Bahahhahahahaha.

 Amazingly good.  And cheesy.

Not the prettiest things, but tasty and really easy to make!  

If you watch, Arrested Development, substitute the blue paint on the walls for chocolate, and that is my kitchen after making chocolate chips.

Trying to stay motivated on a day when I feel run down. Homemade junk food.

Yesterday, I felt that I was coming down with something, and as the day progressed, I just wanted to lie on the couch.  Jon had a fever last night and tossed and turned, but today he's all better...but I am exhausted.  I ate an entire can of mandarin oranges.  I've had my morning coffee and still just want to crash, but when I lie down, I am too antsy.  My solution: baking.

Someone really needs to stop me.  I think I bake enough for a family of 10, but the two of us somehow manage to eat it all ourselves...

Fighting off yawns, today's recipes include: the most awesome and easy chocolate chips, pizza, whole wheat sesame crackers, homemade cheese puffs that are supposed to be better than cheetos, and figuring out a way to use 2 sweet potatoes for something that is not a dessert, even though I just really want to make these sweet potato chocolate chips muffins.  I probably won't make it through this list, but I just really want to surround myself with comfort/junk food today.  Or I may just give in and take a nap.  We'll see.

By the way, I made a guilt-free pear sauce coffee cake last night (always remember to actually turn the oven on and not have the batter sit in a cold oven for 40 minutes while you stare at the oven door) and dusted the top with some of the granulated maple sugar- AMAZING.  I am very happy with the results of that experiment and hope to acquire more syrup...which may mean convincing Jon to help me tap some trees...

Granulated maple sugar

I did it.  I made granulated maple sugar.  Boy was it a lot more difficult than I thought!  The maple syrup took forever to get to the right temperature, and then the temp. went up way too much, but we caught it before it scorched or caught on fire...which the directions warned me that it could do.  It formed a lot more clumps than I expected after the last of the steam escaped, and it tastes a little different than I thought, too.  I still need to run it through a sifter, and use a mortar and pestle for some of the larger pieces.  Next time I will be a lot more confident about what needs to be done and when.  The biggest test will be to see how well this sugar works in baking and even how it tastes in coffee.  If all goes well, I might need to get myself a tap and a bucket and start making my own syrup so I have enough keep this up!