Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies with Nutella Frosting

Who doesn't love sugar cookies?

They are the ultimate holiday cookie, or the anytime cookie, that will never cease to disappoint.

However this time i decided to make my sugar cookies with whole wheat flour in order to sneak some nutrition into my sons picky diet. 

Needless to say the score is Mom: 1 James: 0

While making these please be prepared for a ton of cookies dough! 

Luckily it freezes beautifully : )

DRY INGREDIENTS 

• 6 cups white whole wheat flour, I prefer to use the King Arthur brand
• 2 teaspoons of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of salt 

(mix all together in a separate bowl)

WET INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup shortneing 
• 2 cups sugar 
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla 
• 1 cup sour cream    

DIRECTIONS 

Blend all wet ingredients together until smooth 

Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients 

Cover and place in the fridge for a few hours 

Roll out your cookie dough and use your favorite cookie cutter

Bake at 400 degrees for 7-8 minutes

Let cool.

While your waiting for them to cool you can go ahead and make the frosting. 

You can use whatever recipe you would like for frosting but i prefer to make Nutella Frosting, our favorite.

NUTELLA FROSTING

I prefer to use my stand mixer for this while keeping it on the lowest setting, the slower you go the smoother your frosting will be. 

Beat 1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, softened to room temperature, for about 3 minutes or longer until its smooth and creamy.  

Add 2 cups confectioners sugar and blend well, it should be slighty thick at this point.

Add 3/4 cup Nutella and mix until completely blended

Add 3-4 tablespoons heavy whipping cream and 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Add a pinch of salt, or more upon a taste test, and your ready for take off

If the you want the frosting thicker, add more confectioners sugar.

Thinner, add more cream.

Enjoy!

-Ginger out

Bean and Bacon Soup

My son is in love with Cambell's bean and bacon soup, so i figured i would take a crack at making it myself, and to make things even better i found a recipe that uses a crockpot!!

Super simple and fast, however make sure to start this soup early. The recipe states that you cook this soup for a total of 8 hours but i found it took a little more time until the beans were tender, however it could just be my crockpot as well, but just a heads up :)

WARNING:
This makes a TON of soup, this recipe filled my 5-quart crockpot up to the brim. However i am thinking this soup will freeze well, but i will keep you posted.

INGREDIENTS

• 32 oz dried northern beans
• 1 lb bacon
• 2 onions diced
• 1/2 carrots diced
• 4 stalks celery diced
• 4 cloves minced garlic
• 4 cups water
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Sort beans and remove any debris
2. Rinse beans under cold water
3. Fry bacon in skillet till crispy
4. Add all ingredients to crockpot
5. Cook on high for 2 hours. Then cook on low for about 6 hours or until the beans are tender 
6. Remove bay leaf and enjoy

Happy cooking!

Ginger out


*After sharing with my Tata he suggested that i pureed some of the beans and add a little more water, next time i make it i will be trying it that way :)

Taco Soup

Cooking with my crock pot is by far my favorite way to cook. Just a few simple steps and dinner is taken care of before noon, and with a busy schedule its nice to know you already have dinner taken care of. 

Here is a recipe for "Slow cooker taco soup" that was given to me by my best friend and has been slightly altered.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 pound ground beef 
• 1 (2.5 oz) package taco seasoning
• 1 (1 oz) ranch dressing mix
• 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes 
• 1 (15.5 oz) can corn, undrained
• 1 (15.5 oz) can black beans, undrained
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 cup tomato sauce 

Directions

1. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat; cook beef until crumbly, evenly browned and no longer pink. Drain and transfer beef into a slow cooker and sprinkle both taco and ranch seasonings.
2. Add the diced tomatoes, corn, and black beans, all with their liquid, to the slow cooker. Stir the black olives, onion and tomato sauce into the ground beef mixture. Cook on low until the vegetables are completely tender, about 5 hours.

When we make this I will usually garnish with some tortilla chips, sour cream, cheese and avocados.

Hopefully this will please your hearts and your tummys

Ginger Out

Proud Wife of a (almost) Paramedic.

My husband is an EMT-I and weeks away from becoming a full blown paramedic.

Unlike most husbands I know, he doesn’t work a 9-5, Monday through Friday. He works for 48 hours straight, no real breaks, no real time to sleep or eat, and his life for next two days is now controlled by the cities discretion. He could go all day without a single call and by the time his head hits the pillow he is immediately called to a cardiac arrest and he doesn’t stop moving until the sun comes up just to turn around and do it all again the next day and pray no one gets hurt for an hour or two to get some sleep in. Most of the time when I tell other people what he does, especially women, I get a lot of “I don’t know how you do it” and “Wow! What do you do with yourself?” and most of the time my response is always James and I keep busy, we fill our hours with pooh bear and mickey mouse and hours of reading and snacking. However when those 48 hours are up and daddy comes through the door the smile on my sons face is absolutely magical, not sure whether it’s just because he is sick of me and ready for Dad or he knows he is about to play with his dad, which is always his preferred playing partner. 

Honestly I am not sure how he does this for 48 hours straight and still has strength to stand.  Don’t get me wrong some shifts are better than others, but there is something about when the sun sets and the wild things come out to play, especially in Yakima, WA or Crackima as I like to call it. The stories I have heard from him are enough to keep me up at night and I get told the calm stories.

Before our son was born Sean (my husband) would work 80 hour weeks with the ambulance company split up by his regular 48 hour shift on top of random overtime that became available and what he called the wheel chair car shifts throughout the week as well. Sean and I both worked for a resort and when winter came business went way down so the company decided to lay off the majority of their workers, myself and Sean were included, however no one seemed to want to hire a pregnant lady so I spent a lot of time by myself looking for a job, with a growing belly while he was working hard at his new job.

After James was born he cut back and worked his normal 48 hours with a few overtime shifts here and there but the majority of his time was spent at home with us. Shortly after James’ first birthday Sean began paramedic school, the most grueling year of our lives was about to begin.

We moved two hours away from our perfect little house in Fircrest, WA to the small college town of Ellensburg where Sean would attend Central Washington University in the fall. We had lived here the year before while I was pregnant with James but ended up moving about a month before he was born to Fircrest to be near our support system. When class started Sean was in class 8-5 and riding in the ambulance as a student on the weekends. James and I were lucky to catch a glimpse of daddy as he ran in the door to inhale dinner and run out to go to the library to study. A big change since James and I knew absolutely no one in the small town that consists mainly of college students and farmers. Needless to say the past 9 months have been lonely and difficult,to say the least, but now we are on the eve of Sean’s last full day of class before finals week and I couldn’t be more excited. I am so proud of my Husband and all of the hard work that he has been putting into his career the last 9 months.

Good Job Pooh Bear, Buster and I are so unbelievably proud of you.
Love, Tigger

Do it yourself Laundry Detergent

Being a stay at home mom makes you find ways to cut corners and save money wherever you can. While i still haven't grasped extreme couponing (as much as I want to) I have figured out a way to save some money for our little ginger clan by making our own laundry detergent. 

My son has extremely sensitive skin and laundry detergent has always been an issue for us. Even Dreft with its fresh baby scent would make his eczema break out causing hims to be itchy and miserable. And for those of you who have a 20 month old know, miserable baby's make everyone else miserable. So we found a detergent that worked, All free and clear, however I found myself doing 1-4 loads of laundry a day and would go through our bottle of All within the month if not sooner.  

I had heard of how people make their own laundry soap but had no idea how to go about it until I remembered I had recently watched a show at my moms from the live well network on a gal that not only made laundry soap but dish washing detergent and house hold cleaner. 

Perfect!

Copying down the recipe I was so excited to get my supplies for my home made laundry detergent, after all the total cost per load was a whopping two cents! How could I not try it out?! 

Here is the recipe I use: 

2 cups Borax (found in the detergent isle) 

2 cups arm and hammer super washing soda (found in the detergent isle) 

1 bar of Fels-naptha* (laundry soap, also found in the detergent isle)

Grate your bar of soap with a cheese grater and pour it into bowl. Proceed to measure out your borax and your washing soda and combine it into the same bowl. Mix well and put into an airtight container. (I found one at the dollar store that works perfectly) 

Load your laundry like normal and put in 1 tablespoon of the mixture, it's pretty potent stuff so make sure not to overload it. If my laundry is a little extra dirty I usually put in a heaping tablespoon but that's as far as I'll go. 

Not only have i noticed that my sons  eczema breakouts have gone down significantly but my  clothes are just as clean as when I used regular detergent.  And my family saves a ton of money! 

Hopefully this will help you in saving some money for you and your busy family. 

Ginger out

* The original recipe stated that you can use any bar of soap. Which means you can use any type of soap you have laying around the house whether it be laundry soap or body soap. Personally I have not tried it with body soap so I cannot vouch for that route.