Homemade food gift ideas. And putting these in cute packaging always makes it that much more fun. I like to buy those inexpensive clear party bags (maybe $1.50 for 20?) and they come in various sizes. Or use canning jars, decorate leftover plastic containers (like sour cream tub) and cover with cute papers. Many of these ideas can be turned into a theme basket with a few inexpensive additions like a bag of tortilla chips with the homemade salsa. Get creative. :

- fudge, and can do flavored with peppermint and crushed candy canes on top, swirled with peanut butter, stir in chopped nuts and marshmallows for rocky road, etc.

- truffles (Jenny’s recipe or the new one w/cream cheese instead of cream. I’ll find it…)

- various other candies like tiger butter, peanut brittle, peanut butter bars, peppermint bark, mints, etc. All packaged into cute candy box and using the mini cupcake liners for easy and nice dividing of goodies. Those are also all easy recipes to make with kids.

- chocolate covered pretzels w/sprinkles (good to make with kids) fun with big stick pretzels.

- sugar cookie kit: sugar cookie dough or mix, frosting, sprinkles, cookie cutters. Can do as jar mix (in canning jar) and tie cookie cutter around lid. Or already made sugar cookies, of course! You can make sugar cookie dough and roll it into logs and freeze it to use for yourself or gift to others.

- movie kit: popcorn, drink, candies (homemade or store bought), and either new movie or gift card for movie rental. Put in big plastic bowl, especially fun with old holiday movie or family movies on DVD.

- homemade salsa (with chips, homemade tortillas, package of mexican hot chocolate, if you want to turn into theme bowl.)

- homemade fudge sauce, can be added to ice cream gift basket with ice cream scoop, toppings, ice cream dishes, whip cream, etc.

- homemade granola with dried fruit, nuts, etc.

- sparking cider and a goodie for New Year’s. When I was on bedrest with Bennett some friends brought us a New Year’s stash of goodies - cider, chips & dips, candies, etc. It was so much fun!

- muffin tin, muffin mix (homemade or store bought) and other baking goodies. Could do basic muffin mix in jar and then extras to add in little bags - dried cranberries, nuts, fresh fruit, chocolate chips, etc. Or muffin mix and jar of jam.

- cookie dough balls: make one huge batch or several various ones. Scoop dough, freeze & put in separate bags with gift tag and baking instructions. We did peanut butter, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin and a chocolate chip dough one year.

- candied nuts, like sugar spiced pecans or almonds. Or other mixes like chex puppy chow or homemade trail mix.

- any warm baked goodie from the oven! Cinnamon rolls, cookies, muffins, sweet bread, homemade bread and jam. OR a coupon for said goodie to be delivered at a time they request.

I’m sure I’ll think of more! I’ll try to add recipe links later… what am I forgetting, other ideas?

- S’mores kit. It’s not homemade, but graham crackers, chocolate bars & bag of marshmallows.

- cocoa set, with hot chocolate mix (homemade or store bought) and marshmallows, candy canes to use as stir sticks, could put in cute mug or include cookies for dipping in.

- coupon for dinner to be delivered on a night of their choosing, with 24 hours notice at least.

- hot soup in mason jars w/bread, soup toppings, etc. Like baked potato soup with cheese, green onions and crumbled bacon or taco soup with tortilla chips, cheese and cornbread. Could do soup mix or do already made soup (but warn them you’re bringing dinner, of course.) I do this a lot for friends with a new baby and it’s fun to bring when the baby is a few weeks old, the husband is back at work, family has probably gone back home and the exhaustion is peaking. They probably get meals the first week after the new baby but at 3 or 4 weeks postpartum a delivered dinner is such a nice treat. I should just do a post on postpartum meals, huh?

This is for you, Rachel! But I realized I needed a good way to get these ideas all in one spot before they were abandoned in my bookmarks folder forever. I have a whole other folder of food projects/gifts I want to try so I’ll save that for another post.

PAPER CRAFTS
Flower Garland made from catalogs.

How to decoupage a notebook and seriously cute, I want to try that soon for the kids’ journals - we use composition books.

Make your own bows from magazines. I want to try this with the kids.

Craft Hanging Ball made from old cards.

Dollar Bill Rose - made me laugh but fun to try.

Cereal Box Mobile - I think those would be fun in the kids’ rooms.

Paper Fortune Cookies

SEWING & CROCHET PROJECTS
Quick baby hat from old t-shirt.

Child’s Tea Towel Apron

Baby Burp Cloth and I’ve made these - very cute.

Another baby burp cloth that’s also adorable but more complex.

Crocheted Newborn Roundie Hat - once I learn how to read crochet instructions!

Kids’ Puppet Show Curtain (I think we need to make this one soon, maybe with Grandma’s help??)

MISC.
Cookie Sheet Calendar

Small Gift Ideas & Sayings

Peanut Butter Jar Containers and I love these and am saving jars for this. I’m also considering saving enough jars up to make an indoor bowling set for the kids. One of the therapists suggested we slip some of Mo’s speech cards into them and whichever ones she bowls over we pick out and work on… could be fun!

Marble Magnets

Photo Magnets, and these can also be done with kids’ drawings?

(Disclaimer - I have NOT browsed these other sites extensively beyond the one page I am linking and I am assuming they are all safe/family friendly but just a heads up in case you run across something odd. However, many of them have really wonderful things to explore so let me know if you find other great ideas. )

(Bumping this post since it’s now autumn and pumpkin season!)

These were a hit and I know Kit will need the recipe some morning when I’m sleeping in.

I’m also entering this recipe in a cookbook giveaway at Fairion’s Blog.

Pumpkin Pancakes
2 cups flour (going to try it with whole wheat)
1/2 cup sugar (could use less, or honey?)
1/2 t salt
2 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
1/2 t cinnamon

Mix, in different bowl combine:
3 eggs
1 cup yogurt (says plain, I used vanilla or could use sour cream)
3/4 c milk
1 c pumpkin

Combine wet and dry gently, then immediately put onto hot, buttered griddle. This dough puffs pretty fast! Cook low and slow.

Apple Cider Sauce
In saucepan over medium heat combine:
1 c sugar (maybe try half w/brown sugar?)
2 T cornstarch
1/4 t cinnamon & 1/4 nutmeg, or pumpkin pie spice (this was too much nutmeg for our kids)
2 c apple cider (we used juice)
2 T lemon juice
Bring to boil, stirring constantly one minute or until thickened.

Then add 1/4 c butter - we skipped the butter and it was still GREAT. This would be delicious with apples served over ice cream, drizzled over german pancakes or regular ones, added to oatmeal, etc. REALLY yummy.

Christopher was asking why everyone else in the family has brown eyes while Joseph’s eyes are blue — Grey-Blue, he declared them today.

I took the opportunity to discuss the beginnings of modern genetic theory with him and Moira. Of course.

This goes back to Gregor Mendel, the Augustinian priest scientist whose work studying the passing of dominant and recessive hereditary traits in a strain of peas provides the groundwork of all genetic study today. Christopher and Mo were eating this stuff up, by the way.

We moved on to eye color, and I started drawing all of these boxes. They understand that mom passes some traits and so does dad. The new information for them was that some of these traits are stronger than others — the dominant traits. For instance, in eye color, brown always trumps blue. Always. Mom can give you a blue, and dad can give you a brown, and you’ll have brown eyes. (We didn’t go into the fact that this would be true in a sample without any mutations, but let’s just not go there yet.)

I started out with this diagram:

I don’t recall the eye color of Heidi’s grandparents, but I know her mom’s eyes are blue. I also know that Heidi has one blue-eyed sibling and one green-eyed one. So, her father has to be carrying a recessive gene. 50% chance of a blue-eyed kid with that combo there. Heidi is one of seven, and two don’t have brown eyes. If the sample was larger, we’d probably have more adherence to the ratio. Here’s the important bit: Heidi is guaranteed to be carrying a recessive blue.

That means that eye color is all down to me. Both my parents have brown eyes. So, then, what happens if I was a double brown?

All brown-eyed kids. But that’s simply not the case with my kids. Apparently not, anyway. Unless Joesph’s eyes suddenly start turning the same chocolate-brown as the rest of his sibs, but I’m becoming less and less convinced of that happening as time wears on.

Here’s where I put on my detective hat. I recall that I have blue-eyed cousins, and was it my grandfather who had blue eyes? Whomever had them, I managed to pick up a recessive blue somewhere up the stream.

One of our five kids has blue eyes. Blue-grey. 20% is pretty darn close to 25%. And I get confirmation of something that I had suspected for years, but never was able to prove before I got the results back from the lab, so to speak: that I have a recessive blue gene. So do 75% of our kids. Probably.

I came across this post from a lecturing nutritionist. She explains that one of her favorite props is a McDonald’s hamburger she purchased back in 1996. I won’t give away the punchline. ** Edit. It turns out that this was posted to both reddit and Digg, and the trolls came out in force. So I’ll be reproducing the article here to spare you from the slurs and cursing in the comments.

1996 McDonald’s Hamburger, by Karen Hanrahan

I teach a workshop titled Healthy Choices for Children. It’s a class for parents seeking solutions to how to improve the way they eat. It’s about the alternative food market, organics, and the top ten food additives to avoid and why, menu planning and more. It’s a 3 session fabulously informative interactive class.

Below is my absolutely favorite prop.

People are always astounded when I share this.

I have used this as show and tell for a very long time.

This is a hamburger from McDonald’s that I purchased in 1996.

That was 12 years ago.

Note that it looks exactly like it did the very day I bought it.

The flecks on the burger are crumbs from the bun.

The burger is starting to crumble a bit.

It has the oddest smell.

The paper and bag in the background is circa 2008 - to add decor to the photo. My friend Robyn’s idea.

This is the retro Welch’s grape juice plastic container I have always kept it in. People always ask me - what did you do to preserve it ?

Nothing - it preserved itself.

Ladies, Gentleman, and children alike - this is a chemical food. There is absolutely no nutrition here.

Not one ounce of food value. Or at least value for why we are eating in the first place.

The burger on the right, off the paper is a 2008 burger. I had to buy it to get the groovy paper and bag.

The meat is a tad darker, the bun a little less golden but in 12 years it will look exactly like that too.

Do you find this horrifying?

McDonalds fills an empty space in your belly. It does nothing to nourish the cell, it is not a nutritious food.

It is not a treat.

I marvel at how McDonalds has infiltrated our entire world. A hamburger here tastes exactly the same in China or some around the world place.

It’s cloned.

Makes you wonder doesn’t it?

Do me a favor and share this.

I will offer how horrified I am at myself for the amount of fast food I’ve eaten over the years of my life.

Abby Says:
This post now begs for another post! Can I request one with a list of everything you make homemade? Along with the recipes or just a note that they’re already in your blog and can be searched for?

I don’t remember if you posted the recipe for granola bars before, but I know you make your own. I’m also really curious about the microwave oatmeal baggies. And I think Heidi once posted something about making muffins and freezing them. Do they still turn out moist & fluffy when defrosted? I know sometimes that can be a problem.

We make these on our own:
bread
oatmeal
granola bars
muffins/sweet breads
yogurt
obscene amounts of cookies
cake, brownies, etc
pita bread
buttermilk biscuits & scones
cinnamon rolls, coffee cakes, etc
pancakes, french toast sticks, german pancakes, etc
jam & jelly
applesauce
buttermilk ranch dressing
pesto
marinara/spaghetti sauce
alfredo sauce
cream of chicken soup/gravy

Any of the recipes we’ve posted we mark under the food category and you can click on the link to the right to pull them up, or this link. I’ve been happy with how the muffins turn out after freezer, but we usually freeze the loaves of bread. I think it stays more moist and we do double wrap them and defrost in the fridge.

We WANT to make (or at least try once):
tortillas
more things with beans
start sprouting
mayonnaise
dried fruit/fruit leather
cream of wheat
ketchup

And here is the microwave oatmeal recipe:

To put in big container, add 4 cup oats, 2 cup powdered oats, little less than 2 t salt, 4 t cinnamon, 1 cup sugar, 3/4 cup powdered milk, 3/4 cup wheat germ (opt). 
For serving, add about 1/2 cup dry mix to 1 cup water for 1 1/4 cup serving. 

I hope that helps!

Warning: this post contains mildly political views.

Commentary: Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer

By Jeffrey A. Miron
Special to CNN

“Eliminate those policies that generated the current mess. This means, at a general level, abandoning the goal of home ownership independent of ability to pay. This means, in particular, getting rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that pressure banks into subprime lending.”

I read that CNN op-ed yesterday. A lot of what Mr. Miron says makes sense on the gut level and the macroeconomic level. I also know that 10 out of 10 economists will agree that something needs fixing, though they won’t be able to agree on exactly what that fix should be. I suppose that’s why I read an opposing viewpoint published in the Economist yesterday, too. : ]

From my armchair, I like one of Mr. Miron’s basic premises especially. Home ownership is a lovely idea, but not above all other economic concerns. A family I respect very much who lives down the street from us were married for 19 years before they settled into a mortgage. Renting isn’t the end of the world, and I’m seeing dozens of families stuck in their “starter homes” because they can’t unload them for near their original value.

However, laying all this at the feet of Freddie, Fannie, and the Community Reinvestment Act is a bit of a stretch for me. It just doesn’t pass the sniff test. But then I found this this bit from a Business Week blogger which explains recent (like, in the last decade) developments more articulately than I can. BW takes a cursory look at some more recent financial inventions that have a more immediate contribution to our current mess than Fannie, Freddie, and the CRA.

The way I see it, the current problem owes a great deal of its current voracity to the motivation of the banks who got into the act chasing greed with subprime, ARM, and all that mess compounded with these weird financial inventions like credit swapping to the point that their own financial officers can’t explain exactly how they were making money (with echoes of Enron). These guys really ought to fail. As long as we support corporate personhood, we should also hold those corporations to “personal” responsibility for their actions.

It would be my hope that when the greedy dinosaurs start going extinct, that the smaller, more community-focused entities will be agile enough to continue serving their communities. Yes, I’m looking at USAA (our bank) when I say this. There’s also the adage that, if a corporation is too large to fail, then perhaps it’s too large to exist.

I also like to point out that after the market took a 777 point drop yesterday (7% of its net worth — not much compared to many other recent events — 14% for 9/11, 22% for Black Monday, 1987), it’s already rallied over 200 points this morning. These investors are a skittish lot.

Let’s go back to my armchair for a moment. Seems to me that, with the numbers floating around I’ve been reading, $700B would pay for a huge percentage of the current number of mortgages in trouble outright, rather than propping up the institutions that are foreclosing on those properties. I mean, with a mean home cost of $250k going into $700B (which is a ridiculously large and incomprehensible number when you write out all the zeroes) just about 3 million homes could be paid for free and clear. Not that I’m suggesting we buy these people’s houses free and clear, after all, they made poor choices with their finances in many cases. But we shouldn’t simply allow them to be out on the street when the banks decide they have to take all their money back, even if it’s in the form of mortgaged property.

So, then. What is the $700B actually going for? Ah yes, to buy lousy securities that are poison to these companies. It simply doesn’t make sense that the government buying out $700B of bad debt will somehow magically make that same debt profitable again.

Yes, the larger picture of gloom is the credit crunch and how local businesses will fail when banks everywhere start refusing to float loans, but once these community-focused banks peer out from behind their ramparts, they’ll pick up the ball and help keep their community entities solvent. Yes, I really believe in Jimmy Stewart’s Bailey Building and Loan, too.

The “bailout” deal I’m looking for goes something like this: 120 day moratorium on foreclosures so consumers can get their feet under them. Federal compulsion for lending banks to get out of the investment business (30-1 investments with mortgage backed securities? Get real!). Some kind of limits on executive compensation packages (and in some cases, reclaiming that money if the institution actually fails — it completely burns me that the ousted CEOs of Fannie and Freddie kept their golden parachutes). And finally, take all that money and reinvest it back into local institutions, US infrastructure, and education so we, as a country, can get back to our historical core competencies — science, engineering, medicine, and all that industrious sort of stuff that used to make us great.

What it all comes down to for us is that, there’s not too much to worry about since we’re not carrying any consumer debt. The rising price of oil affects basic living expenses more than the credit crunch, so cost of living isn’t too much of an issue (aside from trickle-down hysteria). Our household is going to continue trying to live frugally and take the long view on our existing investments.

In the meantime, if you think there’s something fishy about borrowing another $700B to apply a band-aid to a much larger problem, please contact your representatives without delay. I don’t presume to know what the fix is, but I have a strong suspicion that it’s better than the current plan.

Update:
Just got an excellent explanation from Dennis Kucinich about where the $700B comes from in my inbox. Chew on this for a minute:

Here is a very quick explanation of the $700 billion bailout within the context of the mechanics of our monetary and banking system:

The taxpayers loan money to the banks. But the taxpayers do not have the money. So we have to borrow it from the banks to give it back to the banks. But the banks do not have the money to loan to the government. So they create it into existence (through a mechanism called fractional reserve) and then loan it to us, at interest, so we can then give it back to them.

Confused?

This is the system. This is the standard mechanism used to expand the money supply on a daily basis not a special one designed only for the “$700 billion” transaction. People will explain this to you in many different ways, but this is what it comes down to.

Oy.

On September 21st, 2008, Sarah (Gaertner) Cook asked:

Why do you make yogurt homemade? Is it healthier? More cost-effective? Taste Better? Seems like there are other things that you do homemade that are commonly purchased items. Isn’t it difficult to homemake so many food items when you have 5 kids? Just wondering.

Kit
What a fantastic group of questions! Though I admit that the way you phrased them made me laugh, then I started thinking, the answer here is more deserves its own post. (I even asked Heidi to chime in, and she did — what a sport!)

(more…)

(This is one of those things that has been sitting on my desktop mocking me for long enough. I barely edited this post. It’s raw and rambling. I apologize for that a little, but I just had to get it put to bed.)

I have bipolar disorder. The official diagnosis is BP-I. I was formally diagnosed when I was 16 and had a major crash after the death of my mother in that year, but I know that I had early onset BPD. It just went unnoticed for many years. This is not surprising. The Pierces are wading in the shallow end of the gene pool when it comes to mental health, and we each had our own raging problems to deal with. It only stands to reason that I could easily escape notice. What was to notice in the first place? I was a polite kid, and bright, and really fun to be around. Except of course when I wasn’t any of those things. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m not going to air out the various diagnoses of my family members — it’s not my place to do that here. What I am going to write about is what bipolar disorder is like, at least as much as I can articulate from the front row.

(more…)

I’ve been enjoying reading the great ideas on the Frugal Friday post, so I thought I would take a turn posting some ideas.

These are links to breakfast recipes we’ve made that our kids love. They can all be made in batches and frozen for quick reheating later. We made many of these to prepare for Joseph’s arrival. I loved having them handy during this rough postpartum period when we’re exhausted. The kids are very NOT exhausted and for some crazy reason still expect us to feed them! All of the recipes could be made healthier (and probably less expensively) with substitutions, but I’m too tired lately to think about that. My sister makes her own sour milk to substitute for the buttermilk, you can decrease sugar and butter in the recipes by just a bit (healthier & cheaper!) and so on… play around with them, of course.

Buttermilk pancakes, Kit’s favorite to make.

Pumpkin pancakes with apple cider sauce.

Cream of wheat pancakes.

French toast sticks and “breakfast cookies.” The cookies are a granola bar adaptation.

Sweet bread or muffin recipe.
Vanilla yogurt for having with milk, yogurt or applesauce.

Enjoy!

We had the greek chicken pitas again tonight. This time I tried a cup of wheat flour instead of all white. They were delicious. And the chicken was perfect, if I can stow the humility for a little while. 160°, little bit of oregano, salt, and pepper — the digital probe thermometer is your friend. Homemade tsatsiki sauce. We didn’t grow the cucumber ourselves, but ask me again in a week. We have one that will be ready by then. I admit that we didn’t use our own yogurt for it this time around, but that’s only because the last batch I made up was a lightly sweetened variety. The tomato, however, I grew. One finally survived Bennett.

Then Heidi and I served dinner. Bennett by himself ate almost one chicken breast by himself. Everyone enjoyed the pitas, first with chicken, then with peanut butter and honey. Some kids sampled the tomato, others the cucumber, and we had a really enjoyable dinner. This is one of those fine times when, not only do I make a fantastic meal that everybody enjoys, but I totally knocked it out of the park.

And then it hit me as I was working on the dishes, that this was the high point of my day. The delicious food, the elation of having created this excellent meal with my own hands, and the family enjoying it all was giving me a high I couldn’t beat. I made pitas, dangit. With my own two hands. And the kids helped me. And they were good. I know that thousands of Greek people do the same thing every day and don’t think anything of it, but I’m not Greek. And I made pitas.

Any meal of the day — breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack — I look forward to. I admit, I’m not always in the mood to cook, but I’ll also admit that I like that I get to cook breakfast and dinner. I’d be sad if Heidi were to decide that she would rather do all of the cooking — we currently split the duties between us.

Food is primal. We require it. We celebrate with it. We grieve with it. I have no aspirations to being a chef or anything like it. But I so enjoy cooking.

Heidi created this beautiful slideshow. She’s so sweet.