Lefse Makin' Fun

 

It's that time of year again...time to transform my kitchen into a flour-filled mess...

Lefse!

Here's the recipe we used this year. (Yeah, I change things up all the time, so we never know from year to year what we're doing)

10 lbs potatoes, peeled
1/2 C butter
1/3 C heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar (I did not use this)
2 1/2 C all purpose flour

Here we go.

 

First, peel those taters.  Here's where child labor comes into play...

Next, cook the potatoes.  Add them to boiling water for about 20 minutes. You don't want them too mushy.

Cooked potatoes

After they've been cooked, comes the fun part of ricing.

I don't use a ricer. Mine doesn't work right - so I use a handheld grater that works like a charm. Even for those little slaves of mine...

Little Helpers

Riced potatoes

 

It's hard work, but fun work. You really want to get them all riced while they're still warm. 

Next, once they are all riced, mix in the butter, salt (sugar, if you so choose) and whipping cream.  This step is best to do while it's still warm. 

 

 



 Do NOT add the flour yet! (I learned that the hard way one year and tossed out an entire batch of 10lbs of potatoes)

Let them sit until they are cooled off to room temperature.

NOW, you can add the flour. (Only, and only when you're ready to actually form the balls and roll out...)

And once you mix in the flour, it's time to make the balls. You can make those any size you want, really. I've played around and our family seems to like our lefse bigger. Naturally, then, we make the balls of potatoes and flour bigger.

Now comes the fun part of rolling! And here is where I get REALLY messy.  Flour is the key!  You need to mess up those clean tools (Oh, yeah, you'll need a lefse flipper and corrugated rolling pin)

Before you begin rolling, however, turn the griddle to 400 degrees. Sprinkle some flour on it and once it's brown, you know you're ready.


Lefse flipper (new one because my last two were used as swords) and rolling pins

 

 

almost ready...

Little helpers rolling out the lefse dough

 

The trick to rolling out the dough is short, gentle movements. As my kids learned, you can't use too much pressure or your dough will simply stick to the counter (or whatever you're rolling on)



Now comes the tough part of getting that beautiful little lefse circle off the counter. And here's where all that flour comes in. I flour the heck out of the rolling pin and the counter. And the dough. And apparently, myself. Anytime it starts to get sticky (like the longer it sits) I add flour. And more flour.






Then, time to slide that lefse flipper under the dough and get the dough onto the griddle.

Make sure the flipper is flat as possible! And then just slide it under, lift up, and then roll it off the flipper onto the griddle.




And now it cooks. Once it starts to bubble, it's time to flip. Flipping on the griddle is nothing compared to getting it peeled off the counter. Just stick the flipper under and lift. Then cook until the other side bubbles and you're done!

 

I just pile up the finished lefse on aluminum foil.

And the best for last: clean up.  It's always great fun to take a look at myself and see just how bad the flour situation is...

Travis says that I alone am the reason aprons were invented. You should see the flour hand prints on my butt!  The dog is covered in flour, the cat has a streak down his forehead, and anything and everything I touched during this entire process is white.

So clean up time begins. And the ultimate worst is that corrugated rolling pin. Sure, it makes the lefse all pretty and such, but it's a naughty word to clean up. So there I sat, at 12:30am, scrubbing. And swearing. And using a sharp knife to poke the dough out of the little crevices. But it's done.

The lefse's done.

And my kitchen looks like nothing happened at all.



Recycled Crayons

There are a lot of uses for those broken, tiny crayons floating around the house. One that we do a lot is the melted crayon 'stained glass' craft (in another post) and yesterday we tried making 'new' crayons.

What you need:

muffin tin
oven
broken crayons
We started out by sorting the crayons by color - good activity for little hands!

Next, we took those crayons and made some even smaller and then put them in a smaller muffin tin. (You know, that one that makes the cutest little muffins?) The boys decided to make some multi-colored crayons as well as combining similar colors. It was actually very fun to experiment and see what happened as they melted!

Then we baked them. Bake at 300 degrees for about 10 min. Once they've melted, take them out of the oven and let cool. (They'll be very 'watery' at first - don't be alarmed!) And after the pan is cool to the touch, put in the freezer for about 5-10 min.  After they've settled, they should actually just pop right out of the pan. (I had a sharp knife ready to pry them out, but didn't need it)

Once we popped them out, we had to admire our work before coloring with them. These are cool enough to even put in a jar as a decoration! But my boys are coloring with them instead...

These are great for 'small' hands - I wish I'd have made this when the boys were toddlers!  But they're still enjoying coloring with them. I'm going to try other ways to form them, but this was super easy to do!

Our heritage colors: Swedish, Irish, English/Norwegian/American flag colors

And by the way, the muffin tin cleaned up perfectly - and easily!

Walnut & Cranberry Oatmeal in a Jar

In a one quart jar, add the following in the following order:

2 2/3 C old fashioned oats
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt

Once those ingredients are in the jar, gently shake it to mix it all together. Then add:

1/2 C dried cranberries
1/2 C walnuts
1/3 C packed brown sugar (as top layer)

Label to attach to jar:

Cranberry Walnut Oatmeal

Shake jar to mix together all ingredients.  Add 2 C boiling water to contents of jar. To make 1/2 jar, just make sure to mix entire jar together. Add 1 C boiling water to 1/2 contents of jar (or microwave on high for 2 minutes.)

Yuletide Sand Art Cookies

These posed to be a bit more difficult - the original recipe that I found didn't quite fit in the jar. Once I figured out the measurements and the layers, things worked out better. So I did all the work and here's what I found to work for these 'pretty in the jar' and 'yummy in the tummy' jar cookies:

Dry Ingredients to be Layered in Jar:

1 C flour (bottom layer)
1/3 C green sugar
1/3 C red sugar
1/2 C flour
3/4 C dried raisins
3/4 C white chips

Colored sugar: I just added drops of food coloring to white sugar and used a whisk to mix it thoroughly together.

Use a funnel to pour ingredients in the jar and then 'tap' jar on flat surface to help settle the layers.

Label for the jar:

Ingredients You'll Need:

1/3 C butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Beat the butter until smooth. Add egg, vanilla and almond extract and continue beating until well combine. Stir in contents of jar.

Drop by teaspoonful onto cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Enjoy!

Add labels, fabric and an optional bow and there you have it: Yuletide Sand Art Cookies!

Citrus Peppermint Body Scrub

Last year, I did Candy Cane Bath Salts. This year, it's Citrus Peppermint Body Scrub. It's a great body scrub to keep by kitchen sink for those rough hands.

Ingredients:

1 C carrier oil (grapeseed, olive, almond or any combination)
(I acutally used a combination of those three and included vitamin E oil)

1 C sea or epsom salt

1 C sugar*

 *you can just use all sugar or all salt, but the salt is much more abrasive by itself

15-20 drops of lemon essential oil

15-20 drops of orange essential oil

15-20 drops of peppermint essential oil

Combine all the oils in a small bowl. In a seperate bowl, combine the salt and sugar. Add the oil to the salt/sugar mixture and mix everything together. Store in an airtight container (such as a glass jar).

Add labels such as directions for use and ingredients and fabric or a decorative bow and viola! you've got a great (and easy) jar gift!

Rice Krispie Apples

These treats are awesome! I made a bunch for my son's class during their apple unit and apparently, they were a hit!

Ingredients:

1 10 oz bag of marshmallows

4 tablespoons butter

1 small box of cherry (or strawberry) Jell-o

red food coloring

6 cups rice krispies cereal

tootsie rolls

green gum drop candies

non-stick spray for your hands

wax paper

Directions:

*  Melt butter and marshmallows in pan - stirring constantly

*  Once melted, add package of Jell-O and food coloring to desired redness

*  Once the Jell-O, marshmallows and butter are mixed well, add cereal (I combined all in a separate plastic bowl)

*  Combine until the cereal is well coated

*  When slightly cooled, spray hands with non-stick cooking spray and mix ingredients well and then begin to form into apple-shaped balls

*  Slightly indent the top for the tootsie roll 'stem'

*  Stick half of a green gumdrop next to the tootsie roll  (cut the gum drops in half)

I went back and formed each apple a little more to make sure they retained their apple shape.

For us, one batch made about 18-20 apples (on the smaller side...but perfect for kids)





Apple Cookies on a Stick

We made these for our Pre-school Garden of Eden/Forbidden Fruit Sunday School lesson.

What you'll need:

*  1 pkg of sugar cookie dough (or I suppose you could make       homemade cookies, but come on, who's got the time?)
*  flour
*  apple shaped cookie cutter
*  popscicle sticks
*  wax paper
*  1 can of white frosting
*  M & M candies
*  small tube of brown/black gel icing 
*  green food coloring
*  red food coloring

1.  Prepare the cookie dough
2.  Roll out dough on floured surface
3.  Cut out apple shapes from the 1/4 in thick flattened dough
4.  Put the cookie apples on the cookie sheet
5.  Place a popscicle stick on top of the cookie and slightly push down
6.  Use a small piece of dough to cover the portion of the stick that is on the cookie
7.  Bake as directed

After baking, let cookie pops cool on wire racks

While baking & cooling, prepare the frosting:

*  Take about 3/4 the container of frosting and add RED food coloring (as much as you'd like depending on how red you want it)
*  Take the other 1/4 and add GREEN food coloring (again, however much you'd like)

Once cookies have cooled, frost them!

Frost the apple red, the leaf green, and use the brown or black gel icing for the stem. (Pretty much common sense, eh?)

If you would like to add a smiley face and eyes simply put 2 dots of icing for the eyes and then put the M & M candies on that (the frosting will cement the candy) and then use the gel icing to draw a smile.

Eat!