White Whole Wheat and other healthy cooking gems

I'm so excited about white whole wheat!  As many of you out there know, I love a blog called Trainer Momma.  She wrote this interesting post (http://www.trainermomma.com/2010/11/not-an-oxymoron-white-wheat-flour/) explaining that white whole wheat is not an oxymoron.  I had no idea before what white whole wheat was!  I found some King Arthur brand white whole wheat flour at my local grocery store here several weeks ago, and I've been using it in place of white flour in everything I bake.  I love it!  It's pretty much the same nutritionally as regular whole wheat flour, but it tastes a lot more like white flour.  It makes my goal of eating more of my grains as whole grains just that much easier.  

I've been trying to eat healthier lately, so I've also been using the trick of replacing oil or butter in baked goods with apple sauce.  It makes cookies less rich, for sure, but still really yummy.  I love this trick.

I also learned recently via a blogging buddy that you can substitute banana for eggs in baked goods like cookies.  Who knew?  The weekend before last we had our friend Varnali over, and she doesn't eat eggs.  I made chocolate chip cookies with banana instead of eggs and I replaced half the butter with apple sauce, and they were fabulous.  They tasted a little like banana, so if you don't like bananas this is not a good option for you, but if you don't mind it's great.  Just substitute 1/2 banana per egg.

So, here are a couple of recipes that I've been loving lately:

Healthy Cookies (from Trainer Momma, http://www.trainermomma.com/2010/06/healthy-cookies/)

1/2 cup applesauce, unsweetened

1/2 cup honey

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

2 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 1/2 cup rolled oats

2 cups chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients together.  Spoon onto cookie sheets sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.  

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

This batch made 53 cookies.  That makes it 88 calories each.  

I made these the other day for a snack to take to Andrew's play school class, but I only had one egg in house, so I used the banana trick and it worked like a charm.

Pizza Dough (from the "internet")

1 1/3 cups warm water

2 Tbs olive oil

1 Tbs honey

1 tsp salt

2 cups bread flour

2 cups white whole wheat flour

2 tsp yeast

Add ingredients to bread machine in the order listed. After rolled out, brush the dough with olive oil, add toppings, and bake at 450 degrees for 10-20 minutes. Makes two 14-inch pizzas.

Hartford

We went this weekend on our first mini-trip since moving here, which was to drive up to West Hartford to visit Paul's brother, Steve, and his family.  We drove up Friday night and came back Saturday night, so it was just a short visit, but we had a great time.  Steve and Jeanette have three great kids: Carson, Maleah, and Brooklyn.  All the kids slept in one bedroom and Paul and I had an air mattress in the living room.  I was a little nervous about Andrew sleeping in a room with other kids, and in a bed that's not his own, since he's been a very inflexible sleeper in the past and he's all about routine these days, but he did great.  We arrived late on Friday and he had fallen asleep in the car but woke up when we arrived.  Paul explained to him where he would be sleeping and where we would be sleeping.  Then we just took him up to the bedroom where his cousins were already fast asleep, put him down in Carson's vacant bed with his stuffed mouse and his blanket, and he curled up immediately and went to sleep.  He was so tired!  He didn't even care that he didn't have his head on a pillow or that he was in the middle of the bed.  Then about 7 am the next morning I heard all four of the children coming down the stairs into the living room together.  Carson and Maleah where very sweetly helping Andrew down the stairs.  Andrew didn't seem concerned at all that he woke up in a totally unknown place.  He last saw his cousins around Christmas time, so he still remembered them.

Andrew had a ball playing with his cousins, and all their toys!  I feel like I got a little break this weekend because Andrew was so entertained by the other kids that I didn't have to find ways to keep him occupied.  I see what my mom means when she says that having two kids is actually easier in some ways than having one, because they entertain each other.  I often find myself wishing that Andrew had an older sibling to play with him.  Too bad you have to raise a baby and toddler in order to have an older sibling for your next kid.  I know that when/if we have another kid, Andrew will be a great big brother.  He has a sweet personality and he is really fascinated with babies these days.

We didn't take our camera with us, but here are some cell phone pics of Andrew and Paul at the children's museum in West Hartford.  

Andrew digs for dinosaur footprints

Paul carries Andrew on his shoulders even in outer space

A Jersey City Poem

A poem I composed about a week or so ago, about dog poop on the sidewalks here:

Sidewalks

After last night's heavy

rain

Only the largest turds

remain

We had some crazy heavy rain and wind over a week ago, and it seems that ever since then the weather has been pretty good.  Thursday was up to 62 degrees and sunny, then Friday was up to 75!  I took Andrew to our nearby park on Thursday and the playground was just crawling with kids.  We saw the first appearance of the ice cream truck as well, though I resisted the temptation.  Friday we went to a park in the next city over for our ward's playgroup, and had a great time there as well.  

This past Wednesday and Thursday our landlord's handyman finally came and fixed various things in our apartment, including replacing the washer hookups in the bathroom.  We've now ordered a washer/dryer!  It is a little unit that is a washer and dryer combined into one machine.  It doesn't require a higher voltage electrical outlet or a dryer exhaust vent, so it' perfect for our bathroom.  We can't wait to NOT do laundry at the laundromat!  It seriously takes up at least half a day for me to do the laundry at the laundromat 4 blocks away.  Here are the steps:  get Andrew and the stroller down the stairs, stroller Andrew (I don't trust him to walk holding my hand 'cause he always lets go of my hand and runs ahead) to wherever the car is parked up the block and around the corner, strap him into the car, drive the car to the curb in front of the house, lug the laundry down the stairs and into the car, drive the laundry to the laundromat, lug the laundry into the laundromat while keeping Andrew from running around the parking lot of the laundromat, load the laundry into the machines (I do two loads: one warm water and one cold water) while keeping an eye on Andrew running around the laundromat, let Andrew help me put the quarters into the machine which takes quite a while since he drops about every one before getting it into the slot, put Andrew back into the car and drive home, then drive Andrew out to the laundromat about 40 minutes later to switch the laundry to the dryers then drive home, then drive Andrew out about an hour later, or whenever I can due to Andrew's nap schedule, pick up the laundry, drive it to the front on our house, lug it up the stairs while Andrew waits in the car, then park the car, load Andrew into the stroller and wheel him home, then get Andrew and the stroller back up the stairs into our apartment.  It's not like it's the worst living condition or anything, but it will be so much quicker, easier, cheaper, and more convenient to just take the clothes from the hamper in the bathroom, throw them in the machine in the bathroom, turn it on, and go about the other gazillion little things on my list.  I can't wait!

Now we're just waiting for the electrician to come convert our electrical outlets from two prongs to three so we can move the last of our bookshelves into place and unpack it, as so I won't have an extension cord lying across my kitchen counter anymore.  Yay!