Zucchini Pancakes

I'm all about feeding my kids vegetables.  But, I'm not really into hiding them in their food to trick them into eating them.  While that will help them to get some much needed nutrition, hiding the healthy food fails to teach children good eating habits. So, when I "hide" something in the food in an effort to increase nutrition or use something up, I tell my kids.  I might peel something to make it more visually appealing, but I don't lie to them about what is in the food.

This is important part about the magic muffins ( see my muffin post) at our house.  I can put just about ANYTHING in these muffins, and my kids will eat them.  They LIKE finding out what is in them.  AND THEY EAT THEM!

That's because they taste good.

Vegetables taste good.  They really taste good when you mix them with sugar, eggs, flour, etc. . .

So, after such amazing success at getting my kids to eat all kinds of fruits and vegetables in muffin form, I decided to go really brave with pancakes.  I have put zucchini in pancakes before, but this time, I went wild.

I replaced all of the milk with pureed zucchini.

Yes, I really did.  I took photos to prove it.

My kids loved them!

That's because they were delicious.  I don't mean to brag or anything, but I just know that somebody reading this needs a little push over to the dark green and leafy side.  Make something with "hidden" veggies in it, but tell your kids.  It's fun and it teaches them two important lessons.

1. They can trust Mom cause she tells them what's in the food and doesn't try to trick them into eating things.
2. Vegetables taste good in sweets.

Okay, well that's the blog for this week.  Have a fantastic day and make sure to load yourself up on veggies today!

Baking With Becky and Heather- Orange Rolls

Prepare to salivate.  This week Heather and I made some out of this world orange rolls.

This is an example of too dry dough. 

Orangeliscious!

a quick knead to get the dough ready to form

cutting the dough into 12 pieces

1 pieced rolled out and ready to be a rope

a roll getting dipped in the orange rind + sugar

a roll ready to be dipped



Heather's rolls are ready to rise




So are mine.




The finished masterpiece!


 We started with the super easy one hour bread dough recipe. We used a half recipe because we only wanted one pan each.  Here is the basics of this recipe, given in the full amounts. 

Add the following to a large mixer and blend for 30 seconds.
10 1/2 cups flour
3 Tbs. Instant yeast
1 Tbsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar

Next add:
4 1/2 cups warm water
3 quarter sized squirts of liquid soy lecithin

Mix for one minute and check the consistency.  Your dough should be really wet.  So wet that you think it is too wet, but not soup. 




After you have enough water, mix for about 7 minutes.  Then the dough is ready to form.

Because we used half a recipe, we divided the dough in half and then cut each of our sections into 12 pieces. We rolled them out, tied them in knots, dipped them in  melted butter and the orange rind/sugar mix and put them out to rise.  In my oven, they bake in about 14 minutes at 350.  My oven cooks fast.  Then we glazed them while warm.

For each dozen rolls add the zest of one orange to 1/2 cup of sugar.  Melt 1/2 cup of butter.  Dip each roll in the butter and then in the orange sugar and place it on a greased cookie sheet. 

For the glaze, combine 1 cup of powdered sugar, 1 Tbsp. butter, 3 Tbsp. orange juice, and 1 tsp. of vanilla. 

Enjoy!