Rice Krispies Squares with Flax

I have to give credit where it's due: this is BASED on a recipe from "Deceptively Delicious", but I think it's one of those times when you just modify a recipe that's already a tried-and-true household favourite! My Rice Krispies Squares use 1/4 cup butter and the "DD" recipe only calls for 1 Tbsp of margarine with more marshmallows than I normally use. Less butter, more marshmallows. How will this NOT turn into a rock??? So, I took the concept, not the actual recipe. I'm posting my RK squares recipe, which is in the white recipe book :)

1/4 cup butter
9 oz large marshmallows, about 35 (5 cups mini)
6 cups Rice Krispies (I usually do more, like 7 or 8)
1/2 tsp vanilla

DD modification: add 1/4 cup ground flax

Put the butter in a microwave safe bowl. Zap it for 30 seconds, or until it's melted. Use a silicone spatula to coat the entire inside of the bowl with the butter. Your clean up will be faster if you do this!

Add marshmallows. Microwave for 1 minute at a time, stirring after each minute, until the marshmallows are mostly melted. (Total microwave time is often 2 minutes.)

Add vanilla, then Rice Krispies. Stir well until all of the cereal is coated. Dump the cereal into your 9x13 pan. Press down firmly using a dampened spatula or your dampened hand. Chill about 2 hours before cutting.

Notes:
Oh my word! It takes longer to type out the recipe than it does to make it!!!

I use a coffee grinder to pulverize my flax. Grinding the flax seems to double the volume, so if you want 1/4 cup ground flax, put about 1/8 cup not-ground flax into the grinder.

Other variations:
1) add colored sprinkles after pressing it into the pan.
2) Use Cheerios or a combination of the two cereals. Very tasty with Apple Cinnamon Cheerios.
3) Use Lucky Charms.

Taquitos

"Deceptively Delicious" refers to these as "Tortilla 'Cigars'". Not sure why a mom would want to refer to a kid-friendly food as "cigars". Seems like a lack of judgement, so taquitos it is! Very yummy with "Avocado Spread". Jessica Seinfeld says, "These are very popular at our house. They pack well for picnics or lunches on the go because they can also be served cold. For a vegetarian meal, leave out the chicken or turkey."

1 cup sauteed or roasted chicken or turkey, cubed or pureed
1/2 cup shredded reduced-fat Cheddar or American cheese
1/2 cup yellow squash puree
1/2 cup carrot puree
4 ounces reduced-fat or nonfat cream cheese
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 large (burrito-size) whole-wheat tortillas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with aluminum foil or parchment paper.

In a large bowl, stir together the chicken or turkey, cheese, squash and carrot purees, cream cheese, garlic powder, and salt.

Cut the tortillas in half. Place one half on the work surface with the straight edge facing you. Spread about two tablespoons of the filling along that edge from one side to the other. Starting at the edge, roll the tortilla into a cigar shape, completely enclosing the filling. Place seam-side down on the baking sheet. Stuff and roll the rest of the tortillas the same way.

Bake until the tortillas begin to brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving.

Notes:
First, can we just talk about this reduced-fat or nonfat business? I think it was more of a trend at the time this book was written, because the stuff I'm hearing now says the flavour that is lost by reducing the fat is replaced by sugar or salt. This isn't good! Decide what you want to do in your household.

I bought already-roasted chicken. This would be great for turkey leftovers!

I didn't have squash, so I did carrot only. I added a little of the water I had boiled the carrots in to allow it to blend into a very smooth puree, but then allowed it to drain through a coffee filter and colander. I also added a couple of tablespoons of yellow onion in the carrot puree for extra flavour.

I doubled everything, but didn't measure anything :)

I didn't use cream cheese, but rather sour cream in the approximate equivalent amount.

I put the taquitos on a baking stone, which worked well. I baked them for 8 minutes at 450.

If I had made these with corn tortillas, I bet they would have tasted just like the store bought ones!

Aloha Chicken Kebabs

The first of hopefully many recipes I'll try from "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld. Here's what the book says, "Crunchy and sweet -- an unbeatable combination for kids. You can leave out the coconut if your kids don't like it, but once the chicken is cooked, the coconut is very hard to see."

1 cup whole-wheat breadcrumbs
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1/2 cup sweet potato puree
1/4 cup pineapple puree
1 Tbsp reduced-sodium soy sauce
1 large egg white, slightly beaten
1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast or chicken tenders, rinsed, dried, and cut into "fingers"
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp all-purpose or whole-wheat flour
Nonstick cooking spray
1 Tbsp olive oil
10 to 12 short wooden skewers

In a bowl, mix the breadcrumbs with the flaxseed meal. Set aside.

In a second, wide, shallow bowl, combine the sweet potato and pineapple purees, soy sauce, egg white, and coconut, and mix with fork; set next to the breadcrumbs.

Thread the chicken fingers lengthwise onto skewers, using one skewer per chicken finger. Sprinkle both sides of the chicken skewers with salt and then with flour. Dip the chicken into the egg-white mixture and then roll it in the breadcrumbs until completely coated.

Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and set it over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add the oil.

Add the chicken in a single layer and brown for 3 to 4 minutes on one side, until the breadcrumb coating is crisp and golden. (Turn down the heat if the coating browns too quickly -- coconut burns easily.) Turn the skewers and cook 4 to 5 minutes longer, until the chicken is cooked through and browned all over.

Notes:

The store was out of flax, so I did without. I'd like to try it next time though because I love anything with flax!

I didn't have the sweet potato puree on hand, so I skipped it.

I'm not sure why she wants only the egg white and not the entire egg, so I used both.

I'd like to try it with sweetened coconut too. It has a very distinct flavor and I think it's the coconut the kids are tasting and saying they don't like :( Johan is saying it's already sweet.

Mixed reviews from the five of us, but I think this will be a keeper when I tweak it for our tastes.

Welcome to Holland

I got Chicken Soup for the Soul; Children with Special Needs edition for Christmas. Here's the first story. Apparently it's a very well known piece, but I've never heard it before. Written by Emily Perl Kingsley. (Update, January 16, 2012: while not everyone can relate to having a special needs kid, I believe everyone can relate to life circumstances being different than what we thought it would be, what we dreamed of, or hoped for. This story is for those people too. LN)

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability -- to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip -- to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags, and off you go. Several hours later, the plan lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean 'Holland'? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland, and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine, and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around ... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills ... and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy ... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away ... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But ... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.