Would you do me just a quick little favor? Would you mind just filling out this quick little form? I’m contemplating some changes in the future for this little blog of mine, and I’d love your input.

Since my blog “niche” is just a wee bit scattered (uh, ADHD anyone??), I want to know why you are here reading this blog. Are you skipping every few posts, just waiting for the posts you’re most interested in? Or are you loving every single word I write? (Ha ha.)

Filling this out should take you two minutes, max. Unless your kids interrupt you every twenty seven seconds while reading it, then I can’t guarantee anything!

As part of our Five in a Row homeschool studies this year, we spent a week learning about France as we ‘rowed’ the book Madeline, by Ludwig Bemelmans.* (I feel so grown up, talking about ‘homeschool studies‘ like we do more than just color and read books.) We read about how French children often enjoy a cup of hot chocolate and a baguette or a croissant for breakfast.
Best plan ever, right?

For our afternoon  snack (slacker mom is no morning person), we drank a cup of rich hot chocolate. However, I bought the wrong chocolate and wasn’t able to use it with Abigail’s milk allergies. Instead, I made her a quick cup of her own hot cocoa. In fact, hers was finished and cool by the time our hot chocolate reached a simmer on the stove.

Yeah. It’s quick.
I think I’ll be using this recipe again.
and again.
and again.
and again.
(No diet comments, mmKay?)

This recipe is perfect for those times when you are out of handy little hot cocoa packets or just need a dairy free option without spending an arm or a leg!

 Recipe from Hershey’s Recipe Collection Cookbook*

*denotes Amazon affiliate links

I love fresh baked bread. It’s an absolute comfort food for me, and instantly takes me back to the days when my mom would make homemade rolls for dinner or a loaf of bread for an afterschool snack. I am a huge fan of Rhodes Rolls. Actually, I still am. They are dairy and egg free* for Abigail, and they are so versatile; from breadsticks to rolls to pizza pockets/mini pizzas to fried bread (‘scones’ here in Utah) to… well, just about anything, really. I love to have a bag or two in my fridge at all times.
*manufactured in a facility that processes food containing wheat, milk, soy, and seeds 

The concept of Rhodes Rolls is really simple. Don’t tell the Rhodes company, but I’m on to them:
it’s just frozen dough.
Obviously, we can do this the good old fashioned DIY way. Making your own Rhodes Rolls take a little extra time but it is so worth it. It’s about a million times cheaper (I did that math! 1,000,000 times cheaper) and you can control the ingredients without putting any preservatives or, um. Other stuff.

The first step is make some bread dough. I use this recipe here and it’s fantastic. I’m going to blog about it “one day,” but the recipe promises bread, from first scoop of flour, to fresh from the oven in one hour. Anyone can make this bread. The “lecithin” she refers to is soy lecithin, and that’s the only ingredient: soybeans. I use this one here and was able to find it at Macey’s, a local grocery store. It lasts forever, so the cost is worth it.

After you’ve mixed your bread, do not let it raise. Form it into balls for your rolls. Out of curiousity, I weighed my little dough balls. I formed balls that were about 2 oz. in size, a little bigger than store bought. I think 1.5 oz would probably be a closer match to the Rhodes brand, but that’s up to you and your level of OCD.

Place your rolls on a sheet pan. I left about a half inch gap between each roll. I didn’t want them touching so I could store them later in a Ziploc bag. Then, like I made my frozen chocolate chip cookie dough, I flash froze it in my deep freezer but a regular freezer works fine too. I left them in there overnight, but you just need them to get nice and solid before you pull them out.

When you pull them out, they will have risen just a tiny bit before the yeast hibernates in the cold. Take them off your pan and throw them in a Ziploc bag. They can then be stored for 3-6 months or so in your freezer. Like Rhodes, I pull out exactly the number I need for dinner that night and reseal the rest in the Ziploc bag.  OR…

Place 12-15 rolls in a 9×13 pan. I like my rolls to squish together so I set them about an inch apart on the pan. Let rise in a warm location (the warmer it is, the faster it will go) for 2-3 hours until double in size.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Then…

Brush with melted butter or dairy-free margarine (optional) and enjoy!

Look at my Pinterest board for all the fabulous things you can do with Rhodes Rolls, DIY or otherwise! By the way, I still buy Rhodes Rolls when I’m low on time or ambition. I just feel better feeding my family the homemade version!

Oh and just for kicks, I have this little peek behind the scenes for you:

Have you ever tried making your own frozen Rhodes rolls?
What store bought recipes do you like to ‘DIY?’

Or I actually have a meal plan, I’ve defrosted the meat (cue Hallelujah chorus!) only to find I don’t have all the ingredients necessary for the meal. Which really stinks. I want credit for at least trying to make dinner, yet my family seems to feel different.

Sometimes, I feel the Internet was made just for me. It gets me, you know?
Also: Ben & Jerry’s, with their Chocolate Therapy ice cream? They totally get me.

When I came across this totally awesome idea, I was just floored. Here’s the concept, y’all:

{I’m telling ya. Internet was made for me. You can thank me later.}
My favorite part of this new and totally free service (we’ll get to the paid options in a minute) is that they take your local grocery ad and make kid friendly meal plans based on what’s on sale. You can pick and choose recipes based on taste preference, then they create a grocery list for you. Even better, the list can be printed or emailed (to hubby, perhaps?).  There’s even an app for your iphone or Android!

Here’s a super quick video on how it works:

***SPECIAL OFFER***
When you use the promo code SUMMERFREE to sign up, you will receive the current service FREE FOR LIFE! This is a limited time offer so click below to sign up!

Edited to add: I need to clarify the paid service option, I completely forgot. Ordinarily you would get 3 recipes per week for free and then a low introductory rate of $5/month. My understanding, based on playing around with the service, is that using the SUMMERFREE code, you will not need a subscription!

Disclosure: Links in this post are affiliate links. I have personally signed up for this service and so far I’m loving what I see. I hope you’ll use my link to sign up and that you’ll love the service like I do!

Last week I posted about a delicious vegan chocolate cake that is simple and delicious. However, there is no sense in talking about cupcakes if you aren’t going to mention the frosting. As my dad always says, the cake is just the vehicle to transport the frosting. In other words: it’s all about the frosting!

This is a very easy variation on the American buttercream that I’ve posted about before. The difference being that we’re going to adjust the ingredients to be allergy friendly/vegan, and ta da! We’ll have a great, inexpensive frosting that even the most allergic child can eat.

My frosting is all about the perfect ratio, which is 2:1 powdered sugar to butter. In this recipe, which I’ve halved from the original, you need 1 lb. powdered sugar and 1/2 lb. (2 sticks) of butter. Of course, we can’t use real butter, so use your favorite substite. My favorite is a little hard to find but when I do find it, I stock up on it. It’s called Best Life Buttery Baking Sticks, and I’ve only found it at Walmart. They also sell it as a spread, but don’t use that for baking.

There are other options as well; Nucoa has a mild margarine-y taste (and trans-fat), and I hate the taste of Earth Balance (plus it has flax and my husband is allergic to flax of all things), but if you’re used to the taste, it’s fine to use. I don’t think it looks right, it has this weird transclucent quality… anyway. I’m sure that’s just me. :D {If you don’t have food allergies, just know that finding a margarine without any milk products is hard to do, so when you find one that tastes decent and is safe for your child(ren), it’s blog worthy!} 

Hmm, I got off topic on a margarine rant. Where was I?

Oh yes. The recipe! One of the tricks to any successful butter-based frosting is beating your butter/margarine and powdered sugar together very well. Keep that in mind as you begin. Here’s the recipe!

WAIT! By vegan, I just mean “dairy and egg free.” Don’t run away. Don’t be afraid. This is a NORMAL recipe. It’s got REGULAR ingredients, that can be found in YOUR cupboard. No tofu involved, I swear. Also: easiest chocolate cake recipe ever. And did I mention it’s reallyreally good?

It only figures that I went to all that effort of mastering a delicious chocolate cake recipe, only to have to go back and start learning how to bake for Abigail, with no milk or eggs (and no almonds, thank you). As a young toddler, it wasn’t that hard to trick her into eating something… similiar. I mean, I still give her bagels and call them “donuts” while the rest of us nosh down on the good stuff. But as she gets older, the kid gets wiser.

I love to bake. But it’s got to be easy, no fuss, and I don’t want to do it twice if I can avoid it.
And it has to be delicious.
Otherwise, what’s the point?

I won’t waste time mentioning how many dozens of cupcakes I threw away, trying weird variations of recipes. Finally my sister in law brought this ‘vegan cupcake’ to a family party for my sister and her milk-allergic dad. It’s so simple. By far my easiest cake recipe. Just dump in the dry ingredients, follow with wet.

Unfortunately I didn’t think ahead to measure my ingredients for the strawberry frosting. It’s basically my recipe for Rich Chocolate Frosting, but I omitted the vanilla and cocoa. I used strawberries as my liquid instead of milk and just added strawberries until it looked about right. :D

The recipe comes from the amazingly fantastic allrecipes.com.

For the sake of people in my life who think that eating raw cookie dough is akin to ingesting toxic waste, I will not tell you about my love for cookie dough. I will also not tell you about how weird some people are. :)

But I will tell you that having frozen cookie dough in your freezer is the best.thing.ever. You want a midnight snack with no effort? Pop a couple of cookies in the oven. Because eating them raw is delicious nasty.

Quick family home evening treat? Bake up a whole tray. Unexpected visitors? Throw some in, and look like the star hostess you aren’t. Perhaps they will overlook your messy living room if you serve them cookies fresh from the oven. It’s worth a try, right?

I’m not going to hash over how to make cookies. In fact, I already have. You can check out my favorite cookie recipe, as well as the dairy and egg free version. I will tell you that the dairy and egg free version doesn’t work quite as well in the freezer (Egg Replacer works best immediately), but it’ll do okay in a pinch.

Today we’re going to talk more about the technique to perfect frozen cookie dough. Not only am I a bit of a cookie dough fanatic (not to eat… just to look at… and smell… or something) but I did a short stint as a baker for Lion House Bakery. They bake cookies, but they also freeze a lot of cookie dough to send out at their cafes in Deseret Book. Hence that fresh-baked-cookie-smell once you walk in the door that encourages you to buy more books!

The trick, as with almost all frozen foods, is flash freezing. You don’t need any fancy equipment for this, just a freezer, a cookie sheet, and a *cookie scoop if you have one. (If you don’t, it’s no big deal, trust me.)

Mix up your cookie dough. I like to do a double batch because that means some to bake and eat, and some to save for later! Then you’re going to scoop up your cookie dough and put it on your cookie sheet. I like to have parchment paper on my cookie sheet, but I was out, and it works either way.

Don’t spread your cookies out like you’re going to bake them, put them right up close to each other. I scoop my dough out in 4×3 rows, to get a dozen in each little section. If you just scoop your cookie dough into a Ziploc bag, the dough will freeze into one big lumpy ball. Trust me, that will not bake well.

Then put your cookie dough, as is, in the freezer. You can throw some plastic wrap over it if you want, but I usually don’t bother. Keep it in there for a few hours or overnight. Try not to forget it like I have done on occasion. :)

The next day, pull out your cookie sheet.
(If it’s been in a deep freezer, I recommend using hot pads to grab the pans, those metal pans get cold!)
Pull the cookie dough off the cookie sheet and throw them in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag. Then place them back into the freezer, and they’ll be ready when you need them.

When you are ready to bake, just pull them out of the bag and place them on a cookie sheet 2 inches a part. Oh, preheat your oven first. :) 350 degrees. The best part of these cookies is that they bake up fine even frozen. Keep an eye on them and bake them for about 15-20 minutes. Pull them out when they are just starting to get brown on the bottoms. The tops can even look a little jiggly still, but the sides should be set. Let them sit on the pan for about 5 minutes, then move them to a cooling rack until cool.

I had whipped this simple dessert up the day before and was prepared to serve it that night. Before I served it though, I told everyone who wanted a piece that they must say something nice about everyone at the table. Jordan went first, and, thinking hard, came up with something nice to say about everyone. Then around the table we went, including little Nicole. So this dessert was dubbed Nice Cream Pie by our family, and I think it’s a tradition we’ll stick with. When I make this pie, you better have nice things to say if you want a piece! (Oh, and it was amazing what a transformation our family went through… the snippiness ended and everyone was happy and laughing by the end of dessert. And I’m sure the sugar rush had nothing to do with that!)