Days 28 & 29: The Joy Of Giving Our Food Away! (3 Moms)

It is the special joy of giving to others even when our resources are low that makes us treasure what we have. This is especially true when we discover something new for us to make  that is delicious.

The last two days have been a little different. We've been yo-yoing the entire time, mostly with sandwiches and pasta. But Jerah did make herself some homemade macaroni and cheese yesterday, which reliable sources informed me turned out very well.

Wednesday morning I needed to make a snack to take to our last homeschool group meeting of the school year, but I couldn't think of anything to make! I didn't have any chocolate chips or fresh vegetables, so I couldn't make chocolate chip cookies or bring carrot sticks. And someone else was already bringing popcorn (which I do have in abundance).

But finally, with the help of Jerah's kids' cookbook, I came up with a solution: Honey Cookies—no chocolate chips required.

I'd never made this recipe before, but it looked pretty much like a no-brainer, so I went ahead and gave them a try. And they turned out SO delicious! I hadn't expected to like them so much, but I'm definitely going to be putting this recipe in my regular snack/dessert rotation.

Honey Cookies*

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup softened butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I added probably an additional 1/4 cup to make the batter stiffer)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

Beat together until smooth: margarine, sugar, honey, and egg. Stir in the remaining ingredients and mix well. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto ungreased cookie sheets and bake in an oven preheated to 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes. I also sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on the cookies immediately after removing them from the oven. The cookies stayed so soft and delicious, even after a few hours!

makes about 36 cookies

*recipe adapted from the Alpha-Bakery Children's Cookbook

Then on Thursday, I had the joy of giving to a friend who just gave birth to her second baby. Since the only meat I had left in the freezer (other than maple-flavored sausage) was three boneless skinless chicken breasts, I decided to make her chicken and "gravy" in the crock pot and then put it over some rice.

Crock pot chicken is one of our favorite—and easiest—meals to make. All I do is put the frozen chicken breasts in the crock pot, then cover them with two cans of cream of chicken soup. (Dad, if you're reading this, that means I empty the contents of the can onto the chicken—I don't just set the cans on the chicken!). Then I set the crock pot on low for 5-6 hours. The chicken always turns out perfect, and the "gravy" tastes great over potatoes or rice.

Another friend made a side dish and dessert to add to the meal, so at least I didn't need to come up with those as well.

So, without any more main-dish meat in the house, we're having baked potatoes with beans and pizza for the remainder of this week's meals, which actually works out just fine. I didn't get to making the baked potatoes yesterday, so we'll plan for those on Saturday. I will be making pizza tonight, however, which everyone in the family is really looking forward to.

I'm also really excited about the project that we 3 Moms ("We 3 Moms"—for some strange reason I'm humming a Christmas song right now!) have been hard at work on for the last few weeks. We'll be revealing our "secret" very shortly, so make sure you come back soon to find out what it is! And don't forget to head on over to Toni's and Kate's blogs to see what they've been cookin' up this week.