Cheddar Cheese Crackers, Gluten and Egg Free

Crunch, munch crackers are a must. Especially yellow ones, how my kids like to call them.
Beauty of these recipe is that you can choose the cheese of your choice and every time crackers will be different. Like spicy with pepper jack, zing with feta or creamy with fontina.
Love to have some homemade crackers on hand when on the go.
Selection of store bought gluten free crackers is limited and to be honest all those crackers are very pricey.
This is amazing recipe, super easy and quick to make. Also there is no eggs in this recipe.

Homemade Gluten-Free Cheddar Cheese Crackers

Makes 70 crackers, 1 inch size

2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 stick butter, cold
1/4 cup kefir
1 tsp. sea salt, optional
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
Combine the butter, cheese and kefir in the bowl of a mixer

and beat at slow speed until blended. Gradually add the flours until just combined, scraping the sides of the bowl if necessary. The dough should have all pulled away from the sides of the bowl and formed a ball.

Roll out the dough with a floured rolling pin until the disk is about an 1/8-inch thick. Cut with a cookie cutter shape no bigger then 1 inch.

Place dough 1 inch apart on the lined baking sheet and sprinkle with salt.

Let the crackers first rest in fridge for about 20 minutes and then transfer the pan to bake for 12-16 minutes or until golden.

Cool on baking sheets or wire racks for 20 minutes.
When completely cooled store crackers in an airtight container.

Enjoy!!

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Field Trip to Centennial Farms:)

Centennial Farm is a three-acre working farm at the OC Fair & Event Center created to educate youth about agriculture and its importance to daily life. The Farm is home to fruit and vegetable gardens, livestock, and the Millennium Barn. Children and adults can view pigs, chickens, cattle, goats and more while strolling though gardens of lush vegetation. Centennial Farm offers tours as well as general public visits.
It was a great field trip, very educational and kids really enjoyed it.
They learned a lot.

School bus is here and we are ready to go!

Beautiful Centennial Farms grounds.

Let’s learn all about Dairy and MILK:)


Milking station.

Fresh milk:)

Farmer Fred, amazing educator, great with kids:)

All about chickens and eggs.


Organic garden is amazing, great variety of different kinds of fruits and vegetables:)

For more info please visit:
http://www.ocfair.com/ocf/CentennialFarm/index.asp

Batman Chocolate Cream Cake

Few days ago, my son-superhero Batman helper had a birthday. Theme was off course Batman and everything was in the style. I did my best job to assemble and decorate cake from different resources. It wasn’t easy task to do but at the end, all the smiles and hugs are the best reward. Little Batman liked it a LOT! You can see little finger touchy touch on the right side of the cake…..
This was a chocolate light fluffy cream cake. Just a tiny bit of whip cream topping for decoration. Really tasty and super fun:)

Let’s Read….about Food and Cooking!

After every great meal, it is nice to relax for a while, grab a good book, read and learn something new and interesting.
My favorite books to read are cookbooks or books related to food, preparing food, ingredients, nutrition….
Even my kids started to pick books from library which have a content related to food and cooking….how suprising is that?
Well why not, there is a lot of educational material envolved, great graphics and even better stories.
Currently I am glued to The Elements of Cooking by Michael Ruhlman.

This book is a great tool. There is a lot of information that I am familiar with but still a lot of interesting stuff which are brilliant to know if you are serious about cooking.
Anthony Bourdain wrote the introduction, as always very nicely.
There are several elements:

Stock: Ruhlman gets pretty serious about stocks, how to make them, how to ruin them, and while you don’t really need to make your own, it’s still a good idea to try.

Sauce: Yes, we can make them too. This is where stocks come in very handy, and how to get the most out of the techniques.

Salt: Why it’s important, and despite the constant railings of those who wish to ban it (along with that other necessity in the kitchen, fat), how to learn how to use it.

The Egg: I love eggs, both as ingredient and tool. Ruhlman shows here how the egg can leaven food and make it rise, bind things together, and work wonders. He also includes a nifty little set of instructions on how to prepare eggs in the most basic ways, from boiling to poaching to scrambling.

Heat: Dry heat, moist heat, and poaching, along with a few other refinements. Once you start learning how to manipulate heat, and learn how to do it, you can pretty much learn to cook anything.

Tools: Ruhlman maintains that you really only need five tools — a chef’s knife, a large cutting board, a large sauté pan, a wooden spoon, and a large nonreactive bowl. Well I have to add few more, I appreciate kitchen tools:)

I love story time with my kids. It doesn’t have to be before bed time, it is important to read and whatever time of the day we pick, it’s a perfect time for interesting books and stories.

Alvie Eats Soup by Ross Collins is the book which catch my eye. It is educational but still very funny and interesting.

Drawings are great and the whole idea for the cover is super cute. It is about picky eaters…I don’t really want to write about what’s inside the book….when you visit your local library try to find it, you will like it:)