Breadsticks and biscotti

Yesterday hubby came home from work saying he needed to bring "something" to work for Food Day (today!) and the theme is Italian. My first thought was that everybody'll bring pasta (turns out nobody did, go figure), so then my thoughts turned to these Easy Peasy Bread Sticks. I also remembered a biscotti recipe I used once that was quite easy and turned out well.

Usually when your 3-year-old "helps" in the kitchen, it's more of a hindrance than an actual help, right? Well, to my utter delight, I actually found myself being helped by Miss M! She did much better rolling out the breadsticks than I had anticipated and ended up doing almost all of them herself! I did the messy work...dipping in butter and Parmesan.

Don't you just love seeing little chubby hands hard at work? She was so pleased with herself. My in-laws came over this evening and she proudly proclaimed, "I made them! Mama and I made them. I did a great job!" (She's so very modest, you know.)

The breadsticks, I might add, turned out amazingly! The recipe was perfect in every way.

The biscotti recipe I used is D'Amaretti Biscotti from allrecipes.com. I used anise seed instead of lemon zest and left out the almonds since I didn't have any on hand. It also took about twice as long to toast the slices (10 minutes on each side, rather than just 10 minutes). Miss M was very interested when I separated the egg yolk from the whites. I don't think she'd seen me do that before.

I'd have loved to drizzle melted chocolate over them...if only I'd had the time...and the chocolate!

Hubby says both the breadsticks and the biscotti were big hits with his coworkers -- even the "big wigs."

Comments

MFW ECC: What's different this time around?

I am so excited to go through Exploring Countries and Cultures again. The last time my kids were so little -- 3rd grade and Kindergarten. And now they are in 5th and 8th grades! They have grown so much over the past five years. As I began to think about our plan for this year, I realized two things: 1) my gifted eldest child remembers just about everything we covered in ECC the first time, and 2) my younger one hasn't had many of the basics that ECC covers. So I was faced with a dilemma -- how do I adjust ECC to suit the very different needs of both children? How do I shift the focus for my 8th grader to aspects of ECC that she hadn't spent time on before (such as types of governments, imports and exports, etc.) while also taking my younger child through the more foundational information that he missed when he was just a kindergartener? ECC is designed to be parent-led, family learning, with a supplement for 7th and 8th grade. But I came to the conclusion that I need to deco...

Review: Seed Starting by Gary Emmett (an ebook)

As I've already confessed, I am a plant murderer . I have, however, had marginal success with container gardening. The past year or two I started seedlings with my dad, which means the kids and I dropped a few seeds in pots and my dad cared for them. Once they were established outside, I was able to keep them alive long enough to harvest a few peppers and tomatoes and have a pretty pot of flowers on my doorstep. (At least until a horrid heat-wave and drought came along and killed them all; it's hard to keep containers well-watered when it's that hot!) In spite of the 10+ inches of snow on the ground right now, it's time to think about starting seeds again and I figure if I'm ever going to develop a green thumb, I better start educating myself! That is why I jumped at the opportunity to read Gary Emmett's book Seed Starting: The First Step to Gardening . (affiliate link) Available for your Kindle or Kindle app from Amazon. Currently priced at $2...

Hawaiian Sweet Rolls

Hubby and the kids are huge fans of King's Hawaiian rolls. I was spoiled by homemade bread growing up, so I don't care for the processed taste/texture, but more than that, my pocketbook just can't take the hit on a regular basis! In order to make everyone happy, I embarked on a quest to find the perfect roll recipe. It had to be sweet (very sweet, actually!) to please Hubby and soft to please the kids. After quite a few tweaks and trial runs, I've settled on this as the perfect Hawaiian sweet roll recipe. Ingredients 1 cup milk 1 cup pineapple juice (can substitute pear or apple juice, or water for a less sweet roll) 3 large eggs 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt 1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter, slightly cooled 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 4 tablespoons wheat gluten 1/2 cup sugar (white or brown, we liked it both ways!) 3 teaspoons yeast (3 1/2 if planning to freeze the rolls before baking) I made mine in the bread machine (as usual), but you ...

CHRISTEPHI

Search This Blog