Savory Cheese and Seed Cookies

Aren't savory cookies just crackers? Well, no, not really. These little guys still  have the texture and appearance of cookies so I think the name is pretty spot on. These cookies are an adaptation of a recipe from Healthy Lunchboxes for Kids. These are a great snack for everyone in our house. I like to eat a couple with a serving of fruit.

Ingredients

- 1 cup grated cheddar
- Scant 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (this flour ground from soft white wheat, rather than hard wheat) or substitute all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp hulled pumpkin seeds
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup crispy brown rice breakfast cereal (use white rice cereal if that's what you have)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone baking mat.
3. Put cheese and butter in a medium mixing bowl and cream together. Add in the flour, baking powder and seeds.
4. Put rice cereal in a plastic zippered bag and break up with a rolling pin. (This is an awesome kid job!) Add to flour mixture and mix everything together, using your hands.
5. Squeeze into small balls the size of cherry tomatoes, roll between your palms, then flatten between your hands. Place on baking sheet and flatten a little more with a fork.
6. Bake 10-14 minutes until golden. Cool on a wire rack. Once fully cool store in an airtight container or freeze.

Makes about 18 cookies

Grocery List Template

I'm continuously making efforts to get my life more organized, but grocery shopping is something I've nailed. I've always shopped with a list, but it was just a scribbly jumbled thing and inevitably I would get home and discover that I forgot 5 items and then would waste time and money going out to a shop to pick those things up. Enter the spreadsheet!

This template follows the general order of most grocery stores. As you complete one section of the store you can fold that part under to make it more visually streamlined. I often do this and I find that it's helpful. Also, sometimes I have a trip to two stores planned or am picking things up at the Farmers Market (I only go to two stores if one store lies along a route I'd be taking anyway that week). In that case I'll highlight items in two colors so it  becomes two lists in one. I post mine on the fridge for us to add things that we run low and then as I do my meal planning for the week (more on meal planning soon!) I fill out the rest.

Download my grocery list template here!




This simple list has saved me loads of time that I can then spend doing more interesting things than grocery shopping. It means I rarely have to backtrack in the store and I need to make less trips elsewhere to pick up items I didn't get.

The template prints two lists per sheet. Print on paper that's already used on side to make it more eco and budget friendly!

I hope someone else finds this template as useful as Ido.

Storing Parsley to Last for Weeks

I recently discovered a way to keep parsley fresh and ready to use for 3 weeks at a time. I got the idea from An Everlasting Meal, which is an absolutely wonderful book.

This method is a little tedious, but it really only takes 1/2 an hour once every 3 weeks and you can watch TV at the same time. For this batch I actually played Monopoly while I was doing it!

Step 1: Wash the parsley, stems and all, and dry as much as possible using a salad spinner.

Step 2: Pick all the leaves of the stems (this is the tedious part). Add the stems to your vegetable scraps for making broth another day.

Step 3: If the leaves aren't totally dry spread them out on a surface until they are. Pack them in a clean air-tight container and store in the fridge.

Step 4: Chop as needed and use to add brightness to nearly everything you make!

I use a repurposed pickle jar as my vessel of choice. For one, it's just the right size to hold an average bunch of parsley and secondly, it's clear so there's no chance of me forgetting that this parsley is in the fridge since I see it every time I go in.