Low Sodium Life: Cheddar Biscuits

This recipe comes from one of my go-to books on low sodium cooking, 500 Low Sodium Recipes by Dick Logue.  Bryson had been telling the kids about biscuits for one reason or another and saying we should make some sometime.  I know that Bisquick is really high in sodium, so I started looking for an actual recipe to make instead.  Now, these biscuits, the way I make them, are higher in sodium than the author intended; Meijer doesn't sell sodium-free baking powder or low sodium cheddar cheese, so I have to make due with what I have access to.

In any case, here is the recipe!  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Cheddar Biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sodium-free baking powder (I use low sodium baking powder in its place.)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup skim milk
1/2 cup shredded low sodium cheddar cheese
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley

Combine flour and baking powder.  Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbles.  Stir in milk and cheese and beat until combined.  Spread on a greased baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 to 12 minutes.  Combine melted butter, garlic powder, and parsley and pour over hot biscuits.  Cut into squares.

These are best served warm, so often I bake them as I am putting the main dish and other side dishes on the table and getting everyone settled.  That way they are as fresh and hot as can be for dinner.

Enjoy!

Catching Up with Odds and Ends

I'm not a huge fan of writing odds and ends posts where not all the pictures pertain to one topic, but I have fallen behind a bit on my blog and all the photos I've wanted to share so here we are.

Santa gave one of the kids some silly putty for Christmas last year, and after Mollie discovered it in the drawer one day I thought I'd let her play with it.  She'll be okay as long as she's sitting in her booster seat, I thought.  I thought wrong.

I thought really wrong.

Mollie had been begging to finger paint again for a while, and I finally found a good time to let her go to town with it.  After all, finger painting is a messy affair.

Which is probably why Baylor was perfectly content to play with his Legos.

Mollie is typically a mama-or-nobody kind of gal, but one day she and Bryson actually got to snuggle up on the couch and read together.

I don't think I've mentioned it on here before, but my husband has a mistress who comes along every two years.  She's a five-ringed mistress called The Olympics, and for seventeen days this past July she stole my husband away from me.  The first day alone he was glued to the computer, just waiting to see results and lusting after live streams of all the action.  *sigh*

Mollie decided she wanted a few tattoos a few weeks ago, so I decided to hook her up.  Little did I know that she was after a couple sleeves of tattoos.

Frogs on one arm, butterflies on the other.  Jealous?

Later that day we went to my parents' house to swim and have a funky little dinner.  My dad had been itching to cook some food over the little copper fire pit in the pool area, so he whipped up some hobo pies and brats and away we went.   Challah bread pizza hobo pie, anyone?

Baylor enjoyed a hobo grilled cheese sandwich with his sweet corn.

As did Mollie.

Then, after dinner, we enjoyed a delicious mixed berry pie with a side dish of hilarity, compliments of Mollie.

And, to make this a truly odds and ends post, here is an awesome picture Baylor drew.  When I asked what it was, he told me it was a Fox 17 truck.  (Fox 17 is a local television station around here.)

Amalia Jumping Bean

Miss Amalia has always been a bit of an active little girl, but it seems like lately she's really upped the ante.  Just check out her jumping skills!  

Just look at that form!

South Haven: The Odds and Ends

Here are the last of the pictures I'm going to share from our trip to South Haven.

Sleep was pretty hit-or-miss on the trip, due in no small part to the Monsters Inc. incident that occurred just days before we left.  Needless to say, this was a common sight on our trip.  

Baylor is a bit better at not napping, so he wasn't as bad off as his dear sister was.  

Many nights of the vacation, we played an awesome game called Ticket To Ride (for those of you that like Settlers/Siedler, this would be right up your alley).

I brought our pediatrician's handbook with us just in case, but the kids thought it was for general reading as I had stowed it in the toy/book bag.  Bless Aunt Christine's heart, she read it to them anyway.

There were a few rousing sessions of hide-and-seek, even though the house didn't have a ton of good hiding places (at least not on the floors we restricted the game to).  Oma made due, though.

She showed them how to hide their eyes while counting, too.

But Mollie, as usual, has her own way.

One day when the weather wasn't so nice, my mom, sister, and I took a trip to Michigan City to do a little fall clothes shopping for the kiddos.  We came back with, among other things, these awesome faux glasses for Mollie.  Doesn't she look like a little hipster in them?!

The town of South Haven was great, perfect for exploring and strolling around.  There were lots of neat shops and good restaurants.

The strolling really was great there.  

We actually discovered our favorite restaurant on our last night of the trip.  Brix Corner Oven, located on Eagle Street, featured flat bread pizzas fired in their outdoor wood-fired oven.  All the seating was outside, and we picked the perfect night (albeit a little windy) to try it out.  It definitely wasn't your typical pizza fare (e.g., pepperoni, sausage, etc.), but it was most certainly delicious.  If you're in the area, I highly recommend trying it out.

Oh, and did I mention that Mollie took all the pictures while we were there?  Well, she did.

She needs a little work keeping the whole subject in the frame.

But she's coming along, that's for sure.

After our dinner at Brix, we took a walk out on the pier.

It was super windy, but that made it all the better to watch the kite boarders.

It was a gorgeous evening.

But very, very windy!

When we got back to the beach house we enjoyed some cupcakes we got earlier in the day.

And the kids got to wash their hands in the sink, something they'd been pretty fixated on all week.

The next day, after packing up, picking up, and visiting the farmer's market, we headed home.

The kids didn't actually watch a movie on the way home, but they love wearing the headphones anyway.

It was a wonderful vacation in a lovely town.  Hopefully we'll visit again soon!

South Haven: Beautiful Beach Days

We went to the beach many more times during our trip, and each time the kids got more and more comfortable there.  By the second visit, we were able to get them into the water, a real bonus since it got pretty hot some days.

We built sandcastles.  They make amazing sandcastle forms these days!

We ate things both healthy ...

... and not-so-healthy.  The kids got to try Hawaiian shaved ice for the first time during this trip; I'm pretty sure they agreed with us that it is much more hype than actual enjoyment.

Mollie and I even flew a kite together!  (Thank you, Grandma/GG for the awesome pocket kite!  It was amazingly easy to get into the air and fly.)

By the end of the week, we had a couple rains here and there and the water got cooler and more tumultuous so we didn't frequent the beach as much.  We knew we'd never be able to keep the kids out of the water if we went, so we decided to just find other things to do.

I'm so thankful for this trip, in part, because it started our kids on a love for the beach.  The sun, the surf, the fine sand ... who could really ask for more on a sunny Michigan summer's day?