Peppermint Marshmallows

This recipe has been a long-time favorite of the Row kids, especially when plopped into a mug of steaming hot chocolate. We found it on the internet a decade or more ago, attributed to Food.com user JanetC-KY (who may also be known as JanetB-KY).

Ingredients

• ½ cup confectioners' sugar
• ⅓ cup cornstarch
• 2 (¼ ounce) envelopes unflavored gelatin
• 1⅓ cups sugar
• ⅔ cup light corn syrup
• ½ cup crushed peppermint candy
• ⅛ teaspoon salt

Directions

Into a small bowl, sift together the confectioners sugar and the cornstarch; line a 13x9 inch baking pan with non stick foil and spray foil with non stick cooking spray; sift 2 tablespoons of the sugar/cornstarch mixture into the pan, tilting to coat the pan; set the rest of the mixture aside for later.

Place ⅔ cup water in a large bowl; sprinkle with gelatin; let soften for five minutes.

In a medium heavy bottomed saucepan, heat sugar, corn syrup, candy pieces and salt over medium heat until sugar and candy pieces are dissolved, stirring occasionally; slowly mix into bowl with gelatin.

Beat gelatin/sugar mixture on high speed with electric beater until light and fluffy, about 15 minutes; spread into prepared pan and smooth top; dust with 2 tablespoons of the reserved sugar/cornstarch mixture and let set at room temperature for 2 hours.

Lift marshmallow block from pan using foil; with a wet knife, cut into six squares.

Spread remaining sugar/cornstarch mixture onto a baking sheet; invert marshmallow blocks onto baking sheet and cut each square into 9 smaller squares.

Toss marshmallows in sugar/cornstarch mixture ans set on a pan to set for an additional hour; store loosely covered at room temperature.

Blessing Time Confession

Our motivation for giving is Love and Obedience.

Our knowledge concerning giving is Faith and Expectation.

According to Deuteronomy 8:18, it is the Lord that gives us power to get wealth that He may establish His covenant.

Therefore we believe the Lord today for…

Jobs or Better Jobs
Raises and Bonuses
Settlements and Benefits
Sales and Commissions
Estates and Inheritances
Interest and Incomes
Rebates and Refunds
Checks in the Mail
Gifts and Surprises
Finding Money
Bills Paid Off
Debts Demolished
Royalties Received
Businesses Begun
Businesses Blessed
Education Paid For
Relationships Restored
Godly Relationships Established
Houses, Properties, and Buildings Acquired
Deals and Better Deals
IRA’s and 401K’s Restored
Walking in Divine Health and Peace

It is Blessing Time!

Lower-Carb Persimmon Pudding

¾ cup buttermilk
¾ cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups persimmon pulp

1½ cups swerve confectioners

24 short squirts of liquid Splenda

3 eggs, beaten

⅛ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1¼ cups finely-ground almond flour
2 tablespoons coconut flour

½ stick butter

Mix buttermilk, cream, soda and baking powder together; set aside and let foam. Mix pulp, sweeteners, eggs, salt, vanilla and cinnamon together. Add to buttermilk mixture and add flours. Mix well. Melt butter in 9"x13" pan; coat pan. Pour mixture into pan and bake at 325°F for 45 minutes.

The whole dish has 212g carbs, 64 protein, and 198g fat
If cut into 24 pieces, each piece will have 9g carbs, 3g protein, and 8g fat.

Ken's Ultimate Cauli-Mac-n-Cheese

In September 1995, I came across a recipe in Bon Appetit called the Ultimate Macaroni and Cheese, and for years it had been my go-to recipe for a special mac-n-cheese. Its taste wasn't for everyone -- some either love, love, love it (as did I), or they dislike it (maybe because they're accustomed to mac-n-cheese from a box!)

On LCHF, macaroni's out, as is flour, but neither of those made this recipe special.  Instead, this recipe's magic comes from the various creams, the extra-sharp cheddar, and the spice mixture... all of which carry over perfectly into LCHF wonderland.

Ingredients

3 cups roasted cauliflower, diced (1/2" chunks)

5 oz. extra-sharp cheddar cheese, diced (1/2" cubes)

1 1/3 cup half-n-half

1 1/3 cup heavy cream

2/3 cup sour cream

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

3/4 tsp. worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1/4 tsp. freshly-ground black pepper
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

5 oz. extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 350º

Combine the roasted cauliflower and the cubed sharp cheddar cheese in a buttered 9x13 pan.

Mix together the creams, eggs and egg yolks, the worcestershire sauce and the dry ingredients, then pour over the cauliflower and cubed cheese.

Top with the grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese.

Bake at 350º for 45 mins -- the cauli-mac should be set and starting to brown.

Low Carb Chocolate Gravy

1/4 c. Cocoa powder
3/4 c. Splenda
1 qt. Heavy Cream
4 oz baker's chocolate, unsweetened
Xantham Gum
1/2 stick butter

Grandma Row's Coffee Cake

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter
2 cups flour, divided
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup raisins
½ cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°

Mix together the sugar, brown sugar, butter, and 1 cup of flour.
Set aside 2 tbsp of the mixture to use later for a topping.
To the main batter, mix in the remaining cup of flour, as well as the egg, buttermilk, baking soda, vanilla, and raisins.
Pour the batter into a greased and floured 9x13 cake pan.
Sprinkle the reserved sugar/flour/butter mixture over the top, along with the ½ cup chopped nuts.

Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until done.

Grandma Row's Butterscotch Brownies

Ingredients
½ cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs (Note: Grandma's recipe calls for 2 eggs, but an extra egg helps the brownies cook in the center)
1 ½ cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350º
Mix together the butter, sugar, and eggs.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt.
Add to the mix, along with the vanilla and nuts.
Mix together (may need to mix or stir by hand because the batter is very thick).
Spread into a well-greased and floured 9x13 pan.
Bake for 35 minutes.

Grandma Row’s Strawberry Cake

Ingredients
1 box yellow cake mix
1 small box strawberry jello
3 T. flour
¾ c. oil
4 eggs
½ c. water
16oz container of frozen strawberries with sugar, thawed
1 box powdered sugar (1 lb.)
½ stick butter, melted

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350º

Mix together the cake mix, jello powder, flour, oil, eggs, water, and half (8 oz) of the strawberries. Pour into a greased-and-floured 9x13 cake pan.

Bake 30min or until a toothpick comes out clean.

While cake is baking, prepare the icing by mixing together the remaining 8oz strawberries, the powdered sugar, and the melted butter.

When cake is finished baking, remove from oven, poke holes in the cake with a fork, and pour the icing over the cake.

Novella's Banana-Nut Cake

Banana-Nut cake was a specialty of Mikesha’s grandmother, Novella Roberson. Over the past decade or so, Mikesha has taken up this part of her grandmother’s mantle, and Banana-Nut Cake is becoming a tradition at Williams-Row Thanksgiving dinners.

Ingredients for Cake
1½ cups sugar
⅔ cup shortening
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
4 tbsp buttermilk
3 mashed bananas (ripe or overripe)
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup chopped walnuts
2 eggs

Ingredients for Icing
¼ lb butter, allowed to warm to room temperature
1 lb powdered sugar
2 mashed bananas (ripe or overripe)
½ cup chopped walnuts

Cake Directions
Preheat oven to 350°.
Cream sugar and shortening until light and fluffy.
Add eggs, beating lightly.
Stir in mashed bananas.
Sift in dry ingredients and stir to moisten.
Add vanilla and stir.
Bake in two 8-inch round pans at 350° for 25 minutes or until set.

Icing Directions
Make sure butter is at room temperature.
Cream butter and powdered sugar.
Mix in bananas.
If not thick, add more powdered sugar to reach desired consistency.

Note: This icing recipe never does get thick like butter-cream icing, it’s usually pretty runny or “gloppy”.  Meringue powder (from the cake decoration section) can help stiffen the icing somewhat.

Household Police

We had just finished dinner, and Hadleigh, 2 years old at the time, and Karson, 4 years old, were chasing each other through the house. As Hadleigh chased Karson, he ran through the hallway and shouted, "Stop in the name of Jesus," and guess what? She stopped! Nothing like pulling the Jesus card when you want something done.

There Is No Two

Here's a couple of funny things we overheard today

The two three-year-olds are arguing because they'd seen a toy commercial and both of them wanted it...

Kid1: Dad, Karson wants the same thing that I want!
Me: It's OK if you both want the same thing.
K1: No! I don't want him to want it!
Me: What if we bought two of them?
K1: There is no two.
Me: Well, what if I bought seven of them?
K1: There is no seven. Sorry!

---

And at dinner time...

5-year-old: I don't want no mashed potatoes.
Mikesha: I don't want any mashed potatoes.
5yo: Me neither!

Kalebisms

My six-year-old, Kaleb, came up to me and said, “I need you to save up $1000 for my band.”

I replied, “I think you need to save $1000 yourself.”

Kaleb came back with, “Well, can you at least help me save $1000 with your money? I need a sound system for my band.”

---

A little later, Kaleb said to Kyle (my 17-year-old), “Kyle, we should save our money to buy my guitar.”

Kyle said, “Kaleb, why am I saving my money?”

Kaleb said, “Ok... I guess you can use my amp.” (He doesn't have an amp, but I wonder if he's thinking about that sound system.)

---

The other day, Kyle said something about needing a personal trainer to help him get in shape. Kaleb said, “OK, fine, I'll do it.”

Kaleb climbed up on a box and said, “We're going to start with some push-ups — get down and give me 20.”

Kyle did a couple but then said he was done. Kaleb said, “Good, ‘cause I'm done too.”

Row Recipes: Chocolate Cobbler

Chocolate Cobbler,
originally uploaded by
ginnerobot.

a.k.a. Hot Fudge Cake
a.k.a. Chocolate Pudding Cake
a.k.a. Devil's Float

I first heard about Chocolate Cobbler this past Wednesday on the Pioneer Woman's site.

All the ingredients were things we keep on hand; so I made a mental note to try it sometime.

Thursday, my Comcast internet connection wasn't very comcastic, and I found myself with extra time on my hands -- enough time to try out the recipe.

Mikesha said it was "ridiculous" -- meaning ridiculously tasty.

The dessert was so good that we decided we should make a larger version on Friday for our family night.  And so we did.

And then tonight, after we spent most of the day painting our family room, we decided we needed a little something to reward ourselves for our hard work, and so we made another one.

One dessert, made three days in a row.  Ridiculous!

By the way, we made the regular 8x8 version the first time. That's much too small when you have 10 people in the house.

The following is our 9x13 version:

Chocolate Cobbler

Ingredients
2 cups self-rising flour (or 2 cups all-purpose flour + 4 tsp baking powder + ½ tsp salt)
7/8 cup coca powder, divided (into 6 Tbsp and ½ cup)
2½ cup sugar, divided (into 1½ cup and 1 cup).
1 cup milk
2/3 cup melted butter
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
3 cups hot tap water

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°

Stir together the flour, 6 Tbsp cocoa, and 1½ cup sugar.

Stir in the milk, melted butter, and vanilla extract and mix until smooth.

Spread the batter into a 9x13 baking dish.

In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup sugar, 1 cup light brown sugar, and ½ cup cocoa.

Sprinkle the sugar and cocoa mixture evenly over the batter.

Pour the hot tap water over everything. DO NOT STIR! (Yes, this looks weird; weird enough to call in the kids and show them just how weird it looks and say, “Can you believe this is going to turn into something good?”)

Bake for 40 minutes or until the center is set. (This took 40 minutes Friday, but 45 minutes Saturday -- maybe the weather was different?)

Don't bother trying to stick in a knife to see if it comes out clean -- it won't -- there's way too much gooey goodness inside. Just look (or even prod with a finger) to see if the top of the cobbler in the center is firm. You should notice that some chunks of cobbler will be a little higher than the surroundings. These will be little ‘islands’, similar to cake-like brownies, which should spring back when prodded.

You won't know this yet, but those ‘islands’ are floating on a sea of chocolate sauce that somehow formed all over the bottom of the pan. This is magical stuff!

To serve, allow to cool a little (or not -- it's that good!), then plate up a good-sized spoonful (or two) of cobbler, ladle the chocolate sauce from the pan bottom over the cobbler, and add a scoop (or two) of vanilla ice-cream on the side.

Be careful! It's addicting!

What?

Kaleb was reviewing his list of "sight words" -- words that don't necessarily conform to phonic rules and, so, have to be learned through memorization.

He asked, "What does 'h-e-r-e' spell?"  I replied, "here."

He asked, "What does 'w-h-a-t' spell?"  I replied, "What?"
He asked again, "What does 'w-h-a-t' spell?" I replied, "What?"
He asked a third time...

I could have kept it going a lot longer, but Keaton spoiled my fun. "Kaleb, w-h-a-t spells what!"

Lion's Choice

Whenever we travel (even if it's to Indianapolis), we rarely eat at a Wendy's or Burger King or any other restaurant that we have in our home town.

In Indianapolis or Kokomo, we'll often drive through Rally's, as Lafayette, for who-knows-what-reason, does not have one.

In St. Louis, our fast-food stop of choice is Lion's Choice.

We first met Lion's Choice when we broke for lunch during the 2008 Teen Talent Expo in St Louis, and we fell in love with it for three reasons:

1. The roast beef - still served a little red, like most Prime Rib is served.
2. The horseradish sauce - with plenty of punch to it -- not at all like the watered-down, made-for-the-masses horsey sauce found at another roast beef chain.
3. The 15¢ ice cream cones - or 25¢ for a chocolate-dipped cone.

We liked Lion's Choice so much that we timed this summer's trip to convention so that we could stop at Lion's Choice on the way. And then, on the way back, we ate there again.

This past Sunday, I (KC) had to go to Joplin for some business. Guess where I stopped for lunch... the Lion's Choice in Eureka.

Shortly after I ate, I got a call from my Father-in-law, who was driving to Branson. He said he had just finished lunch in Sullivan, MO... at a Lion's Choice.

Yesterday, I walked in the family room carrying my Lion's Choice soft-drink cup that I hadn't thrown away yet. Keaton saw it and exclaimed, "You ate at Lion's Choice? No fair! You always eat at the good places!"

I then showed Keaton my Jack-in-the-box cup, but that's another story.

Keaton did ask, however, if we might be able to go to Missouri for lunch!

Visiting with Grandma Row

Grandma asked me, "What happened to your hair?" Used to be that Grandma talked about how thick my hair was. Times are changing!

---

Later, I met Grandma's dining buddies Ruth, Pearl and Virginia.

Ruth is Grandma's roommate. Grandma said the staff put them together because they thought they'd known each other before, but Grandma told me she'd never met the lady.

Ruth didn't talk much, but Pearl... she's quite the talker.

At one point, Kaleb, my youngest, was standing near Pearl and she cried out, "Oh my God! You're just a doll!"

Pearl kept trying to get Kaleb to talk, but Kaleb's a little shy at times. Pearl would ask, "Can you say 'hi'? Can you say, 'I love you'?", but she'd get nothing out of Kaleb. After a little bit of this, Kaleb finally responded, and Virginia piped up, "Why he can talk!"

Grandma introduced all of us, and she did so as only a Grandma could:

"This tall one's Kyle; he's the singer. This next one's Hannah; she's the photographer. Then here's Korben; he's the reader. This one's Keaton; he's the musician. And this little one's Kaleb, and we don't know what he's going to be yet."

All through the introductions, Pearl listened, nodded and commented. Grandma then mentioned that we lived in Lafayette. "I've got friends in Lafayette!," said Pearl.

Grandma went on to say that I worked for Crane, and Pearl looked right at me and said, "It's nice to meet you, Russell."

Grandma tried to explain that my name was Ken, at which point Pearl looked directly at my son Kyle and said, "And it's nice to meet you, Ken."

Grandma just shook her head and gave up trying straighten Pearl out.

---

Here's a rarity... a picture of Grandma! I managed to snap this using Hannah's phone. If I'd walked in with a camera, Grandma would've fussed, but she didn't pay attention at all to the phone.

Grandma and Kaleb

Grandpa's Cold Coffee

[Note: The family and I drove to Bedford today to see my Grandpa Row who is currently in Dunn's ICU due to possible mini-strokes]

When I arrived, Grandpa was nearing the end of his dessert.  He'd wanted Neopolitan ice cream, but they only had orange sherbet, so Grandpa settled for that.  Slowly and carefully, he finished off the last of it, then asked for some coffee.

My sister Kelly said he had coffee on his tray, but she thought it might be cold.

"Well, coffee's coffee," grandpa replied.

Kelly offered him the straw.  He sipped and then grumbled, "The least they could have done was warm it up!"

That sounds like the Grandpa I remember!

I'm hopeful that Grandpa's on the mend. My cousin Beth reported that he'd asked her to bring him back a Twinkie. He's also sleeping peacefully, which is significant because he fights sleep if he thinks he's ill -- He doesn't want to die in his sleep.

The Harlot Channel?

"Dad, the TV's not working!," exclaimed Kaleb, our 5-year-old, two days ago.

I came into the den, glanced at the TV, and observed it was displaying blocks of messed-up TV picture across the screen and muting the audio.

I explained to Kaleb that the TV signal was pixelizing -- displaying little blocks of messed-up TV instead of a good picture. He said, "Oh!", and I changed to a different channel with better reception.

Yesterday, same problem. I said, "It's pixelizing again," and changed the TV to a better channel.

Today, we were watching TV together. It started acting up, and Kaleb said, "Dad, it's prostituting."

I should have simply said, "You mean pixelizing," but I didn't think enough before speaking. I added on, "Prostituting is something entirely different."

Of course that opened the way for Kaleb's next question.... "What's prostituting?"

"Uh... that's a word you don't need to know about until you're older."

He seemed satisfied enough with that answer... Whew!

What To Do If a Pot Catches Fire, Per Kaleb

While I cooked oatmeal this morning, Kaleb asked me what I would do if a pot caught on fire.

I said that I might carry it outside and let it burn itself out, or I might just put a lid on it.

Kaleb said, "Or, you could roast marshmallows!"

I can see it now.... Kaleb, as an adult faced with a grease fire, heading out to the yard to cut himself a roasting stick!

I wonder what he would have done if he'd been Moses at the burning bush -- "Wow, a burning bush! Anybody got marshmallows?"

Duck Daddy! They've got ....

This one goes way back, but I still laugh about it today.

Hannah was just a few years old. (She's sixteen now).

I was driving, and I noticed a car behind us. To make things fun, I decided to pretend we were being chased by bad guys. I said, "Duck, Hannah! They've got guns!" We both hunched down. Hannah laughed. I smiled.

A little later, Hannah cries out, "Duck, Daddy! They've got knives!"

I laughed a little and then asked, "What are they going to do with knives?" Hannah paused, then said "Oh! They've got guns!"