Yesterday, when I told Gracen that we’d be celebrating Papa’s birthday soon, the first thing she said was, “We need to make a cake!” Then she went on about painting him party hats and getting 3 pink gifts, but I digress. Originally, I was thinking about doing two cakes. Something delicious and wildly unhealthy from Pioneer Woman for Brad, and something wholesome, wholewheat, and sugar/butter-free for Miss G to enjoy. Buuuuut, when I thought about doing a cheesecake for Brad (one of his favourites), I realized that I could probably do a modified version that would suit everyone’s needs since cheesecake is mostly just cream cheese. My main obstacle was coming up with a yummy crust without using the usual graham wafer/sugar/butter combo, but I played around a little bit and I’m happy to report and it turned out really well.
As for the cheesecake itself, I wasn’t sure about it at first. It tasted good fresh out of the oven, but it was light and bubbly instead of thick and dense the way proper cheesecake is supposed to be. In the words of my husband, it tasted “healthyish”. I had come to terms with the fact that I’d have to do some recipe revamping in the future, until we tasted it again tonight. After sitting in the refrigerator overnight, it had densed up significantly and was actually really good! Good enough to make again, that’s for sure.
Here’s the lineup of ingredients my little sous chef and I used to make our mini mason jar cheesecakes… Sour cream, cream cheese, lemon zest, pure maple syrup, pure vanilla, almonds, an egg, and coconut. Plus the mini mason jars themselves, of course. 5 of these little jelly jars works perfectly with this recipe.
To make our crust, we added some coconut, some raw almonds, a little bit of pure maple syrup, and a little bit of pure vanilla into our food processor and blended until it was thick and sticky.
Then we scooped the crust mixture evenly into our 5 jars, and Miss G used a cork to flatten them out.
This was the end result.
With our crusts ready to go, we switched our focus over to the actual cheesecake part. First, we added our room temperature cream cheese and egg into our mixer and beat until smooth.
Next we added our sour cream, pure maple syrup, pure vanilla, and lemon zest, and mixed again.
Baking is ridiculously fun, wouldn’t you agree?
With our cheesecake filling prepared, we poured the mixture evenly into our 5 mason jars.
Then we placed them into a high-walled baking dish, filled it halfway up the jars with hot water, and baked the entire thing.
When they’d finished baking, I topped the ones for Gracen and I with stewed blueberries…
And the birthday boy’s with deliciously naughty Nutella. Of course the options are endless really… Fresh berries, shredded coconut, sliced bananas, or mini dark chocolate chips would all make yummy toppings too.
The biggest perks to these little desserts is that they already come in a storage container, they’re super easy to hand out at parties, and they tuck easily into picnic baskets and backpacks for a treat on the go.
Healthier Mini Mason Jar Cheesecakes
{adapted from this recipe}
- 5 4 oz. mason jars
- 1/3 cup of raw almonds
- 1/4 cup of unsweetened coconut
- 1 tablespoon of pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- 250 grams of cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 egg, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup of sour cream, at room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
- zest of 1/2 a lemon
- 2.5 tablespoons of pure maple syrup
Blend almonds, coconut, maple syrup, and vanilla in a food processor until thick and paste-like. Divide the mixture equally into 5 mini mason jars and use a cork to create a flat, even crust.
In a mixer, combine the cream cheese and egg until smooth. Add in the sour cream, vanilla, lemon zest, and pure maple syrup and mix again.
Pour the cream cheese mixture evenly into the 5 mason jars. Place the jars in a high-walled baking dish, fill it with water until halfway up the jars, and bake for 30 minutes at 325 degrees.
Allow to cool on the counter. Top with toppings of your choice before or after refrigerating overnight.
Enjoy!
♥
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This girl can turn almost anything into a microphone. Recently, our front porch bannister has become one. Naturally this means at least a song or two sung on the way out of the house, and another on the way back in.
This afternoon while walking along the river, Gracen noticed a man sitting down on the rocks fishing and was fascinated. The questions started rolling in and once we’d lost sight of him, all she wanted to know was when we’d see him again. Luckily, on our way back we found him just where we’d left him. Phew. 
Grae and I rounded up a few things… Some plasticky sheets purchased on our last trip to Urban Source, a hole punch, and a handful of paperclips.
I cut out the fish shapes, and Grae helped punch holes and feed the paper clips through.
Next, Grae chose some baker’s twine from my collection. We tied one end to her beloved stick, and used a dab of hot glue to attach the other end to a round magnet (though if you had a u-shaped magnet, you could just tie it on).
Next, we got out a big bowl, filled it with water, added a drop of blue food colouring just for fun. Gently, we set the fish on the surface of the water.
Then it was time to fish!
Gracen held her rod steady, gently lowered into the bowl overtop of the fish of her choosing, and proudly lifted up fish after fish. 
She was pretty pleased with herself.
And after a whole lot of fishing, some messy water play was inevitable. ☺
Today I was lucky enough to spend the morning with some blogger friends soaking up the photography wisdom of Justine from 
Though we aim for very little screen time in our house, this afternoon Grae asked me if she could spell some words on my computer. Because there was so much potential learning involved, I just couldn’t say no. She cozied up under the covers of our big bed, selected her font colours, and typed her name first. Since she already knows how to spell ‘Gracen’, she did it on her own, even though hunting for each letter was {painfully} slow. After completing her name, she asked to type other words. She selected a new font colour each time, told me her word, and I spelled them aloud while she searched for the letters. Needless to say, her newly found skills left her as proud as a peacock.
This photo reminds me of so many of the things we adore about Vancouver. The outdoors, art, blossoms, mountains, Queen E Park… It’s a lovely combination.
Miss G in a soft voice, almost to herself, while making our 
The other night, Brad went out for Saturday night movie treats after G was in bed. I requested a fudgesicle, and he came home with a box of 18. Oy. Several fudgesicles into the box, I decided we’d better come up with a healthier version, stat.
Here’s our line up of ingredients… Frozen banana chunks, cocoa powder, pure maple syrup, and pure vanilla. Plus a popsicle mould of course.
To get started, we basically turned out frozen bananas into 
Next, we added some cocoa, a little bit of pure maple syrup, and a little bit of pure vanilla, and blended everything up again to create thick, chocolatey soft serve.
And that’s it. We simply scooped the soft serve into our popsicle moulds and popped them in the freezer overnight. 
This was the end result. Thick chocolatey banana pops that are bound to satisfy a sweet tooth or chocolate craving.
What does Miss G think? Well, after finishing her first one, she turned to see mine still almost whole, and said, “Mine’s a little bit almost all gone, Mama, so I want to trade wif you.” as if she was doing me a favour – hah! Thanks for thinking of your mama, Miss G.
Growing up, my brother and I used to stay at my Baba’s (grandmother’s) house for a week or two or three each summer. Being the phenomenal lady she is, she’d bring us into the forest, chop down what seemed like huge trees, and have us help her haul them out to create outdoor teepees worthy of side tables and mattresses. Our summer teepees are one of my very favourite childhood memories now as an adult, and definitely something that I’d like Gracen to experience. While not nearly as grand, today we threw together a very quick little teepee after stumbling across some bamboo sticks. Gracen was in awe of our new structure and immediately went in the house to retrieve her pillow and a couple of blankets. It’s amazing how special a sheet and some sticks can be when put together isn’t it? There’s no doubt that there will be many more of these in the weeks ahead (tutorial to come, for those who asked) and I can’t wait.
I swear, I’m not a hoarder. In fact, with something like 49 moves under my belt in my 31 years, it’s quite the opposite. I’d much rather toss/recycle/give something away than have to lug it to a new location. Buuuuuuut, the other day after juicing a bunch of citrus fruit, I couldn’t help but think that there might be something we could do will all of the empty rinds (please tell me some of you do this too). Not knowing what it was at the moment, I tossed them all into a container in the fridge and decided I’d figure it out later. Sure enough, a couple of days later as I was grabbing something from the fridge, I remembered the 
First, we gathered a few things from around the house… The rinds, some baker’s twine (
After threading our needle and tying a knot at the end, we pushed our embroidery needle through one side of our citrus cup, straight through the other side. I thought we may need the tack to start our holes, but we totally didn’t (though you might if you had a particularly tough rind). I did the poking, and Miss G did the pulling through part.
With the twine pulled all the way through, we pulled up the centre to create a long loop for hanging.
Next, we did a quarter turn and fed the needle straight through the rind again, this time perpendicular to the first set of holes.
Then we pulled the second centre string up to meet the first and tied a knot on the outside of the citrus cup in order to secure everything.
While she helped me ‘sew’ the first couple of rinds, Gracen discovered that she could make some pretty interesting creations with the extra citrus cups and pushpins, so that’s what she did.
This little lemon went from having ‘pokey hair’ to being an octopus, to being a porcupine, and many other things along the way.
When our citrus rind cups were complete, we focused on the food portion of the process. 
All we did was take some bird seed (we used a wild bird variety), and mixed in a tablespoon of all-natural peanut butter for every half cup of seed in order to give it some ‘stick’.
Then Grae carefully filled the cups with the sticky seed mixture one scoop at a time.
We used 1 1/2 cups of seed with 3 tablespoons of peanut butter and it filled 2 grapefruit cups and 2 lemon cups until heaping.
With that, it was off to hang the new feeders in the backyard. 
Gracen was very specific and knew she wanted one in our apple-pear tree, one in our fig tree, and one in our plum tree… And the other one got hung in our rose bush. 
While we made 
Here’s what we used for the project… Eggshells (washed well), craft glue, googly eyes, quick sprouting seeds of some sort (we went with radishes), a couple of Sharpies, and some soil.
Gracen started off by gluing a pair of googly eyes to each eggshell using craft glue and a Q-tip.
After letting the eyes dry a little bit, she used Sharpies to add on little button noses and pink smiles.
Then we carefully set all of the little egg heads into an empty carton, making sure to be mindful of the still slightly wet eyes.
Using a small spoon, Miss G then filled each of the egg heads with potting soil.
Next up was the addition of seeds. While you should probably only plant a couple of seeds in the space an eggshell provides, one or two sprouts wouldn’t make for a very good head of hair. With that in mind, Gracen sprinkled them generously. 
Then she covered them with another sprinkling of soil and patted the surfaces down with her finger tips.
One of our last steps was finding them a good, safe spot with lots of sunlight, so on a crate in front of our living room window it was. Grae gave them a good misting, and we hoped for the best. (When having kids water seeds, I always opt for using a spray bottle. It’s fun, it’s great for motor skill development, and it’s nearly impossible to overwater.)
Counting the afternoon we planted as day one, here’s what we had on days 3 and 4. Not bad, right?
And here’s after a couple more days…
By day 7 (today), here’s what we have. Little egg heads with wild green hair. Before long, it’ll be time for a