You're welcome. Here's a link to the chocolate muffins I'm making right now. http://machineplay.livejournal.com/1271033.html I can make several batches of these and freeze them, and they warm up in 20 seconds in the microwave. One of the things I always worried about was my daughter feeling deprived and a few of these are a fast way to make a kid feel very un-deprived. *g*
These Butterscotch Squares do use butter, which isn't cheap, I know, but I've never done them with margarine. They might well work okay. The thing about them is that they're just so easy to make and are a wonderful snack for kids:
2 cups oatmeal 1/2 tsp. salt 3/4 tsp. baking powder 1 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup melted butter 1/2 tsp. vanilla
Mix oats, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add sugar and mix. Add vanilla and melted butter. Mix well. Spread thinly in two 8" pans or 1 large pan. Bake at 300° for 20 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes. Cut in squares. Allow to cool before removing from pan. Makes 18 to 24.
I don't know how old your kids are, mine is 13, and I'm teaching her to make pasta - fresh egg pasta with cheese and veggies is a meal on its own - and bread. The bread is something really simple and filling and since you're short on side dishes with the kids not eating potatoes, it might be a good thing to try.
Soft whole wheat flour is really nice and you can get some decent nutrition into them. A kid who won't eat store-bought whole wheat will almost always plough through fresh whole wheat right out of the oven, covered in margarine and jam. My grandma on my dad's side was a home ec teacher who raised six kids on almost nothing (my dad and his brothers had fistfights over the last potato - that kind of poor) and she was a big believer in letting the kids cram themselves full of fresh bread, especially when they made it themselves.
We have been really broke before and a friend and I used to split huge bulk bags of whole wheat flour and store them in Rubbermaid bins. I used to rely on biscuits, yeast bread, or soda bread to fill out almost every bloody meal. I didn't make bread for over a year after we got out of being that broke. *laugh* Randomly, you might find a pasta crank on Freecycle. It's a metal beast with rollers and cutters and my daughter says "It's like playing Playdough, only with food!"
Finally, I know your kids are super-picky, but it might be worth letting them grow some stuff if you have room. My brother wouldn't eat chard at the table, but he'd eat it out of 'his' garden, and we used to grow our own carrots and beans and peas. Every neighbor had a garden when I was a kid and we'd share between houses, what we had too much of. A kid might not eat peas at the table but eating them right off Mr. Christie's back fence was something else. *g*
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These Butterscotch Squares do use butter, which isn't cheap, I know, but I've never done them with margarine. They might well work okay. The thing about them is that they're just so easy to make and are a wonderful snack for kids:
2 cups oatmeal
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Mix oats, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add sugar and mix. Add vanilla and melted butter. Mix well. Spread thinly in two 8" pans or 1 large pan. Bake at 300° for 20 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes. Cut in squares. Allow to cool before removing from pan. Makes 18 to 24.
I don't know how old your kids are, mine is 13, and I'm teaching her to make pasta - fresh egg pasta with cheese and veggies is a meal on its own - and bread. The bread is something really simple and filling and since you're short on side dishes with the kids not eating potatoes, it might be a good thing to try.
Soft whole wheat flour is really nice and you can get some decent nutrition into them. A kid who won't eat store-bought whole wheat will almost always plough through fresh whole wheat right out of the oven, covered in margarine and jam. My grandma on my dad's side was a home ec teacher who raised six kids on almost nothing (my dad and his brothers had fistfights over the last potato - that kind of poor) and she was a big believer in letting the kids cram themselves full of fresh bread, especially when they made it themselves.
We have been really broke before and a friend and I used to split huge bulk bags of whole wheat flour and store them in Rubbermaid bins. I used to rely on biscuits, yeast bread, or soda bread to fill out almost every bloody meal. I didn't make bread for over a year after we got out of being that broke. *laugh* Randomly, you might find a pasta crank on Freecycle. It's a metal beast with rollers and cutters and my daughter says "It's like playing Playdough, only with food!"
Finally, I know your kids are super-picky, but it might be worth letting them grow some stuff if you have room. My brother wouldn't eat chard at the table, but he'd eat it out of 'his' garden, and we used to grow our own carrots and beans and peas. Every neighbor had a garden when I was a kid and we'd share between houses, what we had too much of. A kid might not eat peas at the table but eating them right off Mr. Christie's back fence was something else. *g*
Good luck. :)