The Geek Family Kitchen: Minecraft-Inspired Snickerdoodle Apple Blocks

     This cobbler was inspired by a snickerdoodle apple cobbler recipe I saw online, as well as a favorite gaming pastime around here: Minecraft. Since we adhere to a Paleo way of eating, we decided to try our hand at a Paleo version of this delicious treat. You can watch my son, Victor, and me make these tasty morsels on our YouTube channel.







Snickerdoodle Apple Blocks Recipe



Ingredients:



1/2 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup Sun butter or almond butter

1/2 cup maple syrup

2 large eggs

1 Tbs. pure vanilla extract

2 cups blanched almond flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

5-7 slightly tart organic apples, such as Gala or Jazz

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground coriander

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Juice of 1/4 lemon

1 Tbs. honey

1 Tbs. ground cinnamon

1 Tbs. coconut sugar



Directions:



1. Peel and roughly cut apples into small sauce pan. Add honey and lemon juice, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp coriander, 1/4 tsp cloves, plus a half-cup of water. Heat over medium heat until apples are soft.



2. While apples are cooking, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9" x 13" x 2" pan with coconut oil.



3. In a large mixing bowl, beat together coconut oil, sun butter, maple syrup, eggs, and vanilla until smooth.



4. In a separate bowl,whisk together flour, baking soda, and 1 tsp cinnamon.



5. While beating the wet mixture, slowly add the dry mixture until combined. The dough will be wet and sticky.



6. Drain apples of excess moisture.



7. Spread half of the dough mixture in the bottom of the greased pan. Make sure to spread mixture evenly.



8, Top dough with the apple filling. Then add the rest of the dough mixture.



9, Sprinkle cobbler evenly with 1 Tbs cinnamon and 1 Tbs coconut sugar.



10. Cover with foil, and bake for 26-28 minutes.



11. Allow cobbler to cool for about 10 minutes before cutting into blocks. Enjoy!

The Geek Family Kitchen: Custom Undertale Shirt

It's our first video. We made fan art into a custom T-shirt. Sorry about the sound. Our next video will be better. Lydia drew the art. If you like the video, please like and subscribe to our channel. We have big plans in the works for crafts and recipes.

I Wouldn't Want to Go Anywhere Without My Wonderful Towel

     Yesterday was Towel Day, and some people may be wondering just how useful is a towel anyway. If you are one of those people who wonder why, beyond the obvious, a towel would be useful, you are probably one of those people who never had a security blanket. I was one of those people who had one. I even got called Linus quite a bit, but my blanket was very useful. I could use it for comfort, warm, dresses, and a bindle. While I still have fond memories of my blanket, I put some thought into it, and a towel is infinitely more useful, and I'll tell you why.

     The obvious use for a towel is to dry yourself or others off, but when I decided to write this article, I wanted to go beyond the obvious. Then there are the places where towels and blankets overlap. You can use both as a pillow, to lay on, as a pet bed, to cover you for warmth, to cover you for protection (-2 penalty to attack rolls), emotional comfort, physical comfort (folded up for a seat cushion, wrapped around the hand as a pot holder/oven mitt, placed under knees when kneeling on hard floor, as a makeshift saddle, or seat cover in a hot vehicle), a bag of holding, a gag, a welcome mat, as a costume effect (i.e. pregnant, beer gut, or ghost), kindling for a fire, to communicate long distance with smoke signals, a garrote, to muffle noise (giving a +2 to sneak attack), as a makeshift ironing board, window blinds, privacy curtain, exercise equipment, packing material, a surface cover (such as picnic blanket, tablecloth, bread basket liner, candle mat, or craft mat), first aid (as a sling, a brace, a makeshift stretcher, a bandage, or a tourniquet) and as clothing, including: diapers, a head cover in sunny places, a face mask in windy or smelly circumstances, makeshift gloves if halved, a poncho, an apron, a sari, a lavalava, makeshift shoes if halved, and a death shroud.

     What sets the towel above and beyond the blanket is that it can also be used to clean up messes, as a canteen of sorts (a good terry cloth towel can absorb and hold a lot of water), and in the following ways:

A towel deals 1d4 points of nonlethal damage. When dry, it deals no damage to any creature with an armor bonus of +1 or higher or a natural armor bonus of +3 or higher. When wet, it deals no damage to any creature with an armor bonus of +3 or higher or a natural armor bonus of +5 or higher. The towel is treated as a melee weapon with a 3-7 foot reach, according to type of towel, though you don't threaten the area into which you can make an attack. In addition, unlike most other weapons with reach, you can use it against foes anywhere within your reach (including adjacent foes).

Using a towel provokes an attack of opportunity, just as if you had used a ranged weapon.

You can make trip attacks with a towel. If you are tripped during your own trip attempt, you can use the towel to disarm your attacker.

When using a towel, you get a +2 bonus on opposed attack rolls made to disarm an opponent (including the roll to keep from being disarmed if the attack fails).

You can use the Hoopy Frood feat to apply your Dexterity modifier instead of your Charisma modifier to all Diplomacy checks while carrying your towel.

Big Announcement: More of What You Love!

 

     I know I haven't been on here in ages. I haven't even written the post about the wonderful con we went to last year. I have my notes. I have wonderful pics, but I haven't had the time or the energy.

     But now I do!

     "Why?" do you ask. Let me tell you. I have the time and energy because I have a new position with a regular schedule. So from now on, I'm going to be doing my best to post weekly, every Thursday. There will be more nerdy content, more dorky dates, more gaming grub, more marathon menus, more geeky craft projects, and more fun.

     I'm also looking for ideas. What do you want to see?

     I'm hoping to get a YouTube channel up and running. It may be a combo channel with my other blogs, but I'm not sure yet. It's going to be so much fun either way. I have ideas for craft projects and exercise videos along with fun foods that I want to showcase. Yay! I'm excited, and I hope you are, too.

Countdown to Con: 1!

     Tomorrow is the BIG DAY! I'm so excited! Ray has been cooking all day to get us ready for the big event. That was the main chore for today: cook. We also have to pack and make sure our phones are charged. I have slathered myself in hydrocortisone cream and used my allergy eye drops in preparation. I was still having a slight reaction today, but I made it to work and stayed there all day, even though I have blood blisters where I've scratched so hard in my sleep. The purple make-up should hide all the damage I did to myself, so I'm not too worried.

     The only thing left to do is to make sure our phones are fully charged and ready to go!

Countdown to Con: 2!

     It's getting down to the wire. The con is so close I can taste it. And today, we had doctor's appointment. Ha! That has nothing to do with the con, but it was significant nonetheless. They changed Ray's insulin to a longer acting kind. So we're excited about seeing how well it works. He was also down 9 pounds from his last appointment!

     After the appointment, it was time to get down to the business of shopping for food and sundries for the con. Once home, we had a facials, manicures, and pedicures to look our best for the con. Sadly, I turned about to be slightly allergic to the facial mask that I used, so my face is hot and broken out right now, but I put some hydrocortisone on it, and I may have to take a Benadryl before I go to bed, but this is why I decided to do it a couple of days early, just in case.

     Oh, well. You live; you learn. Excelsior!

Countdown to Con: 3!

     So we've been able to make some money from Blue Max Studios for the con, and I really don't want to spend it all on food, so we're going to take our food with us. This means extra planning. We'll need to eat a good breakfast before we go and take lunch and snacks for both days and dinner for Saturday. We'll also want to think about something easy to throw together Sunday night when we drag our tired and happy booties into the house after a long, fun weekend.

Saturday:
Breakfast: bacon quiche with olives on the side
Lunch: sweet potato salad with turkey
Dinner: chicken salad in Bejelly wraps with Bell pepper slices
Snacks: almonds and raisins (in case of low blood sugar)

Sunday:
Breakfast: Sausage and almond flour biscuits with Paleo gravy
Lunch: sushi
Dinner: crock pot chili
Snacks: pistachios and raisins

     This is a reminder that just because you're indulging in your geekdom doesn't mean you should indulge in crap food. In order to keep energy up, there will be a healthy fat at each meal and plenty of good quality protein. Take away all the sugar, and you have calmer kids who don't make you want to snatch someone's hair out. Plus, this food is delicious.