Friday 'From Scratch' Roundup

I've decided to do a weekly post listing all of the food items I've made.  This may only be interesting to me, I'm not sure - but whatevs - it's my blog!  This week is a little light on impressive culinary wizardry - I'm still getting back into the swing of things after vacation, and Adam was home for most of the week, which meant he barbecued quite a few dinners.  On the other hand....Adam has been unhappy with the lack of Starbucks-quality mocha supplies, and I decided to see if I could remedy the situation.  So here is my list for the week, with links for recipes.  Enjoy!  Or not!  I'll never know...

• Tortillas - I use a tortilla press, instead of rolling them out by hand. I use a simple recipe of flour, butter, salt, baking powder, and water.  It's easy, but very time consuming.  It involves standing at the counter for at least 40 minutes, and all of that work lasts for one dinner's worth of tortillas.  Still, they are delicious, and much cheaper than the $15 for 8 tortillas that are available in the grocery store. 
• Waffles - My kids, the boys especially, can go through an insane amount of waffles in a week.  I try to make enough that they have them for a few breakfasts per week, so I double this recipe. Oatmeal Waffles
• Maple Syrup - There's no maple syrup here, real or artificial, so I make ours.  I got the recipe from JoAnn, and it's very basic - water, white sugar, brown sugar, and maple extract.
• Mocha Syrup - Adam adds a few tablespoons of this to his coffee, and along with steamed milk and caramel sauce, it makes for a very happy husband.  I looked up a ton of recipes, and ended up throwing together a version that used ingredients I had here.  I used 1/2 cup of water, 2/3 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup alkalized cocoa powder, 1/4 cup plus 1 TB of regular cocoa powder, and 1 1/4 TB of vanilla extract.  Mixed them all together over low heat, and then transferred to a jar and refrigerated.
• Salted Caramel Sauce - Remember how I said I made this for Adam?  Welllll........once I got a taste of this, it was all over.  Now I'm putting it into my coffee, too - who could pass up a Salted Caramel Latte?  Not this girl.  I used this recipe, but instead of fancy shmancy salt, I just used about a tsp of regular table salt. Salted Caramel Sauce

That's it for this week.  I don't count the stuff I make from mixes I brought over here with me (like Ranch Dressing, Italian Dressing, etc), and I don't count things that I would normally make back in the US, like....roasted potatoes.  This list is purely for things that I would have likely never attempted to make, back when I lived in the land of convenience. I enjoy cooking and baking, but I doubt that I will continue to make all of these things from scratch when we're living in the US again.  For now, though, I entertain myself by imagining my boys driving their future wives insane by casually mentioning all of the things that their mom whipped up from scratch!