Lemon Chex Mix

So here’s the yummy snack recipe I was talking about yesterday.

This recipe was originally from the Chex website but I found it on this post.

Click here if you would like this copy of the recipe.

My six year loves this recipe so much he was coming up with alternative versions we could try: lime mix, orange mix, cinnamon mix. I suggested chocolate mix and he just gave me a disgusted look. What can I say? He’s just like his father when it comes to eating.

***For St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow I have seen all sorts of fun eating ideas for the kiddos. I think we are going to have green pancakes and rainbow cupcakes (a little food coloring never hurt anyone).****

Have a great weekend!

De-Lish Oreo Treats

This week we made these Oreo Treats for our friends, neighbors, and teachers. Let me just tell you, they are delicious. The best part? They are simple to make.

Chocolate Covered Oreo Treats

Ingredients:
2 packages of Oreo Cookies
2 (8 oz) blocks of cream cheese, softened
4 packages of semi – sweet chocolate (8 blocks in each package)
Any toppings: crushed candy, mints, toffee
 
Directions:

1 – Crush the Oreos into fine crumbs using a food processor or rolling pin & cutting board

2 – Mix Oreo crumbs with cream cheese – best to just get in their with your hands and mix

3 – Roll into balls (1 inch or so) and place on a cookie sheet which is covered in wax paper.

4 – Refrigerate for two hours

5 – Melt chocolate in a double burner (I used use a smaller pot in a larger pot filled with water)

6 – Drop one or two Oreo balls into the melted chocolate, using forks to rotate them and cover them completely. Lift with fork and allow excess chocolate to drip back into pot.

7 – If you are putting a topping on them do so now.

8 – Place in refrigerator again and let them chill.

9 – Pour yourself a large glass of milk and enjoy! Bag them up for gifts!

Are there any sweet treats you are giving as gifts?

Halloween Party Food

Last year we held our first ever Halloween party and it was a ton of fun for everyone (a ton of work too but let’s focus on the fun for now).

My husband and I baked, dipped, frosted, stirred, cooled, and heated till we were on sugar overload.

Below this picture of our buffet are four of the treats and how we made them.

Witches Hats: Use Keebler Fudge Stripes cookies as the base, melted chocolate (orange colored), Hershey Kisses on top

Eyeball Cake: Boxed cake mix prepared and baked in a soccer ball cake pan, colored icing

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies: I don’t particularly love pumpkin flavor but I found these irresistible – every time I walked by the kitchen I would pick one up. I found the recipe at Relatively Reagan.

What you need:
Box spice cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup butter
1 cup pumpkin pie filling or puree
1/2 cup milk
 
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large mixing bowl beat the butter and pumpkin with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add all the remaining ingredients and beat on low speed until combined.
Using a small cookie schoop dop mounds of the dough onto the prepared cookie sheets, spacing them about 3 inches apart.
Bake about 10 minutes and cool completely before frosting
 
For the Filling:
Stick of butter
block (8 oz) cream cheese
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla and couple of dashes of cinnamon
Put filling on one pie and cover with another

Oreo Mummies: Dip Oreos into melted white chocolate, place on wax paper, drag a fork sideways through the chocolate, place candy eyes on top, cool in fridgeHere are some sources for candy eyes (I have never bought anything from these companies so I’m not recommeding, just listing) : One Stop Candle and The Baker’s Kitchen. I am using some I found at Michael’s this year.

Do you have any favorite Halloween treats you make?

The 36th Avenue

Undercover Veggie

Shhhh….my kids ate zucchini today but they have no idea.

Somewhere I failed as a parent in regards to my kids’ eating.

We are not one of those families where the kids eat everything on their plate.

“Oh, Johnny just loves his salmon with asparagus and sushi.”

No, it’s more, “Oh, Alex loves his hamburgers and grilled cheese,” over here.

But to be honest, I’m not really worried.

At one point my youngest sister ate only white food.

For years.

Mashed potatoes, pasta, mashed potatoes, pasta?

Seriously, I don’t know what she ate but she seems to be fine now.

Plus, her food groups have expanded to include green and red foods so there’s hope for my kids.

I have begun “sneaking in” veggies as a little backup for my confidence that all will be fine.

Caroline likes orange juice. In fact, she eats and drinks just about every fruit.

But not one vegetable. I’m sorry I misspoke, she is a corn on the cob connoisseur but that’s it.

So now she drinks her 3/4 orange juice and 1/4 carrot juice combo in the morning. She’s happy and I feel like I can color in one minor section of the food pyramid.

The boys are not much better since they do not stray far from salad and carrots.

I came across a banana chocolate chip zucchini bread recipe in blog world. What? One of these things is not like the other. Zucchini? There have been several gagging incidents at our dining room table over cooked zucchini. Amazingly, we’ve never had any gagging incidents from banana bread or chocolate chips.

Soooooo…I immediately printed out the recipe, gathered the ingredients, and made the bread this morning (naturally doubling the chocolate chips suggested).

I admit the smell was pretty enticing. When I announced the chocolate chip banana bread was ready there were whoops and hollers.

Well folks. Good news. Caroline ate her piece while Andrew had seconds and Alex had thirds. I am pretty sure they consumed exactly 0.05% of the daily serving suggestion for vegetables but it’s more than before.

Hmmm…anyone for turnip tiramisu?

***UPDATE*****

Apparently the one sitting where they consumed a large portion of the brad was a fluke. Alex & Andrew are now refusing to eat the the very same bread they fought over exactly one day ago. Excuse me while I go bash my head on a tree.

A Watched Pot

Last week as Alex was searching for something for lunch he asked me, “Do you know how to make mac n’cheese?”

I took it as an insult.

While I am admittedly a bad cook, I can at least make mac n’cheese.

From a box that is.

Let’s not get all crazy and make it from scratch.

Plus, I’ve made it a good hundred times or so for him. Doesn’t he remember at least one of those occasions?

Alex decided he was going to learn the very detailed and complex process of making this gourmet lunch.

I walked him through all the steps and watched as he proudly served his brother lunch.

Turns out his first attempt was so successful he decided to cook it again today. This time though he drove me crazy. Off and on. Off and on. Off and on went the lid.

I explained the phrase “A watched pot never boils” to him in hopes of getting him to walk away for a few minutes.

I should not have bothered.

He thought his idea was much better.

I cannot wait to see what he does when I explain, “A chip on your shoulder.”

Piano Week

Andrew & Alex started piano lessons last week. In an attempt to add to their excitement, we had PIANO WEEK at our house.

What might you ask is Piano Week?

Well, it’s just a week of activities I thought up or found which dealt with music. This was an attempt to give a little structure to our summer days. The focus being on little.

Here’s PIANO WEEK:

Visited: a piano store and received a tour by a very enthusiastic employee

Created: Alex created a power point about John Williams while Andrew made a poster. I originally thought they would choose Beethoven or Mozart but once we stumbled upon John Williams there was no turning back. One morning we spent over an hour watching him conduct on You Tube.

Read Books: 1. Beethoven – A Value Tales book 2. Duke Ellington by Andrea Davis Pinkney  3. Ludwig van Beethoven by Eric Summerer  4. Keyboards by Wendy Lynch

Made: Thumb pianos – directions found here

Listened: to a Mixed Classical CD from Target in the car all week

Food: We ate SHARP cheese, ate BACHli (I’ll be honest – Derek and I are the only ones who ate the broccoli), talked about fish SCALES while we ate fish sticks, and planned to make cinnamon FLATbread but never got around to it.

We also made dessert PIANOS compliments of Alex. We used ice cream bars but white Kit Kats bars would make prefect piano keys.

Movies: We watched the movie Beethoven with Charles Grodin and Bonnie Hunt. Yes I know it has nothing to do with music but the kids loved it.

We capped off the week with a trip to eat ice cream at Braum’s (BRAHM). I wanted to finish up the week at a piano bar but Derek thought otherwise.

We had some LOWS and HIGHs during piano week but overall it was enjoyable. The boys have enthusiastically practiced piano everyday since their first lesson and can’t wait to find out what this week’s activities will focus on.

What fun things are you doing this summer?


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Todays Creative Blog

Lego Man Cake

Alex had a Lego party for his 9th birthday. Derek suggested making a Lego brick for the cake but I quickly dismissed that suggestion since it did not seem like a challenge. Alex provided me with this figure as inspiration for the cake. So I went for it and think it turned out all right.

Step 1: You need: 2 boxed cake mixes, frosting dye, and 5 large containers of frosting. No, I don’t even consider making my own frosting.

Step 2 – Place both cakes side by side and then carve out the general Lego man shape. Follow up with an initial layer of frosting. Place the cake in the fridge – it’s easier to put the next layer of frosting if the first layer is more solid.

Step 3 – Create the bodysuit? armor? training clothes? with orange icing. I used clear icing bags and a basic frosting tip for the rest of the icing.

Step 4 – Use gray icing for the equipment and part of helmet. I started questioning my cake decorating abilities at about this point – hmmm… 2 hours till the party, I wonder if the grocery store could make a lego brick cake in such short notice?

Step 5 – Using a wider icing tip I created the white sections of the helmet

Step 6 – The first attempt at making “Lego skin” was too pink (very bad in the eyes of a 9 year old boy) so I tried again and got a brown color. Good enough.

Step 7 – I added the black icing sections.

Step 8 – I added the red sections and called it done.

There were certain parts of the cake I wasn’t thrilled with but Alex was excited with the cake and that’s all that counts in the long run.

Homemade King Cake

We love King Cake around here.

Every time we have king cake the boys mention to each other, “Mom got king cake at school every week when she was little.” I try to tell them it only occurred during Mardi Gras season but I can’t deter their thoughts of what a pitiful school experience they are having compared to me.

My mom sent us a Randazzo’s king cake for Derek’s birthday. It was devoured in 3 days. The only reason it wasn’t gone faster was because I wouldn’t let them have it for breakfast. Alex “got the baby” in the Randazzo king cake so he knew it was his turn to provide the next cake.

Occasionally, Alex would remind me it was his turn to buy the next king cake . Our neighborhood grocery store was the only place which came to mind for buying a king cake but frankly, they looked quite unappealing to me.

While browsing the magazine section one day in Lowe’s, I started flipping through a Sandra Lee magazine. Behind all of the Valentine treats she was featuring was a small section on Mardi Gras recipes. Gumbo, etouffee, and king cake were listed as well as dirty rice.

While reading I whispered, “Homemade king cake.” Alex was at my side in a second. “Oh, can we try? Can we make that tonight?” Seeing as it was already 4:45 I appeased him by buying the magazine and promising to make the dessert soon.

A few days later, after gathering the supplies, I decided the time was right to make the king cake. We were once again stuck in the house all day due to ice. I was desperate for an activity (and frankly, something sweet) so I told the boys we were celebrating Friday night dessert early because of the weather.

Here’s a picture of our ingredients: 3 cans of cinnamon rolls with icing (we didn’t use the extra one shown here), a plastic baby, and sprinkles. Our sprinkles are not the traditional gold, purple, and green since we used what was in the pantry.

ingredients for king cake1) First we buttered the baking sheet.

2) We unrolled the 3 cans and separated each cinnamon roll.

3) We then formed an oval shape with the rolls. Sandra Lee suggests using 5 cans of cinnamon rolls but I thought that would be a tad gluttonous for us.

4) We baked the cinnamon rolls / king cake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.

5) We waited 15 minutes for it to cool (Next time we’ll try 5-10 minutes) , covered it with the cinnamon roll icing, and then covered with sprinkles.

The finished product!

Considering they each ate the king cake 3 times in 24 hours I’d say it was a big hit. (By the way, Andrew got the baby this time).

My Super Bowl Victory

My Super Bowl victory has nothing to do with the Packers or the Steelers. My victory is one between man vs. food. Okay, woman vs. food. I’m talking about the ever elusive perfect potato salad. More specifically…my mom’s potato salad. I have dreamed of making it for years.

My mom makes the best potato salad. At every family gathering, whatever time of year, this dish makes an appearance based on popular demand. Now you may have this dish down pat but remember I am not a cook. The prep time, the layering upon layering of ingredients, and the need to chill overnight, were daunting to me.

I was always intimidated. But no more. I have conquered my potato salad fears and come out the victor.

Last year I asked my mom to let me help her make the potato salad so I would learn the process. I watched as she created it layer by layer but I was sure I would never be able to recreate it. I’d like to say I promptly went and tried to make it soon after but that would be a lie. I didn’t even think about attempting it until a few days ago.

For some reason I felt sloppy joes and potato salad would be perfect for Super Bowl Sunday. I bought the ingredients and waited until the kids were in bed on Saturday night. I read the recipe several times. In fact, I read each step several times. I put the finished product into the refrigerator and hoped for the best on Sunday.

As it turns out, I was pleasantly surprised with my potato salad. It was good. Really good. After the years of worry and self doubt about tackling this recipe I scored! In fact my husband liked it too. On Super Bowl Sunday I had roughly 6 servings of the potato salad a few scoops of the potato salad with my sloppy joes.

Now I’m going to go through the family cookbook to figure out what recipe to try next!

potato saladDo you have a family recipe you’ve always wanted to master?

Honey Cornbread

So I was sitting in bed last night watching “The Mentalist” when I mentioned to Derek that I didn’t have a post for today yet. Suddenly a topic popped into my head. I announced, “I should share the cornbread and chili recipe we had tonight. Those were good.” Derek responded, “Yes, the cornbread would be a good one to share.

Silence.

Me thinking.

“Oh I get it. You didn’t like the chili.”

“I’m not saying that. It was good too.”

“Right. I think that was very clever how you phrased it.”

“What?”

“You are in charge of dinner tomorrow. I’m out.”

So, in light of our conversation I will only be sharing the cornbread recipe. Apparently it’s good enough to share.

Honey Cornbread

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter, softened

4 eggs

1/2 cup honey

1 and 1/3 cups milk

2 and 1/3 cups flour

1 and 1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 cup corn meal

1 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream sugar adn butter. Add in eggs, honey, and milk. Mix well.

2. Mix together flour, baking powder, corn meal, and salt. Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients. Do not over mix. Batter will be lumpy.

3. Pour batter in greased 11 x 14 inch baking pan. Bake for 35 minutes or until golden brown. (I cooked mine in a 9 x 13 pan for 28 minutes. I think it could have been taken out a few minutes earlier – just watch it carefully).

Anyone have a tried and true chili recipe?

recipe found at www.moneysavingmom.com