Christmas Meal

We decided to make a meal that everyone would enjoy instead of a traditional turkey or ham. So, we made Barry's mom's spaghetti sauce for spaghetti and homemade breadsticks (here's the recipe). It was delicious!

 [Zach hadn't quite woken up from his nap which is why he didn't have food in front of him.]

We made a mental note to look for Christmas paper products at the after-Christmas sales, but otherwise it worked out just fine. Both the spaghetti sauce and breadsticks took most of the morning to make. I should have had a vegetable along with the meal, but I was glad to have them ready in time for lunch. Next time, right?!

Special Trick

Zachy has a special skill... Can you figure it out?

 Hmmm... His fingers are orange so he's sticking them in something...

 Oh... oh I can see it's on the index finger...

I see! He's picking up a spaghettio on his finger! 

What a trick!

Day 1 of Teacher Appreciation

"Being in your class is sweet!"

I made chocolate covered strawberries for the teachers to have today. It was an interesting process with 30 minutes spent in the freezer before dipping them in the chocolate. I'm not sure that made it any better, but it's something different, right?!

Super Brothers to the rescue!

Horse Cookie Favors

I had this great idea that I'd do cookie-on-a-stick party favors for Nathan's party on Saturday and for his class on Monday. I studied Pinterest and found all sorts of tips on how to make the dough and how to roll it out to make them the right thickness.

Here is my attempt:

 Using paint sticks - 2 stacked on each side, I rolled the dough to about a 1/2 inch thickness.

Then I used only one of the three horse cookie cutters to make the favors.

Here they are laid out on parchment paper. This was the first time I've baked with parchment paper and boy did it help keep things from not sticking. It's a keeper!

 

 They cooled on the rack before I frosted them.

I didn't get an in-between picture, but I took a sandwich bag and cut a hole in the corner. I outlined each of the horses before then going in with the icing in the middle. This helped keep the icing from running off the edges but boy was it time consuming. It's a good thing I love my son! :)

Needless to say, I made enough cookie favors and then cut out the rest of the dough to make regular cookies to eat after we had the pizza. I'm not sure what Monday's birthday snack will be, but I'm fairly certain it's not going to be these cookies.

Cheesecake Yum!

My co-worker has a birthday today so I decided to make her favorite dessert for it.

 Nathan helped me a bunch with making the crust, using the rolling pin to crush up the graham crackers and walnuts.

It came out pretty good, don't you think?

(the brown crumbles are part of the crust)

She was super excited about the cheesecake and loved the decorations we put up at her desk. It was fun! Everybody thought it tasted great.

Making Cookies

For Nathan's class party, we signed up to bring cookies.  We had a fun time making them, can you tell?

Despite his aversion to messy things, Nathan did awesome with the flour and picking up the dough.

Yum!

We're sharing with the daycare teachers today.  Nathan sampled the banana bread for breakfast and thought it was tasty.

We're noticing that it's darker later in the morning and earlier in the evening.  Must mean fall is coming!

Vacation - Day 4

The last meal... Wranglers!

 First, the bacon has to be cooked and crumbled.

Then, the buttered bread is dropped on a hot skillet.  An egg is put in the center and bacon dropped on the egg.  You'll end up with a toasted circle and the Wrangler.

 Doesn't it look yummy?  It's easy to eat several of them.

Satisfied family members!

Getting Ready

We set up an assembly line to get our breakfast items prepared.

 Can you tell what we're doing?

They're all ready for the weekend!!!!

Gingerbread Nativity Scene

Before

Decorated

For our Christmas luncheon this year, they decided to have each department design a gingerbread house using edible materials only.  We decided to make a stable thinking that we'd get some points for creativity.  We built the base one day and let it dry overnight so that it would be ready to decorate the next day and dray before the big day.

Do you see the sheep? :)  

Making Treats

 Me! Me!  Pick me to help! :)

I want my chance at the action. Will you give me a spoon?

Nathan was very disappointed that he couldn't help more (in fact, since he couldn't sit in Daddy's lap and help, he really didn't want to be part of the process).  

We're working hard on getting the last few goodies made so that we can get the trays out.  I wasn't feeling well Monday night so we lost a night of productivity.  Tonight should be the end with putting the trays together!

Diced Tomatoes

Our neighbor had given us a bunch of tomatoes and since we hadn't used them yet, I decided to try out dicing them myself to use for future chili recipes.  Looking at the cookbook, it appeared like it would take about an hour to do.  With my handy helper (Barry), I accomplished the task in about 1 hour.  I was disappointed that I only got 2 packages of tomatoes, but hopefully they'll be the most delightful tomatoes that we've ever had!

Step 1:  Dip tomatoes into boiling water for 30 seconds or so and then dip into cold water.

Step 2: Skin and core tomatoes

 Step 3:  Cut into quarters and fill pan until they cover the bottom.  Crush with wooden spoon.

 Step 4: Heat & stir till boiling.  Add remaining pieces, stirring constantly.  Simmer for 5 minutes.

Step 5:  Let cool (for a few minutes) and fill baggies.  I tried to do less than 16 ounces (knowing a can is 14.5 oz).  Set baggies in a pan of ice water.

Since it was later at night when we did this, I put the baggies in the fridge overnight.  This morning I double-bagged the tomatoes and put them in the deep freeze.

Would I do it again?  Maybe.  I don't believe that I'd purposely buy tomatoes in order to do it, but if I happened to have a bunch again, I think I would.  Guess we'll see how the recipe turns out.  They were much more liquefied than the ones that come in the can.

The cupcakes

Since we have done frogs and turtles for Nathan's room, we decided to do a frog theme for his party.  I found directions on how to make frog cupcakes (see here) and we decided to go for it!

First you start off making the cupcakes... We found camouflage wrappers that were mostly green to be the base of the frog.  Then, it was on to making the eyes.  

We got gumdrops that Barry cut in half.  Then I put a white chocolate chip in each end.

 I used black icing to make the eyes.

Add a bit of green frosting on top and assemble with the eyes and draw the nose and mouth with the black icing.

To me, they looked like monsters, but the kids said no, that they looked like frogs!  Yum, yum!

Being Creative

It was my co-worker's birthday on Friday, but she wasn't in the office, so I decided to have her birthday stuff ready for Monday.

She likes the color red, so I tried to make it with that in mind.  I used 3 papers, some red organdy ribbon, and a painted red chipboard "d".  I wrote happy birthday! on the yellow striped paper.

Then, I made some sugar cookies and tried to decorate them.  I used the sugar cookie recipe from allrecipes.com and then just used a can of vanilla icing.  On Dana's cookie, I shook some red colored sugar down first and then piped a yellow flower.  I had intended on doing some other colored flowers and mixed together some more icing that was lavendar.  But, when I put it in the bag with the little bit of yellow that was left, it turned brown.  Kind of ugly, but what can you do?

I made up a plate for the daycare ladies, and I guess it's the thought that counts.  It's kind of interesting, but who can turn down homemade cookies?

Co-Worker Birthdays

Barry has a co-worker and I have a co-worker with a birthday this week.

My co-worker with a birthday is my boss, Mary. We are doing a breakfast break for her so I made banana nut muffins. I also made a card. I used 5 papers, some pink organdy ribbon, and a burgundy letter m. I wrote inside "wishing you a fabulous birthday!"

This was for Barry's co-worker. It was his birthday earlier in the week, but he was out on vacation. I ran out of icing to write on the cookie, but was able to make some up with powdered sugar and milk that worked.

The last snacks

The last thing that we had to make was the Oreo Balls. We started these on Sunday, but they had to freeze before we could dip them in the chocolate. Well, then we ran out of time to do it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... So here it was Thursday night and we needed to get them done so that we could get the goody boxes ready for Barry's work. We almost got them all dipped before they were defrosted. We have 6 or so to go.
So, here are the treats we made: 1) Grandma's brownies, 2) Rice Krispy Squares - special recipe, 3) Oreo balls, 4) Peanut Butter Blossoms, 5) Chocolate covered pretzels, and 6) chocolate peanut clusters. I'll bring my portion of treats on Monday.

A Day of Food Preparation

I was trying to make the most of my day and decided that I should just get a start on making the goodies that we'll give for Christmas this year. (Two of Barry's co-workers have been talking for over a month now about how they're looking forward to the goodies!)

I had hoped to get a bunch of it accomplished Thursday, but lack of preparation got in the way. I started making stuff and realized I was 1 egg short for one recipe. How frustrating! I also needed one other ingredient, but had forgotten the coupon at home so I didn't get that either.

Here's the ingredients... Can you figure out some of the things I'm going to make?

The first things I made were Rice Krispie bars, but I neglected to get a good picture of them... It's kind of hard to see what they are when they haven't been cut into bars yet. The ones I made were special bars -- peanut butter & peanuts in with the Rice Krispies and then a chocolate/butterscotch layer on top. Yum!

Secondly was the Hershey Kisses' Blossoms. You can make a really easy version with a Betty Crocker cookie mix, but these are home-made all the way! Last, but not least, I made chocolate covered pretzels. I think these are one of my all-time favorites because they are so easy to make and they just taste so good. I added some red sprinkles on top to be festive.
These are something new I tried and will be bringing to a party Friday night. They kind of look like pizza rolls, but they're called Parmesan Bites. I hope they warm up okay because I don't think they'll taste so good cold. It's a cream cheese mixture with the parmesan cheese in it. You roll out crescent rolls and spread the mixture on it with the pepperonis on top. Fold them up and cut into manageable pieces and ta-da! We'll see how the party-goers like them.

Yummy Pumpkin Rolls

I was looking at recipes one day as I was filling in at the front desk and found this recipe that looked delicious - Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls. My family was coming for the weekend (for our first baby shower) and I thought it would be a great time to try the recipe. Of course things were very busy and we never got to make them.

So, I decided for our small group that I would make the rolls. It was quite an extensive process and I was glad for Barry's help! There was enough to make this big pan and a smaller pan that I took to work. They were yummy!

Trifle for Thanksgiving Lunch

It's a little early for Thanksgiving, but we have a retirement dinner next week so I guess they decided they needed to have it early. I signed up for a dessert and decided to make this recipe from my friend, Judy. We had enough extra that Barry got to bring a bowl for his lunch.

It's a layer of brownie, a mixture of chocolate pudding/sweetened condensed milk and water, and a layer of cool whip. I got 3 layers in the bowl for work and 2 layers in Barry's bowl.

Yum!