HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!The months of fun creative baking are upon us. Halloween starts us off, so I made these fun mini cupcakes to share with my Cub Scouts at pack meeting. They're carrot cake with a simple vanilla frosting and black, orange, and white sprinkles. They turned out so cute, and very yummy! I've definitely decided that I love using the duck eggs when I bake. They make the food more moist and flavorful, totally awesome. Here's to wishing everyone a fun and safe Halloween!

Yummy Moral Support

My husband wasn't looking forward to the extra long Sunday shift at work as they had two men on the crew absent. So not being able to fix that problem for him, I decided to help in the only way I could. Yummy food that makes you smile. I took the crew dinner, but this was the dessert I made them. It's a strawberry cake! Now one of my 3 little ducks has grown to maturity and started laying one egg a day. I've found that using duck eggs in baked goods causes them to be more flavorful, and moist. So not sure on allergies I warned the crew about the use of the duck eggs, not sure how they'd react. They all loved it! Barely any of the cake made it home, and only then because I'd requested they leave a piece or two for my boys. The lettering on the cake was done by cutting a corner off of a sandwich baggie, I did get a bit shaky though :( Just so you know, in case you can't tell, I've written "Do Your BEST!" and drew a hand holding up a "V" for "Victory" (it's a Japanese thing) as well as a few stars.

SHRIMP!!!

My husband brought home some of the Schwans Garlic and Herb Shrimp, so I thought since they've already got the flavor they'd make a nice stir fry. Making sure to cut in different shapes and colors of veggies I came up with a very colorful fun stir fry! There's carrots, red bell pepper, sweet onions, quartered mushrooms, and small pieces of broccoli florets.

Chicken-n-Rice
Simple meals happen more often the not. So here's another simple meal that we enjoy. This is Tori Misoyaki or Miso Chicken. The rice is a Thai Jasmine sticky rice, and we finally got ourselves the bamboo basket to cook it in! We generally make a hot dipping sauce for the rice with Thai chili peppers, green onions, cilantro and fish sauce. And will accompany this meal with what ever variety of fresh or steamed veggies we have in the house. The chicken marinates for about 30 minutes or more, so I usually make it up earlier in the day and put it in the fridge. This causes dinner to only take about 20 minutes to make.

Pierogie and Chicken Lasagna

Okay so for dinner my son wanted Chicken. *sigh* we've been eating so much chicken lately that I had to find a new way to prepare it. So I took the Pierogies and layered them with spaghetti sauce (sadly didn't have the time to make it, had to used canned *shrugs*) Cheddar and Mozzarella cheeses, and chicken breasts, I filleted and cut it into strips. Served it up with a simple lettuce with fresh tomato and dressing salad, peppered corn, and black olives. Was very delish!

~Marshmallow Octopodes~

The theme for Cub Scouts this month is water based. So I thought I'd make a fun snack to share with the boys. Easy, Fun, Inexpensive, and Tasty!

Starting out you'll need 8 pieces of Twizzlers -N-Peels (pulled apart and cut in half).
A Large size Marshmallow
Toothpicks
Frosting dye
Parchment Paper

Using the parchment paper to work on, push 4 "legs" into the marshmallow opposite each other to look like this... (you may need to use a toothpick to make a hole in the marshmallow for the leg to make it easier)





Push the last 4 "legs" into the marshmallow between the first 4, again opposite each other. Should look like this...







Using Frosting dye and a toothpick you can draw eyes or a whole little face on your Octopus.

And TaDa!! A cute little Octopus to munch! You can put them on a blue plate to resemble water, or serve with goldfishes and Ocean water. (Blue drink like kool-aid)

Happy Birthday Buddy!

My Oldest Boy Orion celebrated his 4th birthday on 26th July 2010!! We had a fun family play time at the park with some friends, blowing bubbles, sliding on the slides, opening presents and eating cake. His favorite present was his new bike of course, and he refused to take the helmet off lol. Anyway so when asked what he wanted his birthday cake to be he said "I just want a slide Mom." Great! A slide, how the heck was I going to pull that one off with what I had in the house? I'll tell ya how... I made the cake he had picked out (Confetti cake) and whipped up some butter cream frosting. Crushing Gram crackers and mixing in yellow sugar sprinkles I made a "sandbox". The teeter-todder is a Gram cracker and Tootsie roll, the toy ball is a small jaw breaker. And the slide? A stick of celery with dum-dum sucker posts! And surprisingly enough both Orion and his friend ate some of the slide WOOT! He loved the cake and I was glad I was able to make his cake wish come true.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIDDO!
July 7th 2010, Elias turns 2 years old! He's no longer my little baby, he's my toddler, all grown up. *sniff sniff, wipes tear* Okay I'm good now. For his birthday he got to go to the theater to watch Surf's Up with all the other kids from the Library's Summer reading program. Shopping with Mommy (he loves to be my helper). And had a few friends meet us at the park to play and eat cake. He had a blast and hopefully he's as worn out as I am and will sleep in a bit tomorrow. :P Any who so here's a picture of him, and then a picture of his cake. He told me he wanted a car cake, it ended up becoming a little truck, but he still loved it and it was actually fairly simple to make. Now Orion is telling me he wants a Train cake for his birthday later this month *sigh* we'll see.

!! Breakfast !!

Simple quick breakfast: Ham and Cheese Omelet, French toast, and Kiwi fruit as the chosen fruit of the day. Mmmmmmmm.....

Up to my eyes in Couscous!

Here's a fun one for yas! Left: Couscous with mushrooms and herbs, two hard boiled egg eyes, carrot nose, and the eye pieces are cut out of nori.

Right: Pickle sticks, Cherry Tomato, Grapes, Mushroom, Fancy cut Banana (no it didn't go brown before it was eaten, I love cooking tricks!), A few Broccoli florets, and Carrot sticks.

Alphabet Pancake Breakfast

Who doesn't like a nice hot breakfast of Pancakes once in a while eh? And like any good mom I'm always looking for learning experiences for my boys. So when I make pancakes we make Alphabet pancakes! Pictured here is Orion and Elias holding up the pancake with the first letter of their name on them. (Those are always the ones eaten first lol) I've also done shapes, patterns, and numbers into the pancakes. Fun, Educational, and YUMMY!

Mac-n-Cheese

Okay so here it is. I promised a friend I'd put up my recipe for home made Creamy Mac-n-Cheese...

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• 2 Cups of Elbow Macaroni (or Macaroni of choice)
• 1 Can (10 oz) Cream of Mushroom Soup (or Cream Soup of choice)
• 1 Cup of grated Cheddar Cheese (more or less to taste)

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Fill pot with water bring to boil and cook your macaroni. Drain well but don't let it cool to much. Stir in Cream of Mushroom soup until it coats the macaroni well. Add and stir in cheese till it's well melted throughout. Serve and enjoy! Makes 4-6 servings.