Thanksgiving relish plate BENTO!

For my Birthday this month my husband got me this beautiful 3 teir Bento box. It's HUGE! Definately awesome for picnics and such. Well we desided to break it in with Thanksgiving. We were in charge of bringing the relish plate for the meal, the following pictures are how it turned out, was lots of fun and the family really liked the fun little additions my husband and I put together.

In the top tray we have:
..White mushrooms sliced
..Black and green olives
..Red radishes cut to look like little mario mushrooms
..Cucumbers sliced with bits of red radish overtop ..Baby dill pickle sticks
..Baby carrots cut to look like bunnies on a bed of green onions

In the second tray we have:
..Cheddar cheese chunked
..More red radish Mario mushrooms
..Baby carrotts fancy cut

..Celery sticks with creamy peanutbutter

..Black and green olives
..White mushrooms sliced
..Tomatoes wedge cut

In the third tray we have:

..Black and green olives
..Pickled beets sliced
..Deviled eggs on a bed of green onion
..Cucumbers sliced

We had a great time visiting with the family who could make it to Thanksgiving dinner. I'm so thankful for the wonderful people that I have in my life and all that they've done to make things just that much better. I'm thankful for my boys who amaze me every day and give me opportunities to learn and grow for myself. And I'm thankful for my loving husband who works so diligently to provide for us, and the love that he gives me and our boys daily. I hope that everyone was able to enjoy their Thanksgivings surrounded by people who love them.

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.

@~ Chocolate Roses ~@

Just a little experiment with my chocolate molds.

This Rose is Peanut Butter filled and I was told it was yummy.

^_^ SMILE! ^_^

Long hours working makes for very grumpy people. So I made a reason for him to smile at work.

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I made Steak bites with wasabi dip and Sticky rice with Fresh Lemon juice squeezed over it (the smiley is out of the lemon rind). Then in the bottom we have Tomatoes, Green Onions, Diakon Radish, Carrot sticks, Tamagoyaki, Dill Pickle Slices, Pickled Ginger, Red Radishes, Kiwi Fruit and a few Lemon wedges.

Happy Mother's Day!

My husband made me this yummy yellow cake with fruit toppings. Grapes and Lemons. The flowers were a gift from my Church given to all the mothers. So bright and cheery!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LOVE!

It's my Husband's birthday and he requested a steak dinner, so of course that's what I made. We had just a quiet little family party at home but we still had fun and he enjoyed the food and gifts.

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Okay so I made Sirloin steaks marinated in char grill BBQ sauce, honey, garlic and green chili peppers, and cooked it over the grill. Slow cooked veggie mix seasoned with parsley/salt/grains of paradise. Fresh veggie options of tomatoes, pickles, avocado, radish, and lemon wedges (not pictured is the freshly made wasabi). Sesame garlic toast, (yes I cheated and bought some strawberry jello). Served with home made New Wine or 7up soda choices. And of course the yellow cake with vanilla frosting and ice cream (Schwans vanilla ice cream, some nice benefits with a husband that works for Schwans). The cake has a picture of a Neko girl smiling and says "Happy Birthday" in Japanese across the bottom. Fitting for a husband who's so into the Japanese culture :P he thought it was awesome.

Dinner for The Crew

Sunday's are the longest work days of the week for my husband. It has become a much appreciated weekly tradition that the Boss' Wife makes dinner for The Crew and takes it to them at work. Well as has happened before the Boss is away on vacation so my husband being the second in command gets to take over as Boss for the time. Guess who gets to be the Boss' wife now? LOL, I love to cook for the Crew when I can though so it's okay. On to the food! I made them Garlic-n-Spiced Hamburgers (there was buns for them too not pictured), with the fixings I had on hand of Cheese/Pickles/Ketchup/Mustard/Wasabi Horseradish, a mixed veggie blend, and Scalloped potatoes (which turned out really yummy for not having a recipe). I finished off the dinner with some smiley face cupcakes. I packed the boys up in the car with me and we shared dinner with the Crew at the depot. The boys love visiting Daddy at work, wouldn't be because Daddy works for an Ice Cream company would it? :P

FISH!!!

Okay so we don't do fish often at our house as my husband has a death allergy to some fishes... but I was getting tired of chicken (which was what we'd been having for days before this meal). So we have Baked Lemon Dill Alaskan Cod, Avocado, Baby Tomatoes, Steamed Baby Carrots, and a Wild Rice Pilaf! It actually turned out really yummy, which was kinda surprising as I'm not really a fish liking person.

Dinner Setting

Quick dinner, Coconut Shrimp with Pineapple Mango Chutney Sauce, steamed Butternut Squash, fresh steamed asparagus, Sticky rice, and baby tomatoes. Not sure what flavor the juice was lol. But setting was completed with chopstick utensils and porcelain Origami Crane chopstick rest.

NEWEST ADDITIONS TO THE FAMILY!

Today we welcomed 3 tiny little fuzz balls into our home. We have yet to name them but they've settled in quite nicely. They're already very attached to mommy (me) because any time I start to walk away from them they start chirping like mad. I finally just sat down by them and they all fell asleep where they were. Which just so happened to be their water dish! The littlest one is mine, all black in color. Poor thing's face kept falling in the water every time he'd start to dose off. LOL! The boys think they're just the coolest things ever. They'll be inside until it's warmer out then we're going to build them a bit of a pen out back. SO FUN! They are our little Easter Ducklings *smiles*.

Asparagus and Shrimp

A light lunch or dinner, however you choose. This Dish is made up of White sticky rice, Shrimp, and Steamed Asparagus with a bit of lemon juice drizzled over top (salt to taste) . I love this dish because it's fast, simple, easy, and oh so yummy! If you drizzle the lemon juice over the asparagus after you've put it on the side of your rice (like pictured) the lemon drips just a bit into the rice on that side and it's just so tasty!

Perogies-n-Salsa

Quick simple little dish. I boiled some potato and cheese filled Perogies, topped them with some homemade salsa (the stuff I canned last year), and a dollop of sour cream with a bit of cilantro sprinkled over top (mainly for looks).

One of two of my Greatest Creations!

I've been missing my kitchen lately due to Life's little emergencies. My Baby contracted RSV so my attention has been focused on him understandably. He's on the mend and will be fine, but he's still on the Oxygen for a bit longer. Anyway I just had to share this cute picture I caught of him. Tubes don't slow down this baby, he's still trying to run and play with his older brother. I walked out of the room for a minute and when I came back both boys were laughing on the floor. They must have been spinning in circles or something because he got all tied up! lol.

A Little Fancy Touch
Pasta & Sauce

So we've been a bit sick at my house, so I thought it'd be nice to dress up dinner a bit just so I could feel like I accomplished something besides cuddling babies and wiping noses all day. My hubby was at work, so this dinner was made for me and my toddlers, but who cares right?! Why wait for special company or a special occation to dress up the dinner plate?

We had Penne pasta covered with a Garlic and Herb type sauce with seasoned hamburger pieces (seasoned with black pepper a and Cilantro), and white onions. A bit of freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese, Green bell pepper slices, Black olives, and a small bunch of purple grapes (my son's request). Pictured below is the bread plate, White dinner bread with Butter. We practice the old saying "You break bread with friends, and cut bread with enemies" (unless it's for sandwiches tehe). Finished with a fresh lemon water. This is my son's place setting.

Medieval Gelato!

Okay so this last weekend I was the Host to the Historical Arts event in the Medieval group I'm in (MCRS). It was stressful, but successful, and lots of fun. My husband was the Feast steward, and boy did he put on a Feast. I'm just sorry I was to busy to snap some shots of the food. I had entered into the Bardic Tournament singing acapella "Veni Veni Emmanuel" completely in Latin taking Second place! The way exciting part for me though was my son Orion (age 3) won First place in the Children's Historical Arts entries with his Gelato! It all started when he said he wanted Ice Cream about a month ago, and I thought it'd be fun to make it ourselves. I was also debating a topic for my Historical Arts entry. It was decided that I wouldn't put in an entry and I'd help my son to do so. We looked up the history of Ice Cream and found all sorts of fun interesting stories. I then got all the fixings to make our own Gelato according to the Medieval time period. It's a simple and fun activity to do with kids, with yummy results. We ended up serving the Gelato as the Dessert for the Feast that night. Okay so enough talk... this Gelato was made with: Snow (shaved ice), a little bit of sugar (like one tablespoon or less), cream, and this particular one was made with Almond Flavoring. (It's traditionally made with a variety of Fruit juices, although Almond is a very period flavor as well)

Onto the picture! Here's a picture of my son in the making process and other of him being way excited about the prize he won.

YHappy Valentines Day!Y

I made my sweetheart's favorite meal for Valentines. It takes a bit to make so I don't usually make it but for special occasions now and then. This is the table spread of the dish... from Left to Right: Navajo Fry Bread, Avocado, Red/Green Bell peppers, Cheddar Cheese, Sour Cream, Shredded Lettuce, White Onion, Tomatoes, and Chili.

Here's a Picture of it all put together. You can put it in any order you want really, but I've found it works best if you put the Chili on top of the fry bread first, then any toppings you desire. This time we added a bit of Tabasco sauce to the dish, the boys gave a funny bright red face every time they came across a drop of it, but they kept asking for more. They must be related to me tehe.

My Men enjoying their Valentine Chocolates