Valentine Snack & Another Quick Dinner

SNACK:

Today I was signed up for snack at Santi's school again. Wednesday I took the fun heart pretzels. Today is the Valentines party for his class, so I wanted to take something a little healthier since I’m sure they will have cupcakes or cookies during the party. I found several heart cookie cutters at the Dollar Tree and used the smallest to cut watermelon and a block of cheese into hearts. In my mind the smallest heart would have cut the strawberries I bought too, but once I got home I realized that wasn't the case. So the strawberries stayed whole. It is a super simple snack, but with a Valentine twist.

Im sooooo glad fruit is coming back into season and relatively cheap again!

DINNER:

Yesterday I was away most of the day, so when I got home I had to make dinner quickly. Thankfully when I did my meal planning earlier in the week I knew I would have to make a quick dinner. I found this stir-fry recipe and it was actually really good! I will be adding it to my quick fallback dinners for sure. Next time I will be adding cashews, water chestnuts, and sesame seeds though. The pictures on the blog I found the recipe show sesame seeds, but didn't have them listed in the ingredients so I forgot to add them. And for some reason as we were eating it I kept thinking that cashews and water chestnuts would make it even better, but as is, it was really good. I think if I hadn't followed the recipe I would have cooked the veggies longer, but I loved how they ended up still a little crunchy! Good call!!

I served this over rice, YUM!

Happy almost weekend!!

Dino-mite Valentine Volcano!

I love the fact that my 3 year old gets to celebrate Valentine's Day this year with his preschool class. I knew I wanted to do something a little different than the normal card and candy. I found the cutest Valentine's idea nearly a year ago. I accidentally stumbled upon it again here about a month ago and knew it's what I wanted to help Santi make for his class (and very favorite neighbor). This is definitely one of those Valentine's crafts that you only make if you are super crafty, only have 1 child, or have children who nap, i.e. it takes time to put together! I am super excited with how everything turned out though!

Pretty much any time I make something new I have to do a test batch. Since this is a cool erupting volcano, obviously Santi was excited to help test!

The directions suggest adding small amounts of water at first, so we got a
small dropper, but that didn't last long!

The fun begins!

Then it got really good!!! I love how he got closer and closer the more the volcano erupted!

By the end he just dumped the rest of the water! I knew by this point we had a winner of a
Valentine's card/gift/idea!

Once I knew the volcano would work I got to work making 12 more volcanos, not hard, but monotonous. I readied everything I could about a week ago so that I wouldn't have to do everything last minute. I printed the cards and directions, Santi cut all the string, we got out all the bags we would need. Instead of buying bags I just used the bread bags that I have here on hand. Instead of cutting cling wrap I used zip lock bags and cut the tops off. I also had lots of left over bakers twine from Christmas that happens to be white and red, perfect! Santi was a huge help, most everything took longer, but he wanted to help as much as he could!

I wasn't really sure if I could mix all the ingredients a week in advance, so I waited until today to do that part. I'm glad I didn't wait until Friday morning, because it didn't go as smoothly as planned. I don't know if my soap isn't the same or if I did something wrong, but my baggies started erupting! That was one thing I hadn't thought of during my test run. When we mixed everything together we immediately tried out the volcano by adding water. After a quick trip to Kroger to buy more koolaid I decided to put a peice of foil between the soap and dry ingredients so they won't mix until the water is added.

First attempt at adding all the ingredients together, FAIL!

Second attempt with foil, WIN!

Santi worked very hard writing his name 12 times, that's a lot for a 3 year old!!
I was very proud of him and may or may not have bribed him with M&M's.

I think they turned out pretty fantastic! And if the kids have half as much fun making their own
volcanos as Santi did, then it was worth it!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Healthiest Meal Ever, Ok, Not Really!

Let it be known that I am not a fan of diet, low fat, vegan, or gluten free anything. If a recipe calls for or is called any of those things I run in the opposite direction. I am not anti healthy I am just pro yummy! My mother has made kale that I actually really enjoyed and I love fresh fruits and vegetables, although living in Peru and having really fresh veggies has ruined me! BUT, I also love lots of unhealthy food too. I do love a good dessert, but I would much rather eat delicious food and skip the sweets.

With all that said, I found this amazingly delicious chicken wrapped in bacon recipe that is probably a heart attack waiting to happen, but MAN it was good. I made potatoes au gratin to go with it (a super healthy side dish). The potatoes were alright, but didn't touch the taste of the chicken, cheese, bacon-deliciousness!

Most anything with bacon is delish!

It was pretty even before it was cooked!

I was surprised by how good it was...just a bunch of random things from the fridge thrown together!

Test Batch

A few weeks ago I make soft pretzels for the first time. I was shocked at how easy they were to make! The texture was right on, just like a stadium pretzel, but fresh! Here is where I found the super simple recipe. Fresh out of the oven is the best! I like mine with mustard, yum!

Aren't they beautiful?

This week I am in charge of snack for Santi's preschool class. So I decided to add a little twist to the pretzels for one of the two days. Over the weekend I did a test batch and sure enough they are a winner! I just added cinnamon and sugar as well as a little salt (I skipped the melted butter at the end).

Santi was outside playing with the next door neighbors when the pretzels came out of the oven, so I had several kids try out the new recipe. The recipe is officially kid approved!

FYI, in this first batch I rolled a few hearts too thin. The fatter/puffier pretzels were softer and had better texture. The thinner pretzels were harder than I would have liked, but thats why you do a test batch!

I may need to work on my heart shaping skills!

Aren't they lovely?

Valentine's preschool snack!

Confidence

I think I would have been a decent cook years ago, but I lacked the confidence. Mentally I wasn't ready, I know that sounds so silly, but it's the truth. My confidence started quite by accident. I had an 8 month old at home who napped during my lunch. Sounds wonderful right? Not really! I wasn't able to go anywhere, I was totally stuck at home. I was sick and tired of cheap sandwich bread, but good bread was too expensive! When I was little my mom made homemade bread. I don't know what the mental block was, but there was something about making bread that just seemed impossible to me. I had heard about bread not rising & having to keep the yeast alive, that was enough to scare me off...until I was sick of cheap sandwich bread. I decided to give it a shot. I spoke with my mom and a friend who made bread all the time. I combined the 2 recipes they had given me off the top of their heads and the VERY first time I made bread it was fantastic! The smell that filled my entire house was almost worth the entire baking process. It wasn't even hard! Fast forward 3 years, my bread has risen every single time and my yeast has never died. AND, I have never bought store sandwich bread since, not one single time!

I started my bread baking with a wheat recipe, but quickly moved on to sourdough. Oh my word yall, is there anything better than fresh sourdough bread? The trouble with sourdough is you can't just buy the yeast at the store like the wheat recipe, but once you are given a starter you are golden.

Wheat bread

Once I realized bread wasn't impossible to make I started wondering if I could make other things too! Thus began my cooking journey. When I look at a recipe Im not scared off now! I now enjoy cooking! Its a wonderful thing!!!

Here is my wheat recipe, make it! I promise you will thank me later! If I can make it ANYONE can make it!

1. Heat on low

1 ½ cups water

½ cup butter (1 stick)

1/3 cup honey

2. Mix together in mixer on low (while butter mixture is melting on stove)

            2 T yeast

            3 cups whole wheat flour

            1 T salt

3. Slowly mix in liquid

4. Add 2 cups white flour (or wheat, but will be drier)

5. Add 2 eggs, 1 at a time, mixing between

6. Slowly add 1 more cup of white flour (or whole wheat)

7. Let sit in greased bowl and cover with a light towel until doubles in size, about 1 hour.

8. Spread flour onto dry surface. Cut the dough in half, then flatten each piece with a rolling pin into a rectangle shape, once flat roll the dough into a cylinder shape log and place in greased bread pans and cover with a light towel.

9. Let double in size again, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

10. Bake for 25 minutes on 350.

11. Cool on rack, do not leave in pan.

Just think, once you can make bread, the possibilities are endless!!

Happy baking!!

I Am Old!

Well, it's official, I am old. I knew I was getting old, but last night confirmed it. I've always dreaded being old, but you know you are officially old when you don't care anymore. I remember thinking my parents were old when they didn't care to stay up for New Year's Eve. How could they not care? It only happens once a year! The last several years I haven't cared to stay up either. I mean seriously, it IS the same every year. Oh no, thats the start!

Today is the birthday or my best friends little sister and one of my kids very favorite babysitters. She turns 21!! Here come the clincher, Jenny asked Amy and I to take her out for her first drink...at MIDNIGHT! Midnight isn't even late, well it didn't used to be. Once you have children who either wake up several times a night or wake up super early in the morning, all the sudden staying out, not even just staying up, but actually OUT past midnight isn't exactly the norm anymore!

Regardless, we took her out! And eventhough we were old and yawned a few times, we had a blast! You only turn 21 once! I found this super cute idea for a gift a few weeks ago, here! How perfect is this for a 21st birthday present?! And cute! I love mason jars! Is that nerdy?!

Happy birthday Jenny! We love you dearly!!

Babies, Snakes, & PADDINGTON!

When, or should I say, IF there is ever a warm day in February, you spend it wisely! A wise warm day in February is spent at the zoo looking at all the new baby animals!

Do you see what I see?

The new baby alpaca

Paddington is coming to OUR ZOO!!!! Super excited!

Luca found a gate that made noise when he shook it, naturally!

       

 
                                           
                                      My little monkey, wearing a monkey!

Spiders and snakes are cool when they are behind glass and Auntie is nearby!

Fun day at the zoo, being eaten by a snake!

Happy warm Saturday!!