Hippity Hoppity!

Wow, I haven't posted in over a year. I suppose it's time! Scotty's in the third grade now, 9 years old, obsessed with Star Wars, Legos and Minecraft. He's in to the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid book series and the Origami Yoda books. I'm incredibly happy that he loves reading. He's doing so well in school, honor roll all year long, and he got Citizen Of the Month for a knowledge in January, he makes me very proud. He joined Cub Scouts, he's a Bear, and we have really enjoyed it. We've been on 3 campouts so far and he's gearing up for the Pack's pinewood derby this weekend. It's all been a great experience for both of us.

Easter is coming up and the Easter Bunny is still alive and well in our house. The bunny is seriously struggling with ideas for the basket. Younger children are easy, throw some candy, sidewalk chalk, a ball and a bottle of bubbles in there and they're good to go. Older kids are not quite as easy. Last year, the basket was filled with beach toys from the Target dollar spot, new flip flops and swim trunks and a few treats and candy. This year the bunny had to look a little harder.

There's a few R2D2 and Darth Vader 'eggs' filled with Skittles, a Peeps pop, a Star Wars t-shirt, sidewalk chalk, Star Wars Legos, packs of gummy bunnies, Star Wars sticky notes pad, a Star Wars dry erase board and a book, Princess Labelmaker, from the Origami Yoda series. He loved it, but the bunny thinks that the older he gets, the more these baskets are costing to put together. Luckily, a few of these items came from the Dollar Spot bins!

We had our Friday Family Night on Good Friday and watched 'It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown'. I made a fun dinner with snacks for the movie organized in egg cartons.

I made a grilled cheese bunny sandwich, and served baked cheese puffs, fruit snacks, carrots, mini chocolate eggs, apples and peanut butter with a fancy cake! 

TMNT Mania Has Struck This House

So most little boys go through a Ninja Turtles phase pretty early on, say 4-5 years old. Scotty has just become obsessed the past couple of weeks. I suppose the excitement of the new movie coming out, combined with the Lego line, (he loves all things Lego, so that was a given), has really gotten him into a frenzy.

 It's Friday, and that means it's Friday Family Movie Night! We had the TMNT movie from 2007 already in our DVD library, so that was an easy choice. We made homemade pizza, (because that's what turtles eat, of course!), with pepperoni and green peppers on my half and only cheese on his because, like most kids, he doesn't want 'any stuff on it'! I also made these super cute ninja turtle sugar cookies. I already had half a pack of the break & bake sugar cookie dough in the freezer, so I pulled it out and thawed it, rolled them in green sprinkles and baked them as the package directed. Then I used decorating icing to make the masks and added candy eyes that I had in the cupboard from my fun lunch supplies. (I did not have purple icing, so I used my noggin and mixed red and blue together. It isn't perfect, but he didn't seem to be that critical!)

Where Are My Stretchy Pants?

It's Super Bowl time!  I don't care so much about football but I enjoy food.  I especially enjoy snack food, heavy hors d'oeuvres and things that are typically bad for your waistline.  I was just watching Good Morning America and they put together a 47 layer dip, ridiculous in my opinion, but I did get some good ideas for dips. 

Bacon cheeseburger layered dip?  Good or gross?  I'm still undecided but I think I'll give it a try.  Maybe cooked & crumbled ground turkey or beef, ketchup, mustard, onion, tomato, lettuce and cheddar?

How about a hot, baked BBQ chicken dip?  Layer shredded chicken, BBQ sauce, caramelized onions, Monterey Jack cheese in a deep dish and bake it until it's hot and bubbly.  You could serve this one with veggies, too.  I'm doing it, I'll let you know how it goes!

Scott's favorite thing that I have made in the recent past is Buffalo chicken bites.  It's so easy and so filled with calories and fat, you don't want to have this too often! It's a great little snack, though, watching the game or having friends over. I have used chicken strips, chicken nuggets and popcorn chicken, and they're all tasty, but in my opinion the popcorn chicken stays the crispiest in the sauce. Here is my recipe:
Ingredients:
1 bag of frozen popcorn chicken
1/2 cup or 1 stick of butter (you can use margarine, but anything that is labeled as 'healthy' just won't melt the same and combine with the hot sauce as well)
1/2 cup of hot sauce (I prefer Texas Pete, but use what you like)
1 Tbsp of teriyaki sauce
1/8 tsp of onion powder
1/8 tsp of garlic powder
Directions:
Prepare chicken as directed
In a sauce pan, melt the butter, then add the other ingredients
Bring sauce to a boil, stirring constantly
Remove pan from heat, be sure it's combined well, and begin rolling the chicken pieces in the sauce.

It's so good served with ranch and celery.  I always make ranch dressing with the dry seasoning packs, mayo and milk.  Sometimes we add a little hot sauce to the dressing, as well, for a tiny extra kick of flavor.

What are your favorite football food recipes?

Happy Holidays!

Love the holidays! I am so in love with my little home when it's lit with twinkling lights and warm with candle light! I also love holiday treats! I bake almost every day during the season. Today we are making sugar cookies using my arctic shapes! Igloos, Eskimos, penguins, polar bears and snowflakes. I also made a tasty, savory treat for lunch today, ham & cheese pinwheels. There are a ton of variations for these but today I stuck with a simple recipe.

Here's what you'll need:
-1 package of refridgerated Crescent dough (I use Pillsbury, you can find it with triangle seams or without)
-6 to 8 slices of ham (I use Hormel Naturals lunch meat)
-6 slices of cheese (any kind you like, I used shredded cheddar today because I was out of Swiss slices, but do what you'd like)
-1 Tbsn of mustard (whatever you like, Dijon would be good, I used spicy brown because it's what I had. You could also use dressing, maybe ranch or honey mustard!)
-a sprinkling of sesame seeds

Directions:
-roll your dough out on a cutting board. If you have seams, press them together
-spread mustard evenly on the dough, I used a pastry brush
-place meat slices evenly over the dough, a little overlapping is fine
-place cheese over the meat
-sprinkle with sesame seeds
-spray a baking sheet with nonstick spray
-begin rolling the dough, (like a jelly roll), make sure you're rolling it as tight as possible, it'll make cutting it easier
-using a knife, begin cutting the roll into pinwheels, (about 1/2 inch thick slices)
-place cut side down on baking sheet
-bake at 375 for 12 minutes or until tips are brown
-let them cool for a few minutes so the melted cheese sets up just a bit, then enjoy!

Past Few Lunches

It's been a 'countdown to Halloween' lunch theme this week. There's no school on Friday, but here's Mon-Thurs lunches from this week.

Experimental Halloween Sweet Treats!

I made a tasty Halloween treat today! Candy Corn Cookie Bars! It's super simple & super tasty.

Ingredients:
-1 package of dry, sugar cookie dough mix (I used Target's brand, Market Pantry)
-1 egg
-1 stick (1/2 cup) of melted butter or margarine
-1 container of white or cream cheese frosting

Directions:
-preheat over to 375 degrees
-choose to use either a round pie dish or a square baking dish, (see below for specifics)
-mix together melted butter, cookie and egg, and mix well with electric mixer
-split the dough into 2 equal parts and separate into 2 bowls
-use red & yellow food coloring to color one bowl of dough yellow and the other orange
-Spread the yellow dough into a well greased baking dish, pressing down as you go to cover the entire area. Spread the orange dough over the yellow.
-bake for 16 minutes or until the top browns just a bit and the dough is cookie through the middle.
-allow to cool completely and then frost
-place in the fridge for 30 minutes (thus makes it easier to cut with cleaner lines)
-if you used square dish, cut into 9 equal squares, then cut each square diagonally into 2 triangle. You'll have 18 candy corn cookie bars!
-if you used a round dish, cut as you would cut a pie.

Catching Up

I've been slack about updating with pictures of lunches. Here's what I've made since the last update. Enjoy!