Mom's Birthday

Yes, I am really slacking in the blogging world, but I wanted to post a few pictures from my Mom's birthday last weekend (After all, she's worth blogging about, right?!! :D)

For her birthday supper, we took her to Carrabba's - an Italian restaurant that has amazing food!

The birthday girl with her hubby
(yes, I purposely said GIRL just for you, Mom :-))

My lil' bro & sis



My "adopted" lil' sis Susannah and I

Thanks to Susannah, who had a camera along, and a nice lady at a nearby table, we had a group shot taken of all of us while we were at Carrabba's. (Of course, we all saw white dots for the remainder of our time there because of the bright flash in a dark restaurant!)

Later on, we had birthday cake and Mom opened her presents. Thanks to Pinterest, I discovered how to make marshmallow fondant for Mom's cake. It actually turned out quite nicely for the first time trying it out. Click here for the recipe!

The cake posing with my Mom's gorgeous birthday flowers :-)

Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies - A Pinterest Success Story

I recently was introduced to Pinterest.com (thanks, Jenn!). It's quite fun to go through a bunch of pictures relating to certain themes, and then "re-pin" them for future idea usage. When I saw the following picture, I was quick to "re-pin" it under my "Yummy Foods" category!

Today we had a staff lunch at church, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try these cookies out. They turned out pretty delicious, I must say! Next time, I would probably serve them warm because the caramel in the center was quite chewy, but other than that, a great autumn treat success!! Now, one of the "rules" about Pinterest is that you should give credit to whom credit is due (or something like that!), so rather than posting the recipe on my blog, let me direct you to the website on which this delightful treat was found. Either click here, or on the picture above.

Enjoy!

Wednesday Vacation Adventures

After the previous day's adventures, we decided that Wednesday should be more of a laid-back day. We played some games in the morning at Elizabeth's house, and then went to Olive Garden for lunch to meet up with our friend, Cherie.

It had been 3 years since I had seen Cherie, so it was nice to catch up with her!

When we got back, we decided it was time to bake something delicious. Elizabeth had a whole binder filled with yummy dessert recipes, and after some deliberation, we finally decided on Nutella cookies. We had lots of fun making them. Seriously, we took about 50 pictures throughout the cookie making process. I will only post a few though...:P

They turned out quite delicious! Elizabeth gave me the recipe so I could post it on here, so if you want to give them a try, go for it! :D

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

Nutella Cookies

Ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup Nutella or other hazelnut chocolate spread
1 egg
½ tsp. vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Cream butter with an electric mixer about 1 minute until smooth. Add in both sugars. Beat on high speed about 3 minutes until light & fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

3. With the mixer on low, add the egg and Frangelico (or vanilla). Then add the Nutella and mix well.

4. In a small bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, and mix on low speed until incorporated. Increase the speed to medium and mix just until the dough is smooth. Fold in chocolate chips.

5. Using a small ice cream scoop (or a teaspoon) form the dough into balls and place on greased cookie sheet. To prevent my cookies from spreading too much, I stuck the cookie sheets in the freezer for about 10 minutes before baking.

6. Bake 6-7 minutes (or 7-8 if baking from freezer). Let cookies cool about 5 minutes and transfer to a rack to cool completely. (Note: We ended up putting them in longer than 6-7 minutes, so you just have to judge timing for yourself!)

Autumn Spotlights

This afternoon, the Kindergarten class made "Autumn Spotlight" cookies.

It's a simple recipe consisting of: 1 yellow cake mix, 1/2 c. peanut butter, 1/4 c. butter (softened), 1/4 c. water, 2 eggs, and 1 c. Reese's Pieces.

Mixing all the ingredients...

Adding the best part...Reese's Pieces!!



Using a special "handy-dandy-cookie-dough-scooper" to put the cookies on the trays...

After baking for 7-9 minutes at 350 degrees, the cookies were done!

Despite the fact that one tray turned into more of a "burnt offering" (I blame the cookie sheet and oven for that one!! :-)), we had lots of fun making the cookies, sampling them, and then going around the school to share our cookies with others. (Thanks to all who were brave enough to try one!!)

Playdough Fun

On Monday afternoon, we made our own play dough.

1 c. flour
1/2 c. salt
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 Tbsp. oil
1 c. water
Food coloring

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add the food coloring, water, and oil. Mix all ingredients thoroughly, and then put over medium heat until a dough ball forms.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I love this recipe! Minus the fact that the girls found it rather smelly (it still smells much better than the store bought kind!), it has great texture and lasts a long time.


Working together to stir up the ingredients...

We made 2 batches of play dough - pink and blue. The girls had fun playing with it back in the classroom once it cooled off.

5 Minute Chocolate Cake

Clicking that "Stumble" button on my Mozilla Firefox browser has been an interesting adventure so far. You never really know what you might stumble upon next! Tonight I discovered the 5 minute chocolate cake. I was rather skeptical at first, but decided to give it a try.

Ingredients:

4 Tbsp. flour
4 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. cocoa
1 egg
3 Tbsp milk
3 Tbsp oil

Mix flour, sugar and cocoa together in a large mug. Spoon in 1 egg. Pour in milk and oil, and mix well.

Put in microwave for 3 minutes on maximum power.

(Don't you just love my snowman mug? I am ready for fall weather...not too sure about snowman weather yet!)

Wait until it stops rising and sets in the mug. Tip cake out of mug and enjoy!

I added some chocolate chips to the mixture because I wasn't sure if I would have enough cocoa. It turned out rather tasty! However, I am BIG on texture, and it didn't have the same texture as a regular cake - it was a more heavy, spongy type texture. But for a 5 minute microwave cake, I can't complain too much. :)

So next time you are hungry for chocolate cake, but don't have enough ingredients or the time to make a regular-sized cake, try this recipe on for size!

Let me know what you think! :)

Oreo & Fudge Ice Cream Cake

The ice cream cake my mom made for Andy's birthday last night was sooooo full of chocolatey goodness! She has made it a couple times for other birthday celebrations, but for some reason, I just hadn't remembered how "out of this world" it was!! I only had a small slice, but I was in chocolate heaven!

You want the recipe? Just watch the following video and let your mouth water!! You can also go to Kraft food's website here for more information.

We get to celebrate Andy's birthday again tomorrow with my extended family, which means savoring even more of this totally scrumptious chocolate delight.

Jealous?? :)

"Perfectly Chocolate" Hot Cocoa

Because of these wintry decorations in the back of our classroom...

...I was asked by my kiddos if we could make hot chocolate someday.

They were definitely excited to discover that today was the day!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Perfectly Chocolate" Hot Cocoa

-Microwave Single Serving-

2 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. cocoa
Dash salt
1 cup milk
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Mix sugar, cocoa and salt in large mug.
2. Heat milk in microwave at HIGH - 1-1/2 minutes or until hot.
3. Gradually add milk to cocoa mixture; stir well. Stir in vanilla.

I find it rather humorous that this hot chocolate recipe is called "perfectly chocolate" hot cocoa. Apparently, my kiddos were a bit too generous with their cocoa measuring. I tried to oversee everything, but because every one was at different stages at different times, it was a little challenging to make sure their spoonfuls weren't too heaping! When one child tasted theirs, they said that they tasted something "nasty" in there. When I poured out the remainder of their hot chocolate later on, there were still some clumps of cocoa on the bottom. Yes, I guess that would taste rather nasty!

So if you ever decide to do this recipe with your kiddos, make sure that you aren't too generous with the cocoa measuring and that you mix the cocoa thoroughly before tasting it, or the name "perfectly chocolate" will not be an accurate description of your hot drink!

I just thought it would be more fun for them to use a single serving recipe so they would all have equal opportunities in the hot chocolate making process. It is the PROCESS and not the PRODUCT after all! (something that was grilled in my head during college) I think the part they enjoyed the most anyway was the handful of marshmallows that they got to put on the top of their hot chocolate...which didn't last too long, I might add! :D

Gotta love chocolate mustaches & goatees!

Making Soft Pretzels

Yesterday afternoon my kiddos and I made soft pretzels. However, most of the credit goes to my wonderful Mom who brought this big box of ingredients and her bread machine to school! I would have made the dough ahead of time, but seeing it involved yeast, it really had to be a fresh batch.

My Mom set up her bread machine in the school office, added all the ingredients, and let the bread machine do its duty. There was no way we could have gotten this accomplished any other way. Thanks a bunch, Mom!!!!

Here is the original recipe. Obviously, if you have a bread machine, it is MUCH easier to use that instead! It will definitely save you time :D

Ingredients:

1-1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1-1/2 tsp. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
1-1/2 c. all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. butter
Coarse salt

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yest in warm water. Add sugar and salt. Stir in flour, 1/2 cup at a time, to form a soft dough. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes (dough will be sticky). Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down and divide into six portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a 14-in. rope; twist into a pretzel shape. Place on greased baking sheets. Brush with butter; sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire racks. Serve warm.

Yields: 6 pretzels (we only made 5 so they got pretty huge!)

Getting ready to make their pretzels

The dough was very soft and squishy, so rolling out this dough wasn't quite as easy as rolling out the play dough the other week!

We basically stretched out the dough like this to make it long enough to form the pretzel shape.

Making pretzel shapes was a little challenging, but they still tried!

Their finished pretzel shapes

I spread melted butter and sprinkled salt on top of them, then placed them in the oven.

They definitely got pretty huge when they were finally done baking! That black stuff would be the burnt butter that had dripped off the pretzels while baking. The kitchen was definitely filled with the burnt butter aroma...and so was my hair and clothes...but oh well! It was all worth it in the end :D

They were DELICIOUS!!