Foodie Friday: Eat what???

APRIL FOOLS DAY IS SUNDAY!!!!!!! Who you pranking? what are you doing? 

I love to cook a funny meal for the kids they now know it is coming but I try to change it yearly. This is last year's meal

Peas and Carrots-Last year I had just came back from visiting a friend in California and we went to the Jelly Belly Factory and i bought the peas and carrots from there, but you can easy make the peas using green airheads cut into pieces and rolled into balls to look like peas ( I did that the first year and probably will this year too) 

These oranges were super fun to eat but a pain in the butt to make so I am going to tell you what NOT to do and what to DO!! 

1st- DO NOT cut your oranges into wedges! 

You need to peel your orange if you have a super cool peeler that slides right under the peel and cuts if off you will get your half an orange peel in 1 chunk leaving a bowl for you to fill with jello! Refrigerate and then cut into wedges and serve

The kids LOVE these cupcakes and even after they figure out they are not real cupcakes they still loved them. Now that I pipe frosting on I think I would pipe it and make it look really really pretty. They are getting older so now I have to be more convincing! 

"CHOCOLATE" MEAT LOAF FILLING

1/3 cup barbecue sauce

1/4 cup milk

1 tablespoon dark, unsulfured molasses

1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon canola oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon celery salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2/3 cup bread crumbs

1 1/4 pounds lean ground beef

1 egg, lightly beaten

"STRAWBERRY" POTATO TOPPING

2 pounds baking potatoes, peeled and cubed

Salt

1/4 cup (or more) warm milk

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Red food coloring

Heat the oven to 350º. In a small saucepan, combine the barbecue sauce, milk, molasses, cocoa, and chili powder. Set the pan over medium heat and whisk the mixture until it is lukewarm and the cocoa is completely dissolved. Set it aside to cool.

Sauté the onions in the tablespoon of canola oil until they are transparent, about 7 minutes. I don’t always do the onion part cause I am LAZY!!!

In a large bowl, whisk together the salt, celery salt, pepper, and bread crumbs. Then add the beef, egg, sauce mixture, and onion. Thoroughly mix the ingredients using your hands or a wooden spoon.

Spoon into metal cupcake wrappers, bake it until the meat is cooked through, about 15-25 minutes.

While they are baking prepare the mashed potato topping.

Spread the whipped potatoes over the top of the cooked meat cupcakes  with a spatula, as you would whipped cream, mounding it slightly in the center.

I got these ideas/recipes from family fun. 

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DIY Thursday: Fleece Sleeping Bags

I saw this idea in a magazine and thought it would be perfect for my kids!  I made it for them for Christmas last year. It was my fist time attempt of any kind of sewing/fabric project.  Well, I guess it's not sewing since there was no sewing machine involve, but you get my drift.  It was super easy!!!  

Pick out the fleece material you want.  Get it long enough for whatever height of child you are making it for.

Make sure you get the type that is 60 inches wide because you are going to cut it in half so each piece is about 30 inches.  Then with your 2 pieces of material, you are going to cut strips down the sides as if you were tying a normal fleece blanket.  Then, instead of tying just one, place your pieces together and tie a knot and tie them together.  How easy is that?

If you hav eplain material like I did, you can embellish it with some designs on the front.  I cut out a butterfly for my girl and a dinosaur for my boy and then hand-stitched them on....and the dots on the dino were such a pain in the butt and time consuming!!!

But it was worth it to see how much they loved their new blankets.  Now they have something to take when they get to have  a sleepover at their Papa or Aunt's house =)

DIY Thursday: Spring Door hanger

Who's ready for spring? I know i am so ready and what a better way to get exited then the cutest spring door decoration.

This took me all of 5 min

i already had this umbrella, if you don't already have one look at the DI or Walmart has some cute ones for a good price. All I did was tie a ribbon around it to hold up all the flowers and started stuffing spring flowers that I already had. I put a little bit of moss in it for a nest and I want to get a cute bird egg and bird to go in it.

hang it by the handle and you have the cutest spring door!

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Wild card Wednesday: Announcing a new member into your family?

We have some exiting news at my house. We will be adding to our family in September. We are so exited. I love to make this announcement special cause after all it is a special time. I had a hard time deciding how i wanted to tell everyone so here are a few fun ideas on how to tell your family and friends you are expecting.

This one I lined up all of our shoes and added a baby pair

This one is fun take a picture and label each one the order they come in, in the family. We also tried to have the kids hold signs i made with the number on them and i had a 3 and my husband had an arrow pointing to my tummy. They would not hold still and you could not see what the numbers said. If you do this on you will need someone to help take the picture and some patience. (Sorry i could not find the pictures)

I made this shirt for my daughter to wear over to grandma and grandpa's house.

I just let her walk around in it till they noticed....it took a lot longer then i thought it would but a cute idea.

What i did to make the shirt was cut out all the letters that i needed and tried to iron them on with some adhesive paper but it was not holding as good as i wanted so i ended up sewing all different stitches around the letter to hold them in place.

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Sweet Tooth Tuesday: Cinnamon Burst Bread

I LOVE cinnamon bread!  (as in, I will eat the whole loaf myself and bite the hand off anyone who tries to take it away from me) Especially from Great Harvest, even though I don't get a chance to go there very often.  One day, I found this recipe and decided to try it.  I was instantly in love once I tried them!  They have just the right amount of cinnamon as to not over power it and be a sweet bread.The rolls are nice and soft and fluffy.  Serve it with some cinnamon butter or just plain ol' butter and it is yummy!!  My hubby even suggested some some icing like with cinnamon rolls.  I may have to try that......

Cinnamon Burst Rolls

4 1/4 - 4 3/4 c. all purpose flour 1 T. active dry yeast 1 c. milk 1/3 c. granulated sugar 1/3 c. butter, margarine or shortening 3/4 t. salt 2 beaten eggs, room temperature 1/2 c. cinnamon chips Put 2 c. flour in mixing bowl. Add yeast, gluten and salt. Mix well. Put whole  eggs (shell and all) in a drinking glass and fill up with hot tap water; set aside to  bring eggs to room temp. In a microwave safe bowl, combine milk, sugar, butter  and cook until butter is almost melted. Stir until butter and sugar is dissolved. Drain  water from eggs. Add eggs to milk mixture. Pour into flour mixture and mix well. Allow  to rest for 10 minutes.  Add rest of flour, one cup at a time until dough clings to hook and almost cleans the sides. When adding the last 1/2 c. of flour, add 1/2 c. cinnamon chips and knead for 2-3 minutes.  If you try to knead any longer, the heat may begin to dissolve the chips prematurely.  Touch dough lightly. Add more flour if dough sticks to your fingers. Knead for 3-4 minutes.  Dough should be soft, smooth, elastic, wet, and not sticky. Scrape down sides of bowl,  oil the top, and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise to double in warm,  draft free place (in oven with pan of hot tap water underneath) for 30 minutes. Divide dough into 2 piles. Shape into balls and cover with plastic wrap.  Allow dough to rest for 5 minutes. Shape as desired and place on greased baking sheet.  Cover with plastic wrap; allow to rise for 20-30 minutes. Bake in 375° oven for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown. The original had the chips intact but when I shaped the dough, my cinnamon chips were  melted so they swirled into the dough.  I like it this way better.  The reason my dough was  warmer was I used my oven (actually had the oven turned on, not just letting the bowl sit)  to speed up the rise time.  Just put your oven on warm and place the bowl in the oven and  it cuts the time in half.  (I place a towel on a cookie sheet and then put the bowl on top so I  don't get a melted bowl) Also, if you want to do this as a loaf of bread (yum!) just follow the same directions except  instead of balls, shape it into a loaf pan.  You will need to cook it longer, I'm not sure of the  exact time but around 20-30 minutes should work (the way I test is if the top is golden brown and makes a hollow sound when you knock on it). ps.  I have to give my other blog a quick shout out Come check out my blog Loving Life One Meal at a Time for some other fun recipes too =)

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