Peanut Butter the Home Made Way

Who knew whipping up a batch of peanut butter would be so easy and so tasty?!!  No more bought peanut butter in this house!

Easiest Thing to Make

Dinner tonight Adrianna decided we should make Jello and Les suggested she should be the one to make it. 

The conversation continued.....

Adrianna - I don't know how to make jello

Les - It's the easiest thing to make

**a moment of silence**

Adrianna - Are you sure?  I think it's toast.

I love dinner time conversations!!

April Fools!

For a little April Fools' trick I made these silly cupcakes this morning. I can't wait to give them to the kids for an after school snack!! I know someone that DISLIKES spaghetti and meatballs - wonder if he'll eat these?

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS' DAY!!!

Cake Decorating

Tonight Adrianna and I decided to try something new (for us). Creativity with cake decorating!

I have two young women I work with at church that have had birthdays within a week of each and I wanted to make a cake. Plus, my dads (aka Papa Jack) birthday is tomorrow and Adrianna decided that she'd like to make a cake for him! We each started off with a round 9" cake and this is what we came up with (a little help with youtube and Betty Crocker sites).

Adrianna's Guitar Cake Funny thing is.....Papa Jack lives on Vancouver Island so he didn't actually get to enjoy his cake but we sure did! By the way it was very tasty!

Jen's Butterfly Cake As I started this I quickly remembered why I don't cake decorate - I don't have the patience!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

PAPA JACK!

Cupcakes

What I learned to do today.

Aren't they too beautiful to eat?!

The Olympic Spirit

Originally it started off that my friend Cassandra was going to make the class (her daughter and Eli are in the same class) Olympic cupcakes. She had seen some at a cupcake shop and thought she could make them herself but after realizing that just might be beyond her abilities she decided to order some. Ends up it was a copyright infringement and the cupcakes were no longer for sale....bummer.

She then came across another cupcake shop (this time downtown Vancouver) that had even cuter Olympic cupcakes and she was actually going to drive all the way there and back again...crazy I thought. Again, copyright infringement so you can guess what happened. Yep, no longer available for purchase.

I finally convinced her that we could do it or maybe she convinced me that I could help? Definitely nothing to the caliber of those cupcake stores but we iced some cupcakes and drew the Olympic rings.....copyright infringement?

Pure Freshness

With my home grown tomatoes, parsley and basil I'm making a Marinara Sauce to go with supper tonight. It's going to be so tasty I can't wait!

Delicious!

I tried out a Baked Sweet Potato Fries recipe. Other then finding out that what the US call sweet potatoes we call yams all went well. Very, very delicious!!

Chocolaty Peanut Butter Goodness

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Cake

I found this recipe at Gourmet Mom on-the-Go. I thought it was good but a bit too sweet. However, when mentioning this to Les I was quickly informed that there is no such thing as too sweet! Needless to say it was a huge hit and devoured quickly!!

The Newest Gadget!

POPOVER PAN

I recently discovered popover pans and can't believe how much of a difference they make. With the deeper narrower pan these really 'pop' and are huge (picture below doesn't do it justice). Oh, how I love new successful finds!!!!

Kitchen Gadgets

For somebody who absolutely hated to cook and refused to learn I never in a million years thought I'd be a kitchen gadget person. I mean I LOVE kitchen gadgets whether it be the smallest or largest of the gadgets I love them all!!

Last week Les and I got on the topic of a juicer. We discussed how good they're suppose to be and that was about it. We went shopping. Not for a juicer but we came home with one.

So here's my new kitchen gadget - the Jack Lalanne Power Juicer Elite..........

What a machine!! So far we've made apple juice, apple/orange/grape/honeydew juice, carrot/ginger/apple juice and its all been delicious. The kids are even liking it (yes, that's with them knowing what's been juiced). Be sure to let me know when your coming over and I'll make a refreshing juice for you!

Cooking101

The kids now help with dinner. They each have a night of the week that they decide what they'd like for dinner and cook it (with moms help). Remember my handy dandy weekly menu planner? Well, now the kids just let me know what they want, it's slipped into the menu planner and I add the necessary items to my grocery list and voila they're ready to go!




Eli hard at work chopping lettuce for the ceasar salad.




This week Adrianna decided on chicken. Not just chicken breast like what she's use to but a whole chicken. She managed to cut the bag open to reveal the chicken but when it came to actually picking it up and putting it into the roaster....well lets just say she wasn't thrilled! I tried and tried to convince her, I even tried to help by standing behind her and with her hands and mine picking it up but she went as stiff as a board and then the tears started (okay, perhaps I became a little sterner when she wouldn't do it until I realized that my parenting skills were sucking wind so I relaxed, explained to her that in time it won't bother her quite as much but until then I'll do the honours) then I put the chicken in the roaster myself. I don't think a whole chicken will be her menu pick for a while!



Adrianna seasoning the chicken and boy was it good!




I didn't understand just how much they pick up watching me comb over grocery fliers, pick out menus and then write out shopping lists until this past week. I asked both kids what they were planning to make for the week when in unison they stated, "what's on sale this week?" WOW, I'm impressed!!!

After School Snack

I was on my sister Tamsen's blog and she has a link to stick a fork in it so of course I had to check it out. It's a blog where she and some other women have been posting recipes and one of recipes she wrote is her popover recipe (aka yorkshire pudding). Now if you know my family well enough you'll know this is a must when having any form of roast for dinner along with lots of gravy! In fact my kids LOVE them so much I usually double the recipe.

I thought I'd try out her recipe (slightly different from mine). My recipe is very finicky with things like elevation, etc. (play a big factor in how they will turn out) BUT Tamsen claims hers are no fail so this is how popovers became the after school snack today I had to try it out!


No words can describe how excited my kids were to see popovers cooking in the oven when they got home from school! Of course while the popovers were cooking I went into the fridge for something and realized that leftover night is scheduled for supper and of course its pork roast and mashed potatoes....so why didn't I wait for supper to try these out?! Gee....sometimes I really wonder where my brain is.

My critique of this recipe. Not bad. They did rise a bit more then mine usually do but I found them way to eggy (is that a word?) tasting. My recipe doesn't have near the eggs AND my popovers can rise just as high its just not a guarantee every time. So I think I'll stick with what I've got but try a few different things (yep, I'm actually going to mess around with a recipe - something unheard of). I just might keep you posted on the progress but probably not :)

Even MORE Organized

So......I don't know if you remember a while back when I blogged about my weekly dinner menu? Here it is if you don't remember Loving My Weekly Menu Planner!

I do love this system but I finally made myself a new one and I might add that I don't think its looking so much like a little kids art project! (click onto the picture for a closer look). I still have colorful cards but on the back of each card I've also added where I can find the recipe that's why I'm even MORE organized now! I have so many recipe books and am always trying out new recipes that I was beginning to forget where to find them so this added feature can only save me time and frustration!!

Here it is......

Odd Maybe But Oh So Good

Primo's Roasted Vegetable Soup has got to be the BEST canned soup out there! Mmmm mmmmm good!

I was sooooo excited to find this in a random store today. Grocery stores don't carry it anymore, which was very upsetting so when I come across it it's like hitting the JACKPOT!!

Chocolate Cake-In-A-Mug

Here's what you do:

1 coffee mug

4 Tbsp. flour (plain, not self-rising)

4 Tbsp. sugar

2 Tbsp. cocoa

1 egg

3 Tbsp. milk

3 Tbsp. oil

Small splash of vanilla

3 Tbsp. chocolate chips, optional

Add dry ingredients to mug, mix well with a fork. Add egg, mix thoroughly. Pour in milk and oil and vanilla, mix well. Add chips if using. Put mug in microwave, and cook for three minutes on 1000 watts. Cake will rise over top of mug - do not be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, tip onto a plate if desired. EAT!!

Mmmmm Good

Earlier this week I tried out a new recipe and I just have to share it!

Its called Bean & Veggie Burrito and it is soooo tasty. I got it from the blog Gourmet Momma where she listed it as one of her 'drop a dress size' dinners.

I have to admit I didn't feed it to my children mostly because I was trying a new recipe that I really wasn't 100% sure if I was going to like BUT they better watch out for next time because they WILL be trying it!

So whats in it you ask? Pretty simple really just zucchini, onion, fresh spinach, black beans, corn and chili powder!

Hmmmmm Gooooood!!!! I'm thinking I just might have to have one for lunch today......I'm getting hungry talking about food!

Loving My Weekly Menu Planner!

Anyone who knows me knows that I have OCD tendencies! Actually I think we all do but just MAYBE I sometimes get carried away!!! I LOVE to be organized to the point of REALLY having a hard time being spontaneous. However, because of my freakish organizing and OCD ways my weekly menu plan works FABULOUSLY.

A few years ago I did an enrichment activity where we made up Weekly Menu Planners (I've pictured mine above and really it needs artist appeal instead of looking like a Grade 3 project but it works). On the front of each card I have the name of the meal and on the back I have listed all the ingredients needed to make the meal. This makes it soooo quick and easy when I sit down each Sunday night to plan out my grocery list for the week. I make my weekly menu and than flip it over for a quick reference of what I might have to add to my grocery list.

SO why am I so excited about this if I've been doing it for so long? With the health issues I had this past year I didn't put a lot of time or effort into my meals and so I'm just starting to get with the program and I'm remembering how AWESOME it is. Not only does it work with my quirky ways but I SAVE soooo much money, my head is just spinning with what to do with all that extra CASH (yeah right)!!