You know you're a grown up when . . .

You know you're a grown up when you spend almost all of your Christmas money on a pot.

Specifically, a gorgeous 9 quart Le Creuset French oven. :-)

Isn't it pretty?? And it's so big that it takes up almost two burners on the stove top. I can't wait to use it. I'm thinking I'm going to test it out with a big batch of chicken spaghetti. :-)

Little helpers in the kitchen

The kids love to help me cook, which is great! I love having them help in the kitchen, and it's a great learning experience for when they're older. :-)

Sometimes, though, I don't always have a lot of extra time to let them help measure, sift, and pour, so I'll just give them each a bowl and some dry ingredients and let them go to town. They always enjoy that, but yesterday Oliver seemed a little bored. So I got some empty spice shakers from their play kitchen and let them fill up the shakers with flour and spices, shake out the ingredients, fill them up again, etc. They both had a lot of fun and I was able to get my banana bread batter together in no time because they were so busy!

Christmas cookie FAIL

For the past 3 years, we've made sugar cookies (and last year we also made gingerbread cookies!) for Christmas -- it's a fun tradition and the kids love it. For some reason, this year I decided to try a new recipe. As far as cookie dough goes, it was a disaster. In hindsight, I should have used my tried-and-true recipe that uses Crisco instead of butter. But on the bright side, the cookies still tasted great, the kids had fun playing with dough and decorating cookies, and at least now I know for next year. :-)







This was probably around the time that I gave up on trying to roll out the dough and started smashing it down with my hands instead. :-)



Dennis' free form cookies below:


Decorating is the best part!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love peanut butter cookies, and I love chocolate chip cookies, so I decided to experiment with one of my favorite recipes. It turned out very well, and I'll definitely make these again!

1/4 cup margarine or butter
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 375. Measure margarine and peanut butter into a microwave-safe bowl, and heat for 15-20 seconds or until it's beginning to melt. Stir. In a large bowl, combine baking powder, baking soda, salt, flour, and sugar. Stir dry ingredients into the margarine and peanut butter mixture, then add egg, honey, and chips, and mix well. Spoon onto a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cool for 15 minutes before removing from the baking sheet.

Mmmmm!

Yogurt-Cool Whip Treats

I have an ice cream problem. There, I said it. I cannot stop eating it. I love ice cream and I will eat it until my tummy hurts. I bought 5- 1/2 gallons on sale a couple of weeks ago, and ate all of it in 7 days. That's 2 1/2 gallons of ice cream, folks. And my degree is in nutrition!!! Hooooo, buddy.

Therefore, I've put a ban on buying ice cream. But sometimes I still want a cold, sweet dessert in the evening. So I decided to make this treat that my mom used to make for my sister and me when we were younger. It's very easy (and a good bit healthier than ice cream!).

Mix together equal parts yogurt and cool whip. Break graham cracker sheets in half, and spoon some of the yogurt mixture between the squares. Wrap in cellophane and pop in the freezer for about 24 hours. Mmm!














































Another thing you can try (this is the way my mom made it for us) is to make it more like a pie.

Crush a couple of graham crackers, spray a mini bundt pan with butter-flavor cooking spray, and coat the pan with cracker crumbs. Fill the pan with the yogurt-cool whip mixture, top with graham cracker crumbs, cover with foil, and freeze for 24 hours. Yum!

What's for dinner?

One of my favorite summer foods is shrimp & pasta salad. It's light, cool, and all you need to add is a couple of veggies on the side to have a complete meal!

I alter the ingredients almost every time I make it. This time I used chopped onion, julienned carrots and diced tomatoes. For pasta, I used plain old elbow macaroni, mainly because it's the easiest for Buttercup to pick up and eat.














While the pasta was cooking, I cleaned off the shrimp and added it to the veggies.














I didn't want to use pre-made salad dressing, so I tried to make my own balsamic vinaigrette. But, it turns out that 6 year old balsamic vinegar is more like wine than vinegar, so instead I tossed everything with olive oil, s&p, dried Italian seasoning, and minced garlic.














Mmmm!














And the most fun part of cooking this afternoon? Playing peek-a-boo with this cutie! (Big brother Oliver was still napping.)














There she is!

A snacktastic apple butterfly

I've seen lots of different versions of this out there in Internet Land, and today Oliver and I tried it for ourselves. It's a really cute idea for a fun, nutritious snack!

Take 1 apple and cut it into eighths. This will be the butterfly's wings.

You'll also need something almost rectangular-shaped for the butterfly's body. You could use pretzel rods, celery stalks, dates, baby carrots, pieces of toast . . . anything, really!

Then you'll need something sticky to use as the "glue" to hold the pieces together. I used Oliver's favorite -- peanut butter -- although cream cheese would probably work well, too.

And last, you'll need some kind of decoration for the butterfly's wings. Simple, and so fun to eat!

Peanut-Butter Balls

Yesterday afternoon I was reading while the kids were napping, and I found this recipe for Peanut-Butter Balls in the June 2010 issue of Parents magazine. It is super easy, and SO yummy!

Mix 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1/3 cup honey, and 1 cup powdered milk in a bowl. Roll into 20 1" balls. Melt 6 oz chocolate and dip balls into chocolate. Refrigerate until chocolate hardens.













You can also enlist a willing helper to assist you in cleaning the leftover chocolate off of a spoon. :-)


















Our verdict? Tastes like Reese's peanut butter cups, but not as chocolate-y! I'll definitely make these again!

Baking with Granddaddy

My dad makes the best bread in the world, and we all eat it up as fast as we can. (Best served fresh out of the oven, topped with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Yum!)



















Oliver got to help out while Granddaddy made a batch of bread the other day. He had his own ball of dough to work with.
































Then he added cinnamon, sugar, raisins, and sprinkles to make cinnamon rolls for himself and Buttercup.














And finally, he added a drizzle of honey before baking. Mmmm!

Dining al fresco with my babies

Tonight Dennis had to work late, which meant that I was on solo dinner, bath, and bedtime duty for the kids. So I thought that the kids and I would do something special together! Our dinnertime is usually at 5:30, so the first special thing was that we played outside until 6:15 -- craziness! ;-)

Then we came inside, and Oliver helped me fry some shrimp. He mixed flour, garlic powder, salt, red pepper, and black pepper in a ziploc bag, then he added the shrimp and shook it up to coat it. [For reasons probably obvious to you, I wasn't able to take pictures of him helping me.]

This is our finished product! Trust me, it makes up in taste what it lacks in visual appeal. :-)















I had shrimp, pasta, and tomatoes. Mmm, doesn't that look yummy?















Oliver and Buttercup enjoyed their dinners, too. Buttercup had pasta with spaghetti sauce (in case you can't tell from the sauce smeared all over her mouth), shrimp, and fruit.















And Oliver had pasta with butter and cheese, shrimp, fruit, and carrot sticks.















Oliver saved his strawberries for later, but Buttercup ate hers with dinner -- stems and all. Oops!















The kids really seemed to enjoy our dinner date. Several times while we ate, Oliver said, "Mama, I just love you," and even the Princess was very calm and ate everything on her plate. We'll definitely have to do this again! :-)

What's For Dinner?

I got such positive feedback from last week's pancake-making post that I decided to start a weekly series called "What's For Dinner?"

This week's post is about tonight's dinner -- bean enchiladas! They're relatively easy to make, and the kiddos loved smashing the beans for me. :-)

We started with dried red beans.














The beans soaked overnight . . .














. . . then this morning, Oliver helped me rinse the beans before they simmered in the pot.




























After the beans cooled down, it was time for the fun part! Turns out that mashing beans is almost as much fun as dancing to "The Twist".



















Buttercup preferred to eat her beans instead, although later she did smash them . . . all over the countertop.














Then it was time to add cheese and tomato sauce.
































Look at that face -- he's concentrating hard on stirring it just right! :-)
































Then it was time to scoop the beans onto the tortillas and roll them up.




































Oliver pretty much lost interest in helping as soon as I opened the bag of tortillas -- "Can I have one? Can I eat one right now?" -- so I finished rolling up the rest of them while Oliver ate and Buttercup flung spoonfuls of beans onto the floor.

Voila!















Any suggestions for what we should cook next week?