Kid dates

are yummy and fun!

PI DAY!

I made some dutch babies (german pancakes) in pie dishes.  They were a big hit.  Later on I made a french silk pie with an oreo crust and a strawberry pie with a cinnamon roll crust.  We were kind of busy when the evening came around, so they made an excellent dessert for the Sabbath Day.

Leslie's 14th Birthday

I can't believe she is 14.  

She is so cool and amazing.  

I wish I were more like her.

Here are some fun pictures of her birthday presents.  

Love her personality, it really shines through!

a car from Troy

money from grandparents

the third and final book of the Beyonders

a cool t-shirt

a skateboard (yummy?)

bubble wrap, gotta love it...

ipod touch 

(she promptly named it "hot dog", we don't understand, but we smile anyway)

um,  yeah...

a nature center made by Owen 

practicing looking cool

(no practice needed kiddos!)

I am super proud of the cake I made (not so proud of the pictures)...

She requested a red velvet cheesecake (copycat of the Cheesecake Factory).  

It looked amazing and tasted even better!

Seuss Salad

Okay, pinterest kills me!  Nothing I've tried from there works, probably because I am too impatient/not so crafty...
But I changed up an idea and made a Seuss Salad with mini oreos, strawberries, bananas, and raspberries.  Yum.  And since it has salad in the name it is healthy, right?  Evelyn at first refused to eat it because of the "salad" portion of the name, but once realizing there were oreos...  well, enough said.

And this is a just a sweet picture of Owen and Micah swinging together at the park.  

It is 35 degrees, and but my heart is warm!

Slow-cooker Lasagna and Cookie Milkshake

I posted this on our family's recipe blog, but wanted to share this with more readers... if they still exist!

(No pictures, the food was gone fast)

This was a hit tonight, so much so that I have to write it down for history's sake. Evelyn, our pickiest eater) had thirds! AND wanted more, but there was no more to be had.

Crockpot Pesto Lasagna (from Stephanie O'Dea's website and cookbooks)

Layer the following ingredients until you run out of ingredients:

Pasta sauce (about 1/4 cup at a time) - I used my homemade chunky tomato soup and it worked great

Uncooked lasagna noodles, and you can break them to fit your pot

Pesto sauce (you'll use an 8 oz jar easy)

Cottage or ricotta cheese

Handful of baby spinach

Parmesan/mozarella cheese

Start again with the pasta sauce (and end with it on top too)

Cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 5-6.

Delish.

The crockpot has saved me this month. Because of our new baby, I thought ahead in January and planned out all our dinners to be crockpot dinners that I could start before the usual fussy evening time. It worked out great... especially with the unexpected surgery! I also chose really easy dump and leave dinners. This lasagna took me about 7 minutes to dump in the crockpot before a busy, busy afternoon.

And now, dessert. This was too good. I enjoyed it too much. Yum.

Cookie Milkshake

About 1/2 a blender of ice cream.

Crush up some old valentine cookies that still have their frosting on them and add to the blender.

Add milk to desired consistency.

Blend. I served these in the tiny shot glasses I got for Christmas. Everyone had seconds. I claimed the rest from the blender.

It's my birthday present to me!

I'm so happy!*

(name the movie...)

I had a great day, even though Joel was absent.

The kids made my day special. They are awesome.

(But you can ignore our forced camera smiles...)

P.S. Try this brownie in a mug recipe. It is fabuloso.

Credit goes to http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

Make your usual brownie recipe, even if from a box. Leslie and I subbed applesauce for the oil and it was health(ier) and yummy.

Spray mugs with cooking spray. Place them in your crockpot. 4 regular sized mugs should fit.

Bake on high for 1.5 - 3 hours (I know it is a vague time table. Just keep checking.) Check for little bubbles and firmness. Let it cool for about 30 minutes. Top with ice cream or your favorite brownie toppings.

Try not to have seconds like I did. (But if you do, enjoy it, like I did!)

* The movie I quoted in the title and the first line is the animated film Emperor's New Groove. If you haven't seen it, give it a try. It is fun, and very quotable.

Pistachio Cake Balls - You Must Try These!

Cake Ingredients:

1 package 18 oz. cake mix (white or yellow)

1 package instant pistachio pudding

3 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

3/4 cup oil

1 cup 7-up

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Mix all these ingredients together at medium speed for 2 minutes. Pour into a greased bundt pan (or any pan, since you're just going to smoosh it up anyway). Bake at 350 for 50 minutes.

When it cools, smoosh it up in a large bowl and add the frosting (which usually goes on top of your beautiful bundt cake).

Frosting Ingredients:

1 package instant pistachio pudding

1 1/4 cup milk

fold in 1 small cool whip

This will be super smooshy, since this is a lot of frosting. If you don't want it so super moist, save the frosting for later or eat it with graham crackers or plain, or whatever you want to do with it.

Now, find my red velvet cake balls post (April 2011), and take your time in making the balls, freezing them overnight, and then dipping 7 or so balls at a time into melted white chocolate. YUMMMMM.

Cake Balls

Leslie picked out a red velvet cake for her 12th birthday party. Since this is not mine (or many others') favorite flavor, I decided to do something fun and add some yumminess at the same time!

Cake balls are super easy. Covering them in chocolate is not so easy and takes a bit of time and patience (testing, testing, this is Dresden we're talking about, and I have little of either one!)

So, after a few messy ones, I came up with a system:

*Yesterday I baked the red velvet cake according to the cake box directions.

*I let it cool and then put it in a huge bowl and smooshed it all up.

*I added 16 oz of frosting and mixed it all in nice and gooshy (but not too moist).

*Then it went into the fridge for more cooling so that it would be easier to form into balls (think sugar cookie dough).

*Leslie and I rolled them into small balls and put them on baking sheets in the freezer. We left them overnight to make them easier to dip AND because we had to go to the airport to pick up Kenzie!

This morning after breakfast I shooed the kids outside to fill up water balloons (why do I not learn to simplify!) Good thing I took breaks in between batches so I could clean up mud (El Paso doesn't do grass) and start loads of laundry...

Back to the process:

*I taped wax paper to my kitchen counter.

*I melted the chocolate in a mug (filled it up halfway and nuked it for a minute, then stirred).

*I toothpick-ed the little frozen cake balls and then dipped them in the chocolate. I used a spoon to completely cover them, and then set them down on waxed paper.

*About 7 or 8 frozen cake balls at a time will work with each half mug.

This is the "patience" part. I really wanted to just melt a whole bunch of chocolate at once, get all the cake balls out of the freezer and go for it. But, the cake balls got too warm and fell apart if I took more than 8 or so out of the freezer at a time, and the chocolate clumps as it cools. So this system worked well.

*Between each "batch" I also cleaned out the mug and spoon so I wouldn't have clumpy chocolate.

Voila! Yummy chocolate and white chocolate covered red velvet cake balls. I also did some cream cheese frosted cake balls and a couple of marshmallow covered ones because I ran out of chocolate chips (3 bags later)!

P.S. How do those recipe bloggers have patience enough to do each step perfectly and document it with awesome drool-over pictures? Too bad. One picture is good enough for this post.

Chocolate mousse

(I got this recipe from the Eat Clean Newsletter - it is yummy and healthy)

Tofu Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients

• 1 cup dark chocolate chips or dark chocolate bars, broken into pieces


• 16 oz silken tofu* at room temperature, drained


• 3/4 cup warmed skim milk or soy, rice or almond milk


• 1 tsp / 5 ml best-quality vanilla

*NOTE: You must use silken tofu for this recipe.

Preparation

Melt chocolate chips in a double boiler or in the microwave. Make sure to let the chocolate melt slowly. Stir until chocolate is uniformly smooth.

In a food processor, combine tofu, melted chocolate, warmed milk and vanilla. Process until smooth. Place tofu mixture in fine-mesh strainer or sieve, pushing through with the back of a wooden spoon, into a medium decorative serving bowl. Serve from the bowl or ladle into individual serving bowls. Chill and serve.

**Make this recipe with white chocolate chips for a different spin on decadence.