Gifts for Teachers!

So we first got a summer sippin' cup, which is great for iced tea, iced coffee, water, or any other delicious summer beverage.

The note has a packet of iced tea mix and says "I hope you have refreshing summer!"
Inside the note says,

"Dear Dr. Reynolds,
I hope you have a refreshing summer! You have "MINT" a lot to me! I have become "EXTRA" "SMARTIE" this year. Everything you have taught me, I will use "NOW & LATER" and maybe make "100 GRAND" someday. "

Love, ...

Then all of the candy that correlates with the the words is stacked in order. We gave one to our wonderful bus driver and changed the words a little bit, but altogether, it was a great gift!!!

Comment your thoughts or ideas!!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Eggs With Pretzels... Tastes just like a Take 5!

I love anything Chocolate & Peanut Butter…. In the candy isle I love the Take 5 candy that has the chocolate, peanut butter and pretzels… Anyways I digress… I decided to go really light on the candy this year for Easter. With 5 kids and to fill all those eggs with candy, I usually will buy a few bags of candy while fighting through the guilt of feeding my family all of that sugar. Secretly we usually only allow them to eat a little bit of candy and then end up throwing away a ton of candy. So this year I bought one small 8 oz. bag of gummy bears and coconut eggs because they are a favorite of one of the kids. I had 120 eggs to fill though, so I got $10 worth of quarters, which only filled 40 eggs! I then put one to two gummy bears in the other eggs, but still had about 20 eggs to fill…. So I used my craft punch and paint chip samples to cut out some egg shapes and wrote some prizes on the back of them that the kids would value, like excuse from chores, special trip with only mom or dad, and time increments that they could cash in when they wanted to stay up a little late, or spend more time on the video games… Anyway, I think the kids liked it. I also had two golden eggs that had a few more prizes in it and found good hiding spots for them. It was fun for my oldest son who had a good time looking for them, and he even helped his little sister find one too! Gotta love that!

 

Anyway back to the peanut butter eggs. I know there are tons of recipes out there for chocolate peanut butter eggs, but this one is pretty awesome. The peanut butter and pretzel filling is really good, and I didn’t use sugar! (Honey was used as a substitute) , whole wheat, and instead of butter or oil, I used coconut oil. Anyway let me know if you try it what you think. 

Needed: flour, peanut butter, honey, coconut oil, pretzels, chocolate chips, shortening (optional), and silicone egg molds.

Ingredients for filling:

• 1/4 cup plus 2 T of whole wheat pastry flour,
• 1/4 cup plus 1 T of Peanut Butter
• 3 T of Honey
• 1 1/2 t of melted coconut oil
• 1/4 cup pretzels crushed (I kept a couple of full pretzels to roll up in the filling)

Coating:

• 1 cup chocolate chips
• optional – 1 T plus 1 t of shortening, if you want your chocolate shell to be softer. If you prefer a hard shell omit the shortening.

1. Mix together first four of the filling ingredients. Add more flour if you want a stiffer filling.

   

   This seemed like a good consistency

   
   

   
   
2. Place mix in the freezer
3. Melt coating. I used my microwave and started with 30 seconds and then 20 second increments after. Stir after each time, as sometimes it can look like it is not melted when really it is. 

   

   Remember no shortening if you want a hard shell.

   
   
4. Pull filling out of freezer for 5 to 10 minutes. Take about 1 T of the filling and roll it up into a ball/egg shape. Push your thumb into the middle to make a nest.
5. Place some crushed pretzel pieces (or whole) inside. Take about 1 teaspoon of filling and cover the pretzels, reshape into egg shape. I tested the size of the piece by making sure it would fit in the egg mold without going over the top of the mold.

   

   Fill with crushed or whole pretzel

6. 

   There is a surprise inside

   6. Fill egg up the egg mold with melted chocolate 1/3 of the way.
   
   
7. Place your hand shaped molded filling into the egg mold, pressing it into the chocolate. (Make sure you don’t push it too hard or squish it down or you will be able to see the peanut butter through the chocolate (although it does create a cool look))

   

   
   

8. Pour melted chocolate over the top until it fills to the top of the egg.

   

   Clean edges create clean eggs

   
   
9. After all eggs are filled up, I placed in the freezer for about 15 minutes.

    10.  Pull them out and push them out of the mold carefully.

1. 

   
   

Enjoy! Please let me know if you liked them.

The filling is so delicious!!

Baby Sock & Onsie Cupcakes

Almost look good enough to eat!

Super cute baby shower gift! It would be cute to go along with one of those diaper cakes. My little critique on this one was that I didn’t have enough red socks to make the cherries, so I had to use the other socks with stripes on them and hope they would look a little like sprinkles.

Fun Baby Shower Gift!

I used onsies and folded the sleeves in, I put the socks in and rolled them up and put a rubber band around the rolled up onesie. I then used some polka dot scrapbook paper wrapped that around the onesie and secured it with another rubber band. Then I used a coffee paper filter, put the onesie inside and then put another rubber band around it. I bought the cupcake box from Joanne’s and wrapped it up with ribbon and viola, it looked super cute!

It looks like its from a bakery!

Jicama... A great low calorie snack! Substitute for tortilla chips with guacamole!

 

Jicama…. A great low calorie snack! Substitute for tortilla chips with guacamole!

by rchbird12 on March 14, 2013
Jicama is a low calorie root veggie that originates from Mexico that is about 90% water. It contains dietary fiber, anti-oxidants, and some minerals and vitamins.
It is know to have a great source of oligofructose inulin, which is a zero calorie sweet inert carb that does not metabolize in the human body, which makes the root an ideal sweet snack for diabetics and dieters! This is definitely great in my home with diabetic risk on both sides of the family.
They also provide about 34% of DRA of vitamin C per 100 g, which is a powerful water-soluble anti-oxidant that helps body scavenge harmful free radicals, thereby offers protection from cancers, inflammation and viral cough and cold. It also contains small levels of some of valuable B-complex group of vitamins such as folates, riboflavin, pyridoxine, pantothenic acid and thiamin. Lastly, it contains some important minerals like magnesium, copper, iron and manganese.
So my kids have tried Jicama in fruit salads and some will eat it plain. Recently, my family has been really trying to make a concerted effort to eat better. I have been trying to find more creative ways to eat a lot more vegetables, but often draw blanks in the grocery store and buy the regular broccoli and carrots. This last weekend I bought some Jicama to try to change things up a bit. As I was making some guacamole, I had the great idea of dipping a sliced piece of jicama in my freshly made guac. Well, lets just say the guacamole was gone pretty fast. Usually I will stop because I feel guilty about eating half a bag of chips with my guac… Well with the jicama, the guilt went right out the door and there was no guacamole left for my husband. Anyway, if you try it let me know what you think…



Guacamole Recipe: 2 avocados, 1 small tomato, 1/4 of a small onion, 1 clove of garlic, a few sprigs of cilantro, a squeeze of lime.

Mash avocados, chop tomato, finely dice onion, garlic, and cilantro, squeeze in some lime, mix all together.

Refrigerate so the flavors can marry for as long as you can handle it. You can always enjoy it right away, but I find that at least 2 hours and up to 4 hours for the best flavors.

Also I always place a plastic sandwich bag right on top of the guacamole and try to push out any air bubbles, so that it doesn’t turn brown.

With the Jicama, slice it about 1/2 centimeter thick, then cut into triangles, and dip and eat!

Berry Cobbler.... and the benefits of berries!!!

Berries are low in calories and high in fiber, vitamins, and minerals. One cup of strawberries has over 100 milligrams of Vitamin C, about as much as a cup of OJ. Vitamin C is great for immune system function, especially good in the season of colds! Strawberries also add a bit of calcium, magnesium, folate, and potassium, and only 53 calories! One cup of blueberries has a little less vitamin C, some Vitamin E, and they trigger antioxidant activity which are thought to prevent some types of cancer. Last tidbit for berries on this post is the huckleberry, which is high in Vitamin A, B, and C, also potassium and iron which help out with various body functions. Also they are found to help in the treatment of diseases like peptic ulcers, hemorrhoids, glaucoma, muscular degeneration and varicose veins.
This Cobbler has raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, huckleberries, and I threw in a few black cherries. All were in my freezer from summer picking. You can choose your own berries, but I like to have a mixture of as many berries I can find.
Recipe: you will need (3 1/3 cups berries, 1 1/4 cups sugar divided, 2 t. cornstarch, 1 cup flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 t. salt, 1 cup milk, 1/4 cup butter)
Preheat oven to 375.
I used about 2/3 of a cup of each berry. I had a little less raspberries than this so I put a little more huckleberries in.
Put in a large pot and cook on medium. Pour in about 1/4 cup of sugar.

Cook until juices have seeped out and it looks like berry soup. I used frozen berries so it had to cook a little longer, if using fresh just watch your cooking time. It took me about 7-8 minutes.

Take out about 1/4 cup of the juice before it gets hot. Mix in 2 teaspoons of cornstarch until there are no clumps. If you mix the cornstarch when the berry juice is hot, it will clump up. Pour mixture back in the pot and stir. Heat until low simmering, then turn off heat.
Mix 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt until blended.
Stir in 1 cup of milk.
Cut up 1/4 cup of butter and place in the bottom of a 8×10 pan.
Pour berry mixture in the pan.
Spoon batter over the top of the berries.

Place in oven and cook for 10 minutes. Open oven and sprinkle sugar over the top.
Bake for another 10 minutes.
Enjoy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter is one of my definite weaknesses!

This was a my take on a Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake made on cupcake wars! It was delicious. Check out the recipe here! Please let me know if you try it!

Breakfast...YUM!

Of course I made this after everyone else had eaten. But I made roasted grapefruit with brown sugar sprinkled on top. And spinach and mushroom scrambled eggs in a hashbrown nest.

Grapefruit Recipe:
Slice grapefruit in half, and cut out wedges for easier eating.
Sprinkle with about 1-2 teaspoons of brown sugar.
Set you oven to broil and cook just until top of grapefruit begins to brown. Mine took about 7 minutes.

Egg Scramble in a Hashbrown nest: Makes about 2 dozen for my large family…
Set oven to 400 degrees. Liberally grease muffin tins or see note below*
* Instead of grease you can use cooking spray, or for great flavor, I used a pad of butter at the bottom of each muffin cup after spreading butter around the edges.
Shred 8 potatoes, place water in your bowl to prevent potatoes from browning.
Mix in 2 eggs
Mix in 1/3 cup flour
Add salt and pepper for your desired taste.
Push potato mixture down like a nest into the muffin cups initially filling about 2/3 full.
Bake for 25-30 minutes.

While baking, scramble up your eggs as you like. I used 1 dozen eggs. I cooked half of them plain for the kids. The other half I added a handful of chopped spinach and handful of chopped mushrooms.
After your nests are done, carefully take them out of the muffin tins and top with eggs.
I added some sour cream and sliced spinach as a garnish…

Enjoy!