Kiddo Valentine's Day

 Valentine's Day was more like Valentine's WEEKS around here. The kids made some new decorations for us to enjoy. 

and worked hard on their valentines for Grandparents. They LOVED making these bugs! And can you see that Gwen made origami hearts?

Making our valentines for classmates was fun and not TOO laborious, since there was a free printable (here), but it definitely required adult assistance. 

Caroline dutifully signed her name on the back of each one!

 Daddy tied the strings. Gwen was all over her list of names and chose a bubble color for each friend. 

 Okay, now who can tell me the difference between the above photo and the below photo?...

  If your answer was the tearful face in the background, you can see this was not a quiet activity of contentment all around.

 Now ask this boy why he is sad. 

 "I blow these red bubbles... please?"

 "Emmett's red bubbles." 

(intentionally not a question mark)

 distraction and placation: raspberries. 

 All in his mouth at the same time. Chipmunk cheeks! :)

 For the past couple weeks I have been baking lots of treats. Fun pink deliciousness! Sometimes I have helpers, but usually I bake while Gwen is at school. She is always very happy to help as my assistant chef when the confectioning occurs on the weekends!

 These pink oreo cheesecake cookies (recipe here) were a hit! The girls' favorite part? No eggs in the batter means more pre-baking sampling! lol

Enjoying the fruits of our labors. 

Cupid's Crazy Cafe was a huge hit again this year! All the free printables and blank menus here. I'm told this kind of mixed up dinner is more commonly done on April Fools. Yes, I'd say that makes sense! But we sure enjoy doing it for V-tines! They write down numbers on their menu without knowing the corresponding food item. 

 Each one of the kids (even Emmett!) helped me make a few heart-shaped chicken nuggets. Recipe here. And they were actually WAY easier than I would have thought! Not as convenient as frozen dino-nuggets, but considering how really healthy and delicious they were (JUST chicken breast, eggs, and bread crumbs!), and how well they went over on the kids, definitely a keeper recipe!

 Items from our line-up of potential foods were mostly healthy. That way I don't feel bad if they eat out of order. Heart cucumbers, heart tomatoes, heart nuggets... seeing a theme here?

The cinnamon roll was the exception. Gwen and Emmett both got that on their first course. I knew Gwen would eat everything no matter what, but I was concerned the sweet roll would throw off Emmett's food consumption. I needn't have worried. He didn't even eat it. I ended up eating it. He just wanted more strawberries!

and yes, on Valentine's Day I let them bring a 'friend' to the table to share the love. Emmett chose to bring his letters. Well, as many of them as I would let him put in front of him. I said 'no' to the whole alphabet. Sorry, bud. Did that break your heart? You'll get over it. 

We got a crazy visit from Cupid, of course... funny thing is Daddy happened to be 'outside taking out the trash' (cough cough) when Caroline booked it up the stairs ahead of us and peered out the back door in anticipation of Cupid's next drop. She was surprised that Daddy didn't catch a glimpse... close one! *wink wink*

St. Patrick's Day Festivities

For Family Home Evening activity Gwen helped me make a leprechaun trap.

Gwen's contribution to the bait

the finished trap

the bait

the lovely golden ladder

We checked it every morning and she was starting to lose interest, actually, because we never caught one. But this morning we found tons of Leprechaun gold, so I guess he came on St. Patrick's Day Eve!

Gwen has been very excited about eating her special gold coin chocolates...

notice that OUR leprechaun happens to be Jewish? :) (that's because he saved the gold coins from the after-Hanukkah sale)

We made some festive green block jello, using the instructions here:

Caroline enjoying her jello treat

And my favorite part: the corned beef (my first time to try it), cabbage, carrots, and whole wheat Irish Soda Bread for dinner!

For the record, I actually wasn't the biggest fan of corned beef-- too fatty. But the FLAVOR of the corned beef ON the cabbage and carrots was AWESOME. and I loved the whole wheat Irish Soda Bread. All in all a delicious dinner, even if the protein wasn't my favorite ever.

Gwen 'enjoying' her dinner (aka, playing with her food)

What do YOU do with Green Tomatoes?

Cold came early to Ohio this year. The garden subsequently met it's demise in the compost pile. Ever the "waste not want not" kind of person, I saved all the green tomatoes before trashing the plants. Now, what to do with all these unripe fruits? (that bowl is bigger than you think...)

Being from Arkansas, my Southern pride dictates that I immediately suggest Fried Green Tomatoes. However, since my waistline currently objects to such a proposal, I've been looking for ideas.

Our first endeavor: Salsa Verde with tomatoes instead of tomatillos
...sorta strange, but tolerable with salty enough chips...

Our next endeavor: enchiladas with green filling (not 'green enchiladas'-- that is different)
...a "gag"able dinner which Gwen absolutely refused to eat...

Our 3rd endeavor: baked green tomatoes with brown sugar and buttery club crackers (steadily becoming more and more unhealthy)
...good enough, better than the salsa, not something you would crave, but a fair use for excess green tomatoes...

and finally, because despite the scale's objections I couldn't NOT make some: Oven Fried green tomatoes (they are easier to keep from falling apart this way rather than pan-fried. Not one bit healthier, though!) are next on the menu!...

Don't even ask about my salvaging efforts with end of the season beet greens (not sweet and tasty like the spring variety)...

Moroccan Deliciousness

A couple of weekends ago, we had our 2nd Culinary Challenge dinner: Moroccan. Oh man, was the food DE-LI-CIOUS!!! I won't post recipes here. If you want them, check out our brand spankin new blog for our monthly international feasts!

A few feast highlights:7 veggie couscous with authentic northern African Harissa paste

traditional chicken dish called Bastilla (I think) covered in delicious spices and baked in philo dough

and a fantastic (and GORGEOUS) rose petal and cardamom ice cream served in real roses

and a few friends highlights (I will leave off names in case they would prefer it that way):
But that wasn't everyone. That'll be next month, I guess. Maybe we'll actually get the lil girls to pose with us too. :) Remember, for recipes, visit our new blog!

Culinary Challenge Debut: Caribbean!

I love to cook. And I have exotic interests. I love not only cooking international cuisines for the challenge they hold, but eating the uniquely flavored cultural results. I have been toying with the idea of an international dinner group for some time after seeing something similar on a friend's blog (thank Brooke). I finally decided to put it all together and was blessed enough to find 3 other couples who not only like to cook and enjoy a challenge, but have supportive spouses who also enjoy eating foreign foods. We've decided to have a monthly culinary challenge dinner. Our debut was Caribbean cuisine.Justin and Brianna brought their Dominican Republic expertise to the table with a light cabbage salad and some fried plantains.

Jamie and Trent brought the most delicious coriander flavored rice stuffed avocados for a lovely side dish.Eric and I prepared some grilled halibut with a spicy orange sauce.

We enjoyed the choice of non-alcoholic pina colada (which was definitely more pina than colada) or fresh limeade with key limes.
And what could be more refreshing than the fresh bananas, pineapple, and mangos with frozen yogurt that Linzi and Mike prepared?

Wouldn't you know, I failed to take a picture of the guests? I got great shots of their food though. Everything was exceptional! I'm thinking about starting another blog just for this group that contains all the recipes. What do you think?

Thinking Outside the Box for a "Not-Your-Typical" Easter!

We decorated eggs on Friday. Well, I didn't want to make a big mess with egg decorating, so we just used toothpicks dipped in food coloring and stippled onto the eggs in a real "avant garde" method! Fun, SUPER easy clean up, and made me feel like I was one of those Dutch egg painters that do the really detailed paintings on the shells. We had so much fun experimenting with the Lawrences and have some pretty creative results:

We had our egg hunt on Saturday (indoors-- Eric was worried the neighbors might see. :) and saved Sunday for focusing on the Savior and His supernal Atonement. The ward choir production went really well and Eric's solo/duet was beautiful! And then we came home, put our grumpy baby to bed, and proceeded to cook...
As you also may know, we don't buy our meat from the grocery store. We buy it from the Department of Fish and Game... ha ha, what I mean is, Eric buys tags and licenses and then hunts the meat and fishes the fish himself. (okay, so technically since Eric hasn't had time this year it was mostly his Dad that did the hunting and we just benefit from the meat that he shares). Anyway, a traditional American Easter dinner might have ham in there somewhere... but Eric has never hunted wild boar and we aren't even quite sure how we would go about curing the meat into ham... or whether it would taste anywhere near as yummy anyway... so we opted to do something a lil different: we had fried butterflied duck breast medallions on a bed of spinach and salad greens with blue cheese stuffed baked pears all drizzled with a sun-dried tomato vinaigrette dressing. Sounds exotic, no? Well it was surprisingly EASY and absolutely DELICIOUS!!! 5 for flavor and 5 for ease of preparation! Here's the recipe:

4 duck breast halves, butterflied, breaded in 1/2 cup flour seasoned with salt and pepper, and pan fried in 1-2 T vegetable oil
4 pears, cored (go up from the bottom using a melon baller or spoon if you want the entire pear whole or cut in half and core if you don't care), filled with 4 oz crumbled blue cheese, then baked in the oven (lay on their sides, otherwise cheese will melt out) on 350 F for 10-15 minutes until soft.
lay out spinach and desired salad greens on plates, place warm duck in center, and arrange pears on side. Drizzle all with desired vinaigrette dressing (I highly recommend Kraft Sun-Dried Tomato). Wualah! Delicious!
For dessert we had Hazelnut Torte with strawberries. Sounds amazing, and was good, but not compared to dinner. And it was a lot of work. The hazelnut crust was definitely a WOW, but the strawberries and cream layers could just as easily have been plain ole strawberries in whipped cream. Not gross, by any means, but not the rich dessert I thought it would be. Maybe next time I'll make it a cream cheese icing layer instead of whipped cream. Anyway, 4 for flavor and 3 for ease of preparation. I'm including pictures, but if you want the recipe, you'll have to let me know.



So there you have it, a lil different, not-your-typical Easter.... Easter Allan-style!:)