You're So Lucky I Made This

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I am a little ashamed to admit that I have no idea why we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.  Other than the wearing of green, the pinching, and the green beer of course, I am at a loss.  I will have to Google it as soon as I finish this blog post.

If you are looking around the blogosphere however, you may find that St. Patrick’s day is all about the Shamrock Shake at McDonald’s.  They are evidently pretty good and now available at ALL McDonald’s this year.  Except, dear dear Ronald, you seem to have forgotten all the McDonald’s in Japan.  What’s up with that?

Lucky for us, there is no shortage of “copy-cat” recipes on the internet.  And as usual, I am adding my own special touches, which will undoubtedly make them much much better than the real thing.  Plus, it will be much much easier than driving three arguing sisters through the drive-thru at Micky D’s……which I probably wouldn’t do even if I could.

So here they are folks! My…………

You’re So Lucky I Made These For You Mint Milkshakes

Ingredients:

·        2 cups of vanilla ice cream (I used Dryer's 1/2 Fat Vanilla)

·        1 cup milk

·        ½ tsp peppermint extract

·        ¼ tsp green food coloring

·        Whipped topping

·        Shaved or chopped up Andes mints

Put the ice cream, milk, peppermint, and food coloring in a blender.  Blend until smooth.  Pour into glasses.  Top with whipped cream.  I chose Reddi Whip because I NEVER buy it and the girls are always begging for it. 

Don't forget the green fingernails.

Finally, sprinkle on the mint chocolate bits.

Drink it right away.  Don’t take pictures for your blog or you have to drink the melted one.  Boo. 

Goal #13.  Make a “green” lunch or special treat for Brian and the girls on St. Patrick’s Day.  Complete! (101 Goals in 2012)

PS  By using the ½ Fat Vanilla Ice Cream the Mint Milkshake recipe is only 275 calories vs. 423 for a medium McDonalds Shamrock Shake!  This recipe makes two servings.

Caramel Corn

Every year, my wonderful sister in law sends us a HUGE package of goodies for Christmas.  By goodies, I mean things like homemade toffee, gingerbread, and mini banana breads.  This may not sound like too big of a deal, but some years, depending on where we are living, she has to send the package half way around the world.  She lovingly wraps up the breads and cookies so they can make it to foreign lands….like Japan, Germany, and Mississippi. 

I should say we most look forward to this package because it is full of little pieces of love from home.  But if I be totally honest, the main reason that I want it is because it always always always contains Caramel Corn.

Inevitably I end up being all grinchy about this delicious stuff because there is simply not enough to stuff non-stop into my mouth, and still be able to share with the rest of my family.  So this year, I was forced to make my own.

This recipe is from Paula Dean, and not from my sister-in-law, but it tastes the same. (I don’t actually have the recipe from her.) I wouldn’t be surprised if my SIL was Paula’s personal recipe tester or something like that.  Carol….you are a baking/cooking superstar! 

Caramel Corn

Via Paula Deen www.foodnetwork.com

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 200 degrees F.  Over medium heat, combine first 4 ingredients and boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in baking soda. Stir well. Pour over 8 quarts popped corn. Stir to coat well. Bake in large roaster or pan(I used two cookie sheets) for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on waxed paper to dry.

Sweet Sweet Sushi

The middle girlie, Allie, had her end of the semester party in Japanese class yesterday.  A year ago, I would have totally stressed if a kid came home and said, “Hey mom, I need a cool snack for class and it has to be Japanese.”  But now I have Pinterest , and I am set free to create amazing goodies for the classroom, that are the envy of all…..except for maybe the other mom’s who are getting ideas from pinning also. 

I found this idea on allrecipes.com, but it wasn't really a recipe.....just a thumbnail of a rice krispy treat idea.  So,  I used my Aunt Julie’s famous Rice Krispy Bar Recipe, the thumbnail pic, and a little imagination, and came up with Sweet Sweet Sushi.

Sweet Sweet Sushi

Ingredients:

·        6 cups crisp rice cereal

·        1 bag miniature marshmallows

·        ¼ cup butter or margarine

·        1 bag Swedish Fish candies

·        1 box Fruit By The Foot (fruit roll-up thingies)

In a large bowl, melt the butter in the microwave for 45 seconds.  Add the marshmallows and microwave for another 45 seconds.  Stir.  Microwave for another 45 seconds then stir until smooth.  Dump the crispy cereal on top of the mallowy goodness.  Stir together until combined. 

After the mixture has cooled for 10 minutes, butter your hands and mold fistfuls of the rice krispy mixture into the “rolls”, and place each one onto some buttered wax paper.  I was able to make 24 pieces.

Next, set a Swedish fish on the top of each roll.  Cut about a 3 inch piece of Fruit By The Foot and wrap it around the rice crispy roll AND the fish.  You can press the two ends of the fruit roll together at the bottom.  The whole roll is sticky enough that it holds itself together.  So easy, your kids can even do it!

Allie took them to her class and everyone LOVED them.  Most importantly, I retained my title as Pretty Much the Coolest Mom on the Planet.  Okay, maybe just the coolest mom in Japan!   

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Sticky Quickies

Kids are finally back in school.  Hot coffee.  Warm puppy next to me. Quiet.

It’s wonderful.

But in the back of my head I know I should get up and go EXERCISE.

It’s so hard.  I want to eat.

Sigh.

So, in honor of not bailing on several of my 101 Goals for 2012 in just the first week of January, I just poured myself a protein shake and I will blog about one of my family’s favorite breakfast treats.  Sticky Quickies.  If I can’t eat it, I might as well dream about it.....right? 

I got this recipe from my good friend years ago.  I usually save it for company or holidays not because they are hard to make, but because they are so gooey good in your tummy, but not quite as good stuck to your behind and thighs. 

My friend noted on the recipe that “you’ll never slave over cinnamon rolls again” and that “they remind her husband of sex.”  She was right.  I have never made cinnamon rolls since and somehow the word “quickie” in a recipe is never overlooked by my husband either. 

*Note:  You will just have to deal with the pictures.  Try as I might, I cannot seem to get the full caramely, sticky, gooey, delightfulness, to present well in a photograph.  You will just have to trust me on this one.

Sticky Quickies

Ingredients:

·       1 1/2 cup flour

·        2 pkgs rapid rise yeast

·        ¾ cup milk

·        ½ cup water

·        ¼ cup margarine or butter

·        ¼ cup sugar

·        1 tsp. salt

·        1 egg

·        1 ¾ cup flour

Topping:

·        ¾ margarine

·        1 cup brown sugar

·        1 tsp. cinnamon

·        5 Tbls. White syrup

·        1 Tbls. Water

·        ¾ cup chopped nuts (optional....I don’t use them.)

Combine in a large bowl 1 ½ cup flour and yeast.  Set aside.  In a small saucepan, heat milk, water, margarine, sugar, & salt, till warm.  Pour into yeast and flour; add egg.  Beat on high speed for 3 minutes.  Stir in the remaining 1 ¾ cup flour by hand.  Dough will be sticky and look like this.  

Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.

Combine topping ingredients in saucepan.  Heat until melted.  Pour this into a 9 x 13 casserole pan.  Stir down the batter when it is finished rising & drop by large tablespoons onto topping. (Like this...about 5 or 6 rows of 4)

Bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees.   Cool one minute, then invert onto serving tray. (I use a cookie sheet with sides.) 

I also serve with a powdered sugar/milk/drop of vanilla drizzle for those in my family who like that….EVERYONE.

So, there it is.  Make it.  You’ll love it.  I promise.  Now I am off to go on a run!  Oh wait!  No way could I end this post without the picture that my husband decided to "stage"....because he was sure he could get a better photo than I could.  Thanks Honey!  Gotta love you!

Baked French Toast - Breakfast for Swimming Champions

It’s no secret that I am SUPER proud of my two oldest girlies and the fantastically awesome effort they put forth for the Yokota Stingrays swim team.  But I am also SUPER excited to announce that my youngest girlie had the chance to swim this past weekend at our home swim meet.  Yay Amber!!!!

She swam the 50 meter back stroke in one minute and twenty-two seconds, and although she didn’t win any medals or ribbons, she was just excited to swim……

Just like her big sisters do.

And since the girls burn about a zillion calories during a swim meet, I have to carb load them with something yummy for breakfast.  It is fast and easy and you can make A LOT if you need to.

 This recipe works well with any kind of bread, but a nice French bread or sourdough is perfect if you want to be fancy.  I am not feeling that fancy at 5:30am, making sure everyone has swim caps and goggles, so this time I just used a left over baguette from dinner the night before.  It made perfect little dippers.  (Normally though, I use Wonder Bread…like a bad mom…who doesn’t make her kids eat whole wheat bread like I should.)

Baked French Toast

(recipe adapted from http://www.cooks.com/)

Ingredients:

·        1/4 cup butter

·        4 eggs

·        2/3 cup milk

·        1/3 cup sugar

·        1 tsp cinnamon

·        8 slices of bread (more or less depending on the kind of bread)

Turn oven to 400 degrees.  Melt butter in a 10 x 15 pan while the oven is pre-heating.  Mix sugar and cinnamon.  Remove pan from the oven and sprinkle sugar cinnamon mixture evenly into the pan.  Mix the eggs and milk.  Dip the bread into the liquid mixture and then lay it on top of the buttery sugar.  Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until bread begins to brown. (I usually go about 15.)  Lift out sugar side up onto a serving platter.  Serve with warm maple syrup and powdered sugar…or whatever French toast toppings you love!

Then, you better go swimming to work those calories off!

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Baked Sugar Donut Muffins

Just a lazy long labor day weekend here at our house.  The girlies wanted me to slave over some cinnamon rolls. I had to think about that one for exactly a nano-second…….NO.

So as not to make the poor starving babies think that I don’t love them, I whipped up some of these little sugared cuties. 

Much much easier than sweating over cinnamon rolls and much much healthier than fried Homemade Donuts, they were a hit!  The ones pictured here are covered with plain white sugar, but cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar are good too.
 



Sugar Donut Muffins

(recipe adapted from Baking Bites)

 



3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup milk (low fat is fine)

2 tsp melted butter

1 tsp vanilla                                                                                                     
1/2 cup sugar, for rolling

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a muffin tin with cooking spray or vegetable oil.  In a large bowl, beat together sugar and egg until light in color.   In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Pour into egg mixture and stir to combine. Pour in vegetable oil, milk and vanilla extract.  Divide batter evenly into a mini-muffin pan. (Recipe will also fill about 10 regular muffin cups ¾ full.) Bake for 15 to 18 minutes.  When muffins are done, lightly brush the top of each with some melted butter, remove from pan, and roll around in remaining sugar.  
   

Makes 24 mini-muffins.

Looks good, no?  Okay then, how about dipped in vanilla icing?

Owl Cupcakes...They Are A Hoot!

If you take these to a school bake sale everyone will say to you, “Nice hooters!”

Cute huh?

I made these for the daughter of a VERY good friend.  I say VERY, because I don’t normally take a lot of time to decorate things I bake or cook.  I tend to make big messes and get frosting all over everything. 

So, wearing a pair of white shorts no less, I got all down and dirty and chocolaty for my friend.  Turns out, it was worth it.

Owl Cupcakes

What you need:

·        12 cupcakes (I used Chocolate & Vanilla)

·        1-2 cans chocolate frosting

·        24 Oreo sandwich cookies twisted apart

·        Junior Mints

·        Candy Corn

Step 1: Frost all of your cupcakes with the chocolate frosting and be sure to drop a glob on your white shorts.

Step 2:  Twist your Oreos apart.  Mine came apart easily, but the cupcake book I used said to zap some in the microwave for about 3 seconds if you are having trouble.

Step 3: Press the Oreo halves, frosted side up, into the upper half of the frosted cupcakes.  (It is at this time you somehow get chocolate in your hair.)

Step 4: Score 12 of the unfrosted Oreos into 3 parts with a serrated knife.  This way they can easily snap apart.  It should look like this.

Step 5: Stick the round edge Oreo pieces into the top of each cupcake above the Oreo halves.  These will be the owl’s ears.

Step 6:  Next, you will pipe more chocolate frosting on the ears and in between the eyes to create the look of feathers.  I have no pictures of this because I had too much chocolate frosting on my hands and shorts.

Step 7: Pipe a dot of frosting on top of each Oreo half and stick a Junior Mint on it for the owl’s eye.  Make sure to drop a Junior Mint on the chair you are sitting on and get the back of your white shorts all chocolaty too.

Step 8: Press a candy corn in the center of each set of eyes for the nose.

Step 9: Put on an apron to cover up the chocolate you got all over yourself.....or maybe you should have done that first....before you started with the chocolate?

You’re done!!  Whoo hoo!  (Or should I say Hoot! Hoot!!??)

Happy Birthday Kaylie…..hoped you liked them!!!