Archive | December, 2011

New Years Eve Ice Cream Sundaes

30 Dec

 

Happy New Years Eve-Eve… It’s been a nice day of nothingness for the fam and I today.  We have a friend visiting us from Denver.  He, Ben, and the big boys took a nice bike ride this morning while baby and I made a mess of the living room.  This afternoon I took the boys to the park and now my house  is full of sleeping men!

Yesterday my oldest had a little girl from his class over for a play date… We made these ice cream cone hats as a little activity while she was here.  Today the boys and I made “men” out of ice cream and put their hats on them so they could ring in the new year with us!  Pretty easy, tasty, and the kids loved it!

Here’s the scoop:

12 sugar cones

1 package semi sweet chocolate chips

candy & frosting for decorating

**  Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or microwave until smooth.  Roll the ice cream cones in the chocolate until fully coated (I also dipped some of the cones so only the tops of them are covered in chocolate).  Allow to cool and harden.  You can put them outside (cold climate) or in the freezer to speed this process up.  Use the frosting and candies to decorate your hats.  You can use licorice rope as string for the party hats if you like…  We used the frosting as glue, much like decorating a gingerbread house…  Of course the kids hats are FULL of candy and decorations and are also half eaten!

**  Scoop some of your favorite ice cream into a bowl and decorate a face.  We used M&M’s, Mike and Ikes, and Nerds for our guy…

**  We obviously waited a little too long to take this pic because our man is starting to melt.  In real life this is not an issue because your ice cream is not on any sort of a time crunch and will probably be long gone quicker than you can say Happy New Year!

What’s Up with Black Eyed Peas????

29 Dec

Zannie's Black Eyed Pea Dip, courtesy of The Pioneer Woman

Clearly I’ve been living under a rock for the past thirty some years because I did not know that you are supposed to eat black eyed peas on New Years Day for good luck…  I googled it and good old wikipedia says this, “Eating black-eyed peas on New Years Day is thought to bring prosperity.”  It goes on to give the history of why this is so, dating back to the Jewish New Year and even gives some traditional ways of preparing them…  I figured I’d consult an “expert” in preparation, The Pioneer Woman, and by golly she has a recipe…  I’ve never met a PW recipe I didn’t like so here you go:

Zannie’s Black Eyed Pea Dip
Ingredients
1 can (14-ounce) Can Black-eyed Peas
1/4 whole Onion, Chopped Fine
1/4 cup Sour Cream
8 slices Jarred Jalapenos
1 cup Grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese
3 Tablespoons Salsa
Hot Sauce, to taste
Salt And Black Pepper To Taste
Preparation Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drain black-eyed peas and partially mash, leaving some whole.
Add all other ingredients, stirring to combine.
Spread into a 1 1/2 quart baking dish and bake for 20 to 30 minutes until hot and bubbly.
Serve with tortilla chips!
*Note: if you have them available, you can use the canned black-eyed peas and jalapenos (they’re canned together.) If you do this, you can omit the extra jalapeños.
For step by step instructions with pictures go here!

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Sparkling Jello with a New Years Eve Flare!

29 Dec

We’re going old school at our house with this recipe…  Jello just reminds me of being a kid!  This recipe is super easy and your kids will love it!  It makes a kind of bubbly, fizzy, pop in your mouth sort of jello which is fun for “Noon Years Eve”….  I mentioned it to my friend Ann and she said they used to make this recipe using club soda.  We used sprite, but I think club soda or ginger ale would be equally as successful!  I also read a recipe online where someone used cherry jello and coke for a sort of cherry soda flavor, sounds fun too!

I put this batch in some drinking glasses we have and then about an hour later located our plastic champagne flutes…  I am going to make another batch and place it in the flutes just for the cuteness of the holiday!

Here’s the Scoop:

1 small package of jello any flavor

1 cup boiling water

2 cups sprite, club soda, ginger ale, 7-up, etc.. (I call this fizzy drink in the recipe)

***  Dissolve the jello in 1 cup of boiling water.  Chill it in the fridge for 15 minutes.  Add 2 cups of “fizzy drink” to the jello.  Pour it into your desired serving dish/glass and let it set up over night….

***  OK a couple side notes…  I had a little extra so I just poured that in a juice glass.  I tried “whipping” it with a whisk this morning to see if it would froth up (thinking I could pour it on the top of the jello) but it didn’t froth.  What it did do is make lots of little bubbles inside the jello.  This might be kind of fun for a more “champagne” sort of a feel…  It was more liquid-ish but very bubbly.  I ended up just decorating ours with sprinkles and whip cream.  I would suggest making the whip cream because Reddi-Whip/Cool Whip will melt and not look as pretty…  The silver sprinkles are called “French Dragees”.

***  I guess that Jello USED to make a sparking white grape jello but it’s no longer in circulation… You might be able to find it at the dollar store or something, not sure, but it would be fun this time of year!

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New Years Eve Hats…. Or at our house, “NOON YEARS EVE”…

27 Dec

This year we thought our boys might enjoy the fun of New Years Eve… Usually they are fast asleep by midnight, and this year will be no different (in fact we might be sleeping too)…  So instead we are going to have a Noon Years Eve celebration complete with a countdown, party food, noise makers, and HATS…  Here are the simply, quick hats we made for our celebration.  I will post some other party favors and decorations this week, as well, so stay tuned!

Simply New Years Eve Hats:

1.  Cut a piece of clear packing tape so it will fit around your child’s head.  You can either do this by pre-measuring your child’s head with a tape measure or do like I did and just pull the tape out, place it sticky side out around the head, and then cut….

2.  Lay the tape flat, sticky side up, in front of each child.  This is now their canvas.

3.  Let them decorate to their hearts content.  By decorating I mean place the items on the sticky side of the tape. Now my boys were a bit more interested in their new Christmas legos this morning than they were in New Years hats, so they went pretty quickly.  We used pipe cleaners, curly ribbon and puffy balls.  I wanted to also use glitter and stickers, but it just wasn’t happening… Use what you have and have fun…  I think even with their limited attention spans this morning, they made some pretty cute hats!

4.  Once they are done decorating, cut another piece of clear packing tape (we just moved so this is in abundance at our house) the same length as your first piece and place it over the “canvas”…  try to get it as close as possible so that you don’t have any sticky tape getting caught in the hair.  You can always fold over, if needed, however.

5.  Attach the hat to your child’s head.  My boys were a little long so we just overlapped the ends and taped them together.  You could also staple them!  Happy NOON Year everyone!

Tip Junkie handmade projects

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From us….

26 Dec

Candy Cane Ice Cream

21 Dec

One of my favorite recipes of the season is Candy Cane Ice Cream…  It is probably the easiest thing you will make this season…  There is a super easy way and an easy way…  I’ll share both :)!

Here is the SCOOP…

1.  Buy (super easy way) or make (just easy way) a half gallon of your favorite vanilla ice cream. I usually make a “cream base” using my ice cream maker, but you can just as easily buy a half gallon of vanilla from the grocery store…  If you use store bought ice cream, let it sit out for a couple of minutes so it’s soft, but not melted…

The base I make is as follows:

2 eggs

3/4 cups sugar

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup milk

2 tsp. vanilla

Whisk the eggs until light and fluffy, slowly add in the sugar until mixed well.  Add cream and milk and mix together.  Add the vanilla.  Poor into your ice cream maker and watch it work… Mine takes about 30-45 minutes, I just watch it for the consistency I’m looking for.

2.  Buy a package of TRADITIONAL Peppermint Candy Canes…  Unwrap each (I used 5) of the candy canes and put them in a large ziplock bag.  Using the back of a spoon, hammer, etc…  SMOOSH up all of the candy canes… You probably want about a cup of candy canes, but if you like it more peppermint-y then add as many as you like!  This is a great way to release some holiday stress too…  My boys had fun doing this!

3.  OK if you bought ice cream, go ahead and scoop the ice cream into a large bowl.  Add the smashed candy canes to the ice cream in the bowl.  Using a large spoon, mix the ice cream and the candy canes together…

*  If you made your ice cream add the candy canes at the end of the ice cream makers cycle.

4.  Re-freeze the ice cream until ready to serve…  This pic was taken before the re-freeze process… It will thicken up!

5.  I love to serve this with mini chocolate bundt cakes, brownies, chocolate waffer cookies, or even just all by itself!  YUMMY…

 

OK and how cute is this little blog photographer…

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Button Ornaments…

20 Dec

The boys and I have been keeping busy over our winter break…  We’ve done those bead things that you iron (pearler beads they might be called), we’ve baked, we’ve gotten haircuts, played outside and met some new friends!  Today we made these cute little button ornaments.  They didn’t take long, but they were fun!  They might be a good thing to bring to Grandma’s or attach to the outside of a holiday gift!  Here’s the skinny….

1.  Trace some of your favorite cookie cutters onto tag board.  I tried to use tag that matched the color of the shape (white for the snowflake etc..)   I free handed the wreath because the boys really wanted a wreath (go figure) and I don’t own a wreath cookie cutter!

2.  Punch a hole in the top of each of your cut outs and tie it with a ribbon.  OR don’t punch a hole and after your ornament dries glue a clothes pin to the back of the ornament so you can attach it to a tree.  I had to choose the later of the two options because quite frankly I forgot to punch the hole!  You could also attach a magnet to the back…

3.  Slather the front of your shape with all sorts of white school glue… For my boys, this was the BEST part!

4.  Stick buttons of all shapes and sizes all over your ornament.  I did try to “sway” my kids towards choosing colors that are suited for the shape, but I also think making a bunch of trees in all different colors would be adorable.  I actually think cutting just triangle trees (no branches) and then making all different colors would be fun, but my boys wanted different shapes!

5.  We did a second layer of buttons on the tree for ornaments and on the wreath for the bow and berries…  You can tell we took the pics a bit before the glue dried…   I would recommend waiting to attach a clothes pin and/or magnet until they are completely dry.

6.  VIOLA…  Like I said, these would be super cute tied to a Christmas gift, as a gift for Granny, or just hanging on your tree!  You could put your child’s picture inside the wreath-that would capture Papa’s heart!

From our house to yours, Merry Christmas!  We’re off to make some Candy Cane Ice Cream…. MMMMMMMMM!

 

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Hot Fudge Sauce….

16 Dec

As you know I am big fans of the blog Brown Paper Packages….  She had a post about back to school gifts that included a recipe for hot fudge sauce.  I altered her recipe and made some for holiday gifts for teachers this year…  I put the fudge in a jar and attached a gift card to a local ice cream shop…  A gift after my own heart!

Here’s the recipe, I filled 4 jars with this recipe!

12 T. butter
4 c. powdered sugar
6 T. cocoa
2 c. evaporated milk

Over low heat melt butter thoroughly. Add sugar and cocoa. Mix well, then gradually add milk. Bring to a boil, and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from stove, then serve warm or cold.

Packaging:

I love this because my husband tied the bow, can you tell????  I hot glued a strip of burlap to the outside of the jar and attached a little tag that says “May your home be filled with the “sweet” blessings of the season”..  Nothing fancy…  Had I planned for this project I would have used cuter paper, but alas we had nothing cute at home!

Merry Merry!

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Easy Christmas Tree Craft

11 Dec

I am always surprised by what crafts keep my boys attention for long periods of time, this being one of them…   I really thought this one might take us a few minutes and then we’d move on, I was wrong!  They were having a lot of fun decorating their Christmas trees!  We were able to use some of the craft supplies we had around the house along with some cinnamon pinecones I purchased (cinnamon scented only because that’s all they had).    We made several Christmas trees with all sorts of colors and sizes of pom poms.   I did use hot glue to attach the pom poms, but I think school glue would work too. I put a dot of glue on the pom pom of my child’s choice and let them attach it where they wanted to.  Again, super easy, but they loved it…  It was pretty fun to see their patterns, color choices, and pom pom placement as we went along…  My oldest deliberated about his trees long enough to dry his glue a couple times :).  We currently have these scattered around our Nativity scene making it look very festive for the birth of the baby Jesus!

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Holiday Play-Dough: Gingerbread & Peppermint

3 Dec

During the month of December in Kindergarten I used to always have a play-dough center…  We’d have these lovely smelling doughs available for cookie cutting, tower building, and snake making fun!  I am going to try to make some for the boys this weekend because I know they will love it!!!  I’ll take a picture once I’ve made some, or better yet, post your pics after you’ve made some on Mommyapolis’ facebook page and I’ll post them here!

Gingerbread Play-Dough

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

2tsp. cream of tartar

1 cup water

1 tsp. vegetable oil

spices- cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg

Directions:

Mix the dry ingredients together.  Just try out different amounts of spices until you get the scent and color you desire.  We used a lot of cinnamon!!!!  Mix the water and oil together in a separate bowl and then add them to the dry ingredients.  Cook the mixture on low for 3-5 minutes or when the mixture starts to stick together like a ball.  Take it out of the pan and knead it until it is soft and smooth.  Let it cool before the little ones play with it!

Peppermint Play–Dough

2 cups water
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
4 teaspoons cream of tartar
4 tablespoons oil
4 tablespoons peppermint extract
glitter (optional, but oh so fun)

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and pulls away from the sides of
the pan. Form dough into a ball, sprinkle with glitter and knead until it is soft and smooth.  Cool completely before allowing little hands to play with it!

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