My son, Shaeffer, took a two year old class well when he was 2!  His teacher was Miss Nadi and she was amazing in every way possible.  She was happy and sweet and creative and she sang adorable songs with the kids.  She even recorded herself singing the songs so the kids could listen at home.  This still is one of his favorite CD’s and he’s now 5!  Well every year she would ask a few parents to make a batch of play dough for her classroom.  This play dough would last her all year!  It’s soft and creamy and wonderful!

Well yesterday Sutton’s Kindergarten teacher asked me to make a class batch of play dough for a center next week.  She said I could use any recipe I wanted and I immediately thought of MISS NADI.  I can honestly say that I often make Kool-Aid play dough, which is also awesome, but it doesn’t last nearly as long!  I made a batch of Nadi’s Dough this morning and it brought back all those fond memories of our two year old class.  The smell, the texture, the color all PERFECT…  It makes a big batch so if you don’t need it all give some to a neighbor or friend!  You could make valentine play dough and put it in little bags for your friends…  What ever you decide, it’s great dough and it will go a long way…

Here’s the Scoop:

Stir together in a big bowl, 4 cups of flour, 2 cups of salt, and one container of cream of tarter (I used 2.5 ounces).  In a large pot combine 9 tablespoons vegetable oil, 4.75 cups hot tap water and food coloring.  Add the dry ingredients to this pan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes.  It looks like a mess, but it will thicken and get lumpy and eventually form into a ball.  Turn the dough ball out of pan on to a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and combine.  Put the dough in a bag while it is still warm and check later for consistency.

***  When you first put the dough in the pan, try to break up the lumps with the spoon.  Later, when it is getting close to being done, lumps will form and all the goo will come together and form into a ball.  When the play dough is done it should be very soft and easily squish through your fingers.  If it’s too dry just add extra hot water (which I did not have to do).

So what I have learned about “crock-potting” is that certain meats cook fast while others are more pokey.  Chicken breasts that are boneless cook very quickly and if you leave them in the pot too long they will dry out and taste yuck-o.  BUT if you toss them in frozen, then they can spend the day in the slow cooker!  So this recipe will call for the frozen variety of chicken, but if you’d like to use fresh, just cut the time!

We’ve made this recipe before.  It’s great shredded on a bun or whole next to a baked potato!  You decide!  Here’s the scoop:

Zesty Crock Pot Chicken

4-6 Frozen Chicken Breasts

1/2 cup italian dressing (I use the kind in a little packet that you mix up, but a bottle would work too)

One 12 ounce bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce…  I LOVE Famous Dave’s Sweet and Zesty

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 T Worcestershire sauce

Place chicken in a slow cooker. In a bowl, mix the barbecue sauce, Italian salad dressing, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. Pour over the chicken.  Cover, and cook 3 to 4 hours on High or 6 to 8 hours on Low.

This project is quick, easy and environmentally groovy…  It’s also pretty inexpensive, which is always a plus!  It is a heart shaped bird feeder!  The boys had a lot of fun making these and they took us a total of 20 minutes to toss together…  and they are PEANUT FREE!

Here’s the scoop:

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 envelope unflavored gelatin (2.5 teaspoons)
• 3 tbsp corn syrup
• 4 cups birdseed

You will also need:

• large mixing bowl
• heart shaped cookie cutter
• nonstick spray
• straw for making a hole in the ornament
• parchment or wax paper or tin foil
• cookie sheet
• ribbon

Mix flour, water, gelatin and corn syrup. Add birdseed and stir until combine!

Spray the inside of a heart cookie cutter with cooking spray. You could use any shape you want really, but for Valentine’s Day a heart is perfect!

Place cookie cutter on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Spoon mixture inside of cookie cutter, pressing mixture firmly.  The birdseed stuck to my fingers a bit, but if you grease them that wouldn’t happen.   The more you press it down, the less shedding of seeds you will have.  We filled our cookie cutters to the brim!  Once they are full, take your straw and poke a hole in the top for the ribbon.  Make sure the straw goes all the way through to the pan.  Carefully lift the cookie cutter up.  It slides right off… Place it next to your heart and make another one!

This recipe made 13 hearts for us, perfect for gifts!  You will want to let them dry 6-8 hours.  We made ours in the afternoon and before bed I flipped them on their side to make sure the back side dried, as well.   We then just let them sit until the morning.  They were very solid by that time and it was simple to thread the ribbon through them at that time.

I think these would be adorable with little “Happy Valentine’s Day” tags… Maybe something like “glad you’re my love bird” or something cheesy like that .  Have fun with it!  We are planning to pass them out to our neighbors too, you can make tons in a short period of time, so spread the LOVE!

Hey Friends…  Today the boys and I are whipping out our crock pot after a long hiatus… The thing is, I am only a slight fan of the creamy goodness that often accompanies a slow cooker.  I know I’m in the minority in saying that… It’s not that I can’t eat those meals, it’s just that I don’t LOVE them…  I decided to find some NEW crock pot recipes to try out this winter.  I’ll post them as we go along and we can decide together what we think…

So this is what I did… I googled “best slow cooker recipes”, I mean why wouldn’t I.  This recipe popped up from the ever popular Rachel Ray.  It was her #1 recipe of 2011 so I figured I’d give it a go.  As with everything else, I had to switch it up a bit.  We are not huge into chicken thighs so I went with boneless chicken breasts. I also left out the cilantro because the boys don’t like it very much.  I don’t know if it will taste as great or if I totally just messed up the recipe.  We’ll find out at 5:30!  I also just tossed the items into the crock pot, I didn’t really measure.  Again, we’ll find out if that was a good idea or not come dinner time!  OK, Here’s the Scoop:

Ingredients

• 4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• Salt and pepper
• 1 12 oz bottle Teriyaki sauce ( I used organic because it was the only one without high fructose corn syrup)
• 3 tablespoons grated ginger (I grated mine in my food processor)
• 3 garlic cloves, grated
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 6 scallions, white and green parts sliced on a bias, but kept separate
• 2 cups rice
• 2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into thin matchsticks
• 1 cucumber, cut into thin matchsticks
• 1 large carrot, cut into thin matchsticks
• Juice of 1 lime
• 3 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil, divided
• 3 Tablespoons cilantro (I left this out)

Preparation

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!

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:

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!

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!

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…