Monday, October 31, 2011

Halloween Breakfast


What do you feed hungry groovy girls on Halloween for breakfast?


Pancakes cut with cookie cutters -- haunted house, spider, bat and pumpkin. Ghost bananas. Sugar free chocolate pudding in a spider cup with a whipped cream ghost on top (choc chips for the eyes). Candy eyes on the spider and candy bones scattered around for decoration (they never eat these but they look cute).

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Falling for Crafts Challenge

Check out these cool Halloween/Fall treats and crafts over at One Artsy Mama's Blog!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

War Eagle!


Time for football game tonight. The girls have been asking me to do an Auburn bento meal. I haven't had any luck with coming up with much other than making a football shaped sandwich, etc. But tonight, we were having tailgating food (not very healthy choices but you know football watching food is more about comfort and fun and speed than health!) so I decided to try and make it into a bento for them. Here's what it ended up being....chicken nuggets, tater tots (didn't have any fries), apple slices and an apple football helmet (cut with a cookie cutter) with the AU logo on it from edible writer pen, popcorn (you have to have popcorn at any sporting event, right?), two oreo cookies (football shaped!), kiwi slices (I told them this was for green color of the football field). I used football picks and put a folded piece of fabric under their nuggets and tots that has our team logo on it, and some fake green grass in the background. War Eagle! Go Auburn!


Monday, October 24, 2011

Fresh from the Oven

When we lived in Georgia, we had a neighbor and dear sweet friend that made homemade sourdough bread. It was the best bread I've ever tasted. Yummy! She was so kind and would share with our family whenever she made bread. My girls loved her bread. To them, it was "Miss Melissa Bread" and was their favorite. After we moved to Florida, they missed their friends (Melissa's daughters) and Miss Melissa Bread. I decided to try and make a starter for the sweet sourdough bread and give it a try. I'm not a great scratch baker so this was a leap for me. I found a recipe on the internet that was as close to what Melissa used to "feed" her starter as possible. She had been given her starter from someone in Arkansas so she didn't have a recipe for making a starter. I made the starter using the internet recipe and begin to feed and take care of my precious new starter baby. I attempted my first bread and it was SOUR tasting - not so good. My friend encouraged me not to give up and to try again. I read all the reviews and posts I could find about bread making on the internet. I decided maybe I let it rise too long. So on the second try, I adjusted my times and it turned out a little better - still not as good as Miss Melissa Bread but it was edible at least. Third time was a charm though!! Many of the posts I read said "don't give up if your bread isn't great the first few times" - I'm glad I listened to that advice. From that point on, my bread was great. I as able to use the starter to make bread, rolls, cinnamon rolls, foccocia bread, cheese bread, italian bread, wheat bread and much more. It was fun making up new recipes and sharing homemade bread with friends and family. I kept up my bread making for months but then as summer approached, I was less interested in making bread. For some reason, its better in the fall/winter to me - just warm and cozy I guess. Anyway, last year I was pregnant and didn't have the energy or desire to bake anything! So its been almost two years since I baked bread but my daughters have been asking for bread so I decided to make a new starter and give it a whirl. This morning was my first trial run with the new starter. It turned out good - not perfect - but still tasty and edible. The crust was perfect and the rise was good (not great), the density and texture was good but it wasn't quite as sweet tasting as we like it. I think its because the starter is so fresh. I remember the older the starter was the more established and mature it was and the better the bread tasted so I'm not giving up. I think it will just get better with age. Here's today's first run bread.

Mummy Pizza


My camera settings got messed up at the Fall Festival - too many hands using my camera! I couldn't figure out why all my pictures were blurry. So, even though the Mummy pizza is blurry, I still wanted to show him off. He turned out cute. Its just a round pizza crust, sauce, crumbled sausage and ham (you could use any toppings your child likes) and mozzarella cheese. The eyes are made from ham and pepperoni cut in various size circles. Quick, Easy and Cute (and blurry if your camera settings are messed up!).

Saturday, October 22, 2011

The Groovy Girls

All decked out for the Fall Festival...here are my groovy girls. :)


Thursday, October 20, 2011

Breakfast Muffins



I made breakfast muffins this morning for the girls. These were corn muffin mixes which I added in some cheese and meat (Jada chose ham, Kina chose sausage). Turned out great! They had a few cheerios, a sweetum mandarin orange (looked like a pumpkin) and some Halloween cookies. Decorations were the jointed skeleton and "boo" sign from the Duff line at Michael's.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Pumpkin Pizza for Lunch!



Well, not REAL pumpkin pizza but cheese pizza made to look like a pumpkin/jack. Along with the pizza, I added some crackers that spelled out "Boo Kina" and "Boo Jada" and some bug cookies, gummies and grapes.




Pumpkin Scramble?


Today's breakfast bento was a pumpkin shaped biscuit, scrambled eggs, sausage crumbles (aka brains), hash browns, a "sweetum" mandarin orange (with the face carved), grapes and pumpkin/witch shortbread cookies.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Angry Birds!

On the menu today was Angry Birds (the birds were made from cheese) and the Pig (made from toast and grapes) along with chicken and brown rice (which was intended to look like bird seed). On the sides are grapes, two bug cookies and a few raisins.





Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Squid Dogs and Octopus Friends



Spaghetti with Squid Dogs (hot dogs with noodles poked thru them) and Octopus Friends (hot dog pieces cut with octopus bento tool, faces added with edible marker). Fish (cheese with edible coloring for eye, stripes, spots, fins) and Nemo gummies and jello. Plastic fish picks were used for decoration.
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BBQ Ribs and Ladybugs Dinner

BBQ Ribs with Rice (eyes/nose are peas, mouth is a green bean) with strawberry ladybugs (heads are grapes and spots are chocolate chips).

I love Meatballs!


Meatballs with Rice (hearts on top are cheese), fresh strawberries, dried apples and some leftover fried rice. It was simple but it was a hit with the girls.

Poke Ball


Poke Ball made from rice (red side is sprayed with food coloring) - the black line across the middle was cut from a sugar sheet.

Scrambled Graveyard Breakfast


The scrambled eggs, hash browns and ham graveyard have been taken over by the ghosts and bones! A toasty cat came to play, too.

Fishy Friday


Ham and Cheese Sandwich on Goldfish Bread, Jello (blue like water), goldfish crackers and Nemo gummies.

Chinese Chicken Lunch


Chinese Fried Rice, Soup (like you get at the Japanese restaurants) and Mickey Chicken Nuggets.

Testing out the Bento Egg Maker Molds

Car



Bunny


Bear

Fish

Boo Breakfast


Hearty Breakfast


Heart shaped scrambled eggs, heart shaped toast, sliced strawberries, heart shaped salami and ham, grapes and Lucky Charms.
 

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