Crafts and food- fun!

Okay, so yet again, it put the new pics I added at the top of the page. I know you've seen this one before, but go to the very bottom of this blog so you know what's going on....... it's backwards; you have to start from the bottom. Sorry!! No cheating; that takes the fun out of it. This is Mama's 56th bday cake I made for her since she loves VW bugs and her fav color is purple. (She has a purple one, too). Isn't it cute? I know it's not professional looking; I never claimed to be a pro cake decorator. I just do it for fun! And I know it would have been much smoother and pro looking if I'd used fondue but that stuff's expensive! :)


This is the cute little cake Damen made all by himself for Mom. He did a great job, didn't he? He called it his "fudgy fudgy" cake. lol

These are the cute little egg crafts we made one day over Spring Break. Ry's is the orange owl, Zane's is the green cat, Tristin's is the blue skunk, and Damen's is the pig.

Here they are with their finished products- so proud!

Zane's little kitty; he's so excited. (He tore it up five seconds later, for fun). hahaha

Ry loved his little owl. Isn't he cute? I told him NOW he can find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop.....haha

Damen's talking about his little pink pig. He carried it around all day and I had to help him re-glue it 5 times because he wouldn't wait till the glue was dry (he has his Daddy's patience level). Poor Mr. Piggy. I finally said no more. Mr. Piggy is now ready to be filled with easter candy and has only two eyes of what used to be his body.... how sad. :(

Tristin's skunk. It was later attacked by Zane and no longer lives. We'll always have the memories..... I can still smell him as though he just left us.

This stupid thing never lets me put the pictures AFTER my writing, so the explanation for all of this is at the bottom. You'll have to start from the bottom up! Sorry, but we all know I've always been a bit backwards and special. :) So.....down to the bottom you go!! Now.....go, already! Why are you still here?

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I will give credit where credit is do when I copy someone else's recipe but normally I just make my own. I like to throw things together and see how they turn out. I think it goes without saying that these are stuffed bell peppers. I LOVE them and they're very healthy for you because they help fight cancer! I prefer white or green ones to the traditional red. Cut the stems off the bell peppers, gut the suckers, wash them, and then flip them upside down in a little dish and stick them in the oven on 375 for about 20 minutes. Then take them out, remove the water from the dish, and turn them right side up. While they're cooking, you prepare the rice and meat. I prefer to use chicken with the white or green ones. Cook your meat and season it the way that you want, and cook half a pan of rice on the stove top. I normally use white rice but I have found that it adds even that much more flavor to use flavored rice. This particular night, I used Rice a Roni's four cheese rice (2 packages). That way I didn't have to make my own sauce, like I normally do, although I cheated and made some anyway and mixed it with the rice and chicken after it was finished. Make it any way that you like, but I prefer a nice Asiago sauce. Mix any combination of cheeses together for a different flavor. I melt 1/3 stick of butter in a sauce pan, on low heat. Then add crumbled feta cheese and press it with a fork to flatten it so that it will mix better. Then you add your other cheeses. I added Romano, Asiago, and Parmesan. Add a can of cream of chicken soup and milk, dash of onion salt and pepper, mix it up and let everything melt, and voila! You have a nice cheese sauce. Mix it together with the rice and chicken and add to the bell peppers. Top with a slice of cheese (and the stems, if you prefer, or you can toss 'em), and pop 'em back in the oven, long enough to let the cheese melt. Sooooo yummy!!!!! :)

Cut in half for easier viewing :)

This is the birthday cake that I made for Tristin last weekend. It's a mint chip ice cream cake. It is VERY comparable to store bought ice cream cakes and sooooo much cheaper!! I came up with this recipe by experimenting because I LOVE ice cream cakes (I have never liked "cake", so I make cheesecake or ice cream cake). It's VERY simple and so delicious! For the crust, I melted butter, added a tad of sugar, and crushed cookies. The flavor that you use depends upon what type of cake you'd like. For this particular one, I used a package of Oreo mint cookies. Crush the cookies up, mix on the bottom of the dish(at least 13" x 9"; the one pictured is 15" x 9"), and do not grease the dish first. I prefer glass dishes because aluminum does not distribute the heat evenly and you sometimes end up with soggy in the middle and hard on the outside (although it obviously doesn't matter with this recipe because it's ice cream; it isn't being baked). Anyway, mix the butter and sugar with the crumbs and spread evenly on the bottom of the dish. Get a large bowl and add a small container of whipped cream with a 1/2 gallon container of ice cream. Mix it well and place it on top of the crumbs. That's it- put it in the freezer for 2-4 hours and let it work its' magic! Afterwards, you can frost it, if you'd like. The only thing I dislike about this is I haven't found a way to make it to where I can turn the pan over and frost it without the pan yet, so that it looks better. (I'll figure it out!!). For this cake, I used mint chip ice cream. I placed a layer of mint hot fudge on top of the cookie crumbs before adding the ice cream mixture on top. If I wasn't planning on frosting it, I would have also put Andes mint baking chips on the top of the cake. Experiment and have fun!

Sean doesn't like chocolate (Yeah, he's a freak of nature but hey, more for me!!), so I also made a Lemon Berry ice cream cake at the same time as this one. For it, I used lemon flavored cookies with lemon icing in the middle. Add a layer of homemade strawberry or lemon jam (or both!) before putting the ice cream layer on. I used Breyer's strawberry ice cream (something with real fruit chunks in it is better!), mixed with whipped cream (you could even use strawberry whipped cream if you'd like). I didn't top it with anything. I figured I'd done enough work for one day! :)

Here is the cake after freezing and before decorating

The finished product with my happy 10 year old :)

Okay, so I did a blog similar to this about 9 years ago, where I posted food and crafts that I'd made, but I haven't done one in YEARS... sooo...not to copy Laura, but it is a great idea. I think we can all benefit from sharing different ideas for supper, ideas, crafts, etc. I've decided to start posting some of the meals and desserts that I cook (thanks for the idea, Laura! You rock!), as well as crafts that I do with the kids. I'll post some of the pages from my scrapbooks when I bother to take the time to scan them to the computer.

That being said, I am now going to post a few pictures and add explanations under each one. Happy cooking/crafting! :)