Planting Donuts

My mom sent this "kit" to my girls so they could plant donuts.  It was a BIG hit, they loved it.

What you need:

Soil: Crushed Oreo's (just the cookie part, not the creme)

Donut Seeds: Cheerios

Cups

Forks

Donuts for the next morning

Instructions for the kids:

 Soil with donut seeds:

Cups all planted with forks in them:

In the morning, get up before the kids and put donuts on the forks and cover back up with a cloth (unfortunately I wasn't thinking and didn't take a picture of this).  

When they wake up they will be AMAZED that they grew donuts.

You might want to emphasize that you used SPECIAL soil, and that if you try planting cheerios outside nothing will happen. :)

2 Versions of Peppermint Oreos

Seriously, these look so good, I feel like reaching into the computer screen and grabbing one. I kept seeing these on people's blogs and wanted to give them a try. They. were. delicious. There are lots of versions of these. I combined two recipes that met my requirements of ease, and not having to buy cream cheese.

For the cookies and general inspiration, I used the recipe off of I heart naptime (the girl who ate everything was guest blogging). You've probably seen this cookie recipe before. They are the easiest and softest chocolate cookies ever.

Cookie:

2 boxes Devil's food cake mix

4 eggs

2/3 C vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl mix the cake mix, eggs, and oil with a mixer. The batter will be very stiff. Pinch off pieces of batter and roll into 1 inch balls. Place 1 inch apart on prepared cookie sheeta nd flatten slightly with fingertips. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove immediately from the cookie sheets and let cool on a wire rack (like I have a wire rack!!)

Filling:

Since I didn't have cream cheese, I went over to Cupcake Project for the filling (you could also use her cookie recipe if you don't have the cake mix lying around).

Ingredients:

1/4 C room temp unsalted butter

1/4 C vegetable shortening

2 C sifted powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract (I used 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp peppermint extract for these cookies)

Directions:

Place butter and shortening in mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn mixer on high and beat until filling is light and fluffy.

To make the cookies, we (yes, the children helped!!) used pastry bags to pipe the frosting into the center of the cookies. You could just spread it on with a knife too. After putting on the top cookie, we rolled the cookies into candy cane bits (the kids used the end of an ice cream scooper to smash the candy canes while the plastic was still on. It was a big hit with them, no pun intended).

Then try and restrain yourself from eating the whole batch.

The very day after we went to all the trouble to make these, I found another version of peppermint oreo's on my sister in laws blog. She takes oreos, dips them in white chocolate bark, and then in crushed candy canes. I bought some white chocolate and we are doing those next.

Don' they look fun?

(picture stolen from Alicia Warnock. wahaha)

Red Beans and Rice

Yummy and very filling.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound fully cooked smoked sausage (such as hot links or Kielbasa), sliced into 1/2-inch-thick rounds

1 onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, chopped

3 14 1/2- to 16-ounce cans kidney beans

1 cup canned low-salt chicken broth

1 teaspoon Creole or Cajun seasoning or 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 cups cooked rice

Directions

Heat olive oil in heavy large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add sausage, onion and garlic and sauté until onion is brown, about 15 minutes. Mix in kidney beans with their juices, broth and Creole seasoning. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer until flavors are blended and mixture is very thick, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes.

Divide cooked rice among large shallow soup bowls. Spoon bean mixture over rice and serve.

pizza muffins, a christmas tree, and one more snowman

Since we moved to VA, I only shop twice a month, once each pay day. (Well theoretically anyway). The commissary is too far to justify more than that, and the prices at the grocery stores are too much to justify shopping anywhere but the commissary. Since I'm not that great of a planner, I have to get pretty creative just before pay day.

Here are some recipes I made earlier this week based on desperation, that we happened to enjoy:

I had a bag of maybe 10 pepperonis and some cheddar cheese in the fridge, so I was thinking of doing some kind of pizza for the kid's lunch on Monday. But I was not in the mood to make dough or sauce. I searched around online and found this cute recipe which was fabulously transportable and yummy.

Behold, the pizza muffin:

I found the recipe at FreezerDinner.com. You can go here for the recipe. We will definitely be making these again, especially when we have more pepperoni and green onions (we just used white). I wanted to save some for the freezer, but they were too good. We'll be making a bigger batch when we do them again.

My next food crisis was family home evening, where a dessert is required. I had just used my last egg on the pizza muffins which seriously eliminated a lot of possibilities. I dug through the cabinets and found a box of ice cream cones (they were from my witch cupcakes). Perfect to make Christmas Trees. Luckily, I had about a 4th of a can of frosting in the fridge, but I could have made frosting. I have a cookie jar full of smarties from Sophie's candy girl costumes, so those were my ornaments. And I raided the kids halloween bags for starburst tree toppers. Cole put these together and I think he did a fabulous job.

The night before, Sunday, is also a night where dessert is essential, don't you think?? I had cupcakes in my freezer (again, cupcakes I put aside when doing the halloween ones) and snowmen still on my mind. I have the book Hello, Cupcake!, and have always wanted to try their snowmen which are darling. I didn't have all their accesories, but used what I could find. The only thing I bought was the pull apart licorice for the scarf and earmuffs, but I used my extra care bucks from CVS to do it (in case you are concerned that I went to the store before pay day;).

Spicy Shrimp and Mushroom Casserole

One of the benefits of my gym is watching the cooking show Mexican Made Easy. Its a little counter productive to work out and think about food the whole time, but there aren't a lot of channels on the eliptical tv. Its the food network, Oxygen, or MTV2, so its pretty obvious what the best choice is.

And when you are working out, almost everything looks good to eat. This is the first recipe of Marcela Valladolid's that I tried and it was fabulous!! Bry loved it. He's kind of the Chef Ramsay of our house, so if he thinks it's good, it probably is.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 cups (about 8 ounces) white button mushrooms, thinly sliced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 poblano chiles, charred, stemmed, seeded, and cut into 2-inch by 1/4-inch strips
• 1 cup fresh, or frozen and thawed, corn kernels
• 1 clove garlic, minced

Shrimp:

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 pound large shrimp, deveined, tails intact
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 cup vegetable stock
• 
  
• Directions
• In a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons butter over high heat. Add the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the juices have evaporated, about 10 minutes. Add the poblano strips, corn and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes to blend flavors.
• For the shrimp: Mix together the flour, salt, and pepper in a shallow bowl. Dredge the shrimp in the seasoned flour. In a medium skillet, melt the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp and cook until cooked through, about 3 minutes. Transfer the shrimp to the mushroom mixture. Add the wine and vegetable stock to the skillet and increase the heat to high, scraping up the brown bits that stick to the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Stir until thickened.
• Pour the sauce over the shrimp and mushroom mixture and stir to coat. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately.

We've also tried the Sauteed Potatoes with Chorizo which was easy and tasty. You should check out her site. Or work out to her in the mornings.

Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman

Once there was a snowman, tall tall tall

In Cole's mouth it melted, melted, melted

In Cole's mouth it melted, small, small small.

We were feeling silly tonight.

After Halloween, I would never dream of doing 31 days of Christmas foods. However; I could be talked in to 31 days of snowmen;)

Pork Loin

For some reason I had never made pork loin before. This was easy, cheap, and yummy. What was I thinking in waiting so long to try it??

Ingredients

filling:
2/3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage or thyme leaves
1/3 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2/3 teaspoons Dijon mustard
dash salt
dash ground black pepper

pork loin:
2/3 lbs boneless center loin pork roast
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Fresh sage leaves, for garnish
Sprigs rosemary, for garnish

Directions
To make the filling: In a small bowl, combine the parsley, sage or thyme, rosemary, garlic, oil, mustard, salt, and pepper. To make the pork loin: Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Butterfly the pork loin. Sprinkle the top side of the butterflied loin with half of the salt and pepper. Spread the filling evenly across the loin, leaving a 1/2" border along the edge where you made the first cut. Beginning at the opposite edge, roll the loin up to wrap the filling. Using kitchen twine, tie the loin every 1 1/2 " to hold its shape.

Rub the loin with the oil and sprinkle with the remaining salt and pepper. Place the loin in a small roasting pan and position on the center rack of the oven. Roast for 1 hour, or until a thermometer inserted in the center registers 155°F and the juices run clear. Let stand for 10 minutes before carving. To prevent slices from unrolling, skewer the roast every 1/4" with wooden picks along the edge where the roll ends. Slice crosswise between the wooden picks and ties. Remove the kitchen twine before serving. Garnish with the sage leaves and rosemary sprigs.