Sugar Baskets and Stockings

With Easter done now, and all the Easter Basket candy gone, I've been thinking about sugar a lot. More accurately the sugar that goes in to Easter Baskets, and Christmas Stockings and St. Nick boots. I consider my self a frugal person, or maybe the word is cheap, I guess it depends on who you talk too. Candy is expensive, when I look at Target around these Holidays, I total up what it would cost to fill an Easter Basket or Christmas Stocking, with variety of Candy and goodies, even with Sales and coupons, I think that people could easily get into the $100 range, depending on how many kids and what they buy. $100 to candy??? Never in a million years, could I get over my cheapness to spend that on something that I will also end up eating, not to mention that it is really not good for my children either. I do buy candy for my children, they each get a about 8 mini peanut butter cup eggs in their basket, put in eggs for them to open.

My kids do get full Easter Baskets and Stockings though. They get fun stuff that they need. For Easter they get Crocs, which are their summer go to shoes. They live in them, and get excited about the fun colors. They also get gardening stuff, whether it's new tools, or seeds. This year they also got sunglasses. In their Christmas Stocking they get their favorite fruit at that time. They also get underwear and socks. Colin got Phineas and Ferb undies and Ainsley got Ballerina's. I guess they are still young enough to get excited about the characters. They also got character Band-Aids. All stuff that is needed for them, but that they could get excited about.

I'm not saying that my way is better by any means. It's better for our family because the less I have to battle with the children about eating the candy, the happier I am. When candy is in the house, the kids want it, and ask for it constantly. As soon as it's gone there is no mention of it at all, and they are back to just grabbing bananas, grapes and apples when they are hungry for a snack. It's a battle I don't like to have, so why tempt my self and them.

My guess is also that I spend about the same, if not less on my baskets, than if I put candy in them.

It's probably not for every family, but I think that if some looked at the price comparison they would consider changing. I grew up in a family that our Easter Baskets were full of candy. The whole bottom would be lined with jelly beans, which I didn't, and still don't like. Then there would be candy of all sorts, it was always a little disappointing to me, to not get something I could remember the holiday by.

My kids remember Easter all year long, they probably should remember for just the summer, but love their Crocs so much they want to wear them in the winter as well. They don't get to wear them outside, but they do just wear them around the house for fun sometimes.

Laura Cookies

My friend Laura had the Dishin' Diva's (our freezer meal club) over for a meeting the other night, and she served the best oatmeal cookies I've ever had! Some of our kids were over and they were a hit with both the adults and the kids. Needless to say we all asked for the recipe. The original title is "Gary's Famous Oatmeal Cookies", and her mom is pretty famous for making these in her hometown. With in the week of her sending out the recipe all 5 of us had made them. Ainsley, who was one of the kids over that night, remembered them and coined them "Laura Cookies" for our household. We did a slight variation in the recipe, we substituted ground oatmeal for the whole wheat flour. This recipe makes about 7-9 dozen, but they freeze really well and don't loose any of their flavor when they thaw. They are good straight out of the freezer too.

Enjoy!

Laura Cookies

1 lbs of butter (room temperature)

1 & 1/2 cup brown sugar

1 pkg vanilla instant pudding

4 large eggs

2 & 1/2 cups ground oatmeal* or whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking soda

7 cups oatmeal

1 bag semi sweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

Preheat the oven to 360 degrees. Layer all the ingredients in to a big bowl and mix with an electric mixer, until it has the consistency of coo

kie dough. Bake on non-greased baking sheet for 9 minutes. Let cool on the pan for a couple minutes before moving to a cooling rack.

* to make ground oatmeal just grind regular rolled oats in a food processor or magic bullet until the consistency of flour.

Kale Pasta

The days are getting longer and warmer, and I find myself pushing back dinner time later everyday. The kids are outside soaking up all the vitamin D they've been deprived of all winter, and quite frankly I'm in no hurry to get inside and start dinner either. So as the dinner time has been pushed from 6 to 7-7:30, I realize that in order to maximize my time outside as well, I will need basic, healthy, no prep dinners that can be done in close to 15 minutes. We eat a lot of pasta in our household, since it's one of the only ways that I can get the kids to eat a well rounded meal. Put a vegetable on Colin's plate and he won't touch it, put it in a pasta and its eaten. Here's one of our favorites this time of year:

Kale Pasta

1 pkg of whole wheat linguine

1 bunch of kale, coarsely chopped

Olive oil

1 avocado chopped

4 eggs whisked

cilantro chopped

salt and pepper

Cook the noodles according to the package. In a large skillet heat a little olive oil to med-high and add the kale, cook till wilted and remove. Put the cooked noodles in the skillet and add the eggs stir quickly till done and add the kale back in. Stir all together and remove to a bowl and add the cilantro and avocado and toss, salt and pepper as needed.

Colin's Pokemon Party

We celebrated Colin's 6th birthday with his friends yesterday. His actual birthday was 2 weeks ago, and we did a small family party, and then an extended family party that weekend. However I planned his friend birthday party for 2 weeks later, to hopefully allow the weather to warm up a little bit to allow for some outside play time. The weather was warm, but rainy and of course muddy! His actual birthday we had sunny and 70 degree weather...go figure.

This was Colin's first "kid" party, where the parents were welcome to drop their child off. Colin planned this party for weeks, he is very into Pokemon right now, so everything needed a Pokemon theme. We scoured the web for party ideas, and Colin of course had some thoughts of his own. First and foremost there needed to be Pokemon character cupcakes, we did a poke-ball cake for his family party, and although it was the much easier option it would not suffice again. Then we found two Pokemon games, Pin the Tail on Pikachu and Pass the Poke-ball. If you know me then you know that I am not (can I underline that or put it in bold caps) an artistic person!!! I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of pressure put on me, but thank-goodness for Google, and pictures of the cupcakes and Pikachu.

Matt created the poke-ball by getting a Styrofoam ball and painting half of it red with Crayola washable paint, let it dry, and put black electrical tape around it. Pin the Tail on Pikachu came together with a large sheet of white construction paper and some yellow ones. The character cupcakes turned out well too! I totally cheated and used box cake mix(even though I love to cook, baking cakes is not my thing), and as I'm getting ready to get the cupcakes in the pan, I get intimidated by how little the cupcakes are, and opt for my bigger muffin pan, to allow for a bigger canvas. As for Colin's instructions we made Pikachu, Piplup, Turtwig, Chimchar, Wigglytuff, and poke-ball cupcakes.

Even though the kids were trapped in side by the weather, the party was a huge success! We played a couple rounds of pass the poke-ball, you pass the ball in a circle while music is playing, when the music stops who ever is holding the ball is out. Then we played a round of Pin the Tail on Pikachu. And of course about an hour for creative play, which involved Star-Wars, with a mix of the Little Mermaid. Thankfully my friend Lynn stayed and helped with the cupcakes and entertaining of children! The cupcakes where a huge hit...they all picked the character they wanted, Pikachu was the most desirable, but I thought Piplup was the cutest.

The party was about everything Colin had ever dreamed of, his closest friends were there, and all played together amazingly, even Ainsley jumped in on the fun for a while, but mostly she stuck pretty close to Lynn and I.

Guacamole Recipe

Guacamole has always been a favorite of mine, and ever since not eating meat and less dairy I think my body craves it constantly! I had made it a couple times, but mostly used store bought because I needed it in a pinch. A while ago I was invited to a party and was going to bring guacamole, and definitely not store bought, so the week before I played around with some different ingredients, and this is the one that stuck. Matt tolerates guacamole, but does not appreciate it the way I do, but when I added the tomatillos, he devoured it almost as fast as I did. My favorite way to enjoy this treat is with banana chips, but is also amazing with rice, beans and salsa, and of course with blue corn chips! The recipe is from when I brought it to a party so down scale if needed

Guacamole

8 avocados

2 tomatillos

1 small jalapeño pepper seeded and diced very small

1/2 cup red onion diced

lime juice from 2-3 limes

salt

Scoop out avocado flesh into a large bowl, add all other ingredients and mash up!

I leave about 2-3 avocado pits in with it to help it from turning brown, remove them before serving.

Vegan Chili

Much requested recipe, so I'll just post it and add a picture the next time I make it.

1 green pepper diced

1 onion chopped

3 cups carrots chopped

5 cloves garlic (or less)

olive oil (2-3 times around the pot)

2-3 tbs chili powder

1 tbs cumin

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp all spice

1 pkg tempeh

4 cans beans rinsed(I use chili, kidney and black)

2 large cans of tomatoes

Heat oil over high heat, add onion, garlic, carrots and pepper and saute' for about 5 min. Add all the spices and stir well. Add your tempeh and let it brown a little bit by chopping it up like hamburger. Add all the beans and tomatoes.

Bring chili to a boil. Turn down the heat and let chili simmer, covered, for about 30 min to an hour.

Enjoy!

Of course you can substitute the tempeh for hamburger, chicken or turkey if you want meat.

This makes alot!!!! but as we all know chili is one of the greatest left over foods!

Tubing at Elm Creek

Our family got invited to our friends sons birthday party, snow tubing at Elm Creek!!! Matt and I have both been tubing so we knew what to expect, and how much fun it is. Colin, however had never been. A birthday party is a big deal no matter what, but once he saw pictures of what we were going to do, he was ecstatic. So we packed up all our snow gear, and headed up to Maple Grove.

Saturday was great day, chilly, but not to cold and tons of snow on the ground. On the walk out to the slopes Colin was in awe, all around him there are people skiing and snowboarding ("Just like Shawn White!".) Matt and Colin grabbed their tubes, and I grabbed a little 'baby' tube to pull Ainsley around in while we watched.

The first run Matt, Colin, Noah(birthday boy) and Noah's dad Jeremy all went down as one big group. They boys were not afraid, in fact they were being very impatient as I was trying to take a quick picture. I heard screams of joy as the dads pushed off and they went flying down the slope.

They went continuously for the next 2 hours. Ainsley was perfectly content being pulled around in the little tube. We stood at the top of the hill so she couldn't see all the tubes going down, otherwise I think she would have not been so happy had she know there was more fun to be had.