Our Easter Eggs

Our favorite way to get cool designs on our Easter eggs? Crayons.

Simply draw on the egg before dipping it into the dye. The coolest look is to draw on the egg with a white crayon.

How do you decorate your eggs?

Cooking

I recently had Mom and Abigail over to my house for lunch. This is what I fed them. I tweaked the Swedish Meatball recipe a bit, making it my own, and tastier than I had ever had it before. The recipe posted below is exactly what I used.

Swedish Meatballs2 lb. ground beef

1 tsp. salt

1 cup milk

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 cup bread crumbs

2 eggs

Mix well. Roll into 1-2 inch balls. Place in 9x13 pan. Pour over 1 can beef gravy. I can of cream of mushroom soup. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Instead of using a can of beef gravy, I used the recipe for gravy on the back of my beef base container, making the smallest serving size.

Serve over egg noodles or mashed potatoes.

Never Fail Pie Crust

3 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. shortening

Blend with a pastry blender until fine and crumbly.

1 tsp. vinegar
1 egg, beaten
6 Tbls. COLD water

Mix well, and add to dry ingredients. Blend with pastry blender until no longer sticky, but do not let it get dry. Roll out about 1/2 recipe at a time onto a heavily floured board until 1/8 inch thick.

Apple Pie

Peel 6 large, firm Granny Smith apples. Core and slice.

Make a recipe of Never fail Pie Crust.

Roll out the bottom crust. Sprinkle 1 tsp. of flour into pie pan. Place bottom crust in the pan.

Sprinkle with about 1 Tbls. flour. Mix 3/4 c. sugar with about 2 Tbls cinnamon. You may adjust the amount to suit your taste.

Place a layer of apples evenly over the bottom of the crust. Sprinkle the apples with the cinnamon mixture. Continue layering apples and cinnamon mixture until the apples are level with the top of the pie crust. Dot with 2 Tbls. butter.

Roll out the top crust, and drape it over the pie. Crimp the edges, and cut several vent slits in the top. Brush crust with melted butter.

Bake the pie in a preheated 425 degree oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350, and bake 30-40 minutes longer until apples are tender when pierced with a skewer, and the crust is browned.

Enjoy!

Getting Creative with Zucchini- Zuccini Bacon Quiche

This quiche is really yummy, and easy, and is great when the garden is overflowing with zucchini.


Zucchini Bacon Quiche

• 1 tube 8 oz. crescent rolls
• 2 tsp. prepared mustard
• 6 bacon strips, diced
• 3 cups thinly sliced zucchini
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 T. parsley
• 1/2 t. pepper
• 1/4 t. garlic powder
• 1/4 t. oregano
• 1/4 t. basil

Separate crescent rolls into triangles, and place in bottom of pan, with tips pointing to the center of pan. Spread mustard on top.

Cook bacon until crisp. Remove from heat. Cook zucchini and onions in grease until tender.

Mix eggs, cheese, zucchini mixture, and spices together. Pour over crust.

Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

♥Autumn

Gingerbread

The house that Jon and I made.
With a deer in the yard.


And a peppermint chimney.
Mom and Dad's house is on the left.

I want to see pictures of YOUR gingerbread houses! What are your favorite ideas?

♥Autumn

Birthday Cake

My mom's birthday was October 16th. Here are pictures of the cake I made for her. It looked cuter in person.

Mac decorates cakes at Dairy Queen, so I let him write on the top..."Happy Birthday Mommy-o!"

I used buttercream icing. I used cookies cutters for the leaves and acorns. If you just lightly press down on the icing, it leaves the outline of your shape, and you can fill it in with a star tip.

For the veins on the leaves, I just piped icing on top of the star tipped leaves, until I got the right look.
My border needed some help. But all in all, I was pleased with the way it turned out.

♥Autumn

Cake Decorating

Last year, Stacie came over and spent the night at my house. We decided to decorate a cake, and made the below one, in honor of the play that we met each other in.

I took a cake decorating class this spring. At the end of the class, we had the opportunity to decorate a cake. Since it was right around St. Patrick's Day, I decorated with a clover.
Cake decorating is really fun, but hard. It took me forever to get a cake to look like the above ones. And trust me, they weren't perfect!
I'd love to see some of your creations!

Autumn

Homemade Crepes

Sorry about the picture. They really looked MUCH better!

Until yesterday, I had never tasted a crepe before. After watching Alton Brown make them on Good Eats the other night, I decided to try making them. So yesterday morning, I got up and made breakfast!

I used Cat Cora's recipe:

Basic Crepes
1/2 cup of all purpose flour
1 large egg, beaten
1 cup of milk
3 tablespoons of melted butter for brushing the pan

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, egg, and milk until it is smooth. (Make sure that you get ALL of the flour lumps out!)

Place a 6-inch crepe pan over medium-high heat. Brush the pan LIGHTLY with the melted butter.
Pour in less than 1/4 cup on batter (just enough to cover the pan.)
After the crepe begins to turn golden brown, flip over, and cook for 30 seconds.


Ok. I don't have a crepe pan. Or a 6 inch pan of any kind. So I used a non stick skillet that was entirely too big. The crepes weren't in perfect circles because of this, but they tasted fine.

Your batter will be VERY thin. DO NOT add flour to thicken it. Cat Cora says it will make them rubbery.

You can keep your crepes warm by stacking them in the oven at 250 degrees. Both Alton and Cora said not to do this for longer than 30 minutes. You can stack them with wax paper separating each crepe, wrap the stack in plastic wrap, and refrigerate them for a week. You can also freeze them this way.

I filled them with strawberries, and whipped up heavy whipping (with sugar added in) cream. And I dusted the tops with powdered sugar.

If you have any other suggestions for filling them, or if you make them yourself, let me know!

They tasted REALLY good. I'm sure that I'll be making them again!

When All Else Fails, Use Kahlua

Recently, when making chocolate chip cookies, I found that we were out of vanilla. So we substituted Kahlua instead! The batter tasted different (my favorite part) but the cookies tasted exactly the same!

You could also use Vodka, but we don't keep that around here! =)

♥Autumn

Dried Bean Pictures

My mom has always been crafty. One of my favorite crafts from when I was little was making dried bean pictures. She would ask us what kind of picture we wanted to make, outline it on paper with glue, and let us press the beans onto the paper. Boys and girls both love this craft.


What you'll need:
♦ White craft glue
♦ dried beans
♦ a pencil or marker
♦ construction paper

Draw a picture on a piece of paper using your pen or pencil. Outline your picture with glue.


Cover the glue with beans and let dry.

The possibilities of what you can make are endless. Abigail made a flower, Collin made a rocket, and I made a turtle and a smiley face. And...


A heart for Stacie!

I would love to see what you make!

♥Autumn

Peanut Butter Eggs For Easter

Mom and I made this cute peanut butter filled eggs to use as place cards on Easter.

First, the filling must be mixed up.

Filling
1 sleeve graham crackers, finely crushed
1 cup extra chunky peanut butter
1 stick butter or margarine
1/2 pound (8 oz.) powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

You can refrigerate the filling for up to six months.
After the filling was made, we took egg shaped molds, and coated them with melted Almond Bark. We set the molds in the refrigerator and let the chocolate harden. After the chocolate is harden, you can spoon the filling mixture into the eggs, pressing down firmly, but not hard enough to crack the egg. Then, spoon more chocolate on top of the filling and refrigerate to harden. Once the chocolate is hard, you have a cute peanut butter egg! Mom decorated ours with royal icing pansies, but you could use butter-cream icing too.
Dad picked our egg molds up on his way home from work. The store was out of Easter egg molds. I think that these look like Dinosaur Eggs! but the icing made them look pretty.!

Making Jello Exciting

Instead of eating plain old boring Jell-o, you should try adding some stuff in to make it taste better.
My family hardly ever eats plain Jell-o. Most of the time, we add in canned fruit like pineapple, peaches, mandarin oranges etc.
The other day, I tried something new. Instead of adding cold water to the Jell-o, I used Sprite. And then I added some chopped bananas.


Let me know what you try!

♥Autumn

Gingersnaps

I made these cookies for an Eagle Scout ceremony that we attended today. They are one of my favorites, so I though I would share the recipe.

Gingersnaps
3/4 c. shortening
1 c. flour
1 egg
1/4 c. molasses
2 c. flour
2 tsp. soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. cloves
3/4 tsp. ginger

Mix together the shortening, egg, and sugar. Add molasses. Mix in all of the dry ingredients. Roll dough into 1 inch balls, and roll in sugar. Place dough balls onto a cookie sheet and beak for 7-9 minutes at 375 degrees.
They taste really good with a cup of tea!


♥Autumn

Happy Valentine's Day!

It is a little late for Valentine's now, but if you need an idea for next year, you can try making edible valentines! I made mine with cupcakes!I wrote the names of my family member on them, and on other ones, I wrote things like Be Mine. I am horrible at decorating with icing, but these could be really cute if you were good at it!

♥Autumn

Napkin Rings

Napkin rings a really pretty, and can dress up an ordinary table. They are very fun and easy to make too!Start by cutting strips of fabric 2 inches wide, by 12 inches long. Fold the right sides together, and stitch up the raw edge. Attach safety pin to one end, turned the safety pin to the center, and worke it through so as to turn the long case right side out.

Next, thread the long case onto a plastic shower curtain hook. These can be found at the dollar store. Fold the raw edges of the casing in, so that everything looks pretty.
Hand stitch where the two ends meet, and you're finished!

A pile of finished rings!

These are a great project for beginners. If you have any questions, or are confused about the directions, leave a comment and I'll help you out!

This post was originally written by my creative mother here.

♥Autumn

Homemade Play Dough

My mom made homemade play dough for us yesterday. It is easy to make, and is a lot nicer than store bought play dough. You can check out the recipe here.

♥Autumn