Mozzarella!

We bought a cheese making kit a while ago that had stellar reviews on amazon and tried it out last night. I was so pleased that it was as easy and fast as the directions promised and successful!

You start with a gallon of milk...

And a few things from the kit that you wouldn't have at home-rennet, citric acid, cheese salt, and a dairy thermometer 

After combining the rennet and acid with the hot milk-it does this! 

You separate the curds from they liquidy whey...

Heat it and knead in the salt...

Stretch it...

Put it in an ice bath for a few minutes...

And voila! Fresh mozzarella that tasted awesome!!

Carrot Cake!

 Probably like most people, I get really excited when I see something that looks really cool and that I'd like to do....and then actually do it! This cake was one of those great situations where I loved something in a magazine and it was the right mix of easy, cheap, and fun to make it happen :-) 

Start off with a nice, frozen Sara Lee Pound cake (unless you're an overachiever and want to make your own)

Cut off a couple inches from one end and then 2 wedges off the sides.

Add some yellow and red food coloring to white icing until you get an orange you like

Use icing to "glue" on the wedges to make a point at one end.  Let your husband eat the flat end you cut off (at least that's what I did :-) )

Ice the whole thing

Gather your orange jelly beans-sooo pretty!

Start laying 'em on (and if you're me, let go of any hopes of perfection)

Ella had fun helping with almost all of the steps but the jelly-beaning was the easiest for her to help with :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lay out some green candy for the stem and...Ta-da! It was a hit at our Easter Celebration and a fun project with Ella.

Belly Buttons!!

 Christmas time means belly-buttons!  We've been making these for years and they're a really good kids-can-help project.  And, they're SO tasty when they're done :-)

1.Start with some Hershey Kisses.  Almost always on sale around this time :-)

 

 2.Employ a small child to unwrap the kisses.  Ella chose to wear gloves "just in case" she had germs (they were later abandoned once she realized her dexterity was minimalized). 

 

3.Try to move quickly to the next step before the bowl of kisses empties as people mill around and distract you while sneaking your chocolate out of the bowl.

 

4.The small child can be put to work again spreading out square-shaped pretzel snaps (or round ones if you can find them, they tend to elude me in the stores lately).  Then place 1 kiss in the center of each pretzel. Use an oven safe container with sides (they slide off too easily on a baking sheet sans edges).

5.Bake the kiss/pretzels at 200 degrees for 5-8 minutes.  When they're ready they'll be shiny and soft enough to easily press an MnM into it.  DO not let them cook too long.  If they're burnt they'll start to crack and get hard and smell really bad (can you tell I've made this mistake in years past?)

6.Gather some MnM's.  Peanut are the ones I originally learned to make them with but do whatever you like.  This year I tried Peanut Butter along with some Peanut and Chris loved 'em.  I prefer the crunch of the peanut but, to each his own :-)

 

 7.Carefully press MnMs into the softened chocolate!  Let them cool and enjoy the sweet, chocolatey, salty, crunchy, smooth goodness.  Mmmmmm.

Nana's Family Dinner Helper

Somehow all 5 of the kids in Chris' family happen to live here right now. This hasn't happened in a long time so we're all enjoying this special season! One way I think my Mother-in-Law is able to really enjoy it is hosting Family Dinner at her house every single week, without fail!

Another thing Nancy (my MIL) insists on is spending a few hours each week with each grandchild. So, Ella has spent one afternoon a week with Nana for pretty much her entire life. This past year it's helped me out with one of the days I worked which happened to fall on Family Dinner night. So, Ella gets to be there for all the prep and fun of feeding 15-20 people every week at Nana's.

This week Nana took pictures!

Ella cut an entire cantaloupe with a plastic knife!! I'm SO impressed!

Ella got to add 4 layers of jello plus the whipped cream for this fun dessert! She is quite the intent cooking helper and I'm so glad Nana gets to experience her in this way too. Cooking has always been one of my favorite things to do with her!

Here's a little video Nancy took of the cantaloupe endeavor :-)

Doughnuts!!

So much snow means so much opportunity to do things we'd never normally have time for! Like making doughnuts! The idea had never even crossed my mind but my sister-in-law Stacy made them on the first day of the snow (did I mention we've had 2 Blizzards within a week and have about 3 1/2 feet of snow on the ground and 6 foot drifts right now?) and her pictures on Facebook looked so good! Plus, it seemed like such a cool thing to try-I've never deep-fried anything in my life! It was kind of surreal to make something I didn't really think I could make!

We used a Food Network Alton Brown Recipe but per Stacy's suggestion used vanilla instead of the nutmeg. We also did a half batch.

Step 1: Leave dough mixture to rest in the bowl for an hour


Step 2: Roll out dough with lots of flour and make 2 1/2 inch circles. We used the top of a Pam cooking spray container :-)


Step 3: Make the inner holes-we used the cap of the vanilla extract :-) Gotta get creative when you don't have fancy baking tools.


Step 4: Let the dough rest (we ended up letting it rest then storing it in the fridge overnight because we ran out of time/energy to finish)

Step 5: Fry 'em up!




(I LOVE this picture!)

Step 6: Toppings!

Cinnamon Sugar


Vanilla glaze


And of course, with a 4 year old girl in the house, pink sprinkles

VARIATION: Fry up the no-hole variety for some Jelly donuts


Fill those by 1)making a hole with a toothpick
2)filling a ziploc bag with strawberry preserves
3)filled 'em up!



Step 7: Dig in! They were all really tasty :-)

Wee Chefs!

Since our dance class disaster last year (Ella screamed and cried and wouldn't go in) we haven't tried another class but Ella said she was ready. This time when given some options, she chose cooking which thrilled me! We started this week and it was so much fun! She was really shy at the beginning but warmed up by the end (it's a 1hr and 45min long class!)

Decorating their Chef hats


gotta have just the right color...


the teacher said Ella looked more like the Pope than a chef ;-)

After reading a story about Pizza, we made Pizza! I was helping a lot so I didn't get any pics of the process but here's the final product...




The kids read another cooking related story while the pizzas baked and cooled





Ella's new buddy from class (Ella's very excited that her friend is 5 oooOOOoooo!)

Looking forward to next week!