Katie-Did

Our little sweet Ruby had her 2nd annual costume  birthday party , and it was so much fun!! She has been reading a lot of books about dinosaurs, like Curious George, and has learned to ROOOOAAAAARRRR like a dinosaur, has a toy dinosaur, and a picture of one in her room, so what else was she to dress as but a dinosaur this year?? And keeping with our "classic movies of the 80's and 90's" theme from last year, what better "iconosauric" movie (sorry not sorry!) than "Jurassic Park"!! Wow, you guys look GREAT!!! Decorations!! I decided to take it a little easier this year than last, so my baking was VERY pared down and my decorations were a little less... but that's not to say we didn't do a great job!! 1) "Rurassic Park" invitation art - done by talented hubby one month in advance!! 2) Dinosaur "fossil" (thanks, Plaster of Paris!) molds - made a few weeks in advance with the help of a wonderful 7 year old!...

We have our little one in a fun little day care at a wonderful woman's home, and she wanted to do something special for the babies! But what do you make for 1 year old kids since most of them aren't eating sugar??  I have been on an omelet kick for Ruby - I send her to "school" with little muffin-tin sized omelets each week in a baggie, so I thought, "hey, I could make these and use a cookie cutter to make them heart-shaped!" And I DID!!! It is so easy - just mix up whatever veggies/protein/dairy you like, and some eggs and milk, and bake at 350 for about 15-20 minutes. I sauteed some red pepper, mushrooms, and bacon, added cheese (it's a special occasion!), and heated them up in some small flat cake pans. Place the goodies on the bottom of the pan, then pour the beaten eggs and milk (usually one egg per serving size) over the top, and bake. Once it is no longer liquidy if you shake the pan, they're set!   I took them out, let them cool ...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..!! I am making my annual Yule Log (see  here ,  here , and  here !) - I even found a picture of my VERY first one from 10 years ago: 2005 - Peppermint and Chocolate This year's flavor was a tough one to decide on, but we chose gingerbread cake with sweet cream ice cream, and cream cheese frosting. YUMMMMM! Start with the ice cream since the custard base is supposed to chill for at least 4 hours before running it through the ice cream maker!  Ingredients 2 cups heavy cream 1 cup whole milk ⅔ cup sugar ⅛ teaspoon fine sea salt 6 large egg yolks Orange zest from 1/2 a large navel orange (approximately 1/2 tsp zest) How To 1. In a small pot, simmer cream, milk, sugar and salt until sugar completely dissolves, about 5 minutes. Remove pot from heat. In a separate bowl, whisk yolks. Whisking constantly, slowly whisk about a third of the hot cream into the yolks, then whisk the yolk mixture bac...

After a big holiday like Thanksgiving, I like to try to make something a little less ordinary than turkey sandwiches, like meatloaf using the stuffing (VERY tasty, by the way!). This week we made quiche Lorraine with the leftover ham and turkey tortilla soup! Both of these are "what's in your kitchen?" type snacks because you can pretty much throw anything in there that works for you. Recipes ahoy! Quiche Lorraine Ingredients 8 eggs Milk (approximately 1/4 C) Pie crust (do NOT add sugar, but instead add spices - we added thyme and fresh ground pepper!) Onions (we had green onions, but they did the trick!) Ham Cheese Any other leftover veggies Salt & pepper to taste How To Preheat the oven to 400. Mix and roll out the crust, and poke a fork all through the bottom and around the sides. You'll bake the crust for a little bit first so it doesn't get soggy, and the poke holes keep it from getting too bubbly! Put it in the oven for about 10 minutes. Meanw...

Our little Halloween baby had her first birthday, and OF COURSE we threw her an amazing party!! We are big fans of Indiana Jones, so we chose "Raiders of the Lost Ark" for our family costume and our exterior decorations. We carved the pumpkin like an Aztec death mask, and added some little skulls. Ted created a door design with Egyptian characters spelling Ruby! Inside, I made a TON of cheap & easy candy corn garland strands! I bought orange plates, used yellow paint from our friends' baby shower , and white paint from our redone doors and trim. I painted 12 plates and cut each plate into 8 pieces - this made SO MANY FEET of candy corn!! But it turned out adorable! I also printed out cute letters from  this free set , spelling out "Ruby's 1st Birthday!" We made the perfect amount of food - I knew I wanted fun, Halloween-themed snacks that are also kid-friendly, so we had "Halloweenies" (Pilsbury pastry dough cut up lik...

Last Father's Day , I celebrated my favorite dad-to-be with faaaancy mancakes in bed!! This year, despite my prediction of cereal at 6am, I went ahead and made a few things to say, "HOORAY you are an amazing father and I could never do this without you!!!!" He did get pancakes again (although not made with beer or candied bacon), and we had coffee, mimosas, and some bacon on the side - all in all, quite tasty! BUT!!! What I made instead really takes the cake... or cookies... because I made his all time favorite Girl Scout cookies (some know them as Samoas, others as Caramel deLites) in the shape of ...drum roll please... T-Rex dinosaurs. Heck yes. I used a couple of awesome recipes and won't walk through the whole thing since  this website  does a fantastic job of that! The only difference was that the caramel recipe I used was a bit smaller than the original author recommended. It still worked out, we had plenty, and only a handful of plain cookies left over. I...

For theme music while reading this entry, click  here ! Every year for Christmas, I like to make a  different   flavored  yule log! It's fun (and tricky!) to come up with new combinations each year, but it's incredibly rewarding once it turns out! This year's flavor is pineapple-coconut-rum, perfect for a Hawaiian Christmas a la Bing Crosby!! Pineapple sponge cake, coconut ice cream, coconut rum frosting, with toasted coconuts and a dark chocolate drizzle - YUM!  Ice Cream Ingredients 2 cups milk 2 cups heavy cream 2 cups coconut milk 1 cup coconut flakes, toasted 8 egg yolks 1 1/2 cups sugar Pinch salt Directions To toast coconut, place the flakes in a thin layer on a cookie sheet and bake at 325 for about 5-10 minutes, or until lightly browned.  I emptied a bag of unsweetened coconut flakes and scooped out 1 cup for the ice cream flavor, and reserved the rest to go on the outside of the yule log. (To make them sweet...

Ted's step-grandfather, Grandpa Norm, is the typical Jewish grandpa, complete with velour track suits and a never ending supply of dirty jokes! Because of this so-called lineage, Ted fancies himself a "step-Jew", which I suppose makes me a "step-Jew-in-law" ;) I never met Grandpa Norm's wife, Grandma Edie, but hear she was a fiery woman with fiery red hair to match! Her family fled Russia to Bulgaria before her birth in 1931, and then settled in Southern California where she met Norm as a teenager. They married and had 2 sons, one of whom is our very own Papa Glenn! Kugel is a traditional Jewish dessert (with its own  Wikipedia page !) that Ted's family makes for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. We've decided to add it to the list of our family's annual holiday desserts as well since it's (a) yummy, (b) easy to make, and (c) easy to transport to other people's homes! Ingredients 1 stick of butter 12 oz package of wide e...

For Father's Day this year, even though Ted's not quite  a dad yet, I still wanted to do something special for him! With a little lady on the way, he's been very supportive and helpful and wonderful, as always, so he deserved an extra special breakfast in bed to say thanks!! He told me when he was little his dad would make pancakes with beer, so I figured I'd give it a shot! I have to be honest, I totally stole the name of these pancakes from Betty Crocker.  This recipe  is how I got halfway there, but instead of using Bisquick, I used  this recipe  for beer pancakes. They turned out incredibly yummy!! Ingredients 4 pieces of bacon (I used 6 and ended up just eating 2 on their own... I was helping clean up!) brown sugar for sprinkling on both sides of the bacon 1 C all-purpose flour 1/4 C white sugar 3/4 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 egg, beaten 1 C beer (any flavor! I used a wheat beer but might try a porter or stout next time, although I also ...

It just so happens that Easter falls about 6 months before Halloween... and if your due date is Halloween (as mine is!!), then your first trimester is just about over right when Easter hits! As a holiday-loving family, we are super psyched to use any excuse to celebrate any holiday and do some holiday crafts!!  Lucky for me, I married a crafty man, so this all turned out exactly as I'd hoped. Supplies 2 complementing colors of craft paper Glue stick 1 egg dye kit + vinegar and water Some eggs (we used 3) A little nest (we got ours at Michael's for about $3) Greens of sorts (we just so happened to go to the farmers market this morning and picked up some edible flowers!) Colored markers (we used 1 gold and 1 black Sharpie) Photoshop Skillz (thanks Ted!)  Polaroid Cut-outs (from the scrapbooking section at Michael's or other craft store) We started out by cutting the paper in a cute banner shape - the lighter color paper is the top sheet and the dark...