Carnival Birthday Party Food

I have a lot of ideas to share with you today as I clean up the remainders of Enzo's birthday party. Our son turned 3 and we had a fun day celebrating his birthday with lots of his buddies from preschool, Family Student Housing, and Church. The theme was Carnival and I wanted to create a menu that was simple for me to make and also simple for the kids to eat. Here are some of the things I came up with.

I made rice krispie treats and cut them out into bite sized squares. I then covered them with sprinkles just to add some color. I used the traditional rice krispie treats recipe and made one modification. Instead of using 6 cups rice krispies cereal I used 5 cups. I like it when it's a bit more chewey. Plus, I made these the day before so I knew it woul be harder the next day anyway.

I made my recipe of apple peanut butter crunch and I used the granola recipe I shared with you a little while back. I wanted to make something healthy-ish and I think this is a good healthy and easy to make treat. To be totally honest I had plenty of rice krispie treats left and no apples. I also set it up on a cutting board which made it easy for the kids to access.

My son is addicted to popcorn and it's a fun carnival food so I borrowed a popcorn popper from a friend.

Popcorn is so easy to make, especially with a popcorn popper. It was s success because mainly the kids just wanted to play in the park and they liked walking around with their popcorn baggies and being able to set it down by the swings.

The mini veggie hamburgers and cheese burgers were my favorite because it was the easiest to make. I bought Morning Star vegetarian sausage patties at costco and Hawaiian sweet rolls. I had to warm up the patties for 7 minutes in the oven which gave me plenty of time to cut the bread. I put the patties in the bread, a slice of cheese and voila!

We also made homemade mini pig-in-a-blanket. I basically just wrapped half of a hotdog with bread dough and baked for 15 minutes. I used my Easy Roll recipe for this.

I decided to make little place cards to identify all the food mainly for fun. You can find free fonts for this kind of stuff here. 

  

Since the theme of the party was Carnival we had some easy games for the kids to play if they want to and then as prizes/goodie bags I let the kids fill a baggie with each of the prizes above. I'm usually against goodie bags because by the end of the party they're already all sugared up and then the goodie bag is full of candy. So I went to the dollar store instead and loaded up on some little plastic toys. I wanted to give the kids (and parents) a chance to put whatever they wanted in their goodie bags so as not to get a bunch of random toys they'll never play with. No one wanted pencils but they all liked the rubber insects and the platic rings which I thought no one would want was a hit with the girls and the boys.

The highlight of the menu (and the party) was the awesome train cake that Christian made. I'm glad he's the baker around here because I am no good at making cakes.

Happy birthday Enzo!

Stained Glass Jello

Tomorrow is my son's Birthday. He'll be three years old and he'll tell you things like "I want a toy store for my birthday" and then you'll say back "how about Jello?" and he'll be all over it and totally forget the toy store idea because obviously Jello is just as good when you're three.

Today we took some Stained Glass Jello to his preschool to share with his friends and sing happy birthday. The kids at his crunchy granola preschool loved it. Most of these kids have never had sugar before in their lives. I am officially the cool mom thanks to this recipe. Check out how they were pigging out.

While I was making this on Tuesday night I told my husband that I had never successfully made Jello before. He was all snotty and made comments like "yeah 'cuz it's so hard to mix hot and cold water" and other such things that husbands think it's hilarious to say when you're being dead serious. Well I was being dead serious and the next day when I went to do the other part of the recipe I realized that in fact I had messed up the initial step. Basically I added too much water and it didn't come out as firm as I had envisioned. I'm just telling you this so that you too can laugh at my lack of Jello making skills but also so you'll be aware that the reason why I always mess us is because I always think it's easy to make Jello and then I don't read directions and then...

flimsy-ish Jello

So here is the recipe that I was supposed to make. This is from the fab Food Librarian who has detailed and beautiful pictures on how to make this recipe the un flimsy way.

Stained Glass Jello

• 4 packets of Jell-o (pick 4 different colors and flavors. For this recipe I used red, yellow, blue and green)
• 2 envelopes unflavored gelatin (knox)
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 6 cups water

1. You will only want 3oz of the Jell-o packets. My store only sells the 6oz box so you NEED to make sure you only use half.
2. Dissolve one of the flavors of Jell-o in 1 cup boiling water and pour into a container. Repeat with the other three flavors. (This is where I messed up because I followed the directions of the box where you also add 1 cup cold water. Make sure you only use the boiling water and not extra water)
   
3. After chilling the 4 containers over night cut them into small blocks and place it in a 9x13 pan.
4. In a separate bowl, sprinkle 2 envelopes unflavored gelatin into 1/2 cup cold water. After the gelatin blooms, add 1 1/2 cup boiling water and dissolve. Add the can of condense milk. Stir and pour the milk mixture over jello and chill overnight.
5. Cut into blocks and serve.

6 ways to Thrive in the Kitchen With the Kids

I haven't read anything as positive and informative about kiddies and kitchen in a long time. The article 6 ways to Thrive in the Kitchen With the Kids is all that. Wait, have you really never checked out the Simple Mom blog? It's fabulous to the core.

Goiabinhas

This, my friends, is my comfort food of comfort foods. Lately I've been in desperate need of comfort. It's a bit sad selling off my skinny jeans because I know I won't be able to fit back into them for another year (o.k fine, two at least). Selling off skinny jeans to buy maternity clothes :)

I'm also in need of comfort because I'm in my second trimester of pregnancy and I'm still nauseous. Did you really think that I wasn't posting because I've been so dang busy with school? That is true BUT there is a whole other reality to my lack of posts. It's because I'm on a strict diet of toast for breakfast, quesadilla for lunch, and cereal for dinner. That's right peeps we've been feasting on cereal none stop because whenever I cook I want to throw up and even though my boys will eat anything they refuse to eat throw up. So cereal it is. We've even expanded our cereal cabinet. Once upon a time we only had cheerios and crunchy corn bran and today we have Kix, Honey Bunches of Oats, Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies and then the trusty cheerios and crunchy corn bran.

When I do cook it's usually something very nutritious like those goiabinhas up on top. Which is basically shortbread cookie with guava paste inside.

If you want a taste of Brazilian cuisine go get yourself some Goiabada. We love this stuff. So much so that one of the most traditional and loved desserts of all time in Brazil is a slice of Goiabada with a slice of queso fresco. We call it Romeo and Julieta because it's the perfect match and also because Brazilians love to name food after love things, like beijinhos (kisses) and...(another post, I promise)

Goiabada is guava paste which you can find in any Mexican store. Easy to find in California but maybe harder in other places. Goiabinhas are the cookies that you make using goiabada. This is my grandma's recipe below. She gave me this recipe as a wedding present so treat it with respect because it's worth gold!

Goiabinhas

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon yeast
• 1/2 cup warm milk
• 1 cup vegetable shortening
• 2 cups chopped goiabada (see picture above where I have them all cut up and separated)
  

1. preheat oven to 350
2. In a medium bowl mix the yeast with 1/4 cup milk.
   
3. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the goiabada) and mix by hand until you get a flaky dough
4. Make little balls with the dough.
   
5. Flatten the a ball of dough using both hands and put a piece of goibada inside and close it back up in oval shape. Repeat the process until all the dough is gone.
6. Place the oval goiabinhas on a cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes.
7. sprinkle sugar and Cinnamon on top after they are done cooking.

Special Bread

Enzo may not know how to count from 1-10 but by gosh he knows how to knead bread. He's helped make bread twice this past week and I seriously let him do all the kneading and the bread turned out great.

Recently I've been getting a lot of requests for bread recipes. There are two bread recipes we usually make in our home.
Easy Rolls
Honey Whole Wheat

Enjoy!

Petit Gateau

I got an awesome birthday present on Monday. Actually I got a couple presents but the best one was, no doubt, the Petit Gateau Christian made me. I was in class all day and at 5:00pm he picked me up from class and dropped himself off at his class. This quarter has been insane. So much of our interactions have been inside the car where he picks me up and I drop him off. Today we have 2 of those. It's always fun being in the car together rushing to class trying to give a full report on the day, Enzo, bills that came in the mail, while driving around campus and trying very hard not to run over any students. Can you tell I'm ready for spring break?

Anyway, enough complaining. How can I complain when I'm married to such an awesome cook who between taking care of Enzo, cleaning the house and running errands all day on Monday was still able to make me some Petit Gateau, buy me chocolate, buy me some flowers, write me a poem AND arrange all this nicely on the table so that I could be surprised when I got home.

Petit Gateau Recipe

• 125 g dark chocolate
• 125 g unsalted butter
• 3 eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1. Break the chocolate and butter into small pieces, melt them on a small sauce pan
2. With a spoon mix the melted chocolate and butter until smooth and reserve.
3. On a separate bowl, mix the eggs, egg's yolks and sugar.
4. Beat the mixture on a mixer until almost doubled its size and has a firm consistency.
5. Get the melted chocolate and butter mixture and start pouring it in small bits into the bowl with the beaten eggs and keeping beating it gentle and slowly, until it forms one smooth uniform mixture.
6. While you are still beating the mixture (in low speed), sprinkles the flour on it and stop the beating after the flour gets incorporated in the mixture.
7. turn off the mixer and stir in the vanilla and reserve.
8. Get the muffin baking sheet with 6/8 holes, rub a little bit of butter and sprinkle flour on the sides of each hole, It will help to get the mini cake out of the mold later
9. Pour the mixture into the mold almost to the top
10. Pre-heat the oven for about 15 minutes on 350*
11. put the muffin sheet for about 5 minutes.
12. After taking the baking sheet out of the oven let it rest of 2 to 3 minutes and then turn it upside down on a plate (The mini cakes should be hard on the outside enough to hold its original shape and all creamy and melted inside)Get each little cake with caution for not breaking them and put on individual plates.
13. Put a ball of vanilla ice-cream on the side or some other kind of ice-cream or frozen yogurt, Serve while it is hot!

Birthday Sushi

As a birthday tradition my husband takes me out for Japanese food every year. He's been doing this since we were "officially dating". A month after we had initially met we spend a weekend together. It was obvious that we were into each other and I thought for sure the next day (my birthday) he would call to wish me a happy birthday. He totally slacked and didn't call and I ended up going on a date with another guy who took me out to Japanese food and decided it was a good idea to watch fight club after our dinner (hell-o NOT romantic!). Anyway, Christian blew it and has been very good at making it up to me every year since.

so, how old do I look?

We usually just go the 2 of us but this year we turned it in to a full on party. Some of us ate a bit too much.

and some of us had sushi for the first time.

We then walked around downtown Santa Cruz and had dessert at Chocolate, a cute restaurant that has well...lots of chocolate. The picture with the flash doesn't do justice to this dessert platter also known as the orgy platter...yow!

All this happened on Saturday. Today, my actual birthday, is filled with grading papers and dealing with grumpy students. I had some soggy left over pancakes for breakfast and if I have time to pack a lunch I might be able to have a salami sandwich on some old bread, woot, woot. (Dang, I wish it was still Saturday)