Gingerbread Waffles with Apple Chutney Syrup

I love breakfast, probably because its the most carb filled meal of my day! Here in Ecuador it feels like fall so I decided to eat like its fall.  We had Gingerbread Waffles this morning!  I can't remember where I got this recipe from because I found it in my recipe binder just written on a small sheet of paper. 
Gingerbread Waffles with Apples
4 eggs
1/3cp sugar
1cp molasses
1cp buttermilk (if you don't have it just add 1tblspn of vinegar to your regular milk and let it sit for 5min)
dry ingredients
3cps flour
2tspn ground ginger
1 1/4 tspn cinnamon
3/4 tspn salt
2tspn baking soda
2tspn baking powder
1/2 cp melted butter

-Beat eggs for 2min
- add next 3 ingredients and mix
- in seperate bowl mix dry ingredients
-Mix eggs mixture in with dry ingredients mix
-stir in butter

Apple Chutney Syrup
2 diced
1/2cp of honey or maple syrup
2tbspn of water
In a sauce pan on low heat place diced apples
cook for 5min adding water as needed.
then add the honey
pour over waffles

This morning I added 1/2cp of canned pumpkin and didn't use the apple sauce.  You can also make rasberry sauce from rasberry jelly and then add different berries over it.
This recipe makes about 12 waffles in our small waffle maker. 
Waffles anytime
What we do with the left over batter is stick it in a bottle and on school days squeeze it out for a quick and healthy breakfast. Or stick it in a medium size ziploc bag and cut one corner of it when your ready to use it and squeeze it out and trash the bag.

Bumble Bees Can Be Cute

Adorable!  I am envisioning a white ball shaped candle on here or warm chocolate croissants. That's why I love bowls they are so versatile!

Cupcake Keepsake

This delectable keepsake cupcake makes you want to bite into that fluffy frosting.  Great to give as a gift to your lovely mother.  Fill it with jewelry, chocolates or cookies!   

I used a small round cardboard box. Covered the bottom half with scrapbook paper and the lid with crepe paper that was twisted into long strips.  Then it was glued on in a pyramid like form until it looked like fluffy frosting! Sprinkled it with mini pom poms.   These are also great party favors for a bridal shower, cupcake themed party, 1st birthdays....

Eat mor chikin..... not tonight

I have always prefered chickens over cows not for health reasons but b/c my body couldn't and wouldn't digest it. When I moved to Ecuador I decided to give it another try.  Tonight we made this amazing burger recipe that I have to share with you.  It is packed with flavor and its very tender.   I know I am a novice hamburger eater but I am pretty sure this is an A-mazing burger: Bacon Wrapped Hamburger http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Bacon-Wrapped-Hamburgers/Detail.aspx .  I plan on making it for my husbands birthday cookout.  Nothing like beef and bacon to get to a mans heart.

Revolutionary Parenting by George Barna

I just downloaded this book to my mp3 and so far its fabulous.  I love his perspective and his points.  This is not a how to with steps but wisdom to guide you as you set up the infrastructure for your home.

This is what the website says about the book: Determined to learn the secrets of those who've raised spiritual champions, world-renowned researcher George Barna conducted a series of surveys and thousands of personal interviews with both young adults and their parents.

In the process, he was able to uncover a number of common denominators to parenting success. Some of his findings will encourage you; others will surprise you. But be forewarned - raising a spriritual champion takes Revolutionary Parenting.

Ladies Tea: simple decorating ideas

• I made a pedestal by placing a plain white plate over a tea cup.
• I made about 6 of these in different colors and scattered them through out the dessert table with flower cookies coming out of them.  I placed flower styrofoam inside the cup so the flower cookie would stand up and then covered it w/ tissue paper.   
• I just stacked some colorful tea cups and plates to make a cake pedestar and placed some Lemon cheese cake bars (recipe in post below). 

Lemon Cheesecake Bars

Ladies Tea tomorrow.  I have been flipping through my recipe book and I couldn't find something I wanted to make but alas, I am an exclusive member to Betty Crockers recipe newsletter ;) and I saw this delish recipe Lemon Cheesecake bars http://www.bettycrocker.com/.   It sounds so springy and yummy so I am going to try it. 
I am also tempted to make some cute cookie flower pops. Can't go wrong with edible flowers.

Pizza Pull Apart bread

I started a Van Gogh Creations class for some students at our school.  I have 12 promising young minds ready to explore the world of cooking, crafting and painting.
Tomorrow we will make Pizza Pull Apart Bread with the added challenge to make the dough from scratch.  I made it last night for my family to ensure that it was possible to do with 12 second graders. 
There are a lot of different ways you can make this recipe and as always I looked at about 6 recipes and then mixed and matched and came up with what I want mine to taste like. You can make this as a meal and serve it with salad or as an appetizer.
Pizza Pull Apart Bread
1 pk of refridgerated dinner rolls, pizza crust or you can even make it from bisquick or your own favorite pizza dough recipe from scratch
shredded mozzarella cheese
30 pepperoni
1 tblspn garlic paste
parmesan
pizza sauce/marinara sauce
italian seasoning
2 tblspn of melted butter

• Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface and sprinkle cheese over it. then press it into the dough
• cut the dough with a knife or pizza cutter into med size squares
• grab a square and stuff it with some cheese, a tiny dallop of pizza sauce and 1 pepperoni and fold the end over each other so it is all closed up.
• put the rolled up squares into a lightly greased baking dish, pie pan. Only stack rolls on top of each other once. 
• in another bowl mix melted butter, garlic paste and italian seasoning
• once all your squares are rolled up drizzle the garlic paste mix all over it(make sure you cover the dough completely and sprinkle parmesan cheese over it.
• Put in the oven for 20 minutes or lightly browned on top at 400 degrees. Make sure you rack in the middle so the dish is in the middle of the oven.
• Eat them warm and dip them in some Marinara sauce

homemade popsicles and smoothies with a healthy twist

Getting ready for the heat!!!
I just made this yumminess that was super easy. Unlike your bought popsicles you can ensure there is real fruit in them. 
The recipe for strawberries & cream pops are at: http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/07/kids-week-frozen-pudding-pops.html 
For less sugarery alternative : You can also just put yogurt in the popscicle containers and add chopped up fruit strawberries, pineapple chunks whatever, butters your biscuit and then I freeze it.  This version has less sugar and my children beg for more thinking its "real icecream".

•  Recipes for Smoothies with a Healthy Twist - add 6 icecubes to the recipes below

-Hawaillan blend
In a blender mix 2.5 cups of vanilla yogurt, 1cp of strawberries, 1/2 cp of pineapple, 1tbspn of wheat germ and a hand full of spinach.  They will never taste the spinach or wheat germ.
- Just Peachy blend
2.5 cups of vanilla or strawberry yogurt, 1cp of strawberries, 1/2cp of peaches, 1 tbspn of wheat germ and a hand full of spinach.
-PB & J blend
2.5 cps of strawberry yogurt, 1 banana, 1cp of strawberries and 1/3cp of peanut butter and 1 tbspn of instant oatmeal drink.
-Elvis blend
2.5cps of vanilla yogurt, 1 banana, 2 tbspns of chocolate syrup, 1/3 cp of peanut butter and chocolate chips. Obviously this one has absolutely no healthy twist to it.
-Berryliscious
2.5cps of blueberry or strawberry yogurt, 4 strawberries, 1/3 cp of blueberries, 6 rasberries, 1 banana and 1 tblspn of instant oatmeal drink.

Enjoy! Experiment with different flavored yogurts

mini cakes

So I made some mini cakes from a cake that I froze.  It is Strawberry Lemon cake with cream cheese frosting. For those of you wondering you can freeze can and enjoy it later! 

The way I took the picture it looks like a cupcake but its a layered mini cake with fresh strawberries and cream cheese frosting in between and on the top.  I topped it with chocolate covered sesame

 

artsy wooden bowls

So I am experimenting with wood.  Below I had fun painting spoons and quickly I realized I wanted something bigger: bowls.  My first- Poppies. I love painting these flowers.

Bunny Cake Balls using Marshmallow fondant

I prefer cookie balls over cake balls but it was easier to use cake balls for the size of the bunnies. I used marshmallow fondant instead of dipping them in chocolate which was another reason it was easier to make the cake balls. I have yet to master the dipping of chocolate for cake balls.   The bunny cake balls were a hit at my sons Easter Class picnic! Everyone raved about how great they tasted and how cute they were.  Cake ball recipes are all over the internet.  I don't know where I came up with mine.

•  vanilla cake box or whatever flavor you prefer
• cream cheese frosting or whatever one you prefer
• marshmallow fondant see link below for recipe

Bake cake (whatever flavor butters your biscuit), let it cool.
Stick the baked cake in a bowl and make it crumbly. If you have kids they will love getting their hands dirty in this sugary mess.
Add a tub of frosting to the mix and mix well. 
Shape your balls.
Stick them in the fridge to cool down. 
Then wrap them in pink marshmallow fondant.  The marshmallow fondant recipe I like is from The Decorated Cookierecipe here
     Roll out your fondant and cut them into squares that will fit the size of your cakeballs you made.
    You may need to play w/ the size of the squares for a bit but the good thing is if you didn't get it right the first time if the fondant doesn't touch the cakeballs then you can reroll it and its not wasted.
    Put the gathered ends under and the smooth side up and that is the side you will decorate using the fondant for ears and food markers for the eyes, nose, etc..

I linked up with:
Simply Creations Friday

wooden salad spoon and fork

I loved painting this wooden spoon salad set!
I bought a plain wooden spoon and fork and then used acrylic paint.  I came up with a design and sketched it and then got to painting. Finished it off with a varnish.  I am going to try to find plain inexpensive sets so I can keep experimenting with these. 
They would look great with a matching apron!