Valentine's Day Goodies

My husband and I have only celebrated Valentine's Day at a restaurant once. That was enough for us. Oh, sure, we enjoyed the food and good company. But the two hour wait for a table, not so much. The restaurant didn't take reservations for Valentine's Day, so we thought we'd just hope for the best. When we found out how long the wait was, we thought about going home, but we were with another couple and had really been looking forward to a night out with them.

So the four of us made our way back to the van and we hunkered down for a couple of hours. I'll admit, we had some fun laughing and chatting together while we waited for our pager to buzz us in from the cold, but mini vans aren't built for cuddling. It's hard to enjoy a snuggle with your Valentine when there's an aisle separating your seat from his!

These days, hubby and I are more content to just stay home on Valentine's Day. We have a nice dinner together (usually with the kids!) and enjoy some cuddles afterwards on our comfy couch. If you decide to stay in this year for Valentine's Day, be sure to share something yummy for dessert. Check out these cute goodies from Grandin Bakery and surprise your Valentine with some sweet treats.

Sweet Potato French Toast Recipe

 
 













I love every opportunity I can get to sneak veggies into my kids' food.

Now, I won't proclaim that this recipe is super healthy. I mean it does have both syrup and brown sugar. But, this French toast does include a veggie and it tastes yummy. My girls gobble these up!

I usually buy canned sweet potato at a health food store, but you can also make your own. Click here for directions on how to bake sweet potatoes. Once they're cooked, you just need to let them cool enough so that you don't burn yourself, then tear off the peels (they should come off easily) and mash.

Here's the recipe:
3/4 cup pureed sweet potato
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
4 eggs, beaten
10-12 slices bread (I use brown)

Preheat a non-stick frying pan on the stove top at just below medium heat. Mix the sweet potato, milk, cinnamon, vanilla & eggs in a shallow dish. Quickly dip both sides of a slice of bread into the mixture and put into the pan (you don't want to let the bread soak in the mixture, just dip to coat). Cook about 2 minutes, flip, then cook for about 2 minutes more. As you take the toasts out of the pan, move them to an oven-safe dish and keep them warm in the oven at 200 degrees F while you cook up the rest of the French toast.

Serve with margarine, a drizzle of maple syrup and a sprinkle of brown sugar (trust me, the combination of syrup and brown sugar is fantastic!)

Dinosaur Birthday Party

I love planning birthday parties for my kids. And it always helps to have a little inspiration, so I thought I'd share some of my ideas with you here. Today's theme is dinosaurs!

 1.     

1.       Set the Scene:

•  Let the birthday boy or girl help you draw dinosaur foot prints and hang them around the house. 

• Make a mini dino world to put on the party table. Fill a container with dirt, scatter rocks over top, tuck in a few small branches for trees, and add some plastic dinosaurs.

 Plan Fun Activities:

• Have a dinosaur dig! Buy a bag or two of plastic, toy dinosaurs (you can usually find these at a dollar store) and bury them in a bucket of Lego. Divide the kids into two teams and line them up a few feet away from the bucket. Let the teams race to dig up the dinosaurs. The first person on each team runs to the Lego and starts searching. Once he finds a dinosaur, he runs back to his team and the next person runs over to start searching. The team that finds their half of the hidden dinosaurs first is the winner. In the summer, if the weather is nice, you can play this game in the sandbox instead of with Lego. 

•  Play T-Rex hide & seek: Whoever’s turn it is to seek has to roar and stomp like a Tyrannosaurus Rex while he looks for the other kids.

• Make paper plate Stegosauruses: Buy two sizes of paper plates and cut them into halves. Give each child a small half plate for the head and a large half plate for the body. Using double-sided tape, help them attach the head to one end of the body (the dino will be in profile view). You could always have assembled dino bodies ready for the kids to decorate, if that’s easier. Let the kids use foam stickers to make legs, spikes, eyes and ears. They can also color their dinosaurs with markers or crayons.

 
 Have Super Dino Snacks:

• What's on the menu? How about dinosaur eggs (grapes or jellybeans), dinosaur bones (popcorn twists) and swamp water (juice).

•  Set out some fun dinosaur-shaped cookies. Grandin Bakery makes sugar cookies decorated in any colors you like.

 Happy party planning!

Sandwiches for Dinner?

It'll be Christmas in a few days and it might be a little busy around your house. You still want to put something healthy on the table for dinner, but you need to whip up something quickly. Sandwiches to the rescue! The trick to turning a sandwich into dinner fare is to warm it up.

Check out some of these great suggestions:

• Fancy Grilled Cheese 9 Ways  -- The one with pears, ricotta & honey looks crazy good!

• Grilled Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches -- Easily a favorite in our house

• BBQ Chicken Sandwiches -- Secret weapon of busy cooks: rotisserie chicken from the deli

• Tuna Melt Sandwiches  -- Try this on our Marble Rye Bread (we swirl light and dark rye together for a great effect)

Grandin Bakery's Marble Rye Bread

Hmmm...how to keep the kids busy at the family Christmas party?

Here are a few of our favorite ideas:

• Set up a craft station to make ornaments. Stock up on popsicle sticks, pompoms, pipe cleaners, beads and glue. Let the kids create!
  

• Have some "Minute to Win It" type games ready to go. Have the kids race each other to stack six metal nuts (from the hardware store) on top of each other using only a pencil (no hands!). Last year, at our family Christmas, one of the challenges was to put cookies on our foreheads and get them into our mouths by simply scrunching up our faces -- lots of laughs with that one! Check out the Minute to Win It website for more game ideas.

• Have a white elephant gift exchange: all the gifts have to be something from home that you don't need (want!) anymore. Each person can open a new gift or "steal" someone else's when it's their turn.

• Give the kids gingerbread men or sugar cookies to decorate with icing and candies. Put the icing into Ziploc bags and snip off the corners so that kids can squeeze out the icing.

• Set out a stocking and a bucket full of a bunch of household items. Let the kids take turns putting an item into the stocking and turns guessing what's inside just by feeling it.

Hope you have fun at your holiday get-togethers this year. We're sure looking forward to ours!