Two More April Fool's Day Fun Food Ideas

I am totally loving all of the great April Fool's Day things people have posted the past couple of weeks! I love the pranks but mostly I love the fun food. You didn't miss our Fakin' and Eggs I hope! (We're all about fun food at our house!) So we wanted to pack in two more fun April Fool's Day fun food ideas before the big day. I saw this delicious Grilled Cheese Sandwich over on this blog and had to make it. I just LOVE pound cake so how could it not be bad with frosting on it?! It was that simple. Slice up 2 pieces of pound cake. (I have the best recipe EVER that I will post soon). Tint vanilla frosting orange for the cheese and there you have it. I think I was supposed to actually grill (or toast) the slices of pound cake but I didn't want to mess with perfection. =o) This second idea was from this site. Hamburger Cookies. How could we not make these, right? We made Hot Dog Cookies earlier and we didn't want to leave out the hamburger. That would be wrong. Their hamburgers had sesame seeds on the "buns" but we chose not to put those on. We are not big sesame people and even though I tried to convince my kids that it would make them look more real, they said no way. Actually they said "hamburgers don't have seeds on them Mom. That's just ridiculous." (My daughter's new favorite word.) Ingredients: Nilla Wafers Peppermint Patties frosting (tinted yellow and red) You can put "lettuce" on them as well by tinting coconut with green food coloring. But again the response was "that's just ridiculous, Mom." Cute, right? If you missed some of our other fun food posts... check them out =o) Candy Sushi Alien Invasion For Dinner Sloppy Joe Race Cars Octo Dog and Shells Squiddlers

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Chocolate Cheerios Marshmallow Bars

I saw this recipe awhile ago on the Pillsbury website (here) and knew I had to make it. I kind of have a thing for s'mores. Or maybe it's just chocolate and marshmallows together. Either way, I love them. And this recipe surely didn't disappoint! It was quite tasty (as I sit here and type with one hand because I'm eating these with the other hand.) =o)

Ingredients:

Crust
* 1 c. AP flour
* 1 c. Chocolate Cheerios cereal, crushed
* 2/3 c. packed brown sugar
* 1/2 t. baking powder
* 1/2 c. butter, softened
* 1 t. vanilla
* 3 cups miniature marshmallows

Topping
* 2/3 c. light corn syrup
* 1/4 c. butter
* 1 t. vanilla
* 1 bag (11.5 ounce) milk chocolate chips
* 4 cups Chocolate Cheerios cereal

Directions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees.
- Get a helper to help you crush the Cheerios!


- Line bottom and side of a 13 x 9 inch pan with foil. In a large bowl, mix all crust ingredients except marshmallows with electric mixer on low speed until crumbly. Press firmly into bottom of pan.

- Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven. Immediately sprinkle with marshmallows and return to oven. Bake an additional 1 to 2 minutes or until marshmallows just begin to puff. Cool while preparing topping.

- In a large saucepan, place all topping ingredients except cereal. Heat over medium-low heat just until chips are melted and mixture is smooth, stirring constantly.
- Remove from heat and add cereal.

- Immediately spoon over marshmallows, spread to cover.


Now, here's the hard part, cool completely. This will be tough because you'll want to dig in and enjoy them!


Enjoy!

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Millionaire Nuggets

There are just certain blogs that I love. The recipes are good, I enjoy their sense of humor and the recipes are good. Did I already mention that one? Monster Mama is one of those blogs for me. I just love what Mickey makes and has to say. So when I saw this recipe on her blog it was immediately put on my "to make" list. Unfortunately that list is super long and it's take me awhile to get to them. Which was a shame after I tasted them and wondered "oh delicious balls of goodness, where have you been all my life?!" Seriously, they are THAT good!

Millionaire Nuggets

Ingredients:
* 1 (14 oz.) bag caramels
* 3 Tbsp. water
* 1/2 cup chopped pecans (I omitted the nuts since I'm not a real nut person and added another 1/2 cup of Rice Krispies
* 1 cup Rice Krispies
* 3 cups milk chocolate chips
* 1 1/2 tsp. shortening

Line 2 baking sheets with wax paper and spray with non-stick cooking spray (this is super important. These bad boys are sticky!)

In a medium saucepan combine caramels and water and cook over low heat. Stir until smooth.

Stir in the rice krispies and nut (if you chose).

Let it cook for a little while (around 20 minutes) and then drop "blops" onto the waxed paper.

Refrigerate them for about 10 minutes or so to harden them up.

Generously grease your hands. (Again, very important!) And roll into balls.

In a small saucepan, melt chocolate chips and shortening. You can also use the chocolate candy coating that you would use to make candy. I like this better because it melts smoother.

Coat each ball with chocolate and place onto baking sheet.

Store in airtight containers.

And... because I can't leave well enough alone... we thought they might taste pretty tasty with marshmallows in them also. So after adding the rice krispies and stirring, we added a couple of handfuls of miniature marshmallows. Holy cow! That's about all I can say about that! The sky parted and I'm pretty sure I heard harp music in the background. Pure heaven!!!


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Fakin' and Eggs... For Dessert???

I'm not much of a prankster. It's not that I don't think they're funny. I just don't do them. Well, not a lot at least =o) So for me, April Fools Day isn't really a big deal. But it's like I said in my St. Patrick's Day post, "now that I'm a Mom I have to holiday it up, right?" So what better way to celebrate April Fool's Day than with these awesome Fakin and Eggs! Even you non bacon eating folks out there can make/eat these!

And who doesn't love fun food? We're kinda crazy about it. It all started back with our candy sushi and it's gone a little crazy since them.

Where did I find this fantastic inspiration? Did I make it up? Um, seriously, no. I got it from.... where.... you guessed it, Family Fun! I love that site!

They were super easy to make and my kids freaked out when they saw them!

The eggs were super easy. You'll need:
* white chocolate chips (or chocolate bark of some sort)
* yellow M&Ms

For the bacon you'll need:
* caramels (one for each strip of bacon)
* and mini Tootsie Rolls (one for each bacon strip)

Here's how you make the bacon....




What do you think? They look like bacon and eggs don't they?

I tried to take a picture of my kids enjoying them but they wouldn't stop chewing long enough for me to take a picture. They loved them!


Now we're off to find more fun food for April Fool's Day.....

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Learning to Read & Free Lunch Box Printables

My daughter just turned six. She's in kindergarten and in my opinion, she's as smart as a whip. But do all Mom's say that? But I'm serious. She really is too smart for her own good sometimes =o) She's learning how to read now and it's amazing how quickly she is catching on to all the rules, etc.

At the beginning of the year I put little notes in her lunch box every day. She would come home and say "Mom, could you not do that please." Well, at least she said please. But now that she is learning to read she is asking for more notes in her lunch box. So I write little things like "have a good day. I love you" and stuff like that but they are getting a little boring in my book. So I decided to surf the web for more exciting and fun lunch box notes. And man, did I find some great ones.

I printed them all out, cut them out and stuck them in an envelope in the kitchen. So every morning when I make her lunch I pull out a new "note" to give to her. She LOVES it! And how easy is that?!

Here's what I found:

from Dealafina

from Parentella

from Cute and Crafty

from Tip Junkie

from Get Buttoned Up

from Cap Creations

from Mama Cheaps

from Wee Life

Pretty cool, right?

So, my kids text. Is that bad? Not all the time but they love to send a text message to their Aunt or to a friend of mine. It's pretty cute. And I figure it's good for them to learn technology and it helps them with their reading and typing. Right? =o)

It amazes me that my just-turned-6-year-old can text so well. Here's a word for word conversation she had last night with a friend from out of town....

Ellie (my daughter): Hi this is Ellie can scott play ????? :o) :o)

Scott: yes I can play

Ellie: Yay

Scott: what are we going to play?

Ellie: scrambol

Scott: do I have to run?

Ellie: yes

Scott: oh man... how far?

Ellie: a hunjrid miyool a howr

Scott: What if I get tired?

Ellie: i dont know

Scott: can I stop and rest?

Ellie: no

Scott: what if I pass out?

Ellie: i dont know we wil call 911

How stinkin' funny is that?!?! I love how she sounds out the words. See? She is a genius, isn't she? =o)

Irish Potato Candy

It's almost here - St. Patrick's Day. I'm not super into St. Patrick's Day but as a Mom I try to celebrate (and educate) my kids about most holidays and special events. That's important, right?

I wasn't quite sure what to make for this special day. St. Patty's Day sugar cookies are always a hit in our house but I'm a little tired of sugar cookies after Valentine's Day. And my kids wouldn't go near corned beef and cabbage if I paid them. So we decided on Irish Potato Candy. There are two "traditional" types of Potato Candy and I thought they both sounded tasty, so we made both.


Irish Potato Candy
Adapted from: Cooks.com

2 (1 lb.) boxes powdered sugar
1/2 cup hot mashed potatoes, drained
peanut butter (you can use creamy or chunky)

- Boil your potatoes like you always do for mashed potatoes.
- Measure out about 1 cup of potato chunks and add to mixing bowl.
- Beat until crumbly.
- Start adding the powdered sugar. Don't be alarmed when it turns to liquid. This is normal.

- Just keep adding powdered sugar until it is thick and spreadable.

- Sprinkle waxed paper with additional powdered sugar. Make sure there are no "blad" spots. This mixture is pretty sticky and will stick to the paper. I used this handy dandy Pampered Chef pastry roller. It worked great! (My kids also like it for Pay Doh) =o)

- Take a baseball sized ball of mixture and roll out on waxed paper.

- Spread with peanut butter.

- Roll up
- Refrigerate for a couple of hours, then slice.

For the second variation:
- After mixture is thick, roll into walnut sized pieces shaping them to look like potatoes.

- Let sit on the counter for a couple of hours or refrigerate. This makes the cinnamon not get moist when you roll them in it. I'm not sure how - it's just the law =o)
- Roll in cinnamon.

Store in the refrigerator.

I'm not sure which one I liked more. I really like the taste of the peanut butter but the ones in cinnamon look so darn cool.

Everyone has seen this saying, right? It's nothing new. It's been around forever. It basically means "Ireland Forever!" Nice, right...

Growing up it was hard having the name Erin on St. Patrick's Day. This is what everyone did to this wonderful Irish saying...

Darn kids!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Don't forget to wear green or you'll get pinched - which, by the way, is strickly an American tradition.

And also don't forget to check out the great linky parties on my sidebar =o)

I'm also joining Kathleen and her 3rd Annual St. Patrick's Day Blog Crawl!