CaKe PoPs!

Have you ever tried Cake Pops?
I made over 100 of them for Teacher Appreciation Week. There was no serious accident here except that I may have eaten a few too many.
They're MOIST and DELICIOUS! They're FUN to make!They don't take too long unless you are 2yrs. old. You beg and you beg and you BEG.
Then you start doing weird things like poking your eye out with the sticks because they are taking too long and your going crazy watching and smelling! But oh boy! They taste as good as they look!!!
The Head Chef has every right to lick the bowl clean! By the way......I thought for 2 seconds about taking a sip of this chocolate.
O.k.! It was 5-10 seconds.....maybe a little longer. I'm hoping someday the feeling will pass.You can also make them minus the sticks... and put them in a cute box to give as a gift.

FrEsH aPpLe CaKe

When I was growing up, my grandmother, mom and aunts would make this
Fresh Apple Cake. It's Moist!! It's Rich!! It's Delish!! AND it had 6 LARGE apples in it so it's healthy. ;)

FRESH APPLE CAKE
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. margarine
2 eggs
6-7 grated apples
2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. salt
SAUCE:
1/2 c. margarine
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. whipped cream
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Cream sugar, margarine, and eggs. Add flour, spices, then grated apples. Pour in greased 9 X 13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.
SAUCE: In saucepan over medium heat combine margarine, sugar, whipped cream and vanilla. Melt until clear liquid. Pour over individual pieces of cake.
***"Someone" threw away the Sprig of Mint that is missing from picture. ***

CaRaMeL CoRn & MoNsTeR MaSh

I'm warning you!
Whatever you do........do NOT make this caramel corn!!!
Even if it is the BEST you've ever tasted!
Don't do it!Caramel Corn

5 qts. air popped popcorn
1 c. butter or marg.
2 c. brown sugar
½ c. Lgt. Karo Syrup
1 t. salt
½ t. baking soda

Combine butter, sugar, syrup and salt in sauce pan.
Boil at 248 degrees.
(I couldn’t find my candy thermometer so I boiled it until it was frothy)
Take off the heat and stir in baking soda.

Pour over popcorn. Mix well.
Spread in 2 cookie sheets.
Bake 250 for 45 minutes. Stir and Flip every 15 minutes.

Please! I'm begging you! Don't make this Monster Mash either!!!
If you are weak like me, go visit Skip To My Lou to find out how to start a "Boo" in your neighborhood.

Believe me!!! You'll want to get this out of your house ASAP!!!!!

GoUrMeT tWiNkiEs

If you haven't been to 2Cleverblog.com, you are really missing out. 'Think' and 'Pink' share ideas and creativity back and forth with each other while you 'eves drop'. It's a "creative conversation between two ladies that used to live near each other but are now miles apart".
They make extraordinary out of the ordinary!
They have an eye for ALL things creative!
Go visit them. You can start here with this quick, easy, sweet, and pretty valentine dessert!

Put 'Think' and 'Pink' on the side bar of your blog. You won't be sorry.

While I'm on the subject of Love/Valentine's Day, you've got to stop at Tip Junkie too! She has been busy posting many craft, decoration, food and party ideas for Valentine's Day fun.

MaKe - A - pLaTe

It's been almost 4 years since our family made these plates.

It was such a fun activity. The kids really enjoyed designing their own personal plate!
It all started with this plate my brother made in grade school:

It used to have two pictures on it. I remember it being such a fun memory, so I thought I would do it with my own kids.

The whole process was extremely easy and the kids looked forward to getting them in the mail.

Now almost 4 years later we still enjoy them and eat off them about every other day. It makes it easy for them to figure out which plate is theirs and where they are sitting: A LOT less fighting!

In all this time we only lost one plate. Considering we use them ALL the time they should tell you how durable they are AND how much the kids still love them.

You can buy a kit for about $7.00 to make up to 50 plates. When you have finished your design (we had a few mess-ups), you mail them in. Each plate costs around $6.50 plus S/H.
I'm pretty sure "Make A Plate" is the company we used.

I'm going to order another kit this week so we can make new ones this summer.

FrOm OuR PeEpS tO YoUrS...

Happy Easter!!

This year we had an Easter Dinner, Easter Preschool Party, Easter Breakfast,

Easter Lunch, Easter Linner, and Easter BBQ.
Five of those get-togethers had an Easter Egg Hunt.
Luckily they were spread out over a 7 day period.
Good food and great company!

My 1st Cooking Skills

Growing up the oldest of 7 children provided me with a TON of cooking experience.

Making dinner was a somewhat regular responsibility of mine because both of my parents worked.

If I wanted to get out of it or was busy that night then the responsibility fell to my brother James who is 16 months younger than me. We all knew if he was cooking, we'd have fried egg sandwiches. Again!Sometimes he'd break out his gourmet side and we'd have fried egg sandwiches with cheese.

Thank goodness his wife has helped him see the light. He can now cook a mean BBQ and I hear he makes cheesecake too.

I would usually made dinner for 9-15 people because someone would bring home a friend or two.

I'm sure you can guess that when I got married, all I knew how to make were huge casseroles.One good thing about cooking that much is I only had to make dinner every 4-5 days. My poor husband would happily eat the same thing for 4-5 days in a row.

Growing up in a big family meant that you didn't have cold cereal. It was too expensive. If my parents ever did buy cold cereal, it would be gone that very morning.My youngest brother Phillip would eat a mixing bowl full of cold cereal and milk instead of a cereal bowl.

When I got married, I was so surprised that cold cereal could last in my pantry for over a week!

For some reason my cooking skills around dinner guests was sorely lacking. Maybe I was nervous. I remember inviting my SIL Margie and her husband over for dinner one night. The BBQ chicken was burnt and the rice krispie treats were hard and brittle.Hopefully they have both blocked that meal out of their minds forever. LOL!

I look back now and actually wouldn't change a thing.

Good times!

DoMeStiCaTeD cHiCkEn

I never realized that chickens were so social.

If we let our chicken named, Jello run around in the backyard, he spends most of the time pecking at our back door like he wants to come in.

I told my husband there was NO WAY he was coming in without a diaper.

Of course he took that as an invitation to put a diaper on Jello and let him come in.

Jello thinks he's part of the family. He'll flip through the remote control looking for his favorite shows and movies like Green Acres, Word World, Barnyard and Chicken Little. He is really good at Dance Dance Revolution. His best score is A- for the Chicken Dance.
We've also caught Jello Cock-A-Doodle Dooing on the piano to songs like,

Ol' McDonald Had a Farm.
We'll have our chicken, Jello for a long time.

Eventually we'll invite him for dinner as our special guest!

SuGaR! oOhHh HoNeY hOnEy.....

On December 31, 2008 I took my last taste of sugar for what I then thought would be a year.

I went 5 whole months before I took a bite of sugar because of a cruise our family went on.

I also indulged on my birthday, a week long family beach trip and a weak moment.

Even with those incidents, I have lost 50lbs.!

I realize it is pretty extreme to give up sugar, but I knew I needed something drastic that would give me a huge jump start in the right direction.

In the beginning, I didn't even allow myself to have fake sugar because I knew I would start making cookies and other baked goods with Splenda and that defeated the purpose of giving up sugar.

Because I was limiting my calories and avoiding sugar, I had low energy in January and February so I decided to let myself have 3 items with fake sugar:

My Myoplex Health Shake to give my mornings and workouts a boost.

Orbit Cinnamint gum for in-between meals and snack times.

And of course my Diet Coke!

There are 2 types of food that I didn't want to limit because of the nutrients my body needs:

Skim Milk
and ANY fruit! Smoothies have definitely helped to take the edge off.

Because I have come to realize that there is sugar in EVERYTHING (I'm not even joking!), I had to give myself a 2 gram rule. I can eat something if it has 2 grams or less per serving, BUT it has to be something healthy. I can't take a bite of a cookie and say that I stayed under 2 grams.

I've since become a big fan of Cheerios.I never realized I'd have to give up things like Ketchup.....
and BBQ sauce!
I also miss my favorite cereal, Quaker Oatmeal Squares. They sound healthy but they actually have 10 grams of sugar per 1 cup serving. That's less than half of what you find in Tootie Fruities or Marshmellow Mateys. Scary! And you guessed it! My family is 'suffering' along with me. I no longer make cookies or snacks every other day like I use to. It's more like once every 3-4 weeks.

And for a quick breakfast they have the option of Cheerios or horror of all horrors....OATMEAL!!!

I'll go into detail later on how I had to wean them from the sugary cereals to oatmeal.

Giving up sugar has been EXTREMELY hard! I wish I could say it get's easier everyday. It is about 8% easier to avoid sugar today as it was on January 3, 2009. Around 3:30 pm and 9pm are the hardest times for me, but I know that if I can do it than anyone can. REALLY! I'm am a huge sugar-aholic and I LOVE to bake, but boy have my eyes been opened these last 7 months!

If anyone else needs something drastic and is thinking of giving up sugar, let me know! I need some new motivation. I am WEAK!

"If only a small fraction of what is already known about the effects of sugar

were to be revealed in relation to any other material used as a food additive,

that material would promptly be banned."

---John Yudkin MD, Ph.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S.C., F.I. Biol.,

Prof of Nutrition at London University

Let me know if you have any questions and I'll go into more detail in the next few months about kicking this addiction, but in case you need a better reason besides weight loss to make you cut down on your sugar intake,

just click here --->>>* Scary sugar website *

PyRaMiD ShMyRaMiD

I'm not the only one that thinks the FDA's new

Food Guide Pyramid is completely ridiculous right?

Everytime I see it I just shake my head.

The FDA couldn't make more sense of the new pyramid if they had

flipped it inside out and backwards,

then walked it around the block and folded down a corner .

I agree that the original pyramid needed a little tweeking, but the first time I looked at it I completely understood how much of each catagory I should and shouldn't eat.I bet people are going other places now to get their nutritional information:
Or maybe they are doing their own thing:

Here's to your health!