Banana Graham Crackers with Peanut Butter--and Has Spring Sprung?

Taylor had snack for preschool again today.  I try to have fun with this.  I whipped up my recent homemade graham crackers, but with a twist.  I had some very ripe bananas to use up, so I thought I'd just mash them up and see what they'd be like.  I was really just worried that they would be too soft and not crunchy like a graham cracker.  But they actually turned out great.  The banana taste is a little subtle, but noticeable and kicking them up with peanut butter spread on top, not to mention a banana slice and chocolate chip--my idea of food heaven! ; )

See---how cute are these?

Taylor helped me put a little dab of peanut butter on the chocolate chip to make sure they stuck to the banana.  These were great and pretty simple to make!

Banana Graham Crackers

1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (I used white whole wheat flour this time)

2 cups graham flour (whole wheat is fine)

1/4 cup evaporated cane juice sugar (regular sugar is fine)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup cold butter, cut into pieces

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon molasses

1/4 cup water (may need a little more--I used another tablespoonful)---omitted the water for these

2 small-medium bananas, very ripe, mashed

In bowl of food processor, combine flours, sugar, salt, baking powder and cinnamon.  Pulse a few times.  Add the cold butter and pulse until texture is dry and crumbly.

In a separate bowl, mix together the honey, molasses and mashed banana.  Add to food processor and blend together until it forms a ball.  Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for one hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll the dough out on a well floured surface, or between wax paper.   Roll the dough out pretty thin and cut with cookie cutters or cut into rectangles.  Make fork marks in the dough.  Transfer to baking sheets lined with parchment paper (that's what I use, just a baking sheet would work fine).  You could sprinkle these with sugar or cinnamon/sugar before baking.   

Bake for 12-13 minutes until golden and crisp.

You know you want one!

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Yesterday it was a gorgeous day, about 60 degrees.  Today--even better, probably closer to 70.  "Hello, winter?  Are you there?  No, okay--BYE!"

We have a huge driveway, after school the kids had just about every inch of it covered in chalk drawings.  We blew bubbles, too.  In the afternoon, our driveway is shaded by the house, so it was a bit cooler than farther out in the sun.  So Taylor and Sam have jackets on.  Today--no pictures, but no jackets, no long sleeves, it was beautiful!  The sad part about all this--tomorrow is supposed to be a high of about 40 (if we're lucky!) and yucky, rainy all day.  Sigh.

No pictures of Scott and Parker, who did most of the drawing, they were off on their bikes every time I tried to snap a shot of them.

Can't believe this little guy will be two in a few weeks!

 

Taylor thought it was funny to color his face with blue chalk.

Happy Springing!

TWD--Caramel Crunch Bars???

This week's Tuesday's With Dorie recipe was chosen by Whitney from What's Left On the Table, you can get the recipe on Whitney's blog or buy Dorie's book!  The recipe is for what Dorie is calling Caramel Crunch Bars, but well, I guess these do have some crunch, but no caramel.  The recipe calls for sprinkling toffee bits on top, but I decided to go with something else as my kids (and Kevin) don't really care for toffee bits. 

These bars are like shortbread with chocolate pieces in it, "frosted" with melted chocolate and topped with--well, really whatever you want.  Since I didn't go for the toffee bits, I wanted something that would "make" my boys eat them.  Hmm, what do they love most of all---SPRINKLES!  They will eat anything with sprinkles on it.

 

Dorie suggest bittersweet chocolate in the bars and for the topping.  She did suggest also using a really good quality milk chocolate as well.  I used Hershey's Special Dark for the chopped chocolate in the bars and just a good semi sweet chocolate for the top.  I didn't want to use bittersweet to make sure the boys would like and eat these.  I left out the espresso and cinnamon.  The recipe was simple and the cookies are buttery--even to almost a caramel-y flavor--and crunchy.  These are GOOD!  And bad. ; )  I only tasted a small amount.  The boys really like/liked them and I will be happy to let them keep eating them (just so I won't).  I really could just keep downing these.

Oh, and I decided to do about half with chopped walnuts instead of the sprinkles.  I prefer the nutty ones, but the sprinkles are definitely colorful and fun!  There isn't much more to say--thanks, Whitney for a simple and yummy pick this week!  Check out what all the other baker's came up with this week by clicking on the link and scrolling down to the TWD Baker's list.  Dorie also suggested making ice cream sandwiches with these, which I was going to do, but ran out of time today, so we just served them with ice cream.

 

Hey, I really do still have four boys and an amazing husband, just nothing they're doing has been worthy of taking pictures, especially since sickness has been going around--and well, I'm tired of it!   Crossing fingers that we're about done with it, well, except Kevin, he just got it today.  Have a good week, all.

Andes Mint Chip Cookies and Heavenly Peanut Butter Blondies

I made a couple of REALLY good goodies recently.  First up, Andes Mint Chip Cookies.  I found these little gems on Stephanie's blog, Confessions of a City Eater.  She was the brilliant gal who picked the Devil's Food White Out Cake for our Tuesday's With Dorie recipe last week.  As I was snooping around her blog, I found these Andes Mint Cookies and 1-thought they look really good, 2-I have a couple bags of Andes Mint Pieces that were on sale after the holidays, 3-I was making some cookies for the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby.

I think these were great--if you like mint.  The cookie dough is perfect and worth trying with any chip additions.  The cookies are crisp on the outside and perfectly soft, chewy on the inside  I followed the recipe Stephanie used that she got from Tootsie Roll Industries, except the recipe called for salted butter and no added salt and I only had unsalted butter, so I added some salt.  No biggie.  Check out Steph's blog, lots of good stuff there!

Andes Mint Chip Cookies--from Tootsie Roll Industries, adapted slightly

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I only used 1 teaspoon)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt (if using salted butter, omit the salt)

2  2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 pkg. (10 oz.) Andes Mint Baking Chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper. 

Cream together butter and sugars for a few minutes, until fluffy.  Add vanilla and eggs and beat until well mixed.  Scrape sides of bowl.  Add baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour and mix just until combined.  Stir in Andes Mints. 

Place cookies on sheets using a small cookie scoop or about a tablespoonful each.  (The original recipes says to flatten slightly, I did some both ways and like the ones I didn't flatten better.)  Bake for 8-10 minutes.   Cool on sheets for two minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool.   Makes about 3 dz.  (I got about 40.)

DELICIOUS and REFRESHING!

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Next--

I also had six fun size Butterfingers, a bunch of mini Reese's PB Cups and Reese's peanut butter chips to use up, so I made Dorie's Chewy, Chunky Blondies and filled them up with lots of peanut butter goodness.  This blondie recipe from Dorie's Baking From My Home to Yours book is definitely the best go-to blondie recipe I've found.  I've made these blondies before, more than once, I've even used the dough to make some great cookies.

Chewy, Chunky Heavenly Peanut Butter Blondies, adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Chewy, Chunky Blondies

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1  1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup Reese's peanut butter chips

about 14 mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, chopped

1 cup milk chocolate chips

6 Fun Size Butterfinger Candy Bars, chopped

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Line a 9x13 baking pan with a non-release foil or parchment paper (Really, just spraying the pan with cooking spray works, but I love using the foil or parchment as the edges hang over the sides and are used for releasing the bars or cake from the pan with ease.)  I do spray the foil or parchment very lightly with cooking spray also.

Cream together the butter and sugars for a few minutes, until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating one minute between each addition.  Mix in vanilla.  After sifting together with a wire whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, add to creamed ingredients and mix just until combined.  Stir in chips and candy with a wooden spoon or spatula until combined.  Spread in pan and bake for forty minutes.  Begin testing with toothpick inserted in center after 30 minutes and remove from oven when toothpick comes out clean.  Mine baked 35 minutes.  Cool completely on wire rack.  Remove from pan using excess foil or parchment and cut into desired sized bars.

Giveaway Winner! And Some Brownies to Celebrate!

I'm excited to announce the winner of my Chop Wizard/Chocolate Prize One Year of Blogging Celebration Giveaway Winner! 

We picked the winner the same way we did last time for my giveaway in December, by having each of the four boys and Kevin pick a name from the pieces of paper with names in a bowl.  (Last time we took pictures of each of the boys drawing a name, but today we were rushed for getting out the door to school, so we hurried.)

Thank you to all 83 people who entered the contest by leaving me a comment.  I love talking about chocolate! ;)  Thanks for reading my blog, too!

After the five names were chosen, they were put into a bowl.

Then I blindly chose one out of the five.  (They were folded nicely and I could not see whose name I was picking, but I'm happy to say that I chose the name of one of my friend's from back home.

  

Shari Waltman come on down!  You are the winner of the Vidalia Chop Wizard and some yummy chocolate--you could even try chopping the chocolate in the Wizard!  ; )  Shari and I go way back to the good old 1980's!  Ahh, such memories.  We don't see each other much anymore or even talk very often, but I'm so glad she won.  Hey, Shari, here's a couple of pics for ya.  I'm so glad I'm hidden from the picture, taken in 1985, but just seeing what I'm wearing--gotta LOVE the 80's.  We're making cookies.  Very appropriate for my blog.  I'm loving my mom's old puke green Kitchen Aid (She had that thing for almost 40 years--it finally bit the dust a few years ago and she got a nice, new one!)  This picture is so fun to look at for many, many reasons.  But we won't even talk about the wallpaper or the wood walls.  Let's just move one.  (The kitchen has since been completely remodeled.)

I'm loving this picture of Shari from girl's camp in 1984.  Nice.

And this one also from girl's camp, 1984.

 

Fun rememberies.  (I have many more fun pictures of us, Shari, but the computer/scanning thing just wasn't working very well.  I'm fortunate to have these--thanks, Kev!)  Congrats, Shari!

Can't wait to do another giveaway.  It's fun!

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And now for the brownies!  Let's call these 100 Grand Brownies!

I got the recipe for these from Chocoholic.com, via Tiffany at The Cookie Blog.  As a cookie, they are called Chewy-Fudgy After-School Cookies.  There was just something I didn't like about the way they baked as cookies.  I only baked 12.  The boys did eat them up, but I didn't want to just keep baking cookies I didn't like--although, that would probably be a good idea, then I wouldn't eat them!  The recipe mentions to watch the first batch and to not over bake them and I think I did over bake them.  Although, the recipes says to bake them 10-12 minutes, and I thought even at 8 minutes there were too done.  I'll be quiet now about that and tell you that I decided to bake the rest as brownies and see what happened.  I used a bread pan lined with non-stick foil.  I spread half the dough in the bottom, then LINED the whole thing with some mini 100 Grand Bars I had.  I flattened each one out a little to make it more even.  Then I spread the rest of the dough over that.  I baked them until a toothpick inserted in the center came out clean (20 minutes?).  You could use this whole batch of dough in an 8 inch pan, I'm sure.  You can get the recipe for the cookies on the links above, but here's how I made them into brownies.

100 Grand Brownies

2  1/2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup canola oil

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/2 cup Egg Beaters w/touch of yolk (or 2 large eggs)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Mini 100 Grand Bars

Melt in a microwave safe (glass) bowl the chocolate and oil in 30 second intervals and stir it to combine with a whisk until smooth.  (Or use a double boiler.)  Let it cool slightly.

Stir together the eggs, sugar and vanilla in a medium-size bowl.  Add the cooled chocolate mixture and combine.  Add the flour, baking soda and salt and mix together.

Put about half the batter in an 8 inch pan, add mini 100 Grand Bars  to cover the top. (I smashed each one down a bit for even coverage.)  Add the rest of the batter and spread it over the top. 

Baked in preheated 350 degree oven in a foil lined 8 inch pan, lightly sprayed with cooking spray, about 20 minutes, check for toothpick inserted in center to come out clean.  Cool completely in pan on wire rack. 

Ooey, gooey with a touch of crunch from the crispies in the 100 Grand bars. 

ONE Year Blog Giveaway! And TWD-Devil's Food White Out Cake

It's been one year today since my first blog post.  Wow.  I can't believe it's been a year since I started this.  I really just wanted to start keeping track of things going on with us and the boys and thought it would be fun to start including recipes of things I love.  Now, I'm having so much fun baking up a storm, trying new recipes and sharing them with family, friends and many people I've never met, but feel like we know each other.  How fun! 

On that note, I think only the best thing to do to thank everyone for taking time to read my blog and gawk at all my recipes AND my cute boys is with a giveaway!  So here it is--my parents gave us one of these for Christmas and I love it.  I use it all the time.  It's the Vidalia Chop Wizard!

 

Now if you know me, you know I DO NOT like onions.  I never buy them and NEVER cook with them, but this thing is great for chopping all kinds of fruits and vegetables.  It really is a time saver and so much easier than chopping with a knife (I often cut myself when I have a knife!).  So here's one waiting for the lucky randomly drawn winner.  What else do I love?  Well, this, of course---CHOCOLATE!  Have to throw a little of this in, too!

Leave me a comment telling me what your favorite chocolate is (brand, flavor, whatever) as well as your favorite way to enjoy it (in a cookie, cake, by itself, etc.) and/or GASP, if you don't like chocolate, what you do like in place of chocolate as an indulgence.  One lucky winner will be chosen Wednesday evening (deadline is 9 p.m. CST).  Thanks for a great fun year of blogging, can't wait to see what deliciousness this next year brings.  Starting with this amazing cake--------------

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TWD--Devil's Food White Out Cake

This week's recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours was chosen by Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater and doggonit, it's about time someone chose the great looking cake that's on the cover of this book--Devil's Food White Out Cake!  Great pick, Stephanie.  You can get the recipe posted on her blog.  This cake was fun to make, and challenging and pretty darn yummy (although I only took a couple bites!).

A friend of ours, Bob, had a birthday recently and he saw this cake on the book  cover and told me that was what he wanted.  He told me this when I had just found out it was chosen this month for one of our TWD baking adventures.  Perfect.  I love having a reason to bake!  The recipe calls for 8 inch pans, which I totally thought I had, but it turned out my pans were 9 inch.  I didn't want to have cakes that were too thin, since they did have to be sliced in half, so I decided to one and a half times the recipe.  Glad I did, although I do not enjoy math with fractions!  I put 1 and a 1/2 pounds of batter in each 9 inch pan as well as 9 oz. of batter in a 6 inch pan (frozen, to be used later!)   I will leave out a few small setbacks that were easily fixable while I made the cake and just say that I think it turned out really well.  The most trying part of it was making the filling/frosting which included waiting for the sugar syrup to come to temperature on the stove and not over whipping the egg whites in the meantime.  Dorie didn't really give suggested times on this, which I think would have helped, but it did all work out in the end.  It took 15-20 minutes for the sugar to come to 242 degrees, so don't start beating the egg whites too soon, those only take a few minutes!   That's all I have to say about that.  The cake came together really well.

I like that it didn't really matter how the frosting looked because the cake was then going to be covered-in cake!

I chose not to have too much cake overkill, so I put mini chocolate chips on the top.

Wanna a piece?  This cake was nice if you don't love a butter cream icing, it doesn't leave you with that  stuffed feeling of sugar "ugghhh".  Know what I mean?  Bob took most of it home, good thing, I woulda kept eating it.  I only took a few bites of one of the boy's pieces. 

Don't forget to leave a comment and enter for a chance at winning my giveaway!  You have until Wed. night, the 18th at 9 p.m.

Hazelnut Lime White Chocolate Cookies

I needed to use some egg yolks that were left from the Devil's Food White Out Cake I'll be posting for TWD up next.    Of course, I turned to my trusty cookie friend, Anna at Cookie Madness and scoured her site.  It really didn't take much scouring, I just typed egg yolks in her search window and found just what I was looking for.  These cookies. I had all three of these things--hazelnuts, lime and white chocolate to use up and they sounded interesting.

I did change a few things, so I will post the recipe as I made it, but check out Anna's other version of this cookie as well.  She had found the same recipe from two different sources with all the same ingredients, except the amount of flour was a whole cup different between the two.  So I did add the extra cup of flour as I like a thicker cookie.  These are still somewhat thin and crispy and a little chewy,  I loved the flavors.  I'm also a little bummed as the cookies are actually supposed to have pepper in them and somehow I forgot it!  Next time.  Here's the recipe as I made them, but check out Anna's, too.

Hazelnut Lime White Chocolate Cookies, adapted from The Chicago Sun Times, Gracie Howaniac, the Hazelnut Council and Anna!  (Whew)

2  1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1  1/2 cups hazelnuts, toasted, finely diced (I used prepackaged chopped nuts)

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (I forgot it!)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1  1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 tablespoons grated lime zest

2 egg yolks

2 tablespoons lime juice

1 cup white chocolate chips (I used chopped white chocolate)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper.  Set aside.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, hazelnuts, baking soda, PEPPER (oops) and salt.  Set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, cream sugar , butter and lime zest on high speed until smooth and fluffy, about two minutes.  Beat in egg yolks until well combined.  Stir in lime juice until blended.  Stir in dry ingredients just until combined. Stir in white chocolate.

Using a cookie scoop, drop onto baking sheets at least two inches apart.  Bake for 10 minutes or until golden.  Cool two minutes on sheets, then remove to wire racks to cool.  Makes at least three dozen. 

  

A good cookie!

Layered Finger Jell-o and Sugar Cookies

I was reminded of my good friend, Cori's 12 layer Jell-o when I saw this at The Food Librarian's blog (her pictures are much better than mine, go see!)  Cori's recipe uses sour cream for the white layers.  It's good and really fun when you do as many different colors as you can find.  But this recipe from Food Librarian has sweetened condensed milk for the white layers.  It was SO good.  I always buy fat free condensed milk. 

I made these for Taylor's preschool Valentine's party.  The only heart cookie cutter I have is pretty big, so I cut them into flowers.  I followed the recipe Food Librarian posted to a tee, well except that she had 5 layers and I had 6.  I do think this looks better ending with a red or colored layer rather than the white.

6-Layer Finger Jell-o, adapted from The Food Librarian

3 pkg. 3 oz Jell-o (any flavors, I used raspberry, wild strawberry and cherry)
4 pkg. Knox unflavored gelatin
1 can fat free sweetened condensed milk

Mix 1 pkg flavored Jell-o with 1/2 pkg of unflavored gelatin. Add 1 cup boiling water. Stir to dissolve. Cool to room temp and pour into 9 x 13 glass pan. Refrigerate for 15 minutes (and make sure your refrigerator  is level!)

Mix 1 can sweetened condensed milk with 1 cup boiling water. In a small bowl, sprinkle 2 pkg unflavored gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Let stand a few minutes and then add 1/2 c boiling water to dissolve gelatin; add to milk mixture and stir to combine. Cool to room temp and pour 1 cup of milk mixture over first layer of Jell-o. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Repeat for next two flavors. Let Jell-o set. Cut and serve!

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For Scott's class party, I signed up to bring a treat and decided on our very tried and true sugar cookies.  Not sure where my mom got this recipe, but we've loved it in our family for years.

I'm Gonna Call These My Mom's Sugar Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks, or 8 oz.), softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon cream (I almost always use milk , but this time had some cream, so I used cream)

3 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream the butter and sugar together.  Add the vanilla, egg and cream (or milk).  Beat until fluffy, scrape sides of bowl at least once.  Add the dry ingredients until it comes together.  Turn dough out on floured surface, knead it into a ball, just a few times.  Do not over knead the dough.  Making sure there is enough flour on your surface that it doesn't stick, roll out dough until desired thickness.  I always do about 1/4 inch.  Cut dough into shapes with cookie cutters.  Laying on baking sheet lined with parchment paper, bake cookies at 400 degrees for 7-10 minutes (until desired doneness.)

Transfer to cooling rack.  When cool, frost cookies.

 

Sugar Cookie Icing

1 cup powdered sugar (I usually double it for my cookie recipe above)

1-3 teaspoons corn syrup

1-3 teaspoons milk

pinch salt

vanilla extract to taste

food coloring

Beat all together well with electric mixer until smooth adding one teaspoon of corn syrup and milk at a time until you get the consistency you want.  It's pretty runny, but not TOO runny.  It still needs to be spread on with a knife, but it sort of "floods" into place on its own.

I doubled the recipe and made 36 big heart-shaped cookies.

Would You Believe--Almost Sugarless Krispy Treats!!!??

Today I made what I would consider an experiment, since I had no idea how it would turn out, if at all.  I recently saw on The Cookie Blog a recipe for making marshmallows with agave nectar.  I've been using agave quite a bit lately and could not pass up trying out the marshmallow recipe when I found this new cereal!

The key word here being multi-grain.  I am/was excited about this and decided to try to make healthy krispy treats.  The recipe for making marshmallows with agave is so simple and really tastes good.  There is a slightly different taste, but that is expected, since it's not sugar.  And the Jumbo Krispies--they are good.  Not quite as light as a rice crispy, more dense, but good.  They are just slightly sweetened with a touch of honey. 

Agave Sweetened Marshmallow Recipe

Ingredients:

6 Tbsp. Cool or Room Temperature Water
2 Packets Unflavored Gelatin

• Stir and then microwave for 30 seconds.

1 Cup Agave
2 tsp. Mexican Vanilla (I just used regular vanilla extract)
1/4 tsp. Sea Salt

Pour into mixing bowl. Add gelatin mixture, and mix on medium to high speed for 12 - 15 minutes. Should quadruple in size into a white marshmallow cream.  **At this point, for the krispy treats, I just beat in a little butter and added the cereal--no need to have the marshmallows sit for hours and then melt them down again.**

Coat a casserole dish with non-stick cookie spray. Coat with corn starch. Using a spatula, transfer your “batter” into the dish. Smooth out until you have a nice smooth, flat  surface. Let sit for 3 hours (over night is good to).

Turn batter out onto a corn starch covered surface. Using a hot or wet knife, cut into marshmallow squares.

Here is a link for a You Tube video about making the marshmallows.  (I used a different brand from the one in the video.)

From this, to this...

to this--marshmallow!

I colored it pink for Valentine treats.

AGAVE MARSHMALLOW JUMBO  MULTI-GRAIN CEREAL TREATS

16 oz. agave marshmallow (see above for recipe)

2 oz. unsalted butter, melted

10 cups Kelloggs Jumbo Multi-grain Krispies

4 cups puffed red wheat cereal

Combine all in a large bowl and stir together.  Spread in a 10 x 15 baking sheet lightly coated with cooking spray.  Let set then cut into squares or shapes with cookie cutters.

Now, I just really didn't know if it would set up like traditional krispies.  But it tasted good.  I used pretty much a whole 11.5 oz. box of the Jumbo Multi-grain Krispies, measured out it was 10 cups.  I also used 4 cups of puffed red wheat for even more nutrition.

The moment of truth.

The krispies are a little more sticky than traditional, and the cereal is not quite as crunchy after sitting.  These remind me of those softer marshmallow treats that are made with puffed rice.  Maybe it's because of the puffed wheat I put in, but they are good.  I made them for Taylor's preschool Valentine party--but it isn't until Friday, so I guess we'll just wait and see if they are still good enough after sitting for a day and a half.  I'm keeping them chilled and each individually wrapped.  No matter what, I'm just excited that "the experiment" did work out and the only sugar in these is the small amount the Multi-grain Krispies are made with and the little heart sprinkles on top.  How cool is that?  Looks like the possibilities are endless.  Just look at this link to Volcanic Nectar for tons of recipes that Anna at Cookie Madness found recently.  Now if we could just get agave to not be SO expensive!

Happy Balentimes Day!  (I think Scott used to say it that way.)

TWD-No Floating Islands But Fun Pictures

This week's Tuesday's With Dorie recipe for Floating Islands was chosen by Shari from Whisk: a food blog, but I regret to let you know that I did not make the recipe this week.  So I'm sorry to Shari for not making her pick, but I just felt like it was something the kids wouldn't really like and I know Kevin wouldn't have cared for it, not to mention that I really did not need to be eating all the eggs and whole milk called for in the recipe.  Please go check out all the other TWD'ers Floating Islands this week by visiting the Tuesday's With Dorie blog list and check out this interesting dessert.

Since you're here, though, check out some family pictures we took over the weekend.  It was 70 degrees on Saturday and in the 60's a few days before that.  We had a fun time playing outside on our neighbor's swing set, slide and trampoline (they've told us we can be there anytime we want and it really is nice to have a "park" so close by).  We really need to get some play stuff of our own!

It has been YEARS since I was on a trampoline and the boys were playing "crack the egg", so I decided to jump on and see if they could "crack" me.  (If you don't know, you hold your arms as tight as you can around your legs and they jump and bounce and try to get you to let go, or crack.)   Thankfully, Kevin didn't think to grab the camera and get any pictures of me.  Here's a few of the others, including Kevin.  I don't think they boys were able to "crack" him.

Scott and Parker battling it out.

Love the action shots.

Sam gave it a try on the trampoline.

Taylor just wanted to swing and swing and be pushed on the swing. 

Swingin'

and Slidin'

and Jumpin'

 

Check out the Barney Butter t-shirts Jennifer sent us after I emailed her about how great Barney Butter is!

Thanks, Jennifer!  Barney Butter is some awesome almond butter that is so smooth (not gritty) and perfect tasting and you might know is also not made in a factory with any peanuts--no salmonella!  Lovin' it on everything!

Can we take a decent picture to save our lives?  Nope.  But they're still cute.

That's as good as it gets, Folks. 

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Taylor asked Kevin to make him a paper airplane the other day.  So he made one with a piece of paper, then he made all the rest of these with just one other piece.  Pretty cool!  Taylor was thrilled.

Hey, check out my homemade Almond Joy Candy on my last post if you missed it.  They are SO good and so easy to make!