Preparing for the holidays: gifts in a jar

Now that November is here, many of us are starting to think about Thanksgiving and Christmas. I will pass along many great ideas in the next two months, so please follow this blog! My gift database full of clever ideas for saving money (yet maintaining your creativity) during these hard economic times. These frugal gift ideas are fun to give and will be greatly appreciated by the recipient!

Today I wanted to give you a link to an article I found on the Right@Home website. It's a brief primer on making gifts in a jar, and includes a delectable sounding recipe for buttermilk berry pancakes. To make it super simple, you can download and print out their recipe card to attach to the jar. Check it out at the Right@Home website.

Wouldn't it make a nice hostess gift for Thanksgiving?

While you are at the site, enter to win the $100 Visa Gift Card and download coupons for some of your favorite household cleaning supplies.

Creative (and goulish!) food for your Halloween supper

Today's blog isn't necessarily about gifts. But it is creative!

Actually, I think the best gifts are thoughtful little gestures that you do for family and friends, like tucking a specially decorated Halloween cookie in their lunch or serving a special dessert for Halloween supper.

Yes, I know you can go out and buy cakes, cookies and cupcakes decorated with orange frosting and little plastic pumpkins. But I still think they know the difference and truly appreciate the extra time and effort you took to make it yourself.

If your busy schedule prevents you from making special foods from scratch, consider using mixes to decrease the preparation time. Bisquick-mix pancakes become a special fall treat when you add a bit of canned pumpkin and some pumpkin spice. A brownie mix eliminates the need to assemble and measure ingredients, giving you more time to focus on creative decorating.

To save even more time, use pre-made, packaged items and embellish them. For example, graham crackers can be dipped in white chocolate and then piped with "R.I.P" using black frosting. Nutter Butter cookies can also be dipped in melted white chocolate to look like ghosts; use mini chocolate chips for their eyes.

You don't have to reserve those special touches for dessert, either. Your refrigerator's vegetable bin is filled with potential treats for Halloween. That orange sweet pepper could be transformed into a jack-o-lantern by cutting eyes and a mouth in it. Or that small celery stalk can be turned into a green spider by cutting the stalk in strips (leaving the end intact) and then soaking the celery in ice water so it curls.

The possibilities are endless!

Here are some of my favorite websites for easy Halloween food.

The Nabisco website has 28 recipes of Halloween themed food including Monster cookie pops made with Fig Newton(r) cookies, Boo Cups made with chocolate pudding and a spider web pizza spread made with spaghetti sauce. Most of the recipes take just 10-15 minutes to prepare.

http://www.nabiscoworld.com/recipes/RecipeSearchResults.aspx?keywords=halloween

The Hershey's website has a variety of recipes using Hershey's kisses, chocolate syrup, Reese's(r) pieces and more. Click here to check it out.


Check out their eyeball cookies made with Whoppers Malt Balls:


The Mars website has a very creative cookie called "Vampire Bites" using Milky Way(r) mini candy bars. Here is the link to that recipe:

Or you can search all their recipes by clicking here.

If you have favorite websites for quick Halloween treats, please drop me a note and share them. I would love to hear about them!

Fool 'em with crazy food!

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day. I usually don't have time to think up clever pranks to play on friends and family, but this year is a bit different. Since its spring break and I'm not driving kids to and from school and activities, I actually have a few moments to plan a little mischief!

My son is a very picky eater, and usually complains about almost every meal. In lighthearted fun, I decided to surprise him (and the rest of the family) with a crazy meal.

Preparing and serving a crazy meal gives your family and friends the gift of laughter and a good time. It also proves that not all gifts need to be wrapped in beautiful paper and tied with a bow. In fact, the best gifts are those born out of your time and creativity.

I've been doing some research online for good food pranks to play on my children. The April issue of Family Fun magazine has some great ideas, including "fish sticks" made with a chocolate wafer cookie and peas shaped from green taffy. It looks so realistic that when my daughter just saw the photo I was uploading for this article, she said "ohh, those peas and fish sticks look good!" Check out the article here.

In fact, Family Fun magazine is gaining a reputation for its realistic looking dinner food made from sweets and other unexpected food items. In previous years they have shown how to make spaghetti and meat balls from buttercream frosting and malted milk balls.


I think I'm going to serve a "backwards meal" tomorrow, using their recipe for cupcakes made from meatloaf. (The pastel colored frosting is really mashed potatoes.) So we will start with the fish sticks and peas featured above, then end the meal with the meatlof cupcake.

Check out this link for some of their other prank recipes.

Some other ideas I've gleaned from the internet:

1)Wormy apple
Cut a small round hole on the side of an apple using an apple corer, then put a gummy worm inside the hole for an unexpected surprise.

2)Buggy ice cubes
Dig into the kids' toy box and pull out a few of those plastic spiders and other bugs they may have collected at Halloween. Wash them well, then put them in ice cube trays. Cover them with water and freeze them. Then pop the frozen cubes into their lunch or supper drinks.

3) Eggs and toast, anyone?
The eggs are actually lemon pudding and lemon curd! See the complete instructions here.

4) Tomato soup
Use frosting (diluted a bit) and add red food coloring. It will be more realistic if you serve it in a soup bowl with crackers!

5) Bacon Cheeseburger Cake
Who knew you could turn a yellow cake mix into a cheeseburger? See it here.

6) Twinkie Sushi
I'm not a fan of raw fish, but even I might be convinced to try these!

7) Moldy Sandwich
Spatulatta has a video that shows kids making this, plus other delectable treats like Kitty Litter Cake and Doggie Do Do Drops

8)Pizza -- or is it?
This website has a nice photo of a pizza made with yellow cake mix for the crust, frosting tinted red for the sauce, red fruit roll-ups cut in circles for pepperoni and olive made with black licorice.

If you try any of these items, please take photos! I would love to post them (along with your stories and credit to you) on this blog.

Simple fun and frivality on St. Patrick's Day

March 17 around our home is a chance to learn more about St. Patrick. We watch a children's DVD and read a story or two about the saint. Sometimes the kids color a coloring sheet with the saint's outline on it, or we play a homemade bingo or trivia game with tidbits about Ireland. I understand it isn't really Irish, but we also enjoy corned beef and cabbage. For dessert, we might pop into McDonald's and enjoy a shamrock shake. (I know, that's a bit commercial but it has become a simple tradition!)

This year is a bit different. The kids woke up to some commotion in our home. My son discovered that his leprechaun trap had been sprung, and that my jade ring (used as bait) was gone, replaced by a note saying "ha, ha, ya'll never get my pot of gold!"

There are green paper shamrocks scattered around our home -- on the bathroom mirror, on the refrigerator handle, on the door knobs' of the kids' rooms, on the light switch, and on the TV screen. When my son opened the peanut butter jar this morning, he discovered the peanut butter was now green. And their milk mysteriously turned green when it was poured from the jug into their drinking glasses.

There is also green paper confetti scattered over the kitchen table.

The kids (especially my youngest daughter) got a big kick out of this.

Serving unique food can be a fun and inexpensive gift for family and friends on this holiday. In fact, you can create unique items often just with things already in your cupboard. For example, I have a can of Wilton's green Food Mist spray in my pantry. It is simply food coloring in a spray can. Green sprinkles (leftover from Christmas baking) can add a festive touch, too. For example, we will be having green jello for dessert tonight -- made special with a dollop of whipped cream that has been embellished with the green sprinkles. A small bottle of green food coloring can turn almost any white food into something special. My son hates mashed potatoes; I wonder if he would like them better if they were green?

This clever mom even put tiny leprechaun footprints on her children's peanut butter sandwich. She has some other clever food ideas for the holiday, too, so check it out:

http://www.gourmetmomonthego.com/

(I love her leprechuan template -- cut it out and use it to embellish cupcakes!)

I found some other links to snacks, desserts, salads and other "Leprechaun" themed food for St. Patrick's Day.

Here is a quick shamrock-shaped snack:

http://www.canadianfamily.ca/articles/article/yummy-leprechaun-snacks/

How about some Leprechaun latte? (Yes, you can make this yourself!)

Or a Leprechaun Gold Salad?

http://www.dotcomwomen.com/food/stpatricks/leprechaun-gold-salad.shtml

How about some Paddy's Day Pudding?

http://www.mccormick.com/Recipes/Desserts/Paddys-Pudding.aspx


Some would say that we are detracting from the real reason for the holiday. But we will return to some of our traditional activities this afternoon, and learn more about St. Patrick then. In the meantime, someone obviously thought we needed a bit more mischievous fun in our lives!

I would love to hear how others celebrate this holiday! Please post some comments with your family's traditions!