I guess every birthday these days is a reminder of how fast time is flying by.  It’s hard to believe our sweet not-so-little-anymore Kendry is two years old.  And yet at the same time, the newborn stage of two years ago seems so far removed compared with his current giggly, chatty personality who loves and wants to be a part of anything and everything.

The Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb book-inspired theme came together a few months ago when Kendry and I were reading the book one day for the umpteenth time.  It’s hard not to love the catchy rhythm of the book.  It’s definitely one of his and our family favorites.  He loves to make monkey sounds, too, so a monkey-themed party seemed fitting.  As we were reading “Dum ditty Dum ditty Dum Dum Dum,” I suddenly thought of Dum Dums and when we got to the part of “Rings on Fingers. Rings on Thumb.” visions of Ring Pops flashed through my head.  Apples, plums, drum cakes, monkey cupcakes and everything else quickly fell into place in my visual brainstorm.

Knowing that I would only have a very short period of time to set up (fifteen minutes to be exact) I took extra tissue paper and craft paper to lay across the white table cloth for added color.  The birthday boy quickly realized that the back of the dessert table was 100% accessible from the bench on the booth so he camped out behind the Dum Dums and Drum Stick cake pops, grabbing at everything he could get his hands on.  I had to replace the drum sticks on the drum cake multiple times but it was his special day so I let the sneaky guy get away with it!

It was fun to incorporate the rhythms and rhymes into the party.  And starting with the invitations, I got a lot of use out of my new 2-inch circle punch {a purchase inspired by this Hostess with the Mostess tutorial}.

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. One hand, two hands, drumming on a {birthday} drum!

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb

This was the perfect opportunity to use a hand cookie cutter that was given to me years ago and that up until this point I had never used.  I’ve found that kids love anything on lollipop sticks so I tried my hand at cookie pops.  In part because I had no idea how to decorate the hand cookies, I taped bows on the sticks and left the cookies plain so that the kids could decorate their own cookies.  Decorating the cookie pops was a huge hit!

Hand in hand more monkeys come.

For the monkey centerpiece of the dessert table I made monkey cupcakes inspired by a picture from Parents magazine that has been in my recipe stash for several years.  {If you don’t make your own cookies for the monkey faces, the Pepperidge Farm soft sugar cookies were a) the perfect size for a standard cupcake, b) a neutral color that could be decorated with face details, and c) nut-free, a requirement of the party location.}  Because I knew there would be lots of sweets, I decided to turn the monkey cupcakes into party favors and I used a technique from Pinterest, wrapping the cupcakes in a cup with clear cellophane and ribbon.  To raise the cupcakes (so that the ears, etc. wouldn’t get smashed inside the cup) I filled the base of the cup with blue-wrapped cookies & cream Hershey’s kisses that fit the color theme.  As part of the dessert table display, I placed an unwrapped monkey cupcake in a bright blue margarita glass (a $1 Target purchase) filled with a colorful mix of Jelly Belly jelly beans in the party colors of yellow, green, blue and red.  I used the versatile 2-inch party circle to make colorful thank you notes out of the scraps of dot paper that I used on the invites and the banner.

Monkeys drum… and monkeys hum. Hum drum Hum drum Hum drum Hum.

Drums are another key element of the book so I made two drum cakes as book ends for the dessert table.  I was excited to try the Viva paper towel technique for icing the cakes (found on Pinterest) and I used cake pops for drum sticks.  Red licorice vines made the iconic chevron print of the drum.  One cake was chocolate with chocolate ganache and the other drum was banana (for the monkeys, of course!) with cream cheese frosting.

Drum drum Drum drum Drum drum “Drum Sticks”

Simple blue cake pops made easy, colorful drum sticks.

Dum ditty Dum ditty Dum Dum “Dum Dums”

Dum Dum suckers were popular with the kids and also something that guests could take home in the goodie bags.

Rings on fingers. Rings on thumb.

Ring pops were another fun and easy addition that doubled as party treat and take-home party favor.  They were definitely one of the favorites!

Hand picks an apple.  Hand picks a plum.

It was nice to get some fruit on the dessert table!

A platter of chocolate banana cookies {because monkeys love bananas!} rounded out the spread.   Due to the super minimal set-up time I kept it at that.  However, I had many other ideas and so in upcoming posts I will share some of them with you: monkey bread muffins, chocolate banana pops, banana pudding, and Chunky Monkey Ice Cream Sandwiches, to name a few.

*En lieu of gifts, we had guests bring a new or gently-used book to donate to the The Children’s Book Bank of Portland. Coincidentally, World Book Day was during the week of his birthday so donating books at a party themed with a children’s book all just seemed to fit.

**We had his party at his preschool.  If you are in the Portland area, Play Boutique is a great place to throw a party because they take care of everything.  Admittedly, I ended up doing more work because I love putting together dessert tables but the party planner decorated the kid tables, provided frosting and sprinkles for the cookie pops and they normally handle invitations and activities, too, in addition to the play time at the indoor playground/bouncy house.

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I’ve seen several watermelon cakes floating around on the Internet.  {I saw my first one on Pinterest.}  After my fun experience making fruit salad in watermelon bowls and fruit flower bouquets, I tucked it away on one of my many mental lists.  A few weeks ago I received a parent newsletter outlining the plan for Teacher’s Appreciation Week at our preschool.  On one of the days we were asked to bring a piece of fruit or baked good.  And voila!  I had the perfect excuse to try a fruit {cake}.

Watermelon {cake} is a fun twist on fruit salad and makes a great healthy dessert or snack and beautiful centerpiece for any party or function.  You can use the fruits of your choice or whatever is in season, and choose to “ice” all, some or none of the cake.  I dolloped some whipped cream on top for visual effect and a touch of sweetness on each slice of cake.

ParentMap {via Eighteen 25} provided more great ideas for Teacher Appreciation Day and this year we chose to recreate these cute “Thanks a latte!” Starbucks gift cards for our incredible preschool teachers and staff.

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“What does she do? She helps me listen because sometimes I don’t.”

“What does she do to make you happy? Sings me songs to help me go to sleep.” 

“What is her favorite food? All the foods…but not sweets.” 

This is just a sampling of the Q&A on my Mother’s Day card that my 4-year old made at preschool.  It was truly the sweetest gift that I have ever received.  Just like the ride of mommyhood, reading it was a rollercoaster of emotion, one response making me laugh out loud, the next answer melting my heart and bringing tears to my eyes.

So he’s caught on that I love to eat and that I’m interested in all things food!  It’s interesting, however, that he assumes I don’t like sweets.  {If you haven’t noticed already, I have a major sweet tooth.  Even more than eating them, I love to bake all sorts of things and dream up different sweet combos.}  Maybe his observation is based on the fact that I’m constantly trying to curb his sweet tooth by urging healthier foods instead of sweets and discussing the differences between the two.

Along those lines, one of my passions is transforming sweet and otherwise not-so-healthy foods into healthier options.  These chocolate banana oat bar {cookies} are one such example.  They were a fitting choice for Mother’s Day because the original chocolate banana cookie recipe is one of the many childhood family recipes that brings back many memories of baking with my mom and Grandma.

The idea for this revised recipe came to mind when I recently made a batch of homemade energy bars with extra banana.  I realized that with a bit of chocolate, the banana oat bars would taste almost identical to the moist chocolate banana cookies passed down through our family.  I have to say that I like these healthy chocolate banana oat bars just as much as the original and the rest of my family loves them, too!

*The creative idea for the celery stamp roses came from ParentMap (originally from Parentella) and my son loved the project of making beautiful Mother’s Day and Teacher Appreciation Day cards!

{Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers, moms, mommies and hot mommas out there!!}

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Your kids will go bananas over these pancakes.  My boys absolutely loved them.  My younger pancake-loving son also loves to make monkey sounds.  For a special 2nd birthday breakfast treat (and with monkey on my mind from planning his birthday party) we enjoyed these chocolate-banana monkey pancakes.  They are easy and entertaining, and they make a healthy breakfast, snack or dessert.  Your kids will most likely have fun creating the monkeys, too.  I used ingredients that we had in our kitchen - Nutella, bananas and peanut butter – but the options are endless as far as pancake flavors, toppings and “edible art” accessories.

{EEE EEE OOH OOH, he’s TWO, he’s TWO!  More monkey birthday party details coming soon!}

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Typically when I make gyoza, I either run out of wrappers or get tired of forming the potstickers, and so I end up with left-over meat filling.  The meat filling is tasty on its own so in the past I have cooked the remaining meat in small patties or meatballs and drizzled it with the gyoza dipping sauce.  It’s been such a hit that this time around, I skipped the step of making potstickers altogether and simply made the meat filling, forming it into mini patties for gyoza sliders.  {You could make them full-size hamburgers if you want.}  When dressed with sauteed mushrooms and red onions, wasabi, pickled ginger and gyoza dipping sauce, these fusion burgers are a unique twist on the classic American burger and they make a striking appetizer or main course.  You can either drizzle the sauce over the burger or serve the sliders with the dipping sauce {au jus} on the side.

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With our recent first marshmallow-making adventure the week before Easter it was a natural progression to transform some of them into Peeps.  Unlike my mother-in-law and my son, as a kid I never paid much attention to Peeps.  They are so colorful and festive but I have always opted for a chocolate egg or baked good to celebrate Easter.  My tastes haven’t changed that much, but I have to admit that they seemed a lot better when we made our own.  And even if that’s simply due to the satisfaction of making our own marshmallows, it definitely was a fun Easter-themed project.

My boys love any project with cookie cutters and sprinkles so they were excited to get sticky.  The first time around we experimented with the only {mini} chick cookie cutter that we had.  Though they didn’t look like the store-bought Peeps, (and you couldn’t really tell if they were chicks or Easter egg blobs) they were colorful.  You could cut them out in any Easter shapes and decorate them with chocolate, color sprinkles and more.

The second time around, I used a pan of 24 bunny molds that I got at a Michael’s last-minute Easter clearance sale.  I had one packet of gelatin remaining so I decided to make a third of a batch (which turned out to work perfectly, as long as you keep in mind that the syrup may not boil as long to reach the temperature).  This time around, we were able to decorate our Peeps just like their commercial counterparts.

My visual favorites were the ones that my son created, combining all of the sprinkles for rainbow Peeps.  As for taste, the chocolate & graham cracker-covered {s’more} Peeps definitely topped my list.

Adding eyes (and other features) on the marshmallows is an easy finishing touch with melted chocolate and a toothpick.  I used the basic vanilla-flavored marshmallow recipe from King Arthur Flour.

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Marshmallows have an interesting history.  I never realized until recently that there is an actual marshmallow plant from which the roots were traditionally used for medicinal purposes, and later to give marshmallows their shape and form.  {Now gelatin is most typically used instead.}  The sweet marshmallow has roots in Egypt but was later transformed in France to be more like the marshmallow as we know it today.

I love roasting marshmallows for s’mores, one of my nostalgic favorites, but other than that I’m actually not a big fan of marshmallows.  I’m sure I liked them as a kid but especially now, they just seem so strange and out-of-this-world. But I have always heard how they are so much better made from scratch so they have been on my never-ending to-do list for a long long time now.  They have always seemed so complicated, and I don’t own a candy thermometer, so I have just never gotten around to making them.

My older son absolutely loves marshmallows and with Easter next week I thought that making homemade Peeps would be a fun project with my boys.  {Even though my younger son doesn’t really know what to think of marshmallows and spits them out, he had fun cutting them in shapes and playing with the sticky marshmallow “dough”.}  After referencing several recipes, I settled on one from King Arthur Flour because I’ve had good luck with their recipes in the past and I love their products.  It is very similar to Martha Stewart’s marshmallow recipe and also the one from Alton Brown.

I successfully made my first batch of marshmallows without a candy thermometer and they turned out to be so much easier than I anticipated.  From comments I read, this recipe from King Arthur Flour makes a stiffer marshmallow which was perfect for my family because it was easy for my boys to cut them into shapes with cookie cutters.  And the s’mores that my husband and son roasted with the homemade marshmallows were a pretty tasty treat.  I can definitely see more marshmallow-making in my future and I can’t wait to experiment with different flavors and ways to decorate them {coated in chocolate, sprinkles, crushed candy, etc.} for gifts and party favors.

*Some sources use cornstarch to coat the marshmallows and keep them from sticking.  I prefer using solely powedered sugar because I really can’t stand cornstarch.

**For mini marshmallows, you can try piping the marshmallow “dough” from an icing piping bag.

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This could also be called the cleaning-out-the-fridge salad.  That’s literally what I was doing (the first time I made it) so the measurements are very rough — to taste and according to how much we had.  But we knew it was a keeper when the next day we went to the store to buy the same ingredients that we were trying to get rid of, just to make the “leftovers” quinoa salad again.

Two partial cans of tomato paste, chicken broth and basic Italian seasonings made a basic pizza-style sauce.  Some leftover ricotta cheese transformed it into a lasagne-esque sauce.  A batch of quinoa, a medley of roasted red, orange and yellow peppers*, chopped ham {Hormel’s Natural Choice, No Preservatives Smoked Deli Ham and Smoked Turkey Kielbasa}, chopped artichoke hearts and feta cheese rounded out this pasta-less salad.  I was eating it by the spoonful as a main course but it would make a hearty side dish or a yummy filling for stuffed chicken or pasta.  We are now on our third batch in three days.  It is so easy and makes a filling and nutritious snack, lunch and dinner.

*As for the roasted peppers, in the first batch I used ones that I had roasted several months ago and then frozen. Maybe one day I will can my own roasted peppers but until that day, I am excited to have found an easy way to preserve them!

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Over the years I recall seeing red jelly roll cakes for Valentine’s Day and green jelly roll cakes for St. Patrick’s Day in most bakeries.  I made a jelly roll cake once before: a Bûche de Noël for a high school French cooking project.  But it was so long ago that I pretty much forgot how to make one.  It seems like it would be complicated but it is actually so simple, especially after you have done it once and have the method down.  It is typically a sponge or genoise cake that is baked in a thin sheet and then filled with whipped cream or jam and rolled into a log, to then be sliced into indiviudal spiral rolls.  You can use the cake and filling of choice, as long as the cake is moist and flexible enough to roll without drying and cracking (although rolling the cake in a towel while it is still warm helps mold it into shape, and you may be able to get away with using other types of cakes baked in thin layers, as well.)

Earlier this year I was checking out at a grocery store and saw a red Valentine’s Day jelly roll in the checkout display.  Right then and there I started thinking of a green jelly roll cake made with natural {spinach} food dye, similar to the method that I used for my naturally-dyed rainbow cake.  Amidst the checkout chaos of paying for groceries with a 4- and an almost 2-year old , I started envisioning a naturally-dyed green jelly roll cake in the shape of a shamrock.

And voilà!  Here we are a few days before St. Patrick’s Day and I my brainstorm image has come to life.  You can enjoy your jelly roll in individual slices or arrange three slices per plate to make a festive St. Paddy’s shamrock.

I adapted a basic sponge cake recipe from The All New Joy of Cooking, a recipe that turns out to be pretty similar to Paula Deen’s jelly roll cake.  I strayed from the cookbook’s method and followed Cooking Light’s step-by-step instructions: How-To Roll a Jelly Roll Cake.  I found the same or similar method in many other recipes that I referenced, including Paula Deen’s.

I substituted spinach juice for half of the milk and I omitted the egg yolks to help achieve a truer green, both changes that you can ignore if you don’t wish to dye your cake green.  I added a bit of vanilla extract for flavor and used a basic vanilla whipped cream frosting for the filling.

And here’s one more reason to love jelly rolls {and a baking confession!}: I was using an old pan that didn’t lay flat in the oven once it got hot.  My mini-mid-baking crisis was checking on the cake a few minutes in to find that all of the batter had run to one side of the pan.  Fortunately, I was able to spread the cake out again with a spatula, even though parts of it were partially baked.  You will notice in some of the pictures that especially one corner of the sheet got pretty thoroughly cooked.  Even still, I was able to trim around the edges and salvage most of the cake to make almost a complete roll.

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I’m not an advocate of sneaking veggies or other healthy foods into my kids’ meals because I believe that it is important to openly have the conversation of healthy v. not-so-healthy foods with them.  By introducing them to different ingredients, setting an example with my food choices, etc. I at least hope that I am paving the way for their own healthy eating choices.  With that said, I don’t find any problem with fortifying our meals with healthy ingredients, even if the health food in question isn’t the star of the dish.  So just as I add oatmeal and other grains to our pancakes, or greens to our smoothies, I added spinach to our mac and cheese the last time I made my mom’s baked macaroni and cheese.

My four-year old, who is a mac and cheese connaisseur, watched me chop the spinach in the food processor (helping push the buttons, of course!) and then make the “cool” green sauce.  It’s like I openly “sneaked” spinach into our mac and cheese.  I say “sneak” because even though we all knew it was in there, we really couldn’t notice a spinach flavor.

The creamy noodles passed my son’s “sniff” test and if your kids are like mine and love dyeing foods whacky colors, then the natural green color is a little bonus, especially with St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner.

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