St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day was almost as cool as Christmas at our house. My daughter was so excited that the leprechaun came! The night before my husband asked what I was going to do (he said this with a tone in his voice that conveyed he didn't want to go crazy). The next morning when our daughter woke us up early (on his day to sleep in) and told us all about what the leprechaun did. I looked over at him in bed and saw him smiling. Later that day I asked if all the work was worth it, he had to admit it was.

We started off the day before St. Patrick's day making tiny doughnuts for the leprechaun. We took cheerios and melted white chocolate then pipped the white chocolate onto the cheerios. My daughters job, the sprinkles. I think she ended up eating more sprinkles than she got onto the cheerios.

We put them in a bowl for the leprechaun.

Before we went to bed we set a trap for the leprechaun. I know our trap is lame but I didn't know what else to do and my daughter was convinced he would get caught. She told us all the ways he was going to get trapped, it was very cute.

The next morning she woke up to the leprechaun escaping our awesome trap and eating all the doughnuts. But he did leave us gold coins, I say that's way better than doughnuts.

I cut a sponge into little feet and had the leprechaun pee in the toilet. Later that morning when I went in to go to the bathroom both girls screamed "NO" at me. But I'm 8 months pregnant, when I need to go, I NEED to go. It was a very traumatic bathroom trip.

The leprechaun also left us rainbow pancakes. I made these the night before which made the morning go a little smoother. I wasn't rushing around mixing all seven colors and trying to cook them with two kids at my feet screaming they were hungry. Instead I made some syrup and we all sat down to a relaxing breakfast with the conversation hovering around how silly the leprechaun is.

The gold coins and pancakes.

The leprechaun also did a lot of crazy things around the house. He tipped over chairs, walked around leaving his little green foot prints everywhere (amazingly my daughter wanted to help clean them up, I'm not one to say no so she scrubbed the toilet seat and mopped the floor, made the day that much better) He also put their toys in all sorts of weird places. They loved the chaos of it!

I hope this gives you some ideas on what to do next year for St. Patrick's Day.

Breakfast Hot Pockets

I don't like hot pockets, let's just get that out there. Let's also get it out there that this picture is not great.

I have mentioned this before but my husband is usually in a rush most mornings. He doesn't have time to sit down and have breakfast so lately I've been making shakes for him. Sometimes those don't work out because I'm too late waking up and getting them made, or I admit it I'm just to lazy to turn the blender on so I have been making muffins and freezing them and throwing those at him as he walks out the door. I've been making so many muffins lately that I thought it might be time for a change.

I came across these breakfast pockets and knew I had to make them. Not sure why I chose a Monday (my busiest day of the week) to make them. Sometimes I think I'm crazy for doing the things I do but when I realize it was crazy for me to start the project I'm usually half way through it and way to committed to stop.

I first made a basic bread recipe.

Then while it was working it's magic in the bread machine I moved on to the filling. Which I way underestimated. I put some extra olive oil in my pan and added some chopped onions.

Then since my husband avoids vegetables whenever he can I threw in just a little spinach. Enough that hopefully he'll get a little benefit but not so much he tastes it.

I put a few eggs in, turned out I needed a whole lot more.

Some milk.

Mix them together and throw them into the pan.

I let them cook.

Then I added some bacon. Here's my tip on bacon. I cook a whole package at a time in the oven on the roaster pan. Then we eat some for that meal and the rest I freeze. I pull out some whenever and heat it in the microwave. We can then have bacon in a few seconds. Plus I'm not stinking up the house every time I want bacon.

I added some mozzarella cheese but you're welcome to use whatever.

Instead of putting flour down and using the flour to keep the bread from sticking I use oil. That way your bread doesn't get overly floured.

I split them into different sized balls and rolled them out.

Put some filling in.

Roll them up. I rolled them like a tortilla. So pretend you're rolling a burrito and you're good.

Ingredients:
Bread:
1 1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 Tablespoons yeast
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup honey
4 cups flour

Combine all ingredients, I use my bread maker.

Filling:
15 eggs (wow, I know)
1 1/2 cup milk
1/2 pound of bacon or sausage
1 small onion chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 package frozen spinach (optional)
1 cup cheese (whatever kind you prefer)

Pour olive oil in pan and add onion and spinach. Cook until onion is soft. Mix the eggs and milk together and add to the onion and spinach. Add bacon or sausage. Cook until eggs and meat are done. Add cheese to the mixture.

Preheat oven to 325.

Roll out your bread into the size of pockets you want. Put the filling on the bread and fold like a burrito. Place seam down on a sprayed cookie sheet. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until bread is golden brown.

You can freeze these for 3-6 months.

Pina Colada Upside Down Cake

Pineapple upside down cake is one of my favorite kinds of cake. Unfortunately I don't make it very often because my husband doesn't think fruit should be mixed into cake. He did eat this cake but he took off the pineapple first, which turned out great for me because I got double pineapple! This is a different version of the basic pineapple upside down cake. This one goes tropical!

First take a can of sliced pineapple and put it in a 9x13 pan. I had to cut two of the slices in half so the whole bottom would be covered. Don't throw away the juice (or drink it in my case)!

Take some brown sugar, butter and vanilla and melt them together. You could do this on the stove or the microwave. I chose microwave because I'm lazy and it's faster.

Once they're melted together. Pour it over the pineapple.

Take a yellow cake mix (the one I used had the pudding with it). If you want to go all out and crazy use a cake mix without the pudding and put in a box of banana pudding.

Add some plain yogurt.

Take the remaining juice if you haven't drank it and put it into the cake.

You'll need eggs of course.

This is where I went tropical for this dish. I added some coconut and some coconut flavoring.

Mix the cake ingredients together and put on top of the pineapple.

Bake until it looks like this and then figure out a way to flip it. I couldn't get it. I sat there attempting to turn it when my husband looks over from the couch and says you know it would be a lot easier if you put the bottom plate over the cake and then just flipped it.

Good thing I married a smart man.

It was a lot easier to do it his way.

Here's how it looks done. If you want you can add maraschino cherries, I didn't have any. Here's where I'm too sad for words. 

In all it's glory. This was the first time my daughter has seen this cake before and she thought it was so cool that it was upside down.

Oh the little things that make motherhood worth it.

Here's a close up shot. Makes me want to march into the kitchen and eat yet another piece.

I baked this before dinner which was a bad idea since I ate a piece before dinner and ruined my appetite.

Oh the little things that make adulthood worth it!

Ingredients:
1 20 oz can sliced pineapple
5 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

Layer pineapple on the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Mix together butter, brown sugar, and vanilla. Heat until boiling. Pour over pineapple.

1 yellow cake mix (with pudding or use a pudding of your own, you could do vanilla or go extra tropical and add banana)
1/2 cup plain yogurt
3/4 cup reserved pineapple juice
3 eggs
1/2 cup coconut
1 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Mix ingredients together and pour over pineapples. Bake for 40 minutes or until top is golden and toothpick comes out clean.

Flip cake so the pineapple is showing. Serve with whip cream or ice cream.

Oatmeal Banana Apple Muffins

If you haven't noticed, I've been on a muffin kick lately. They are so yummy to me that I can't resist a good recipe. Even though I don't like banana's I put so little in the muffin that the taste isn't prominent. It doesn't scream banana. Of course you probably could make it scream banana if you wanted. How would I know how you wanted to torture your muffins?

I didn't take any pictures of how I made these because I am babysitting a friends son who is only a few weeks older than my youngest so I didn't have a lot of time to stop and snap pictures. I'm not sure what it is about cooking but the kids were playing so well alone and the moment I started getting things out they came rushing to the kitchen wanting to help. I had six little hands helping me on this one. They were excited to get involved and I was impressed by the little boy and his love to stir. I could tell his mom and grandma cooked a lot with him.

They were really good, healthy cupcakes and I had three little mouths who would back me up on that.

Oatmeal Banana Apple Muffins
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup oatmeal
1 cup white or wheat flour (I opted for wheat)
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix the dry ingredients together.

2 eggs
4 tablespoons oil
6 tablespoons sugar (I used honey)

In another bowl mix together eggs, oil, and sugar.

Combine the dry and wet ingredients together and fold in
2/3 cup milk

When the flour is almost incorporated mix in
1 cup mashed bananas (I just used one banana)
1 cup applesauce

Fold together until fruit is incorporated.

Bake at 350 degrees for 18-22 minutes or until muffins are golden brown on top.

St. Patrick's Day Crafts

So, I had very little St. Patrick's Day decorations. I decided I needed to change this. My mom gave me some cute glass jars for Christmas and I decided to pimp them out a little bit for the holidays.

On a side note, I got the candy at Christmas or rather after Christmas when it was on sale. I bought the red and green kind and then just separated them, red for Valentines day and green for St. Patty's day. That made my day.

Here's how I made them. I used my 2 inch hole punch for the circles and then distressed them with some brown ink. 

For the shamrocks I used my hole punch and then cut the circle into four different sections.

Fold each section in half and then cut a heart out of the section.

 There's a third of your shamrock, make two more and you have your shamrock.

Now you need the stem. I free handed my own and then just cut it out. I had no idea how else to do it.

So here are my three all together. Each step shown.

 Once you have all three shamrocks done take a, well I'm not sure what their names are, fan?

Put some glue on the middle of the fan. How do you make a fan you ask?
Well cut out a strip of paper, I used a 12x12 and cut a strip 3 1/2 inches. Once I had my strip I folded the fan. I think I do mine wrong right here but I can't figure out the right way. Once I have my folds I fold the fan in half. Glue the two fold's together. I really should have taken pictures, much easier just to show you.

 Put on your circle.

Take a hole punch and punch two holes for the ribbon.

Put the ribbon through.

Then glue the ribbon together and there you have it. You're own cheap, easy St. Patty's day decoration.

Here's one more decoration I did. I found a shamrock online printed it out and then traced the shamrock shape onto some green paper, cut that shamrock out and glued it to green paper. Used my brown ink to distress the edges. I have some picture frames that normally holds pictures of my family but they've been replaced for the season. They'll come out I'm thinking sometime this summer.

Hope these help you make add some cheap leprechaun cheer to your holiday's.

<a href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Felizabethsdaisies.blogspot.com%2F2012%2F03%2Fst-patricks-day-crafts.html&media=http%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-ewZ1LMPCDWs%2FT1MFnwp5HDI%2FAAAAAAAABsI%2Fz-VJskt2HNQ%2Fs1600%2FIMG_5957.JPG&description=St.%20Patrick's%20Day" class="pin-it-button" count-layout="horizontal">Pin It</a>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js"></script>