Peach Upside Down Cake

This cake is made from farmers market fresh Michigan peaches, and is adapted from this recipe.  I made the mistake of leaving it out on the counter for 2 days in the summer and it got moldy!  Keep it in the fridge!  Also I used a spring-form pan and all the good stuff dripped out and charred on the bottom of the oven.  Don't do that.  Even so, the pre-mold cake was delicious!

Christmas Goodies

These are tasty and pack well.  They're fine without glaze too, and pack even better!

White Chocolate Cappuccino Raisin Bars
36 bars, 350 degrees


½ C. butter or margarine
1 C. (6 oz.) white chocolate chips
1 Tbsp. instant coffee granules
1 C. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 C. flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1 ½ C. raisins (dried cherries or cranberries also work!)

Heat together butter and choc.,‘til just melted.
Dissolve coffee in 1 Tbsp water.
Stir into melted mixture with sugar, vanilla, and eggs.
Combine dry ingredients; add to mixture. Stir in raisins.
Spread in greased 9”x 13” pan.
Bake 30 minutes or until set in middle. Cool.
Drizzle with glaze.


Glaze:


Stir ¼ tsp. coffee granules in 4 tsp. water to dissolve.
Add 1 Tbsp. melted butter.
Mix in ¾ C. powdered sugar.

These are pretty much everyone's favorites every year.

Toffee Squares, from Forum Feasts

easy yield 3 dozen 350 degrees
can be frozen bake 20 minutes


1 C. butter (to soften, nuke 5 min at med heat)
1 C. light brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 C flour
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter and sugar.
Add egg yolk and vanilla.
Add flour and mix well.
Spread onto a 16” x 11” sheet with sides.
Bake at 350* for 15-20 min. Watch carefully.


½-1 C semi sweet choc chips (nuke 2-4 min to melt)
½-1 C chopped nuts


While crust is baking, melt chocolate chips. Gently spread chocolate on dough gently while it is still hot.
Sprinkle with nuts, and press them into the chocolate.
Cool slightly (10 minutes?) and cut into 2” squares.

This is store-bought marzipan rolled into balls and dipped in chocolate.  It was gross.

2 out of 3 ain't bad!

Icicle Ornaments

These are fun, nondenominational winter gifts that are quick and easy to make, especially with some prep!  They're also cute tied into present bows, or secretly hung all over the house.

Use medium-gauge wire and cut pieces about 3 inches longer than you want the finished icicle to be.  Curl the bottom into a little spiral using needle nose pliers.  This step can be done to all of them before you begin.  Let kids string beads and sequins on the wires, and then curl the top into a hook.  Note how the tops of the wires are curled in too (click the pictures to make them bigger!)- that prevents them from being pokey.  We used a big marker to make the top hooks even.

Decorate with wild abandon!

Spiced Almonds

  

Heat a nonstick frying pan to medium heat.  Add one package of nuts and then sugar.  You can use more or less depending on what you're using these for.  For snacking nuts, I'd use a little more than a cup, for salad toppers I'd use maybe a half cup.  Stir constantly, as once the sugar starts to melt they can burn quickly.  It's ok if they're still a little chunky.  Pour them onto ungreased foil to cool and don't try one right away, even though you'll want to really bad.  Hot oil + hot sugar = super burned tongue.  Be careful!

Depending on use, you can add in different spices- for snacking holiday nuts (the ones I bring to Thanksgiving) I usually add cinnamon and nutmeg.  For salad ones, I like to add a little pepper.  These are also yummy with some of the white sugar substituted for brown sugar, but I'd suggest making them a few times with white sugar first, as the brown makes it harder to see when the sugar starts to caramelize and you might want to get the hang of the recipe first.

Ann Arbor Street Art

This is not my art, but it is some really cool art in Ann Arbor.  This popped up in an old alleyway.  I love the design and the colors.  I'll try to post some more photos of Ann Arbor street art soon- there's some really neat stuff!

I like these designs.  Thinking about making some barrettes inspired by them or something....  

If anyone knows the name of the artist who did these, please let me know so I can credit him or her!

Dancing Finger Puppets

This is a fun easy project to do.  Try and make the bases out of something sturdy so the leg holes don't tear.  I made mine out of manilla folders.  This is a million times easier if you've got a sizeable hole punch- I got one once in the scrapbooking section that cut a hole the size of a nickel.  It was invaluable for eye holes and lots of other projects.  I wish I still had it!  I cut a million of these for a class using an exacto knife, and it took forever.  Also fun:  make elephants with one hole for the trunk!

These are fun puppets and get everyone giggling.

Makeshift Frosted Windows

Let's say you have windows that look out to other people.  You want to block out their view, but not the sunlight.  Also, you have no time or money and your sewing machine is in a box at the back of the storage area.  What's a girl to do?

I made these window sheers out of 2 sheets of tissue paper.  First I measured them to fit the size of the window and cut them.  You're only going to be making the design on one of the sheets, as the other is just an overlay for privacy and sturdiness.

I folded one sheet of tissue paper into eighths as if I were going to make a scientifically incorrect snowflake.  I didn't cut the outside into a circle shape, just left it big and rectangular.

I tried to fold it loosely so I wouldn't have big creases around the edges of it.

I did two different designs on the two windows, and stuck them on with scotch tape rolls in the corners.  They held up pretty well, till I got my act together and hung some real curtains!  

Tortellini, Spinach, Mushrooms, and Sausage

  Please excuse the picture quality- this one was taken on a cell phone!  Cook up some tortellini.  While it's cooking, saute up one package of mushrooms- preferable baby bellas- in a pan with a lid and lots of room.  Slice some apple chicken sausage and throw it in there with the mushrooms.  Once those are cooked, drain and add your tortellini.  Throw a HUGE package of fresh spinach in with the mushrooms and put a lid on it (smush it if you have to) till it wilts to your liking.  Finish it with balsamic vinegar if you feel so inclined.  This made 3 super delicious dinners.

Turnip Face

  

One time I had a turnip and it had a face on it.  

It was weird.

Ginny's Stools

Guest artist!  Check out these AMAZING stools painted by my very creative Aunt Ginny Keim!  They live in my parents' kitchen.

Couscous Bar

Clean out your fridge and serve it over couscous!  Here we've got:

Roasted spiced garbanzo beans (I'd share the recipe but I don't remember what I put in them!)
Caramelized onions
Crumbled feta
Capers
Roasted Bell Peppers

Peas

Also tasty:
Pine Nuts
Kalamata Olives
Pretty much anything

This is tasty served with that beet salad from the previous post!

Beet Salad

 

This is one of my favorite food.  Throw some roasted beets, romaine, goat cheese (feta's good too if you're serving folks who don't like goat), and candied pecans in a pretty bowl.  Drizzle some good balsamic vinegar on there and you're my new best friend.  Yum!  

To roast beets:

Scrub them clean.  If they're big, cut them in quarters.  Make them a little foil house (packet) and drizzle them with olive oil.   Roll up the foil tightly and roast them at 375° for 25 minutes, give or take, till they're tender.  Let them cool a little and then peel off the skins with your fingers.

Fun Color Experiment

Step one:  Pour milk into a shallow dish.  Drip 4 little blobs of food coloring near the middle, like so:

Step 2:  Gently drop one drop of non-moisturizing dish soap in the very center.  The colors will swirl around and look really cool for quite a while!

Here's why it works!

Italian Wedding Soup

I don't know why I never realized how easy this is to make, but it really is a super easy meal.  Throw together some meatballs first- either look up a recipe online or do what I do and mix a package of ground turkey, an egg, a small handful of breadcrumbs, and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese and maybe some dried basil.  Roll them into balls and bake them.

While those are in the oven (350 till cooked through?) boil some chicken broth and chop up a few carrots and throw them in there, along with a handful or two of israeli couscous or other small pasta.

When everything is cooked through, put a handful of fresh spinach in each bowl and ladle the broth on top to wilt it.  Add as many meatballs as you want. If you're going to freeze the soup, freeze the broth and meatballs separately so they're easier to defrost.

Start to finish, the whole recipe takes a half hour or less and it super tasty.  Enjoy!

homemade GAK

Homemade GAK is soooooooooooo fun to make.  There's a great recipe here.  We found neon food coloring in the store and it worked great.  Highly recommended!  It keeps for a few days in a ziplock.

I haven't yet found a recipe that doesn't use a whole lot of glue, so this one tends to be better for small groups.  Don't let it dry on your clothes!

Giant Peaches and Jellyfish

Dibs on that for a band name.

Nannying co-conspirator/ward and I had just finished reading James and the Giant Peach and were feeling inspired.  We made this giant peach out of paper mache over a balloon!  The base you see here is made of a cylinder of recycled cardboard, and is for drying and painting purposes.

Though we had initially planned to make a fun mobile with birds carrying the peach with strings, it was logistically overwhelming and one of us (!) was anxious to move on to other things.  So after enjoying the peach in all its glory for a few weeks, we cut it in half...

And made 2 jellyfish!  We punched holes around the perimeter with scissors and stuffed strips of different-sized bubble wrap into them.  Crepe paper is also fun, as well as that shimmery foam packing material that comes in sheets.  For added fun, cut 2 eye holes about 2 inches from the bottom and wear it as a hat!  The tentacles will trail behind the kids as they run and dance, plus they look freaking adorable.  I have pictures of this from when I used to teach art, and will post them one day.  For now, just take my word for it.

This jellyfish lived in a lamp for a little while, but these also look fun hung on a string from the ceiling.  The tentacles move in the breeze!

Snow Spray Paint

Food coloring and water in a spray bottle make awesome earth-safe spray paints!  Experiment with spray settings.  Write messages to passersby on your lawn!  Watch your creations melt!

If you don't have an old spray bottle in your recycling bin, you can find them in the cosmetics section of most drug stores and dollar stores.

I checked with the ASPCA and they said food coloring is pet-safe, but if your dogs are prone to eating snow but they might pee rainbows for a little while.  Do not be alarmed.

Bubble Painting

Bubble Painting is fun and cheap and totally addictive.  Make little cups- a ramekin or little yogurt cups will do fine, though something short is better for bubbling-purposes here.

Mix about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water with a little squeeze of dish soap in each of your containers.  Add a LOT of food coloring.  Blow with a straw till you've got a nice dome of bubbles over the container.  Gently blot a piece of paper down on top of them to "catch" the bubbles.

This picture is dark but they do turn out very cool, I promise!

I recommend a smaller piece of paper (1/4 a sheet of printer paper) so you can catch your bubbles without worrying about picking up nearby bubbles.  Try layering one color on top of another!  Like the blow painting paper, this final product can be used to stationary, paper collages, etc.

These dry very quickly and will be touch-safe within a few minutes.

P.S.  My mom adds:  "for bubble painting, the adult who is not as familiar with the tendencies of participants might want to demonstrate/practice "blow" vs. "suck" and/or make a tiny pin prick in the straw, between the bend and the mouth!"

Regrettable Oreo Truffles

Ugh.

Pretty, right?  Ugh.  These little monsters are made from one package of oreo crumbs mixed with one package of cream cheese rolled into balls and dipped into melted chocolate. I zigzagged over the with melted white chocolate in a ziplock bag with the tip cut off.

I made them for my roommates for Valentines Day and while they look charming, eating just one walnut-sized truffle will make you feel like you are staring into the icy cold face of death. Tasty, but too intense.  Uncomfortably rick.  We've got pretty low standards around these parts, and these puppies actually went unfinished.

I always mix my leftover melted chocolate with whatever I can find laying around to make a tasty bark- granola and/or dried fruit and/or nuts.  I piped little hearts out of the leftover white chocolate, which one of my roommates used to spruce up his homemade V-Day dinner for his squeeze!

On a related note, some white chocolate melts and some doesn't.  I don't know what the difference is (I think I always buy tollhouse?) but if you know, please enlighten me! I can never tell till I'm mid-project.

Blow Paintings

Blow paintings are fun and easy!

Printer paper works better than construction paper for this project because it doesn't absorb as quicky.

Lots of kids will tend to suck instead of blow at least once by accident (it's a straw after all!) so food coloring is better than paint here.  To reinforce the concept of "blowing," you can have them practice feeling the air against their hands first, or blowing a little ball of tissue across the table.

Using small cups or a muffin tin, make several different colors of nontoxic dye out of about 1/4 cup water and a lot of food coloring.  You'll want it to be pretty concentrated so the color shows up.


Lay down newspaper or do this project inside a baking dish.  Giving each kid his or her own straw and having a rinse cup to use in between, use the finger-over-the-tip method to transport one drop of the dye onto a piece of paper.  Blow into the end and watch the color splatter across the paper.  Super cool!  Try adding different colors and going in different directions.  Try mixing colors!  The kids can leave this paper as is, or use it to make stationary, wrapping paper, paper collages, or a million other things.

Remember to take "Regular Breathing Breaks" so no one gets light-headed!

Origami elephant

An origami elephant from someone special!

Walnut Dragon!

This is a walnut dragon someone special made for me.  !!!

His name is Wallace.

Bear buns

We made these bear buns out of a tube of refrigerated dinner roll dough and raisins.  They looked cute before we baked them...

But when we baked them most of their eyes fell off or migrated.  Gruesome!  Do not recommend.

Family Crests

This project was inspired by something my elementary school art teacher had us do.  Make a simple design on cardboard and trace over the pencil lines with white glue.  Let it dry well.  The next day, smear some glue stick on the cardboard and press a piece of tin foil over the top of it, pressing gently on the glue parts to make sure they show.  Wrap the foil around the edges of the crest and tape them or glue them on the back.  Crumple up a paper towel and blot it in black acrylic paint.  Gently rub it all over the design to "antique" it and bring out the details of your resist design.  Hang proudly!

Make your own scratch art paper

Scratch art paper is really expensive and is super easy to make.  Color a piece of paper heavily with crayon so there are no white spots left.  (Also, don't use black crayon.)  Paint over the whole thing with black paint- I've had good luck with acrylic, using a sponge brush.  Try to use as little as you can while still covering the color completely.  Let it dry (usually an hour or less) and then use a pointy-ish-but-not-too-pointy tool to scratch a drawing on the paper.  I've had luck using the back of a wooden matchstick, the not-pointy end of a wooden skewer, or a pen cap.

Most kids will want to go nuts and scratch off the whole thing.  It's a good idea to make one along with them to use as an initial sacrifice, so they can make an actual design on their own.

  Try this one out first- some papers and paints work better than others, so make sure you've got a good combo before making kids color till their hands go numb.

Super fun!  

Sandwich Maaaaaaaaaan!

You wish I was your nanny.

Edible Rainbows

This was our special St. Patricks Day snack.  We had fun making them, and scouting the grocery store for all the colors we needed!  I also made him enchanted milk!  I covertly put a few drops of green food coloring in the bottom of a glass.  It wasn't really visible from the side, and I kept moving as I told him a story about how sometimes leprechauns play tricks on people on St. Patrick's Day.  As I poured in the milk from the jug in front of him, it became green in the glass!  Blew his mind and delighted us both, though I admit he figured it out within 2 or 3 minutes.

Frobscottle

Back in my nannying days, my delightful 5 year old co-conspirator was a big Roald Dahl fan.  We made this frobscottle together, which contained a mix of raspberry kefir, kiwis, and cream soda, all to taste.  It was strange, but delightful in color.  It did turn him on to kefir, though, which was a nice side effect!

It did not give us whizpoppers.

Matzo ball soup!

I grew my own herbs over the summer and spiked these matzo balls with dill and chives and parsley.  Couldn't really taste a difference beyond a pleasant general freshness, but they sure did look nice!  I used the basic manischewitz mix plus carrots and celery in the broth.

Iced Tea Popsicles

I tried making iced tea popsicles.  They were not great.  The fresh mint I added all floated to the bottom and turned all dark and bruisy-looking from the freezing, and the flavor of the tea got weirdly distributed in the popsicles when they froze.  They were neither pretty nor tasty.  Do not recommend.

I have been considering trying to make Thai iced tea popsicles, but haven't attempted it yet.

Lion Cake!

Roar!  Bake a regular cake and use a cupcake or circle slice of a second layer to make the snout of the lion.  Draw your desired embellishments on a piece of paper and tape it to a cutting board, then tape a piece of waxed paper on top of it.  Pipe melted chocolate (use a ziplock bag with the tip cut off for a piping bag!) onto the designs you drew and then let them harden.  Peel them off and place them on your cake.  Tastier and less tongue-stain-y than most decorating frostings!