Easy No-Bake Snack for Valentine’s Day

Hello again! Hope you are “enjoying” winter (does anyone enjoy winter?!) and are staying healthy! We have been busy busy bees here! We tore up the old carpet in our living room and hallway and hope to lay down a new floor soon! As most remodeling projects go, we keep running into snags and things that have to be fixed first and the days have been flying by without me getting to chat with you. I am determined to change that today! 🙂 So how about an easy snack idea for Valentine’s Day that you probably have the ingredients for and makes up pretty quickly? It’s called Peanut Butter Energy Bites. There are many ways to make these and I have a couple of suggestions that depend on the age of your children. Here we go!

If your kids are a little older, you can make these with uncooked oatmeal. If your kids are pretty young yet, I would go with crushed graham crackers. The oatmeal makes them more chewy, but blending the oatmeal in a food processor or blender helps with that some. My favorite way is using graham crackers.

You will need 1 Cup oatmeal OR crushed graham crackers, 1/2 Cup peanut butter or your favorite nut butter, 1/3 Cup honey, 1 teaspoon vanilla, a dash of salt and 1/2 Cup mini chocolate chips. To make these a little fancier for Valentine’s Day you might also want to have some sprinkles on hand.

Put all the ingredients into a medium sized bowl.

Mix well. It will be a stiff dough. Take a couple of minutes to make sure all the dry ingredients are completely mixed in. The dough will look different depending on which ingredients you chose. Here’s with the oatmeal…

Here’s with the graham crackers…

Using rounded teaspoon sized portions of dough, make the dough into balls. Place on a cookie sheet on a piece of waxed paper or parchment paper.

To make them pretty for Valentine’s Day, roll them in some sprinkles. Pop them in the refrigerator to make them more firm and easier to handle. No baking required! I also stored mine in the refrigerator.

Whether you choose to use oatmeal…

Or crushed graham crackers…

I think you will find these little snack balls to be very addicting! (We won’t mention how many I may have eaten today!) 😉 You can switch these up by trying different ingredients. Use a nut butter in place of the peanut butter or instead of chocolate chips add raisins, cranberries, white chocolate chips, chopped peanuts, coconut flakes, cinnamon, etc…the sky’s the limit! 🙂 Enjoy!

Bluey for Breakfast!

Hi everyone and thanks for stopping by! Raise your hand if you love Bluey! Ok, now how would you like to have Bluey for breakfast? 😉 If you don’t know who Bluey is, here is a picture of Bluey that I took at our local store.

We have a couple of grandkids that love Bluey! A sweet friend of mine shared the following picture with me. (Thanks, Carolyn!)

(Sorry I don’t know who originally posted this, but it’s awesome!) After seeing this picture I decided to have a go at making a Bluey for breakfast at our house. Here’s how I did mine:

I started out with 2 pieces of bread. The first slice of bread I added peanut butter to the top portion, a little strip of butter to make it look white and then I used blueberry cream cheese on the bottom to make it blue. (A blue or purple jelly would work as a substitute for the cream cheese.)

Using the second slice of bread, I cut 2 triangles to use for ears. I put peanut butter on them too.

Next I used a slice of orange cheese to make 2 small triangles for the inside part of the ears.

I then placed these items on a plate with the ears at the top.

A white or whitish slice of cheese came next. I used a k-cup to cut around and made 2 circles in the cheese.

Yep, you guessed it, these are part of Bluey’s eyes.

I cut a banana into 1-2″ pieces and used the straightest piece for the nose.

2 small slices of banana cut in half provided Bluey with eyebrows.

3 blueberries on the eyes and end of the nose supplied the finishing touch! And I present to you….Bluey for breakfast! 🙂

I think Bluey turned out very cute! This is a fun breakfast to make for your kids! And maybe even more fun if they help you make it! One last note, my husband thought Bluey tasted pretty yummy! 😉

Delicious Pudding Bar

Hello again! I don’t know if I have invented something new or if this idea has been out there and I just never saw it, but here goes! You know how you can have an ice cream or a frozen yogurt bar where you put your ice cream or frozen yogurt in a cup and then add all the toppings you like? Well, let’s do that but use pudding! We made a pudding bar yesterday and it was lots of fun. First select your flavors of pudding and make the pudding. I chose vanilla, chocolate and butterscotch and I used instant pudding because it’s so quick and easy to make. The kids will have fun just making the pudding and helping to set up the pudding bar!

For this brand of instant pudding, you pour 2 cups of milk into a bowl, add the pudding powder from the box and stir for 2 minutes. This pudding is soft set in 5 minutes, but I made ours on Saturday evening, put them in the refrigerator overnight and served them for lunch on Sunday.

Pudding is ready to go!

Now gather up all the things you would like to use for the toppings.

Put them into small containers so they are easy for people to serve themselves from. Here’s what we used: miniature marshmallows

Whipped cream

Banana slices

Chocolate chips…I used milk chocolate

Peanut butter chips

Miniature Oreo cookies

Small animal cookies

And sprinkles…sprinkles are very important. 😉

Assemble the toppings together and bring out the pudding!

Use small bowls for serving the pudding in. Let each person put the type and amount of pudding in their bowl and then add their own toppings. You can serve it like a cafeteria line with each person serving themselves. Here are some interesting combinations we saw at our house: Butterscotch pudding with peanut butter chips and chocolate chips.

Then there was some vanilla and some chocolate pudding topped with sprinkles and 2 animal cookies.

How about vanilla pudding with peanut butter chips and sprinkles?

What do you think of chocolate pudding topped with whipped cream and a mini Oreo cookie?

One bowl had vanilla pudding with banana slices and whipped cream.

And last, but not least, how about some vanilla pudding with a little bit of chocolate pudding swirled in? Oh, and sprinkles…gotta have those sprinkles!

A pudding bar is a simple dessert to serve and so much fun for kids. It’s a fun novelty to serve your dessert up just the way each person likes it and it’s fun to see what combinations others pick. I hope you’ll give this a try and have as much fun as we did! 🙂

Fun With Food – Let’s Make Cookie Monster!

Wow, summer seems to be flying past in a big hurry! Are you super busy in the summer? We sure seem to be! Sorry it’s been so long since I posted, but here’s another fun idea to do with the kids! And it’s edible! 🙂 And it’s Cookie Monster! Everybody loves Cookie Monster, right?!

This is what you’ll need: a light colored plate (I used a white Styrofoam one), fresh blueberries, white yogurt (or cottage cheese, fruit dip, whip cream), 2 small cups or dishes, a piece of bread and some small cookies.

Cut a Cookie Monster shaped mouth out of the bread and lay it on the plate. I used raisin bread.

Fill 2 little cups with yogurt. Any kind of fruit dip, cottage cheese or whipped cream will also work. It just needs to be white.

Place 1 large blueberry in each cup of yogurt to make the eyes. Fill the rest of the plate with blueberries. And you have your Cookie Monster! 🙂

To make it a bit more fun, add a few small cookies close to the mouth.

Super simple, but a fun way to have breakfast or a healthy snack! 🙂 I hope you will enjoy making…and eating…yours too!

Simple Patriotic Flag Snack

Here’s a simple but cute idea to whip up a patriotic flag snack in just a few minutes. We’re less than a month away from the 4th of July, so this might be an idea to save for next month too. You will need some blue fruit – like blueberries, some red fruit – like strawberries or raspberries and some white cheese – like white cheddar or baby swiss. Wash and prepare the fruit. I used a white plate so the colors show up well against the background. Begin by lining up some blueberries in the upper left hand corner. I did 4 rows of 4 berries in each row.

Add a row of your red fruit beside the blueberries on the right hand side.

I think this would look the best with small chunks of cheese, but all I have on hand is sliced cheese. If using sliced cheese, cut the cheese into thin strips.

Alternate rows of red fruit with rows of white cheese.

That’s all there is to it! You can vary how many rows you have in your flag according to how much your kids can eat at one time. This would be a great project for the kids to each make their own flag and practice their small motor skills. Then they get to eat a healthy snack too! 😉

Let’s Make Chaffles!

Have you ever heard of a chaffle? Well, you know what a waffle is, right? Chaffles are made with cheese and they are quite yummy! So let’s take a look at how I made some chaffles for my husband and I. First off, I used my mini waffle maker that I found at WalMart for around $10.

It’s really cute and just the right size for 1 or 2 people.

There are lots of different chaffle recipes floating around out there but this is how I did it. You’ll need 2 Tablespoons of almond flour, 1/2 Cup of grated cheese, 1 egg and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder. These can be made gluten free. 🙂

I made 2 different batches of batter. For the first batch I used cheddar cheese and for the second batch I used mozzarella cheese. Both were quite tasty! 🙂 Put the ingredients into a small bowl.

Stir until all ingredients are moistened. This is the cheddar mixture.

And here is the mozzarella mixture. The egg I used for the mozzarella batch was larger and so the ingredients were more “soupy”.

Preheat your mini waffle iron according to the manufacturers directions. While it’s heating, make sure any assistants are ready to help you. This is my assistant, Rusty. 😉

When the waffle iron is hot, spoon some batter onto the waffle iron and close the lid. Make sure not to overfill the waffle iron or the batter will run out.

Check your chaffle after a few minutes and see if it looks done enough to suit you. Mine took less than 5 minutes to cook. This is the cheddar chaffle all ready for someone to take a bite!

This is the mozzarella chaffle that my husband very quickly gobbled up! 😉

This recipe made 2 -3 chaffles each. Chaffles make a great quick snack or even part of a meal. I bet they would be great with a fried egg on top. I added a drizzle of honey to mine and that made it even better. I hope you’ll give the chaffles a try! 🙂

Easy Mug Cake for Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day! 🙂

Here’s a great super fast dessert for this Valentine’s Day! So fun and easy you won’t believe it and your kids will love it! It’s a Mug Cake, which means you mix it and cook it all in a coffee mug. You will need 2 cake mixes. 1 must be an angel food cake mix and the second one can be your favorite cake flavor. I chose Chocolate Fudge. The brand of cake mixes I used was Betty Crocker but others will work just fine too.

Pour both dry cake mixes into a bowl that you can store the ingredients in.

Stir together carefully as the powder will “poof” easily. 😉 Be sure its mixed together well.

Now comes the fun part! Put 3 tablespoons of the cake mix into a microwave safe mug.

Add 2 tablespoons of water and stir together. Make sure all the dry powder on the bottom and sides of the mug are mixed in well. It will look a little foamy.

Put the mug in your microwave oven and microwave for 1 minute and presto! You have a little individual cake! 🙂

Let it cool to your desired temperature. Top with a dollop of frosting or some whipped cream or ice cream. I used whipped cream and it was quite yummy! 🙂

Doesn’t it look delicious?!

Mmmm! Super simple and super tasty! A great way to have something sweet and it’s already a controlled portion. 😉

Enjoy your Mug Cake! 🙂 You can be sure I’m enjoying mine! 😉

It’s Pizza Day!

Yum! Everybody loves pizza, right? If you do, today is your day! I love Sandra Boynton’s calendar picture for today from her “Every Day’s a Fabulous Holiday 2024 Calendar”:

Cute little guy, isn’t he? But back to pizza…be sure to check around your local area for pizza shops that are running sales on pizza today! I’m sure it will vary depending on where you live. One type of pizza we sometimes buy from a grocery store is one that makes the crust using cauliflower instead of regular flour. No, it doesn’t taste like cauliflower, which is pretty cool! They have different flavors and toppings available. We like to add a little more pizza sauce and cheese before baking ours.

But if you don’t want to buy a pizza or you just prefer to make your own, let me share a couple of suggestions. One way to make quick and easy individual pizzas is to use english muffins for the crust. Gather your favorite pizza ingredients…

Cut an english muffin in half and spread it with some pizza sauce. Then add cheese and your favorite toppings. One nice thing about this method is everyone can make their pizza to suit their likes. Using aluminum foil or parchment paper on a baking sheet is a good plan for easy clean up.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees F until the cheese melts and browns a bit and the pizza are heated through.

Another pizza suggestion that was shared with me is to make a Pizzadilla. Using the soft round tortilla shells, put one on a baking sheet and spread with sauce and toppings. Top with some cheese. Put another tortilla shell on top. Bake at 425 degrees till browned and crispy, then flip and bake until the second side is browned too. Only takes about 10 minutes. This makes a cracker like crust. And again, everyone can add their own favorite toppings. 🙂

One more fun idea that I saw but haven’t tried yet is to use a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet, then make small piles of mozzarella cheese in circles. Leave some space between them. Top each one with pepperoni and your favorite pizza spices like oregano and parsley. Bake at 375 degrees F for 10-12 minutes. Let cool for a minute or two and the place on a paper towel lined plate. Serve with your favorite pizza sauce for dipping!

Wow, there are lots of ways to enjoy pizza, aren’t there?! I hope you will enjoy your favorite pizza on this Pizza Day! 🙂

Walking S’mores Dessert

Do you love s’mores? That yummy dessert that is made around a campfire with a fire toasted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate candy bar sandwiched between 2 pieces of graham crackers? Yea….that one! 🙂 But do you sometimes get hungry for s’mores when you aren’t by a campfire to toast a marshmallow? Well, here’s the next best thing – the Walking S’mores Dessert! You will need the following items: individual packets of Teddy Grahams bear shaped snacks, chocolate pudding, miniature marshmallows and whipped cream.

Note: To make this dessert the original way means you open the little packets of Teddy Grahams and put the other ingredients inside the packet and thus you can walk around while you eat them. Buuuut I can only imagine the mess that might make, so while we had 4 grandkids staying with us last week, we opened the Teddy Grahams and poured them into a bowl. 😉 So you can buy a box of Teddy Grahams instead of the individual packets.

Another side note: Have you ever noticed that the Teddy Grahams teddy bears are not all the same? Pretty cool, right? 😉

Back to our s’mores…next add a dollop or two of chocolate pudding on top of the Teddy Grahams.

Add a few miniature marshmallows…

Top with whipped cream…

Grab a spoon and dig in! 🙂 That’s how simple this Walking S’mores dessert is to make! Our grandkids gave it a thumbs up! 🙂

M&M Picture Fun for Spring!

Happy 1st Day of Spring!! 🙂

Whoohoo! I am so ready for Spring! How about you? The calendar says it is Spring, but boy, it is cold and windy outside! Let’s pretend not to notice and have some fun inside today! We can have some great fun making pictures with Mini M&M’s candy pieces! You will need a white plate or a white piece of paper and some Mini M&M’s.

And a bowl will make it easier to pick out the color of M&M that you want to use.

This project is so simple! All you do is arrange the M&M’s in such a way that it makes a cool picture. Like this simple flower…

When you are done with the picture, just dump the M&M’s back into the bowl and start over! 🙂 Here’s a more elaborate flower…

You could try a smiley face…

Or maybe a fish in water…

Or how about making a lady bug with blue antennae? 😉

The things you can make are endless! 🙂 And the best part? You can eat the M&M’s when you are finished! Super simple, but lots of fun! 🙂