A Complete Kid Friendly Dinner

Today is the day before payday at the end of a very long pay period! So I had to be a bit creative with dinner tonight.
Last week my husband and I were watching TV and saw a commercial for a cheeseburger, followed by a commercial for pizza. My husband mentioned how cool cheeseburger pizza would be.
So I used that for insiration and did a little research on line and came up with mini deep dish cheeseburger pizzas. The kids loved them! My little professor ate three of them, while Roo did her best eating one and a half.

Recipe

3/4 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons mustard
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 pizza crust (I use Bobby Flays recipe on foodnetwork.com, I substitute wheat flour for white and use honey instead of sugar)
3/4 lb ground beef
3 strips of bacon, chopped
1/2 cup onion , chopped
1/2 cup green pepper , chopped
salt and pepper (to taste)
shredded cheddar cheese


Directions:

Before making crust, combine sauce ingredients; ketchup, sugar, mustard, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce in a small sauce pan; simmer on medium heat. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Prepare pizza crust according to directions.
Combine beef, bacon, onion, green pepper, salt and pepper to taste; cook until beef is done.
Roll out your dough, using a biscuit cutter or glass cut the dough into circles and place in muffin tins. Spread some of the sauce in each one. Add meat mixture, top with cheese, and bake for 25 minutes.
(next time we are going to top them with a dill pickle slice to provide some additional texture)

Revamp of an Old Favorite

I have a recipe for sweet potato muffins that I really love. Last night we had some left over mashed sweet potatoes from dinner, so I decided to use the recipe as inpsiration, make at a bit more healthy and turn it into a quick bread. I was very pleased with the results.
So here is the new improved Sweet Potato Bread Recipe
Ingredients
1/4 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup mashed sweet potatoes (1 large potatoe)
1/4 cup Almond milk
1 cup flour
1/2 cup wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 375. Beat oil and apple sauce in a bowl. Then slowly add the sugar and the rest of the wet ingredients beating well.
in a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add to the wet ingredients and stir until just moistened. Fold in the raisins. Pour into a prepared loaf pan. Bake for about 45 minutes.
*I also sprinkled a bit of sugar and cinnamon over the top. It gives it s nice crunch!

A Little Something Sweet

Yesterday while my little guy was watching Disney Jr. he saw a short clip about a little girl who made some tarts with her family out of puff pastry and some fruit. Puff pastry is something I always have in my freezer, so we decided to do our own take on the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed and cut into 9 squares
about 1/2 cup frozen strawberries, thawed
9 tsp cream cheese
cream cheese frosting

Preheat oven to 375.
Spray a muffin tin with a non-stick cooking spray. Place one square of puff pastry in 9 spaces of the muffin tin. Add one tsp cream cheese in the bottom of each tin. Add the strawberries. Bake for 25 minutes. When they are cool you can top each with cream cheese frosting if desired.

I really enjoyed them because they reminded me of strawberry cheesecake!
My little Roo had to get in on the action. She had a free form style to her tart!

She did enjoy it when it was done though!

A Girly Morning

This morning I woke up with an agenda in my head. I had the "mom list" going of what I needed to get done today, fun things like cleaning and laundry were the first on my list.
Then some things happened to change my plans, my little Roo wanted some "pretty's" on her toes.

So I brought out the nail polish and gave her a pedicure.
After that I got out some pipe cleaners and a collander to keep her busy while I cleaned. I saw the idea of Pinterest months ago, and decided to try it out today. Well, it was so much fun watching and playing with her, we ended up doing that for about a half an hour!

I loved watching her little hands work so put the pipe cleaners in the holes!
Then I decided a craft was in order. Out came the paint and sponge brushes!

After making a cute little hand heart I let her have some fun.

After making a mess with paint it was time to clean up. I filled the sink with some water and she had a blast!

Soon her clothes were soaked, so they came off and she set about cleaning up her "mess".

After I cleaned her up and sopped up the water that was spread around my kitchen we read some books. Then she decided to take some pictures after watching me snap away this moring.

It was a really wonderful morning. Both of us had fun, and you know what? The cleaning and laundry are still waiting for me, and that is just fine!

Pop -o-licious!

Last night my group of friend surprised another friend with a "You've Popped" baby shower. We got to surprise her in the hospital, and it was great to see her expression when we all came wandering in to her room!
We all brought gifts that went with the theme, "You've Popped". There were pop-tarts, push pops, Rice Krispies (because they snap crackle and pop), soda pop and a few other treats.
I decided to bring pop-overs. I had never made them, I had only eaten them. So I looked them up on Foodnetwork.com and when I found Ina Gartens recipe for them I new I had a winner.
They are surprisingly easy to make, just a few ingredients and lots of fun to watch bake. They are really yummy with some butter and honey! I made extra and they were great for breakfast this morning!

There are three secrets to great popovers: Make sure the pan is hot before you pour in the batter, fill each section not more than half full and no peeking while they're in the oven!

Ingredients

1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus softened butter for greasing pans
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups milk, at room temperature

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Generously grease aluminum popover pans or Pyrex custard cups with softened butter. You'll need enough pans to make 12 popovers. Place the pans in the oven for exactly 2 minutes to preheat. Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, salt, eggs, milk, and melted butter until smooth. The batter will be thin. Fill the popover pans less than half full and bake for exactly 30 minutes. Do not peek.

(I used muffin tins and it worked just fine. And I used the oven light to peek at them while they cooked!

My Sewing Adventures

I am just starting to feel comfortable with my sewing machine. I still have a lot of work to do to became the fantastic seamstress that I would love to be! No more Target for this girl....I will make my own clothes. (in all my free time that is!)
Anyway, I saw a really cute stuffed owl at Homestead Gardens this Christmas. I wasn't ready to plop down the 20 plus dollars they were asking for it, so I tried my hand at making one today. I made a few mistakes, and know some things I will do differently next time, but I have to say I am quite happy with my cute little friend!

Getting Back to Normal

After the excitement of Friday afternoon/evening we decided to cancel any weekend plans and just have some down time.
I will admit that Saturday I pretty much did nothing. I read and took care of my girl, but other than that I slacked on my other household chores. I think I needed that day to de-stress a bit!
Sunday I was feeling better and more energetic, so I sat down during naptime and made this cute wreath.

I loved the simplicity of it, and I am a big fan of the argyle like pattern that it has.
My little professor doesn't have school today or tomorrow, so we did another Valentine's Day craft this morning. I would love to take them out in the snow, but the weather is yucky, and I didn't want to take the change of my little Roo falling on the ice. It was very easy, just some clear contact paper, construction paper and some tissue paper. It kept both kids happy for a short amount of time.

My little girl is healing well. I have been so thankful that she has pretty much left the stitches alone, and doesn't seem to be in too much pain. She is still a bit fussy, but who can blame her? I would be fussy too!