Rainbow Pots of Gold

Look what we've whipped up for Tablespoon this week...
Double your luck at the end of these rainbows...the "pots of gold" are actually Lucky Charms cereal treats!

These are super easy to make, all you need is a microwave and a few ingredients.

Click Here or on the image below for the full recipe.

One last St. Patty's Day fun tradition...I always get out dark plastic drinking cups and put a drop of green food coloring in the corner.  When the kids wake up and pour their milk, it "magically" turns green when going into their cup.  They love it (even though the older girls have figured it out)!:)

Do you have any St. Patrick's Day traditions or fun ideas?
Let's hear them!

Pin It

St. Patrick's Goodies & Giveaway

Top o' the mornin'! We've got lots of fun St. Patrick's Day ideas here (we love the Irish Potato Candy) and we'll be whipping up more fun later this week.

In the meantime, we haven't done a giveaway in awhile and our friends at McCormick offered to send TWO lucky Gourmet Mom readers a St. Patrick's Day Prize Pack with all the ingredients you'll need to make your day extra special!   

TO ENTER:
For fun, simply leave a comment telling us which green guy you'd rather kiss on St. Patrick's Day:
Kermit the Frog

OR

Jolly Green Giant

Time's up!  The winners, via random.org, are:
Comment #20 and #29!
Mandy and Caryn, congratulations!
I have sent you and email or note on your blog, please send your mailing address asap.

Did you know McCormick's website has all kinds of fabulous St. Paddy's goodies that you can whip up this week?  Here are a few of our favorites...
Luck o' the Irish Cake Pops

Emerald Mint Milkshake

Easy Green Velvet Cupcakes

Green with Envy Cheesecake Bars

Pin It

Easy Lego Pops

Little H is all about Legos right now and what better way to celebrate her birthday than with a Lego Party?!  There are ton of great ideas out there on how to throw the perfect Lego Birthday Party and I'll be sharing with you the ideas I used for games, decorations, food, etc., as well as our own creations.

First up, a tutorial for our super quick and easy

Lego Pops!

Little H mentioned wanting "Lego Pops" on her treat table, I wasn't thrilled...have you ever tried to make perfectly rectangular cake pops?  Ack.
However, I found the perfect "cheat" with Little Debbie Nutty Bars and these little goodies came together in just a few minutes.  That's my kind of treat!

You'll Need:
-Nutty Bars
-Smarties Candies
-Candy Melts
-Sucker Sticks

Here's how to do it:

Cut Nutty Bars in half then carefully poke a hole in the center of each with a sucker stick.  (I put a little mark about 1" down a sucker stick to measure how deep I wanted the holes).

Next, melt some white candy melts in a microwave-safe bowl at 30 second intervals, stirring after each, until melted.  Dip sucker sticks into candy melts and poke into the holes in the Nutty Bars.  This will give you a nice, solid pop that won't break apart.

Dip one side of Smarties candies into melted chocolate and set on top of Nutty Bar.  You'll need 6 Smarties for each Lego Pop.  When set (about 3 minutes), dip into various colors of melted Candy Melts (whatever colors you want for your par-tay!)

Tap gently a few times on the side of bowl to remove excess candy melts and set on wax paper to harden.  If you have too much chocolate on your pop and it's forming a "skirt", simply pick it up and move to a different spot on your wax paper.

For the display, I simply put some floral foam in boxes that I had on hand and filled the top with green crinkle paper.  Super cheap and easy!

We'll be sharing more Lego party games, decorations, etc., in the weeks to come as well as some St. Patty's treats!  Happy Cooking!

Pin It

Printable for Secret Decoder VDay Cookies

When I saw the adorable Secret Message Decoder Cookies on the Family Fun Community page a couple years ago, I loved the idea!

We haven't made them in awhile, so we decided to whip up some for the girls' classes as an extra treat this Valentine's Day. To make things simple (and a little harder to read without the decoder cookie), I designed the secret messages on the computer and thought I'd share the printable.
You can download/print them here or click on the image below.
There are four sheets with six each that say:
"Happy Valentine's Day!"
"You are Sweet! Be Mine!"
"I spy...someone cool! Happy VDay!"
"It's no secret, you are awesome!"

If you're whipping up decoder cookies for Valentine's Day, hopefully these will help make it a snap! Enjoy!

Pin It

ROCK Star Snacks

To wrap up Little C's Rock unit in school we're having some
ROCK Stars!We had fun making these together and they are super simple! We started with a batch of no bake energy balls (recipe here) and formed them into various rock shapes, about 1" wide each. (you could also use cake balls or any of your favorite no-bake treat recipes!)Then we melted some white candy melts along with a FEW black ones. (you could also use brown).

We dipped the treats in the candy melts then added two edible eyes and a Cheerio mouth.We finished them off by putting some green royal icing in a bag w/ a leaf tip and making crazy hair! I originally planned doing all mohawks but they started to get a life or their own... :)This one was feeling a little philosophical..."et tu, Brute?"This one wanted to rock a Lada Gaga-ish bow...

But no matter how you decorate them, they'll get gobbled up in a flash! Here's the wild crew ready for school!

Sedimentary Rock Bars

We're rockin' out in school this month! Little C has been having so much fun telling me everything she has been learning about rocks recently. So, we decided to celebrate with some
Sedimentary Rock Bars...Not only are these super easy (you could really make any kind of layered bar cookie that you like), they teach a great lesson about how Sedimentary Rocks are formed. I made up a little printable for the kiddos that you can download here (or click on the image below).

For our bars, I used a package of Betty Crocker Peanut Butter Cookie Mix and pressed it into the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 12 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle 1 Cup chocolate chips on top. Let melt and carefully spread to evenly distribute over the cookie. Then, I baked up some oatmeal cookies and crumbled them on top. For the top layer, I sprinkled on a mixture of butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips and toffee bits (can you tell I was cleaning out the pantry??!).
As I said before, you can make any type of layered cookie bar then have some fun talking about how sedimentary rocks are formed. Have fun and rock on!

Love in Hand Cookies for MLK Day

Monday we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I wanted to send a snack to my daughter's class to celebrate his legacy and finally came up with these cookies...I used the cookie cutter that I found here, I made up four pages of quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that you can download here.
We will be spending Monday finding some ways to do service in our community and spread Dr. King's message of love, tolerance, and the ripple effect of doing good.To make cookies, I used two packages of Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix and combined with butter and egg as directed on the package. I divided the dough into fourths and tinted it with various colors. (Wouldn't it be great if you had time to do rainbow?!)

Cut out cookies, then carefully remove the heart center and swap it with another color. Bake at 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes. Cool completely.Do you have any ideas for ways to honor Dr. King and spread his message throughout your community? I'd love to hear them!