Dessert Tacos

These dessert tacos are a great addition to a Mexican themed party!  But trust me when I say that you do NOT need a Mexican themed party to justify making them.  They are just that good!  Pinterest is my friend for brainstorming creative food ideas.  Found a recipe to get my brain started and then had to change it a little bit to make it work for the end result I wanted.  

Dessert Tacos

1 roll sugar cookie dough
4 oz. softened cream cheese
1 c. powdered sugar
1/2 of a small carton cool whip
Assorted fruit - strawberries, blueberries, kiwi, mandarin oranges
Two paper towel rolls covered in foil

The number of cookies you can bake in a batch will depend on how many paper towel rolls you have.  If you have two rolls, you should only bake 4 cookies at a time.  Unwrap roll of sugar cookie dough.  Slice dough in 1/2 inch slices.  Bake per directions on packaging, mine said 11-14 minutes.  I set the timer for 11 minutes and then checked it every minute until it was just starting to get golden around the edges and slightly on top.  Remove from oven and leave on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes.

 Transfer one at a time and drape over the paper towel rolls - I did two on each roll.  Set timer for 90 seconds.  At the end of 90 seconds, you will carefully pick up a cookie and turn it over and set in the dip in between the two paper towel rolls (see picture below).  Then slowly scoot the rolls closer together until you get them the size you want.  Allow to set for 4-5 minutes until hardened.  Keep repeating until you get all the cookies baked and shaped.

I'm not going to sugar coat it. ;) The shaping part is tricky. Check out this post to see how it can go all wrong.  The first time I did it, I used one roll of dough and got 8 usable taco cookies.  The second time I did it, I used two rolls of dough and got 24 usable taco cookies.  So there is a learning curve.  The trickiest part is when you drape it over the paper towel roll... if the cookie is too soft gravity will pull down both sides and the cookie will separate in the middle.  Leaving the cookies on the cookie sheet 1-2 minutes helps to set them up a bit and I found made a difference with shaping.

My mother-in-law makes a super yummy dessert for holidays -- any holiday!  It is a fluffly, sweet cream with pineapple and mandarin oranges mixed in.  We call it Sunshine Salad.  I used that as the inspiration for the creamy middle of these.  

Beat softened cream cheese and powdered sugar until well mixed.  Fold in cool whip.  And then I just took a ziploc bag, filled it full and cut the bottom corner off to pipe into each taco cookie.  You could get fancy and use a decorator tip too.  Top with fruit. 

  

Chicken Parm Spaghetti Sliders

While working on putting together a menu for Return To Rest this winter, my sister sent me a video of spaghetti sliders from Delish.  I had recently pinned a recipe for Chicken Parmesan Sandwiches from Yellow Bliss Road.  I decided it was time for a recipe mash up.

These pack lots of yummy flavor into a smallish-mediumish slider sandwich.  Think cheesy garlic bread meets spaghetti meets chicken parmesan.  The whole time you make them you will be wondering how it will be possible to eat them without looking like an uncoordinated toddler.  But when they come out of the oven and you smell them, you will decide you don't care.  You'll grab a fork because you are going to try to stay adult while eating them.  Then your good sense takes over and you just pick it up and eat it.  And seriously -- they aren't too messy at all.  But if you want to wear a bib, no judging here!

We do it big around here -- this recipe is a double recipe and you can certainly reduce it in half.  But here's the best part of the double recipe -- these come together super easy.  And it is a great opportunity to bless someone else with a meal, or tuck an extra meal away in your freezer for a crazy day.  These will freeze just fine!

Chicken Parm Spaghetti Sliders

2 - 12 pack slider buns
2-3 cups mozzarella cheese, divided
1 jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce
1 lb. box of spaghetti
15 oz. can of tomato sauce
2 c. shredded cooked chicken breast
2 T. olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 t. basil
1/2 t. oregano
a couple shakes of onion powder
a couple shakes of salt
3/4 c. grated parmesan cheese (divided)
1/2 stick butter (melted)
2 t. garlic powder
1-2 t. garlic salt
parsley (garnish)
red pepper flakes (optional)

Prepare spaghetti pasta as normal and after draining, toss with spaghetti sauce.  While pasta is boiling, heat olive oil in a skillet.  Add garlic and saute for 30 seconds - 1 min.  Add tomato sauce, basil, oregano, onion powder and salt.  Bring to a fast simmer and reduce heat and simmer for 7 minutes.  Add chicken, 1 c. mozzarella cheese and 1/2 c. parmesan cheese.  

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease 9 x 13 pan with butter.  Slice slider buns in half and arrange bottoms in baking dish.  Mix melted butter, 1/4 c. parmesan and garlic powder.  brush bottoms of slider buns lightly with butter mixture.  Sprinkle with desired amount of garlic salt (I just give a light sprinkle from bottle and don't bother with measuring it.)  If you want a bit of heat, sprinkle red pepper flakes too.  Spoon the chicken parm mixture evenly on each slider bun.  Press down.  Take a fork and twist it in the big pot of spaghetti. Lift spaghetti bundle out and place on top of chicken.  Repeat for all slider buns.  Top with desired amount of mozzarella cheese and place slider bun tops back on.  Brush remaining butter/parm over top the buns.

Bake uncovered for 10 minutes.  Just want to toast up the tops of the buns a little bit.  You'll see the parmesan cheese turn golden and that's when you want to pull it out.  Top with fresh (or dried) parsley flakes.  Serves 6.

Warm Winter Harvest Salad

This recipe is inspired by my first visit to Sweet Green in Boston, Massachusetts.  My sister took me when I was in town visiting and I loved the filling burst of flavor this salad bowl has to offer.  We don't have this restaurant in Charlotte so I had no other option but to create my own version.

I tested the recipe on my family and it was met with honest critique from my kids.  Maybe less goat cheese.  Maybe if you kept everything separate.  Yes! I like everything separate!  I like everything except the quinoa. (what???)  But it was adult approved.  So the recipe made its debut in January at Return To Rest, a retreat for ladies.  After requests for the recipe, I decided the old family blog was the best way to give others access to it.  So forgive the old fashioned blogger template and sparse posts.


















Warm Winter Harvest Salad

5 small sweet potatoes (approx 2 lbs)
1 bag of chopped kale
2 chicken breasts (cooked & diced)
2 diced apples (a sweet variety - I used pink lady)
1 c. quinoa*
2 c. chicken broth
1/4 c. slivered almonds (toasted)
4 T. olive oil (divided)
1/4 c. crumbled goat cheese
1/4 c. balsamic vinaigrette
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 400 F.  Peel and dice sweet potatoes.  Toss in 2 T. olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast for 20-25 minutes - or until soft.  While sweet potatoes are roasting, cook quinoa according to package directions, using chicken broth in place of water.

Go through bag of kale and remove large stems.  Throw away stems.  Heat remaining 2 T olive oil in medium saute pan.  Add kale leaves and season with salt.  Saute until warm and wilted.

Assemble salad by mixing ingredients and topping with goat cheese crumbles.

This salad make a large bowl -- serving 5-6.  It is just as tasty served cold the next day!

*you can sub rice or couscous for the quinoa -- and pasta would be delicious as well.  You want about 2 cups cooked of whatever you choose.

Frozen birthday

It all started with the innocent gift of the Frozen Soundtrack...  We hadn't seen Frozen yet.  Just not in the budget to take the whole family to the movie theater.  We had decided to wait until it hit the $2 theater.  Friends of ours gave us the soundtrack and we began listening to it in the car.  Then the almost 8 year old got the brilliant idea to check YouTube to see if there were any videos.  Oh my.  I am pretty sure we make up over half of the views on "Let It Go."  Insanity.


The girls' birthday (yes, both girls) was just a week away and I still had no game plan.  And then it came to me (while a Frozen YouTube video was playing in the background, of course).  Frozen Birthday Party!!  Both girls love it.  I can totally sell them on a "double" party. Bam!


And then began the scouring of Pinterest for inspiration (and ideas I could copy). :)  So... I promise -- I can't take credit for all of these ideas.  And I'll be honest about that.  Look for links to the original idea creator.  There were so many great ideas!! Here's what I did:

Olaf Treat Bags

My modification was that I cut a carrot nose out of construction paper.  And I didn't trust my freehand to draw the mouth.  So I printed this, cut out the mouth and tucked it into the white bag and traced over it with a sharpie.

The inspiration for these little bags came from the Olaf Valentine's that are all over the internet.  I'm not going to link to one because who really knows who the original idea creator was. :)  There are so many variations.  I used Microsoft Word and created my own pieces... then I took scrapbook paper from Michael's and pieced them together.

There isn't an exact formula for creating the treat bag -- It's more about the size that you want it to be. I took the Ziploc baggie and then put a piece of scrapbook paper overtop and folded it over.  Once I determined my size, I was able to cut out multiple pieces at a time.  I glued on the Olaf graphic and words.  I filled the baggie with 3 large marshmallows, 6 pretzel sticks, 8-10 mini chocolate chips, and a piece of candy corn.  Then I punched the holes in the top of the paper and baggie and used a ribbon (from Michael's $1 ribbon section) to secure each baggie.

Water Bottle Inspiration

Loved these water bottles and searched around for a free water bottle cover that I liked, but didn't find one.  So what do you do?  You make one yourself!  I just used Microsoft Word to create it.  It took a bit of printing and adjusting to get it right, but in the end, I think we did okay. 

I attached paper straws with ribbon.  The ribbon was nice and sparkly, but it left little trails of glitter everywhere.  I'd probably go with a non-glitter ribbon next time. ;)

Bath Salt Party Favor

I got a ton of great ideas from the Paging Supermom blog (link above).  I found them on Pinterest and was able to incorporate a lot of their ideas into this party. You'll see a few more below.

Snow & Ice Bath Salts are such a cute idea for a party favor.  I had them on my list of "to-dos" for this party and then scratched them as it got closer because of the cost.  See... on the blog linked above, they are super cute little jars, with labels, etc.  And I just didn't want to go to the extra expense of buying containers and labels.  And then... I walked into Michael's the night before the party to grab a couple of last minute things and they had a giant bin of 50 cent clearance.  I found these little bags (4 for 50 cents) and I found 2 containers of bath salts.  What?!?!  Made these cute little tags in Microsoft Word and added bath salts to the party treat bags.

These great food signs also came from Paging Supermom!  With the exception of Sven's Antlers and Frozen Hearts.  But LOVED this idea of using a Styrofoam ball cut in half to hold the labels.  It looked so cute.

Frozen Birthday Banner

This one was an original. ;) Printed big letters and then cut them out and glued them to these triangles.  The template for those came from here.  I just used curling ribbon and weaved it through to hang.  You could go much cuter with this idea... it was a last minute thing for me.  Decided to do it the night before.  That's how I roll.

Frozen Fruit Sculpture

Our kids don't get birthday cakes until they turn 5.  Until then, we do fruit sculptures.  We've done Ironman, Super Mario Brothers, Ariel, Dumbo, etc.  I kept this one really simple.  And honestly, almost didn't even do it.  Having children who share the same birthday is not for the faint of heart, let me tell you.  But at the last minute, I decided I could manage it.  Yeah... 3 hours before party started.  Cause remember?  That's how I roll. 

One thing I have learned is that Rice Krispie Treats make an excellent base for the sculpture.  I make a batch, let it cool slightly and then mold it into the shape I want.  Cover with foil (an optional step -- I do it because I don't want my kids to discover there is Rice Krispie underneath. I don't share my Rice Krispie treats.)

Cut fruit and attach to sculpture with toothpicks.  I picked up this set of action figurines from the Disney Store to top the sculpture.  I just did a simple heart shape for the base.

The Table

I decorated the table with a purple tablecloth, covered with a strip of that mesh "stuff" found in Michael's. I'm sure there is a technical term for it, but it is escaping me at the moment.  I chose the iridescent color...  The frames came from the Dollar Tree and I used the free printables from the Paging Supermom blog.

Found the platters at the Dollar Tree too -- their Easter section.

Kaiya wanted cake balls instead of a cake.  And I was happy because that fit perfectly into the Frozen theme. We just called them "snowballs" instead of cake balls.  A friend made them for me and they turned out awesome!

We did two activities during the party.  We had a manicure station and gave the girls Frozen manicures using nail wraps from Jamberry.  We went with the "Teal Sparkle" but there are soooo many options.

 

We also made snow glitter playdough.  I used this recipe.  We left it white colored and then the kids added iridescent glitter to make it sparkle.  We had baggies on hand to put playdough into and then they were put into the kids' treat bags.

Yummy Snow Balls!

Elsa Cape Giveaway!

I could go on and on about how obsessed my children (girls in particular) are with Frozen.  And tell you the story about how I started making capes on Etsy.  But you really just landed here to enter the giveaway, right?  So let's get to it.

Here's the prize:

Elsa Cape

You can find the Etsy listing for the Elsa cape here.

How to win:

1st entry: Comment, include e-mail so I can contact you.

2nd Entry: Promote giveaway on a social media platform (include that link with your comment.)

Contest ends Friday, March 29th at 11:59 PST.  Giveaway policy here.
Good Luck!!

This kid is the best!

Happy birthday to my super funny 6 yr old!! You are the best, kid!!

Bunk Buddies

It feels like I have done nothing at all but paint this week.  I have a green dining room... and Kaleb has a yellow and blue room!  Since the beginning of time, Kaleb's favorite colors have been "lellow, bue & white." And then it changed to yellow, blue and white.  He's also a pretty big fan of video games, Super Mario Brothers in particular.

Here are a few pictures of his new and improved room...

Notice the bunk beds.  One clearly Kaiya's... and one Kaleb's.  These beds were separate in each of their rooms, but they have been begging to share a room again.  I let it go for a few weeks of the requests, but then Kaiya ended up sleeping on the floor in his room for a week straight.  Tony and I talked and decided that they will outgrow this desire to share a room within a year or so.  So why not let them enjoy sleeping in the same room while they want to.  And the timing is great, because we have a bunch of family coming for Thanksgiving... so my nephews will have a lovely pink zebra room all to themselves. :)

While I was surprised by the desire to share a room, I am really so delighted.  They have always been such great buddies.  I really hope it stays that way.