Upside Down Snowman

So....long time no post!  This seems to be my problem with keeping blogs.  I start off nice and strong and then stop keeping up with them.  While I may have stopped updating the blog, I have not stopped Pinteresting!  I have a lot of reviews of a lot of projects to catch up on.

Let's start with this upside down snowman I pinned earlier this past fall.  Little did I know when I pinned this, that we'd have very little snow to work with this winter.  In February, we finally had a snowfall with enough snow to make a snowman.  Barely.

He's not very big, and he has a bunch of grass in him, but we worked with what we had.  The 3 year old was quite confused with what I was doing, putting his face on the bottom, but he eventually caught on and thought it was fun.

We used some sorry dead ornamental grass pieces for his arms as the closest place to find sticks was through a field filled with weeds that are almost as tall as I am and, frankly, I didn't really care about his arms, or him having legs, enough to make the trek across the field.  But he still turned out kind of cute!  I want to try it again next winter with (hopefully) some more snow.

Chubby Hubby Rice Krispie Bars

Do I really need to explain why I felt the need to repin this recipe for Chubby Hubby Rice Krispie Bars? I don't think so.  I've been thinking of these things since I pinned them and decided they'd be the perfect treat for the weekend.

They're easy to make, really not much more to them than regular Rice Krispie bars with the exception of melting the chocolate for the top and crushing the pretzels which takes all of 1 minute.  I will say, however, that mixing the cereal in with the melted marshmallows in regular Rice Krispie's is not one of my favorite things to do.  I try to make them when the husband is home and I make him do that final step.  This was HARD to stir together!  I started out making them with a sweater and a scarf on and ended with a sweater and scarf tossed on the floor because it was such a workout to mix everything together.  I mean, I admit I'm no body builder but I have carted around my fair share of babies, diaper bags, and toddlers and I can carry in a whole grocery shopping trip worth of grocery bags in one trip from the car to the house so I'm not a wimp either but, man, these made me work up a sweat!  On the plus side, the calories you work off making the bars must make it so you can have at least one (or two!) extra, I'm sure.

And the final product...so worth it!  They.are.delicious.  The chocolate on the top took awhile to cool and harden and it was so hard to wait.  You can tell by my finger print in the still soft chocolate.  Oops.

I will make these again.  And again.

But I'll make sure the husband is home next time. ; )

Panera Mac and Cheese

Have you ever had the mac and cheese at Panera?  If not, you must!!  It is SO so so SO good!  One of my favorite things and one of the 6 year old's favorite things as well.  I saw a pin for Panera's Mac and Cheese this weekend and immediately put it on the menu for this week.  I hyped it up big time, getting the 6 year old all excited and telling the 3 year old that I was going to make the yummiest mac and cheese ever.

The end result was just....eh.  I modified it slightly, using GF flour instead of regular flour and elbow pasta instead of the shells (I divided the sauce after it was made for the regular pasta and the quinoa gf pasta). It was super cheesy and creamy, but it was not sinfully delicious like the real stuff is.  I thought the Dijon mustard taste and smell was overpowering and it was hard getting past that. It also wasn't a really smooth cheese sauce, although that could have been from the gf flour so it may work better with real flour. 

 The 6 year old is my crazy mac and cheese fan.  It's his all time favorite food and he likes it in many different flavors and forms.  He liked this, said it didn't taste like Panera's, but does want me to make it again and he had 2 bowls.  The 9 year old took a bite and said he didn't like it but then said it was because he wasn't expecting that flavor.  Once he knew what to expect, he said it was good and ate his whole bowl.  The 3 year old, who's almost as big of a mac and cheese fan as his brother, ate most of his but didn't finish it and didn't ask for seconds which is unusual for him and mac and cheese.  He helped himself to a whole banana and a yogurt after that, though, so it wasn't because he wasn't hungry.

 For the amount of time and cost this was (who knew the cheapest block of white cheddar Target has is $5 for 7oz??) I'd much rather just go to Panera and have the real thing.

Cheesy Veggie Chowder

Last night we had this Veggie Chowder  for dinner.  I made it similar to the original recipe with only a couple of modifications.  I used omitted the celery and onion and used zucchini instead of broccoli due to food restrictions and personal taste. I used one cup of sharp cheddar and 1 cup of colby jack instead of 2 cups cheddar.  I also used 1 Tablespoon of butter instead of the 2 called for and Bisquick Gluten Free baking mix instead of flour to make it safe for all of us to eat.

It was just a bit time consuming to put together with the veggie chopping, but not too bad.  Start to finish was just about an hour and that was with dealing with a very helpful 3 year old.  It smelled delicious cooking.  Even the 9 year old commented on how good the kitchen smelled when he came in from playing outside.

The finished product was really tasty!  I thought it was really rich, the 2 Tablespoons of butter the recipe originally called for would have made it too rich for me, with 1 it had that good rich flavor without being too heavy.  The 9 year old and 3 year old both loved it and finished their whole bowls and the 9 year old told me more than once that even zucchini tasted good in this soup! The 6 year old is totally not a potato fan and, after about an hour, he finished about half of his small bowl but he did say that he liked it better than the baked potato soup I make.

Yet again, I apologize for the crappy picture.  It's the best one out of the 5 I took, if you can believe it.

I'm sure we'll be making this again.  The prep is pretty much the same as it is for the baked potato soup I make but the general consensus is that the baked potato soup is better so it may not be a regular, but it was enjoyed enough to make in the future to change up our soup options.

Rubber Egg Experiment

A lot of pinners of this Rubber Egg Experiment commented that this was an experiment they loved doing back in school.  I never did this when I was in school, or maybe I was absent that day, so this was my first time experiencing a rubber egg.  I may have been more excited than the kids.

The blog that I pinned, and is linked in the first paragraph, gives good directions on HOW to do the experiment, but it doesn't explain WHY or HOW the egg turns rubbery.  I found this site with a great explanation in to the how's and why's which just happened to tie in perfectly with the acid/base discussions and experiments we've been doing recently.

When we first poured the vinegar over the egg, there was a lot of bubbling and fizzing and cool action going on.  It was fun to watch for awhile and then the rest was a lot of waiting until 7 days was up to check on the final results.  The kids were anxious to see the egg-they kept asking if it had been 7 days yet and, finally, on the 7th day they were quick to remind me that it was time to take our egg out of the glass of vinegar.

I will fully admit I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to touching anything remotely questionable, which I found the egg to be.  Thankfully, the 9 year old doesn't have my squeamishness so he happily was the one to take the egg out.  I did bring myself to touch it, though, and it was pretty darn cool.

The 6 year old takes after me and, while he didn't want to hold it, he did touch it.  The kids were both curious as to whether it would bounce ( a google search tells me that a hard boiled egg turned rubber will, in fact, bounce) and how hard we'd have to drop, or throw, it before it broke.  They were also curious if the shell would "grow back" if we left it in an empty glass for awhile.  Since we only had one egg, I gave them the choice to experiment with how much force it would take to break the egg or if the shell would grow back and they chose the shell option.  We left it in the jar for about 2 more weeks and the shell never really quite came back.  It did get a slightly bumpy surface again and then just started looking nasty and rotting so we threw it out.

This was a fun, easy, educational experiment.  We may do this again soon with a hard boiled egg to make it bounce and maybe even another regular egg to see how strong the naked membranes are.

Baked Zucchini Chips

Growing up, our next door neighbors had a garden that often produced more zucchini than they could use.  They'd give extras to my parents who would make awesome fried zucchini chips.  Those were my very favorite veggie treats back then, when the only veggies I really liked were carrots and corn on the cob.  I haven't had a zucchini chip in over 15 years so when I saw this pin for Baked Zucchini Chips I was super excited to try them.

I made some for dinner tonight and had high hopes for them.  I modified the recipe a bit, using gluten free breadcrumbs and the Bisquick gluten free baking mix so the 3 year old could have them too.  You could easily make these dairy free as well by omitting the Parmesan and using a rice/soy/oat/almond/whatever milk.  I only used one medium zucchini, instead of 2 small like the recipe states, and ended up having a ton of the milk mixture and breadcrumb mixture left over.

Quick and easy to make, smelled delicious while they were baking, and these things were.so.good!  I was a bit bummed out as the zucchini loving 3 year old took one bite and said he didn't like them, then refused to try any more.  I think maybe the texture threw him off, although he loves sauteed zucchini so who knows!  He's 3.  The 6 year old and 9 year old didn't exactly love them, although they both agreed they were better than regular zucchini.  I loved them, however, and ended up eating almost the whole plate myself.  And now I'm stuffed.

Apple Nachos

I don't know why it took me so long to make these things!  I actually saw the recipe before I even knew Pinterest existed and just forgot to make them.  It took me seeing the pin, then having a friend review them, to get me to actually try them.  Apple Nachos!  Pure deliciousness!

You can really do these in so many variations.  We had melted peanut butter, caramel, and chocolate chips on ours.  The link above uses nuts and shredded coconut as well.  These were so incredibly good!  I set them down in the middle of the dinner table for everyone to snack from.  The 3 year old took one apple and the next time I looked over, this is what I found;

He totally claimed them for himself.  When I reached over to take one he reprimanded me with a loud, "Hey!!"  Sorry dude, gotta share these things!  We made short work of them and you'd better believe we'll be making them again and again and again.

The two paper filled plates above are from the corn dogs mini-muffins we also had.