Shimmy Shimmy Cake!

I am admittedly a 21 year old trapped in a mid-thirties something body.  I love jello shots!  I love making them, I love eating them, and I even don't mind the hangover from them.  Ok, the hangover sucks, but that doesn't keep me from consuming a few extra.  Ok, 10 extra.    

I hosted a small get together at my house for New Years Eve and really wanted to make a fancy jello shot.  I came up with a Pop Rocks champagne jello shot that you pick up with your hands to eat instead of those annoying plastic cups.  They turned out soooo pretty!

Then I tried them with some of my edible glitter:

Then on a stick:

Beautiful, delicious, and dangerously intoxicating! 

Champagne Jello Shots with Pop Rocks

Ingredients:

1/2 cup 7up (this  is what I had on hand, but I would use creme soda next time)

1/2 cup champagne

2 envelops of unflavored gelatin

1 cup Pinnacle Whipped Vodka (this is the absolute best vodka to use when making Jello Shots, just trust me on this one!)

Directions:

Pour the 7up and champagne into a small sauce pan.  Stir.  Pour gelatin over the mixture.  Let sit for 1 minute.  Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly until the gelatin disolves (about 5 minutes).  Add vodka.  Pour into a square baking dish (I used one of my metal cake pans).  Refridgerate until set firm.  I put mine in the freezer for 30 minutes.  Cut and plate then top with Pop Rocks.  Note:  do not plate until ready to serve as the sugar melts the jello.  Also do not refreeze after plating, this makes them stick to the plate. 

I will definately be making these bad boys again!!

Happy New Year,

Rachel

Halloween, Halloween, Trick or Treat.  

Our bentos can't be beat!

Contents:

• Mummy Sandwich - Bread, ham, and cheese cut with circle cutter to make the sandwich.  Pulled pieces of string cheese apart to make the "bandages".  Cut pepperoni circles for the eyes.
• Frankenstein Sandwich - Bread, ham and cheese cut with a square cutter to make the sandwich.  Sprayed the top piece of bread with green Wilton Food Mist.  Free hand cut Nori for the hair.  Used a circle cutter on yellow sliced cheese for the bolts and eyeballs.  Circle cutter for the pepperoni eyes.  Leftover string cheese slices for the mouth and eyebrows.
• Black cat under a full moon  - Fruit Leather cut with a cat shaped cutter.  Full moon cheddar cheese slices cut with circle cutters.  Sitting on top of Triscuits.
• Ghost - cucumbers cut with a ghost cutter.  Black sesame seed eyes.
• Sword of grapes
• Ranch Dressing in the sauce container

Between my husband and I, we have 3 girls.  All I know is girly stuff.  Like princesses, fashion, jewelry, make-up, glitter, rainbows and unicorns.  I know nothing about boy stuff like pirates, reptiles, and whatever else boys like (see, I can't even list anything).  When my Bento Princess wanted a Pirate themed bento, I kinda freaked out.  Um, we don't have any pirate themed stuff because our house is full of pink fluff and rainbow glitter.  We ended up compromising with a Hello Kitty Pirate themed Bento which is as far as I go on the dark side.  

(Sorry about the picture quality, I can't find my camera and had to use my cell phone. )

Contents:

•  Sandwich - used a Hello Kitty shaped cookie cutter to cut the bread.  The bow, eyes, nose, whiskers, and patch are all cut from fruit leather.  I used a dog bone shaped fondant cutter to cut the bow. Also added the bone shaped picks to the corners
• Pirate Chest - We had this in our toy box and I think it came from an old Cinderella Polly Pockets toy set.  Filled it with Goldfish.
• Skulls - used a fondant skull shaped cutter on the carrots, Nori face punch for the eyes and black sesame seed for the nostrils.
• Rings - Grape tomatos on ring shaped picks

My 1st Grade Bento Princess

XOXO,

Proud Momma Rachel

I have a new favorite tool to make Bentos with:  Wilton Color Mist food spray.  It's food safe and you can color so many things with it, not just cakes and cookies: bread, cheese, crackers, chips, pastas, potatos, etc.  I originally bought some for a cake I was making a long time ago and I completely forgot about it until I recently cleaned out my cake supply cabinent.  I decided to give it a try on some potato chips and the color held really well without sogging out the chips.  Here are some tests I did on a piece of white bread I cut into 1" hearts:

 I put a piece of uncolored bread in the picture too so you could see the intensity of the color.  Color Mist is a food coloring just like you would use for dying Easter eggs or icing, so be careful to cover surfaces you don't want getting dyed in the process (including your hands).

Wilton Color Mist comes in just about every color you can think of.  So the next time you are trying to come up with ideas to add some color to your Bentos, give this product a try!

XOXO,

Rachel 

Every year I help the kids run a cupcake and lemonade stand in the spring before it gets too hot.  They seem to be increasing their profits more and more every year, so I decided to make the lemonade stand a lesson in business and entrepreneurship.  I'm a little OCD to say the least, here is our first Board of Directors meeting agenda:

You think that is bad...check out the graph I made to show the actual versus projected sales....

Yea, like I said...OCD to the MAX!   The girls came up with the name Little Lemonade Ladies for the company...so cute, don't you think?

We did a couple of new things this year including selecting a charity to donate some of the proceeds.  They make so much money doing this every year I thought it would be a nice life lesson to select and donate to a local charity.  We selected HayleyCurls for Hope foundation that helps children and families with cancer and we also chose Blue Paws Rescue Group (now it's Starfish Cat and Kitten Rescue Group).  The kids couldn't decide on one versus the other so they chose both. 

The girls also came up with some great ideas on additional treats we could serve with our cupcakes including Lemonheads and Saltwater Taffy.  We also decided to package the cupcakes "to-go" style this year since most of our business is just drive-by rather than a sit and chat. 

Sweet Summertime Treats

Lemon Cupcakes, Strawberry Cupcakes, Lemonheads, and Taffy, oh my!! 

And let's not forget the star of the show, the Lemonade...

We even had a Lowe's delivery truck stop to buy some Lemonade and Cupcakes....

Did you see the little table and chairs for the sit-and-enjoy section? 

Here are more of our lovely customers:

Seriously, who could resist this adorableness?

In the end, the girls raked in $97.50.  Dad (not wanting to feel completely left out of the good deedery) matched the donation to Starfish Rescue group ($50!) and they were able to cover the cost of chipping, vaccinating, and adopting 5 ferral cats.  We are still waiting to make our donation to Hayley Curls because we are hoping to make a special trip to Dell Children's Hospital to help decorate the room of a sick child.  I would love for the kids to see hands-on how their efforts went to help this great organization.  I will do a separate post when that happens.  

We will definitely be continuing our Lemonade Stand tradition but will make some changes to it next year.  The cupcake recipes I used made a whopping 63 cupcakes and we had a few leftovers that ended up in the trash.  As lovely as the lemonheads and taffy were on the table, they weren't big sellers so we may just do the taffy as a give away.  All in all, it was a great day and the Little Lemonade Ladies did a wonderful job!! 

XOXO,

Rachel 

Last March, I hosted my neighborhood 'Ladies Night In'.  I made a giant batch of Sangria for the party and I really thought we would have some leftover, but we finished off the entire container which was double the recipe below.  I had a Kindergarten field trip the next day to San Marcos and 3 of us Kinder-Mommas were really hurting on the drive down there (I think it was the anti-gravity house that really did us in though!).  Check out the recipe and you can see why...

1 bottle of Red Wine (Merlot)

1 bottle of red wine (merlot)

1 bottle of Riesling

2 cups of rum

1 cup brandy

1 cup lime juice

1 cup oj

Blood Orange pulp

Simple syrup to taste

Chopped fresh fruit - I used peaches, oranges, and strawberries

Special Thanks to my friend, Johnny M, for sharing his restaurant's recipe with me.   Enjoy with extreme caution and good friends and you're guaranteed to have a fabulous time serving these babies!

XOXO,

Rachel