Daring Bakers: Fresh Fraisier

This is my first time trying the Daring Baker's Challenge! Every month one daring baker presents a challenge. This month's challenge was hosted by Cherry Tea Cakes. The challenge was Fresh Fraisiers. I had never attempted this cake before so I thought it best to stick with the basic recipe which includes a chiffon cake filled with delicious pastry cream and fresh strawberries and topped with a thin layer of almond paste. I couldn't wait to try this cake! I found it a bit of work but it really was delicious. If you would like to see all the wonderful Fraisiers this month check out The Daring Kitchen.

Cake Cones

So I have a love/hate relationship with cake pops. I love the creative pops people make and the simple concept behind them. I dislike the ingredients for cake pops. I usually end up making my own cake from scratch as well as the frosting, which is no biggie. When it comes to that important outer candy coating I'm stuck with those disgusting candy melts. Is there an alternative? I'd love to know. All this to say I had some mini cones in the pantry that needed to get used and decided to make cake pop cones. They are ridiculously sweet and again that candy melts flavor-eww. Aside from all that they are really cute and a huge hit with the kids!

Cola & Jam Spareribs

This was a recipe that I least expected to find in the Around my French Table cookbook. Ribs with coca cola and jam? I have made ribs two ways, on the grill and in the slow cooker so I wondered about them being dry and tough cooked in the oven. In the end these were a pleasant surprise! Not only did they turn out to have a wonderful unique flavor but they were perfectly moist and tender, actually kind of amazing! This was probably one of my favorite recipes. If you want to hear more about Dorie Greenspan's cookbook and see other variations of these recipes check out French Fridays with Dorie

Fruit Jellies

I have been wanting to try Agar agar and this is my first attempt. If you are not familiar with Agar agar you can learn all about it here. It is made from seaweed. Some benefits of using this in place of traditional gelatin is that it is a vegan product, it sets up super fast and can be left at room temperature and is very high in fiber! I found this adorable idea at The Food Librarian. This woman does some amazing things with Jello. I used my brownie bites pan to shape them and added a couple drops of Lor Ann oils raspberry flavor to give it a nice berry flavor in addition to the fresh fruit. My kids were pretty impressed with these, they loved how they looked like little ice cubes!

Macaron Madness

It's that time again! The time when I decide to waste an entire day doing one thing, trying to perfect french macarons. This time I made mango flavored with mango filling, lemon with lemon curd filling and pistachio with french buttercream filling. This is a very addictive hobby. I am thinking of ways to make the next batch as soon as I finish the first batch. It's weird. I hope to one day make a fabulous macaron. I could look forever at some expert macaron makers like her and her.

Bacon Egg & Asparagus Salad

After a brief absence from French Fridays with Dorie I have made my return! This week's recipe was the Bacon, egg and asparagus salad. I loved everything about the salad except one thing... the runny egg yolk. I wimped out. I know I probably would have been fine but I just didn't trust the freshness of my eggs and well nobody was really into trying it. So I went with the old standard hard boiled eggs. I think the runny yolk probably adds to the flavor and consistency of the dressing that lacked a bit without it. Overall it looked nice and we all enjoyed it!

bistrot paul bert pepper steak

So this is my second attempt at French Fridays with Dorie and this was definitely a bit more challenging! I am not particularly fond of rare meat and so in an attempt to cook the steak a bit longer I'm afraid I overdid it. The beautiful thing was that the Steak being Filet Mignon was still very tender and really delicious! I enjoyed the cognac sauce as well and served this with simple oven roasted potatoes. This dish felt quite fancy and we enjoyed every bite!

Big Bunny Lunch

Have you seen the bunny rolls at Lunches Fit For A Kid? When I saw these I knew I had to try them for myself. Mine turned out fatter and wider than hers but I think it still passes as a bunny. To round out this big bunny lunch I included a carrot filled with peanuts and dried blueberries, cheese cubes, strawberries and a small container of dark chocolate peanut butter for the bunny.

Mustard Batons

This is my first time participating in French Fridays with Dorie. I am usually trying a few new recipes each week anyways and so I thought it would be fun to join a cooking group. This week's recipe was Mustard Batons. These are a cinch to make! Basically puff pastry, good quality mustard and there you have it, a fantastic appetizer or accompaniment to dinner. You can even make these up ahead and keep in the freezer for future use. They turned out beautiful and they were gobbled up quick!

April Fools Day

Today is one of my favorite days to trick my kids with lots of fun foods. Today's lunch has carrot coins inside the fruit snacks package, broccoli candy and jello in their water bottles. I had to put a bagel sandwich and some crackers with cheese in for substance!

Mini Corn Doggies

Today I'm trying something I've never tried before. It's sometimes hard to offer food cold that the boys are used to eating hot. These are morning star veggie corn dogs with carrots, apples, string cheese and olives. We will see how this one goes!

Shrimp Sushi

This morning's lunch is shrimp sushi using soy wrappers instead of nori seaweed wrappers, jello with peaches, some veggies and fruit and a little bit of bunny crackers. Happy Monday!

Macaron Success

I did make a Valentine lunch for the boys that included a lot of pink, red and lots of hearts. I didn't however post a picture because I spent Valentines day perfecting my macarons. I will say that I made 4 batches and only 1 failed which is a huge success for me. I now have an idea of what works best in my oven and have written down specific instructions for future making. So this week we enjoyed enough macarons to hold us over for quite sometime!

Star Cutters

In an effort to make the boring not so boring I am once again drawn to simple tools such as the star cookie cutter. Everyone hits that day of the week where there isn't much to choose from for lunch. Today we have cheddar cheese sandwich, cottage cheese, pineapple rings with complimentary maraschino cherry and Dad brought home a little donut treat(thanks Dad). So not the greatest but not the worst right?

Lunch Slump

I started taking pictures of the lunches I made to keep a photo record of lunch ideas and also remember what works and what doesn't. Sometimes I still feel like I could get a little more creative with lunch. This is an example of that. Ham and cheese cubes on picks, strawberries with yogurt dip and ants on a log. An advantage of putting food on picks for kids is that it is easy and accessible to them. When your kids only get about 15 minutes to eat(sometimes less) they need all the help they can get. I'm glad my kids can sit down, open up and start eating rather than stand in a long lunch line and be left with only 5 minutes to eat!

Realistic Expectations

When I started packing lunches for school almost two years ago I though every day needed to be unique and artistic and wow. This year when I started to pack more than one lunch a day I found that I still wanted to do those kind of lunches but sometimes I would have to just pack a decent lunch. Most often this is what lunches at my house look like. Nothing outstanding just trying to pack a healthy homemade style lunch. This is Yogurt with peaches, almond granola, cheese crackers, ham pick, cheese and brownie. See? Nothing fancy. I wish I could do amazing creative lunches everyday but I also wish my house would stay clean and I'd never have to wash another living thing again, and we both know that isn't going to happen. So here's to keeping it real and maybe getting a maid someday...I can dream.

Easter Lunch

This is what the boys had for their Easter lunch. Basic bagel with ham and cheese, Annie's bunny crackers, pineapple cherries on picks, carrots and bunny pop made from dipping an Oreo in melted white chocolate and decorating a face.

Colored Carrots

This lunch isn't that exciting except that it has colored carrots in it! Red chile quesadillas, peaches and colored carrots. These carrots not only look beautiful but each carrot has it's own unique healthy feature. For example yellow carrots contain xanthophylls, a substance that supports vision and lowers lung cancer risks. Red carrots contain lycopene, which helps prevent heart disease and some cancers. Purple carrots contain anthocyanins, pigments that act as powerful antioxidants to neutralize harmful free radicals. White carrots lack pigment, but may contain other health-promoting phytochemicals. So now you know. Stores around here carry these carrots every couple of weeks so they really are a treat.

Yaki -Onigiri and Hot Dogs

Believe it or not as much as I love bento I've never given my kids octo-dogs. So I bought some nitrate free hot dogs from Trader Joe's and thought I would try it. Also at Trader Joe's was frozen yaki-onigiri. Now I've always just made regular onigiri or rice balls, so being as these were different and already made well I figured why not? Turns out my kids loved them! Also they even ate the cold octo- dogs. This was a pretty successful lunch overall but definitely an occasional one. A great recipe for yaki onigiri is found at

lunch in a box. I think I will try making and freezing some myself.

St. Patricks Day

Happy St. Patty's day! Last night I thought I would get lunch started for today by making bagels and mixing in some green candied cherries. So here's how it went down. Problem number one: apparently candied cherries are a Christmas only item. I only tried two stores but that was enough. So I thought I would substitute green jelly candies. Okay so this is where that rule "read the whole recipe first" comes in. I have made these before but it's been awhile and I ended up adding baking soda to my bagel dough that was only supposed to go in the boiling water. I didn't give up hope right away, but yes they were are disaster. So at this point I realize I'm out of eggs and it's too late to go out. So fortunately I had a vegan recipe for pretzel dough, and out popped these green pretzel shamrocks. So there you have it. Whipped up some green pudding, snap peas , crackers and cheese-voila! St. Patty's day lunch!