Freezer Meal Exchange

I am hosting my first Freezer Meal Exchange tomorrow and I'm pretty excited! I am making Sweet Potato Black Bean Burritos.  Here are some tips on hosting your own:
https://newleafwellness.biz/2013/04/18/how-to-organize-a-freezer-meal-swap/

Grass Heads

We just started an awesome science curriculum which I love so far.  It is called Mystery Science.  I would highly recommend it for homeschoolers or classroom teachers.  Our first experiment was making these lovely grass heads (I know the photos are terrible quality).  The kids had to plan how to position the head to make the hair grow the way they wanted it.  They are pretty excited about giving them haircuts. Eli's head is not pictured because it is having some serious balding issues ;)

Gnocchi

Tonight I remembered why I never make gnocchi.   I always anticipate it being a much easier task than it actually is.  But, I did it with the "help" of 3 little people and we did thoroughly enjoy it for supper tonight.   Here is the recipe I used just in case anyone is feeling like taking on the world and making some gnocchi.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/gnocchi-101335

Bedtime Experiment

We're going to try this idea tonight.  Here's more on why it's supposedly going to work: The Bedtime Pass

Roasted Red Peppers

Roasted Red Pepper recipe

Party Time!

One of my boys just turned four and we had a great time preparing for the party.  I was reminded again about how so much of the enjoyment of celebrations is in the anticipation and preparation.

All you need to make a pinata is newspaper, a balloon, and flour and water mixed to a 1:1 ratio.

Then you just slather the mix onto your strips of newspaper and slap them on the balloon.  This was one of my favourite activities when I was growing up.  I am amazed at how often my mom let us do paper mache, because it is most certainly one of the messiest crafts out there!

We glued tissue paper to it after it had dried for 24 hrs.  I have to admit, I did not have high hopes for the sturdiness of our pinata, but it actually held up well!  They each got to take many swings at it before it started to give way.

Next up was the cake...my son loves baseball, so I thought I would try a simple baseball cake.  I am one of those people who sees a picture of beautifully decorated cookies or cupcakes and thinks, that doesn't look too hard, I'm sure I can do it.  Then, it ends up it is way harder than it looks and I have to tell people my children helped me decorate them!  But, this actually is as easy as it looks.  I just baked a cake in an oiled, oven-safe bowl and it came out great.

 There was a little crack, but nothing a little icing can't fix.

The finished product...don't look too closely at my stitching.

All in all we had a great celebration and it was an added bonus that the cake and pinata turned out :)

Fermented Salsa

Summer is a very short and sweet time where I live, so in order to make the most of it, I completely stopped posting anything.  Now that we are starting to back in the rhythm of fall, I am going to try and get back into it again.

I recently tried making fermented salsa, which I was incredibly excited about making.  My sister made claims about how easy it is, and she was right!  I have to admit that when I tasted my batch I wasn't so sure of the "fizzy" salsa taste, but I added the salsa to my tomato sauce tonight and it turned out wonderfully.  So, maybe I will make a few more jars...and the beauty of it is, that it is so easy to do just that.

My Inspiration and Recipes:
http://experimentingaswegrow.wordpress.com
http://ozuke.com/