Blackberry, Apricot Flower Pies

After having so much fun with our Heart-shaped Apple Pies for Valentine's Day, we decided to make pies again.

This time - flowers!

It became obvious way before actually putting these things in the oven that our flower design was not going to hold up well during baking. And well, it didn't. Much of our filling oozed out onto the pan while baking. But they were super cute and they did still taste good!

We put a small dab of cream cheese in the middle then topped with a mixture of blackberry preserves and apricot preserves (just mixed the two together in a bowl), put the other flower on top, crimped edges, sprinkled tops with sugar and baked on a cookie sheet at 425 degrees for about 10 min.

Of course, Amelia's favorite part about making pies, is pie crust ceiling art:

Huh? You have to know my daughter for this to make any sense. Even then, really, well just go with it.

Pizza Rolls

The idea for pizza rolls came while making Chicken Broccoli Rolls. We thought pepperoni and cheese wrapped up in the crescent rolls would be good, or ham and cheese rolls with ham and swiss (maybe a honey mustard dipping sauce?), turkey and cheddar. You get the idea. Amelia also suggested putting spinach and artichoke dip in the rolls. I thought that was pure genius for an 8yo to come up with. And if I didn't absolutely love spinach and artichoke dip exactly the way it is, to the point that I couldn't imagine wasting any of it to wrap it up in a roll, I might actually try it.

Ok, back to the pizza rolls.

I pressed together 2 triangles of crescent dough, so they would be a little bigger and easier to work with. Filled each one with about 6-8 pepperonis and a small handful of mozzarella cheese.

Then rolled each one up, tucked the sides in, sprinkled with a little garlic powder, italian seasoning and parmesan cheese. Placed in the oven on a baking sheet at 350 degrees for about 12 min.

Served with marinara on the side for dipping.

Enjoy!

Social Parade

F is for Failure

"F" is for February and also for "failure". February was an epic FAIL for our family's 2011 New Year's resolution. I've lost count, at this point, how many times we "cheated" and ate out (beyond our established "exceptions" to the rule). It started out small as I assume all New Year's resolution crash and burns usually do. So, now like the rest of the country, we made it into month 2 of our resolution before total failure!

At first, I planned to just get back on track and not mention this little boo-boo. But, as my husband reminded me (I hate when he does that), failure is a part of life.

Relapse is a part of recovery.

Changing old habits is well....hard!

Admitting to failure is even harder.

So, there you have it. We had a month of colossally bad planning and follow through and lots of eating out as a result.

I'd love to say we have gotten ourselves back together and are back on track. Actually, when my husband suggested I blog about our failure, I thought "Sure. I'll do that. Just as soon as we are back on track." Um, that's not that much better than just ignoring it and pretending it didn't happen.

But let's look on the bright side. This month, I made 2 of my 3 planned Valentine projects. And I organized a drawer!

Now, pay no attention to the fact that this is the only organized space in my entire home. It's still a nice drawer! Nevermind I have been working on organizing our play room for close to a month now (a weekend project at best), did you see the lunch drawer?

Here, get a good look:

Another bright side...we ate at home last night. We had Costco Orange Chicken:

It was pretty tasty. Here is the recipe for that:

1. Drive to Costco
2. Buy the box of frozen orange chicken
3. Follow instructions on the package
4. Make some rice (I did actually cook my own rice)
5. Feed it to your family

Hey, when you are used to getting F's, you should celebrate C's!

School Lunch Station

I saw this idea for a school lunch station at A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Here is my drawer in my kitchen before:

No, this is not my junk drawer. This is:

Yes, that is my knee keeping the drawer from falling out. More about that later. Back to this:

This drawer was holding a bunch of coupons. I never really use coupons. I always think I am going to, so that's why I save them (clearly in no organized manner), but there really are better uses for this drawer.

So, here is my new school lunch station:

Pretty neat, huh? My kids make their own lunches (well, mostly) and I think this will really help them to have all of the things they need in one spot. I put forks and spoons in baskets from the dollar store:

I put the sandwich bags and snack bags in there as well as the plastic containers they use and their thermos for hot lunches.

Of course, this house packs lunches in Sun Devil containers!

It was a pretty simple project and now my drawer looks much better!





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Our Valentine Dinner

We decided to skip getting a babysitter and making a reservation at a busy restaurant and stay home and have Valentine's dinner as a family. It was a lot of fun. Amelia really enjoyed helping set the table. Notice the dangling hearts above the table? Amelia made those :) She also made the place settings. Aren't they cute?

We actually had take out from Pei Wei for dinner, but we made little heart shaped apple pies for dessert.

I got the idea for the little pies from Our Best Bites They were really fun to make.

I thought the kids would enjoy working on these too, but they were far more interested in throwing the extra pie crust at the ceiling to make them stick.

They were a very tasty little snack size pie. Perfect after a really filling dinner.

Ingredients:

Refrigerated pie crust (or homemade crust)
1 large green apple, peeled, cubed
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2Tbsp butter
1Tbsp cinnamon

Melt the butter and sugar in a saucepan add apple pieces. Simmer on low, stirring constantly until apples are soft.

Roll out pie crust, cut out heart shapes and fill center with apple pie filling.

Cover with another heart crust, crimp edges with a fork and poke holes in top with fork.

Place pies on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with sugar.

Bake in oven at 375 degrees for 15min until pies just start to brown.

Definitely making these again!







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Deck of Cards Love Book

This is my Valentine present to my husband this year.

I first saw this idea here, but I have seen a few variations of this project on different sites.

I painted the cover with black paint and decorated with simple heart stickers. I printed out 52 statements in different fonts and sizes and glued them to each card. Punched holes in each one, bound together with metal rings and done!

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