This recipe is so EASY and YUMMY! However, I can’t take any of the credit. I found this fabulous recipe courtesy of Alina @ Russian Season (one of my favourite blogs) and she found it @ the Stone Soup. My children thank-you both, as do I. ‘Mommy knows’ a good recipe when she sees it!

Prep: 10 minutes Freeze: 6 hours

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of honey
2 1/2 cups of cream (35% fat)

(and I can’t follow a recipe, so I added)

1 teaspoon of vanilla (to the whipped cream portion)

AND

A teensie bit of grated vanilla bean (to the honey and cream portion)

I just couldn’t stand it, I had to add the vanilla, but you don’t, so I am going to continue to call it TWO ingredient ice cream.

1. Whip 1.5 cups of whipping cream (plus 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract) until it forms stiff peaks, refrigerate.
2. Heat honey on low heat until it is very runny and add the remaining 1 cup of cream. Stir together until well blended (and grate in teensie bit of vanilla bean).
3. Add honey/cream mixture to the whipped cream. Whisk until well blended.
4. Freeze approximately 6 hours until the mixture is the consistency of ice cream.

Serve with the topping of your choice –> Enjoy!

MK xo
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Frittata – an egg based dish similar to an omelet or quiche.

It has come to my attention {cough, cough –> Joanne}, that I have several EASY meals that I know how to make without digging out a cookbook and that not everyone does. I prefer, simple meals made from real food. We eat very little processed or frozen food here. In fact, I’ve even started baking my own bread (I’m bragging again).

I think it’s time that we stopped buying prepared foods and started making meals from REAL FOOD. You know … the kind of food your great-grandmother would recognize as food. This particular recipe takes 5 MINUTES of prep time. I doubt you can pull out of rush-hour traffic and get a fast food meal in less than 5 MINUTES.

One of my favourites is Frittata. It’s tasty, healthy and a great way to clean out the fridge (really). The basis of this dish is 8 eggs and 2 tablespoons of water, after that, the sky is the limit. The recipe below is indicative of what I had on hand (I really need to grocery shop), you could substitute or add all kinds of other meat and veg. For example: bacon (chopped), spinach, cilantro, basil, oregano, tomato, bell pepper …

I am sure you get the idea!

Prep: 5 minutes, Cooking: 30 minutes

Ingredients

* 8 eggs
* 2 tablespoons water
* 1/2 cup onion, chopped
* 1/2 cup ham, chopped
* 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided
* 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
* 1/2 teaspoon each of salt, pepper, cayenne and chili powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Beat eggs and water with wire whisk in medium bowl. Stir in ham, 1/2 of the cheese (both cheddar and mozzarella), onion and spices.
3. Pour into greased 9-inch pie plate; sprinkle with remaining cheese.
4. Bake 30 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.

This recipe generally feeds our family of 2 adults and 3 children. It’s great served with a fresh salad.

MK xo
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Georgia loves wee plastic animals. She’s an animal nut in general. The Easter Bunny brought her a tube of plastic farm animals (the rabbits getting cheaper and cheaper) and with it was a small plastic play mat. She loved it and call it her map. Unfortunately, it lasted about 2 days.

It got me thinking about creating a longer lasting version from felt. I searched the internet high and low looking for some ideas, but there is very little out there. I decided to make it up :)

I started with a very large piece of green felt. I bought this green felt for a girl guide craft (15 years ago) that never came to fruition. I just knew it would eventually come in handy.

Next Georgia and I chatted about what she might like on the ‘map’. She wanted a farm and a jungle, and I had visions of mountains and a lake. I suggested some highways, she wanted dirt roads.

I drew a rough version on brown paper and then drew some rough paper templates. As you can see you don’t need to get fancy!

I cut out all of the shapes in felt. I have a bunch 8.5×11 sheets of felt from Michaels and the Dollar store around to use for most of the shapes, but not the right colours for my mountains. I was determined that this ‘map’ wouldn’t cost anything, so I used some felted sweaters that I had left over from a previous craft project for the mountains.

The mountains were created using large blocks of colour. I cut out the various pieces and then pinned and sewed them together using a LARGE ziz-zag stitch.

I wanted the barn to be a uniform shape, but didn’t have a pattern. I drew a 1/2 barn and then folded over a piece of fabric and cut on the fold. Tada … a symetrical shape.

Green triangles make great spruce trees.

I wanted the roads and rivers to be a uniform width, but I didn’t want them to be just straight lines. I taped two sharpies to either side of a cordless screwdriver and then drew out strips of road and river on brown and blue fabric. A girls gotta do, what a girls gotta do.

Once all of the shapes were cut out, we played around with placement for awhile, once satisfied I started sewing pieces together starting with the rivers, then the roads.

Georgia especially loves to play farm, I wanted the scenery to be somewhat similar to our Alberta landscape, and if you’ve ever flown over the Alberta prairie it’s like flying over a patchwork quilt in browns and greens and golds. I used several pieces of scrap felt and one flowered fabric to try and replicate that behind the farm.

Once all the features were sewed together I started sewing them down on the large green backing. I started with the rivers again, then the roads and lakes and then the finishing shapes. I sewed the mountains on last. Most the the features were sewn with the machine using a zigzag stitch but some of the shapes (trees and barn) are beyond my sewing ability and I used liquid stitch and then sewed them on by hand.

I decided to put a backing and because I had so much green felt left over I decided to use that. At this point I realised that neither of the pieces (front or back) was square. The edges weren’t lining up very well … (CRAP)! I decided that rather than trying to make a perfectly square lines, I’d just sew the two sides together free hand and then trim the edges with pinking shears.

It worked.

Georgia loves the finished ‘map’.

MK xo
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Silk tie dyed Easter eggs are so much fun to make and way less messy than buying a dying kit or using vinegar and food colouring!

First you’ll need to start with 100% silk ties. Right now we’re on skiing vacation, so rather than rid Mr. MK of a few duds laying around in his closet, I picked up a few from a thrift shop in Banff. It’s a good thing we were buying them to destroy, because the pickin’s were slim and ugly (unlike me … ahahaha).

A good looking tie doesn’t necessarily mean a good looking Easter egg, so go ahead and use whatever you can find. Generally, I’ve found brighter colours turn out the best, but the results are always a bit of a surprise and what make this so much fun.

Go ahead and open up the ties by removing the stitching up the middle. Most likely you’ll find that there is a white liner inside the tie. Set this aside to use later on.

Wrap your egg in the silk fabric and tie it up at one end. We used dental floss, mostly because we are on holiday and I didn’t bring any sort of string. Just call me McGuyver … or not!

This is where you can get creative. You can use one large piece of fabric or several small strips. We found it was easier for small hands, if the fabric was wet when it was wrapped around the egg.

In addition, through trial and error we discovered that you don’t get large white spaces on your finished Easter eggs if you wrap the egg many times over with the string.

After you’ve wrapped the egg in silk you’ll need to wrap it in a clean white cotton. Normally, I’d cut up an old pillowcase, but our holiday accommodation doesn’t come with old pillow cases, so we used the white liner that was removed from the tie earlier.

Boil the eggs for 20 minutes in water and a 1/4 cup of white vinegar.

My kids are impatient, so I have a bowl of cold water waiting for the cooked eggs. I remove them from boiling water and let them sit in the cold water for 10 minutes.

The kids love unwrapping them! Every one is different.

Enjoy :)

MK xo
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Lizzy turned 10 yesterday! I know it’s cliche, but time flies. Where is my baby? Who is this BIG girl who longs for skinny jeans and earrings?

happy birthday lizzy

We had a home party on Friday with some Rockband, hot dogs, cake pops and candy sushi. The candy sushi was the craft and the take home treat. Yes, I am a cheapskate.

candy sushi by mommyknows

The sushi was inexpensive and easy, more importantly the kids had fun. One child told me it was the best party she’d ever been to. I’m not quite sure if she’s been party deprived or an ass-kisser, but she certainly scored points with this mommy.

Here’s how it’s done:

rice krispie treats

I used this recipe to make up a batch of Rice Krispie squares. I added 8 extra marshmallows to the recipe to make sure they wouldn’t be too crispy. I used the microwave instructions, they worked perfectly.

trimmed

Once they had cooled, I trimmed up the slabs of Rice Krispie treats into nice neat rectangles and stacked them on wax paper for the party. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for the kids. Georgia and I enjoyed eating all the trimmings.

ready for the party

In the end, I made 3 full batches of Rice Krispie Squares one after the other, to get 8 thin slabs for the party and a couple of practice slabs for Georgia and I. It took about 20 minutes total.

I’ve never made candy sushi before, so I thought I’d better practice before I tried it out on the kids. As you can imagine Georgia was extra excited. I sat her across from me at the kitchen table and pretended she was the birthday party. I figured if I could get a three year old on a sugar high to make candy sushi, then I could handle a gang of 10 year olds.

twizzlers and gummy worms work well

Add candy. I bought colored twizzlers, gummi worms, jujube fish and fruit roll-ups.

roll tightly

Roll the Rice Krispie treats around the candy.

looking good

Don’t roll it more than one full roll. You don’t want it to be too thick.

trim excess

Trim the excess with a sharp knife.

a better mom than I would have brushed her hair before now

Georgia was having a good time.

my mom rocks!

Make sure you allow snacking!

sticky sweet

Once you’ve trimmed the roll, wrap the fruit roll up around it (squeeze). Green fruit roll-ups would be best, but I couldn’t find them. I left the plastic wrap on my roll-up while I applied it to the candy, none of the kids bothered to do this. It works well both ways, just make sure to remove it before cutting.

adult supervision required

Now it’s time to cut your candy roll into to cute California roll style sushi. You’ll need a sharp knife to get through the gummy worms and twizzlers in the center. Georgia wanted to do it herself. I let her … practice makes perfect.

all 10 fingers intact

For all the worry-warts out there, the cutting was accompanied by repeated safety warnings. She survived the cutting with all of her fingers in tact.

pretty candy sushi

The nice thing about not finding green fruit roll-ups is the pretty product. I’m loving the colors.

candy nigiri roll

I made the slabs long enough for each child to make two rolls of candy sushi. They then used any leftovers to make a Nigiri style sushi. I also gave each of them a ‘bento box’ to take home their creations. It curbed the urge to eat it all.

easy-peasy

Georgia managed to make these with no help at all.

candy sushi by mommyknows

Here it is … candy sushi by Mommyknows and Georgia.

MK xo
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