Easter Treats 2011

All packaged up and ready to deliver to some of our "favorite Peeps."

One more school day then
ready to spend 10 days at home with my darling daughters.

CD wants a photo shoot, both girls have a Royal Tea Party planned, CJ is getting things all organized for Lemonade Day and I have my fingers crossed for warm weather and a play date with some friends.

Our Prize

Thanks to a give away by our friend Sassy we were the winners of some
personalized stickers from Delightdesignsbiz.
They were delivered at a perfect time;
the girls and I had just finished harvesting the berries on
our chokecherry tree and made them into jelly.
The stickers fit perfectly on the tops of our jars!!

Unfortunately it didn't set so well.
It didn't stop us from putting it on some fresh bread.

Though I think a better solution is using it for a thick waffle syrup.

You just never know who will receive a little "sweet treat".

Happy Spring!!

CJ and I are hoping that by creating these dragonflies we can hurry Spring on her way to town. We found the great idea to make dragonflies out of Starburst candies here . If for whatever reason that link isn't working on your end try it this way http://chiccookiekits.blogspot.com/2009/03/oh-so-easy-dragonfly-toppers.html We've packaged them up and they are ready to take flight to spread some spring joy. Maybe some will make their way to your house!

Tomorrow is Moto-Moto's birthday... wait and see what CJ has planned for that!

Class Treats

As promised, here are the Giant RK Kisses we made for CJ's class treats on Friday. (When I pulled out the recipe it occured to me that I've been creating these for well over 10 years! I think that we first made them at the home where I nannied. "My" oldest boy has a birthday on February 13th and he took them as his birthday treat in grade 1 ... well that young boy is turning 20 this week!! Happy Birthday Jon! Yikes, how time flies! )

I struggled with how to get a good picture of them, the foil really threw things off. BUT here it is:


You need a few funnels, available anywhere ~ the cheaper the better!

Caramel RK Treats

16 cups of Rice Krispies (set aside in a huge bowl)

I thought that I had regular RK but it turns out that all I had was the

Holiday RK so my kisses look a little festive ... wrong holiday though!!

Tee Hee. They'll taste fine and I'm sure the class won't care!

Add together:

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup butter or margarine

1 3/4 cups light corn syrup

Boil 3 minutes, remove from heat.

Add one can sweetened condensed milk.

Boil 3 additional minutes.

Pour over RK and mix well.

Form kisses by first greasing your chosen size of funnel (first time only). Scoop up the RK mixture.

Then turn onto waxed paper immediately. Do this approximately 49 more times. (I used the itty-bitty funnel for most of them but made a huge one for Moto-Moto. I think that it would make about 50 class treat size ones.)

Let set up for at least on hour but beware of little ones helping themselves!

I give them a flip to dry the bottoms too and leave them another 1/2 hour. Clean up the dishes, making sure you get all the caramel off the spoon.

Wrap them with foil, add a little personalized note in light blue font so it's like the real deal. Well, I'm off to finish cleaning the kitchen without my helpers and continue to wrap the rest for Friday's party.

Teacher Valentine Treats

Tonight CJ and I finished packing up treats for her teacher and all the helpers in her classroom. We snuck our own personalized messages into premade fortune cookies. You could make your own but it was pretty easy to sneak our messages into these ones. Of course, we dipped them into chocolate and added heart sprinkles. Everything tastes better with a little chocolate.
We packed them on shredded red paper (from one of the finest stores) in little take-out boxes ~ we picked up a whole sleeve of them for cheap cheap. I think you can get them at wedding stores now or bigger ones at Michaels... added a little ribbon, a foam heart with a button & more ribbon. I think they turned out pretty cute!

This was also a "teachable craft" ~ it gave CJ practise at the first step in Shoe-Tying 101. Look at this darling at work ...

Just put it here ...

Cross it over, poke it through ...

PULL ...

And ta-da, I did it!!!

It was a good night. Little sister played quietly (well, not so quietly) with her puppets while we got this little job done. Stay tuned tomorrow for class treats Giant Caramel RK Kisses. You should have time to make a shopping list and make them for all your little friends too!

Valentine's Day is on the Way

The girls and I whipped up some Valentine sugar cookies. I actually followed a recipe (I don't do that very often) and they turned out pretty good! Of course CJ did most of the decorating so they looked fabulous!

And I needed help with the dishes so the girls started by "washing" the icing off everything! They really are sweet enough already and didn't need the extra!!

M& M Pretzel Treats

We are still busy here at Mrs. Claus' kitchen. Every year I think we have things done and I'm still "making a mess" as Bob says! Here is what CJ & I made this morning. I saw it on some blog awhile ago and can't remember where so if this is your idea THANK YOU and leave me a comment. You need waffle pretzels which we found at Superstore, HUGS and M&Ms which were are Walmart.

Place the waffle pretzel on a baking sheet. Get your helper to unwrap the HUGS and put one in the middle of each pretzel. Place in a 200 degree oven for about 3 minutes. Make sure you watch them, you only want them to melt a LITTLE or you'll have a mess!

Take them out, press a M&M in the middle of each one. Let them set again. (If you live somewhere cold just throw them out on the deck for a few minutes and that'll do it. NOT too long or your M&Ms will crack ~ ours did.)

I think they look kind of fancy ~ Saucy will be proud!

Christmas Treats

What better way to spend an evening . . . listening to Michael Buble's Let it Snow ( I love him!! Really love him. I saw him in concert last January and it was incredible. A girlfriend treated me for a baby gift! How sweet was that!) Okay, so I'm listening to Michael AND finishing up some treats.

This started out as Sassy's Moose Munch. Check out her recipe at http://sweetsassystudio.blogspot.com/. I had some melted dark chocolate left over from pretzels so I took a couple cups of caramel corn, and the same amount of mini marshmallows and broken graham crackers, made a little "goodie salad" and used the chocolate as dressing. Cooled it outside ( because it's freezing and there is NO room in my freezer) then broke up and dumped the chocolate salad back into the remainder of the caramel corn.

Now Sassy, dig out your paper crimper and make waxed paper "chip bags" and fill with 'Gourmet Moose Munch'. Then to jazz it up I made a bigger "chip bag" and put on a label.

Then it was on to finish CJ's class treats for tomorrow. We used our Stampin Up punches to make little snowman faces (with those two Sharpie colours) & added some ribbon to some mint patties for instant treats and a little ornament ... if it makes it to the tree.

Caramel RK Balls

Brrrrrr, it's cold out there! It was -31 this morning when we got up, I have no idea what it was with the wind! Good day to stay inside and make gooey yummy treats. These ones make Auntie Viki's teeth hurt but we like them.

It's so much easier when you have a great helper too!

Here's the recipe:

4 cups crispy rice cereal (Holiday Rice Krispies)
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup margarine
30 individually wrapped caramels, unwrapped ( we used 45)
1 (16 ounce) package large marshmallows

(we cut our marshmallows in half using wet kitchen scissors so they didn't stick)

DIRECTIONS

Line trays with waxed paper. Pour rice cereal into a shallow dish or bowl.

In a double boiler, combine condensed milk, margarine and caramels. Cook, stirring, over simmering water, until melted and smooth.

Using two forks, dip marshmallows one at a time into caramel mixture, then roll in rice cereal. Place on waxed paper until set.