Entertaining: My Miniature Party Planner Assistants

I try to throw parties for the kiddos for two basic reasons:

1. I want them to have photographic proof of fun childhood memories.
2. I want them to throw fun parties for my grandkids in 20 years.

So in addition to having them help set-up and clean-up, I always try to get them to help me plan out the food, activities and invites.  Sometimes they have very creative ideas.  I also have them give feedback on parties and we discuss what went well and what we should change for next year.  Time will only tell if these strategies will do any good decades from now when they are throwing their own parties, but in the meantime, we'll just enjoy the parties we put on together.

Our latest Halloween Shin-dig

Cooking: Basil Past Its Prime? Make Pesto!

Fresh pesto atop a tomato & avocado salad

Ok, so in my denial of oncoming winter, I didn't harvest all of my basil before it froze.  But I'll be darned if I'll let fresh basil go to waste.  So what is the best thing to do with sad-looking basil?  Make pesto of course!  This works not only with frozen basil from your patio, but also the fresh basil you bought at the store and then a few days later started looking a bit dark and wilted in the fridge.  All of it's flavor is still there and it's plenty safe to eat - it just has lost it's plant-like pep. 
Here's a visual story of my waste-not, want-not basil story:

So, I brought in all my sad, frozen basil and washed it.

I stripped all the leaves, put them in a small food processor, and drizzled a bit of olive oil, added a handful of pinenuts that I keep in my freezer for just such 'special' occasions, added a dash of salt, a dash of pepper, and a spoonful of minced garlic.  Red pepper flakes can be added as well for a nice kick.

Process well in the food processor - and this is what it looked like.

I used a spoonful right away to top a tomato & avocado salad that comprised the majority of my lunch that day.  Yum!!!

The remainder of the pesto I put in a small plastic container and put it in my freezer.  What will it become in the next few weeks?  Well, add some olive oil and balsamic vinegar and it is a divine dressing for salad.  Add a couple dollops to hot pasta, toss and you've got a great pasta sauce.  Or, toss it in with the next panzanella salad you make.  It would be great as a sauce for pizza, or a flavor booster to spaghetti sauce or minestrone soup.  Yes - I'm in love with pesto.  If you are a recipe-bound cook, you can find plenty of pesto recipes, but it truly doesn't require any exact measuring.  Just add this and that until the right consistency and texture meet with your approval.  Yes, pesto is that easy and that versatile.  So the next time you aim to chuck that wilted basil - take 5 minutes and process it into pesto!

Halloween Craftiness: Glitter Spiderwebs

I saw this on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try.  Here's a few tricks I learned making mine.
I found the best place to do this craft was outside so my house didn't end up looking like Tinkerbell threw up fairy-dust all over.  I used some old school-lunch trays, but cookie sheets work well also.

All you need is waxed paper, tape, white craft/school glue, extra-fine glitter and tray or cookie sheet.  Tape to layers of waxed paper on the tray (front of back side - either way works fine).

Start making a giant asterisk with the glue.  Make sure that you make the lines of glue a generous thickness, because as it dries, those little glue lines get awfully fragile.  I ended up with 12 spokes as the "frame" for my web.

Then, in a circular motion, spiral the glue around the spokes, filling in the web.

Remember not to let the glue lines get too small or fine.  You can go back and add another strip of glue on the thin lines to beef them up a bit.

Then, shake the extra-fine glitter all over the spiderweb.  Extra-fine works better than regular glitter, since the coarser the glitter, the more brittle the end product ends up.

If your glitter coverage isn't very even, don't fret.  I learned a little trick that saved the day!  This is where doing it outside really comes in handy.  Holding the tray, glittered web up, over the grass or garbage can, lightly tap on the underside of the tray and tilt slightly.  As you do, the glitter will bounce around and land on the glue web.

This is what it looks like once you've glittered and tapped.  Let dry overnight (outside is fine if no rain is in the forecast).

Un-tape the waxed paper and then carefully peel the web off.

The spokes of the web are the sturdiest, so focus on peeling them first and the rest of the web will come.

Then this part is optional.  Since I wanted to keep them from leaving sparkly trails all over my house, I gave them a light spray with some clear polyurethane.

They work great as a Halloween doily.

But at my house, they'll be used as Halloween place-mats.

My daughter had lots of fun playing with the glue and glitter, and since we were outside, I didn't care how sparkly she made the deck!

Gardening: Happy Harvest

Harvest time was always a two-edged sword for me as a kid.  On the one hand, it was exciting to see just what Mother Nature was going to pay us for all our summer's toil, but the harvest also meant more work in the garden.  Now I realize that participating in the harvest is probably what ignited the spark of gardening passion that keeps me repeating the gardening cycle with my own family.

Snipping grapes with kitchen shears is a task perfect for smaller hands.

Picking up the potatoes while I man the shovel is like watching a weird, time-warp movie of my childhood.

The dog loves harvest time - canine salad bar!

There is something so satisfyingly beautiful about carrots with their tops still on.

Wrenching the tops off of the carrots is one of the more appealing tasks for my boy.

Halloween Craftiness: Fabric Paint Masks

Another Pinterest experiment - here are my tips and tweaks.

So I printed out a mask outline, and set it on the counter.  Then I covered it with plastic wrap (which stuck nicely to the counter, but you can tape it down if need be).  I cut a 12x6 inch piece of fabric netting or tuile, and taped that over the plastic.  Then using a small squeeze bottle of puff, fabric paint, I started drawing over the lines of the pattern. 

When I finished, I removed the pattern from underneath to get a glimpse of what it would look like, then decided to add some little sparkly jewels.  I used a pair of tweezers and pushed them lightly into the puff paint. 

After drying overnight, I cut away the fabric and plastic wrap.  The plastic wrap sticks to the paint, so it is a permanent part of the mask.  Cut around the outside and the eye holes.  Then taking a sheer ribbon and needle and thread, I tacked the ribbon to the edges of the mask as ties.  You can easily push a needle and thread through the dried fabric paint, so it is quite easy to sew on the ties. 

I was pleasantly surprised with the finished product. 

Sort of a cross between a masquerade ball and dressing up as Zorro's sister.  :)  Guess my Halloween costume is done!

Gardening: Raising Midnight Reapers

Saturday night my kids were staying up late and we caught the weather on the 10 o'clock news.  When they gave the hard frost warning for our area, I informed the kids they could stay up a bit later, but they'd have to change their attire.  We bundled up in coats and hats, and each grabbed a bag and a flashlight.  Out to the garden we traipsed to harvest any tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers we could find.  Here is a bit of our tomato haul. 

Did the kids learn any swell gardening techniques?  Nah, but they made a fun memory of sneaking out late at night to reap any delicious bits of color to be found in our late autumn garden.  If nothing else, they'll remember that their mother valued fresh produce.  And who knows but that they'll get a lesson in cooking fried green tomatoes this week!

Baking: Anatomy of a Birthday Cake

I had my daughter help design this cake for her great-grandma's 90th birthday.  Although I did most of the baking and mixing of frosting while she was at school, both of my kids were around watching as I decorated it.  Hopefully this will at least teach them that even the craziest ideas can be brought about with some work and creativity (and online tutorials). 

After the crumb coat of frosting, comes the next layer of colored frosting (plain old butter cream - recipes abound online).

Love the Viva paper towel trick of smoothing butter cream to look like fondant - yes another trick from online.

Started making the star tip roses on the bottom layer.  Super easy way to cover a cake, but takes a lot of frosting.

Rose layer done.

Basket weave for top layer - check out Wilton's online tutorials if you don't know how to do this.  If you can weave a placemat in kindergarten, you can weave frosting.

Once I added a little border to my basket with a large round tip, I started to construct my chicken out of 2 cupcakes.

It took a few tries at arranging cut up pieces of cupcake, but with some frosting as glue (and a few toothpicks) the hen started to take shape.

Once crumb coating was done on my hen, I placed it on the cake and used a leaf tip to cover with feathers.

After the white covered the hen I added some grey feathers, yellow frosted beak and red comb, plus a couple hard candy eyes (purchased from a craft store).  I then used tweezers to place the yellow coconut (tossed in a plastic bag with food coloring) around my hen as straw.

There's the finished product.  Hopefully this captures my husband's grandma's personality.  She's a gardener who loves & collects chickens. 

Canning: An Apple a Day. . .

One thing I love about fall is eating all things apple.  This year happened to be my apple tree's "on" year and after the kids enlisted their friends to help pick apples we ended up with a generous 2 bushels of Honeygold apples.  Unfortunately our schedules for the next few weekends precluded any applesauce making plans wedging their way into a Saturday, so I ended up canning 28 quarts solo.  Not something I recommend doing!  Still, I survived and I'm hoping this will last us a couple years until my tree produces another full harvest.
But if going all out with the Victorio strainer and canning applesauce isn't your idea of a fun domestic day, then have your kids help you wash, slice and dry some apple slices.  Or make some chunky applesauce in a food processor.  If you don't mind keeping an eye on the stove for a couple hours, you could try making some apple butter.  One of the easiest ways we preserve apples is to peel and slice them, then toss with a little lemon juice, a little sugar, cinnamon and flour.  Then you freeze it in gallon-sized freezer bags.  This filling works for apple crisp, apple pie, or apple cobbler. 
Whatever you do, don't let the star of this season's flavors pass your family by!