Baking and Cooking Archives - Page 8 of 12

Ham & Cheese Sliders {Thoughtful Thursday}

April 19, 2012 by Jules 2 Comments

Do you have anything thoughtful you ‘d like to share this Thursday? Some little helpful hint? A fun recipe? A tool you love? Please share by linking up below {linky messed up so add them in the comment section} and then posting the “Thoughtful Thursday” button to your post so other ladies can get lots of thoughtful helps! Consider visiting the link above yours and encouraging them through comments!

Here’s my thoughtfulness for the week:

I love simple meals. My kids love being with me...everywhere. The kitchen is no exception. Some times meals are too time consuming to add the child chief to the mix if we want to eat before bed. But, because I enjoy teaching my kids through making meals, I like finding healthy simple things where they can easily help!

Today I wanna give you the "recipe" for

Ham and Cheese Sliders

1 pkg frozen rolls {we used Sister Schubert}
8 oz mozzarella cheese
8-10 slices of deli ham
Butter, salt, and pepper {optional}

Gather all ingredients. Pre-heat oven to according to roll pkg. Make sure children have chairs or step stools near the counter to stand on but away from the oven.

Shred cheese with a grater over a small bowl {my 2 and 3-year-old were capable of doing this}.
Rip ham into small pieces {almost any age could do this}.
Slice rolls in 1/2 {for older children or parent} and place on a cookie sheet.

Layer ham and cheese on one side of the roll and stack the other 1/2 on top.
Try to keep the shredded cheese and ham on the rolls as much as possible {HARD with littles helping layer but they love this part}
Bake rolls according to pkg.
{if you like your rolls a little more moist, I like to add a tiny bit of butter on the tops before baking and sprinkle a little of salt and pepper}

Add a side of fruit and the kids will eat it up because it's yummy and They Helped! You'll enjoy it because you got to spend time with your kids in the kitchen, made a simple meal with them, and it was healthy!

Sorry, my link-up is messed up and I haven't had time to fix it yet but I'd LOVE to have links to your thoughfulness!
Add a link in the comment section below. Thanks!!!

“Oh, you can make milkshakes out of icecream?” {Thoughtful Thursday Link-Up}

March 15, 2012 by Jules 4 Comments

That's right. I'm slack'n and didn't get the Thoughtful Thursday link up ready to go before 9pm. But here it is!

After dinner one night my girls were so excited to tell their daddy they were getting "SHACKS" for dessert! My husband came to me wondering where I was going to pick up shacks for them and when I told him I was making them he said, "Oh, you can make milkshakes out of icecream?"

Uummm, yeah! Duh. hehehe

Desired amount of icecream, any added flavoring you want, blend, pour, slurp!
I also like to put plain yogurt and frozen fruit in a blender and calling it a "shake"! My girls LOVE it and think it's the best snack/dessert Ever ;o)

I'm sure you have some way more Thoughtful things to share. Link'm Up below! {open 'til next Wednesday}

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Being a Help-Meet, Hand-Dandies, Homemaker, Parenting, The Ones about Link-Ups, The Ones about Post Series, The ones about the Rothacher Home, Thoughtful Thursdays Tagged With: homemade shake, icecream, link up, milkshake

Micro Cooker {Thoughtful Thursday Link-Up}

March 8, 2012 by Jules 3 Comments

Another must is my Pampered Chef Large Micro Cooker for Microwave. I think you're supposed to use it for rice, veggies, etc but we brown our ground beef in it. Score! Brown 1 lb beef with no grease burns in a quick ~5min! (then chop it with the mix-n-chop, wink wink)

I have since bought one of each of these pampered chef tools off eBay for my mom. Love'em
I should sell these babies ;o)

Revive Frost-bit Chicken
Brown Ground Beef {for stew} & break apart using pampered chef chop-n-mix

*Note: I am not being paid for these recommendations/reviews but if you know how I can- bring it!

Do you have any gadgets that have made your life in the kitchen easier? Please share a link in the comment section below! {sorry, link-up messed up}

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, The Ones about Link-Ups, The Ones about Post Series, Thoughtful Thursdays Tagged With: cooking, ground beef, pampered chef, weekly

Knight and Shining Armor 1st Birthday Party {FOOD}

February 11, 2012 by Jules Leave a Comment

The Table:

I had a yellow table cloth left from our oldest daughters party and the blue table cloth I though I bought to layer on top ended up being goodie bags so I used this picnic table cloth I also already had. It worked. The flag streamers are made from scrapbook paper, hot glue, and ribbon.

The feast was an attempt at “Mid-evil Carnival food/ Knight-ish food”.

We made {frozen and cooked according to the package} Corn Dogs!
The holder is a round cardboard cake thing that I covered in tin foil and poked holes through with scissors.

Cotton candy on Popsicle sticks {and my hubs thought I’d never find enough uses for that giant box of 1000 sticks…}. I took tubs of $1.00 cotton candy from Wal-Mart and unrolled it. Then I rerolled sections of it back onto sticks. The only way it would have been cooler is if it were blue…but the pink kinda looks like it goes with the red ;o)

We went with a kid-friendly, less waist version of caramel apple!

Cake balls {affectionately named cannonballs} made from the left over parts of the cake that were cut off to make the castle and smash cake!

Pretzel rods dipped in almond bark with added theme colored sprinkles, aka Pretzel Swards!

This bucket is one we had around the house for Benjamin that I’d found for $1.00 at the Goodwill! Chunked out cutlery in it- voila!

Ice cream, pre-scooped into punch cups and placed back into the freezer right before the party to save time and make for easy serving!

This is the wooden highchair we’ve used for all of children. We just took the cushion off so it wouldn’t get stained by the chocolate, left the plastic tray on for protection, and added part of the flag streamer I made.

Yep! I put on an apron and took his diapered-self straight to the kitchen sink for a quick scrub down before getting redressed for the pinata and presents!

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Parties, The ones about the Rothacher Home Tagged With: cake balls, corn dog stand, corn dogs, cotton candy, DIY, party food, pretzel rods, swords

Knight in Shining Armor 1st Birthday Party {CAKE}

February 8, 2012 by Jules Leave a Comment

Hosting a Knight in Shining Armor 1^st Birthday Party

My husband and I have decided that we won’t be doing huge parties every year for our children. But we will do bigger parties for milestone birthdays. For our oldest daughter’s 1^st birthday we did a “Princess Party over the 4^th of July holiday so all our parents could be in attendance. For our younger daughter we did a “Snow Princess Party” in the middle of January. Since I’m a bit on the OCD side of things when it comes to things like name, photo sessions within the 1^st year, and birthday party consistency among my children I thought it would be only appropriate to do a “Prince Party” for my son’s 1^st birthday. My hubs wasn’t a huge fan of the sissy options out there. We chatted for a while and landed on a “Knight Party”! Sticks with the royalty theme but a bit more masculine!

I’m going to do a series of post since walking you through all the DYI party details got pretty lengthy. Today I’ll tell you about the

CAKE

I love how this cake turned out! I discovered a new thing called ‘sugar sheets’ at Wal-Mart. Since I haven’t’ perfected my cake decorating skills to this kind of level it was a GREAT option! It was about $3-4 a sheet. It only took one sheet to make this cake. I made a simple box of devil’s food chocolate cake in a 11x14 rectangle pan. I had my husband sketch this castle {found on Google images line drawings} with a black edible marker, then I cut out the castle.

After the cake was baked but before frosting I laid this on top and cut the outer shape of the castle out. I also cut out the door. Then I placed plastic wrap under the edges of the cake as to not get frosting on the cake stand/carrier and frosted the sides and top of the cake with chocolate frosting. I let that try and then added a second coat. I took the backing off the sugar sheet and placed it on top of the moist frosting so it would adhere well. I found the dragon on picnic.com, made it red and printed {this same dragon was used several places throughout the party}. I cut triangles and taped them to tooth picks for the flags.

See how it became glossy and looks more like real frosting after adhering!