Archive | December, 2011

Footprint Handprint Reindeer

5 Dec

My 2-year-old brought me some paper and a crayon today, and wanted me to trace her hands.  After her hands, she wanted to trace her feet.  Since it is the holiday season, I remembered a craft idea I had seen before that was a reindeer using the outline of your child’s hand and foot.  It’s an easy, quick craft, and brought such delight to my 2-year-old this morning!

 

What you need:

Brown construction paper or cardboard, or white paper that you can color brown
Another color construction paper for the antlers.  I chose red, but a darker brown or black would work too.
Red or black construction paper for the nose
Eyes, or you can draw them on if you don’t have eyes
Scissors
Glue
Crayon, pen, or pencil for tracing and drawing if you will be drawing on eyes, nose, and mouth

How to make it:

Trace your child’s foot on the brown construction paper.  Cut out.  Trace your child’s hands on the other color paper.  Cut out.  Cut out a circle for the nose.  Glue the hands on the top of the footprint to look like antlers.  Glue or draw the eyes and nose.

 

My construction paper was kind of thin, so I also glued a craft stick to the back of it to give it more structure and so my daughter could use it as a puppet or to play with.  She has been showing it to everyone today, she’s so proud of what she made.  This would be a fun activity to do every year to see how much their feet and hands have grown in the last year.

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Biscuit Waffle Breakfast Sandwiches

5 Dec

Last week I posted about making Biscuit Waffles, and said that I thought they would be perfect for breakfast sandwiches.  Well, I was right!

 

So here is what I used to get 8 breakfast sandwiches:

1 can Grands biscuit, each biscuit split in half, then reshaped to a biscuit shape, giving me 16 biscuit waffles
1 package Jimmy Dean fully cooked turkey sausage rounds, 8 count
2 eggs, beaten, then cooked and divided into 4 sections (I did half with eggs, half without)
Shredded Mexican blend cheese

For the eggs, I sprayed a small skillet, then added the eggs.  Once they started to cook up, I flipped the whole thing.  Once fully cooked, I divided it into 4 pieces.  I then put some of the shredded cheese on each piece of egg, then added them to 4 of the sandwiches.  The other 4 sandwiches I left as just the biscuit waffles and sausage.  2 thumbs up from my family!

 

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Staples HP Ink and Batteries Deals Continue!

5 Dec

Last week, I had posted about 2 Staples promotions, one for HP ink and one for batteries.  This week’s ad features the same deals, so if you weren’t able to make it last week, you can go in this week, through December 10, and still do the deals.

Here is the link to the post with the details: HP Printer Ink and Batteries at Staples

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Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Soup

3 Dec

When I saw the broccoli in my Bountiful Baskets this morning, I knew exactly what I wanted to make, Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Soup.  We’ve had a cold snap in the weather here, and it’s been cloudy and gloomy.  Perfect weather for making soup!  This recipe I got from Lori at My Kinda Rain, which she had gotten from CDKitchen.com.  I did it slightly different, I did not put mine through the blender because I like chunky soup.  I just made sure that I chopped the onion, carrots, and broccoli to smaller sizes.  It’s a nice thick soup, enough that it can be a meal on its own.  It was perfect and well liked by everyone except my oldest daughter, but that’s because she’s not a fan of cheese.  I wish we had some bread bowls to serve this in, but I made some crescent rolls to eat with it instead.

Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Soup
Serves 4 

What you need:

1 tablespoon butter
1/2 medium onion, chopped finely
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
3 cups (approx 1/2 lb) fresh broccoli, chopped finely
1 cup carrots, julienned (I cut baby carrots into fourths lengthwise)
salt and pepper, to taste
2 cups (8 oz) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

How to make it:

Saute onion in the 1 tablespoon of butter.  Set aside.

In a large stock pot, melt 1/4 cup butter.  Mix in the flour using a whisk, forming a thick paste, and cook over medium heat for 3-5 minutes (this is called making a roux, for future reference).  Slowly add the milk , stirring constantly with the whisk.  Add the broth, still whisking the whole time.  Simmer on low heat for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the onions, broccoli, carrots, salt and pepper. Cook over low heat until the veggies are tender, about 20-25 minutes.  The soup should be thickened by now.  (If desired, pour into the blender in batches and puree. Return to pot.)

Add the shredded cheese; stir until well blended while cooking over low heat.  Stir in the nutmeg and serve.

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Bountiful Baskets – 12/3/2011

3 Dec

This week I got the conventional basket, the Mexican veggie pack, and the tortilla pack.

The conventional basket had butter lettuce, broccoli, radishes, tomatoes, yellow onion, green peppers, kiwi, oranges, pears, blackberries, apples, and a pineapple.

The Mexican veggie pack had cilantro, green onions, Mexican squash, green chiles, tomatillos, limes, jalapenos, avocados, yellow onion, and garlic.

The tortilla pack had 2 dozen small corn, 2 dozen small flour, and 3 dozen large flour tortillas.

I am going to make Broccoli Cheese soup with the broccoli today.  I will most likely make enchiladas, possibly 2 kinds, one with red sauce and one with green sauce.  With the avocados, I will probably make Fish Tacos with Avocado Cream Sauce and Guacamole.  I still actually have some green chiles in the freezer, so I might thaw and use those, then the ones I got today I will roast in the broiler, dice, and freeze.  I may make some Salsa Roja as well.  Can’t wait to cook and eat it all!

Note: The type and amount of food may vary from another basket because of geographic location and because of variances in how the ends of produce cases are distributed after everything has been distributed evenly.

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Free Christmas Fun for the Kids

3 Dec

If you celebrate Christmas with Santa, there are some fun, free online activities you can do for your kids.

Portable North Pole: Here, you can create a personalized video for your child from Santa.  You can enter their name for him to say, and for my kids, when they heard Santa say their name, their eyes lit up!  You can also decide if they are on the nice or naughty list, put in pictures so children can see their entry in Santa’s nice or naughty list,  and add in a specific toy on their list.

 

Elf Yourself: You enter pictures of your family and/or friends that are placed on elf bodies that dance around to your choice of music.  The first year I did this, my oldest was almost 1, and she wanted to watch it non-stop.  Then, there was only 1 dance to choose, but now there are 9 dances to choose from.

 

NORAD Santa Countdown and Tracker: Every year, NORAD has a Santa tracker, where you can track Santa’s location on Christmas eve as he flies around the world.  They now have added to this by having some information about some of the cities Santa travels to, so you learn along the way too.  They have also added the Countdown Village, where a new game/activity opens up each day until Christmas.  My oldest and I have had a lot of fun with the games available so far.

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Fry’s Cart Buster Deal of the Day is Back!

2 Dec

Fry’s Food Stores (and Kroger family stores too) is having a Cart Buster sale event now through December 13.  You can go on the website to get a digital coupon that is the Deal of the Day for each day. After you load the Deal of the Day, if you e-mail at least 4 friends about the Deal of the Day promotion, you get  a $2 digital coupon loaded on your Fry’s VIP card.  You only get the $2 once, but $2 is a nice coupon to get!

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