Rice Krispie Treats

Today I discovered that one regular box of Rice Krispie's is actually "meant" for 2 full batches of Treats...obviously this was the intended purpose so I decided to make one batch of regular Treats and one peanut butter.

Brilliance people, sheer brilliance.

Rice Krispie Treats

Adapted from Rice Krispies

Makes one 13x9 inch pan

3 Tbsp margerine or salted butter

10 oz marshmallows (any size)

1/2 tsp vanilla

6 cups* Rice Krispies

1. Melt butter in a large sauce pan or pot on low heat.
2. Add marshmallows and stir frequently until melted.
3. Stir in vanilla.
4. Remove from heat and fold in cereal.
5. Pour into a greased 13x9 inch pan and press into place.**
6. Cool on the counter before cutting.

Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats

Adapted from My Baking Addiction

Makes one 13x9 inch pan

3 Tbsp margerine or salted butter

10 oz marshmallows (any size)

1/2 vanilla

2/3 cup peanut butter

6 cups Rice Krispies*

1 cup Reese's Pieces

1. Melt butter in a large sauce pan or pot on low heat.
2. Add marshmallows and stir frequently until melted.
3. Stir in vanilla and peanut butter until smooth.
4. Remove from heat and fold in cereal and Reese's Pieces.
5. Pour into a greased 13x9 inch pan and press into place.**  
6. Cool on the counter before cutting.

*This was 160 grams of dry cereal, I found (as I usually do) weighing was the easier way to go here.

**I use a plastic sandwich bag over my hand sprayed with cooking spray to avoid a complete sticky disaster. Call me crazy, but it works!

Mini Iced Sugar Cookies

Happy Easter!!

I've had "Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!" in my head for the past 24 hours...not in a bad way, but I never could quite since those alleluias sung in tune...at all. Still it's one of my favorite hymns of all time and you really only hear it at Easter in most churches (unless you get a special request day...oh man...those were the best...Dad always requests #600 Wonder Words of Life...one hymn I can still play on the piano without much trouble at all...then again...I was always better at hymns than your standard-issue classical tunes...it was the chords...I have super long fingers...this makes hymns a bit easier...but I digress.)

I saw these cookies a week or so ago and knew I wanted to make them for the post-church lunch we're hosting for our family and friends today for a couple of reasons.

#1 - Sugar cookies are The Hubby's favorite and I have yet to perfect these bad boys. (I believe I have done so with this recipe).

#2 - How cute are the Cadbury Mini-Eggs?! I had never eaten one until baking these cookies and oh my goodness, I'm HOOKED! The colors are great and springy and fun.

We don't do Easter Bunny shenanigans around here, but that doesn't mean we don't enjoy a good theme-cookie =)

Mini Iced Sugar Cookies

Adapted from Pennies on a Platter

Makes 5 dozen mini-cookies

Cookies

22 1/4 oz flour

4 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature

10 1/2 oz sugar

3 eggs

2 Tbsp vanilla

Icing

1 1/2 lbs powdered sugar

5 Tbsp milk

1/3 cup unsalted better, meled

1 Tbsp vanilla

Green food coloring

Mini Cadbury Eggs (2 bags)

Cookies

1. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside.
2. In a stand-mixer, beat the butter and sugar together on medium/high until fluffy.
3. With the mixer still going, add in the eggs and vanilla (each egg one at a time).
4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add in the flour mixture (I kept the machine going and just kept adding in spoonfuls of the flour so the mixer wouldn't get too overwhelmed).
5. Cover the dough and chill for at least one hour.
6. Preheat the oven to 350 and prepare baking sheets.
7. Roll the dough into balls using about a tablespoon of dough (or if you're a nut like me, 3/4 oz of dough per ball...love my kitchen scale!) and place on the cookie sheets.
8. Bake the first set of sheets for 10-11 minutes, rotating once halfway through. (Bake the remaining sheets 9-10 minutes.)
9. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to allow them to completely cool before icing.

Icing

1. Beat together all the icing ingredients (add more sugar to thicken, more milk to thin) - I used 8 drops of food coloring for this amount of icing.
2. Make sure the icing is thick enough that it will harden and keep the candy eggs in place.
3. Using a star-tip, ice the cookies and place three eggs on top.
4. Allow the icing to set completely before storing.

I ran out of eggs because I'm a moron and so I used some jellybeans. Which this isn't as cute, it's certainly tasty and good for any non-chocolate lovers in your house (I have no idea what those people are personally, but I hear they exist...people that don't like chocolate...)

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

Christ the Lord is ris'n today, Alleluia!

Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!

Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!

Sing, ye heav'ns, and earth reply, Alleluia!

Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!

Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!

Death in vain forbids Him rise, Alleluia!

Christ has opened Paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!

Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!

Dying once He all doth save, Alleluia!

Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!

Foll'wing our exalted Head, Alleluia!

Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!

Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

Hail the Lord of earth and heaven, Alleluia!

Praise to Thee by both be given, Alleluia!

Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!

Hail the Resurrection, thou, Alleluia!

King of glory, soul of bliss, Alleluia!

Everlasing life is this, Alleluia!

Thee to know, Thy power to prove, Alleluia!

Thus to sing, and thus to love, Alleluia!

Mickey Mouse Birthday Party

My kiddo turned two this weekend and if there's one thing we know she likes, it's Mickey Mouse. We decided (okay, I decided as The Husband didn't really care one way or another) to have a Mickey Mouse themed party for the birthday girl. We had a lot of Sickness in the house this week so things were a bit more "semi-homemade" than I had originally intended, but still things turned out pretty delicious with my Baked Ziti as the main dish (one with Hot and one Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage instead of ground beef...which may be my new favorite way to prepare this stand-by!). We had lots of Mickey Mouse treats though such as:

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

(just add 1 cup of crushed Oreos to a white cake batter and otherwise prepare as instructed) with Oreo halves for "ears".

Mickey Oreo Pops

Sure my two-year-old didn't give two-hoots about these treats...

But her Mama felt pretty darn good about them...also about the Mickey Mouse Veggie Tray ;-)

Mini Sweet Potato Muffins

Homemade baby food is something I've dabbled in, but find it quite tricky as of late. When it was a matter of pureed fruits and veggies, no problem, but now we have an almost 13 month old, she really needs to be eating more "normal" food. My husband and I eat dinner after our daughter has gone to bed and dinner is usually not even started by the time she eats her dinner. So far even serving her leftovers from the night before has been a major fail as she generally hates everything I've attempted to serve her, so I've been heavily relying on pre-packaged organic baby foods and finger foods which she loves. A friend turned me onto a new baby food recipe website: www.Weelicious.com and I decided to take one of their recipes for a test run given the fact that I thought it sounded pretty tasty myself, just in case my kiddo decided to resist.

Mini Sweet Potato Muffins

Adapted from Weelicious

Makes 30 mini-muffins

1 large sweet potato (yielding about 1 cup of puree)
1 c. flour
1 c. oats
1/3 c. light brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1/2 c. whole milk
1/4 c. oil
1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Rinse off sweet potato then wrap in foil and place on a foil lined pan (I've had several sweet potato mishaps so the pan may be overkill for some of you...but I've had to clean up one too many sweet potato disasters in my day!)
3. Poke several holes in the potato and bake for about one hour or until tender. (I'd go ahead and let the oven cool down in case you don't get around to the actual muffins for a little while...)
4. Allow the potato to cool and then puree either with a food processor or with a fork and your amazing arm muscles.
5. When you're ready to make the muffins, preheat the oven to 350.
6. In a small bowl combine the dry ingredients and set aside.
7. In a large bowl (or stand mixer) mix together the wet ingredients, including 1 cup of the sweet potato puree.
8. Add in the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
9. Pour batter into greased mini-muffin tins and bake for about 15 minutes.

These actually turned out pretty tasty in my opinion and not too sweet. My daughter liked crumbling them up and throwing them on the floor more than eating them though.