Not his Valentine

Isn't this a cute Teddy bear? A Teddy bear holding roses, wearing a golden locket necklace? A perfect Valentines gift.

Sadly, it's not for me.

After spending 20 min's in Walgreens picking out these three things (including "her" favorite candy) he came home, carefully unwrapped everything, took the tags off, put the necklace on the bear and then wrapped it all up.

He, is Anthony, my 11 year old (11!, 5th Grade!) and the "she" is his secret crush. I had to take him to school extra early today so he could sneak it into her classroom and put it on her desk before anyone saw him. No note, no indication that it's from him except, according to him, his attempt at making absolutely no direct eye contact with her today. As if that would be a dead giveaway.

I remember 5^th grade. I woke up Valentines morning after dreaming of this very scenario, a secret crush leaving me a thoughtful gift I could treasure for a life time. Unfortunately, it never happened, I never had a secret admirer. I was a bit more ‘outgoing’ for anything to be secret about me. My son however, it seems, is that boy, to some girl. Some girl who probably woke up this morning from the same style dream I had many years ago but, unlike me, she walked into the classroom today and found a well wrapped cute, memorable and thoughtful gift from a secret admirer waiting for her.

Knowing 5^th grade girls, she probably died of embarrassment. (And is hopefully cuddled up with the teddy bear, wearing her locket, right now.) J

Peanut Butter Hearts (Reese's style)

Happy Valentines Day!

Brad loves Reeses peanut butter cups so for Valentines day I decided to try and make him some homemade ones. I saw this recipe on line (Yea, via pintrest, isn't everything via pintrest these days?) and decided to try it out.

These are....AMAZING! Better than Reeses, sorry, but true.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 C Peanut Butter - creamy is our choice

3 C Powder Sugar

1 C Cake flour*

1/4 C butter

6 Tbsp milk

In your mixer, mix the peanut butter, butter, powder sugar and flour until its a coarse mixture. Then add the milk a tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together into a play dough consistency.

*The first batch I made with 4 cups of powdered sugar but I didn’t care for the taste, so the second batch I substituted 1 cup with the cake flour. The second batch was much better in my opinion; it was sweet but did not have the ‘chemical’ taste like the first batch. Cake flour is softer than all-purpose flour but I would think you could use all-purpose if you wanted.

Taking out about 1/4 cup at a time, roll the dough out to about a 1/2 inch thick. Any thinner and they don't stand up to the chocolate. I found it was also easier to work with only a 1/4 cup of the dough at a time, any more and they were hard to pry off the counter top. It helps to sprinkle some powder sugar or flour down before you roll it out. Place the peanut butter hearts on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or saran wrap. Freeze for at least 30 min's.

Usually I buy chocolate bark for all my "coated" projects but this time I wanted these to be as close to the real thing as possible so I bought several Hersheys bars to melt instead. 'Nuke them in a microwave safe bowl for 10 seconds at a time until smooth. Then, dunk the frozen peanut butter heart in and flip over with a fork.

Gently bang the fork on the side of the bowl to knock off some of the excess chocolate. Scrape the back of the fork over the edge of the bowl then transfer the heart to another lined cookie sheet.

Add sprinkles or chopped nuts.

These are seriously so delish! However, because of the Hershey's chocolate they do melt quickly so keep them in the fridge, if they last past the first serving.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I Love You More Than The Movie Tron Legacy

My valentines poem from Anthony:
___________________________________________
I love you more tha the movie Tron Legacy
Than our dog Daisy and our Wii

More than our Xbox 360
And Epic Mickey the video game
And being lazy on the couch

I love you more than yummy banana's
And having lots of money
Thank candy and sweets
And a bright and shiny Penny

I love you mroe than television
Than toast
For I love French Fries
of any size
But I love you the most!

This poem is dedicated to my Mom.
________________________________________________________

....cue tears.....

Valentines Day and meal

Happy Valentines Day to all! I hope you and your loved ones take the day to declare your love, maybe thru some pretty flowers or a special meal. (Poetic huh!?!)

Brad and I rarely celebrate valentines as a couple, more often than not, we volunteer to babysit or have others over for dinner. This year is no exception. We have our nephew, my grandmothers, my brother, and our best friend and her daughters all coming for dinner. That’s not to say that we don’t try to make it special. The little girls, particularly Hailey, are really into holiday celebrations right now so I try to make the most of it. My house has little foam hearts all around, some of the picture frames have been adorned with cute valentines wrapping paper and we will be making tomorrow as special as we can, on a budget. I bought some valentines for the girls to make for their family. I also have some construction paper to make place mats for dinner. We picked out some single flower vases for the grandma’s, a dollar picture frame and we will all be helping to make a yummy dinner. Hailey asked to play restaurant for tonight so we will make up menu’s for her to pass out as well.

Mommas Valentines Café Appetizers Sliced Apples with cinnamon peanut butter dip Or Apricot Chipotle cream cheese spread with crackers Main Course House Salad with choice of dressing (Blue cheese, Ranch, Italian, Creamy Cesar) Roasted tomato bread grilled cheese sandwiches Or Whole wheat bread grilled cheese And Tomato soup Or Chicken noodle soup Desert Spice cake with peanut butter marshmallow frosting And/Or Homemade chocolate chip ice cream Drinks Root beer Sprite Chocolate milk with whipped cream Hazelnut Coffee Rose wine White Wine Spritzer

The Apricot Chipotle recipe idea came from the Kraft foods website here. I made it for the Super Bowl and aside from the chicken wings my brother made, it was the only dish completely polished off. I even saw a few finger swipes across the plate to get the last few smears.

1 pkg cream cheese

½ cup apricot preserves (I used sugar free)

1-3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce finely chopped

Smear the softened cream cheese out on a small serving plate or butterfly the brick of cream cheese and lay flat. In a separate bowl combine the preserves with the diced up peppers and some of the adobo sauce. I started out following the Kraft recipe and only used one pepper but decided that it needed more heat to cut the sweet. (I’m a poet and didn’t know it!) So, I added two more, bringing the total to 3 diced peppers and a few teaspoons of the adobo sauce. Spread over the cream cheese and serve with sturdy crackers, like Wheat Thins.

Here's Hailey working on her Tinker Bell Valentines

Here's Dinner: Tomato soup with heart shaped grilled cheese on roasted tomato bread.

 And finally, desert, heart shaped spice cake with peanut butter marshmallo frosting (my hubby's favorite)

I have to say, the roasted tomato bread made the meal. Everyone was sneeking into the kitchen for the scraps left from the heart cookie cutter. Here's the recipe:

2-3 roasted tomatoes

5 roasted garlic bulbs

1/2 cup melted butter

1/2 cup warm water

1/4 cup warm milk

1 egg

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp itallian seasoning

3 3/4 cup flour

2 1/2 tsp yeast

Roast 2-3 tomatoes, sliced, coated in olive oil, at 375 for one hour.

Before Roast:

After roast:

I also like to roast a bulb of garlic if I have it on hand. Just cut the top off, drizzle some oil over it and close it up in foil.

Before roast

 After roast::

Just squeeze the garlic and the bulbs slide right out.

In your bread machine, add the ingreedients in the order listed. I combine the milk and water into a glass measuring cup, add the butter stick then microwave for 1 min, then add it all in. Set your machine to the dough setting and watch the mixture combine. Depending on the type and ripeness of the tomato the dough often needs either more water or more flour.

When the dough cycle is done, turn out onto the counter, kneed out the air and shape into a loaf. Coat your pan with olive oil and set your dough in to rise, covered, again until doubled. Cook at 375 until internal tempature is 180.

Yum!

I hope everyone had a great valentines! I'm ready to pass out!