Hummus Sammy!

I Love Hummus. I made a big batch the other day and threw this sandwich together. Chickpeas are high in protein and I definitely can use protein! It was supposed to be garlic hummus but my food processor chose to not even touch the garlic cloves. I found them still whole in the hummus!

Whole wheat pita
Hummus ( a VERY generous amount)
cucumbers, sliced
tomato, sliced
red onion, sliced
red peppers, sliced
avocado, salted
shredded carrot and broccoli stems
cilantro
drizzle with lime Juice

It's sooo good! I crave this all the time now.

Super Mario Brothers Birthday Party!

I Love doing theme parties for the kids. They love it and I think this might have been the last time I will be able to do a Combo party for the 2 of them. I have a feeling their likes are really going to clash come next birthday. Not sure i'll be able to convince Emma again that a Super Mario Party is kind of like a Princess party. Don't think she'll fall for that one again. Princess peach is cool and all but, she's no Disney Princess!

I started prepping for this months in advance! It was impossible to find decorations locally so I turned to the web! I found these templates online and went Bonkers making them. So fun and easy to make. http://www.chicaandjo.com/2010/05/13/super-mario-brothers-characters/

The balloons on the backs of the chairs was inspired by the battle mode in Super Mario cart.
Apples because that's what Yoshi eats.
And chocolate gold coins for decoration.

I also used the goomba template to make all of the mushrooms.
Printed the coins on card stock and cut them out.

I made my own templates for the cloud, Flower power and coin blocks.

I found the idea for the king Boo balloons online too. These were a little harder to do as I had to free hand draw all of the faces on the balloons with markers.

power star cookies! found this recipe to make star cookies from allrecipes.com http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-ever-chocolate-cutout-cookies/detail.aspx

I used a sugar icing recipe and colored the icing with Tumeric.

I made the eyes with chocolate.

Birthday Cake! Made and tested this cake: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/178/Chocolate-Cake
I changed it a little, I added 1/2 cup apple sauce, quadruple the chocolate and used 1 cup of dark brown sugar and 1/2 cup of light brown sugar. It was good! Very rich and a little on the crumbly side. (Not a very good idea with the little ones.)

Made Butter icing for the cake and colored it with Tumeric. Can't believe the intense yellow color it gave the icing! And No, it did not flavor the icing. It tasted like icing. I don't let my kids eat artificial dyes so I was quite limited to what kind of cake I could make for them!
The eyes on the cake are thick pieces of Black licorice.

Of course it was a Pizza Party! That's what Mario and Luigi love most!



We got the kids' costumes from buycostumes.com as well as dessert plates, Mario goody boxes and mario stickers for the goody boxes.

I made a ton of these goody bags and served popcorn in them. So cuuuuute!

Can't wait to see what I'm in for when they turn 5!!
I have a Funny feeling I will be planning 2 separate parties! Yikes!

Halloween 2011

Well, I can honestly say that this is the first year I have NOT eaten any Halloween Candy! Hahaha, I can't, it's not Vegan! I was feeling so left out that I had to make these. Yum!

The recipe is simple, just 72% dark chocolate and organic peanut butter. Set in a silicone ice cube mold and put in the freezer. Voila! now I don't feel so left out.

We don't usually get dressed up to go out for Halloween. Actually, I believe we have only done it twice! This year we did it again. I was perusing buycostumes.com and fell in LOVE with their He-man costume; no wait...not the costume but the wig! It is hilarious! That wig is the reason we went out as He-man and She-ra.

We had fun, hopefully it will become tradition?

The kids had a blast too! They always do. Luckily there was no snow for Halloween so we were able to trick or treat all night. Every year the holidays get more exciting for these two. Can hardly wait until Christmas!