Snowflake Pancakes

I never in a million years thought I would be prefer snow over rain. But here we are today..and I am wishing it was snowing instead of raining!  The main reason is really because of our cutest little puppy Mia (who is 10 weeks today!). She would much rather play and do her business in the snow rather than the rain.  We have all  become much more accustomed to going outside and playing everyday regardless if it was cold or snow.. but when it rains we are all stuck inside. So while being stuck inside I decided to make something fun :)


It does feels wrong to post about snowflakes when there is no snow to be found (well where we live!) The rain and the unusually warmer weather melted all the snow we had.  But since it is still winter I decided to make a snowflake themed breakfast:

These pancakes didn't come out how I initially had planned them, but overall I am happy with them. 


First you need to make the pancake batter.  You can use boxed pancake mix, or make yours from scratch. Either way you just need to mix it very well so there are no lumps. I then separated my batter into two different bowls for the two different colors.  I put blue food coloring in one bowl and left the other batter uncolored. I then poured the batter into two different squeeze bottles.


On the skillet I drew the snowflake design and the circle around it with the "white" (uncolored batter).  I then let that cook until it was almost fully cooked.  I then filled in the pancake with the blue batter and then again let it cook until almost fully cooked.  I gently flipped the entire pancake over and let the other side cook.


I then cut out sausages with a small snowflake cookie cutter I have.

For the final touch I added some edible sugar snowflakes that I had found in the grocery store one day.  They don't actually taste much like anything but they are beautiful so I couldn't resist ;)


Eliana loved these fun creative pancakes and asked to make them another time under one condition: she told me that she wanted it to be snowing outside when we make them again :) 

Peppermint Snowflake Bark

We had more snow. So you know what that means? Snow related treats :) Awhile back when browsing on Pinterest I found a recipe here at Once Upon A Plate to make peppermint bark snowflakes.  I had been planning on making this last year but never got around to it until now. And let me tell you.. I am glad I tried it! They look amazing and taste amazing :)

Chocolate Snowflakes :)

To make this you will need:
approx 8 oz dark chocolate (our favorite is Hershey's Special Dark)
approx 8 oz white chocolate (we used Lindt white chocolate)
2 tsp vegetable oil, divided
1/2 tsp peppermint extract, divided
crushed peppermint candy canes


I bought two bars of chocolate for each the dark and white chocolate.  Both bars were slightly more than 4 oz each so I used a little more than 8 oz of each to make the snowflake bark.


I melted the dark chocolate with 1 tsp of vegetable oil in the microwave.  Once chocolate is fully melted add in 1/4 tsp of peppermint oil.  Pour into desired pan or snowflake silicone mold. (If pouring the chocolate into separate molds it is a good idea to measure out the amount so that the chocolate in each snowflake is evenly distributed.) I added crushed candy canes in the middle layer then allowed the chocolate to harden in the fridge for an hour.


I then did the exact same thing with the white chocolate and returned the mold to the fridge for another hour.


**Tips when pouring chocolate into the mold**
Make sure to tap the mold to make the layer as even as possible (in my case I tapped the mold and tapped the cookie sheet i placed the mold on) 
You can use toothpicks to spread the chocolate into the corners and pop the bubbles.


I also made a mini snowflake for Eliana:

I took the picture next to the other snowflakes so you could see the size difference. To make the smaller snowflake bark for Eliana I used a mini snowflake cookie cutter. I placed the cookie cutter on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (make sure there is nothing on or under the parchment paper or else your chocolate will not be flat on the bottom.) I then followed the same directions for the larger snowflakes.  When it was completely done I left out the snowflake for a few minutes to allow the chocolate to warm up a little bit.  Then I gently pushed the snowflake out of the cookie cutter.  There was some breakage since I didn't do it as gently as I should have, but Eliana' couldn't tell and you can't see in the picture so it works out just fine!!

This may have been a little time consuming but it was so easy and it tasted so amazing that it was all worth it!  I actually don't like white chocolate but with the addition of peppermint extract and the candy canes, alongside the amazing opposite side of dark chocolate I ended up loving this. I will definitely be making these again!

Until Next Time... :)

Snowflake Snack

So it has  finally begun.. We had our first snow of 2012 yesterday. For us this winter has been very mild with warmer than usual temperature and oddly no snow! (This kind of winter is my kind of winter).  I don't like cold and I don't like snow.... however I guess I'd rather it snow now instead of winter stretching into springtime! So let's celebrate the snow :) In honor of the first official snowfall of the year I made this cute snack for Eliana:

Snowflakes never tasted better ;)

This is just cheese and crackers gone fancy, but in a very simple way. I cut cheese with a mini snowflake cookie cutter and to spell out "Let it snow". The crackers are Ritz snowflake crackers.  You could always add details to the snowflakes if you wanted to.  Eliana loves cheese and crackers so this was of course a hit :) 


Until Next Time.. :)

Puppy Lunch

So for lunch today I made Eliana a puppy lunch. Why a puppy lunch you ask? Well because puppies are so cute, cuddly, adorable, playful, energetic and most importantly we just got one!!! Yes you read that correctly! We got a puppy.  We fell in love with a Sheltie puppy..She was the last available girl out of her litter and she melted our hearts and well we couldn't say no.. so we said "this one is mine", named her Mia (mine in Spanish) and took her home ;)  So to celebrate our new puppy I made this fun lunch for Eliana:

To make this lunch I cut a ham and cheese sandwich (or whatever fillings you prefer) into a dog shape with a dog cookie cutter.  I added the small details on the dog (bread crust ear and tail, edible candy eyes and nose, and fruit leather tongue).  For the border I cut grapes to be "balls" because what puppy doesn't like to play with a ball? I then added some Scooby Cinnamon Graham Cracker Sticks (of course in the shape of a dog treat!).  And Let me warn you in advance.. those Scooby biscuits are addicting! ;) Eliana loved the lunch and the fact that it didn't take a lot of time to put together is always nice!


Now of course you are dying to meet Mia aren't you? Well here she is!

Mia at 7 weeks old

You can see why she easily melted our hearts! She is so much fun and Eliana loves to play with her and run around with her. She is the most beautiful Sheltie puppy I have ever seen (just a little bit partial) and I love her personality already.  Mia already plays differently with me versus my husband versus Eliana.. Its quite impressive how she has picked up the differences between us and treats us differently in a matter of days. She likes to cuddle and sleep on me, she likes to rough house with my husband and follow him around, and with Eliana she runs around with her and always wants to play with her as if she literally were a puppy! 

We brought her home last Friday and while we are exhausted from her night time wake-ups to go pee we couldn't be happier! :)  I can see she will be house trained easily, as it hasn't even been a week and there have fewer and fewer accidents each day.. well the biggest part of house training is really training the owner... haha so I guess we are training ourselves well ;) **update** if you'd love to see newer pictures of Mia head over to my Instagram! I share pictures of her all the time there :)


Mia is just perfect for our family.  She was born on November 18, 2011, which happens to be my father's birthday.  It also happens to be the day before our precious pet bird Kiwi died. For us, it has been a healing process.. And it seems like Mia was meant for us :)

Creative Food Supplies:

Happy New Year! 2012!

Hello 2012 and Happy New Year to you all! If your holiday stretch was anything like how my relaxing break (or better put--lazy!) was then I know it was a good one :) It was very nice to have no school and no internship and no babysitting and to actually have a break to spend with the family for a few days.


As with the beginning of every new year it always seems to be a good time to set goals, or resolutions to start off anew.  But honestly I'm not really into doing resolutions.. I never actually do them or keep them up and then I end up looking back and feeling disappointed. So in order to prevent that disappointment I'm going to try this new year a different way..with more general goals instead of specifics..with the exception of my one main goal: to graduate with my MSW in May! It may sound silly, and you might say to yourself "of course you'll graduate" but for me this is a goal.  School is not the easiest thing to do for me in general,  and especially not as a mom with the millions of responsibilities that come along with that. And I do not claim to be supermom, so I do struggle juggling it all.  I do manage it, and I have made it this far, but I will be SO happy when I graduate!


So to start this new year off right I made this easy lunch for Eliana..

Happy New Year!

This was a super easy lunch to put together.  I did an open face sandwich with the cheese on top cut with a circle cookie cutter. I decorated the clock with more cheese and fruit leather.  I used a food safe marker to write the numbers.  The "2012" is cut out of cheese and my "fireworks" are cut carrots.  The end result is easy, simple and Eliana loved it.  What a great way to start off the new year! :)


Happy New Year Everyone!!! :)