Avocado Hummus

**UPDATE**
I've moved to ladybugsandlattes.com
You can find this post and more here

I am totally addicted to hummus. It is a delicious mid-morning (or afternoon or evening or whenever the craving hits) snack that Cady and I like to share. Yes, even the 1 year old loves hummus! She also loves (and I mean loves) avocado. Could I combine both flavors and be the best mom ever (according to my hungry child)? Yes. Yes I could.

I found this recipe.

I altered the recipe slightly to our liking and - Success!

Ingredients:
15 oz cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 avocado, peeled and cut up into chunks
1/4 cup lime juice
2 garlic cloves (I ran out, so I ended up using some garlic powder)
1/4 cup cilantro (original recipe calls for 1/2 cup, but it was too much for us)
3/8 tsp salt
crushed red pepper, to taste (I wanted it to have a little kick)
1 Tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

(*Original recipe calls for 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper. I substituted with crushed red pepper.)

Blend all of the ingredients except the olive oil. Once well blended, slowly pour in the olive oil while it is still blending. That's it!

The recipe gives instructions for garnish, but I knew we were about to devour it so I did not even consider a garnish beyond the handful of grape tomatoes I threw on there.

I mixed it all up in the Baby Bullet - because once the baby-food-making stage was over, I was determined to justify this purchase and its shelf space. Also, it's easy clean up. And by easy, I mean it "soaks" in the sink until the hubby gets home. Well, sometimes.

The hubby didn't like the hummus, but he doesn't like prepackaged hummus either and the baby and I didn't mind that he didn't want to partake in our healthy snacking. More for us.

This recipe is incredibly easy to make and cheaper than the prepackaged kind. And since my one year old thoroughly enjoys this healthy snack, I will be making it weekly.

4 St. Patrick's Day Crafts

**UPDATE**
I've moved to ladybugsandlattes.com
You can find this post and more here

I'm a little late posting this because our St. Patrick's Day weekend was packed full of activities and events. It was the hubby's birthday, and although his birthday is the day before St. Patrick's Day, I'm the lucky one for finding such a great husband and father of my child. But it isn't Valentine's Day, so that's all the mushy-gushing I'm going to do right now.

The hubs had to go in to work (I know, on his birthday), so little Cady and I kept busy and festive with these simple activities.

1. Shamrock Tissue Paper Stained Glass Window

I traced around the outside of a large heart-shaped cookie cutter (because free-hand drawing? Um, no, not here) to create a shamrock shape. Then I cut out the center and cut a piece of contact paper slightly larger than the opening. I tried so hard, but I still ended up cutting the contact paper so that it faced the wrong way. I do this every.single.time.  Fail.

It's not a big deal, though - it just looks cleaner if the sticky side is facing the window.

Even on a cloudy day, it still looks nice with natural light shining through the tissue paper...



2. Handprint Leprechaun Beard

The picture is self-explanatory. Just don't screw up like I did and leave the printer on "Fast Print" and think that the picture will turn out with any kind of quality. Oops. Oh well. I still love that little leprechaun face.



3. Shamrock Necklace
This is one that I did mostly myself because I don't trust a 1 year old with scissors and a laminating machine. Kids may be learning how to use technology at younger and younger ages, but I think for now, I'll be in charge of laminating.

I traced a small heart cookie cutter onto green card stock. Cady helped glue stick them together to look like shamrocks. Then I punched small holes in them, laminated them, and then strung them together to make a necklace. The shamrocks don't need to be laminated. However, if your child is like mine and enjoys crumpling paper/putting it in her mouth/stepping on it/etc., laminating allows the necklace to survive the weekend.






4. Shamrock Wand

Cady painted three hearts on white card stock and then I cut them out, glued together, and laminated (not necessary, but I wanted it to last the rest of the weekend). I simply used packing tape to attach it to a popsicle stick and it held up really well.










I tried to get a cute picture of little Cady enjoying all of her St. Patrick's Day stuff, but when I actually try to get her to sit still and smile, this is what I get...

I promise, she did love it all...and so will your little one.

Cleaning Make Up Brushes

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Confession: my make up brushes were disgusting. I haven't cleaned them in...too long. In fact, it's been at the top of my to-do list for so long that it's up there with "check into new lawnmower prices". It's now March and there is over a foot of snow in my yard...so...yeah...

I found these easy directions on Pinterest last night and the simplicity of it all encouraged me to finally check off that item on my to-do list. Extra motivation: my skin has been breaking out like a teenager and although I appreciate the "you don't look your age" compliments, looking 15 isn't exactly my goal.

How to Easily Remove the Funk from Your Make Up Brushes 

~ Mix 3 parts of Antibacterial Hand or Dish Soap and 1 part EVO Oil (it replenishes the brush's moisture) on a plate. I used 3 teaspoons soap and 1 teaspoon oil and it was plenty for my 5 brushes.

~ Dip your brush in the mixture.

~ Brush it back and forth on your hand. It becomes very soapy and if your brushes are as dirty as mine, you will start to see some of the make up come off on your hand. See all that purple eye shadow? Gross. No wonder my eyes have been feeling irritated.

~ Rinse the brush under running water, gently squeezing from the base and down to squeeze out even more make up.
*Side note: I had to repeat the cleaning process for my bigger brushes 3 times each until I couldn't see any more make up (and shame) come off.

~ Lay the brushes on a paper towel to dry. The original website says it takes a few hours to dry, but I cleaned my brushes, then spent 4+ hours baking bread, making granola bars, preparing dinner, shoveling the driveway, reading several books to my daughter...and they're still pretty damp. So my suggestion is to clean them and give yourself plenty of time to allow them to dry.

Soup and Bread, and not from Panera for once

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With about 12 inches of snow in driveway, all I wanted to do with cuddle up in my fleece pajamas and eat some warm comfort food. I'm usually not much of a soup person, unless it is made by someone named Panera and comes in a bread bowl. However, I've made this recipe for Broccoli Cheese and Potato Soup once before.
It was so good that I've had a taste for it ever since.

I changed it slightly for our family's taste...


Ingredients
1 small onion, chopped

1 carrot, peeled and chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp flour

2 1/2 cups fat free chicken (or vegetable) broth

1 cup milk

2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced small

5 cups (about 2 heads) broccoli florets, chopped into small pieces (about 2 heads fresh or 1 bag frozen)

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

2 slices American cheese

1 tbsp parmesan cheese

salt and pepper, to taste

-Chop the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic and set aside. I love my Chopper. It saves so much time!

-In a large soup pot, melt the butter.  Add the vegetables you just chopped and sauté on low heat until they're soft (5 minutes-ish). Meanwhile, I suggest getting the potatoes ready. Again, the chopper saves so much time. If I didn't have one, I would definitely be less inclined to cook. I'm that lazy.

-Add flour, salt and pepper to the pot and stir until smooth.

-Add chicken broth, milk and potatoes and cook on high heat until it comes to a boil, then cover and cook on low until the potatoes are soft (10 minutes-ish). Meanwhile, get your broccoli ready.

-Once the potatoes are soft, add the broccoli and parmesan cheese.

-Stir and then cook uncovered until the broccoli is cooked. I used frozen broccoli and I chopped it when it was partially thawed. If using fresh broccoli, this step will take closer to 5 minutes. If partially frozen, add a couple minutes. 

-Add the cheddar and American cheese. Stir well and remove from heat.

-The original instructions say to use an immersion blender. Instead, I used my handy dandy Baby Bullet (yes, there are still uses for it once you're done with the baby-food-making stage!!). Scoop a cup or 2 of the potatoes and broccoli into the blender/processor and blend it up a little bit. Then scoop it back into the soup and stir. This thickens up the soup. Don't skip this step because it really does help. 

That's it! It kind of seems like a lot of work but it's so good and even my 18 month old gobbled it up in between "mmm's".

As I was cooking up this soup, I kept thinking about Panera soup and their bread and how great would it be to have a thick delicious bread to dip in my soup. (We're dippers, here.)

So I made some! Honey Whole Wheat Bread - fairly simple and very delicious (especially to make avocado grilled cheese sandwiches with).

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

2 Ingredient, Guilt-Free Cookies

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Ohmygosh!! I found this recipe for 2 ingredient cookies and had to try them. These cookies are so good and only need 2-5 ingredients. They remind me a lot of chocolate chip banana bread, so if you like that (or love it, like me), you will love love LOVE these cookies. (On the other hand, if you're a 'nana-hater like my mom, you absolutely will not like these.)

Required Ingredients:
2 large bananas
1 cup quick oats

Mix these two ingredients together. We used a fork to get the bananas really mashed up. This will take some elbow grease and a few minutes of really good mashing.

Mix in your choice of extras...but I highly recommend:
cinnamon
chocolate chips
walnuts

Plop spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. I used my fingers to help the cookie dough form into blobs.
Very delicious blobs.

Cook at 350* for 10-15 minutes. Mine came out perfectly at 12 minutes.

These are best served warm.

But what is the absolute best part?? Even if you eat the entire batch, you only ate 2 bananas, a cup of oats, and a handful of whatever other ingredients you put in. Guilt free.

Valentine's Activities with a Toddler

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Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's the middle of February?

The last few weeks have really flown by. I must have been keeping busy because I. am. so. tired.

Amidst all of the cray-cray that has been my life lately, Cady and I have managed to do a few cute Valentine projects. Mostly, we made Valentines for grandparents.

Fortunately, we have heart shaped cookie cutters in various sizes, which made this project much easier for me (and much cuter for everyone else because my free-hand hearts would not have been so precise). Cady loved that she had the freedom of holding and using the glue stick all by herself! I just showed her where to glue and she went to town. And then when it was time to press the paper together, she used every muscle in her hand and arm (and made large groans to prove to me that she was pushing them together as hard as she could). What a good little worker bee.

Homemade Monkey Valentine

Homemade Valentines

We made a dog, lion, owl, elephant, penguin, bumble bee...and this morning, we made a monkey valentine for Cady's aunt in New York.

Heart Stencils

 On my lazier days, I use theme-based cookie cutters as stencils and let her color over them.

Heart Prints

 On slightly less lazy days, I let her dip the same cookie cutters in paint and make prints on paper. First, she explored independently with the cookie cutters, paint, and a paint brush. Then when she was about done, I helped her make a few heart prints on top of the rest of her painting.

Pipe Cleaner Heart Ring

It's Valentine's Day. Every girl needs a little jewelry on Valentine's Day, right? I made this out of a pipe cleaner. Check out that lopsided heart. That's why I use stencils whenever possible.











And don't forget the chocolate...Girls must have chocolate on Valentine's Day! :)

I (used to) Hate Carrots

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After an unfortunate incident as a child involving me, carrots, and a late night upset stomach, I tend to steer clear of carrots. Especially raw carrots. Yuck.

However, I promised my waist line that I'd start cooking more from scratch and serving more nutritious meals for my family. Oh carrots, why do you have to be so healthy?

Amidst my research for a tolerable way to cook these orange nuggets, I found a recipe for baking sweet potato fries and I altered it for carrots. My recipe is quick (because I hated that I had to eat them, let alone focus any of my time on them) and actually.....they were delicious!!

* Wash and peel some carrots (I used 8 to feed my family of 3).
* Then chop them up into small pieces...which I haven't done by hand since I've owned a Chopper.
* Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Place the carrots on it.
* Drizzle some olive oil over the carrots, and then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Mix it all around with your hand to make sure the carrots are coated evenly.
* Bake at 400* for about 25 minutes.

Enjoy, because these little orange beauties tasted magnificent. Bonus: they're small and soft and perfect for babies learning to self-feed.

Looks like we'll be eating more carrots around here...and hopefully my fear of late night orange-splattered furniture will lessen. Too much? Yeah, it was...sorry.