The Good Plate

Archive for the ‘Kids’ Category

Recipes in this Post

Spane and Mom - the best Mothers' Day present ever!

• Rose Smoothie

Spane was upset on Friday when he told me that he had forgotten my Mother’s Day present at school. He started crying and I hugged him and said that he, himself, was the best present I had ever gotten. I mean that.

Last year, with the help of our roommate and friend, Maria, Spane made a whole table scape and breakfast parfait. This year, since he’s now eight, he wanted to do everything himself. We have a knitted throw blanket that he used as a table-cloth, and he cleaned the kitchen all by himself! I was so proud!

I was asleep this morning when our lovely Maine Coon, Rolo, came up to me and touched my face with her paw. I opened one eye, and saw she was getting ready to do it again, only this time there were claws. I said to her, “Did Spane tell you to wake me up?” I swear the cat nodded her head! I got out of bed, and Spane was excited to show me the neat and clean kitchen.

Spane went to the trouble this morning of making me his very own Rosy Smoothie, all by himself. It was delicious!

I hope everyone has a Happy Mothers’ Day – even if you’re not a mother!

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Looks like we’re going to have a partial solar eclipse on Sunday, May 20, 2012 that will be visible in Los Angeles from about 6:26 pm to 6:30 pm !

I haven’t really decided what to make, but I am definitely going to make a day of it. I think that Star Party Sandwiches are a good candidate, and maybe Stellar Salad to go with them. Maybe I can make something with Sun Dried tomatoes, and find a recipe for Moon pies.

The picture you see is a screen shot I took when I was using Stellarium, a Windows-based planetarium program. It’s a lot of fun and Spane really enjoys using it. Stellarium is available at Stellarium.org.

I am really excited about this, and I’ll be adding to this post in the days to come. Stay tuned!

Recipes in this Post

Teacher's Garden Cake

• Lemon Wafer Cake

The PTA at John Muir Elementary School puts on a staff luncheon every year. Parents are asked to bring in their best dish. Our teachers and staff are very lucky, as a lot of our parents are very good cooks. This year, in fact, the recipes are going to be collected and the PTA is publishing a cookbook. The luncheon was going to take place in the newly planted Teachers’ Garden. I decided to make a cake and decorate it as a garden.

The cake looked lovely tilted up on the dessert station. In fact, it looked so lovely, and so real, that no one ate it. Some guests thought it was too pretty to cut, a few thought it was art, and a few didn’t think it was really edible. I wound up taking it home and will share it with family and friends.

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Kiwi Lime Cupcakes

Recipes in this Post

• Kiwi Lime Mini Cupcakes
• Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

On one of my recent sojourns to the local grocery store, I found dried kiwi fruit. I immediately thought they would make a great decoration for St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes. When I brought Cheesecake Stuffed Chocolate Dipped Strawberries for my son’s third grade class field trip, one of the girls requested I make cupcakes the next time I brought a treat for the class. So, I’m making mini lime cupcakes with kiwi for Friday since St. Patrick’s day is on Saturday.

I had planned on making these Thursday evening, but decided to do them this morning. Why? Well, let me first say that I love my son’s curiosity and inventiveness. Yesterday, he was tinkering with the alarm clock and mistakenly set the clock ahead four hours. When I got up at what I thought was seven o’clock and drank coffee, it was not until I looked at the cable box that I realized it was only three o’clock. Since I had already had a half a cup of coffee, it was too late to try to go back to sleep, so I’m making cupcakes.

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Cream Cheese Stuffed Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

Recipes in This Post

• How to Temper Chocolate
• Cheesecake Stuffed Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

The other day, when I was perusing Pinterest, I came across something that looked fabulous. It was strawberries stuffed with cream cheese, and it was called Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries. I pinned it, and decided it would make a nice treat for the kids in Spane’s class going to the Planetarium field trip. Last year, I made White Chocolate Rum Raisin Cookies for Mrs. Mary’s class when we went to The Natural Science Museum.

I lucked out, and strawberries were Buy One box, Get One Free. There are 24 kids in Spane’s class, plus the teacher, and possibly one or two more parents who, like me, volunteered to go on the trip to help with the children. There were enough strawberries, with a few extra for the house.

I decided to change the original recipe a little and dip the strawberries in chocolate. All the recipes on the Internet tell you to add shortening to the chocolate to temper it. I don’t like shortening, and I knew that I had dipped strawberries before without it. Of course, looking in The Joy of Cooking, I found that I didn’t need shortening at all, just a candy thermometer, that I have a nice glass one with a clip. There are instructions later in this post about how to do this.

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I had a dream, yes I had a dream. I dreamed of cupcakes with blue butter cream frosting.

I’m not much of a cupcake person, but they are nice if you’ve got a lot of kids. They are easy because you don’t really need a plate, and you don’t need a knife, and you don’t have to worry about someone saying their piece of cake is too small or too big. All the cupcakes are the same size.

Usually, I make a butter cake, similar to a 1234 cake, but it makes a three layer cake, and that was just too much for cupcakes. I know that a regular box of cake mix makes enough for cupcakes, but I don’t like things that come in a box. So I made my own box cake with fresh ingredients.

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