Making s'more cookies

I love s'mores, but we don't often have a fire pit and don't have a working fireplace to do them often. 

We found a way to make yummy smores in cookie form!

 First, you make the graham cookie base.  Then layer on halved marshmallows and bake for a bit.

 The marshmallows get brown and toasty.

 Then add on the chocolate and bake to slightly melt the chocolate.

These cookies were a HUGE hit with the kids!

 I think they would be awesome with peanut butter (which is what the recipe called for), but we substituted JIF almond butter because of C's peanut allergy, and they came out just fine.

S’more Cookies

Makes 4 dozen

Ingredients

1 cup flour

¾ cup fine graham cracker crumbs

½ tsp baking soda

¼  tsp salt

1 stick butter, softened

½ cup creamy peanut butter OR JIF brand almond butter

½ cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar, packed

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

24 large marshmallows, halved

8 hershey chocolate bars, broken into their small rectangular pieces

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.  Cream butter, peanut butter/almond butter, sugar, and brown sugar in a large bowl.  Mix with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 5 minutes.  Beat in egg and vanilla until incorporated.

Scoop dough (about 1 Tbsp worth) onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Be careful not to make the scoops too big.  Bake cookies 5 – 6 minutes.

Take out and put marshmallows on top of each cookie. Bake for 2 more minutes.  Turn the oven to broil and bake for 60 – 90 seconds, CAREFULLY watching so they don’t burn because they go from being white to burnt VERY quickly. .  Take out and turn oven back to 375. (This is important!)  Put 1 – 2 mini rectangles of chocolate on top of the marshmallows.  Bake 2 – 3 more minutes to finish off cookie.  Let set on the pan for a good 4 -5  minutes .  (If you try to remove them right away, the center is too soft and will break.) 

Making a cardboard castle with mini flags.

Take several cereal boxes, cut one side open and then tape back together inside out (so the brown cardboard inside shows on the outside.). You can cut castle details, glue on windows or architectural details. You can add cones or toilet paper rolls and make it as fancy as you like. 

I think the kids favorite part was making the flags. I brought up a picture of all the various countries' flags and they drew them with markers on small rectangle pieces of paper. Then they taped them to toothpicks and I helped tape them onto the castle. They loved doing it and also learned what a lot of different countries' flags look like.  So simple and you just use supplies around the house. 

Snowman doughnuts

For my daughter's "Frozen" birthday party, we made Olaf snowman doughnuts.
You need a package of the small powdered doughnuts (we used hostess brand), powdered doughnut holes, mini chocolate chips, pretzel sticks, and toothpicks.
Stack 2 small doughnuts on top of eachother, put in a toothpick so the point is sticking straight up. Then carefully stick a small doughnut hole on top. (The toothpick helps stabilize the snowmen. Without it, the head keeps rolling off if the plate is bumped.) Stick mini chocolate chips in as eyes and buttons. Snap mini pretzel sticks in half and poke in as the arms and nose. These were a huge hit with the kids!  Just be sure to take out the toothpick if serving to small children.

Snowman and Santa Pancakes

Rice Krispie Treat Pumpkins

We made these for my son's preschool Halloween treat.

Ingredients Needed
6 cups rice krispies
6 Tbsp butter (NOT 3 like the box says)
40 regular sized marshmallows
red and yellow food coloring
mini tootsie rolls (midgets)

Melt 6 Tbsp butter in a non-stick pan over low heat. (Note - Use 6 tbsp instead of the 3 called for on the box because they will yield much softer treats that won't turn into bricks when cooled.) Add in marshmallows and stir until melted. Add a few drops of yellow food coloring and 1-2 drops red food coloring to turn the marshmallows into the desired orange color. (We didn't use very much because I didn't need mine to be crazy bright orange).

 Remove the pan from heat and quickly add in the 6 cups of rice krispies. (It pays to pre-measure these in a separate bowl so you can add them to the pan all at once.)  Stir quickly to mix all the marshmallow and krispies together.
Press a heaping mound into a mini muffin tin. Press a tootsie roll halfway into the mound. Let cool for a few minutes. Then carefully remove the krispie treat and slightly reshape the bottom into a rounded pumpkin shape. Let cool completely on wax paper.

 If you are feeling ambitious, I've seen some pipe green frosting leaves.  I didn't do this because we packaged them up in individual little plastic bags and the frosting would have smeared all over.

Fall leaves Project.

We did a fall leaves project where the kids collected colored leaves, glued a tree trunk and branches (that I cut out from brown construction paper) onto a blue piece of construction paper and then glued the leaves on.  They had fun doing it and we used materials we already had around the house!

Materials Needed
Brown construction paper
Blue construction paper
scissors
glue
Fall leaves (freshly collected. Dried ones won't work as well.)

Halloween T-shirts

My daughter is invited to a birthday party on Saturday and she was asked to wear "Halloween colors" or clothes. Looking in her closet, I realized she didn't have anything orange or black or remotely "Halloweeny".  I didn't want to spend a lot on the cute, but pricey Halloween shirts  on Etsy. My sewing machine is on the fritz, so I that took sewing out of the equation. I decided to do a quick iron-on pumpkin on an orange T-shirt. Super easy. Super quick. Super cheap. 
I found kid-sized orange T-shirts at Jo-Ann Fabrics (and on sale too!) I purchased 1/4 yard of orange striped fabric and used brown and green scraps of fabric that I already had.  I pre-washed them to prevent shrinking issues when the shirt is washed.
I then ironed wonder-under onto the fabric, and cut out a pumpkin shape with stem and a leaf.  Following the wonder-under instructions, I ironed the pumpkin onto the T-shirt and voila!
I thought the pumpkin potentially looked too girly for my boys, so I used some black fabric and wonder-under to make them jack-o-lantern shirts.